Bookworm Transcripts

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Do you have a good Christmas mic?

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I did.

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Did you?

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I did.

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Ready for New Year's at the moment though, because it's the time of year when I get to

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tell everybody to don't make resolutions.

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I approve this message.

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Unlike Mike's claims of being the largest book club on the internet, and I disown that,

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Mike will claim this one.

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Awesome.

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Good job, Mike.

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Don't make a resolution.

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If you ever heard us say that, don't make a resolution.

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It's true.

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You just need to make tons of goals, right, Mike?

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Nope.

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Got it all wrong.

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Oh.

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New Year's resolutions are simply bad goals, but both of them are not the right approach.

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I would say this.

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If you're going to do anything at the new year, figure out one new habit to put in place

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that's going to happen daily.

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And if you're going to identify one new habit to put in place, it should be, read more books.

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Which should be second to listening to Bookworm.

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Well, that one's assumed that you have that, otherwise you're never hearing this, I guess.

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Okay.

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I don't know how we got on this, but this is Joe's brain on full speed ADHD.

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But we're not here to talk about New Year's resolutions goals habits, although that will

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probably happen frequently in the midst of this conversation about our book today.

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But before we do that, we have some follow up to jump into, Mike.

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And I have a question, at least you put two questions as an action item.

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And that means that I get to ask you these questions.

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How are you doing with your future chasing mindset?

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What are you doing about it?

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Well, I'm not really doing a whole lot about it.

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Just trying to go with the flow at the moment.

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Okay.

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Which shared some stuff with you.

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I'm kind of in the middle of a pretty big transition.

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And so I kind of have to take it a day at a time.

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But that has been good practice for me with this.

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But the spirit of this action item lives on, I think.

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The big thing, as I was thinking about this, in particular with my situation right now,

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is just with my family, with my kids specifically.

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I have shared before we've got the family core values.

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We kind of work backwards, identified the kind of relationship we wanted to have with

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our kids and established habits that would create that platform, things like that.

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And I'm happy that we did all that.

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I've talked a lot about the fruit that has come from those decisions that we made.

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But I also want to not do it in terms of creating a future outcome.

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I want to shift that focus a little bit more just to enjoying the moment.

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And I think that's like a really minor thing that needs to happen because I do enjoy taking

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my kids to the coffee shop when we do our one-on-ones and playing games and just hanging

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out together.

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But I think the little bit of a shift that needs to happen is like when I'm there, I'm

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just fully engaged with what we're doing.

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And I'm not so worried about watching the clock because I got to get back for the next

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thing.

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Like the most important thing at that moment is just being with them.

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And there's a balance there obviously because I got a show up to work.

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There's meetings I have to attend, et cetera.

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So I don't think there's a real clear like this is now done state associated with this.

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But it's been good for me just to kind of remind myself that this is the most important

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thing.

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Being there with my kids instead of thinking about the next thing that I have to be doing

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all the time.

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There's something I learned about our last book.

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And that is that it kind of infects your brain whether you realize it or not.

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I don't know if you had this experience, Mike.

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But whenever I'm thinking about what time do I get off work?

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What time are we going to do x, y, z?

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Are we going to do this before that?

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And if we're doing something that's setting us up for next week, should we be doing that?

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Or better yet, if we're going to make a decision on something to put off doing something now

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so that we could do it in two years, should we really be doing that?

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Like those seemingly innocent thoughts have infiltrated my brain many times a day even

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through this holiday season.

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It's just been nuts to me that I can't help but think about, no, that's really not that

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important in the long run.

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Really doesn't matter.

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I'm going to play with the dog instead.

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So there's that.

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Anyway, it sounds like you're having a similar opinion of it.

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Yes, yes I am.

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It was just that one specific application of it for me over the last couple of weeks because

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this is a little bit of weird timing for any sort of action item for me other than read

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more books because I haven't been working.

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So that whole aspect of who I am and my identity has been put on pause essentially with the

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exception of recording the occasional bi-weekly podcast here.

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So even though I haven't really done a whole lot, everything's just kind of been put on

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pause and hanging out with family and reading books, like I said.

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I cranked through.

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We were up in Door County for four days and I finished four books while we were up there.

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Nice work.

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Yeah, I did the opposite and ended up not reading like at all over the break.

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That's usually the way like you have one or two directions you can go with that.

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It's going to be multiplied one way or the other.

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Yes, absolutely.

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Well, I had a single follow up action item and that was to take the five questions that

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are at the end of last time's book, which was four thousand weeks.

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I took those five questions and created a monthly review template inside of Obsidian.

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This might be the first time I'm the first to bring up Obsidian.

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I created this monthly template and intend to ask those questions at the beginning of

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each month.

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I say that.

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I don't even have them up in front of me.

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My goal is to do that one or two days before the month begins because I generally end up

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deciding what big projects are going to happen that month.

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I feel like asking these questions prior to deciding what projects are going to take the

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forefront for the month.

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I just feel like that would put things in perspective a lot more.

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Haven't actually used it yet, but intend to here in the next day or two.

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We'll see how it comes through because as we're recording this, we're a couple days,

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three days before New Year's, three days, two days, something like that.

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Prior to the episode being released.

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Yes, it's not released yet.

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Where's that?

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But yes, I'm working through that process of how I'm going to do that monthly review.

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The weekly thing is non-existent.

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But monthly, I think I typically do in some form or another.

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That one I know all at least do.

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Nice.

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Yes.

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All right.

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That all said, let's jump into today's book, which is Thinking in Systems, which is a primer,

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is called out by Danella H. Meadows, or Donna, I believe, is how people refer to her.

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One thing to note very quickly about this one is that she passed away in 2001 and the

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book was published in 2008 because she wrote the first draft of it, but it wasn't actually

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finished and released and put together.

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I just want to call that out because there was another editor that helped put this together

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to actually get it released and that was Diana Wright.

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So although Donna's name is on the front cover, just be aware there's that element involved.

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So it's a little bit strange in some places because she's referencing things from like

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the late '90s or the turn of the millennium.

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Even yet the editing was done seven years later, or no, it would have been nine years later

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or something, something along those lines.

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I forget when she actually wrote the first draft, but it was a little bit weird just

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knowing that and working through it.

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Anyway, that's not super important.

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But the thing that I think is interesting about the book is that I've not really jumped

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into a book that thinks about systems in such an articulate way and the way that she lays

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out.

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So I think this will be a really interesting process because we're such systems, people

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inhabit people and routine people that breaking down systems into their component parts on

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a large scale I think is fascinating.

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And I'm excited to work through that with you here today, Mike.

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Well you say we are systems people, although having read this, I would argue we're not

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as systems people as we think we are.

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No, not at all.

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We think of ourselves as systems folks, but quote unquote systems thinking people.

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That's a whole different breed, apparently.

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We got a long ways to go.

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Yeah, we haven't scratched the surface.

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I didn't even under like, I understood it, but the basics at the very beginning was like,

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oh, hadn't thought of it that way.

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And I'm yeah, not a systems person apparently.

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Or at least you haven't gone to the school of systems thinking, which you mentioned that

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this book defines systems very articulately.

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I would argue that it defines systems very academically.

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This felt to me very much like a business textbook from my business school upbringing

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where the business books that I had to read when I was going for my undergraduate degree,

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they kind of fell into a couple different categories.

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One was just easy for me to grasp for whatever reason.

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And oh yeah, that is kind of like logical that makes sense.

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And the other one is like, this is all Greek to me, but I'm just going to stick with it

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and by the end of the semester, hopefully it all comes together and I pass the test.

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That's what statistics was for me specifically.

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This one felt like that for me.

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Yep.

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As much as I thought I understood systems and you've got inputs, you've got processes,

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you've got outputs right at the beginning with all of the definitions and things.

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Yeah, it puts it together in a way that felt very foreign at least initially.

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It did come together at the end and we'll talk about the specifics here, but I'm kind

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of curious for we dive into any of the content.

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How did this book get on your radar?

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What was the process you went through in selecting this book?

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Yeah, because having read it, I'm not sure I would have selected it.

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Where did this come from if not business school?

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Was not business school.

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Honestly, I was cruising around Amazon and I had a bank of books that I was debating

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selecting from.

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And then in the recommended list, this one popped up and I read the description for it.

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I was like, wait, systems thinking.

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I've heard that term and I know that it's a technical thing, but I thought it was going

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to fall right in line with what you and I normally do.

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And in my head, this was some overarching book that would help us, I guess, bring a lot of

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those systems and the way that they come about together.

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And I thought it would be really cool to see the overarching themes amongst systems and

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how they work.

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That's technically true.

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That is in here, but on a very different level and in a very different writing style than

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what I intended.

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So I'll say that.

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Anyway, all that to say, it was an Amazon recommendation.

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All right.

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Interesting.

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Which usually serves me decent, but Amazon did me wrong in this case, I think.

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I think they did you wrong.

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It was just interesting.

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Typically, they recommend other books that are similar to the ones that you've read.

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And this is not similar to any of the other books that we have read.

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And so it just felt a little bit like an outlier in terms of bookworm, at least.

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So it's kind of curious how it got on your radar.

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Yeah.

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That's why I say Amazon did me wrong because I feel like it doesn't fit in the category

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of what we normally do.

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And especially not in the category of what I've bought historically.

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So I don't know.

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Good job, Amazon.

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Not that there's anything wrong with that?

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No.

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So, no.

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Yeah.

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So yes, if we jump in here, let's go to part one.

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So this is a three part book.

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Surprise, surprise.

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We know that that's okay in some cases.

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Not always, but I think it's okay in this case.

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But part one is system structure and behavior.

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And the very beginning of that is, as you would expect, the basics.

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And this is where she starts laying out some definitions of things.

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And she uses some terms here that give me trouble throughout the rest of the book just

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because of her choice in analogies.

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It's not wrong, per se.

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I just struggled with it because I have so many assumptions that jump around a mibrarian

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when you use these terms.

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And those terms are stock, inflow, outflow, and feedback loops.

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And I know of things like feedback loops, like you do something, you get feedback on

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it, and then you use that to decide what you're going to do next.

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And on and on we go.

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That part's fine.

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Inflow, outflow, I kind of get those.

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I have too much of water systems in my head, so all I see is pipes.

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Again, not necessarily bad.

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However, the choice of the word stock, or she uses resource sometimes, I get that that's

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probably one of the best terms she could probably use.

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If you're in an academic sense, I'm sure that they've thought this through in a lot

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of detail.

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But I can't help but see the stock market because I had an ag business degree, so I can't help

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but see stocks and funds and interest rates and bank accounts.

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I can't help but have that correlation with it.

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So whenever she's talking about fish in the ocean, and that's a stock, you're not wrong

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given the way that you've set this up.

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But what is the interest return on the fish in the ocean?

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That's what my brain starts to jump to.

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So I struggled with that one.

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That's my own personal thing.

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I don't know that everybody would struggle with that, but that's me.

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Did you struggle with this?

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Am I crazy?

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Don't answer that.

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Well, the term stock I think is a little bit cumbersome for me too.

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She defines it as elements of the system.

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You can see field count measure at any given time.

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And I feel like there's a lot of other terms you could use there which would make it a

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little bit more simpler to grasp.

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But maybe that's just differences in the last 20 years since this was written too.

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I don't know.

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The stock did feel a little bit weird to me, but once you grapple with that definition,

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I think it does make sense.

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You do have to normalize that first though before you get into any of the rest of the

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book because she talks about the things that go in and out of the stocks.

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She mentions that the presence of those stocks actually is what allows those inflows and

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outflows to be independent of each other, which I put in my outline.

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I thought that was a pretty important point.

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Just because you have something coming in doesn't mean that it's going to flow out at

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the exact same speed, ratio, whatever.

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And why is that?

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It's because there's this reservoir in the middle of the supplies that you've collected,

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the stock, that as she defines it.

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I like the idea of the feedback loops where the flows in or out are adjusted because of

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the changes to the stock itself.

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I like the definition of balancing loops versus reinforcing loops.

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So a balancing loop would be if you have a norm that the balancing loop would try to

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get to.

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So your house is cold, you turn on the thermostat and you get it back to a room temperature.

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A reinforcing loop on the other hand just keeps multiplying the thing that is there.

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It's like compound interest.

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So this is all in chapter one, the basics.

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And I thought this was actually a very, very good primer for systems and set the stage for

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me to feel like I have never understood this stuff at all in my life.

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That's fair.

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That's fair.

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I started thinking about during this part that there are so many processes that we go

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through with like, just take the simple stuff like calendaring.

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Whenever you have things come to you, it goes on to your calendar and then it passes in

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time.

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It's in and out.

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It's a system.

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And just simple things like that if you were to identify and label what has the inflow

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into your calendar.

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Obviously the outflow is time passing and then the event occurs and then it's gone.

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But the inflow, it could come from a lot of different places.

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It's on the edge of inbox theory whenever you've got inboxes and it's things coming to you

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and you're making decisions on them.

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If we translate it to that side of things, there's a lot of power I think in just being

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able to define it with these terms, like the inflow outflow piece from a specific, in

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this case it would be a program or a piece of information.

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So yeah, I mean it's kind of a cool way to think about it.

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So let's use that inbox as an example here to define these systems.

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And you can tell me if this is completely ridiculous.

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Probably, but that's okay.

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So your inbox itself, that is the stock, right?

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And when you go in and open your email application, you see the messages that are in there.

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The messages that are being sent to you, that is the inflow.

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The messages as they leave your inbox, so maybe the ones that get replied to and archived,

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that is your outflow.

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Finding something from somebody and clicking the unsubscribe button is a balancing loop

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towards inbox zero, assuming that's the regulated state of the inbox system.

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And clicking on that unsubscribe link from somebody who you don't trust and you never

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signed up for in the first place to signal that you are a human who checks their email,

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which will lead to more email is a reinforcing loop of a negative state in your inbox system.

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And you could also have multiple loops in here too.

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So for example, if we continue that, the reinforcing loop, as we've learned for every

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email you send, you're very likely to get one returned as well.

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So that is also a reinforcing loop at the same time.

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Do you see people on email is the ultimate reinforcing loop for a number of messages

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in your inbox?

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Yep.

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So many different ways you could take this.

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But obviously I think you get the point.

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When you've got the main stock, there's loops that dictate if more comes into it or more

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goes out of it, thus increasing or decreasing the amount of said stock.

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In this case, we'd be talking about email messages.

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Or if you just ignore it entirely, there is no outflow and it just continues to get bigger

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and bigger and bigger.

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Yep.

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Exactly.

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I don't know anybody who does that.

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I do.

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Sometimes.

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I know a lot of people, one's really close to me at the moment.

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So chapter two here, unless there's something else you want to say about the basics, because

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that's to me, that's the fundamental of what we just talked about.

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Now let's go to the zoo.

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Yeah, so chapter two here is a brief visit to the systems zoo.

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And she has a few different, I guess, setups or structures to look at.

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Because once-- and there's tons of diagrams in here.

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If you're watching the stream, you can see this somewhat.

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But there are a lot of these diagrams and it's kind of helpful to see these.

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It made me really want to figure out some way to draw these diagrams about some systems.

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Like take the email thing.

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That would be kind of interesting to try to figure out how that actually works in my

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specific case from a tool base.

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You kind of did this a while back with you had a whole structure of like your information

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in and out and storage places and such.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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Am I thinking about that wrong?

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It's actually not as tough as you think it is.

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I did do something like this.

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I did not do it left to right like she does in her diagrams.

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But I basically took all the sources of information and kind of followed through the whole application

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or resource flow before that information ended up somewhere where it would either be stored

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or action was taken upon it.

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I think I wrote that up on my blog.

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If I can find the link, I will put it in the show notes.

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But I do like the way that she classifies these things.

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And I did not redraw them, but I did take some pictures with my smartphone camera and

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put them in my mind node file.

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Nice.

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So I have a couple examples of these.

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I agree.

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Some of the ones that she uses are kind of weird.

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But again, I went to business school.

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So I'm used to weird organizational examples.

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These didn't really bother me.

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Did they?

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Sure.

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Were they understandable for you?

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Because I could totally see a normal person looking at these and be like, I don't know

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what to do with this.

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It was fine with me, but I also have a business background.

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So I don't know.

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I'm not often business and such.

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Like that's always been kind of my forte.

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So stuff like this is easy.

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We used to do some diagrams that were similar to this whenever I was doing some seed research,

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soybean seed research.

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But the diagrams, we'd have to put them on white boards because they were too big and

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too complicated to get them onto a single piece of paper.

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So this is easy compared to that.

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Sure.

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Anyway, we're talking about the systems zoo, these examples from a single stock system.

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I should have wrote these down ahead of time.

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But she's got a single stock system, some that are renewable stocks.

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So if you have a renewable resource, take trees.

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For example, what happens when you start working on that system where you've got say

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forestry, you're logging, making paper.

00:23:07

When you're doing those things, how does it impact the renewable because it can regenerate

00:23:12

itself and the more you do, the less it regenerates.

00:23:16

Fishing is the same.

00:23:17

What happens if you have two renewable resources, two renewable stocks in the same system?

00:23:23

Because that's the part that starts getting messy real quick, thus the zoo.

00:23:27

When you've got many of these systems starting to interact with each other, take the global

00:23:32

economy, make a diagram for that one, Mike.

00:23:35

That'd be fun.

00:23:36

But you get the point.

00:23:39

Yeah.

00:23:40

Try it to, yeah.

00:23:41

Yeah.

00:23:42

So there's a couple of basics here.

00:23:43

Maybe we should run through these and then I can share the examples that she used in the

00:23:48

book and how she starts combining these.

00:23:51

But that's where things really can get a little bit crazy.

00:23:55

So you think back to the first chapter and the definitions of the pieces.

00:23:59

There's an input, there's an outflow, there's a stock, and there are these feedback loops

00:24:06

balancing loops or reinforcing loops.

00:24:08

Those are kind of the LEGO bricks that comprise these systems.

00:24:14

But then they can be bigger from that.

00:24:16

And so in chapter two, she's got a whole section on one stock systems, which is starting with

00:24:22

a stock with two competing balancing loops.

00:24:25

And that's the thermostat example where the temperature inside the house, there's the

00:24:32

temperature outside the house.

00:24:33

There's the energy that's being burned to create the heat, things like that.

00:24:37

Then there's a stock with one reinforcing loop and one balancing loop.

00:24:41

That's the population example.

00:24:42

I think you mentioned fishing, but this also works with, and she talks about not just the

00:24:48

fishing example, but the global population example.

00:24:53

And I think the tree example you mentioned that is something she talks about there too.

00:24:58

Then there's a system with delays talking about any sort of business with inventory.

00:25:04

She talks about cars on a lot, for example.

00:25:07

And then there is a couple of two stock systems where you've got a renewable stock constrained

00:25:14

by a non-renewable stock.

00:25:16

And this is like an oil economy.

00:25:20

So you have capital that's being created, that's one stock, but then the other stock,

00:25:24

and this is the one that's non-renewable, is the resource itself.

00:25:27

And so you've got all of these different inflows outflows in this diagram.

00:25:32

I'm not going to try to explain how all the pieces tie together, but I think that's enough

00:25:38

for people to kind of wrap their head around.

00:25:40

Okay, so we have this capital we want to create, which is great, except that it's based on

00:25:44

this resource which we will eventually run out of.

00:25:46

So how do you balance those two things?

00:25:48

And then there is a renewable stock, which is constrained by a renewable stock.

00:25:52

So you can't necessarily make more oil.

00:25:55

You can raise more fish.

00:25:57

So this is the fishing economy.

00:25:59

You don't want to take all of the fish because then you have nothing to reproduce and grow.

00:26:05

So this is kind of constantly a give and take.

00:26:08

And then you measure it.

00:26:10

There are other factors that go into this, like the scarcity of the fish and certain fish

00:26:16

being worth certain amounts.

00:26:17

So fishermen at some level are incentivized not to catch all of the fish, because that

00:26:22

would drive the prices down, et cetera.

00:26:24

So these are all things that are happening all the time in the world around us.

00:26:27

And I feel like the examples, like I said, I had not a real hard time figuring out how

00:26:35

these things tied together.

00:26:37

If you don't have a business background, though, I think you look at some of these diagrams

00:26:40

and you're just like, I don't even want to touch this.

00:26:44

So I would encourage people, if you're really interested in this topic and you've listened

00:26:48

to the bookroom episode so far, that you're considering spending some time with this,

00:26:55

spend enough time in order to actually grasp the concepts.

00:26:59

Because if it's not presented in a way that you're familiar with, it might take you a

00:27:03

little bit of time to kind of rock what's really going on here.

00:27:06

But once you do, it's all kind of exponentially replicated pieces.

00:27:12

And once you understand the basic components, which really aren't that tough, then you can

00:27:15

see how they can kind of be put together.

00:27:18

There was a story in our last book about, I believe it was the author, was not, he didn't

00:27:24

consider himself handy, like he wasn't mechanically inclined and struggled to fix things on his

00:27:30

own.

00:27:31

And he had a friend whose emergency brake locked up on his car and he went to help figure out

00:27:39

what was going on with it.

00:27:41

And he had learned that a lot of handyman repair mechanics, like they spend a lot of

00:27:47

time just looking at things before they actually start fixing.

00:27:52

And he took that chance to just look over the emergency brake and found something very

00:27:58

simple, was able to fix it and put it back in place.

00:28:01

Because he took the time to just look it over.

00:28:04

I've noticed like that's something I do a lot.

00:28:06

I didn't realize that I did that.

00:28:08

But that story struck me in that book.

00:28:10

Apparently that book's going to be one that I think I reference a lot.

00:28:13

I've learned that probably warranted to be a double five oh if you haven't listened to

00:28:17

that episode you need to go listen to it.

00:28:19

But I found that when something's wrong with a computer car house something, I spent a lot

00:28:25

of time looking at it before I ever act on what I find.

00:28:29

And I didn't realize that I did that at all.

00:28:32

These charts and graphs are like that.

00:28:35

Anytime you have diagrams like this where they have a lot of moving parts and there's

00:28:38

a lot going on like this.

00:28:40

Again, if you're on the live stream you can see this picture here.

00:28:44

Like there's a lot happening there.

00:28:47

But if you take the time and just kind of look at each individual piece and try to figure

00:28:53

out what it means, I think you'll start to get your head around the whole thing.

00:28:58

Because like this thing is complex, can be if you just glance at it.

00:29:02

But the like the component parts are pretty easy to grasp though.

00:29:05

You just have to put them all together.

00:29:08

Exactly.

00:29:09

Exactly.

00:29:10

And I understand a few key concepts associated with these parts as well.

00:29:15

So one of the things about a system, these feedback loops is that they only influence

00:29:23

future behavior which makes sense.

00:29:26

And then any sort of feedback loop, if you think about the systems in your own life,

00:29:30

there's most likely going to be some sort of delay between the action and the information

00:29:38

that it generates as feedback.

00:29:41

And then you translating that feedback into, well, this is what I should do to accommodate

00:29:47

for those results.

00:29:48

So changing the length of that delay in the feedback loop can make a large change in the

00:29:54

behavior of the system.

00:29:57

And then the other thing that's worth calling out I think in this chapter is that when you're

00:30:01

considering non-renewable resources, the limitation there is the stock.

00:30:09

But when you are considering renewable resources, then the thing that is limiting is the flow.

00:30:17

If you have something that you can renew, then it's just limited by how quickly it passes

00:30:23

through the pipes you mentioned.

00:30:26

The running water is the thing that you thought of at the beginning.

00:30:29

I actually think that's not a terrible way to think about these systems is water passing

00:30:34

through those pipes.

00:30:36

Because you're going to have bigger pipes which are going to have a whole bunch of water

00:30:41

go through them.

00:30:42

You're going to have smaller pipes which are going to constrain it.

00:30:44

And yeah, that's a pretty basic example I think.

00:30:48

Obviously, there's a lot more to it, but everybody can kind of wrap their head around.

00:30:51

That sort of thing.

00:30:52

I even remember an App Store game that came out a long, long time ago when App Store was

00:30:57

just becoming a thing where that was the whole goal of the game was to get the water to flow

00:31:02

through the pipes in the specific direction and connect them in the right way so that

00:31:05

they ended up where you wanted the water to end up completely forgot the name of it now.

00:31:11

It's probably called pipes.

00:31:13

The way they named some of those games is amazing.

00:31:18

But yeah, no, you're right.

00:31:21

I mean, if you think about inflows and outflows, you're absolutely right.

00:31:25

Because some pipes are bigger than others.

00:31:29

Some have more volume coming through those pipes than others.

00:31:32

So it's a faster inflow at times.

00:31:35

So yeah, I mean, it makes sense.

00:31:37

I just, my brain translates weird things.

00:31:40

That's all.

00:31:41

So yes, the system's zoo.

00:31:44

It's basically a set of examples with the charts to go with to help you understand them

00:31:50

in more detail.

00:31:52

And I think that's super helpful.

00:31:54

Especially you start looking at the loops and start introducing things like delays into

00:31:59

those feedback loops.

00:32:02

And as you introduce those delays, it can cause the oscillations in the stock levels

00:32:10

to vary widely.

00:32:11

Or if you're good at controlling it and slowing things down, you can normalize it a little

00:32:16

bit more.

00:32:17

But it's messy, regardless, because you don't have all the information in most cases.

00:32:23

But you can't predict the future.

00:32:25

That's a lot of what this gets to is you can't always predict what is going to happen.

00:32:29

You can predict how it happens and make guesses as what's going to come out of that system.

00:32:36

But especially the higher the scale at which you step these systems into and start to evaluate

00:32:42

them, the more volatile they become.

00:32:44

We'll talk about that a little bit later when we get into like, why systems surprise

00:32:50

us and the traps and stuff that go with them.

00:32:52

Right.

00:32:53

You mentioned oscillations, by the way.

00:32:55

And that's a concept that comes up in here too.

00:32:58

Because you can look at the data that you get from a system in any sort of time frame.

00:33:06

And it can be hard to account for the oscillations.

00:33:11

If you're measuring the number of cars sold one week, maybe you only sell two.

00:33:16

And the next week you sell 32 and you can't just average that out.

00:33:20

You got to recognize the oscillations there, how far those are from the average.

00:33:26

And then the way to really figure that out is to extend the timeline.

00:33:29

So you are looking at a larger piece instead of a specific week.

00:33:34

You're looking at months or even quarters or years.

00:33:37

But then you take into account that you want to know this specific week because there's

00:33:41

value in the weeks as well.

00:33:43

You might find that the week before Christmas, you never sell any cars.

00:33:47

Or you might figure out that the week for Christmas is when you sell the most cars.

00:33:51

So there's a lot of different ways that you can slice this in any one of them is not necessarily

00:33:55

right or wrong.

00:33:57

But you got to be able to figure out how these things tie together so you can figure out those

00:34:00

oscillations, which was kind of an interesting concept I thought.

00:34:04

Yep.

00:34:05

If we go into part two, chapter three, it's why systems work so well.

00:34:11

So part two is systems and us.

00:34:14

So we've gone through system structure with the basics.

00:34:17

She's shown us some examples and now we're kind of stepping into what do you do about

00:34:20

it and how do you impact these things.

00:34:23

And this chapter, why systems work so well, she's got a few, this is it, I think this

00:34:28

might be the shortest chapter in the book, but she's got a few like terms and stuff here

00:34:33

for why these work out.

00:34:35

One of which, the first of which is resilience, which is basically whenever you start terming

00:34:40

it in the world of the systems thinkers, it comes to the point that you have these feedback

00:34:46

loops and you have a feedback loop in that system that helps it regenerate itself back

00:34:53

to where it was previously.

00:34:56

So as it's used or as it's impacted, it naturally takes itself back to where it started.

00:35:03

And one of the examples that she has here is the human body and as it is influenced by,

00:35:10

say, an outside invader, take a common cold, as that cold is impacting you, there's some

00:35:16

form of an external invader trying to make its way into the human system, your body will

00:35:21

fight that off and try to return itself back to where it was before.

00:35:25

It has its own system and process for bringing itself back to where it was before.

00:35:31

So thus, it's resilient.

00:35:33

At least, I think that's fascinating.

00:35:36

Resilience is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot and we even read a book,

00:35:41

Grit, which was kind of talking about that specific topic, but it's not necessarily just

00:35:50

the ability to withstand change.

00:35:54

It's basically how quickly you can go back once you've been bent out of shape, which

00:35:58

is two very different things I feel.

00:36:01

And I'm glad that she mentioned that in this particular chapter because I think it's easy

00:36:09

to confuse being able to withstand outside pressure and resiliency and being able to

00:36:16

withstand outside pressure could also be what she defines as static stability.

00:36:21

And that could just mean that the system hasn't been tested yet.

00:36:24

And I feel like there are lots of times where we feel like we have passed some sort of test,

00:36:30

but really we haven't been tested.

00:36:31

And so that is not resiliency, even though maybe we think it is.

00:36:35

It's just static stability.

00:36:37

And then when you find the right stressor, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

00:36:44

So I don't have any sort of practical advice for how to tell which one is which, but I

00:36:48

think it's important to recognize that just because something has been successful doesn't

00:36:52

mean that it is in fact resilient, it could just mean that it hasn't gone through the

00:36:57

ringer yet.

00:36:58

Take people's task management systems.

00:37:00

That's probably a good example of this.

00:37:02

Sure.

00:37:03

Where people track tasks.

00:37:05

You have your info of tasks, it's up to you to choose who's able to put tasks on that

00:37:09

list, whether it's yourself or you specifically grant other people access to that.

00:37:16

Doesn't matter.

00:37:17

But somehow you have an info of tasks coming into the system.

00:37:20

And you probably have a good way of organizing those so that you can see what it is you need

00:37:25

to do when and making decisions on that.

00:37:29

That's fine.

00:37:30

But that system may fail and you will find yourself looking for a new tool when it's

00:37:36

tested in a new way.

00:37:38

Take the COVID pandemic, you know, whenever so many people started working from home,

00:37:43

that completely wrecked many task management systems because so many people had things

00:37:48

set up around the world and culture of running into people at the coffee machine or at lunch.

00:37:58

Like you would run into people and that would dictate what tasks you ended up having on your

00:38:04

plates and what ones you would put towards the top and even how you manage them because

00:38:09

you would have them set up in different lists depending on meetings and, you know, different

00:38:14

agenda items and such.

00:38:16

So when you're working from home and you don't have any of that, all of that organization

00:38:20

goes out the window and it doesn't matter anymore and you got to start over.

00:38:25

And a lot of people say, well, my tool doesn't work for this.

00:38:27

I got to find a new tool.

00:38:28

Well, that's not necessarily true.

00:38:30

You're not thinking about it the same way anymore.

00:38:33

So that outside stressor of a new work environment is absolutely something that completely changes

00:38:39

that whole system.

00:38:40

Yeah, and if you want to take that example a little bit further, you could identify the

00:38:46

task management system in a way as a stock.

00:38:51

It's a collection of the tasks that you need to do.

00:38:55

So you swap out the stock, the app that you're using in order to collect and surface the

00:39:01

things that you should be thinking about doing.

00:39:03

But you haven't touched any of the inflows or outflows.

00:39:07

And so it doesn't matter.

00:39:09

At some point, those are going to catch up and the system is going to break.

00:39:13

Yeah, part of me wants to take at least my task management.

00:39:17

Maybe I should make this an action.

00:39:18

I don't really want to do this, but I would like it to be done.

00:39:22

But I would love to see a diagram of my own task management inflow outflow structure.

00:39:29

Like I would love to see that system.

00:39:31

But the problem is like I'm not real sure what all the influencers are on that.

00:39:36

So it would definitely have to be one of those iterative deals.

00:39:38

Like as you find things, you'd have to update it.

00:39:41

That's why you got to do it because you don't know what they are.

00:39:43

Thanks Mike.

00:39:44

Thanks Mike.

00:39:45

Appreciate that.

00:39:46

All right.

00:39:47

I'm going to write it down.

00:39:48

You talk.

00:39:49

I'm going to write.

00:39:51

The other two pieces here for why systems work so well, there's like three characteristics

00:39:56

she identifies.

00:39:57

We just only see the first one.

00:39:58

The other two are self-organization and hierarchy, which I thought those were interesting.

00:40:03

Hierarchy seems to be one of those things that you generally don't want.

00:40:09

We want to eliminate the hierarchy.

00:40:10

We want everything to be a level playing field.

00:40:12

Yadda yadda yadda.

00:40:13

But when it comes to a system that's actually a bad thing because what you have with a system

00:40:19

is a whole bunch of subsystems, smaller things that could be classified as systems.

00:40:23

And they're all interconnected.

00:40:26

And so what happens if you don't have this hierarchy is that you have some subsystem

00:40:31

with a goal way down on the food chain and that one ends up dominating and it affects

00:40:35

everything else.

00:40:37

I think, I didn't think about this ahead of time, but I think there's an example to be

00:40:42

drawn here in terms of the body recovering from injury where you can like overcompensate

00:40:49

for a pulled muscle or something because that's where the pain point is.

00:40:53

And that's the one that's screaming and everything in your body is trying to fix that one thing

00:40:57

that's wrong.

00:40:58

And so what ends up happening is if you pulled a muscle in your right leg, you overcompensate

00:41:02

and you hurt your left leg or vice versa, whatever.

00:41:07

That's an example of some optimization, but I think it applies to really any sort of system

00:41:12

that you can think about.

00:41:13

It happens in businesses, happens in families, happens in churches probably.

00:41:18

I mean, that's the beauty about this system stuff and why I find this topic so fascinating

00:41:24

is they are literally everywhere.

00:41:26

There's no part of your life that you're like, okay, I buy in all the systems stuff except

00:41:31

for right there where it's junk.

00:41:33

It doesn't work that way.

00:41:35

Yeah, the hierarchy piece is one that I find myself gravitating towards that one quite a

00:41:41

bit because it's what I was talking about earlier, right?

00:41:43

Where everything is a system and they start to impact each other.

00:41:46

And there's a little fable that she has in here.

00:41:49

I don't know if she wrote it.

00:41:50

I had not seen it before, but it was about two watchmakers who both made roughly the

00:41:55

same watch, sold them for about the same amount and had the same number of pieces that went

00:42:01

into a watch.

00:42:02

However, one of those watchmakers was becoming quite rich.

00:42:06

The other was quite poor.

00:42:08

And it was primarily because the one who was poor would start building the watch but had

00:42:15

to build them in their entirety before they were completed.

00:42:18

And if they ever stopped, it would fall apart and they'd have to start over, right?

00:42:22

Yep.

00:42:23

So if you don't call with someone asking, "Hey, how's my watch going?"

00:42:26

You just wrecked that whole period and he's got to start all over.

00:42:30

However, the watchmaker who was rich had figured out that he could make subassemblies of 10

00:42:36

parts.

00:42:37

So he simply had to make that, set it aside and go make the other 10 part subassembly

00:42:43

and then put those subassemblies together.

00:42:46

So he was doing it in these subsystems, as you will, and start to put them all together

00:42:53

in the end.

00:42:54

Thus, he was able to complete quite a few more watches, thus selling more watches, thus becoming

00:42:59

more rich.

00:43:00

So that concept of building small pieces that then add up to the bigger, that's our habit

00:43:07

making.

00:43:08

If you really want to dive into that, the whole process of small things adding up to

00:43:12

something big, that's it right there.

00:43:15

The whole subsystems adding up to a bigger system.

00:43:18

And so many different places.

00:43:20

I feel like I could take this.

00:43:22

I think you get my point though.

00:43:23

The power of doing things in subassemblies that then add up to something bigger, it's

00:43:29

just astronomical.

00:43:30

I think we talk about it on this show all the time and yet many people don't do it.

00:43:36

And that's the precise thing they should be doing.

00:43:39

So please go do it.

00:43:40

Yet we don't do it.

00:43:42

Well, I suppose-

00:43:44

There's parts of our life where we do, but then there's always parts of our life where

00:43:48

we don't as well, and that's the thing about these systems and why when you talk about

00:43:54

habits, I agree with you.

00:43:55

That's really what this is all about.

00:43:58

But it's also not as simple as a lot of people profess to teach habits where just nail down

00:44:05

your morning and evening routine and you're good.

00:44:07

Like I agree, that's the place to start.

00:44:09

And that's going to provide the biggest bang for your buck if you have no habits at all,

00:44:13

that you are intentionally forming.

00:44:16

But once you do that, then you have to extend that to the rest of your day and everything

00:44:22

that you do.

00:44:23

I forget what the percentage is, but it's something like 90% of your day is done on

00:44:27

autopilot.

00:44:28

Those are habits, whether you realize them or you've crafted them intentionally or you

00:44:32

just do them by default, those are habits.

00:44:35

And so if you stop with just like a morning routine or evening routine, you're doing

00:44:39

yourself a disservice by trying to compartmentalize everything into that one little area.

00:44:45

And I think when it comes to my initial comment about, yet we don't do this sort of stuff,

00:44:50

it's easy to feel like we do when we compartmentalize it into one particular area because we look

00:44:56

at this one part of our life where we have been able to apply this and we say, there,

00:45:00

see I did it.

00:45:03

But if you're going to follow us around the rest of the day, you're going to find all

00:45:06

sorts of examples of places where it falls down.

00:45:09

I don't know anybody who's able to do it 24/7.

00:45:13

Every moment, every single day, even the ones who really have done a great job by any sort

00:45:19

of objective measure of crafting the life they want to live by this stuff, the truth

00:45:24

is that we all fail with it to some degree, which is actually really good news because

00:45:29

it means that there are always improvements to be made.

00:45:33

And when you think about improving a system, it doesn't require blowing the whole thing

00:45:38

up and starting from scratch.

00:45:40

Yeah, those diagrams can be confusing at first.

00:45:45

Your action item where you identify all your different inflows, there's going to be a bunch

00:45:49

of stuff on there.

00:45:50

But you'll find one or two things that are going to be easy for you to change and then

00:45:55

that's going to feel like a huge win once you start doing it.

00:46:00

And so you just constantly shorten that feedback loop and you make a change and you measure

00:46:05

what happened and then you figure out what you're going to do next.

00:46:08

It's actually very effective and I would argue a very motivating way to approach your life,

00:46:16

especially when coupled with the 4,000 weeks idea of being in the moment.

00:46:20

I feel like this is a really good spot to step into the next chapter because so the

00:46:25

next chapter is why systems surprise us.

00:46:28

And I say that it's a good spot because although we think we could figure all these systems

00:46:34

out and I know that we could nail down all the details, there's always something that

00:46:40

we didn't plan on that we weren't aware of and yet we don't always get the systems to

00:46:47

work the way we want them to because there's an outside force that then tricks us and then

00:46:51

we don't actually follow through on it.

00:46:53

Thus tasks don't get done.

00:46:55

So why systems surprise us?

00:46:58

And again there's a few points in here as far as like what is it that messes with the system

00:47:05

and we get outputs that we didn't plan on.

00:47:08

One of those is beguiling events.

00:47:11

Basically something happens you didn't know was going to happen.

00:47:15

A windstorm comes through and knocks a bunch of trees down.

00:47:19

Well guess what your stock of trees that you were going to sell next spring just went

00:47:24

down.

00:47:25

There you go.

00:47:26

You have an unexpected event.

00:47:29

Another one of these is a non-existent boundary because like we said systems impact each other.

00:47:35

So there's not some clean little box around that system and there's no other outside influences

00:47:42

on that stock.

00:47:43

Like that's why I was talking about this diagram of my task management system.

00:47:49

That would be really cool to see.

00:47:51

But there's no boundaries to how that actually happens so the inputs might be quite diverse

00:47:59

and I don't even have an awareness of what those are.

00:48:02

Like do you get my point?

00:48:03

It could be a lot of different things.

00:48:05

So as much as we try you can't know absolutely everything there is to know about a system.

00:48:11

Otherwise you could completely control the whole thing.

00:48:13

Well this is the reason you should do it to be honest because those boundaries do exist

00:48:19

in some way shape or form and that's the whole exercise is figuring out where those

00:48:23

boundaries are and where they should be.

00:48:26

Because one of the things she says in here is that boundaries are of our own making and

00:48:31

they should be reconsidered for each new discussion.

00:48:34

And you combine that I'll say ability or permission to create your own boundaries going back to

00:48:42

the Henry Cloud book.

00:48:45

You combine that with the bounded rationalism she calls it which is people making right

00:48:53

decisions based on information that they have.

00:48:56

So there'll be a lot of short term good decisions made but they're long term bad.

00:49:01

That's what a lot of email is.

00:49:04

Short term good long term bad clearing this out of my inbox not resolving anything creating

00:49:08

ten more messages that I have to deal with.

00:49:11

So all of these things actually I think are a compelling case for looking at where are

00:49:19

the boundaries currently drawn.

00:49:21

They're not simple and you can't draw a single boundary around an entire system but you can

00:49:27

probably push the boundary in certain directions based on the outcome that you want to see

00:49:34

happen.

00:49:35

Another thing that is really fascinating to me about this particular chapter is the three

00:49:42

truths that she mentions.

00:49:43

Number one everything we think we know about the world is a model.

00:49:47

Number two our models usually have a strong congruence with the world and number three

00:49:51

our models fall short of representing the world fully why we make mistakes and we are

00:49:55

regularly surprised.

00:49:57

And if that doesn't harken back to the great mental models I don't know I mean you may

00:50:04

as well just put up a big neon sign saying go read this other book because I feel like

00:50:11

those three points lead perfectly into what we discussed in the great mental models volume

00:50:17

one but she doesn't redo any of it.

00:50:20

She kind of like tiptoes up to the front of it and says yeah all these models are the

00:50:24

map is not the territory basically and that's why we get surprised by systems and if you

00:50:29

really understand why you get surprised and you want to understand how these models really

00:50:33

work like that's the place I would point people to go next.

00:50:37

Yeah she even uses the phrase mental models in a few places.

00:50:40

Yep exactly.

00:50:42

So yes mental models is definitely there.

00:50:45

I think it's really hard to know like where to set these boundaries like this is even what

00:50:50

I've been trying to think about with this whole task management thing that you put on

00:50:55

me now.

00:50:56

Where do I draw the lines as far as what counts because there are so many places that things

00:51:03

come in like my own brain, email, looking I accidentally left my calendar open so then

00:51:11

I saw it for a split second and that triggered some memory like how do I even account for

00:51:15

some of this stuff like do you get what I'm saying like the limits on which you have

00:51:20

to put for this could be anywhere.

00:51:24

They could be.

00:51:25

So that's the trick like that that's part of the process right is where do you set those

00:51:29

lines.

00:51:30

Yeah so one of the things she mentions in this chapter also is that structure is not

00:51:36

only understanding what is happening but why and so as you are considering your inputs

00:51:42

you may have you know somebody at work who emails you sends you a message on Twitter

00:51:50

and sends you a text message all in an effort to get your attention as quickly as possible.

00:51:55

So there's a system there which isn't congruent with the goal of communicating information

00:52:04

that needs to be communicated very quickly and that can facilitate a conversation so

00:52:08

what are the types of things where you need to get a hold of me quickly.

00:52:11

You can identify this is the channel in order to do that and you may not have complete control

00:52:16

in saying this is the channel that you're going to use because you're lower down on

00:52:21

the food chain but that's okay because you can at least have the conversation then and

00:52:26

you could say well what's the your preferred tool and I'll make sure that I have that

00:52:31

available and it's not going to 100% create the working environment maybe that you want

00:52:37

to function under but you can move in that direction you can move that boundary a little

00:52:42

bit and I feel like you know talking about the working from home example and the hierarchies

00:52:48

there were a lot of people lower down on the hierarchies who that was miserable because

00:52:52

now they're in meetings all day and then they're expected to get their 40 hours worth

00:52:56

of work done and the sea levels think that this is great because they can just have these

00:53:02

meetings all day and delegate all the work and it'll get done but after a couple months

00:53:06

when everybody's all fried up because they can't get the things done that they need to

00:53:10

get done you know they're they're burning out and they're they're leaving then you realize

00:53:16

that oh this one subsystem has kind of dominated the whole system and actually this is really

00:53:20

bad for everybody involved don't hide that stuff you know if you realize that there's

00:53:25

some tension and some conflict there easy for me to say this is one of my action items

00:53:30

not too long ago lean into the conflict right but when it comes to making changes to systems

00:53:37

this is what you've you've got to do you've got to shorten that feedback loop you got to

00:53:40

figure out okay so what is the real goal of the system what do we want it to do if it's

00:53:44

functioning perfectly you know what what does this look like and then what are the things

00:53:49

that are inhibiting it from from doing that it's usually not tool based it's usually information

00:53:54

based and so where are the the bottlenecks for that that information and how do we make

00:53:59

sure that it flows in the most efficient and effective way this is where I think it would

00:54:04

just be really cool to see some charts like I wish there was some way to have this stuff

00:54:08

automatically generated but alas there's not that's fair this is why mike's telling me

00:54:13

to make one yes that's do it alright so let's go into the last chapter of part two system

00:54:20

traps and opportunities and this is kind of I felt like this was similar to why systems

00:54:28

surprise us in chapter four but it's also like some potential loopholes in the process

00:54:33

that you got to watch out for and one of these that she mentions it's right at the very beginning

00:54:39

of this is policy resistance fixes that fail and when you have humans involved in your system

00:54:46

hey guess what they think and make decisions for themselves and when that happens and you

00:54:54

set a policy that you're expecting them to follow a lot of times they're gonna push back

00:55:00

it's probably rare that they don't push back take the code it's true it's true mask mandates

00:55:06

vaccine mandates what happens lots of people push back because of it so anyway her her

00:55:12

point here is actually let it be don't try or try to be super smart and do the opposite

00:55:19

and because then it'll happen almost like a you know bait and switch of sorts I felt

00:55:23

like but not actually but anyway just be aware that like this is one of the traps whenever

00:55:28

you set this in places if you set up rules and boundaries for a specific set of people

00:55:36

in here like if it's a being that's going to make decisions or a system that's gonna

00:55:41

make decisions for itself just be aware it's going to push back in some form it has its

00:55:45

own thinking processes to go through yeah I love this chapter and I love all the different

00:55:51

examples that she shares here I don't think we're gonna go through all of these but basically

00:55:56

what she says is this is a problem with the system or an archetype that's a system that

00:56:00

produces a problem and then she presents a solution so with policy resistance basically

00:56:06

what ends up happening is you have two subsystems with competing goals I want this the other

00:56:11

person wants that and so we're butting heads all the time and in that situation the natural

00:56:17

reaction is to think well I can't let the other person get their way because if I do

00:56:22

then they're gonna get their result it's gonna negatively impact me except it's gonna be ten

00:56:26

times bigger than my brain can possibly imagine so this is absolutely something that I should

00:56:33

fight to the death for and she's basically says that when you let go it doesn't produce

00:56:38

that crazy scenario that you predict so I feel like this is perfect for talking about

00:56:43

the example that I was just sharing in the previous chapter of you having those conversations

00:56:47

with people because this policy resistance this is one of the prime ways I think that

00:56:51

you could think like I really have to fight for my way to do this thing and yeah you can

00:56:56

ask for your way to do something but even if you aren't able to say you know this is

00:57:01

the way I want to be communicated to if you have a boss is calling all the shots and you

00:57:05

have to say well fine I'll let you text message me or you can email me with these particular

00:57:11

things and in the back of your head you're thinking oh this means he's gonna email me

00:57:15

he's gonna text me a hundred times a day it's not gonna be that bad and so the most effective

00:57:23

way to deal with this is to obviously align the goals of the subsystems but even if you

00:57:27

can't don't freak out I would argue there's still gonna be some net good that comes from

00:57:32

having those conversations and all these other kind of problems that systems encounter

00:57:39

the same general advice typically can be applied you've got the tragedy of the commons where

00:57:46

there's an escalation or growth in a commonly shared rotable environment you got the drift

00:57:50

to low performance escalations where you're constantly upping the ante she's the example

00:57:56

negative campaigning which I liked competitive exclusion addiction rule beating seeking the

00:58:03

wrong goal I feel like these are all things that are great to have a collection of in

00:58:12

your notes and then the next time that you are considering a system that is failing asking

00:58:17

yourself why is this failing and just trying to plug these things in there and figuring

00:58:22

out oh this is actually what's what's happening and then from there you can kind of identify

00:58:27

the the fix because the fix is not going to be just do whatever you think is right in

00:58:33

the moment that's actually going to make a lot of these problems worse you have to fight

00:58:36

against that by recognizing the actual system and the forces that are at play there.

00:58:42

This is one of the things that we're always I feel like we come back to this a lot but

00:58:46

thinking slow versus thinking fast like that concept yep was it Daniel Kahneman with the

00:58:54

processes that you need to go through right now with these decision making processes like

00:59:00

what you're talking about Mike a lot of times it requires you to take a step back and think

00:59:05

it through for the long term because we are prone to making decisions for that short term

00:59:10

and we really want to decide quickly like that's the thing that I talk about all the

00:59:14

time that I do I make decisions very quickly and that doesn't necessarily mean that the

00:59:20

decisions I'm making are best case for the long term it means it solves things in the

00:59:24

short term very quickly most of the time I tend to do things long term very quickly

00:59:31

as well but not as accurately I would say and it's really tough to make some smaller

00:59:38

decisions that have a long term effect take for example when you get up in the morning

00:59:44

what's the first thing you do stereotypically people grab their phone and check their phone

00:59:49

right away is that the best thing you could do for yourself long term it's a pretty decided

00:59:54

no no matter what study what person you talk to regardless it's a bad habit like I don't

01:00:03

really know if anyone says that that's a good habit the only exception being people

01:00:07

who are grabbing their phone to turn the alarm off and then set it back down immediately

01:00:11

without doing anything else you're the exception I don't really know anybody yeah I don't know

01:00:15

anybody who does that me either so that is a decision that we make in the short term that

01:00:21

has a long term negative effect but trying to make a decision for the long term in the

01:00:27

moment is crazy hard I think and trying to slow your thinking on that requires you to

01:00:34

think ahead of what could happen like if I'm going to have the tendency to check my phone

01:00:39

first thing in the morning maybe I should put it somewhere else or get it away from me

01:00:45

like this is this is what I do like I have my phone beside my bed because mine's the

01:00:49

one that's kind of considered like the emergency phone even though I'm not sure what the emergency

01:00:54

would be that I need to be got a hold of in the middle of the night but I don't check

01:00:59

it right away because my wife is still in bed so I'm not going to turn it on because

01:01:02

it's going to light up the room so I unplug it and I go downstairs and I drop it on the

01:01:06

kitchen island as I'm headed to the bathroom so then I don't even have an option to check

01:01:11

it in the morning like I have to preemptively do that because I'll end up checking for email

01:01:17

if you see what's newest on Twitter like none of this is helpful but that's the short term

01:01:23

brain trying to to take over there because I'm focused on in that case it would be like

01:01:28

the wrong goal concept I guess is what that would be like trying to the whole FOMO I don't

01:01:33

want to miss out versus doing things that are helpful to my brain in the morning that's

01:01:38

that's kind of where I see that going or addiction maybe yeah it could be it could be yeah for

01:01:43

sure because addiction is a is a quick solution to the symptom of the problem which the real

01:01:48

problem for most people who reach for their phones first thing is they want to know what

01:01:54

is going on and maybe that is social media I think a lot of people who get stuck in this

01:02:01

though it's email because the belief is I want to know what I'm walking into when I get to

01:02:08

the office which sounds completely legitimate until you actually start measuring the outputs

01:02:16

from the systems and you can't really see the negative output that that's creating in

01:02:22

your emotional state by by doing that by being always connected so it's easy to downplay

01:02:29

the actual cost of something like that but so that the fix in that scenario take the focus

01:02:36

off of the short term relief put it on the long term restructuring again there's these

01:02:40

aren't necessarily easy solutions but I think they are important again models for things

01:02:47

that could go wrong with these systems actually the place to jump in is probably in the next

01:02:53

chapter with the the leverage points so yeah so part three is where we're jumping into creating

01:03:01

change in systems and in our philosophy the natural inclination here at least this is

01:03:09

my gut reaction is once you have systems like this identified and you start to understand

01:03:13

the inflows and outflows okay how do I tweak that how do I adjust some of that so that I

01:03:19

get a different outcome how do I make sure that that stock is increasing or decreasing

01:03:25

how do I get my stock of email to get down to 15 a day instead of 1500 a day like how

01:03:32

do I do that and that brings us to chapter six which is leverage points places to intervene

01:03:41

in a system and she has 12 points in here in a list that are just indicators of these

01:03:48

are things that you could tweak on a system that are going to make its inflows and outflows

01:03:54

the stock levels all of that is going to adjust introducing or removing some of the loops like

01:04:01

all of those are places that you could adjust but yeah I mean that's that's just really the

01:04:05

point here is like there's a lot of different ways you could do this the the main key here

01:04:09

is like knowing how to do that and just remembering that systems can surprise us and there are

01:04:14

traps and you may fall into one of them without realizing it which I think is the reason for

01:04:20

thinking in systems because if you continue to dissect how systems work I think you'll

01:04:27

be surprised less often you'll still because you're just creating a model for the real

01:04:33

world it's not going to be the real world you're going to be surprised by things but

01:04:37

I also think that the more you apply this mindset the more you'll understand the patterns

01:04:43

and the better off ultimately that you you will be when it comes to leverage points I'll

01:04:48

just mention these real quickly there's transcending paradigms paradigms goals self-organization

01:04:54

rules information flows reinforcing feedback loops bouncing feedback loops delays stock

01:05:01

and flow structures we talked a lot about these buffers which are the sizes of stabilizing

01:05:05

stocks relative to their flows and numbers constants and parameters such as subsidies

01:05:10

taxes standards etc. So all of these are leverage points or points of power where you can inflict

01:05:14

some change on a system but huge warning associated with these because complex systems can be

01:05:23

counterintuitive and the problem with these leverage points is that we often push them

01:05:29

and create change in the wrong direction so if you're going to use one of these leverage

01:05:36

points to modify a system you have to make sure you have a feedback loop in place which

01:05:40

is going to show you whether it worked or not. Yeah one of the points she makes in an earlier

01:05:45

chapter is that as humans we want cause and effect one cause that has one effect like

01:05:52

that's that's really what we would love that I would love that I could do one small

01:05:57

thing and it impacts one other thing or you know my email load went up well what caused

01:06:04

that I sent this one email and then it led to a whole bunch of stuff well maybe but there's

01:06:10

a whole bunch of other stuff going on like it's not just one thing that's the problem

01:06:15

with this process is that yeah you could tweak one of these like you could try to increase

01:06:22

one of your numbers like you could increase taxes you could decrease taxes like take your

01:06:26

pick but there are so many different ramifications of that decision that it's really hard to

01:06:32

know what you're actually doing. So in a lot of cases like in the previous chapter with

01:06:38

the traps and opportunities like she has this little section at the end that identifies

01:06:45

what the trap is and then what to do about it like from a philosophical level most of

01:06:50

the time if you caught this most of the time the answer was don't get involved like just

01:06:57

let it play itself out you know it's that like generally speaking don't try to mess

01:07:02

with it like let it play itself out that was generally the the response there so on an

01:07:07

overall overall system like trying to mess with it just it's okay to do that but the

01:07:14

more complex it is the more hesitation I would encourage you to take whenever you do that

01:07:18

and the reason for that is that most of the time systems work really well and so we think

01:07:26

well I'm going to optimize this bad boy and I'm going to make this thing really home no

01:07:30

you're just going to mess it up so just don't even touch it yep you're just going to make

01:07:33

it worse yeah and that kind of leads to a very important point in the last chapter so I'm

01:07:41

jumping ahead here a little bit but the last chapter it's called living in a world of systems

01:07:47

and basically her big takeaway from this chapter is learn to dance with your systems and I

01:07:53

think that's a very appropriate metaphor I am not a dancer but I did get my wife ballroom

01:08:02

dancing lessons for Christmas one year so we did take some lessons and I'm still terrible

01:08:10

but I did learn that in order to dance effectively it is a lot of give and take you're not forcing

01:08:20

the other person we're going to go this way now and for people who are good dancers they're

01:08:25

probably like well yeah I do that that's pretty obvious for me it was kind of a revelation

01:08:30

like you kind of both have to agree without physically talking to each other okay we're

01:08:36

going to go this way now and then we're going to do this thing and there's all sorts of

01:08:40

little cues that you can use for the different steps and moves that they taught us I forget

01:08:48

almost all of them at this point but I remember being like this is really complex there's

01:08:53

like this whole menu of choices and I'm supposed to in time with the music communicate without

01:08:58

speaking to my wife and we're gonna agree on the best course of action for this like

01:09:03

there's a lot going on here and I feel like that's what she's imploring us to do with

01:09:09

these systems is not try to enforce your will upon them understand what they're doing

01:09:16

a lot of them are much more complex than you realize but just kind of go with it for a

01:09:20

while and see where it's going and you can offer some input like we should go this way

01:09:26

change in this particular way but we're not going to just wipe a whole bunch of things

01:09:31

out and rebuild it from from scratch I don't know if that's a big takeaway she intended

01:09:38

or if that's even something that is appropriate for most people but as I am finishing up this

01:09:44

book that's what kind of speaks to me is like go ahead and make your changes just make

01:09:48

sure they're little changes and don't try to drastically change how the system is functioning

01:09:55

just tweak little things here and there I don't know is is that accurate and do you

01:10:00

think there's ever a time where it does validate just completely blowing up the system I don't

01:10:06

know about the last half of that but I know that when I think about tweaking systems I

01:10:12

think it's really really important that feedback loop like how are you gonna know if it's a

01:10:18

positive like for example let's continue down this email example train right if I go

01:10:24

through processes and I get bad at email and I don't respond and I'm slow to respond which

01:10:31

are the things that a lot of people talk about doing if you want to cut back on your email

01:10:34

load like that's fine but there is a consequence to that in that you become known as somebody

01:10:40

who doesn't respond to email so thus you don't communicate at all thus there's no point in

01:10:44

working with you at all that can happen I know that firsthand sure and that is something

01:10:50

that isn't a good thing so you can have a ramification there so just like in that example

01:10:57

using the number of emails that you get on a daily basis as your indicator that's not

01:11:04

necessarily the right response it's too complex for that so as far as like is this something

01:11:09

that's worth tweaking like I think it's gonna depend on the system but I think in a lot

01:11:15

of cases it's okay to mess with systems and adjust them I don't have any issues with that

01:11:20

I'm going to do that in a lot of ways and I do that in a lot of systems but don't go

01:11:26

into a blind I guess is my point I think it's okay to fuss with them but just be aware like

01:11:32

they can surprise you as she spells out I don't know if that answers your question yeah

01:11:38

not really so the big takeaway from this chapter is that the system is doing just fine on its

01:11:46

own so maybe don't mess with it if you are going to mess with it just make little changes

01:11:51

so I guess what I'm kind of asking is do you think there is ever a time where it is

01:11:57

appropriate to just completely take the nuclear option and just blow up the system and start

01:12:05

over from from scratch I feel like you could from a productivity standpoint articulate a

01:12:11

compelling case for that but I also think if you're going to use the approach that she's

01:12:15

talking about with the feedback loops and kind of the gains that come from it that maybe the

01:12:21

case could be made for the opposite that that's not the right approach well let me ask this

01:12:25

is the point at which you're choosing to blow the whole thing up and rebuild or not rebuild

01:12:33

is that system working just fine I mean I guess why would you make the decision to blow

01:12:39

it up in the first place and want to start over because if you're inclined to do that

01:12:45

that would make me think that the system's broken because the goal of that system isn't

01:12:50

being achieved which would mean it wouldn't be a perfectly working system like that might

01:12:55

be contradictory yeah I think any system that you would want to blow up for lack of a better

01:13:02

term I think it probably is functioning properly on some level but I think it's easy to misunderstand

01:13:11

how the system is actually working in what function it is serving I think a lot of the

01:13:17

functions from a productivity standpoint tension distraction etc are all tension based and

01:13:23

those variables can feel like a bigger deal than they are so I think depending how far

01:13:30

you drill down into the subsystems it can feel like I'm really gonna just blow this

01:13:34

thing up by not checking my email at all until 1 p.m. but in the larger scope of your

01:13:41

information management flow maybe that's not as huge a change as you think it is so

01:13:47

I'm just kind of wrestling through and this is not specific to anything myself but if

01:13:54

someone were to want to start to make changes to the systems in their lives I feel like

01:14:00

if you drill down deep enough you could make the case that you should just blow something

01:14:04

up but maybe the way to address that is to zoom out and understand the larger system

01:14:09

my fear with that is that we end up making things way too complicated so like the information

01:14:18

management flow for example instead of just identifying like I did the vehicles that information

01:14:24

comes to you from maybe you identify each and every person and every single tool they

01:14:28

use to get your attention and that would be a ridiculous amount of work and I would argue

01:14:34

that at that point the return isn't gonna be there so I'm just trying to wrap my head

01:14:40

around where is the appropriate scale for people who want to make these sorts of changes

01:14:46

my one action item from this book by the way also comes from this last chapter has nothing

01:14:50

to do with these questions I'm asking you right now because she mentions that everything

01:14:55

you know is only a model and so the action item is to collect as many models as possible

01:15:01

going back to the great mental models but again like applying these mental models and

01:15:05

incorporating change I think you kind of need to through trial and error figure out for yourself

01:15:12

what is the appropriate scale to use when looking at these systems problems and applying

01:15:20

some interventions at these leverage points I wish there was an easy way to define how

01:15:25

and when to do this but I don't think there is I think it's all going to come down to

01:15:30

when is the system not serving you like what you want you know what I mean like it I think

01:15:36

it's always going to come back to that like at what point do you choose to do something

01:15:42

about a system because like for example I have a system of making breakfast in the morning

01:15:47

right I start the water start the pan get those heating up prep my tea get coffee stuff ready

01:15:54

for my wife get the eggs out get bread out like it's a whole process right that's a system

01:16:00

and sometimes it deviates like sometimes it's not bread it's a bagel sometimes it's not you

01:16:05

know what I mean like it deviates sometimes but generally speaking it's all the same flow

01:16:10

of events that happens I could blow that whole thing up if you know the reason I would blow

01:16:16

it all up is for whatever reason my health changes in my diet needs to change such that

01:16:20

those things should not be a part of my life anymore I shouldn't be eating bread shouldn't

01:16:25

be eggs shouldn't be having tea or coffee like if something happens and I need to change

01:16:28

that yes that whole system needs blown up but if there's not some big change in the goal

01:16:35

behind that I think tweaks and stuff or all that would change now that's a very simplistic

01:16:40

example it is on the very very foundational level of a system I would think but it could

01:16:47

be taken at any point in the scale of these I think sure yeah I think you think you're

01:16:53

right but I think even with the breakfast example and the food changes for example how

01:16:59

do you know the appropriate scale because changing what you eat is not going to apply

01:17:02

just to breakfast and that one is obvious well if something makes me feel not great then

01:17:08

I won't eat that anymore but her a big point from this whole last chapter is we can't control

01:17:15

systems or figure them out so if I can't figure out a system why in the world do I feel

01:17:23

like I should blow it up and I don't know how to reconcile that necessarily in my head

01:17:29

other than I think that the big thing for me to recognize is just and this kind of go

01:17:34

back to my action item from last time to is be in the moment go with the flow recognize

01:17:40

that whatever is happening right now is not as great or as awful as you think it is and

01:17:47

maybe just try to massage it a little bit move the boundary in the right direction for

01:17:51

the way that you want the system to to change but for the most part just leave things as

01:17:57

they are sure yeah I think this it might come back to if you're not happy with a system

01:18:04

or you're not thrilled with where it's going like stop trying to influence it just let it

01:18:09

let it go like that's a big part of what she was getting at early on that one I know

01:18:14

so that leads to the next question then how do you think Sam Carpenter would respond to

01:18:19

this book I have no idea I would love to know that because work the system yeah work the

01:18:29

system feels very contradictory to this I feel first part didn't first part felt like

01:18:37

a different angle of figure of defining how systems work but I feel like the big takeaway

01:18:43

from work the system is just change the system get the results that you want but that almost

01:18:48

requires this blowing things up at a subsystem level and completely changing them and I feel

01:18:55

like Danelle Meadows her advice to Sam Carpenter would be that if you do that you're is a good

01:19:03

chance you're gonna push things in the wrong direction with these leverage points and so

01:19:07

that's fine if you want to do that or maybe she wouldn't even say that's fine maybe she

01:19:11

would just say like don't do that because there's a 50% chance that you'll screw things

01:19:16

up I don't know but again like his whole thing is I was not going to be able to pay the payroll

01:19:22

anyways so I may as well just blow things up and I feel like I've kind of subconsciously

01:19:27

applied that mindset to things and the reading this book I realize that maybe that's not

01:19:32

the right way to do it sure yeah I feel like we're talking in circles maybe it's not because

01:19:37

this book has left me with lots of questions sure sure all right well anything else you

01:19:45

want to talk about about the book itself before we start action items and such no let's go

01:19:50

into action items I was going to have zero and just say that this is something that's

01:19:56

just informing my thinking on things however Mike made up an action item for me and that

01:20:01

is I need to write like create a diagram of some sort of my task management system as

01:20:07

it stands right now which is kind of messy because it involves Omni focus the do app obsidian

01:20:16

base camp like it's to mess but it's intentionally somewhat that way like it works for me so

01:20:24

I need to make some form of a diagram for this and by the next time we record it has

01:20:29

to be shareable I'll say that so there should be a picture of some sort to say this one's

01:20:34

done I'll make that commitment okay can do that all right now that thanks thanks Mike

01:20:40

all right so what do you got my one action item is to collect more models and again not

01:20:50

ever gonna complete this one but I've been thinking about this a lot lately I recognize

01:20:56

that a lot of my favorite books from this year were in the vein of mental models asking

01:21:03

questions different perspective changing things on ways you can look at your own situation

01:21:12

the problems that you're trying to to solve and overcome which I think there's a whole

01:21:17

systems thinking mindset applied to a lot of that stuff again I still kind of have questions

01:21:23

at the end of this book about what scale to use when looking at these through but this

01:21:29

is something that I am intrigued if not fascinated by I just got another book along these same

01:21:37

lines called personal Socrates by the very big folks which is kind of like a whole bunch

01:21:42

of character spotlights famous people and kind of clarifying questions that they used

01:21:48

so I am actively collecting more models I will continue to collect more models and hopefully

01:21:56

I'll have some specific ones I could share for next time but we'll see all right so

01:22:02

style and rating here as far as style goes maybe it's just me this one was tough for

01:22:09

me to get through I was reading a textbook that's that's really what I felt like I was

01:22:14

doing it's not necessarily bad but it makes it a challenge to read it's not a cohesive

01:22:23

topic supported by a few stories it's a academic exploration of systems and again that's not

01:22:32

bad that's just not what we normally read and it's a little bit I don't want to say jarring

01:22:38

but it's it's difficult to work through coming from a different background in books which

01:22:44

is probably why Mike is asking me like how did you pick this like that's where did this

01:22:48

come from like I get it I get it that said I am happy I've read this despite it being

01:22:54

a challenge just the fact that it was hard for me to get through doesn't mean it's a

01:22:58

bad book it just means it's different than what I'm used to which means it's probably

01:23:02

a good thing for me to to read so I'm grateful for having read it I'm glad I did work my way

01:23:07

through it it is challenging at times very academic at times and yet eye opening for the

01:23:15

most part because there's so much of this it's you know we talk about books that help

01:23:20

us like they give us terms to use and ways to talk about a certain concept that we haven't

01:23:26

been able to talk about before and I feel like that's what this did it's like okay as

01:23:31

much as I didn't like the concept of using the term stocks as we've talked about it it

01:23:36

kind of does help cement the concept so like it's terminology that can then be translated

01:23:42

elsewhere so that all said like it does help explain the whole thing I'm not like I feel

01:23:50

like there's so much more I could get into with this like I'm sure there are many other

01:23:54

systems thinking books that would follow this up that maybe do fit our normal style I have

01:24:01

no intentions of picking those at the moment but because I need some space from this one

01:24:06

right now but I don't see this is one that I'm going to recommend to much of anyone I

01:24:13

mean if you're big into systems and such I might recommend it but I don't think this

01:24:17

is something that I'm going to be blanket putting out there and saying hey you should

01:24:21

read this that said I'm grateful I read it so maybe I should recommend it but as far as

01:24:26

a rating goes I think I need to put it at a 4.0 in this case because again I've got quite

01:24:32

a few qualms with like how it's written compared to what I'm looking for but at the

01:24:36

same time like this is super helpful as far as terminology goes and just understanding

01:24:41

how things impact outputs so that all said like I'm grateful for having read it but I

01:24:48

think it needs a lander to 4.0.

01:24:49

All right well I also am grateful to have read it I feel like the flow of the book is

01:24:59

a little bit jarring it is very academic and I don't think that's necessarily a good or

01:25:06

a bad thing just a very different style very different stylistically than the typical

01:25:11

book that we cover for for Bookworm and once you embrace the style and understand some

01:25:19

of the key concepts I feel like there's a ton of information to be gleaned from this

01:25:24

I do think that the way it ends is kind of weird I mentioned you know from the very beginning

01:25:31

we're talking about stock and flow and feedback loops like I get how to apply that stuff to

01:25:38

systems in my own life and create my own diagrams and examples and things like that and then

01:25:44

at the end I'm kind of asking myself well where should I do it and where shouldn't I

01:25:50

feels to me very much prescriptive and you understand these concepts now go ahead and

01:25:54

run with it and then basically at the end she's like if I actually don't actually just

01:25:59

leave stuff alone the majority of the time and I think that's probably really good advice

01:26:04

but it felt really weird to hear that as like the last thing as you walk away from this

01:26:10

book so I don't I don't know if I would recommend this one I think to certain people this is

01:26:16

a great primer on just thinking about systems I think if I were to recommend it to people

01:26:21

though I would kind of say you don't have to read the last chapter read up until that

01:26:26

point and then move on to the the next thing this style I like I said once I got used to

01:26:34

it it really wasn't wasn't bad I like you I really did have trouble getting going with

01:26:38

this one at least I was found myself resisting getting started with this one just because

01:26:44

I flipped it open and kind of created the initial bones of my my node file and recognized what

01:26:50

it was and I didn't realize how much resistance that was going to trigger in me but once I

01:26:56

actually started engaging with it it was actually a pretty quick read and the visuals I think are

01:27:00

very effective I think the examples are great I think it's easy enough for someone even if you

01:27:07

don't have a business degree because that's kind of how this reads to me is like a business book

01:27:12

kind of like innovators dilemma to be honest where you got to kind of wrestle with some of these

01:27:16

things in order to really understand them I felt like this was easier than than that one was to

01:27:21

be honest so I don't think it's out of anybody's grasp necessarily I just think if you're gonna

01:27:28

read through this and then walk away from it and want the warm fuzzies like okay now I understand

01:27:34

how to start applying this stuff this isn't going to give you that had it not been for that last

01:27:39

chapter and basically don't touch the systems I went rated it 4.0 because of that and all of the

01:27:45

questions that I still am wrestling with even after having talked to you about this I think I'm

01:27:50

going to read it three and a half I do think it's a good book and if you're looking to add one to

01:27:56

your collection in terms of how you think about systems it's a worthwhile read but if you're just

01:28:01

looking for one I think there are better options including maybe my gap book which I'll mention here

01:28:08

in a second all right well let's put it on the shelf Mike what's next next is the book that you

01:28:15

did not think I would pick the Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown and this is a another very large

01:28:22

book which maybe we'll read like a textbook I don't know I kind of don't think it will based on

01:28:26

having read the the other Brené Brown book that we covered what was that during greatly yeah yeah

01:28:31

and I think the approach for this one next time will be to cover a few of our favorite sections

01:28:37

from this instead of trying to talk about the whole thing and just dive into a couple specific

01:28:42

things like right at the beginning it talks about anxiety and burnout and stuff like that so

01:28:46

we'll just pick a couple of those and dissect those sure yeah well after that after Mike's

01:28:53

unexpected pick is complete since we've been talking about thinking and systems and fussing

01:28:58

with those systems and trying to figure out like how should we or shouldn't we do this I feel like

01:29:04

we haven't done a book on like how to implement those things like how to actually go about that

01:29:09

process from a science stance so I found a book it's called how to change the science of getting

01:29:15

from where you are to where you want to be this is by Katie Milkeman and Katie has and she's a

01:29:22

Wharton professor and she's her studies are all about behavior change that's that's really her whole

01:29:28

life career focus and this book has a forward by Angela Duckworth who wrote grit so I'm I'm

01:29:37

fascinated to go through this one because I feel like that may help with some of that process of

01:29:42

how do we go about doing this like if you understand the system on one hand how do we actually go

01:29:48

about messing with that when it's you like how do I do that with me because I feel like that's

01:29:54

maybe safer territory to cover as opposed to how do I fix poverty like that's there's so many

01:30:01

different ways you could do something of that scale so anyway how to change Katie Milkeman all

01:30:07

right there's that so what's the gap book Mike I'm waiting with bated breath so I bought many books

01:30:16

to give away as Christmas gifts this year and while I was at half-price books looking for

01:30:22

Christmas gifts I came across a book called how will you measure your life by Clayton Christensen

01:30:30

and read this in a day it's really really good it's him one of his students and one other like

01:30:39

faculty person so kind of him as a full-on academic someone who has no experience and someone kind

01:30:44

of in the middle and he wrote it I think in 2009 which was after he had been diagnosed with cancer

01:30:52

and the premise of the book basically is using examples from like the innovators dilemma and

01:30:59

those types of things that I've heard him teach before and then applying those lessons to living

01:31:07

a life that matters personally which if that doesn't get you excited then stay away from this one

01:31:13

but for me that was that's perfect so like one of the things that he talks about is there's this

01:31:21

video that I really enjoyed by him on what job did you hire that milkshake to do and it's from a

01:31:28

research study that they did and the people were trying to sell more milkshakes so they're thinking

01:31:33

we'll make a chocolate ear we'll make it chunkier and then they started interviewing the people who

01:31:37

were buying the milkshakes in the morning which is when they sold half of them and they realized

01:31:41

that people actually just wanted something that was going to take them a while to drink on their

01:31:45

boring commute to the office so they gave them smaller straws and things like that so how does

01:31:51

that and then he applies that to your your personal life so with your spouse for example

01:31:56

what is the the job that you are being hired to do maybe it's not to solve the problem maybe it's

01:32:03

just to listen as a completely hypothetical random example that doesn't apply in my situation whatsoever

01:32:10

sure uh-huh yep speaking about a friend yeah you can tell yeah so uh unexpected that I

01:32:17

loved it as much as I did but I really enjoyed that book I'm surprised you picked up another

01:32:22

christians in the book yep huh well done mike wait a way to be willing to branch out I do not have

01:32:28

a gapbook to add to the mix this time however I am eternally grateful to those of you who are

01:32:35

part of the bookworm club because you guys recommend books and it's really awesome that

01:32:41

you recommend books and apparently there's a book that we need to cover at some point because

01:32:45

you mentioned this what is it fika last episode and like somebody pointed out that there's a

01:32:51

recommended book from like a year ago that we haven't covered maybe it was almost two years ago

01:32:56

about that exact topic so anyway maybe we should cover that one at some point but yes I'm very

01:33:02

grateful to those of you who are bookworm club members if you would like to join that membership

01:33:08

go to club.bookworm.fm/membership and you'll find your way over there it's a small fee to pay at

01:33:16

five dollars a month helps us keep the lights on helps us buy our books and you get some fun perks

01:33:22

that come along for the ride with that with some old gapbook episodes that I've recorded with mike's

01:33:27

mine node files some notes that come with that so anyway a lot of cool stuff over there

01:33:34

love to have you there go to bookworm.fm/membership. All right so if you are reading along with us

01:33:41

pick up Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.