Bookworm Transcripts

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So this past week, Mike, I downloaded an app that I should have downloaded a very long time ago.

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Can you guess what it is?

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What's that?

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Keyboard maestro.

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You just downloaded Keyboard maestro?

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For the very first time, Joe Buellig has downloaded Keyboard maestro.

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My mind is blown.

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This is...

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If Joe Buellig existed as an application, it would probably be Keyboard maestro.

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It's very true.

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You are not wrong.

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[laughter]

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I put this out on Twitter and there was a couple of folks that emailed me and texted me and

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was like, "What is wrong with you, dude?"

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Don't know.

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Just never really did it.

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And here we are.

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So what do you think?

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I think I have a big learning curve yet.

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Yeah, you do.

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Because there's some stuff that it does that I...

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Like I know that there's some stuff I would love for it to do, but I haven't spent the

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time just to play with it and build some stuff in it.

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At the same time, I know that a very large part of why I haven't gotten into Keyboard maestro

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in the past is primarily because I do tons of scripting that run automatically...

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Scripts that run automatically already and do it the hard way instead of using a GUI

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like Keyboard maestro.

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So there's never really been a need, I've felt.

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And then I don't remember what it was.

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I ran across somebody talking about plugins and stuff for it.

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It's like, "You know what?

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You build plugins for that and have stuff run automatically."

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That may save me a lot of time.

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So then I promptly went to the Keyboard maestro website, purchased and downloaded the thing.

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And now I've got all the thing to play with, a new toy to play with.

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So here we are.

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Nice.

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I have no idea what that has to do with our book for today, but it was fun.

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There's a plugin, I believe, for the Stream Deck, which allows you to trigger Keyboard maestro

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macros from your Stream Deck.

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I assume you have a Stream Deck seeing as you stream things.

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Correct.

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I have one of the 32 key, like the big ones, Excels.

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Yeah.

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I just have the 15 and had trouble filling it up for a while, but now I'm starting to

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get to the point where I want to create different profiles and things like that.

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I don't think I want a bigger one sitting on my desk, but since you got all those buttons,

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if you're looking for things to do with them, map your keyboard maestro macros to them.

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Yeah.

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I figured that out very quickly.

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And I will say, like the whole profiles thing on the Stream Deck, like for example, Mike,

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you would appreciate this.

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If you set one up for Obsidian, a whole bunch of stuff that's normally kind of complicated

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gets super easy because you can chain things together and tell it to pull up like the command

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palette and then start typing stuff and do stuff automatically.

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It's very, very simple.

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So I love it.

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You should get in.

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It's a very deep hole that you'll spend way too many hours in.

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You know what I really want is like a Chromebook that runs Obsidian OS.

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It's the only application that opens.

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You can install the plugins, things like that, but you can't leave Obsidian.

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I feel like that would be pretty great.

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You're familiar with MDM, mobile device management.

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Mm-hmm.

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You bought an iPad for that purpose, set up MDM on it, you can lock it to a specific app

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so that the only thing it can do is run that one app.

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Yeah.

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See, that's more money than I want to spend though.

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I'm thinking like...

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You're the one that brought up this ridiculous idea.

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Yeah.

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I don't want an iPad.

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I literally want a Chromebook.

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Just like Chromebooks are forgetting on the web, I want that thing for Obsidian and nothing

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else.

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So then you would have a separate computer just for Obsidian at all times.

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And that's all you would use Obsidian with?

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No, that would be the thing like the 8-inch clamshell.

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You grab it, throw it in your bag, take it with you wherever kids beat on it as they

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bring it back and forth to school and their backpacks sort of a thing.

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But you got your full keyboard and all that jazz.

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What's the top-end dollar amount you're willing to spend on this thing?

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Good question.

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I don't know.

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I just think that would be really cool.

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I was going to say because it was like $2, $300.

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It's some of the lower-end re-furbed iPads and stuff.

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So...

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Yeah, I don't want an iPad though.

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Just saying.

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I don't like the keyboards that are available with the iPads.

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I don't want to put it in a bridge case.

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I don't want one of the stupid smart folio things.

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Like, I don't know.

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I'm just thinking like the Chromebook is like a specialized little laptop.

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It'd be cool to have a specialized little laptop just for Obsidian.

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Martin has a good tip for you in the chat.

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Get a cheap Lenovo laptop.

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Put Linux on it and remove everything except Obsidian.

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I may have to try that.

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Except I don't know a thing about Linux.

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You're familiar with Mac.

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You'll be fine.

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I'll have to try that.

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I mean, I'll have to convince Joe Buleg to try that for me.

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It is not hard.

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I just set up a new Linux thing two days ago.

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Super fun.

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Anyway.

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You should write about this and publish it.

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About how to do it?

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That's what I follow the how-tos.

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I don't know.

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No, you should create this thing.

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And then publish it.

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Oh, like how to have a single, like a laptop that's just Obsidian.

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Is that what you're saying?

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Yep.

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You know what?

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You say that I've got a couple laptops I could do that with.

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See?

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See, you're the guy for this.

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Why do you do this to me?

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Why?

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This is...

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I'm just an idea guy.

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I'm just talking.

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Uh-huh.

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Yeah.

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I'm gonna charge you for this one.

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Alright, we should do some follow-up because you've got a bunch here and I've got a few.

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And we should get through it.

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Do you want to start?

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I was hoping we weren't gonna get to this.

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No, just kidding.

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Yeah.

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I feel like a couple weeks ago when we were gonna record, I was in a much better place

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with these follow-up items and now two weeks later, I have no idea what I did with these.

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I know I did something.

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No, I'll tackle these one by one.

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Some of them are more sticky than others.

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So list out what I fear in a single sentence.

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I don't remember if I did this or not, so I'm assuming I did not.

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Asking the question, "How was I curious today?"

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I did add this to my billy note and I've filled it out a couple times.

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So that's been successful in my book.

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Make a list of people who inspire me and start asking questions.

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I've done this.

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I think there's probably more questions to be asked here, but having the list is the starting

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place.

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Share encouraging text messages more frequently.

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I think I've done this twice.

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It's gone really well.

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It's awesome.

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I want to do it more, but I just never think about it.

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So this is a good reminder for me to try to do that more often.

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And then find a meditation practice that works for me.

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I think we're gonna talk about meditation and mindfulness in today's book.

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And there's some takeaways from this book that reframe it a little bit differently for

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me.

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I've always viewed meditation.

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And I know you can do it without the app, but that's the picture I get in my head is the

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headspace or the calm and you're focusing on your breathing.

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And I feel like there's different ways to practice that just slowing down and being in

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the moment.

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I think is a form of could be classified as a form of meditation for me.

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So I've been looking for those places like on the edges for what I've previously thought

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of meditation as where I could just practice the mindfulness.

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And I'm calling that meditation and I'm saying that that is working for me.

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Do I sit on a cushion for 15 minutes a day?

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I do not.

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But when I feel myself starting to get stressed out, I notice it and I just stop and I close

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my eyes and I take some deep breaths.

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And so that's how I'm going to loosely define it.

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And I'm going to say that yes, this is sticking for me.

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I still I know have a long ways to go with this, but I feel like this has even in the

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last couple of weeks, once I had that revelation and I just started looking for those itty bitty

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moments to start practicing this regularly that that has helped me stay more even keeled

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more centered, I guess would be another word, you know, not the highs aren't as high.

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The lows aren't as low, a little bit less extreme.

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That sounds very interesting.

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And I think I think you're right.

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We're going to cover a lot about mindfulness in today's book probably like if you want

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to make the differentiation between mindfulness and meditation and calling those two different

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things, we should probably do that because I feel like today's book is going to go down

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the former and not the latter side of it.

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But we'll get into that.

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I think so more to come on meditation is what I'm hearing.

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Probably.

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I'm realizing some of the value of it and like anything that I do, I probably am not going

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to be satisfied with just doing it a little bit and I'm going to crank it up to 11.

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Sure.

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But I got to figure out how to do that for me since all the traditional ways to do it

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haven't worked in the past.

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Yep.

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We'll see if today helps with that.

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So I have three follow up pieces.

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Number one was go through it all again, meaning go through the entire book again, not read

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it again, but some are like go through each of the questions.

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Actually what I ended up doing was going through and copying each of the questions into my

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note for the book, like my book notes.

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And once I did that, I started taking each of those questions and putting them at different

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check in points because I've got some check ins at like monthly, weekly and daily where

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I'm like setting up what projects am I going to tackle this week or this month, possibly

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even this quarter in the future.

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And that is something that has it's been setting up really well to have these questions written

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down because then I can put them in different check in points.

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Not all of them.

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I didn't use all of these questions because that would be a lot.

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But the ones that I felt like were appropriate I did put into those different places and

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have been using that for the last four weeks now simply because we skipped a recording.

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And I think that has been super helpful and it's the times that I've gone through it,

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it's been encouraging.

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So the whole answering questions thing is starting to wear off on me, Mike.

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So there's that.

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And one of the things that has come out of that is I ask a bank of these questions every

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morning as kind of a morning check in.

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That was another follow up here is to do a morning and evening check in journaling process.

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And one of the pieces that I ended up doing haphazardly was my third follow up.

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So I had go through it all again, do a morning and evening check in and then do a visualize

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my day ahead of time.

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And what I didn't plan on was having the questions that I found from going through it

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all again that I had set up in my morning check in to actually create the process of

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visualizing my day ahead of time.

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So it just kind of happened that way.

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I didn't intend that.

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It just kind of worked out.

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And I will say like that has helped me significantly in just knowing what's coming up today and

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getting my head around it.

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So I so far it's been going well and I'm grateful for having gone through personal

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Socrates now because now I am better at asking questions.

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So there's that.

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All right.

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Yeah, this book is amazing and I gifted a copy to a bunch of the people in my mastermind

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group and several of them have read it already.

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But I feel like this is one of those books that just needs to be in your collection.

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Not to repeat the last episode.

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Both rated it 5.0.

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But I've been seeing stuff all over Twitter people that I'm following just talking about

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it.

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Jeff Goins mentioned it.

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A lot of people just really commenting about the design of the book.

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But even beyond the design those questions man.

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So good.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I'm going to make it my my mission to get that book in the hands of as many people as

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humanly possible.

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It's quite an undertaking.

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It is.

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Well we should jump into today's book because I feel like we're both kind of alluding to

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it a little bit.

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Today's book is Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer MD PhD.

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And this is about the process and the patterns behind anxiety.

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And there's a lot to that and yet it I feel like it's very simple at the same time.

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But I mostly I picked this because my sense is that a lot of people that I talk to whether

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that's at church or whether that's at like some of the funeral stuff that happens and

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such.

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It just seems like small groups seems like whenever I'm talking to people a lot of folks

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tend to refer to being anxious about something or there's something they're worried about

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or nervous about.

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I feel like that comes up a lot.

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And I don't feel like that's an accident.

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Now obviously COVID and I know that that has created a lot of anxiety.

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People unrest and our widening chasm between parties doesn't help.

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Like none of that is a helpful thing in this regard.

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But at the same time like that also means that anxiety levels have gone up as a society.

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The question is what do you do about that?

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What can you do about it?

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And that's mostly what I was shooting for.

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I was like okay I know that I deal with this somewhat.

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I have one friend who tells me he doesn't understand people who are anxiety stricken

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because he doesn't feel it at all.

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Like that's interesting.

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You're the probably the first person I've ever heard say that.

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Can we like swap brains?

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So very jealous of him in that sense.

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But I feel like this is something that affects everybody in some form.

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Whether it's directly or indirectly.

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So I feel like it could be a helpful one to work through.

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Thus picking it.

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Yeah I was really nervous about this one when you picked it to be honest.

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Because did it give you anxiety?

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Maybe.

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Sorry.

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If we're defining anxiety as a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease typically about

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an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome then yes.

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But I was concerned that this book was going to be very much like sitting on a psychiatrist's

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couch and how you feel about that.

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Which I don't really have a whole lot of interest in.

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Unpacking all of the negative feelings.

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What comes to mind is the extended mind by any Murphy Paul and the whole idea of cognitive

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appraisal and how something happens and we assume that we have a feeling as an immediate

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response but actually we can interpret the physiological changes and reframe them.

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So when you get nervous about having to speak at an event or something you can reframe that

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as excitement because it's the same changes like your heart rate picks up.

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Your blood pressure goes up a little bit maybe like that fight versus flight response and

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how you can actually choose to lean into some of the things instead of naturally avoiding

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them which again he's going to talk about in this book.

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And that's very different than just understand your feelings man.

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Not that there's no value in that.

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But I feel like if that's the approach that we took in the current state of the world we

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would find lots and lots of reasons to feel that and feel like there's no way out of it.

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And so the extended mind approach where we can change things not necessarily even change

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the events that are happening but how we're interpreting the events that are happening

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allows us to move forward in a more positive and helpful direction.

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So I thought just based on the title the PhD in the author's name that we were going to

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get the the former and I'm glad we got more of the latter.

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I was very hesitant in picking it.

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I felt like I wanted the topic but I wasn't really finding a book that was highly like

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more highly recommended than this one in this area.

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But I had the same hesitation with like the whole oh no here we go another doctor book

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like that's that was kind of my gut reaction.

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And yet I'm grateful that yes there's a lot of science in this.

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He's not a hair too much but he does break it down quite a bit so that it's a lot more

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approachable so I'm grateful for that.

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So anyway that said let's jump into this.

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This is actually a four part book even though he wanted it to be a three part book because

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with a four part book he starts it with part zero.

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So then he goes part one two three after that but part zero he he wants to help you

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understand your mind and understand anxiety itself before he starts working through the

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process of how to unwind that.

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And I've got a couple points here I kind of did the outline a little different this time

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Mike but the this first one is understanding your mind and he works towards defining anxiety

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which you read off here a little bit earlier but one of the things that's underneath that

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definition is fear as a base behind it and when you stop and work through like okay

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how did I how did I get into this anxiety loop how did I get into this worry pattern

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and why am I always so stressed out like ultimately if you start breaking down how and why you

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got there fears at the bottom of it like you're afraid of losing your job you're afraid of

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the other team winning you're afraid of the reaction you're going to get from your parents

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like in some sense there's fear behind that and that's ultimately what like starts the

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process and I say start the process because there's like I think I've alluded to it a

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few times now like this whole loop and pattern that anxiety tends to to follow but before

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I get to that Mike thoughts on fear is the bottom.

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Yeah the the reason that fear is the bottom is because in the prefrontal cortex it the

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logical part of your brain it tries to predict what's going to happen and then he mentions

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that anxiety enters and we don't have enough information to accurately predict the future

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but I would argue that I don't even think it's not enough information for some types

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of brains like mine there's always going to be more information to collect and so there

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is no point in my brain where okay I have I have enough information now to accurately

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predict what's going to happen I'm always going to feel at some level a little bit of

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that fear anxiety just because I don't have it all.

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I mean one example of this is anytime I'm going to make a major purchase on something

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I need to over research it and I mean over research it like I had this moment yesterday

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when my wife and I were in Costco and they've got all the TVs there the TV we have is like

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fifteen twenty years old we've got all this stuff in our house that supports 4k but it's

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a 1080p TV and some like wow there's a 4k TV for $300 that looks pretty nice and then

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like well what's the difference between this one and that one over there and all this

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one's OLED and why is that better I realized at that moment that I was not going to walk

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out of there with a cheap 4k TV no I was going to go home and research this until I found

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the very best one and I don't think it's going to add anything to my happiness had I just

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bought the $300 TV and brought it home I would have been like this thing is great we've got

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4k now this is awesome but it's almost like once I know what I'm missing I can't be satisfied

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with their option unless it's the best yes so this is a perpetuating cycle for me and I

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need to fight against it but yeah so basically come back to the intro here and why fear is

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the base it's for most people anyways it's because we don't have enough information my

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brain just is never going to have enough I think you're spot on because whether or not

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you're worried about the reaction of somebody else or your fear is that something will be

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better and you will have made a bad decision which I feel like is what you're saying like

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I've got a friend right now that they just you know they just bought a house and it's

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taken them a very long time to find and purchase said house and it's it's difficult because

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whenever I first saw him it's like hey congrats heard you you know found a place like yeah

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but now the what if game starts what what do you mean what if games like well what if

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something better comes up we've already committed to this one like so now like the anxiety of

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we can't find a house turns into anxiety of is this one actually good enough just at

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some point you have to stop and be content with what what you've decided on but that's

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that's tough because like that like I was saying like anxiety he calls out is a habit

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loop where and we'll talk about like how this works in the next part but like it is a pattern

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like you you have anxiety about something and then some people choose to do something

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that's not helpful to the anxiety like if you take procrastination a lot of times people

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who struggle with procrastination realize that they're super worried because they're

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not getting things done but instead of working on those things they do something to pacify

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to like know that worry by watching YouTube or scrolling Instagram and it doesn't actually

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solve the problem but it feels better than the problem of not being caught up and then

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you feel bad about yourself and then when you feel bad about yourself you start to worry

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about all the stuff you haven't gotten done which then leads you to scrolling YouTube

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because it feels better and you get you get what I'm saying like it leads to this loop

00:23:05

and ends up being a habit just in in that because of the repetitiveness of it so I've

00:23:11

never thought about it this way Mike like I I'm familiar with like anxiety and anxiousness

00:23:15

and worry and stuff like I've been aware of that for quite some time but I've never heard

00:23:20

anybody call it a habit and and for as much as you and I have studied habits that part

00:23:26

caught me off guard and I'm curious did that catch you off guard or was it something you

00:23:31

know with all your emotional intelligence background this was very obvious to you.

00:23:36

Ah maybe it should have been obvious but it wasn't sure like I see how it it does reinforce

00:23:44

that habit loop the depressing part here at the beginning is that going back to the topic

00:23:51

of fear that coupled with uncertainty is the formula for anxiety fear plus uncertainty

00:23:59

equals anxiety says and that's depressing because there's always going to be uncertainty

00:24:08

and I feel like the further we go the more uncertainty there is whether it's did I make

00:24:16

the wrong decision and you're constantly looking back or you're scared to take a step until

00:24:20

you have enough information like me that feels like well what in the world can I do about

00:24:28

this because fear is another constant you're always going to be afraid of stuff you don't

00:24:32

have to let it paralyze you but when I think about those two building blocks and how those

00:24:37

are prevalent in my life it's kind of like you mean I'm going to have to be dealing

00:24:41

with this junk forever right and that's kind of frustrating maybe the habit stuff is kind

00:24:49

of a way he's trying to frame out of it like you can change your habits so you can actually

00:24:56

change how you deal with things I doesn't have to be that bad but this part of the book

00:25:00

I didn't feel was it should have been like super strong like this is the foundation but

00:25:06

the habit loop stuff just kind of feels tacked on to me in my opinion yeah I understand he's

00:25:12

going to talk about habits going forward but I don't think that's the strength of this

00:25:16

book let James Clear talk about right habits you talk about mindfulness right yeah this

00:25:24

is where and let's move on to part one but at the end of part zero he starts to tell this

00:25:29

story about the different gears of a bike and how as you shift up gears you can move faster

00:25:36

and make better progress and so he uses that analogy in the rest of the book so he's got

00:25:42

first gear second gear third gear and you're working your way through those gears as you

00:25:48

progress in different methods and different levels of working your way against anxiety

00:25:53

but at the first portion of part one mapping your mind first gear he explains this whole

00:26:00

habit structure of trigger behavior result like he uses that met like that terminology

00:26:06

and I think that's what he's alluding to at the end of part zero because he's talking about

00:26:11

anxiety is a habit loop well those are the three components if you follow history of the

00:26:18

what is a habit right now there's some questionable points I think you would say there's four parts

00:26:24

to that if I recall your history because there's like a whole awareness part that has to happen

00:26:29

in there right and but he sticks with these three I think what he's referring to is that

00:26:35

when he says that anxiety is a habit loop I think all he's talking about is those three parts

00:26:39

of a habit and and I think you're right like it's hard to figure out if he's referring to like

00:26:45

anxiety breeds itself and makes itself worse at all times and you can never get out of it or

00:26:50

if he's referring to anxiety has these three components to it that lead you to

00:26:55

the anxious thoughts and I never did connect which of those that he was trying to get at because he

00:27:02

did go straight into this trigger behavior result process of showing kind of like what I was

00:27:06

talking about earlier like the procrastination piece of I feel really behind I feel nervous

00:27:11

about that and then that leads me to eating cake and now I have a problem eating cake and I'm overweight

00:27:17

now I don't feel well I don't feel well I don't like myself like all this stuff like it you start

00:27:22

to go down this pattern right so I feel like that's the what he's referring to when he talks about

00:27:27

habits but anxiety as a loop is the part that I think breaks down yeah he builds a large portion

00:27:36

of this book on the Charles Duhigg model which I personally feel is a little bit of a mistake

00:27:44

I understand why he did it I'm kind of curious how other people feel about like those three

00:27:51

components versus James Clear's model which introduces the fourth one which that instantly

00:27:56

clicked for me because basically there's a temptation to do something but that doesn't mean you have

00:28:00

to automatically follow through and and do it and yeah he just building it on the three and that

00:28:07

temptation piece seems like the one that you should incorporate into dealing with anxiety right your

00:28:13

body is telling you to feel this way push against it and act a different way instead I feel like he

00:28:19

gets into that kind of in the the later parts of the the book but yeah this just didn't really work

00:28:26

for me this whole foundation on the habit loop and the the three pieces yeah I I think there is

00:28:33

and when you say that he builds a large part of this book I would almost argue that he builds the

00:28:38

entirety of the book on that and that is like the foundation that he uses to show how to beat

00:28:46

anxiety and he kind of beats it and beats it and beats it so it gets kind of obnoxious after a while

00:28:56

but that said I feel like we're going to come back to this one quite a few times but he refers to

00:29:02

the trigger behavior results but then he also talks about like some of the things that we try to do

00:29:09

that don't work and this part I think I resonated with him quite a bit on because he talks about

00:29:15

some of the problems with willpower the problems with using substitution like people talk about

00:29:22

you have your trigger change the behavior to get a different result like that's the substitution

00:29:27

piece willpower just when you say I'm not going to do that that doesn't work right so he at least

00:29:34

goes through the process of debunking those that part I'm with him on like I feel like those both

00:29:39

have their flaws and it it is something that I know that like at least for me if I'm considering

00:29:45

anxiety a habit and like some of these bad behaviors are habits like that is something that I could

00:29:51

easily see myself trying to do like oh well they say to just use you know a different behavior

00:29:58

whenever certain things pop up maybe I'll just try that well I've done that sort of thing in the

00:30:02

past and works are about two hours and then goodbye that's gone yeah the the thing about this whole

00:30:10

section the anti-habit strategies that don't work and then kind of what he proposes in as an

00:30:16

alternative is simply the awareness of what's going on so you can take a different direction I really

00:30:23

like that I feel like the anti-habit strategies he defines these really well and how they all rely

00:30:28

on a a new brain he calls it but the old brain will take over at any given point so that's the one

00:30:38

we really got to work on and there's a single phrase in this chapter six which I think is kind

00:30:44

of brilliant don't just do something sit there and I know he's not the the first one to say that

00:30:49

I forget who he credits with that but I feel like if there was one piece of advice in this whole

00:30:56

section for me that would be it because I tend to want to just jump in and take action and that's

00:31:02

good in some situations but when you're trying to deconstruct why you feel anxious it's not you

00:31:09

want to be able to have a little bit of time between the impulse and the response so you can

00:31:14

figure out what's really going on and act accordingly yeah that whole you know just sit there

00:31:22

concepts I feel like we've talked about this before but it's something I'm realizing I do a lot

00:31:28

and it drives people crazy because whenever something breaks either there's one of two courses

00:31:35

that I follow the first of which is I have a really good guess at what's wrong and I immediately go

00:31:41

work on fixing it if somebody were to say that my car was running and it just died all of a sudden

00:31:49

mechanics know that some of the first things you're checking are battery connections you're

00:31:53

checking alternators like these are some things that you're going to check because they're very

00:31:56

likely just lost power like it's very simple that's generally where people are going to start

00:32:01

however if someone brings me something and I don't have that immediate here's what I think is wrong

00:32:08

moment usually I sit and stare for a second if not longer than a second which gets uncomfortable

00:32:15

for the other person but I'm okay with that and I'm just kind of processing like okay what are the

00:32:21

options you know the whole Occam's razor concept the simplest solution is the most likely that's

00:32:27

what I'm trying to process of what are the simplest potential solutions and start there and that

00:32:35

whole thing is super powerful like just stop and reflect on what is happening and that brings us to

00:32:44

like the he's kind of wrapping up this first part of mapping your mind like he brings that to the

00:32:49

introduction of mindfulness and that's where he spends the bulk of the book talking about what

00:32:55

to do with this most of it is taking the time to just notice what is happening and become aware of

00:33:03

when you get into these patterns like if you follow this trigger behavior result habit process

00:33:08

how do you identify those points now we could probably argue the whole temptation piece that

00:33:14

you're talking about with clear and probably could alter a lot of his book to include that to be

00:33:20

honest yeah at the same time I think that the the idea of pay attention to what is going on

00:33:28

with your brain and what is leading you down that path is the part that can help you break the

00:33:36

pattern if you're with me yep agreed and this is also where he gets into the fight versus flight

00:33:42

and he introduces a third one which is freeze and again he's probably not the originator of that I

00:33:47

forget where it really comes from that idea we've talked about before but I like the framing of these

00:33:56

behavioral tendencies he talks about and he's got a quiz assessment whatever survey thing did you

00:34:07

take that no but I I didn't take it but I I figured out what his scoring method was and just kind of

00:34:14

walked my way through it and kind of made some guesses like oh well that's that's me like I got

00:34:19

there very quickly I didn't need to do it formally I took it formally and scored 13 towards avoid

00:34:27

which I believe is like the 90th percentile on that end of the spectrum so what that means is that

00:34:37

when I feel anxious my tendency is to avoid I'm the the flight I run away so that doesn't have to be

00:34:50

though fighting for survival if you think about this in the context of the world we live in right now

00:34:58

what that really means is that when there's any sort of like conflict or uneasiness instead of

00:35:04

leaning into it I tend to go away from it and just recognizing that is a good thing because later in

00:35:13

the book he's going to talk about comfort zones and growth and all that kind of stuff so already at

00:35:19

this point in the book even though I disagree with all of the foundational habit stuff and he's missing

00:35:24

a piece I feel like this is a big this is a big revelation for me is that when I feel uncomfortable

00:35:33

that's actually probably an indication that I should lean into that thing or at least that I should

00:35:40

recognize that tendency and then ask myself why and kind of reset and re-engage like okay you're

00:35:47

feeling this way but that's not necessarily the right way so let's look at this for what it is

00:35:51

gather more information again the thing for me is I'll never have enough information so right I think

00:35:57

I generally want to just recognize okay feeling like I should avoid instead I'm going to approach

00:36:03

see what happens right yeah I know that like I didn't do the formal scoring but I came out as an

00:36:09

as avoid as well very very strongly I don't know what the numbers were because they didn't actually

00:36:14

do it but it's something that I know I do like I've mentioned the procrastination thing but you

00:36:21

could also get into like there's a task that I love to do but for some reason I'm not doing it why

00:36:27

like I run into that one a lot it's like okay well now I'm procrastinating on

00:36:31

something that I like to do why that seems strange so just kind of leaning into like okay

00:36:38

pay attention to what's happening and why am I feeling that resistance and here's what happened

00:36:43

I have time to do the thing I want to do but I'm not doing it I did what instead use the youtube

00:36:50

examples like I spent time on youtube and then I felt what which actually brings us to part two

00:36:56

I feel like I'm moving through this quickly but the part two here is updating your brain's reward

00:37:01

value second gear so he's stepping it up it's like okay you've got the first piece of just being

00:37:05

aware of what's happening but once you become aware of it that starts to help you get into second gear

00:37:11

which helps you get into this disenchantment part which he calls out here which if you take

00:37:19

that loop right so you get your trigger behavior result if you become aware of what it is that's

00:37:23

leading you to feel the anxiety and what it is that's giving you the worry you notice what your

00:37:30

trigger is like I don't want to do the thing and instead of doing the thing I spend time on

00:37:36

Instagram and then afterwards I feel icky or like the example that he calls out is somebody who is

00:37:42

in smoking and he taught her this loop process like okay well you have the craving for a cigarette

00:37:52

you smoke the cigarette how do you feel afterwards pay attention to how you feel afterwards and

00:37:58

she noticed that it tastes gross and smelled bad so like just because of that then she connected

00:38:06

that every time she went to smoke she was about to do something gross and something that smelled bad

00:38:10

and she couldn't get that out of her head and it helped her break the habit that process is

00:38:14

what he's getting at it's like learning what the negative feelings are from going through

00:38:19

that loop that's that's what he's encouraging you to do how effective do you see that being in

00:38:27

everyday life though I'm a little bit skeptical of this to be honest I understand what he's saying

00:38:33

he talks about in chapter 10 how that reward value is mapped to the orbital frontal cortex the

00:38:40

OFC so he's got all the scientific terms to support what he's saying here and he wants us to recognize

00:38:46

like specifically with a habit we want to break look at what we actually get from the activity

00:38:53

but for somebody who the average person let's say who has developed an addiction over many years I

00:39:02

I find it hard to believe that simply being aware of oh this is bad for me and I should stop

00:39:09

is enough to get them to do so I think this is bogus

00:39:12

just to be completely upfront with you this is this is why when I finished that I said this is

00:39:18

what he's calling you to do because I don't see this actually working at least this particular

00:39:24

part of it because if you're mindful of what's happening so so just take this like you have a

00:39:29

bad habit whatever it is and you start to pay attention to what it is you're doing and how you

00:39:34

feel about it and that's that's great like you can learn a lot about your bad habits doing that

00:39:40

but noticing that they have bad feelings and bad effects like somebody who struggles with alcohol

00:39:49

abuse they know that it's bad people who smoke cigarettes generally know it's bad for them

00:39:54

and yet they continue doing it so like just that whole piece it doesn't add up it just doesn't

00:40:01

like I feel like he's missing something with that or at least he's trying to set up something that

00:40:06

doesn't connect like I get what he's trying to say in that like learning that the physical

00:40:14

thing that you're doing whether it's smoking or you know something simple like avoiding somebody

00:40:19

if you're avoiding somebody or have these bad habits like just learning that there's a bad feeling

00:40:26

involved I feel like he's not going to be anywhere near the motivation you need to break the loop

00:40:32

that that doesn't add up to me at all I think it could I don't think it will in even the majority

00:40:40

of people but that's just me being skeptical and having no data to support that claim right he does

00:40:45

call out that simply mapping out habit loops and seeing their lack of value does not magically unwind

00:40:51

years of entrenchment but I feel like out of the other side of his mouth he's basically saying at

00:40:56

some point it will right right he there's some good stuff in here he talks about how old habits

00:41:02

are outdated but because they're old they're familiar and because they're familiar we trust

00:41:06

them so this is all true information and it could theoretically be helpful but I just have a hard

00:41:14

time envisioning going through this and having that aha moment like oh I never realized this was the

00:41:22

thing that was happening and now that I realized that like you said that this activity is bad for

00:41:28

me and afterwards I feel bad that I did it now I can start not doing it I feel like that's probably

00:41:35

a step on the journey but it feels like there's a lot missing from this this section it feels a

00:41:42

little fantastic to me I guess is the best way to describe it right right a lot of the productivity

00:41:46

books and this is I would argue not one of the productivity books that we read but like just follow

00:41:52

these three simple steps and you'll save an hour a day every day for the rest of your life that it's

00:41:59

kind of what this feels like for anxiety and habit loops and with it with habit loops specifically I

00:42:05

know it's not that simple right and maybe that's the the issue here is because it's framed on the

00:42:11

key routine reward or TBR trigger behavior reward but he doesn't get into all the other stuff that

00:42:17

we know is true about habits it feels a little bit like just take my word for this and then just do

00:42:26

this thing but we're skeptical because we know there's a whole lot more to it having gone through

00:42:31

both atomic habits and also I would argue tiny habits which that trigger behavior reward is

00:42:36

really based off of yeah I know that this is definitely a a piece of the whole process because like

00:42:44

if you look at his different gears like he wants you to get to third gear so you can break break the

00:42:48

loops but part one he's talking about mindfulness like he's introducing you to becoming aware of

00:42:54

these things too he's like showing you some of the things you're going to find like this disenchantment

00:43:00

piece another one is learning from the past like the reflective piece of just paying attention to

00:43:04

what happens after something happens like if you avoid the gym one day it makes it easier to avoid

00:43:10

it the next day like that concept of learning from your past behaviors the the thing that's

00:43:17

interesting to me is that it's it's something that like these are all steps in the process but yet

00:43:23

he doesn't get to the very end until of course part three but inside that process it's it seems

00:43:31

like it's dependent on the next one but he calls it out as if it's something that could break things

00:43:35

in itself like I get the idea that like doing mindfulness and then learning the disenchantment

00:43:40

thing like those are pieces that can help you break it in themselves but it seems like it's

00:43:45

dependent on the next ones sometimes like it's not a this is the process which is what I feel like

00:43:52

he's he's he's initially saying like this is the answer and yet it's not so I don't know he's hard

00:43:59

to follow so if I were to rewrite this section for him as a non doctor I would say do what he's

00:44:10

talking about ask yourself what did I actually get out of these activities but I would immediately

00:44:17

follow that up with recorded all in a journal and write in it every day and reflect on the day

00:44:24

at the end of the day and I feel like that's maybe the missing piece and I guess I'm kind of curious

00:44:31

if what do you think if you just developed a journaling habit do you feel like some of these

00:44:39

insights would surface automatically I kind of think they would yeah I think so just having

00:44:47

started like this whole morning and evening ritual of journaling and stuff and some of the

00:44:52

questions I'm asking being very like are you being honest with yourself like some of those

00:44:56

questions or ones I'm asking like that is something I find is surfacing some of the anxiety issues

00:45:03

and just that reflective process is all it takes like just being aware of like am I lying to myself

00:45:10

well yeah in some ways I'm convincing myself that something is not easily done when it is like

00:45:17

it's gonna take me two minutes but I'm avoiding it because I think it's gonna be some big hairy

00:45:21

thing so I'm lying to myself yeah just asking myself that question is all it took to

00:45:25

to get there I don't need to go through this whole process here but right I don't know agreed not

00:45:31

a doctor on it not a doctor so I guess that brings us to part three here and this is where we're

00:45:40

supposed to button the whole process up right so you've learned mindfulness we've learned to

00:45:45

learn from the past and be disenchanted with the negatives and then we get to part three which is

00:45:50

finding that bigger better offer for your brain or third year and by the bigger better offer

00:45:57

pretty much what he's telling us to do is to substitute which is the thing he told us to watch

00:46:02

out for and I struggled with this because like basically what we're being told this is my

00:46:10

interpretation of it so correct me if I got this wrong mic but the way I took it was whenever

00:46:15

you're sensing that you've got this negative habit that's leading to anxiety you need to

00:46:20

learn to notice it notice the negative effects of it and then find a better thing to do instead

00:46:28

of that at least that's the way I took it which to me is like the definition of the substitution

00:46:33

thing he told us not to do so I got real confused when we got to this point so hopefully you can

00:46:40

square me away here yeah so the the actual definition for substitution or what he says about it is

00:46:48

that like willpower relies on the new brain may work for a subset of people but doesn't

00:46:53

uproot the craving itself and that's kind of how it's framed in part three is well to create a new

00:47:02

habit you update the value of the old one you present a better offer without feeding the habit

00:47:07

loop through mere substitution is the last piece there so I think it's it's not what he's saying is

00:47:15

more nuanced and more accurate I think than substitution but on the surface it kind of appears the same

00:47:22

so when you update the value of the old one really what he's hoping that does is causes you to realize

00:47:29

there isn't any value in the activity that you're doing and that's enough motivation to give up

00:47:35

smoking like the the lady that he shared in the the book then you present something else and then

00:47:43

that translates into motivation to do a new desired action I don't know I don't know how I feel about

00:47:52

this I understand the motivation is is very powerful and if you can hack your motivation that way

00:47:59

that's probably the ideal way to do it but I also think of and some of these people like they are

00:48:05

too extreme I know we both really liked extreme ownership by Jocko Willink the more I know about

00:48:12

that guy though the less I like him not the less I like it just that he's not not for me you know

00:48:20

he's posting pictures and videos of himself getting up at 4.30 every morning and that's just that's

00:48:25

just too extreme he's one of these super high energy grant cardone Gary Vee sorta types yes

00:48:32

yes exactly but I do think there's some truth to his whole message which is like you don't feel

00:48:37

like it tough do it anyways you can accomplish a lot of good in your life by just doing the things

00:48:44

you don't want to do you don't have to rely solely on the motivation which maybe that comes back

00:48:49

again to the fact that there's that missing fourth leg to the stool when it comes to habits so I

00:48:57

understand what he's doing here it sounds nice I do think that it's not structurally sound though

00:49:06

because it's still built on that the habit stuff now that being set there's a lot of cool stuff in

00:49:10

this section that I really liked so I don't want to bash on this this too much I think he gets into

00:49:17

like curiosity and and that's fascinating to me the two different kinds of curiosity interest versus

00:49:23

deprivation and that's my one action item from this whole book to be honest is to practice curiosity

00:49:29

and he uses it he uses the example of people just saying hmm so that's my my action item I want to

00:49:36

whenever I feel frustrated by a situation just be like hmm and see what options that opens up in

00:49:45

my brain right that is exactly my one and only action item from this book as well so great minds

00:49:51

like and like the curiosity piece like that I wish that was like his core foundation of the book

00:50:00

because I feel like that is the point at which the rest of it is encompassed inside of that so take

00:50:05

what he's saying so far mindfulness pay attention to what's going on be curious about what's going

00:50:11

on ask the questions about how you feel about it what's happened in the past how is this affecting

00:50:15

you is it true is it not like these are the questions that are all kind of wrapped up in this whole

00:50:21

curiosity concept and if you want to take like the bigger better offer whether I've got it right

00:50:27

or you've got it right I don't know but trying to figure out well if I substitute something in this

00:50:31

case will it work like whenever I know like for example I know that I tend to be very tired in the

00:50:37

afternoons and it's hard for me to do like heavy brain work so I know that in the afternoon if I

00:50:43

want to avoid the temptation of losing time to youtube and such that I have to set up things for

00:50:50

me to do physically in the afternoon so like this afternoon I'm tearing apart some shelves behind me

00:50:55

here so like I know that because in the afternoons like I'm not going to be able to spend time

00:50:59

writing out my thoughts and deciding things and writing emails like I cannot do it like my brain

00:51:05

is just shot by that point so like I cannot pull that one off so setting those up and being aware

00:51:11

of that is only like in my case like it's only really been done because I've been curious about

00:51:16

why am I not able to get anything done in the afternoons why do I always get tired before I get

00:51:20

there and what happens when I get tired now he would probably say well you're just paying attention

00:51:25

to that trigger behavior reward result process but I feel like a lot of it just has to do with

00:51:32

wondering why things are happening and so I all this to say like I feel like the curiosity

00:51:37

pieces the crux of a lot of this and I wish it had come up earlier the the why is interesting because

00:51:44

in chapter 20 he asked the question what if the why doesn't matter and that's an interesting thought

00:51:53

experiment yeah as someone whose life is basically trying to figure out why he's basically encouraging

00:52:03

us don't stress out trying to figure it out and I feel like that's good advice and is not

00:52:11

contradictory to the curiosity that he talks about because when you approach something with

00:52:18

curiosity you're not approaching it like a problem that needs to be solved you're just trying to

00:52:25

see it and understand it a little bit better and understand what is really going on and he has this

00:52:32

phrase that curiosity pulls but willpower pushes and I feel like that's a very good

00:52:38

explanation now how does that fit into all of this stuff with anxiety I don't know exactly I do

00:52:47

like this rain thing that he talks about how not to freak out when anxiety hits number one you

00:52:53

recognize or you relax into what is arising number two you accept or allow it to be there

00:53:01

number three you investigate the bodily sensations emotions and thoughts and then

00:53:05

number four you note what is happening from moment to moment so I feel like this is the book

00:53:12

encapsulated and I'm so glad that we went through how to read a book all those years ago at this point

00:53:17

and the whole idea of like this in topical reading and fitting this in with the other books yeah

00:53:22

because basically what this is saying is take the extended mind approach of cognitive repraisal

00:53:28

but journal about it right it down yep and then as you do that you'll start to see things more clearly

00:53:35

and respond less emotionally yes yeah you you mentioned like the the why doesn't matter that

00:53:42

he refers to it is the why habit loop not worrying about the why behind it because like sometimes

00:53:48

people like well I'm not fixing this thing why is that well you know I'm still anxious well don't

00:53:54

worry about why it doesn't matter why I continue to search for the the things that are leading you

00:54:00

down that anxious path which is the curiosity piece so don't necessarily worry about why you

00:54:06

know results focus on the curious of why are you still doing these certain patterns so you had to

00:54:11

be careful with that sort of thing but you do I feel like this is the part that like encompasses

00:54:16

everything in the book and I feel like this is like the wrap-up point here but it's an interesting

00:54:22

overall process that I think he's he's worked through and I feel like it's kind of misfired in a

00:54:26

number of places and I got maybe this is me but I feel like I got confused a lot of like what are

00:54:31

we talking about and why are we talking about this particular thing again I got super lost

00:54:36

many many times and I have my thoughts for why that is but I'll save that at this point

00:54:44

that's interesting I agree with you but again we'll we'll do that when we get to

00:54:50

style and rating I'm curious what is if if you or I were to write a book what is the better approach

00:54:59

because it seems to me the issues that I have with this are the fact that he's trying to make it

00:55:05

all encompassing everything you need to know all the science behind it instead of saying hey there's

00:55:11

other people who have studied habits and go see what they have to say but the big takeaway here is

00:55:16

this no he gets into all the the details and that's where I focused on and I probably at that point

00:55:27

I'm not seeing the forest through the trees because he's saying specific things that I'm

00:55:31

disagreeing with and I recognize that maybe I just missed his his point with this so assuming you're

00:55:38

gonna write a book on whatever topic do you try to give give the reader everything they need to know

00:55:47

in order for this topic to make complete sense or do you just say this is built on some other

00:55:54

stuff that some other people have written so go read this stuff I feel like that's hard to know

00:56:01

where to draw that that line and I can totally see where a publisher or an editor would be like hey

00:56:09

you didn't explain this enough yep you got to go into like why habits work but for people like you

00:56:14

and me that was detrimental yeah I think this is is a good point to bring up Mike because this is

00:56:20

something I feel like we deal with a lot on bookworm we talk about this a lot like you shouldn't have

00:56:25

tried to explain this there are people who did it better it my sense is that and I don't know when

00:56:30

this started how recent this is but if you go back to how to read a book that we covered and didn't

00:56:37

care for and yet reference constantly that book talks about how a great way to find your next books

00:56:46

to read are to pull the references out of the one you're in right now right so so take the references

00:56:53

in the current book you're reading and use that as a jumping off point for where to go next off

00:57:00

the top of your head Mike how many book references did he mention in this book oh I can't think of any

00:57:06

I know he talked about the habit stuff and I know Washington say I know I think he talked about

00:57:13

Charles Duhigg's the power of habit when he introduced that but I can't think of any others

00:57:18

I don't think he actually mentioned Charles Duhigg when he when he got to that point the only one I

00:57:23

can think of is he mentioned Carol Dweck and Growth Mindset uh okay the mindset book yeah

00:57:29

so I know that he mentioned that but again in how to read a book what he's referring to is the long

00:57:36

list of references that people generally have in a book so what what I'm getting at is that

00:57:40

so many times we read these books and it's like there's people who did better than that they

00:57:45

should reference those summarize it for me in like a paragraph the part that applies to what

00:57:50

you're talking about reference the book you don't have to tell me to go read it because if I'm interested

00:57:55

in that topic I'll go read it pull out the part that applies to what you're talking about

00:57:59

reference the book and move on so many of our authors today I feel like they want to

00:58:03

be the single point of truth for everything and I don't want you to do that because the whole

00:58:09

point is you're adding your thoughts to the broader collective of knowledge you're not the one and

00:58:16

only place I'm going to go to learn about anxiety and habits I'm going to apply that to

00:58:22

how many other people but I also know that some of this is just because you and I are oddballs

00:58:29

when it comes to this because of the syntopical reading patterns that we tend to

00:58:32

to apply because of how to read a book and as a result of that we're putting together a very

00:58:39

big picture that not I don't know if I say most but a lot of people don't do that so

00:58:47

it gets to be kind of messy but because people don't reference other books anymore I shouldn't

00:58:52

say anymore because they just don't do it as much but if you if you go back to like take personal

00:58:59

Socrates if you read through that book there's reference after reference after reference after

00:59:04

reference in that book there's there's tons of books that are referenced in that one uh

00:59:10

Ryan Holidays books are the same way there are tons of references to other books if you go back

00:59:15

and look at a lot of our five star books I bet you would find tons of references

00:59:18

inside those books and now I don't know if that's a key indicator for bookworm ratings or not but

00:59:25

I feel like that's something that's very important because it's it's taking the knowledge that I'm

00:59:30

writing into my book and incorporating it into this broader knowledge of books but when you have

00:59:36

somebody who does like what Brewer did here it it gets tricky because I feel like he's not

00:59:42

doing that he's like trying to make it its own thing and not use that knowledge of all these

00:59:47

other people before him I don't know yeah I could I could see that um he does base a lot of this off

00:59:54

of experience people that he's worked with that he's got one guy Dave that he tells his story in

01:00:00

four different parts yeah which I didn't really didn't really care for it's an interesting point

01:00:07

I think you're right that is probably part of my my issue with this and again that's not to say

01:00:13

that there's not good stuff in here but it just does feel a little bit weird like trust me I've

01:00:20

gone up the mountain I have the the stone tablets this is the truth right and that's very anti how

01:00:29

to read a book where we're having a conversation or even a debate and we're asking the questions

01:00:34

and we're arguing with the author there is like really isn't a whole lot of room to argue here

01:00:40

and still reconcile these things in your your head I think that's where where I got off right

01:00:46

right there are a couple of things in this last section though I did like and I want to touch on

01:00:51

he's got some cool visuals he's got one about in Dave's story part three the the comfort zone in

01:00:58

the middle and then the growth zone which is outside of that and then outside of that is the

01:01:03

pantry zone and I don't know if this speaks to everybody maybe if you are the other end of the

01:01:11

spectrum when you take that quiz this speaks to you differently but for me I tend to stay in the

01:01:18

comfort zone so being someone who naturally avoids things when I say I want to start to lean into

01:01:27

things what that does if you look at this like bullseye style target is it forces me outside of

01:01:32

the comfort zone into the growth zone and the big thing he's saying here the big takeaway is that

01:01:39

the world outside our comfort zone is not always dangerous which he's definitely understanding me

01:01:46

when he yeah he says that the other thing is that in chapter 22 he talks about how he did a

01:01:55

personal retreat when he wrote this book so obviously I'm a big fan of that yeah

01:01:59

convince his wife to go away so he could write it yep whatever you got to do what else Mike you

01:02:06

want to jump into action items let's do it so I have the one which is to be curious super curious

01:02:13

like I just want to like be aware like try to do the whole curiosity thing because I feel like

01:02:18

that's a lot of the the crux that should be applied here so like that's that's really it like that's

01:02:25

I want to spend some time you know whenever I'm doing these journaling pieces like I've got some

01:02:30

questions that I'm I haven't formalized but I've started the process of like what should these be

01:02:35

to help me try to understand what it is that I'm off base with so like that's that's the whole

01:02:41

curiosity piece I want to try to apply that's what I got all right well mine is similar but it was

01:02:49

specifically to implement the hmm yeah I feel like that is the action that I could substitute

01:02:59

when I see the trigger even though it doesn't work according to him but uh I feel like I can

01:03:07

recognize now when I'm feeling a little bit stressed out we didn't really talk a whole lot about the

01:03:13

mindfulness versus meditation piece but just real briefly he talks about how meditation is

01:03:20

actually a part of mindfulness and he's got like the circle of meditation that's inside a much

01:03:24

bigger circle for mindfulness and mindfulness is not about emptying it's about changing our

01:03:29

relationship with our thoughts so recognizing that I'm thinking this certain way not implementing

01:03:36

what he calls shoulding like I should be able to let this go or I should be able to move on to the

01:03:40

next thing that's self-judgment cycle and I definitely recognize that I I have tendency to slip into

01:03:48

that as well so just recognizing the feeling and then verbally going hmm because I feel the

01:03:58

application of that physically is the thing that will bring value to me it's not enough just to

01:04:06

recognize it and tell my brain stop doing that go do this other thing that physical action that

01:04:12

is the trigger I think for being more curious instead of more I don't know problem solving you

01:04:19

know not everything that happens not everything that feels uncomfortable is a problem that I should

01:04:25

solve and so I want to insert that as like the pause between the impulse and the response I like

01:04:34

it it's a good one so as for style and rating I have lots and lots of thoughts on style but

01:04:41

suffice it to say it's very disjointed I found there were many many stories that were brought up

01:04:47

there were a lot of examples that I felt like didn't apply I got lost as to what we were talking

01:04:52

about regularly and I feel like he didn't have real good ways of like buttoning up the whole thing

01:05:01

it just got to be super messy and I really struggled with it there was so many times that I was like

01:05:06

wait what is this chapter about again and why is this different to the others like I feel like

01:05:10

you just want to tell a story about some science you've done like that's that was my perspective

01:05:15

and I don't know how much truth there is that maybe I just got jaded at some point in the book

01:05:19

and started to see it through that lens that's very possible honestly I feel like the thing that

01:05:24

you should take away from this is you know be curious do the hmm thing and I tend to just say

01:05:32

like I don't want you to read this like it's just kind of a mess and I feel like it could cause

01:05:37

more problems than good so yes there are some good things in it but I feel like we covered those

01:05:43

and I don't know how much I would have someone dive into this and how much you would get from it

01:05:49

I just I don't know I struggled with this one I thought this would be a lot tighter of a book

01:05:54

and a lot more buttoned up but here we are so as for a rating that makes it messy so I I think in

01:06:03

my case I'm going to put this at a 2.5 like this is way down there for me and it's primarily because

01:06:09

like I just wanted it to be in a line and it was all over the place and there were a lot of things

01:06:14

I'm like wait hold up I don't think that's true like yes you've got all this science stuff that

01:06:18

you're talking about but you're not really showing me where all that comes from like in the broader

01:06:24

scheme of things like it's like this one single point that I feel like you're trying to force

01:06:27

into it so I don't know if you read this one be careful with it but I'm gonna put it at a 2.5 I

01:06:33

don't think I want it higher than that all right interesting hmm wasn't expecting a 2.5 I know I

01:06:40

know I got frustrated pretty bad with this one I feel there is some really good stuff in here

01:06:46

and I do like the general flow of how it's outlined the end of the book chapter 23 is anxiety

01:06:56

sobriety and it talks about how like alcoholics anonymous part of the process is helping others

01:07:02

how being kind feels good and self empowering and you can become addicted to kindness and like

01:07:07

that's the path forward I felt like that was a really powerful way to end the book and I feel

01:07:12

like there's some really great stuff in here I do think that I had some trouble disconnecting

01:07:19

from what I felt was a shaky foundation of the TBR the trigger behavior result and all the habit

01:07:27

stuff at the beginning but I also reviewing my mind node file before recording recognize that

01:07:35

there were several aha moments for me in this just the mindfulness and meditation piece alone

01:07:44

again that wasn't the only place that I heard that but that was kind of like a missing puzzle piece

01:07:50

in where I was with the previous action item about creating a meditation habit that actually sticks

01:07:57

so I felt like this was one of the things that kind of clicked into place and allowed me to

01:08:01

feel like okay yeah I can I can do this for the first time ever yeah so I definitely got some

01:08:09

value out of this and I think it's easy to nitpick the stuff that didn't jive necessarily with us

01:08:17

and I'm trying to disconnect from that because I feel like some of that maybe is just personal

01:08:22

opinion and we tend to weigh it more heavy than maybe we we should have I'm gonna rate it at 3.5

01:08:30

when you say you you hesitate whether you would recommend this to people I feel like I would

01:08:36

recommend this to people but I would also say that this isn't going to be the only thing you should

01:08:44

read on this topic like this is the beginning maybe of your journey but you've got a a lot more

01:08:51

to go and if you've already been reading along with us and you understand atomic habits and things

01:08:56

like that there probably are better books to build on that foundation going forward but I don't know

01:09:03

what they are it was significantly better than I thought it was going to be I told you I was very

01:09:08

apprehensive about getting into this one because I didn't want to have a conversation with a psychologist

01:09:13

via book form and that's not what I got this was I was pleasantly surprised by the the content in

01:09:20

this one to be honest and yeah I can nitpick little things about it but I feel like the

01:09:25

main message is is fairly solid if I can stop focusing on the habit part for for a second and

01:09:34

then just kind of flow with everything that he's telling me throughout the rest of the book I feel

01:09:40

like that maybe changes what you're able to to get out of it but again like that is a skill that I

01:09:46

did not have a couple years ago I recognize now every single book that I go into that this is not

01:09:54

going to be the be all end all on whatever topic even though every single author seems to want to

01:10:01

position their book that way I go into it thinking there's going to be something in here for me and

01:10:07

I'm going to jot down the things that I like and the things that I don't I'm going to discard and

01:10:12

in a podcast format people like to hear his complain about stuff so we'll focus on the the

01:10:18

habit stuff but I feel like just in the content of the book that there's a there's a lot of good

01:10:24

stuff stuff in here so I would recommend this to people I would say don't buy it hook line and

01:10:30

sinker like question all this stuff for yourself and figure out how it applies to you but if you go

01:10:36

into it curious then I think you'll get you'll get something out of it at least I got got something

01:10:43

out of it so I have conflicting opinions walking out of this because on one topic on one hand I'm

01:10:51

like there's got to be something better on this topic that I want to read but on the other hand

01:10:55

I don't want to touch anything else in this genre yeah so I don't know if this genre speaks to you

01:11:03

if you really like this topic and you want to dive into it you know go for it but I was

01:11:09

apprehensive to begin with and it was better than expected yep here you are all right let's put it

01:11:15

on the shelf Mike what's what's up next next is creative calling by Chase Jarvis which is a big

01:11:23

one so if you haven't started it do it now it's like 280 pages or something and it's basically about

01:11:31

living a creative lifestyle I've started this one not very far in it just kind of read like the

01:11:37

introductory section and I feel like this is going to be good because he's kind of calling out doesn't

01:11:43

matter if you're an artist an entrepreneur whatever you have the ability to be creative which is

01:11:51

something that I have long believed and I feel like this is one of those books that will empower you

01:11:56

and hopefully give you some clear you know here's how you would actually start walking this stuff out

01:12:03

time will tell on on that part I guess but yeah creative calling by Chase Jarvis is next and then

01:12:10

after we read that what are we going through yeah so up next after that I discovered a book

01:12:16

called Yes to Life by none other than Victor Frankle which is a series of I believe it's lectures

01:12:25

that he gave after he wrote his other book I'm drawing man search for meaning and I was not a

01:12:33

way that this existed it was translated to English in 2020 I believe and published and when I saw

01:12:40

that there was another book by Victor Frankle that was post his other like yep uh-huh I want to

01:12:46

read that and I figured you wouldn't argue with me I will not I will happily read this one I will

01:12:53

look this look forward to this one much more than I did in winding and there you go there you go

01:12:57

so yeah Yes to Life by Victor Frankle so with the extra blank in time Mike did you read a couple

01:13:06

gap books one at all I read so many gap books it's ridiculous I was on vacation so

01:13:12

I'm going to pick one here uh how to fight a hydra by Josh Kaufman have you read this no I have

01:13:22

it on my list though you would love this it's a short little book it's tiny it's probably about

01:13:29

the size of a little bit bigger than an iPhone the size of the book and it's maybe 90 pages and it's

01:13:36

uh an adaptation of a fable that he found in some old bookstore it's like a 12th century Bulgarian

01:13:46

fable or something that he modernized and uh it's about this person who's seeking fame and fortune

01:13:54

and he's going to go kill a hydra and he's going to get the treasure behind it and there's a whole

01:14:02

lot of lessons to be learned there uh very a la Stephen Pressfield I feel so if you like Stephen

01:14:10

Pressfield's style minus the language wrapped in a fable that's kind of what this is

01:14:17

yeah that sounds fascinating I feel like that's one I should definitely read yeah and you can read

01:14:23

the whole thing in like an hour yeah so I have been going through a book called Shape Up if you

01:14:31

familiar with this this is from the base camp team and this is primarily like shaping and positioning

01:14:40

what they would call pitches basically how do you pitch an idea to your team and shape it in such a

01:14:47

way that you can achieve it in a certain amount of time and I've actually gone through it a couple

01:14:53

times over the last couple weeks just because like what I'm working through at work anyway is

01:14:59

how do I shape some of the projects for the teams that I'm working with in order to have them

01:15:05

achieve them successfully in the time frame we have to do it to do it so trying to figure out good

01:15:10

ways to do that we've been using base camp internally for that sort of thing so I figured it made sense

01:15:16

to try to follow some of their process as well so that's an interesting one I'm not sure how I

01:15:21

would translate that to like personal life scenarios though some people do it but anyway shape up I'm

01:15:29

familiar with this book and I want them to print the physical one so that I can buy correct I'm

01:15:34

not reading a PDF sorry that that was the hard part with it is the whole PDF thing that's kind

01:15:40

of messy not fun to do it that way at all so anyway there's that we are very grateful to those of

01:15:48

you who have joined us live I know Martin and Michael and a few others have jumped in today so

01:15:53

very thank very big thank you to those of you who have done that I know it was short notice that we

01:15:58

recorded the day because we're doing this one is kind of a fast turnaround given our our gap last

01:16:03

time around but if you haven't already another place that you can get connected to us is on

01:16:10

the bookworm club so club.bookworm.fm and inside of that club there is a way to join our membership

01:16:18

and you can get the shortcut to get there is bookworm.fm/membership and when you do that it's five bucks a

01:16:24

month helps us keep the lights on here helps us buy our books but you also get some cool perks

01:16:28

with that you get an awesome background that Mike put together you get Mike's mine node files and

01:16:34

all the notes that he's taken on that as well some old gap book episodes that I've recorded in the

01:16:39

past so there's just a lot of cool stuff going on there and we'd love to have you join that so

01:16:44

again that's bookworm.fm/membership all right if you are reading along with us pick up creative

01:16:52

calling by Chase Jarvis and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.