Bookworm Transcripts

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So we were talking before we hit the button and I feel like we should just make the PSA right now

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that these bookworm sweatshirts that you and I are both wearing at the moment make great holiday

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gifts. So if you want to pick up your own or get one for that special book lover in your life,

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there'll be a link in the show notes, but these sweatshirts are amazing.

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By far my favorite, like I mentioned earlier, before buttons were pressed, this is my go-to when

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I want a comfy warm sweatshirt. I don't know what it is. Cotton Bureau does a good job, but

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it's my go-to. Like anytime I just want to kick back and be cozy, even my daughters mention it.

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Like it's that sort of because you know, daddy daughter snuggles and they like it when I wear

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this one. I even had my youngest ask if I would wear it this past Sunday so that whenever we

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snuggled and watched this old house on Sunday nights, I would be cozier to snuggle up to.

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There you go. Nice. So see, there you go. Bookworm sweatshirts promote family life. There we go.

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That's the takeaway right there. Love it. One other thing I want to throw out there in this

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holiday gift guide episode of Bookworm is we have a new focused calendar. I'm not sure if you

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have seen these before, Joe. I don't know if you use the new year calendars. I've seen them, but

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they're pretty great. I have one on the wall behind me. This is the 2021 version and the 2022 version

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actually has a bunch of upgrades to it. I worked with Jesse Phillips, the guy behind New Year,

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and we added a whole bunch of things including dots on each day to track habits. So kind of like

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check circles if you're familiar with Omni Focus. There's room at the top for like your words for

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the year or your themes. There's two calendars in one now. There's a portrait and a landscape

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orientation. Both of them are dry erase. When you buy one calendar, you actually get both of them.

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They're double-sided printed. You could change your mind halfway through the year if you want,

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but again, I'll have links in the show notes to those. It's one of the few things that we do

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at the Focus podcast. We don't really do t-shirts or any of that sort of stuff or haven't yet anyways.

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If you do want to support my work over there, I appreciate you giving me a few moments over here

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to point people in that direction. Yeah, I've never done the wall calendar thing,

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but I understand people absolutely love it. Maybe I'll have to get you one for Chris.

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Stick it over my shelves back here. David had his mounted on foam core,

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so you could do that and then just tack it on to those bookshelves.

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There you go. I get sheets of plywood at the house.

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We have one action item for follow-up here, and that is your processing of what skills to spend

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time honing. Did you get a chance to do this? A little bit. I'm realizing that the areas that,

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and when I'm talking about what skills to spend time honing, I'm specifically referring to

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the skills that I do for content creation and making things for... How do I share my thoughts

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online? That's the primary thing that I wanted to process because I know I've been bouncing all

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over the place over the years as far as how I do that. I know that writing is one of the things

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that I like doing and I'm decent at and want to get better at, but I haven't done in a while.

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So that's, I think, one of the skills that I'm going to start trying to hone a little bit more

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in the future. Obviously, we do the live streams, we do bookworm as a podcast, and there's a bunch

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of stuff we do around audio. I do around audio and video, and we'll continue to do that, but I'm not

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going to make that a focal point to get really, really good at, especially the video side. The

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audio side, I feel like I will forever tweak just because I can't help myself, but I don't really

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need to dedicate time to getting better at that one because it's part of my day job anyway,

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so there's that. But yes, I'm planning to work better at becoming a better writer. That's the

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thing that I need to focus on, I think. Nice. Sean McCabe is proud of you. His big thing is

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whatever you're doing, you need to become good at writing. He even had a mini course 30 days to

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better writing or something like that, that he did a while back. He's a pretty good writer.

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We've interviewed him for the Focus Podcast, not pretty good. He is a very good writer. He's

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specifically a very good writer when it comes to crafting stories around products and services.

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His whole business is a daily content machine. I'm not sure if you've seen that, but he takes

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your video and you give him the raw file and then he chops it up into little pieces to be shared

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on all of your social media platforms and posts something there every single day. He finds the

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highlights, strips them out, and then makes them shareable, which is a really incredible idea.

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He wrote a book which I have on my bookshelf here somewhere called Overlap, which is kind of like

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if you have a side project, a passion project, something that you're doing that's not your main

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gig, the path for engaging with that in a meaningful way with the intention of maybe that becomes

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the main thing at some point. You're switching lanes, but that's a very delicate transition

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and process you have to go through. I think you and I have both been through that before.

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Probably made some mistakes along the way, so he's just trying to help people do it a little bit

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better. It's a great book. I will put links to Daily Content Machine and his book in the show

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notes for people. The skills that you're going to spend time honing, I know you kind of boiled it

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down to writing. I will throw out there that there are some people clamoring for some more

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Joe Builig Twitch streams. I saw some comments in the club. Where did Joe go?

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Doesn't he do the video stuff anymore?

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Yes. It's a good point. I need to. Life. That's what happened.

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My goal in this is something I'm working towards. I'm trying to step one with the writing. It's

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like that's the thing that I'm making a central point. I know that that's where my roots are

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online. The goal is to take that and then expand off of that writing into some of the

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YouTube streams and stuff that I was doing for a while and have taken breaks from. Honestly,

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there's some weird scheduling issues with that with me being able to have this area available

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for that. There's also time and effort that goes into the people. Don't realize that it takes about

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as much time to prep for those as it does to actually run them. It's not just a one-to-one

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thing. If I'm going to do a one-hour stream, it takes me at least two hours, if not more,

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to have that up and running beforehand. Anyway, there's that. Yes, it's on my radar. I'm not

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completely gone. It was a good idea to take a break so that I had a place for my kids to sleep

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at night. That's generally a helpful thing. Just taking a sabbatical British on McCabe theme.

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Taking one sabbatical to work my tail off in another area. It's how it worked.

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Cool, cool. One other thing I will tease. I don't have a link to share just yet, but we'll throw it

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out there that I will be doing a workshop with Nick Milo of linking your thinking on sense-making.

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By the time this publishes, I might have the link. If I do, I will stick it in the show notes for

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people who may want to attend that. It's going to be a two-hour paid workshop. He and I are going to

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do it together over at the Suite Setup. I've been doing some prep with Nick on this. He's awesome to

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work with. He's a really smart dude. I'm very excited about some of the mental models and the

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lenses we're going to give people to look at things through. I've learned a lot from Nick over

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the years. I went through that workshop myself. That was really the thing that made Obsidian stick

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for me. Probably I'm not still using that app if it wasn't for that workshop. Every time you get

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to ding that bell, pour one out for Nick Milo. I have to admit, you and I have been back and forth

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over the whole linking your thinking process. I've realized that a lot of my angst with what happens

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in the world of Obsidian has to do with terms. I'm not usually having issues with what people are

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doing. It's usually what people are naming things that I've had issues with. I've got my own system

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that's morphed from a combination of a bunch of different things. Things like I've given you grief

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for the term map of content over the-- I don't even know how many episodes and stuff. I think

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I texted you it was last week, two weeks ago, something like that. I think I finally figured out

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why I don't like that term. It's because I really don't like the term content. I have an aversion

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to the word content. Even though I refer to myself as a content creator, I hate saying that.

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It's just as nuts to me that I don't like that word that much. I have no idea why.

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I don't have a replacement for it. It's not wrong. You said, "We'll just call it a map." I'm totally

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game with that. I'll call it a map. Don't use the word content. That's my thing.

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Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't realize it was simply a matter of the

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terminology that was causing such a visceral reaction from you. It's kind of cool.

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I think at the beginning, I don't think I could have told you that. I don't think I've been able

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to nail down that's why I've had an aversion. But as I've spent time, let me run through.

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If I'm going to diss on a system, I usually want to know it really well. I do a ton of research on

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it before I ever say this is a terrible idea. I did a lot of digging. I don't have an issue

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with how it works. I just have issues with all the terms. At the beginning, I don't think I could

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have said that. What you really could have used was a map of content about why you don't like maps

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of content. Possibly, maybe. Anyways, let's talk about today's book.

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Shall we? Sure. Today's book is Sound Tracks by John Aikuf. And believe it or not, this is the

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first John Aikuf book that we have covered. Can you believe that?

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I actually, when you told us that this was our next book, we went on this whole thing of like,

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wait, is that true? I don't think that's true. That can't be right. And I went through and

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checked the website. And sure enough, this is our first John Aikuf book. It's by far not the first

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John Aikuf book I've read. I'm sure it's not for you either. But I was dumbfounded that this is the

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first time we're covering one on Bookworm. So we both kind of thought that we had covered a John

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Aikuf book before, but we had not covered a John Aikuf book before. Do you consider that to be a

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good thing or a bad thing? I think that's a failure. This, I think, may come back when we talk about

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style and reading. Yeah, it's true. But yeah, so John Aikuf is an interesting guy with an interesting

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story. I first heard of him when I read, I think it was start. And what really I liked about John

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at that point specifically was his story coming out of the Dave Ramsey Corporation, where he had

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been working there and he had this goal to publish this book. And he was flying all over the place,

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giving talks whenever he could. And I don't know the specifics here, but it kind of sounds like

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Dave Ramsey supported him in publishing this because I know for a long time, the book was actually

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listed in the Dave Ramsey store. So this was probably around the beginning of like Amazon becoming the

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place that you went to to buy any book online. At least in my mind, I'm thinking that there was

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still a question at that point when I first came upon that book of like where you would go to find

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something. And I was kind of surprised that it was available both in the Amazon store and on

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Dave Ramsey store, because the other stuff in Dave Ramsey store was just on Dave Ramsey store. It

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was kind of exclusive. So maybe that is the data point I'm cherry picking here to tell this narrative

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that Dave helped launch this guy. Maybe John would tell a different story. He actually begins the book

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by telling the story of the worst boss that he's ever had. But then he says, oh, by the way, that

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was me. So before we get into the actual content here, I'll just break down the

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breakdown of the book. There is not three parts. I kind of wish there was when I was putting it

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into the outline. I was thinking, how do we group these things together? I think we got to take it

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chapter by chapter, but I also think we can easily get through all this. So chapter one, I think I

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can do this chapter two. The choice is yours. Chapter three turned on the dial. Chapter four,

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borrow from the best. Chapter five, when the week chapter six, don't fight it, flip it.

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Chapter seven, zig your way to positive thinking. Chapter eight, put the new anthem on repeat.

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Chapter nine, gather evidence. Chapter 10, make a soundtrack stick with a symbol. So there's no real

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grouping of this stuff. It's just one chapter after the next and he tells it very linearly and he has

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kind of a system he wants you to follow here. But that being said, let's jump into chapter one,

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which is, I think I can do this. This is where he's laying the groundwork for the whole idea of this

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book, which is that we are very negative creatures. The TLDR here, we as a species tend to overthink

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things and overthinking tends to lean towards the negative. So this soundtrack title for this book

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really comes from this idea of you have these playlists of voices that you've been listening

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to. Some of them are from other people, but a lot of them are probably originate from you

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that are telling you all these negative things, these negative stories you believe about yourself

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and about the world. He calls those broken soundtracks and he's kind of imploring us at the beginning

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here to change our playlists and to get some some new tracks to listen to, which I think that analogy

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is actually really cool. What did you think when he started laying the groundwork here?

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Yeah, that's it's a good way to think about it because I've followed Johnny Kuff on Instagram

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for a while. He's hilarious. He's just a funny guy, but he's been promoting soundtracks for quite

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some time and having not read it, I didn't always understand exactly what people were referring to

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whenever he would post their comments and such about it. But having read it now and going through

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the concept of soundtracks, to me it makes a lot of sense because if you think about important songs

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in your personal life, like there are certain songs like my wife was a theater major in college.

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So musicals are a big thing in our family because of that and there are songs, you know, if I wanted

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to see my wife when we were in our dating years, I had to go to her shows, which were all musicals

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and such. So the songs that came along with those shows are ones that are forever embedded in my

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brain, I think, and some of those are hilarious, some of those are strange. You know, if you've ever

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seen the play "You're in town," not "You're in town," but "You're in town," those songs are not going to

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leave your brain like ever. So there are a lot of things that happen in our household and we will

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sing one of those lines. And for whatever reason, like every time those songs come up, like some other

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thought goes through your brain and it takes you to that time, or it can reverse. Like you go to a

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time like you have a memory and a song comes to mind when that happens. And that's the concept,

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like whenever something comes into your brain like a soundtrack, like a music track, it usually has

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something associated with it if it's an important song. So if you take that into the way that he is

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using that as an analogy, you've got these thoughts that you're going through your brain repeatedly,

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and that's the part that he's referring to as a soundtrack, these thoughts that we tell ourselves,

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these phrases that we repeat to ourselves, those are our soundtracks. So that's, I think that's,

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this is kind of where he lays that all out. I love the mental picture that I have of Joe's life as a

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musical. Yup, it's very entertaining. Your whole morning routine, I just envision you like waltzing

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your way down the stairs and singing as you make your French press coffee now. I don't drink coffee

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now. Have I told you this? No, I don't think so. Oh my, that's, there's a confession. I have not

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had coffee in months. She was a tea guy now. Wow, bombshell dropped. Sad day. Well, I will

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drink it for you. I don't know. Thanks. You have to drink a double for me.

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All right. So yes, at the moment, I'm headed down the Sparky train. That is, uh, unfortunate,

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but I think understandable. I'm keeping my coffee, but thanks. Go for it. I won't try to talk you

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out of it. But the whole idea of the musical, I don't have the experience that you have, but I

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have seen my fair share of musicals and you're right, John Acuff, typically when I think of him

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and his social media presence specifically, he's kind of a jokester. It's a funny guy.

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And that comes through in some of his writing. We'll talk about that when you get the style

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on writing, but I kind of feel like maybe he did this and I didn't, I just didn't see it.

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It definitely did not come through a whole lot in this particular book, but that kind of seems

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like maybe missed opportunity, like John Acuff, the musical. He would be the perfect guy for that.

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Sure. Totally. That's just the extension of the soundtrack theme a little bit further.

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I don't know. Maybe he didn't want to take it that far. Maybe he wanted it to be more

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applicable to everybody because everybody knows what a playlist is. Everybody knows what a soundtrack

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is. And that was, that was as far as you needed to go was to think of your life and then what are

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the things that are playing in the background as you go about your day to day. I'm going to send

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him a note. I don't know that I'll ever hear from him, but I'm going to send him a note.

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Dude, you got to make this into a musical. Yeah, he does.

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So one of the things that he just kind of mentions here in this beginning chapter

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is that we have these defaults and they're negative, they're stemmed from this overthinking and he's

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got these steps to transform your overthinking, which is essentially, retire the broken soundtracks,

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replace them with new ones, and then repeat them over and over again until you forgot about the

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old ones. I like the way that's framed. I think those three steps are a great encapsulation of

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every book we've ever read on habit formation and behavioral change. But it's also not that simple,

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I don't think. I'm kind of curious after you read this first chapter, how did you feel about this?

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Did you think, was this effective in like priming the pump like, okay, yeah, let's do this, John.

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Or was the red flag already up? Because I've talked to a couple other people around this idea,

00:21:04

my gap book last time, the power positive thinking about reading that one after this one,

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because this topic is just kind of fascinating to me. And I was kind of surprised a lot of the

00:21:14

reaction I got was, well, yeah, I don't really believe in that stuff. So which way were you

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leaning at this point in the book? At this point in the book, I was very conflicted.

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So there was a lot of, oh yeah, I definitely tell myself negative things all the time.

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Why do I do that? And what do I do about it? So like, there's that side of it that I was all in,

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like, okay, yeah, you got me. And then there's the flip side of it where I had in my brain like

00:21:45

this whole world of think happy thoughts. I have that in the back of my brain as well. Like,

00:21:52

this is way too fruit fruit. Like, this is not, I don't believe that. Like, there's that side of it

00:21:57

in the back that I'm at this point, I was assuming he was going to get into. Like, here's how you do

00:22:05

that with thinking you're going to be top in your company, like visualizing the future of things.

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Like, that's kind of what I had in my brain. So at this point, having gone through the first

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chapter, I was very much on the fence. Like one side being, okay, yeah, all in, let's go. And the

00:22:24

other side, I'm like, what are you doing? Don't do that. Right. Yeah, David and I talked a little

00:22:30

bit about this topic in the latest focus episode, which is not published yet. 139, I'll put a link

00:22:35

in the show notes. But we were talking about this, this voice and like how he handles it. And

00:22:42

what my response was to it. And the way that he asked the question, I realized that this voice,

00:22:48

that positive affirmation voice to me sounds a lot like Tony Robbins every time that I hear it.

00:22:56

And that's not a good thing. Exactly. Yes. In my opinion, nothing against Tony. I think he does a

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lot of good. I remember a story he told when he published the money book about how when he grew up,

00:23:09

he, his family was poor. And he remembers his mom and dad fighting about the fact that there was no

00:23:16

turkey for Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day. And he's watching this happen. And then somebody

00:23:20

rings their doorbell and delivers them a Thanksgiving meal. And from the proceeds of just that book,

00:23:24

he served tens of thousands of Thanksgiving meals because that had an impact on him and he

00:23:29

wanted to pay it forward. So nothing against Tony Robbins personally, but his style, I just, I can't,

00:23:38

I can't handle it. And I realized that a lot of this stuff, it comes to me with that voice.

00:23:45

Even a lot of the books that people have a negative first reaction to. And I think I did too,

00:23:51

to books that we've covered that we both liked, things like Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and

00:23:57

influence people. Thinking of Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, thinking girl rich, like you read the titles

00:24:04

and you're like, oh, it's all about manipulation, getting whatever you want. No, that's, that's not

00:24:09

it at all. And I realized it's the, the, because I read that title, I hear it in Tony Robbins voice,

00:24:17

and then I'm like, no, I don't want to be like that. And so I just immediately write it off. But

00:24:21

when I force myself to engage with it, and I force myself to read it and kind of understand

00:24:25

what the authors are saying, like, it's really good stuff. And so I'm a little bit conflicted here

00:24:31

too. But I've kind of leaned into this. I've shared a read the power positive thinking by

00:24:35

Norman Vincent Peele as a follow up to this one, because I really want to explore this topic and

00:24:40

decide what I really think about it. And I'm sure that'll come up by the end of the podcast here.

00:24:47

Yeah. And I know that I don't really know what to do with this. Like, maybe I'm jumping ahead here,

00:24:52

but the part that I struggle with is that he's talking about the negative things that we put on

00:24:59

repeat in our brain, and that we tell ourselves over and over again, like the story about the

00:25:04

magician who didn't want to charge to do shows. Well, it's because there are other people better

00:25:10

than me. Like, well, if you extrapolate that out, it means that you can't charge for a show

00:25:15

until you're the best in the world at magician stuff. Yeah. You're the best in the world at magic.

00:25:20

And you're not going to be the best in the world at magic unless you're charging for shows so

00:25:26

that you can do more shows. Like it doesn't like it's a competing logic, but we don't realize that

00:25:31

until you stop and process it. So then you have to tell yourself, well, people are paying me

00:25:37

because I'm good enough to be paid for it. But that's not the soundtrack we put in our brain.

00:25:43

We focus on that negative side of it. So part of me is like, okay, well, I'm not really one of

00:25:50

these positive thinking people. Like think happy thoughts. Like that's not my thing. Like I, it

00:25:56

seems weird to me. And yet I have to admit, like repeating all the negative stuff absolutely isn't

00:26:02

helpful. Exactly. Like that's not a positive thing in the long run. So then the question is like,

00:26:09

okay, do you just like, because you're not going to have no thoughts about your own life. So pick

00:26:16

one negative or positive, I guess that's what I'm left with. So there's the logic I'm currently

00:26:21

fighting with, Mike. Yeah, and I think I'm fighting with that too. That's actually a great place to

00:26:27

go into the next chapter. So let's let's do that. Chapter two is the choices yours. And this is

00:26:35

basically talking about the options that we have in terms of the soundtracks that we listen to.

00:26:40

And there's three questions he poses here, which I think are pretty brilliant. Three questions to

00:26:47

ask about your soundtracks. Number one, is it true? Number two, is it helpful? And number three,

00:26:54

is it kind? And you should only listen to a soundtrack if you can say yes to all three of those,

00:27:02

which is where I have to wrestle with some things, because I think I default to, is it true? Yes.

00:27:12

And then stop there. But I see the value in asking the other questions. And I've actually

00:27:20

even applied this with my kids, because the older kids will fight with the younger ones when they

00:27:27

see them doing something that they know is wrong, but the younger ones don't really even realize

00:27:31

that they're doing anything wrong. And so it's just like, hey, knock that off. And it comes across

00:27:34

like really mean and forceful. And then the little ones are offended because my brother's

00:27:39

just telling me what to do. And so I've stopped them and asked this question. So is what you are

00:27:45

saying to your younger sibling, is it true? Yes, they should not be doing that. Is it helpful

00:27:52

to tell them not to be doing that the way that you did? Well, maybe, maybe they'll stop doing

00:27:57

what they were doing that's wrong. So I'll give you that one. But is the way that you said it kind?

00:28:03

No, obviously not. Okay, well, then maybe don't say that.

00:28:09

That's a really good point. Like, I hadn't thought about translating this to interactions

00:28:16

with other people. I was only thinking about it was going on in my own mind. So I love that.

00:28:20

That's the interesting thing about that, though, to me, is that you can totally see these things.

00:28:26

I can totally see these things when it's in an external circumstance. But when it's in my own head,

00:28:31

I have a hard time identifying them, which is surprising to me because I also kind of

00:28:38

grew up around this stuff. I mean, my dad owns a software company that has products on emotional

00:28:43

intelligence and self determination. And self talk is a big piece of that. So I've all understood

00:28:49

it for a long time. Hey, you shouldn't practice negative self talk. Because usually it's some form

00:28:54

of don't do this, don't do that. And your brain just fixates on the action. It doesn't

00:28:59

attribute positive or negative, you know, do this or don't do this. It's to borrow an analogy

00:29:06

from golf if you're saying don't hit it more or don't hit in the water, your brain fixates on the

00:29:10

water, your body and mind kind of align and you end up hitting it towards water. It's really,

00:29:15

really bad at differentiating those things. But the minute that I can like get it out in

00:29:22

a different context with some people that are outside of my own head, it becomes crystal clear.

00:29:28

Yeah, that I can kind of follow you with that because I don't like I tend to go the other way

00:29:34

around. I don't always take the processes that I work on my own brain and externalize them.

00:29:39

I tend to like keep everything in my head. Like if somebody has made me upset and I don't like

00:29:47

the way that they are handling something, I will do one of two paths. I will either internalize it

00:29:54

and never speak about it or I will internalize it and maybe mention it to my wife once.

00:30:00

And that's as far as it goes. So unless it impacts somebody else, if it impacts the third person

00:30:07

in some way, then I'll talk to that other person because I know like I've had instances with

00:30:13

folks online, it's like, "Okay, I need to talk to Mike about this." There's a thing that he needs

00:30:17

to know about. So then we'll have that conversation. But I generally just internalize things. But

00:30:22

yes, sometimes translating it to an external situation would be a very positive thing.

00:30:28

And to be fair, I mean, the whole book is about the internal application of this. So

00:30:33

that's where we should definitely focus the conversation here today.

00:30:38

Let's move on to the next chapter. The next chapter is chapter three, "Turn down the dial."

00:30:45

And this is specifically talking about, "Okay, so you have these negative soundtracks that you've

00:30:53

identified and they are internal, not external." What do you do to get rid of them? Because he

00:31:01

makes the analogy of most people think that it is a switch. And all you have to do is flip it

00:31:07

on or off kind of like your standard light switch. And he says that it is actually more like a dial.

00:31:13

And I never thought about this until just now, but the light switch on or off, that makes a ton

00:31:20

of sense. And then the dial, I think he's kind of going for a radio analog dial metaphor to go

00:31:28

along with the soundtrack stuff. But I don't remember that really standing out to me. Maybe the

00:31:33

better analogy would have been a dimmer switch just to stick with the whole lighting metaphor.

00:31:39

I don't know. But anyways, that's the goal. You're not going to eliminate this completely.

00:31:44

You're just going to turn it down a bit. And I think that's an important option that many people

00:31:49

myself included a lot of times don't realize it exists. So maybe you can't get rid of it completely,

00:31:55

but at least squelch it a bit so it's not as loud. This whole chapter completely messed with my head

00:32:01

in a very good way, because I started to think through my productivity habits,

00:32:09

my ADHD tendencies, like these things all surfaced, like how I live basically came up.

00:32:18

And the choices that I have made in the processes I've gone through to choose like,

00:32:23

what software do I use? What method of keeping track of tasks am I going to use? How do I keep

00:32:29

track of notes and information online? How do I do all of this? And so many times I have found

00:32:36

myself hunting for that tip or trick or that system or that process, the management style,

00:32:41

like I've hunted for these things saying, oh, that's the way that I need to do this. And it's a yes

00:32:46

or no, always a yes or no. If I'm not finding the motivation I need to read the book every day,

00:32:54

to read those 20 pages every day, which thankfully Bookworm is a pretty solid motivator for that for

00:33:00

us. But if I'm not finding the motivation, well, then there's some switch that needs turned off or

00:33:07

on in order to solve that problem. That's generally the way my brain is translated,

00:33:13

that's the way I think about it. And when he references us as a dial, I'm a sound guy,

00:33:19

so I immediately think of faders. It's not a dial, but I immediately thought of a fader.

00:33:24

I used the Roadcaster Pro-Adrate, so I'd manage everything with faders. Faders are my world. I love

00:33:29

faders. And being able to run that fader up and down and turn things up and down, it's not an

00:33:35

honor off, it's partials. That resonated with me so much. Okay, so trying to adopt,

00:33:43

let's use a classic one here, if you're going to adopt GTD, it doesn't have to be a yes or no,

00:33:49

and it doesn't have to be a solve all thing. It could be a partial. There might be one or two steps

00:33:56

in GTD that are gold for you, and that's what you need to hold on to. Maybe there's some piece of

00:34:02

the mindset that's good for you, but you don't have to adopt or do all of it. You could steal

00:34:07

from other systems. Some of my note-taking system right now is combining four different systems

00:34:12

into one mashup, and I still haven't got it where I want it to be. But I find myself still hunting

00:34:18

for that other thing that will solve all the problems. But it changes per day, because it's a dial,

00:34:23

it's not a switch. I really, really enjoyed the way that he posed this, because again, it made me

00:34:30

stop and think through things at a much different level. Yeah, you got me thinking about that,

00:34:35

comment about looking for the perfect thing, and assuming that the perfect thing is just going to

00:34:41

flip all the switches. Instead of stealing little bits and pieces that can help you fade in the

00:34:51

right direction, which I feel like is a much more beneficial approach, but is not one that we really

00:35:02

want to consider a lot of times. I'm just thinking, why is that? Why do we hold out hope for this?

00:35:10

One thing that is going to magically make everything better, and why do we, myself included,

00:35:20

attach to these systems that people profess in these books that we read so eagerly,

00:35:27

believing that it's going to when I've seen time after time after time after time after time,

00:35:33

like it works a little bit. And then I decide, yeah, this isn't for me. And like you, I think,

00:35:41

over the years, I've kind of adjusted my approach and learned to take what I want, discard the

00:35:46

other stuff, and create my own mashup of all of the things that works for the way that I work.

00:35:53

But that's hard to package. That's hard to, I don't want to say systematize,

00:36:01

formalize maybe, do this, then this, and get this result. And it's interesting to me that we both

00:36:09

thought that way about systems and the way that we work and the books we read and stuff like that

00:36:15

at this point. But this book also is laid out like that system, where you do this, and then you do

00:36:24

this, and then you do this, et cetera. And then at the end, he has a very specific

00:36:29

solution for you in the new anthem, which we'll get to. But maybe this is a good point to go into

00:36:37

chapter four, which is borrow from the best. So just continuing down this progression here,

00:36:44

borrow from the best, it's easier to list out the broken soundtracks and to identify new ones,

00:36:49

replace them with, and this I think is very, very true. And a lesson that took me a long time

00:36:57

to realize the fact that we have negative defaults, the fact that we keep going back to things that

00:37:03

are broken, it's because we fail to fill that void once we say this is the thing I want to change.

00:37:11

Maybe this is the reason a lot of New Year's resolutions fail now that I think about it.

00:37:16

And I know that habits are really the thing if you're going to affect some lasting change. But

00:37:24

as I think about the way that most people set New Year's resolutions, maybe it's just, you know,

00:37:28

I want to lose the weight, whatever. And they don't replace it with an alternate picture,

00:37:34

but also soundtrack, I think fits this analogy to where I'm going to be a runner. So I'm going to

00:37:41

run. And what does a runner do? Well, obviously they run, but also it extends beyond that they

00:37:46

eat healthy, they get enough sleep, they do all these other things that allow them to do the thing

00:37:51

that you don't necessarily have to itemize. You don't have to plan this project perfectly.

00:37:56

All you really need to do is attach to that identity at the beginning of the year and say,

00:38:02

this is the direction that I want to go. But it's not a knowledge problem.

00:38:07

Page 8090 says the antidote to overthinking is not more thinking. The antidote is action.

00:38:12

Sean Blanc in the focus course has this saying action brings clarity. And I love that because,

00:38:19

yeah, you got to pick a direction at first, but it doesn't have to be 100% correct.

00:38:24

You can't steer a parked car. And so as soon as you take a step and you start moving,

00:38:28

then you have the ability to course correct. And a lot of people, I think myself included,

00:38:33

if I don't catch myself mistakenly believe, well, it's easier to turn and go in a different direction

00:38:39

if I haven't started to do the thing yet. But actually the opposite is true.

00:38:43

You can turn the wheels in the car all you want, but it doesn't actually change direction

00:38:47

until it moves. Exactly. Like that's the way to think about it, right?

00:38:50

So there are so many times that either myself, like I've done this, like I've tried to figure out,

00:38:56

okay, what's the best topic for me to choose for the next live stream? Okay, so let's take that.

00:39:03

Okay, well, if I choose something like obsidian or something I'm talking about there, well,

00:39:09

I'm doing a few things. I'm adding to the hype around obsidian, showing people what I do with it.

00:39:15

But it's also going to get more viewers than if I were to call it my text file setup.

00:39:21

You can change the entire demographic that shows up for a stream based on what you title that.

00:39:27

And I've played the game of trying to think through what the right path is for that.

00:39:33

And then at the end of the day, I end up choosing to talk about marketing and something completely

00:39:38

unrelated, which means that the whole choice that I'm trying to make on which way do I label this

00:39:43

just gets completely put off and I don't actually go anywhere with it. And that whole thing doesn't

00:39:46

happen at all. So that's something I've done many, many, many times in a very small way there.

00:39:53

But it's also happened in a lot of big ways as well, drawing a blank on what those are right now.

00:39:58

But I know that that happens fairly regularly, it seems, where I think through things more and in

00:40:04

my head, like thinking about it and making the plan tends to make me think I already accomplished

00:40:09

it, which is not a good thing to think. Like, okay, here's the path forward on how to get this thing

00:40:14

out the door. Great. Have you done anything on it? No, but I know how it'll work. That does

00:40:20

me no good at all. Yeah. And as I'm talking through this with you, I recognize that this

00:40:26

bar from the best really the there are lots of different ways that you can frame these positive

00:40:32

soundtracks. And I guess what I just did is I took that action brings clarity and the habits,

00:40:39

not goals, not New Year's resolutions. And I kind of made those my positive soundtracks. But if those

00:40:46

don't resonate with you, he gives some other examples in here. He uses one for business specifically.

00:40:55

People are trying to give me money. That's a interesting way to think about things. And what

00:41:01

would that change in your online business if you actually started to believe that? Now,

00:41:07

that's that's the cool thing about some of this stuff as I'm thinking through these.

00:41:11

That's where my brain goes. It's like, okay, so if you start saying these things, if you start

00:41:15

really believing these things, how does that change your day to day life? And some of the

00:41:18

areas of my life as I force myself to answer that question, I recognize they would be visibly better.

00:41:23

So maybe I need to just try some of this stuff. Another one, I'll feel awesome after. And this

00:41:31

is like a tactical thing that I used for a long time, just to establish the habit of going to the

00:41:36

gym. I'll feel awesome after I get to the gym. Spare change adds up, pick ROI, not EGO, pivot,

00:41:42

don't panic. I mean, you can fill in the blank with whatever inspires you to do something. But

00:41:49

and that's really in the title, I think borrow from the best. This doesn't have to be completely

00:41:54

original. If you hear something somewhere and you like it, take it, make it your own, and then use

00:42:01

that to try and change these negative soundtracks, turn down the dial, the turn down techniques,

00:42:08

actually that's from the last chapter, we kind of skipped over that. That's one of my action items,

00:42:12

by the way, is to identify some of those turn down techniques. Just things that you can do

00:42:16

tactically to silence those negative voices. And then this chapter, you know, have a mechanism that

00:42:22

you can use to start to replace them with positive ones. Yeah, I think there are a lot of people that

00:42:26

have maxims that they share online. People love to come up with these one-liners. If you follow

00:42:33

Gary V for 3.2 seconds, you'll have about 4,000 of them. And you can easily take one of those

00:42:40

that you resonate with and make that one of your soundtracks. Like that's, if you want to summarize

00:42:46

this chapter, that's the way I took it. It's like, just find something that works, something you like,

00:42:51

throw it in your brain and repeat it. There you go. You got a new soundtrack.

00:42:55

It sounds so simple. It's so true. Like, oh, this is easy. We'll take the negative ones,

00:43:02

make those go away and then put these new ones in place. And then all your problems will be solved.

00:43:07

We flipped the switch, Mike. Just flipped the switch. Speaking of flipping switches,

00:43:11

I feel like this next chapter definitely fits the switch diagram better than the dial one,

00:43:21

which is "win the weak." It's kind of interesting to me that he used that terminology because

00:43:28

when you use the word "win," you imply that there is a winner and there is a loser. Those are two

00:43:36

states. There's nothing in between. It doesn't matter if you went to overtime. It doesn't matter

00:43:42

if you set a personal best. If you lost, you lost. None of the stats mean a thing. And this

00:43:50

chapter on "win the weak," I get what he's going for here. He says a way to accomplish a big goal is

00:43:56

through overwhelming action. And what is the soundtrack that will encourage you to take

00:44:03

overwhelming action in whatever area of your life? And he says, ask yourself, where do I want

00:44:10

to win this week? So he's not saying absolutely "crush it, gerry v-style, not going out of the

00:44:16

park. You can sleep when you're dead." But it does have hints of that, I feel, where it's like,

00:44:21

just do whatever it takes to win. I would prefer, and this is kind of based in the habits, like,

00:44:29

don't focus on the score. Don't focus on the outcome. Focus on the process. Do the little

00:44:35

things right. Just make sure that you check those boxes and the score is going to take care of itself.

00:44:41

So this chapter out of all of them, I think maybe I disliked this one the most. What did you think

00:44:47

about "win the weak"? It felt like a mid-book pep talk. And when you mention the winning,

00:44:55

yes or no, it's like, how pregnant are you? There is no in between there. It's yes or no.

00:45:02

Okay, so thanks for bringing that up, because I felt like something was off with this chapter,

00:45:07

and I couldn't quite nail down what it was. I think that's probably it, because it reverses

00:45:12

what we had two chapters earlier with the whole fader dial thing and puts us back in the switch.

00:45:17

But at the same time, this felt very much like, we've mentioned "Gerry v-E" a few times, Tony Robbins,

00:45:25

and that category of person, it's like super high energy and just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes.

00:45:32

Like that type of person, I feel like we all have either seen or know someone who's like that.

00:45:38

And I don't think that's for everybody. And this kind of feels like a motivational chapter to say

00:45:45

you should be. But I don't think that's true. And it's kind of frustrating to me that he slipped

00:45:52

this in there. So I mean, I get what he's saying. Like if you want to try to take it for his intent

00:45:59

and not what we're actually interpreting it as, if you take it for his intent, I think what this is

00:46:04

is like you're at chapter five out of ten here. So we're dead center on the book. And I felt like

00:46:11

he's he's laid the groundwork in showing us that we are overthinkers. He's shown us how to make the

00:46:17

choice that it's not a yes or no, how to come up with better soundtracks. Like he's shown us all

00:46:22

of this. And now it's kind of like the switching points. You know, if you're going to have a peak

00:46:27

here that we switch gears in the book, I felt like this was it because we we've now laid out the

00:46:33

groundwork. And now he's like, okay, here you go, you can win. And then after this point, he starts

00:46:39

giving you the tactics. And as you're referring to kind of a system here, I felt like that kind of

00:46:45

starts maybe in the chapter before, but it's also like, to me, this is kind of the crux where he starts

00:46:50

to do that. I don't know, maybe that's reading into it too much. But that's how I felt.

00:46:56

I don't know that it's reading into it too much. And I also don't know that his intentions are

00:47:01

completely pure. He did write the book start where and finish. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true.

00:47:09

I don't know. I think it's probably best just to leave this one here and recognize that there

00:47:21

isn't a whole lot here in terms of the process that he's outlining that I would recommend you

00:47:30

absolutely adhere to. Basically, what he wants you to escape is inaction leading to overthinking

00:47:36

leading to inaction. So it's kind of a negative cycle. And the way to step out of that is to

00:47:43

interject some action. But I would argue that that doesn't mean that you have to dominate.

00:47:50

Yeah, but at the same time, I'm kind of downplaying this chapter. I think if you

00:47:54

listen to what I just said a second ago, that's kind of what I'm doing here. But if I take it

00:48:01

from a broader society stance, the default is to do nothing. For most people, the default is

00:48:10

do nothing. Everybody has these dreams, these things that they have in their head that they want

00:48:14

to do. Very few people put in the work every day, build the routines and habits to actually make

00:48:20

those happen. That's generally what I would say is that's not the norm that people

00:48:25

have overwhelming action. It seems like the people who talk about 10x your work, when they talk

00:48:32

about that, the goal isn't to actually achieve 10x the amount of work. The goal is to get more

00:48:38

than what you're doing now, so that you're moving faster. I think that's actually probably the

00:48:46

benefit of this is you're going to have people who are reading this, who have talked about starting

00:48:52

a blog, who have wanted to get into a running habit, who have decided to start a YouTube channel,

00:48:58

or whatever it is. They have wanted to do this for a long time, but felt like they're

00:49:03

not the right person, it's not the right time frame, they're not motivated enough to do it.

00:49:09

You got to start somewhere and overwhelming action, that's actually a subjective term,

00:49:16

I would say. It's not a definitive, here's what that means. Overwhelming action, when it comes to

00:49:23

Joe splitting wood, is actually quite high. That's a very big number, but for someone who's never

00:49:31

been around on acts or a chainsaw or anything, overwhelming action might be getting two or three

00:49:37

log split as in two or three pieces cut. That would be amazing for some people. That's a very

00:49:44

different category, what does overwhelming action mean. I think it's going to depend on your situation

00:49:49

and where you're at. If I package all of that, I think it's probably a good chapter to have in

00:49:55

the book, but you and I are coming at it from the stance of a lot of the other books that we've read

00:50:00

and knowing where we sit, because you and I both do tons of things probably more than we should.

00:50:06

When someone tells us that we need to have overwhelming action, it feels like they're telling me I

00:50:10

don't do enough when I'm probably fine. I don't know, take that for what it's worth.

00:50:15

Yeah, you made a good point about the people who want to start a blog or start a YouTube channel,

00:50:21

in my case it was write a book. That is an authentically Johnny Cuff message, because I remember

00:50:29

when I read Start, that was the thing that resonated with me. He didn't say it this way,

00:50:34

I don't think, but that overwhelming action showing up every day and writing for an hour before I

00:50:39

went into the office. That was the thing that got me to write the book, that's the thing that got me

00:50:44

until a lot of the things that I do now. At that point in my life, that's exactly what I needed to

00:50:49

hear. It's interesting to me now that I have a somewhat negative reaction to the same advice,

00:50:56

but I think maybe it's because my thinking on the situation has changed. I'm coupling it with that

00:51:03

win versus lose. If you're able to dissect that a little bit, I think maybe you're right,

00:51:10

maybe it's fine, but don't take it at surface value, that's for sure. Let's go to chapter six

00:51:17

here, which is don't fight it, flip it. This chapter is talking about criticism and curiosity

00:51:28

is one of the things that I picked up out of here. The opposite of criticism is curiosity.

00:51:33

Prepare for the worst and be surprised when it doesn't happen is a pretty bleak way to go through

00:51:39

life. To create a new soundtrack, essentially what you want to do is you want to take that

00:51:44

broken one and you want to turn it around, turn it upside down in his words. That reminded me a lot

00:51:49

of the great mental models and this mental model of inversion. Do you remember that one?

00:51:56

Yeah, I hadn't connected those dots, but as soon as you said mental models, like,

00:52:00

oh wait, what was the term that they used for that? Yes.

00:52:03

Yeah, so the inversion is essentially attacking it from a different direction and

00:52:09

the example of inversion, I don't remember if this is the exact one they used in the book,

00:52:14

but the one that comes to mind is like, if you're a designer and you're trying to design an app,

00:52:19

the typical approach is, well, let's make this as user-friendly as possible. But when you take that

00:52:25

approach, you don't know what you don't know. And so you might miss a lot of things. So one of the

00:52:32

ways you could practice inversion is like, okay, let's think about everything that we could do to

00:52:36

make this app as hard to use as possible. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, yeah, well,

00:52:43

let's make the touch targets really tiny and let's make the text hard to read and the colors all

00:52:50

hard to discern. And then you have a picture of what not to do, basically. And he's saying in this

00:52:56

chapter that you kind of already have that picture of what not to do from the the sound,

00:53:01

the broken soundtracks that you've probably been listening to that your brain conjures up. So,

00:53:05

you can invert those and you can think about them from the positive side. So the exact opposite of

00:53:12

the things that you've been doing is probably the things that you should be doing. I like this one

00:53:16

a lot. The thing with this is it's impossible to read this book and not start noticing what

00:53:22

soundtracks you're telling yourself. Did you have this? Like, I had a bunch of things that I've told

00:53:26

myself over time that I didn't realize I was telling myself. Yes. Part of that for me came from

00:53:32

reading my gapbook after this, though, because that speaks to it more specifically than John

00:53:39

Akof does. But yeah, you got to wrestle with that stuff. If you don't, you're missing the entire point.

00:53:45

I started to notice what I tell myself a lot more and was not aware that I was telling myself

00:53:53

certain things and starting to realize that if I take what I'm saying to myself and then flip it

00:54:00

upside down and change it to the opposite of what I was originally telling myself. Like, if I do that,

00:54:07

what comes out of it? So, trying that process, it's like, huh, I'm pretty hard on myself. That's

00:54:13

pretty much what I learned. Yep. Very high standards for myself. And I come nowhere near

00:54:20

achieving those. So, trying to flip what those are and how I'm criticizing, that can actually be

00:54:28

quite helpful. So, this is one of the more helpful chapters I found in the book.

00:54:32

Yeah. I think it is one of the more helpful chapters in the book. To be honest, I'm not sure

00:54:40

how much I would have connected to this had I not had the additional data point of the inversion.

00:54:47

Just turning a problem upside down in the analogy of the record that he's going with in this book

00:54:54

doesn't really work for me. But he gave me enough that my brain was able to connect the dots in a way

00:55:00

that was pretty effective. So, I think it's possible if this is your first foray into the self-help genre

00:55:09

that maybe the whole soundtrack metaphor sticking to that so rigidly is actually a negative thing.

00:55:17

But I don't know. I think it's I think it's probably fine. I agree with you though that in terms of

00:55:23

impact to me, this was this was a good one. The next one was also very impactful. So, let's talk

00:55:28

about that. Chapter seven, zig your way to positive thinking. And that's a weird chapter title.

00:55:35

But that is because it is talking about the story of Seth Godin, one of John Aikoff's heroes,

00:55:43

who was going through a really tough spot in his career. And he got through it. He said by listening

00:55:49

to one of his heroes, Zig Ziglar for three hours a day. Are you familiar with Zig Ziglar at all?

00:55:55

Yes, I've read at least one book of his. I've read like part of a biography of him as well.

00:56:02

He's another one of those guys that I've heard his name, I've seen his books, everybody kind of

00:56:07

talks highly of it. And then I'm kind of like, that just doesn't really hit right for me. But I

00:56:15

think I have to have to take another look at that. The main point that he's talking about in this

00:56:23

chapter is that it is easier for most of us to just keep repeating those negative soundtracks

00:56:29

than a negative one. And that you need to flip, I almost said flip that switch. You do need to

00:56:36

change that narrative. That is a switch actually that needs to be flipped. Essentially, he's trying

00:56:40

to get you from one extreme negative to the other extreme positive. But in this specific chapter,

00:56:44

he's talking about it's that positive affirmations, the constant repetition that does something in

00:56:53

you, it kind of solidifies that. So you can do everything up until this point. You starting to

00:56:57

move in that direction. And now you just got to keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it,

00:57:03

no matter what it looks like. And this is the part I think a lot of people are going to struggle with

00:57:08

because there's this phrase, fake it till you make it. And nobody likes doing that. It feels

00:57:13

very inauthentic. It's like, I'm going to identify as this thing. And I'm just going to keep saying

00:57:18

that I am this thing. And your brain is instantly going to tell you you're not that thing. You

00:57:22

haven't done anything to validate that title. And John frames it interestingly here. He says that

00:57:29

you're not faking it till you make it. You're telling the truth in advance. What's your reaction

00:57:34

to that phrase? Don't fake it till you make it. Tell the truth in advance.

00:57:38

I have never liked the whole fake it till you make it thing. I've said it. And I've attempted

00:57:45

to adopt it in numerous cases. I think there's something to be said about identifying as something

00:57:53

and then working your way towards it. Who is it? Jeff Goens, who talked about how he was writing and

00:58:00

writing and writing. And if somebody asked him, you know, are you a writer? He would say no,

00:58:04

even though he was writing constantly. And it wasn't until he started to identify and tell people

00:58:10

like I am a writer that he started to improve his craft and become much better at it. Because

00:58:16

there's also like the side of it. Like I am a writer. Like, okay, well, if you're going to

00:58:19

identify as a writer, what should you do? Well, the number one thing you should do as a writer is

00:58:23

right. So there's that. So, you know, identifying as something in order to live up to it, you have

00:58:31

to do certain actions. And I think that some of what is intended with that whole fake it till

00:58:37

you make it concept. But I think I have a strong interest in just tell the truth and be honest.

00:58:45

And trying to play these games is tough. I think to swallow. Maybe that's my aversion to it. I'm not

00:58:54

real sure. At the same time, like, I definitely do this in cases. So I don't know. Yeah, conflicted

00:59:01

about it, Mike. Well, I am too. I do believe in the power of confession and your words having an

00:59:11

impact and changing not just your mind, but even the atmosphere. I think there's truth in that.

00:59:17

But this don't fake it till you make it. Tell the truth in advance. This feels gimmicky to me.

00:59:22

It feels like, Oh, no, no, I'm not telling you to fake it till you make it. That's not it at all.

00:59:28

I know why you don't like that. Just this isn't that. We're just telling the truth in advance.

00:59:34

It feels you're rewording the same thing. Exactly. Exactly. That's all you're doing.

00:59:42

Yeah, it's putting lipstick on a pig. Like that's all you're doing. It feels like one of those

00:59:47

things that the picture I get in my mind, I don't have a specific picture, but it's like a movie

00:59:52

where this person is in this scenario where they're being asked to do something that they know is

00:59:59

wrong. It's against their moral code. And someone's trying to convince them, Oh, no, no, no, I'm not

01:00:04

asking you to not would never ask you to do that thing. And then they just like try to convince

01:00:08

them to do it by framing it a different way. And you can like see the angst on their face and

01:00:12

they're trying to decide, well, is what this person is saying true? Or should I, you know,

01:00:16

stick to what I know. And I feel just the way that that is phrased does more harm than good in this

01:00:23

particular chapter. But I do like this chapter. My other action item actually comes from this chapter,

01:00:30

which is to ask myself, am I focusing on the problem or am I focusing on the solution,

01:00:35

which again kind of gets back to the easier for most of us to focus on the problem,

01:00:40

those negative soundtracks. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at finding problems.

01:00:45

But I'm not so good at my default being, okay, let's solve that. And let's figure out a solution

01:00:52

to that problem. And so this question, I feel like forcing myself or at least encouraging myself

01:01:00

to answer this helps me shift my focus from negative to positive. I guess we'll see if it actually

01:01:08

sticks. But I do recognize the value in that. And this is the point in the book where I realized,

01:01:14

you know what, there's something here, but I don't think I'm going to get it from John.

01:01:18

So I got to find some other books on this topic, which is where my gap book last time,

01:01:25

and then also my gap book this time are kind of coming from.

01:01:28

Yeah, I think there's a lot in this chapter. I mean, I've not become a big proponent of Zig Ziglar,

01:01:36

but I also have a hard time refuting what he has promoted over the years, which he's a big

01:01:42

proponent of positive thinking, of course, and thinking your way to new heights and such.

01:01:47

But I don't know that I've ever tried to fully adopt what he's promoted, at least in its entirety.

01:01:55

But I also have a hard time, like, you know, the whole positive thinking world, like we had a whole

01:02:00

book about like trying to stay away from that and, you know, making sure you're thinking about,

01:02:04

like, what's the worst case scenario, like trying to think about those things instead.

01:02:08

And yet I find myself going through this book wondering, like, okay, yes, it's okay to process

01:02:16

what's worst case scenario, remember death, like you'll appreciate life more if you are aware

01:02:21

of how fragile it is. And yet I find myself like being really hard on myself with the negative

01:02:28

thoughts, knowing that's a bad thing. Like I was talking about this earlier, like, so then I

01:02:33

obviously need to replace it with something, thus the positive side of it. So I think I'm still kind

01:02:39

of on the fence, but I think I need to at least adopt some of this. But yes, Zig Ziglar, I at least

01:02:46

like listening to him. I mean, he has since passed if memory works, but he has a lot of great stuff

01:02:53

out there, that's for sure. One of the things I think I have issue with here is with the don't

01:03:02

fake it till you make it thing, I feel like you have to decide where the point is between this is

01:03:10

truth or this is a lie. There's no gray area here, either it's true or it's not. And where does that

01:03:18

switch, not dial, get flipped? I don't know. And forcing myself to move the threshold seems

01:03:28

like a bad idea. In we covered atomic habits by James Clear, and he talks in there about identity

01:03:35

driven habits. And every time you show up and you do the thing, you are casting a vote for the type

01:03:42

of person that you want to become. And he has a line in there, something like, just do that enough

01:03:49

times. And eventually you win the election in your mind. And I feel like that is the better way to

01:03:56

approach this. If you just continue to do the thing at some point, your brain just says, Oh, yeah,

01:04:03

I'm a writer because I show up and I write, you can't compare yourself to other writers.

01:04:09

Going back to your magician story, you can't say, Well, I'm not a magician because I'm not as

01:04:14

good as this other person. So I don't know, maybe this is different for different people,

01:04:21

like they approach this from different angles. But for me, it just seems like don't even worry

01:04:27

about it. Just continue to do the thing. And then eventually you're just going to believe it.

01:04:32

This seems like just motivational pep talk type stuff to get you to the point where you

01:04:38

show up every day. And I know there's different personalities that need that sort of stuff.

01:04:41

My personality is like, if this is the thing that needs to get done, it is going to get done.

01:04:45

It does not matter what you feel like, you are going to show up and you are going to do it.

01:04:50

Because you said you're going to do it. And I totally recognize that not everybody

01:04:55

follows through on their commitments to their selves like that. But I have trouble identifying

01:05:00

with this. And I think that might be why. Yeah, I'm one of those people that if I make a commitment

01:05:04

and somebody else is involved, high water, I'll be there. It doesn't matter. I will make it happen.

01:05:12

If it's a commitment to me, I will always find a way to put that off. Like I will find a reason

01:05:19

and follow through on that excuse and not do it. Like that's my thing, which is why

01:05:26

having bookworm set for every two weeks is gold for me. Because I know it's coming.

01:05:32

I know Mike's planning on me being there at that recording. And I can't miss that. I have to make

01:05:38

that. But if it's, I don't want to do this. But if Mike were not involved with bookworm and it was

01:05:44

just me, it would probably die pretty quick. Because I wouldn't stick with it. I just wouldn't.

01:05:50

So like I need somebody else's accountability in order to make those commitments happen.

01:05:56

So this type of a motivational thing, it is helpful to me at least, at least on a small scale.

01:06:02

But like I have so many different motivation things that I have to work myself through in

01:06:07

order to accomplish things that it's not as simple as do overwhelming action. Like it's not that easy.

01:06:13

At least for me. And I haven't found the switch there. That's why I resonate with the dial concept

01:06:18

on it. Makes sense. So what you're saying is you need a new anthem. Possibly Mike. Possibly.

01:06:25

All right. So let's talk about that. Chapter eight is put the new anthem on repeat. When I say the new

01:06:34

anthem, I don't mean a collection of new soundtracks that you've collected. I mean specifically the

01:06:40

new anthem that John A. Cuff has written for you on page 135.

01:06:44

This is the point where I really disconnected from this book. I understand what he's doing here.

01:06:54

It's helpful to people not to have to manufacture this on your own. And he made a point of calling

01:07:00

out from the very beginning of the book, the person who helped him with this, he would say his

01:07:05

entire name, including the doctor and the PhD at the end to create this validation that they

01:07:11

have done all this research. They've talked to all these people. This guy's way smarter than I am.

01:07:15

So trust him. And this thing works. And I don't doubt that it would work. But I also don't think

01:07:22

there's anything magical about what he has here. I think you could create your own. And if you

01:07:29

created your own, you would attach to it much more strongly than something that John A. Cuff wrote for

01:07:35

you. And I say that because we've gone through as an action item from Bookworm, creating these core

01:07:43

values for our families. And I identified them. I had a friend create a manifesto type graphic.

01:07:51

I had it framed, is printed and hanging on our living room wall. And this affects every commitment

01:07:59

that we make. It's what we filter everything through. I am blown away these however many years later

01:08:07

at the benefit that that has continued to provide because we came up with them. Not because somebody

01:08:14

said this is what you need to do in order to have a strong family. So I definitely have doubts

01:08:21

towards this new anthem. What do you think? Are you going to implement this?

01:08:27

It's way too long. It is pretty long. That is true. I had written in my notes that it was on page 153

01:08:36

like you did because I was and this is why I was looking it up while you were talking because

01:08:42

the sucker is long. I'm not even going to read this all because it would take too long to go through

01:08:48

it. So he wants you to find a mirror, stand up straight, confidently say the following out loud.

01:08:54

And then he gives you this whole thing. I, Joe Buell, choose my thoughts. I know that doing my best

01:08:59

starts with thinking my best. And it's this whole thing. Here are 10 things I know. And he runs

01:09:04

through these 10 items. And I cannot argue that if you were to do this, you would probably feel

01:09:11

better about yourself, at least for a little bit. I'm not going to argue that at all. But

01:09:17

I was saying it's long. He gave me a thing when I kind of got the feeling he said he wasn't going

01:09:23

to give me a thing. And I felt like it contradicted what he's been telling me so far.

01:09:29

Save one borrow from the best. He's telling you to borrow these things. That particular piece

01:09:37

probably makes this OK. I don't know. I just didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. And

01:09:42

yet I find myself thinking it probably does help. I'm sure it does. But I just don't like the way

01:09:49

it was brought forward. I didn't like it. So there's that.

01:09:54

Yeah. So I have mentioned a gazillion times that I immediately followed up this book with

01:09:59

power of positive thinking by Norman Vincent Peele, which I enjoyed much more than this one,

01:10:04

to be honest. One of the things that was surprising to me about that, I did not realize this,

01:10:08

just so you all know, Norman Vincent Peele was a pastor. Is it a pastor? I don't know if he's

01:10:13

still around. This book, the 1987 version that I have, had sold 15 million copies. And his advice

01:10:21

from the very beginning is basically to get in front of the mirror, just like John A. Cuff is saying

01:10:26

morning and evening. But instead of repeating the new anthem that John is giving me, specifically

01:10:33

a couple key Bible verses. So I have been doing that. And I am seeing some benefit from that.

01:10:41

And I think you could decide for yourself if the Bible isn't the thing, you can insert whatever

01:10:47

you want there. But that is why this new anthem does not stick with me. This is something somebody

01:10:55

else has made up. It didn't come from me, and it's not the source of ultimate truth for me.

01:11:00

So those three things combined, like I have no time for this new anthem. Sorry, John.

01:11:08

But like I was saying, my sense is, and I don't know that I could articulate why here, a lot of

01:11:14

times like if I have these thoughts, I've spent some time with it and I can tell you why, I spent

01:11:17

some time with this, I can't tell you why. But if you are the type of person who's willing to get

01:11:22

up in the morning, look up in the mirror and have something that you say every morning,

01:11:27

generally the people that you hear from that do that say how great of an experience. Totally.

01:11:32

Doesn't seem to matter what it is that you're saying, like whether it's a Bible verse,

01:11:36

it's a one sentence thing, it's something Gary V said at some point, it's some deal that a

01:11:42

pastor mentioned at one point, or it's this new anthem. I don't know what it matters, what it is.

01:11:46

People always say that that's a positive experience. And yet when I get up in the morning and I look

01:11:52

at the mirror, all I really notice is, did I shave yet? Like that's really what I think about.

01:12:00

Like I'm not going to repeat something, like I'm, my brain is race car brain, like on to

01:12:06

what are the next five steps I've got this morning? Am I loading something on the trailer

01:12:12

before the kids get up? Am I trying to clean something up in the kitchen before people are

01:12:17

up in the morning? Like am I reading a book for an extra 20 minutes this morning? Like those are

01:12:22

what my brain goes to, not chanting something at myself. Yeah, I don't know. See, that's the thing.

01:12:28

I think there's value in that. I do think though, that either having something like the Bible verses,

01:12:37

which I describe more value to than the writings of Johnny Cuff would be a better

01:12:46

implementation, or the other option would be come up with something yourself that is very

01:12:51

meaningful. I don't like this, use this prepackaged thing. I don't know what it is about that.

01:12:59

Like you said, I'm sure if you did this, you would get some results, but this just seems like the

01:13:04

worst of all the possible options to me. And it's the one that he's really leaning into. He's got a

01:13:10

couple of questions about does this actually work? And he's got his doctor guy who's done all the

01:13:16

research and shared all the statistics about people are 250% more likely to reduce overthinking.

01:13:22

These sound like very generic positive thinking type quotes to me. And I feel like if you were

01:13:28

to replicate this research using other statements, you would get identical, if not better results.

01:13:37

That's kind of my, as I was leaving this chapter, that's kind of what I was thinking.

01:13:41

So let's go to the next one here. Chapter nine, because we are per usual, running a little bit long.

01:13:50

Chapter nine is gather evidence. And this is where he talks about the pocket jury. I'm not sure

01:14:00

what I think about this analogy. A pocket jury is a collection of broken soundtracks that judge

01:14:05

your life whenever you dare to be more than you currently are. And I get the point that he's

01:14:09

trying to make here. These are the voices that are telling you that you can't, you won't,

01:14:16

you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, etc. So you want to gather evidence to show that

01:14:23

you can actually do these, these things and convince the pocket jury that what they are telling you

01:14:31

is not true because you've got a long line of, I've done this, that and the other thing to,

01:14:36

to reinforce the positive soundtrack instead. One of the things that he uses here is the quote,

01:14:44

"Everything is always working out for me," which that quote, I feel like that can help you locate

01:14:50

yourself in terms of this positivity ratio. What sort of reaction do you have when you verbally

01:14:56

say that out loud? Everything is always working out for me. Do you like, "Ah, that might be true."

01:15:01

Absolutely. And I can think of a whole bunch of reasons why that's true or, man, I really

01:15:07

wish that was true. I had the latter of those. I really wish that was true because there are

01:15:13

many, many things that I remodeling. Everything is working out for me. No, the floor's not flat.

01:15:21

It didn't just magically come together. No, it's not. I have to work my tail off to make it

01:15:28

certain ways so that it can have a chance at working out. I feel like I am spending most of,

01:15:36

you're talking about always looking for issues or problems or being critical of things, right?

01:15:42

And you didn't use those words, but something around that topic. And like, well, that's my job.

01:15:48

Like, my job is to find problems and fix them. That's what I do. So I'm regularly hunting

01:15:55

for things that have gone wrong or not quite as good enough as I wanted them to be. Like,

01:16:01

that's what I do. So for me to say, "Everything is working out for me." No. And if it were, I wouldn't

01:16:09

have a job. Well, not necessarily. See, this is the point where I start to realize maybe I've

01:16:16

got some work to do in this area because I think that everything is always working out for me.

01:16:22

You can find evidence to support that or you can find evidence to refute that.

01:16:26

Power of positive thinking, Normabens Appeal talks about this guy who comes to him and he's

01:16:31

ready to commit suicide. He's so depressed and my life is just terrible. And Norma's like,

01:16:38

"Well, you got here today. So you walked here. You have legs that work." And he just starts

01:16:45

listing all these things and he goes, "Well, that's true. That's true." And then by the end of the

01:16:49

five-minute session, he's got a list of 12 things that are actually going very well for him. So

01:16:54

his situation isn't nearly as bleak as he thought it was. And then also with the

01:17:00

description that you just had there of your job is to find these problems and then create

01:17:05

solutions. Again, you can focus on the problem or you can focus on the solution. So you could

01:17:10

interpret everything is always working out for me as, "Yeah, there were all these unexpected things

01:17:15

and the floor wasn't level and yada yada yada." But I was able to make it level and get the carpet

01:17:19

and whatever else I needed to do. And I'm not saying that you should take that approach because

01:17:25

I think I'm very much like you where my natural reaction is to focus on, "Well, all of these things

01:17:30

are not right." But I took this and then he mentions the positivity ratio, which we've heard

01:17:36

to other places of about three to one. So you should have three positive thoughts for every one

01:17:40

negative thought essentially in order to... That's the healthy ratio. I got to confront myself.

01:17:46

Look at that and admit that I'm nowhere near that. So all of the things that we think,

01:17:54

I feel like there's sources for all of this stuff. There's seeds that are planted and this is kind

01:17:59

of the manifestation of things. And we've read all these books and we've heard many, many times

01:18:05

surround yourself with positive people. And that's just one area. It could be people at work. It could

01:18:11

be people in your family who are the voices that are speaking into your life. And what effect is

01:18:17

that having on you? And I'm kind of recognizing, "Well, so there's a lot of things that I've just

01:18:22

dismissed." It's like, "Well, I can't change that situation. So I'm just going to have to endure it."

01:18:26

But it does have an impact on you. Nothing is neutral. It's kind of what I'm recognizing.

01:18:32

And maybe I can never get to that three to one positivity ratio. But I got a long ways to go and

01:18:39

I am definitely going to try. No, those are very good points to make because there's...

01:18:47

I've had this conversation with Becky a few times. Because my job is to... As I refer to it,

01:18:54

the soundtrack I say is I look for problems and I solve them. But that's not entirely true. And

01:18:59

it's good for you to point that out. Because a lot of what I end up doing day to day is setting

01:19:06

direction, choosing what the future of tech at our church looks like, and making decisions around

01:19:13

how to go about achieving different projects for future purposes. Now, that reveals itself in...

01:19:22

I have the problem of not having cable from this room to that room. That's the problem.

01:19:27

But you could pose it as we're adding features as opposed to solving a negative. You could

01:19:33

definitely do that. The reason I bring that up is because it's so easy for me to think of it as

01:19:37

putting out fires that it ends up creating this overarching negative cloud in my head,

01:19:43

which then bleeds over into so many different areas. So there's so many things that I'm just

01:19:48

trying to deal with that it definitely bleeds over. And maybe that's why I'm so giving Johnny

01:20:00

cuff the side eye here. Because to me it's like, "Okay, no, it's not always like that. You're a little

01:20:06

sugar-cody here. That's not quite right." That could be because of that cloud that I've got in my

01:20:14

head at all times, which either means that this is exactly the book I needed to listen to and pay

01:20:21

attention to, or a cuff is smoking something. And I'm not going to listen to him at all.

01:20:28

That's true. That's true. All right, so let's jump ahead here to the end. There's one more chapter

01:20:35

and then we could talk about the book in general. So chapter 10 is make a soundtrack stick with a

01:20:43

symbol. And the big message here is that you just got to find something that helps this stuff stick

01:20:53

for you. And it doesn't matter if it works for anybody else, it just needs to work for you.

01:20:58

He has this phrase, "It sounds crazy, but I don't care because it works."

01:21:01

And the one thing I got out of this chapter is that pens are my symbols.

01:21:11

I kind of thought of that one. Yeah, so I buy a new pen. Even this one that I got for National

01:21:17

Fountain Pen Day, I have an event that this is signifying as a transition point or something that

01:21:26

I've done and I want a memento of that specific moment in time. Every single pen in my collection

01:21:33

has one of those. And if you were to open up my pen box behind me and quiz me, I could tell you

01:21:41

but that kind of makes me feel uncomfortable, that idea that anybody would ever do that.

01:21:46

And then I realized this chapter, that's because it's not for anybody else. Who cares

01:21:50

whether I have this symbolism attached to these things except for me. And it doesn't matter if

01:21:57

you think it's a completely enabling mechanism just to buy more pens. Go ahead and think that.

01:22:04

It helps me consistently do things and ship things and make things that I'm proud of.

01:22:10

And so it's reinforcing that positive soundtrack to John's metaphor of I'm a person who makes things.

01:22:17

And I recognize at this point, this is the first time that I felt like I didn't need to

01:22:28

explain this to anybody else ever again. And if that's the only thing I got out of this book,

01:22:34

it's probably valid. That's a good enough reason to pick it up and read it from start to finish.

01:22:42

And so I share that here just as an example of you never know what you're going to get out of

01:22:48

these books. And it might just be that one thing that provides a ton of value for you. I can't even

01:22:56

communicate in an audio podcast, even via video how much of a weight that lifts off of my shoulder.

01:23:04

And that sounds really stupid to describe that. But that's the whole thing he's talking about here

01:23:10

is you're carrying around this big mental burden, all this negativity, like all the stuff that you're

01:23:15

doing, you don't really have a good reason for that. You're just a poser. You're a fraud.

01:23:21

Everyone's going to find out you're an imposter. All that kind of stuff, this whole book is

01:23:27

talking about how to beat some of that. And so this is a very effective way to end it, I think,

01:23:33

where he's saying, whatever you got to do, just do it. And don't worry about anybody else.

01:23:37

Yeah, this whole symbol thing and attaching publicity to it, I get that people do that.

01:23:47

And I understand that, especially in your case, you assumed that you had to have some public

01:23:52

rationale for it. And when you've talked about your pins or mentioned, you've got a new pin.

01:23:58

You've mentioned that quite a few times whenever we've started an episode.

01:24:03

To me, it felt like you were always justifying your pins. But you don't have to do that. It's okay.

01:24:09

And that's totally on me, by the way. That's not you saying, well, what's your reason or excuse

01:24:17

this time? That's the soundtrack. It's like, well, you collect pens as trophies. What have you done

01:24:23

that's worthy of a trophy lately? Not much. I collect tools. If I collect anything, it's tools.

01:24:31

In some form or another, whether it's computer tools, because I love my audio tools and the stream

01:24:38

decks and I love all of my gadgets and stuff, but it's also translated into hammers and specialty

01:24:44

screwdrivers and power tools. I collect that sort of thing. And I can tell you, similar to your

01:24:52

pins, I can tell you what project I bought tools for and what I used it for and how that project

01:25:00

helped me do whatever it was to help somebody put stairs in their house or whatever it is,

01:25:10

build a China cabinet. Whatever that is, I know what those tools were used for. It's not a pin.

01:25:18

It's not a specific category, but it's this great big overarching thing that I tend to adopt.

01:25:25

But yeah, I always have a story for it, but I've never tried to justify it to anybody.

01:25:30

I've always had to try to justify it to myself. So I do that to me and I do it with my wife,

01:25:37

but it doesn't really go outside of that. So in my case, I feel like I'm okay there,

01:25:44

but that's kind of a symbol there. The part of this that I felt like I didn't have quite nailed

01:25:50

down is like, okay, if I'm going to put together a symbol for trying to be more positive with my

01:25:57

job, I don't really have a symbol for that. I don't know that I need one, but there's not one

01:26:03

currently. And to me, that's kind of the hard part with this is, okay, if I need to have a soundtrack

01:26:11

with a symbol attached to it, okay, it doesn't have to be one thing, but then the question is,

01:26:16

well, how many do you need, want? I mean, obviously it's subjective, but when are those lines drawn

01:26:24

and when do you put one in? When do you flip the switch as much as you do those things?

01:26:29

The dial joke. So like, where is that? I know, I know, but how do you dial a yes or no one

01:26:34

a symbol? I don't know, but like, that's the part that I kind of wondered about, but I don't have

01:26:39

an answer on that one. Like, I don't know where you put these in where you don't. I feel like that

01:26:44

wasn't necessarily clear. I don't know that it needs to be clear. It's just a question that I have.

01:26:49

Yeah, well, the tool thing, I want to speak to that real briefly, because I feel like it depends

01:26:54

on how public you are with your symbols and hobbies, whatever, but I feel like the battle

01:27:01

of justification happens in your mind first. And then like, if you had people coming over to

01:27:07

borrow your tools all the time and you had this really outrageous tool and they were kind of like

01:27:12

shocked that you had this thing, are you going to be like, oh, well, I bought that because I did

01:27:17

this thing. Would you feel that that pressure? Maybe, maybe not, but I feel like maybe with some

01:27:24

stuff, you just don't have the opportunity to share it publicly. And the minute that you feel

01:27:30

that you have to explain it publicly, that is a hint that you haven't resolved this in your own

01:27:37

head yet, because no one's putting pressure on you, but you, but you have to verbally externalize

01:27:43

the reasoning behind it. Yep. Like, that's what's surprising to me about this.

01:27:50

But I love the idea of symbols. I feel like this is something I'm fairly good at. I have,

01:27:57

I mean, so many things here in my office have some sort of motivational symbolism attached to it.

01:28:03

We did rhinoceros success a while back. I got my rhino right here.

01:28:09

You know, I have all of these things as visual cues to reinforce positive soundtracks, I believe, but

01:28:17

I feel like this stuff has a bigger impact than most people realize. I believe that it's important

01:28:25

for a long time. And so I've collected these things, but this was good validation for some of

01:28:30

that stuff. And at the end of the book, specifically, it's very effective in like reinforcing that

01:28:37

these soundtracks can switch from positive and negative or vice versa. So easily that you really

01:28:44

should be doing everything that you can to reinforce the positive ones. So just do what you got to do

01:28:50

and don't worry about explaining it to anybody else. Everybody's weird in their own way.

01:28:54

It's true. Mike's just weirder than I am. That might also be true.

01:29:00

Not true at all. I am definitely not. All right, let's talk about action items, shall we?

01:29:09

Sure. All right. So I have two of them. The first one comes from chapter,

01:29:19

let's see, where was it? Chapter three. And that is to identify my turn down techniques,

01:29:24

which is something we didn't talk a whole lot about. But those are just specifically tactics

01:29:28

that you can use to lower the negative voices in your head. He listed a couple of them. One of them

01:29:34

for him was running. He's even more of a crazy runner than I am. But that is one for me as well.

01:29:40

I want to identify the other ones that I use or can potentially use. And then the second one

01:29:49

comes from chapter seven, the zig-zigler one. And I want to ask myself, am I focusing on the problem

01:29:55

or the solution? Because I tend to get stuck in the problems. And I want to shift and talk about

01:30:01

solutions. Do you have any action items from this book? I have a couple. Yeah. One comes from

01:30:09

the chapter, don't fight it, flip it, chapter six. And to try to notice some of these that I

01:30:17

tell myself and flip them on their head, I don't know how to, like this is going to be a bank of

01:30:23

these, like I don't know how you hold accountability on these things. But there are a lot of things I

01:30:28

tell myself regularly that I need to flip. And I don't even remember which chapter it was, but he

01:30:34

talked about how like we can have these soundtracks about certain things or people even. Like every

01:30:40

time a certain person comes up, you'll have a soundtrack that you'll tell yourself about that

01:30:44

person, which may or may not be true or accurate. And at least not 100% accurate. So like trying to

01:30:50

flip that would be really, really helpful in many cases. So that's that's one that I've got is like

01:30:56

just trying to pay attention to these things and flip them. And the other one is I just, I want to

01:31:02

try to think through this whole symbol concept. If my theory is true, and I have made my brain

01:31:11

focus on solving problems and looking for problems, as opposed to seeing future positive,

01:31:19

I don't even know what term to use there for my job. Like whatever that is, like I feel like

01:31:24

if that's true, then I probably should listen to John a little bit more. And I am going to try

01:31:32

to start some of that process just to kind of test that ground. But I feel like putting a couple

01:31:37

symbols in place to help remind me of that would be helpful. I don't know what those are

01:31:42

quite yet, but I'm going to try to locate at least one for our next recordings, something that would

01:31:49

help me just remember to flip some of those soundtracks when it comes to my day job. But again,

01:31:56

I'm not real sure what that is yet. So there you go. Those are my two. All right. Well, let's talk

01:32:01

about style and rating, shall we? Sure. So this was my book, I will go first. And I will start by

01:32:10

saying that John a cuff has a very unique style. You will either love it or hate it.

01:32:17

Very quickly too. Yeah, I don't think I loved it.

01:32:23

And you kind of mentioned this with his social media presence. He's kind of a funny guy. He tells

01:32:31

a lot of jokes. And if you like that kind of thing, then you're going to love his style. It's

01:32:39

very easy and approachable to read. I will say that. But it ends up, for me, sounding

01:32:47

a bit exaggerated. In my mind, it makes the message less authentic. But I've never met him. So maybe

01:32:56

he really is just this crazy all the time. I don't know. I feel like the he's a good writer

01:33:05

and the imagery and the ridiculous situations that sometimes that he describes. Like they're

01:33:10

very effective in communicating the points and provoking the emotions that he's trying to draw

01:33:16

out from the reader. But it's a little over the top for me. I also, not a huge fan of the way the

01:33:23

book is laid out. I know we rail against the three parts. I kind of wish this book had parts,

01:33:29

though, like the 10 different chapters, just one right after the other very linear

01:33:34

in a progression. It felt weird, especially when there were chapters where it felt like

01:33:41

some of these ideas didn't carry nearly as much weight as some of the other chapters did.

01:33:46

It's like if you have them all listed separately and they're not lumped together,

01:33:51

they got to stand on their own. And some of them didn't feel like they stood on their own to me.

01:33:55

They're laid out pretty much the same way for every single one of these where he tells a story

01:34:02

at the beginning. Then he gets into his thoughts on whatever topic. And then there's a couple

01:34:07

listicle style points near the end, which is probably effective for a lot of people.

01:34:16

I found it very cookie cutter, though, and felt like he could have been a bit more,

01:34:25

maybe creative isn't the right word, but original with this. I don't know. He does a really good job

01:34:33

of running with the soundtrack metaphor, but maybe there's an opportunity, like I said,

01:34:38

with the musical stuff to frame it that way. This is Act 1. This is Act 2, that sort of thing.

01:34:43

But this is all really nitpicky stuff. I think the message of the book is pretty good. I do feel

01:34:50

like in terms of content, it's a little bit light for my taste. But I think part of that is

01:34:57

intended with the style. A lot of the stories, he's over the top with them, and that's intentional

01:35:06

because that's what people expect maybe from John Aikoff. And so if you're coming to this,

01:35:13

like I want to learn something, but primarily to be entertained, then maybe you get a different

01:35:19

reaction to it than I did. We've covered quite a few books on Bookworm that span the entire range.

01:35:26

There have been college textbooks dry boring, but really, really meaty ideas in there. And then

01:35:34

this one's all the way on the other end of the spectrum, where it's even beyond something like

01:35:38

the Patrick Lencioni Fables, I would say, in terms of he's trying to be funny and tackle a

01:35:44

serious topic at the same time, which is kind of John Aikoff. So if you are looking for that sort

01:35:50

of thing, then this is great. I mentioned at the beginning, we both thought we had covered a

01:35:55

John Aikoff book. We had not said a good or a bad thing. I think it maybe is a little bit of a

01:36:00

bad thing because once you hear a few jokes, you're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, this all sounds the same.

01:36:04

I think in terms of communicating a very powerful idea, that's not a good thing to leave your

01:36:14

audience with. Maybe that's not John's fault. Maybe that's my fault and your fault. And we've just

01:36:19

jaded because we've read so many boring nonfiction books. I don't know. This is definitely not my

01:36:25

cup of tea though. I'm going to rate this 3.5. I think for the right person, this is a great

01:36:31

introduction to the topic. I have since, like I said, finished a get book, which gave me more of

01:36:38

what I wanted on this topic and dove a lot deeper into it. And so it's not the subject matter that

01:36:45

I dock here. It's simply that John's style is not really for me. All right. Well, on my side,

01:36:53

he's just over the top. I think he just takes things too far for me. I have met him, actually.

01:37:01

He did a book tour somewhere nearby right after he finished releasing and doing all the things

01:37:09

with his book, finish. And I had read it and went to have it signed. So I actually have a signed copy

01:37:16

of finish. And he is just like that. Like that's just him. Like he's super funny. Like that's just

01:37:23

the way he is. And I could easily see him saying the words that he has in this book. And because of

01:37:34

that, it made it a little easier for me to read. But at the same time, I find myself like, okay,

01:37:39

like I know that he's playing games with words and it's fun and it's very light. And it's not a very

01:37:46

long book, honestly. And it's not super meaty. And one of the things that kind of bugged me about it

01:37:53

is that, and I haven't mentioned this, but at the end of his book, finish, talking about, you know,

01:37:59

tying books together. Thank you, Adler. At the end of his book, finish, he, I think it's in his

01:38:05

conclusion or afterward or something there, he makes the comment that he'll never write a book

01:38:10

again without having a doctor person or some scientist help him with the research and science

01:38:17

behind it. Like he would never write a book again without that because in finish, he does tons and

01:38:22

tons of science. He had a PhD that helped him run some studies for that book and it went really,

01:38:27

really well. And I thought he did a good job with it. He attempts to mimic that with this.

01:38:34

Maybe it's just me, but I felt like he threw out the PhD guy at the very beginning,

01:38:40

kind of left him aside until towards the end and then brought him back out again. And

01:38:45

like, that's the opposite of what I expected him to do. Because again, finish was his last book,

01:38:51

before this one. And because of that comment that he said at the end of finish, like,

01:38:57

to be honest, when you pick this, I was thrilled to death because like, I knew he was going to nail

01:39:03

the scientist side of this and have all of this background research. And I knew he was going to

01:39:09

have all the studies and he was going to follow through on all the data side of it. My brain like

01:39:13

thrives on that. And I got like none of it. So very underwhelmed by that part and kind of

01:39:20

frustrated that he didn't follow through on what I felt like was his claim at the end of his last

01:39:25

book. So I kind of have that in the back of my head here as well. And I'm kind of frustrated with

01:39:31

him over that. He does exaggerate things. He's trying to make a point and he loves to make a big

01:39:37

deal out of small things. And that's again, just his style. I don't know, he just didn't deliver

01:39:44

for me. And it's on a topic that I feel like I do a lot of, like I do a lot of overthinking.

01:39:50

And I felt like this was a good chance to help people with that. And I know that it has helped

01:39:56

a lot of people just seeing the comments that people make about this book online. Like, I know

01:40:01

that this book has helped a lot of people. I just don't think I'm one of them. I don't think this

01:40:06

is going to fit, you know, the broader scheme of the number of books that we've covered. Like,

01:40:10

I don't feel like this fits based on the science and stuff that we've we've had. Now, again, either

01:40:16

that's because I'm stuck in my ways and don't want to think about it this way because I don't like it

01:40:20

because it's actually striking a chord. Or I'm actually right. And there's not a lot here to stand

01:40:27

on. So anyway, all that to say, like, there are some positives here. I think it would be good for

01:40:31

some people. I don't feel like it's going to be a solid book for most just because of the

01:40:37

airiness that I find with it. So I think you rated it right 3.5. I think that's a good spot to land

01:40:43

on. Like, there's some small nuggets here and there that you can pick from it. You know, at this

01:40:47

point, we've kind of reached a point, Mike, where like, if you get one solid nugget out of a book,

01:40:51

the book was worth it. I'm glad I've read it. Like, I'm I'm certainly not saying that it was a bad

01:40:56

choice to read it. But I got my nuggets. Like, it's not anything amazing. It's not anything that

01:41:03

it's like, yep, that's a nugget that people absolutely have to pick up. Like, that's not the

01:41:08

case at all. So anyway, 3.5. I'll stay there. All right. So let's put soundtracks on the shelf.

01:41:16

What's next, Joe? Next, we're going back in time with William George Jordan in a book called Self

01:41:23

Control. It's kingship and majesty. This is considered one of the predecessors and instigators

01:41:30

of the whole self-help book category, I found, written in 1907. Have we done a 100 year old book yet?

01:41:38

Ah, good question. Thinking Girl Rich might be older than that, but I don't know.

01:41:43

Oh, yeah. Maybe. I don't remember. But anyway, this one goes back in time.

01:41:48

Has coming from the early 1900s, it's going to have a fairly strong religious

01:41:56

bent to it. I've started it and I don't feel like it's a super strong bent. So I think it's not

01:42:02

going to be like crazy churchy for an episode. But I'm excited to go through this one because there's

01:42:08

some language that's a little bit challenging at times, but I think it'll be fun. It'll be something

01:42:13

different for sure. It is different. I have this one. Yep. It's a short one too. It is. Yep. So anyway,

01:42:22

what's after that, Mike? After that is the one that I was teasing at the beginning. Blake wanted

01:42:29

to know before he had to take off from the live recording. And I said, this is the book you would

01:42:34

probably never expect me to pick. And that is another Oliver Berkman book, 4000 Weeks.

01:42:42

The subtitle is something like time management from your mortals. This one was recommended in the

01:42:48

club. And I've also heard from people who have said this is the best book that they have read this

01:42:54

year. So we're going to give it a shot. And I'm going to go into this with my Oliver Berkman

01:43:02

Prejudice. So change my mind, Mr. Berkman. Usually when you have that attitude, it's over a book that

01:43:13

I've selected. You selected the previous one. So yeah, I know, which is why I'm shocked that you

01:43:19

picked this one. So I've heard lots of good things about this book, to be honest, from multiple places.

01:43:24

So I kind of feel like I need to give it another shot and see if there's something here.

01:43:31

Sure. You got any gap books, Joe? I do actually. What do you got? It's been a long time since I've

01:43:37

picked up a gap book. But this is one that's been, I've seen a couple of local friends read this,

01:43:43

but it's called Take Back Your Family by Jefferson Bethke. And Jefferson, I saw, give a talk at

01:43:50

what's known as the D6 conference a few years ago. And that is one of, well, that conference and

01:43:58

his talk is what set my wife and my family on the path of doing our Sabbath dinners on Saturday

01:44:04

nights. That's what instigated all of that. And having seen that this is a book he put out,

01:44:10

I'm super curious to see what he talks about in it. Thus, my goal is to, before our next go at this,

01:44:18

read that in our bookworm book, considering they're both kind of short. So there you go. Joe finally

01:44:23

has a gap book. Nicely done. Yeah, what's yours? Mine is the book that I had intended to pick

01:44:31

for next time, but I'm going to bump it to a gap book just because it's continuing on this

01:44:38

theme of self-talk and positive thinking. That is Thanks by Dr. Robert Emmons, who many people

01:44:47

consider to be the gratitude guy. He's the one who did all the research that shows that gratitude

01:44:52

can make you 25% happier. This is the book where that statistic comes from. I've heard about this

01:44:58

book before. And so I am going to read this one in my positive self-talk affirmation journey.

01:45:07

You like to binge topics, don't you? Not really. Just the theme here is that Mike recognizes,

01:45:15

I need a lot of work specifically in this area. But I think I do this too. A lot of us have

01:45:24

a tendency. If there's something I'm struggling with, I want to know all the things about it.

01:45:28

Tell me absolutely everything I could possibly know about feeding turtles because I now have a

01:45:33

turtle. I don't, but that is what came to my brain. So yes, tell me all the things about it.

01:45:41

Yeah, so that's kind of what I'm doing here. Cool. All right, I think we'll wrap it up there.

01:45:46

Thanks everyone who attended the lab recording. There's some great comments which spurred some

01:45:52

interesting conversations. So thank you for contributing. If you want to join us,

01:45:56

you can do that at youtube.com/bookwormfm. And the schedule usually comes out there first,

01:46:05

unless one of us has an emergency and we've got to move things. I also want to say thank you

01:46:10

specifically to the Bookworm Club Premium members who contribute financially every month to help us

01:46:15

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01:46:19

But the only way that this continues to be sustainable is because people like our members

01:46:25

continue to pay us five bucks a month or 50 bucks a year to keep the lights on. We try to give you

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some benefits in exchange for your money. One of the things we do is I take these book notes in

01:46:39

MindNote. I have these MindNote files from all the books that we read. And a lot of the gap books too.

01:46:43

And I upload those to the Bookworm Club. So you can go into if you're a premium club member,

01:46:48

you can go into the members section and download either the PDF files or the MindNote files if you

01:46:52

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01:46:58

that he recorded by himself a while back. There's a bookworm wallpaper that I designed. But really

01:47:04

the thing you get is our undying gratitude. That's not just something that we say we really do appreciate

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01:47:47

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01:47:51

absolutely. Bookworm.fm, there's a link in the menu there that'll get you to where you need to go

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01:48:02

support us. And if you are one of those amazing members who reads along with us, pick up Self-Control

01:48:07

by William George Jordan. And we'll cover that one in a couple of weeks.