Bookworm Transcripts

00:00:00

So live listeners last time know that I had some serious issues with audio hijack

00:00:04

Which seemed to have magically sorted themselves right before we hopped on this call. So that's great. Yeah

00:00:10

I

00:00:12

Really was expecting you to have all sorts of issues Mike and yet it worked scary now. What do we do?

00:00:16

Now we record a podcast I guess

00:00:19

Okay

00:00:22

Before we do that let's talk about YouTube so

00:00:25

I've been going through part-time YouTube Academy, and it's awesome learning all sorts of stuff shooting all sorts of B roll

00:00:31

but I

00:00:33

Understand you have done some stuff with YouTube too. Yeah, I'm taking a step out there and doing something that is

00:00:41

borderline scary in the world of like content creator land and

00:00:46

That is that I'm taking the video courses that I've created and

00:00:52

sold in the past and

00:00:55

Making them free and putting them on YouTube

00:00:57

so as we're recording this the first of

00:01:01

If you follow me, you know that I've got two versions of working with Omni focus and

00:01:05

There's one that was recorded in 2016, which is fairly extensive

00:01:10

But right now I'm in the middle of releasing one video a day from the 2019 version of that which shockingly there's a lot of

00:01:18

That's video course that remains

00:01:21

relevant in

00:01:23

Omni focus land. I don't know if that's a

00:01:26

good thing or a bad thing

00:01:29

But I know there's a ton of it that is still

00:01:31

Almost picture perfect for what is in Omni focus today

00:01:36

so if that's of interest to you you can check out my YouTube channel and

00:01:40

You'll see those videos releasing one every day

00:01:44

So I guess by the time this releases that almost that entire course will be up by the time this releases. There you go super fun

00:01:51

Yeah, I'm on the

00:01:53

The test flight for the new version of Omni focus. Yeah, but it has been taking forever to

00:02:00

Come out. Yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty ambitious rewrite, but in terms of functionality

00:02:07

It's I don't know. I mean, I don't use it daily. So it's not fair for me to say there's there's nothing new there

00:02:15

but it's not

00:02:17

It's it's it's gonna be a lot of like

00:02:20

Behind the scenes under the hood type stuff is my understanding. So it kind of sets it up

00:02:25

For from a technical perspective for future success

00:02:29

But if you're expecting a complete revamp of the entire Omni focus system, that's not what you're gonna get

00:02:35

No, come on boards my knowledge. I

00:02:39

Think there was way back at one point they talked about having the ability to share

00:02:47

projects and work on them collaboratively and

00:02:49

That never came to fruition and I feel like that's the one that I continue to see people talk about but it's yeah

00:02:57

It's not there yet is what it is

00:02:59

Anyway, if you're interested in that course that I put together you can go check out YouTube super fun

00:03:04

We will definitely link to that in the show notes

00:03:07

I mentioned the part-time youtuber Academy. I've also been doing a bunch of stuff behind the scenes to make more YouTube videos

00:03:14

I think I committed to the time this one goes live that there would be at least one new

00:03:21

non-sermon sketch note video

00:03:24

As a distant action item follow up here

00:03:27

So I've got a little over a week to get that out and all the pieces are in place to do that

00:03:34

It'll be good. It'll be pretty close, but I think I can still do that

00:03:40

So at this point, can you tell us what it's about?

00:03:43

Because if if you're gonna if you're gonna commit to this you can tell us what it's about because it will have released

00:03:49

Mmm. That's a good point. I have a bunch of ideas. I haven't decided which one to film yet. Probably need to do that like

00:03:55

tomorrow, but

00:03:58

No, I can't I can't tell you what it's about you excited

00:04:02

But I have lots of ideas

00:04:05

I've been doing lots of writing. I just started the ship 30 for 30

00:04:09

course as yeah part-time youtuber Academy is wrapping up. I've also signed up for another course which overlaps it by a week

00:04:17

Perfect, so I'm busy and then after that I signed up for another course

00:04:23

Are you familiar with pencil pirates? No, what is pencil pirates? I believe the website is

00:04:31

pencil - pirates calm, but it is

00:04:35

Essentially a course on

00:04:37

Sketching your ideas to communicate more effectively. It looks a lot the website anyways looks a lot like

00:04:44

sketch note type stuff and

00:04:46

That's something that I do on a regular basis anyways

00:04:50

So I feel like this is going to all three of these things are gonna come together in my

00:04:57

final YouTube

00:05:00

Vibe I guess for lack of a better word. Okay, so I don't have all the custom drawings and things for the YouTube video

00:05:07

I'm gonna release in the next eight days. That one's probably just gonna be short talking head type video

00:05:12

But this is kind of where I see all this going for me is

00:05:16

Consistently writing and then that writing ends up as podcast topics as news newsletter articles

00:05:22

maybe some blog posts

00:05:24

YouTube videos and

00:05:26

Then the visual aspect of that building off of the stuff that I've been doing was sketch noting to make those YouTube videos a little more

00:05:33

interesting

00:05:35

Sure, I'm excited for you. I'm really itching to see these me too. You'll do great with it

00:05:41

Thanks

00:05:44

But it that is it for follow-up

00:05:47

So if it seems like we're kind of talking about lots of non follow-up things in order to fill the time

00:05:54

We kind of are because there was nothing from the last book follow-up list was exactly empty. Yeah

00:06:01

We're done with it now. I'm not sure what kind of follow-up you can have from a Victor Frankl book, but I

00:06:11

Will reiterate if you missed that one definitely go back and listen to the episode and I

00:06:17

Would also say definitely go back and read that book. Yes

00:06:21

The life was the the last one that we we covered

00:06:24

But today we are covering the messy middle by Scott Belsky

00:06:32

which is a

00:06:35

very very big book

00:06:37

To monster. Do you have any idea?

00:06:39

How many words are in this book? I'm kind of curious. Did you figure it out? No, it's like

00:06:47

70 some pages, but I don't know how many words are in it. Yeah, it's it's a lot and

00:06:52

the format of the book is

00:06:56

sort of like

00:06:58

the Seth Godin book that we covered. What was it the creative?

00:07:02

The practice the practice. That's what it was

00:07:05

where it's a whole bunch of really short

00:07:08

chapters and

00:07:10

basically sharing a single truth a single idea and

00:07:16

Very much like Seth Godin. There's a lot of stuff that is condensed here

00:07:23

into these short chapters

00:07:26

This book is 380 pages

00:07:28

The pages are pretty small print. There's a section in the middle where the print gets even smaller

00:07:35

But I would argue that it could have been probably three times as long

00:07:42

Do you think that's accurate? It could be yeah, I mean there's there's a bank of if you look through like the table of contents in this book and

00:07:50

There are so many points here. That's like, okay. There's three pages on this one like dude

00:07:56

That could have been a chapter easy very easy and then you go to the next one like oh that that could have been a chapter

00:08:03

It's probably more than three times like this could have been a multi-volume set very easily

00:08:08

yeah

00:08:10

Because what he's doing is he's condensing his

00:08:13

experience and the things that he's learned into these

00:08:18

smaller chapters, but

00:08:20

the positive side of that is there's a lot of meat in this book you can

00:08:28

Tackle it chapter by chapter. You don't have to crank through all 380 pages necessarily

00:08:34

That's the good news. The bad news is we did

00:08:38

Yes, yeah, which is why I was curious about the number of words because if the average

00:08:44

nonfiction book is 60,000 words

00:08:47

this is

00:08:49

probably

00:08:51

90 plus would be my guess

00:08:53

Do you think it's that or do you think it's higher than that?

00:08:56

I think it's higher than that but also the formatting of the book likes each title page half of the page is just the title and

00:09:04

Some of it's a pretty big book and the pages are big but also a lot of them are not filled up

00:09:10

Like the second or third page for example the end of the chapter they don't go all the way down to the bottom

00:09:15

So it's really hard to gauge how much white space is in this book if I had to guess it's probably a hundred twenty thousand words

00:09:23

It's a lot. It's a lot. I feel like I've seen this on this is what I've been kind of trying to find I feel like it's on

00:09:30

Amazon

00:09:32

Somewhere like I feel like I've seen the word counts. That's what I thought too, but I couldn't find it. I know that there's

00:09:39

What was it? I know that at one point they had it

00:09:45

Hear me typing looking. I know that at one point like their API would let you pull it like you could get the word count from that

00:09:53

Mm-hmm interesting kind of cruising through here, and I'm not

00:09:56

Not seeing not seeing it dude. All right. Well TLDR. It's long

00:10:03

So recognize that if you're gonna pick this one up if you are in any sort of I

00:10:09

Would say creative or entrepreneurial field

00:10:12

There's a lot that's gonna be relevant here for you

00:10:18

Recognize at the beginning Scott Belsky's

00:10:22

Perspective as he writes this book. He is the author of another book called making ideas happen

00:10:31

and he is also one of the founders of the Behance Network which was a

00:10:36

network for creative professionals that got purchased by Adobe for

00:10:42

150 million dollars I think yep, yeah, which sounds like a lot of money

00:10:50

until

00:10:52

You start comparing it to some of the other acquisitions out there like what's that for 19 billion dollars?

00:11:00

Soon to be Twitter. Yeah, and it's not fair to compare that side to side, but the name of the book comes from

00:11:08

Scott basically saying that people in the startup world specifically

00:11:14

They like to talk about how they started with nothing and they like to share the end of the story where they achieve their success

00:11:22

nobody talks about the middle and

00:11:24

The messy middle as the name implies is it's it's not

00:11:29

simple upward trajectory. There is a lot of missteps and a lot of

00:11:34

mistakes that you make along the way a lot of small course corrections and there is this visual the

00:11:41

Relative joy of creating it's called right at the beginning where it starts up high like this then goes down and then like goes up a little bit

00:11:49

and

00:11:50

It goes down again and kind of over the long-term trends back upwards

00:11:55

But I feel like anyone who has tried to create anything online can instantly relate to this visual

00:12:01

Easily because it seems like oh, I got this new thing. Let's go for it and then

00:12:05

you realize like you have to

00:12:08

Succeed with it and keep going and it's like okay, then there's like this big dip of

00:12:12

despair almost where you realize just how big and complicated and and

00:12:19

drawn out this thing could be and

00:12:22

You have this like almost stair step with some some valleys and maybe some higher peaks and like you have some of that going on

00:12:29

Until you slowly work your way up hopefully not everybody does that but that's the intent right to slowly work your way up that graph and

00:12:39

People like to talk about the very beginning. Oh, I had this great idea and then like to talk about how we sold it for a billion dollars

00:12:46

but they don't tell you what happened between those two points and

00:12:51

Between those two points is exactly where he's he's getting with this book. Yep. So recognize the perspective like I said, he's a

00:12:58

He's in the startup world basically

00:13:01

But if you are put off by that culture or that doesn't appeal to you at all

00:13:06

I would argue there's still a lot for you in this this book. So give it a shot

00:13:10

That being said let's jump into the contents here. It's broken down into three different sections

00:13:18

endure optimize and the final mile

00:13:20

endure is the first one. So let's start there and

00:13:26

this one

00:13:29

feels long until you get past it and you get into the optimize section and then that one is easily the

00:13:36

the the big biggest section of the the book and then the final mile is the the last one and that one's pretty pretty short

00:13:46

But endure is is interesting

00:13:49

This I started reading this just as on the day job. We were going through a lot of the stuff that he was talking about

00:13:57

so I

00:14:00

actually bought this book and gifted it to somebody that I work with

00:14:06

Because the first time I came across something I was like, huh

00:14:09

He's really describing the situation that we're in and the second time

00:14:12

I'm like, wow, this is really relevant and the third time I'm like, okay, this is getting creepy before fourth time

00:14:19

I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna buy it

00:14:21

I hesitated to give somebody a 380 page book and say here you should read this

00:14:27

but I did yeah

00:14:30

And it's it's it's because

00:14:33

you know

00:14:35

Scott

00:14:36

Belsky was the founder and lead of the hands

00:14:40

That was sold to Adobe right like we were saying

00:14:43

but he also was a part of a group that was like helping companies and

00:14:49

Consulting and it was like startups and such so he's done a lot of that consulting thing with a mini mini companies

00:14:55

even after

00:14:57

He did some things with Adobe so because of that he has seen this process

00:15:02

up close and personal many many many times and

00:15:08

Knows what he's talking about which is why as you read this

00:15:11

It really doesn't seem to matter where you're at whether it's with your day job

00:15:17

Or whether it's with some things you do on your own off off hours

00:15:21

Like it seems like there's something in here that's going to strike a chord

00:15:25

Whether you're there now or whether you were there or whether it's in the future like you you can see this

00:15:31

Just about any at any point in your in your walk here. So that might be why

00:15:37

Mike yeah, but you're right gifting a

00:15:40

370 380 page book to somebody is always like huh

00:15:44

Should I do this?

00:15:46

This is not gonna be comfortable for you. Yeah

00:15:49

in general I

00:15:52

Try not to

00:15:54

Give people books and say here you should read this. I found every time I do that

00:16:00

People don't read them for the for the most part

00:16:04

Right if people ask me for recommendations. I try to get back to them and say these are the ones that I would

00:16:10

Recommend and then leave it to them to pick up the books themselves

00:16:14

By the way, this is totally off topic, but I do not loan out my books

00:16:19

I've had a couple people ask me hey, can I borrow a book? I'm like nope. I'll buy it for you

00:16:24

Yes, yeah every time yeah

00:16:27

In this intersection there are again

00:16:33

separate breakdowns, so there's a whole bunch of chapters here there's

00:16:37

If you're thinking about this in the mind map section like there's different colors for endure optimizing the final mile

00:16:44

But then under endure there are

00:16:46

subgroupings before you get to the chapters so the subgroupings here

00:16:50

I'm not gonna read all of them for optimize because there's a million of them

00:16:52

But just to give you an idea how this book is broken down

00:16:55

Under endure leading through the anguish and the unknown

00:16:59

Strengthening your resolve and embracing the long game and then you get into the individual chapters

00:17:06

Which there are a gazillion and then in my mind map you get the individual ideas that I thought were worth jotting down for each and every

00:17:14

Chapter I think there are five there's roughly five chapters total

00:17:19

Where I did not jot anything down other than the title

00:17:24

Otherwise almost every single one of these has at least a couple of different points which kind of illustrates how dense this book is

00:17:32

I also stopped trying to write down

00:17:35

One liners isn't the right description, but there's a lot of things that Scott says in a certain way that is very

00:17:44

distinct to him and

00:17:47

I

00:17:48

like the way that he describes it, but

00:17:51

They come so quick that I just stopped trying to yeah log them all

00:17:56

You would have a lot written down. It's a seven page table of contents by the way

00:18:02

That's just trying to detail out the chapters and headings and stuff. It's seven pages

00:18:07

Seven big pages is a big print either. Yeah, so the pages are large the print is not

00:18:13

Correct. Do you have the book right next to you?

00:18:17

You want to like show how thick it is on on the stream here. Yeah, it's so here's

00:18:23

This monster's if I can get it in here

00:18:26

Yeah, it's it's some stay it's a couple inches thick. It's also pretty big and all of the text is pretty tiny

00:18:35

Yep, it's little

00:18:37

I can get this to go the right way. Yep. Anyway. Yeah, it's it is a substantial book

00:18:43

So when we say it's 300 and you and I talked about this ahead of time. It's like it's a 370 80 page book

00:18:49

But there's not a whole lot

00:18:54

I mean there's there are some blank pages in here, but the text is so small that it makes up for it

00:18:59

So yes, yeah, it's it's not a very quick

00:19:02

Not a quick one

00:19:05

So what we've done is we have just grabbed a bunch of different chapter titles basically

00:19:13

From these different sections. We're not gonna try and encapsulate everything that's in this book obviously that would be a

00:19:19

12 hour episode just trying to summarize this beast

00:19:23

Yep, but in and doer there are two things that we wanted to touch on the first one

00:19:31

I picked and that is to prompt clarity with questions and I picked this one

00:19:38

Just because I really like this whole idea of asking better questions

00:19:44

so I actually reached out to Mark champagne

00:19:50

author of personal Socrates and

00:19:53

Was like hey, you want to come on focused and he's like yeah, sure. Let's do it

00:19:59

Which kind of caught me off guard, but turned out to be a really cool episode

00:20:03

Yeah, so I will link to that in the the show

00:20:08

Notes here, but his whole thing obviously personal Socrates is it a single question could completely change your life

00:20:16

And the whole book was on asking better questions

00:20:19

And so that's what I thought of when I got to this question or this section

00:20:23

A couple of things that jotted down here is that breakthrough often comes from a new question or problem to solve

00:20:29

If you're struggling to find an answer change your question and the perfect question is the key to clarity and these are all

00:20:37

different ways of saying yeah, keep asking questions from a business perspective as well so

00:20:44

personal Socrates

00:20:47

personal is in the title felt very

00:20:49

Individual and I liked how at the beginning of this book Scott's talking about doing this from a business perspective as well

00:20:56

Yeah, because he's he's really jumping into

00:20:59

The process and again, these these are small chapters like we're only talking about a three page section here

00:21:06

of prompt clarity with questions, but

00:21:08

in this process that particular piece is a part of the the bigger heading of strengthening your resolve

00:21:16

Which I think is absolutely fitting in the way that he is pitching it because

00:21:20

asking these questions

00:21:22

Around what is it your business should be doing? What is the product? What are your customers trying to?

00:21:28

Like what what problem are you trying to solve like those types of questions

00:21:33

And those aren't all what he was saying but that type of process

00:21:37

Is one that as you're going through it

00:21:39

It helps you get a clear head as far as what to do and how to move

00:21:44

forward and the clearer you are

00:21:47

about that path forward

00:21:50

And the more definition you have to that that's where some of that resolve strengthening can come

00:21:57

Like that's that's all tied together. Thus the tour

00:22:01

In the same place. So i'm absolutely with you like asking these questions like it's not something i've done

00:22:05

A lot of in the past at least not prior to reading personal Socrates

00:22:10

That that book kind of changed my

00:22:13

Path on that and now i ask questions all the time

00:22:17

And i have learned that i don't like that

00:22:20

Because you have to confront yourself quite a bit when you start doing it, which is good

00:22:27

It's just uncomfortable sometimes so yeah, so when you say you don't like it

00:22:31

You mean that it's uncomfortable or it's challenging but not that

00:22:35

You're going to stop doing it anytime soon

00:22:39

It's the childish view of i don't like it but the adult version of i'm going to power through it anyway

00:22:45

Yep, yep, yep

00:22:47

And a lot of it it's kind of shocking to me as i reflect on personal Socrates and i reflect on this book

00:22:52

there's a lot

00:22:55

of it coming down to

00:22:57

basically just self-awareness

00:22:59

and self-awareness in a business context is different because

00:23:04

You maybe have a bunch of other areas and a bunch of other people that you really need to make sure that you're seeing things the the right way

00:23:12

It's a lot more potential

00:23:15

responsibility

00:23:17

but the

00:23:19

Process is the same and the only thing you can't do in either scenario is bury your head in the sand

00:23:25

To pretend that it's not the way it is

00:23:27

You got to right confront the brutal reality

00:23:31

And there's lots of little things in these other chapters which will probably come up like as we're talking about this and

00:23:37

Wanting to hide from what's really there in the previous chapter he talks about insecurity work

00:23:45

Which is the work that you do with no intended outcome doesn't move the ball forward in any

00:23:53

Specific way, but it's quick enough that you can do it unconsciously multiple times per day

00:23:57

and is the thing that you default to

00:23:59

when

00:24:01

You want to avoid something basically when you're trying to procrastinate

00:24:05

tackling the thing that is really important

00:24:09

And uh, it's kind of interesting for me to see

00:24:14

how that manifests differently

00:24:16

in an organization or a company than it does in uh

00:24:22

uh, an individual's life like i've dealt with it myself from

00:24:27

A knowledge worker perspective and i'm working at home and i'm trying to create things

00:24:31

But it's a little bit different when you've got a lot of moving pieces

00:24:37

On the the chessboard

00:24:40

Yeah for sure for sure

00:24:42

Yeah, and one of the other

00:24:45

So if we if we kind of continue in this endure piece

00:24:49

Unless there's something more you want to say here, Mike because i feel like this next one is when we could spend some time on

00:24:53

Yeah, go for the

00:24:55

the the idea of

00:24:57

And how does he put it here sometimes a reset is the only way

00:25:01

forward so think about the

00:25:05

The basis of this book you've got a company or a product or something that you're building

00:25:12

The beginning is exciting the end is exciting the part in the middle is a challenge. So what do you do?

00:25:18

in the middle when you hit these challenges and

00:25:21

His point here is that sometimes

00:25:24

Whenever you've got everything moving forward and it's not working

00:25:29

And you're having issues with it and it continues to be a pain

00:25:32

Sometimes the best thing you can do

00:25:35

Is completely reset the entire process a lot of times if you're in bigger companies

00:25:39

A reorganization or something happens or entire departments get dropped and and moved around and such like stuff like that happens

00:25:46

and

00:25:48

We think of things like that as a bad thing, but it can be a very good thing

00:25:53

If you're willing to see it for what it is because sometimes that reset

00:25:58

Or as Mike put in his newsletter a pivot

00:26:01

Whenever you make that change or that slight diversion from where you were going to begin with like that can make all the difference

00:26:08

Like that can completely change the way that your whole company and product operates

00:26:12

in a very good way

00:26:14

And can help you get onto the path of being successful with it and getting through that difficult season in the middle, right?

00:26:20

So that's that's one that I know like I'm in the middle of a major one right now with all my online stuff and

00:26:26

There's stuff on the channel like we were talking about earlier that's going on. So if that's

00:26:31

Something that's got to happen then you need to jump in head first

00:26:35

But it's not always fun to do that and and having the guts to say

00:26:41

I need to do a reset or I need to do a pivot is not always easy to do

00:26:44

It's not always easy. I would actually say it's almost never easy

00:26:49

but it's true

00:26:52

By the time you realize

00:26:54

Maybe I should pivot. It's absolutely necessary

00:26:57

I would argue

00:26:59

Yep, I

00:27:00

Seems like once that thought crosses your mind the answers. Yes. Yep

00:27:04

Yeah, it's it's not

00:27:08

it's past the point of debating at

00:27:11

By the time you typically realize it at least in for me. I think that's that's true

00:27:17

But also like you were talking about there's a lot of value in embracing that

00:27:22

the things that are valuable and worthwhile in life

00:27:28

It seems to me are always difficult to do

00:27:33

It's never

00:27:36

easy. It's rarely fun

00:27:38

But you just have to

00:27:42

Push through it and get to the other side

00:27:45

It requires a a vision

00:27:48

Knowing that this is a season and this too will pass

00:27:51

and believing that what you are doing is the right thing long term for

00:27:58

In this case the organization, but it could be the the family the team whatever

00:28:05

Doesn't make it any easier in the moment to say

00:28:08

We have to make this really difficult decision

00:28:11

And people won't understand sometimes when you say trust me. This is in your best interest

00:28:17

But that's what leadership is

00:28:20

the more I study it the more I see it

00:28:24

in action the the things that

00:28:27

Really help you level up in life

00:28:31

are the ones that

00:28:34

You tend to want to avoid

00:28:36

But when you can't or when you choose not to they cause you to rise to the occasion

00:28:41

And when you're called upon to get to that level

00:28:46

You almost don't even know if you've got it in you at the point that you're being asked to do it

00:28:52

It's really really scary, but then once you do it

00:28:55

it's like

00:28:58

You're

00:29:00

Like a rubber band being stretched out of shape. That's a bad thing, but this is in a good thing

00:29:03

It's like you're never going back to the way that you were

00:29:05

your capacity has now

00:29:08

Increased you are a totally different person than you were prior to this crisis

00:29:14

Happening and when you think about

00:29:17

Everything good at every sort of transition from one season to another any sort of upgrade

00:29:24

Is going to require that kind of crisis and that kind of change? You've got to go through it

00:29:31

so

00:29:32

Once you understand that this is part of the process and

00:29:35

You know that this is kind of the the gateway

00:29:38

This is the thing that's going to get me from where I am to where I need to be

00:29:44

You don't have to dread it doesn't make it easier in the moment sometimes

00:29:49

But if you if you can step back and realize how necessary it is and big picture view

00:29:53

you know

00:29:55

you can

00:29:57

create and manufacture the

00:29:59

The motivation that you need to get through it without

00:30:02

being so emotionally distraught

00:30:04

There's a section later on I was trying to find it

00:30:07

But I am not

00:30:09

Seeing it it's in the optimize section, but he gets to where he's talking about

00:30:13

uh

00:30:15

Putting yourself around people who have been through a lot

00:30:17

who have been through a lot of difficulties and

00:30:21

you know

00:30:23

something kind of along the same lines is

00:30:26

uh, there's a there's a quote by csluice that my csluice that my wife has

00:30:31

on the wall see if I can get this right love is something more stern and

00:30:36

Strict I think it's strict maybe splendid then mere kindness

00:30:42

and

00:30:44

That's always struck me a little bit like wait what but when you think about it whenever you

00:30:49

When you've got someone who truly loves you

00:30:52

Whether that's romantically or as a friend

00:30:57

then

00:30:58

They are willing to tell you when things are wrong or or go through the difficult things with you

00:31:03

And then when you come out of that you're in a much better place because you've been through something difficult together

00:31:08

This is this is the classic

00:31:11

when you've got friends who are

00:31:13

Able to stick around and they're around you all the time when things are easy

00:31:17

But the moment things get hard they run away

00:31:20

Like that's that's exactly what we're talking about with that anyway

00:31:23

But once you've been through those things those friendships and those people are the ones that are really tight to you like it

00:31:30

It's almost painful to not have them around

00:31:33

And this is very similar to that in that whenever you have folks with you

00:31:38

Who've been through those things like you can grow from that when you yourself are going through those things

00:31:43

You grow from that and you become a much better person at the other side

00:31:46

so

00:31:47

Even if this messy middle is something that's painful and you really don't want to do it and you want to skip it

00:31:52

Like a lot of times it's that middle part that is what makes that final success

00:31:58

Right if you you you really can't skip this

00:32:01

No and have something that's going to endure you you really need to

00:32:05

To deal with these difficulties in order to get the learnings to have that success

00:32:11

Exactly and going back to the image at the beginning

00:32:15

I feel

00:32:18

A lot of the pain that people feel going through the messy middle really is just improper expectations setting

00:32:26

You start something and you expect it to be smooth sailing you expect it to go well and when it doesn't go according to plan

00:32:32

You have a choice to either keep going or say this isn't what I signed up for and quit

00:32:39

and

00:32:41

What scott is arguing for in the scope of the entire book is

00:32:46

That moment where you have that identity crisis and you're not sure what to do because this is hard

00:32:51

Recognizing that's part of the process and just keep going and that there will actually be multiples of these

00:32:56

Then it's kind of like oh, okay. So this is normal. I guess it's really not that big a deal

00:33:02

Maybe I shouldn't freak out quite so much about it

00:33:04

I think the section you were maybe trying to

00:33:09

Allude to was hire people who have endured adversity because adversity matures you right right?

00:33:16

Cool. All right. So let's jump into the next section here because

00:33:21

Who knows how long we'll talk about optimize?

00:33:24

I really like that section. There's some other stuff I want to get to but just continuing that topic

00:33:31

There's another thing further down in here, which I thought was really good and relevant to

00:33:39

What we're talking about here in the clearing the path to solution section

00:33:44

Where it talks about a lot of big problems don't get solved because we can small solve smaller problems faster

00:33:50

and

00:33:52

When you're talking about adversity and pushing through things

00:33:55

if you view that as

00:33:58

I must be on the wrong path the fact that this is causing me some pain

00:34:04

This must be wrong. Well, number one. I mean just because you're experiencing some pain

00:34:09

Maybe that you are doing the wrong thing and you don't want to continue to burn your hand on the stove

00:34:14

So recognize like if itself afflicted and stop doing some of those things

00:34:18

But assuming that this is the right thing and this is just part of the process

00:34:22

Then you typically want to keep going with that

00:34:24

But the natural thing and I think this is something that we all do in some way shape or form related to procrastination

00:34:32

Is instead of embracing the big thing that we know is going to be hard

00:34:37

We find the small thing just so we can say there. I did something

00:34:42

Yep

00:34:44

I'm guilty of this

00:34:46

I'm kind of curious

00:34:48

You know how you've seen this?

00:34:50

Manifesting in your own life, but literally just talking about this was somebody in the the day job

00:34:56

How we have all of these issues that we track

00:34:58

And we have these regular

00:35:01

EOS style level 10 meetings every week

00:35:04

And it becomes meeting time again for department. It's like oh, I haven't looked at this since last week

00:35:10

Well, I want to show that I did something so you scan the list and you find the one

00:35:14

That you can quick take care of and mark as complete before the meeting is there. See I did something

00:35:21

That's not the complete story that you tell in your head at the time, but that's ultimately the way it

00:35:26

The way it manifests. So how does this play out for you?

00:35:30

Oh, I'm terrible at like finding

00:35:34

The little things that improve like so take so much of like the writing and video stuff and such that we do

00:35:40

I I will regularly justify

00:35:43

like some of my script and automation stuff

00:35:46

Saying that I'm making something or building something that I can then write about later

00:35:51

And it could be something very small and very simple

00:35:55

To make my life easier, but I will justify it saying this is a thing that I can use for later

00:36:00

And then I'm actually making progress towards these these endeavors

00:36:04

and and then I

00:36:06

spend the 30 minutes to an hour on it and then

00:36:09

I get distracted by something else and then I go do

00:36:12

Something completely different forget about it and it never has anything to do with

00:36:16

An article or a video. It's like oh, but I did something and it was

00:36:20

Theoretically going to help, but it gets me absolutely nowhere

00:36:25

So I do this all the time. It's it's terrible

00:36:29

Yeah, we are kind of naturally wired to seek the path of least resistance

00:36:35

Maybe that's what my youtube video will be. It's one of those ideas I captured previously

00:36:41

So we look for the place where we experience the least amount of pushback and we say I'm going to do that

00:36:47

But everything that's worthwhile doing

00:36:50

Resistance is part of the deal

00:36:53

And in fact, you could gauge the worthwhile things based on the amount of resistance that you encounter

00:36:59

Yep

00:37:01

So that's challenging to me, but then also coupled with that the first

00:37:05

chapter in this section is

00:37:07

resources over

00:37:10

resourcefulness over resources

00:37:12

It's kind of a mouthful for me to say today. I don't know why

00:37:15

But the difference here is resourcefulness is I need to do this thing. I don't know how I'm going to get it done

00:37:23

But I'll just use what I've got and figure it out

00:37:26

Versus resources is I have everything that I need in order to do the thing

00:37:33

And we were talking about youtube earlier

00:37:36

This is

00:37:38

One of the things that a lot of people myself included

00:37:41

Fall into when they're getting into youtube. Ollie was talking about people want to know

00:37:45

What's the gear that I should have and

00:37:48

all the setup and stuff like that and

00:37:52

He says it doesn't matter just start with your phone and start making videos

00:37:57

Right and I've actually had a DM

00:38:00

Mess it or DM thread back and forth before I even signed up with the course with with Ollie probably his team through his twitter account, but

00:38:07

Basically saying, you know, I'm interested in this course, but I'm not going to be able to make a bunch of videos right now

00:38:14

So is this still for me like oh, yeah, yeah, it's fine

00:38:16

But the messaging in the course is always like just do the thing just do the thing just do the thing

00:38:21

Right they keep sending these calendar invites for people these last couple weeks who haven't published a video yet

00:38:27

So I keep I keep getting those those invites

00:38:32

But I feel kind of bad because that's kind of the way the cohort is built, but also

00:38:36

I set up front, you know, I wasn't gonna be able to do it

00:38:39

Right till right till later

00:38:41

So that that's

00:38:44

A way that that can manifest though and I've noticed that myself is like well, I got to get the b-roll

00:38:49

I got to do all this

00:38:50

I have a vision for like what I want it to look like and how it's going to fit into everything else

00:38:54

If I was just doing youtube, I would argue the better approach for me would just make make the thing get it out there

00:39:01

But because I'm not really just trying to figure out youtube

00:39:04

But I have a specific

00:39:06

Strategy for it and how it feeds all the other things like I kind of know what I want this to look like already

00:39:10

You really don't know what it's going to look like though until you start doing the thing

00:39:14

That was the whole idea behind the newsletter that I sent out

00:39:17

Is you got to do some things and you got to fail at some things and you got to deconstruct why you failed

00:39:24

And then you start looking around for what are some other ways that I can do this

00:39:27

How can I practice resourcefulness?

00:39:30

Not just buy better gear and have the resources in order to do it

00:39:35

And when you start looking around you see the things that are

00:39:38

Parallel to what you are currently doing and a lot of those things

00:39:42

As I've gone through my own career path and I'm like, oh, hey, actually that thing over there

00:39:46

That looks pretty interesting. I think I'll try that

00:39:48

Those have been some of the most rewarding experiences

00:39:51

And not just my professional life but my personal life as well like podcasting was part of that

00:39:57

Public speaking was part of that. Those were things that if you would have just asked me prior to

00:40:01

starting to

00:40:03

Take this approach. I would have been like, yeah, yeah. No, thanks. That's too public for me because I'm a pretty introverted person

00:40:09

I wonder sometimes people who encounter my stuff online

00:40:15

How what what they think I'm like in real life

00:40:18

I'm sure it's very different than than reality

00:40:22

I am always intrigued by that one as well. It's like, what is the public perception of me?

00:40:29

Yeah, what do people think?

00:40:31

Huh, I don't know. It's it's always

00:40:33

a question mark, I think but I I'm with you in that it's easy for us as

00:40:40

People who have like legitimate studios with cameras and microphones and gear and stuff all over the place

00:40:46

Like it's easy for us to say like yeah, I need to get this before

00:40:52

I can do that like before I can make quality youtube videos

00:40:56

My camera is not as good as it should be like well

00:40:59

I mean you've got a black magic camera in your office. I've got a sony 6400 like

00:41:06

super nice microphones like

00:41:10

There is no excuse at least for us now. I say that and yet I know

00:41:14

I know of people who have done podcast recordings with just the ear pods that come with your phone

00:41:22

and

00:41:25

In a couple cases, I know

00:41:27

Of people who are doing that and you would swear they're using like a high-end microphone

00:41:32

Because of the way that they have edited that thing

00:41:35

So i'm aware that it is possible to do that sort of thing

00:41:39

I don't want to do that

00:41:41

Because I like the gear

00:41:43

But that's what a lot of us will do like I can't do that until this

00:41:47

And really the answer here is like with the resourcefulness versus resources like instead of spending your resources on

00:41:55

gear or

00:41:57

Services in order to make something happen like just go do it like find a way to do it without that

00:42:03

And don't make the excuse like it

00:42:06

And this this is common too like even creators

00:42:10

Whenever you do get an income off of something

00:42:12

It's very easy for us to want to take that income and use it to upgrade the gear like that's that's the first reaction right

00:42:19

when

00:42:21

Actually the better answer is take that money and figure out how it would help your audience better whether that's

00:42:27

Offering a new service or making it easier to consume the the thing like I don't know what that all would be

00:42:34

But if you can focus on that as opposed to

00:42:38

I want a better microphone or I really want that roadcaster pro like whatever it is

00:42:42

because that was my thing for a while and

00:42:45

If you can do that like you're better off. That's that's what scott's getting at here

00:42:50

Yeah, and from a organizational perspective

00:42:53

There's even a difference an additional difference here in that

00:42:57

Resources become depleted but resourcefulness does not

00:43:02

And he actually says in this chapter that nothing disrupts resourcefulness

00:43:08

more than a sudden influx of resources

00:43:10

Which that statement kind of caught me off guard so you can take somebody who is resourceful

00:43:16

You can give them a whole bunch of stuff and then actually they lose the thing

00:43:23

That made them

00:43:25

Successful in the first place right

00:43:28

Which is kind of wild when you think about it that way

00:43:31

It maybe doesn't transmit

00:43:34

Totally to the example you were talking about because the fact that you have the roadcaster pro does not mean that you are less likely to podcast

00:43:42

Now it's it's not something that you're going to use up

00:43:45

Over time

00:43:47

But I feel like this couples very nicely with the next chapter

00:43:49

Which isn't in the outline but I just want to touch on a briefly initiative over experience

00:43:53

Because people with initiative will often exceed your expectations and I would say that the people who are resourceful are the people who have initiative

00:44:02

And he says initiative is contagious expertise is is not

00:44:06

So if you're thinking about experience

00:44:09

Which is how a lot of people will hire for a job as you got to have so much experience or you have to have this title or whatever

00:44:17

All that means if they've got the degree or they've got the certification

00:44:23

Is that at one point in their life? They had a bunch of resources

00:44:28

Right

00:44:31

It really is not a good indication of

00:44:35

whether they are

00:44:38

this

00:44:39

Scrappy emotionally intelligent can figure it out on their own type of person which scott is arguing in this section is

00:44:46

So valuable for your team because this whole section here is on

00:44:50

Building hiring and and firing and really about how Jim Collins would say getting the right people on the bus

00:44:57

Right. These are the people who can help you build your organization

00:45:02

Because you don't really know what this thing is going to be when you start building this thing. You just got a

00:45:07

Assemble these awesome people and when you get enough awesome people together

00:45:14

Something magical happens and the idea that you had gets shifted a little bit and what comes out on the other end ends up being

00:45:22

Much more valuable much more precious than anything you could have done on your own

00:45:27

Yeah, I think I get what you're saying it makes it makes a lot of sense, but yes, you also have to be

00:45:32

Like so much of it has to be a mindset, right? Which I think is what you're getting at. Yes choosing to be willing to

00:45:41

Work through work through things without just relying on money, right?

00:45:47

Yeah, the money it all gets easy

00:45:50

Yeah, a lot of this is mindset stuff, I guess but emotional intelligence. I see as part of this as well

00:45:57

It's the type of thing where if you're trying to build a team that is going to

00:46:02

Statistically make your organization or business better in the long run

00:46:06

The things that you would traditionally look for are not the things that are really going to move the needle

00:46:12

It's hard to measure resourcefulness. It's easy to measure resources

00:46:18

right

00:46:20

Yeah for sure, which kind of leads into the next

00:46:22

chapter. I want to talk about

00:46:25

accommodate free radicals because I feel like I am a free radical

00:46:30

I feel like you're a free radical

00:46:33

Free radicals it talks about in this chapter they are

00:46:38

Basically people who work different

00:46:41

They are unbound energy sources who work on their teams. They're often misunderstood in the workplace

00:46:48

Because they're not going to conform to this is just the way that everybody does things and I'm fortunate

00:46:54

I'm in a position

00:46:56

and you're fortunate that you're in a position

00:46:58

where

00:47:00

They're cool with us being free radicals and recording bookworm today, right? Because they recognize that

00:47:06

This actually brings value in other ways to the

00:47:09

The organization not having the freedom to to do this on our our own terms

00:47:14

I guess, you know, if you were to simplify this it's really just focus on the

00:47:19

the outcome and the production rather than

00:47:23

the seat time and the hours in punching the clock that sort of thing which a lot of

00:47:29

Let's just say more traditional

00:47:32

companies. That's their measure of success is

00:47:36

Did they make a hundred calls today?

00:47:39

And I've been a salesperson so I understand

00:47:43

Yes, you need to make the calls

00:47:45

And if you're procrastinating on making the calls then that's an appropriate measure is just make x number of calls today

00:47:53

But ultimately what matters is not the number of calls that you make it's the appointments that you set or the sales that you get

00:47:59

Right and there's other ways that you can

00:48:02

Do that stuff and what you really want is somebody who is willing to figure that out and navigate that and they understand okay

00:48:09

What the organization really wants is the sale itself. So

00:48:13

If I can get if I can move this number

00:48:17

Then I have flexibility in this number or how I actually do that

00:48:24

Yes, so free radicals, okay, I feel like when when you and I are

00:48:29

Able to do this sort of thing like we're definitely

00:48:32

breaking a lot of conventions I would say when it comes to like how

00:48:38

schedules and stuff work so

00:48:41

I could easily see how

00:48:44

We we definitely break a lot of those conventions

00:48:47

but at the same time like if you're able to

00:48:51

as an organization accommodate people like

00:48:53

us who break rules

00:48:56

Generally you're better off overall so like that I can kind of see but

00:49:02

as someone who

00:49:04

Often works with other people who are in the same boat like it's

00:49:08

Sometimes challenging

00:49:11

Do I have to let you do these things please just follow the pattern

00:49:16

So I get where it's it's both a positive and a difficult thing on both sides. So I get that

00:49:22

I understand it, but I also

00:49:26

the more I I read about this the more I study it myself

00:49:32

I feel more strongly

00:49:36

That it doesn't really matter big picture if you've got the right people

00:49:43

Then they will figure out how to do the right things

00:49:47

in fact the next

00:49:49

chapter that I wanted to talk about here

00:49:51

Is that process is the excretion of misalignment

00:49:56

And this is not the first place

00:49:59

that he talks about process and how process is

00:50:05

kind of a mask of

00:50:08

deeper problems this one specifically he's talking about misalignment. Okay, so

00:50:13

If you are aligned

00:50:17

You don't need a bunch of processes telling people exactly

00:50:21

what to do

00:50:24

The goal is to be fully aligned with as little process

00:50:28

as possible and so you're giving people the freedom

00:50:32

to

00:50:33

Do it the way that they see fit trusting that

00:50:38

They can do their job better than you can from a distance if you were to micromanage them

00:50:42

And so they're going to get the they're going to get better results

00:50:45

In the previous section, I don't remember exactly where but he talked about process

00:50:51

being the thing that

00:50:54

will help

00:50:55

mitigate the weaknesses of B players

00:50:59

but it also

00:51:01

completely handicaps

00:51:03

your A players

00:51:05

If you've got a strong team

00:51:07

really

00:51:09

Just awesome individuals who are motivated who know what they're supposed to do and you give them a bunch of process

00:51:15

You're going to significantly slow them down

00:51:19

But if you have a bunch of people who you're not really sure

00:51:22

If they have what it takes

00:51:25

Then you can mask a lot of those weaknesses through complicated processes

00:51:32

And I've been thinking a lot about this and work the system and document everything

00:51:36

right

00:51:39

And uh, I don't know exactly where I land on this

00:51:43

Yet, I feel like there's some essential processes which you need in order to delegate things and

00:51:50

Make sure everybody's doing certain things the same way

00:51:54

But really the thing that is more important is getting everyone aligned on this is the lever we want to want to pull

00:52:00

This is the the measure we want to influence

00:52:02

what it

00:52:05

What do you think on this whole topic of like

00:52:07

process versus systems and

00:52:10

alignment

00:52:11

Yeah, I think that there's

00:52:13

There's easily a point at which all of these

00:52:17

processes in general get to be

00:52:20

bloated in a problem

00:52:22

and

00:52:24

It also gets to be

00:52:26

super common

00:52:28

I guess

00:52:29

So that there's so many times I've had in the past where I'm in a corporation

00:52:34

I'm in a company of some kind and and they want to put together

00:52:38

Multiple steps for something to happen so that you have something that's repeatable. I get that

00:52:43

but there's so many points in the process where

00:52:47

the

00:52:50

System or the protocol that they put in place

00:52:53

Almost hamstrings the entire intent

00:52:57

Exactly. So because of the process that is in place

00:53:02

It means that I'm not able to

00:53:05

Do something innovative or actually helpful. Here's here's an example. This one was very painful

00:53:13

Uh, when I worked corporate

00:53:16

One of the things that we had to do was collect a seed order

00:53:20

This was in agriculture

00:53:21

So we had to collect corn and soybean seed orders from our sales representatives who were out in the field

00:53:27

Taking those orders from farmers, right? So all of that data needed to be collected into one place

00:53:32

Because of the process because of the system

00:53:37

In order for them to collect one order from one farmer for one field

00:53:43

In the entire united states

00:53:46

It had to get entered in three different places and it had to match and all three places

00:53:51

and it had to use all of the fancy

00:53:55

I don't even I can't even think of what they were. It's it's the process where it's ownership by the person when it leaves the truck versus when it goes

00:54:02

Onto the truck. I forget what those terms are anymore

00:54:05

But it it was all of that stuff and the sales reps were the ones that had to enter these things three different places

00:54:11

In a couple cases the terms were backwards

00:54:14

So they had to use it one way in process one and a different way in process two and a different way again in process three

00:54:22

So you had to do all of those things in different methods

00:54:25

My job as data analyst person

00:54:28

Was to help collect some of that information and one of the things that I did

00:54:32

Was attempt to create a fourth system which because they wouldn't let us alter those three

00:54:39

I went through a process of trying to build a

00:54:43

web interface that allowed them to enter it in one spot

00:54:46

That would then automatically take that information and decode it and put it into the other three

00:54:54

Because the process was so convoluted in a mess

00:54:57

I spent like three months building that thing so that these guys didn't have to deal with

00:55:03

Those three other systems and it worked great

00:55:07

But we slid it underneath all of the protocol because it was absolutely against

00:55:13

What the corporation wanted us to do we had zero approvals to do it

00:55:17

So because of that

00:55:21

After the fact they shut it all down because we weren't allowed to do that again and the sales reps through a fit

00:55:27

They loved

00:55:29

Thing but it was all because of their protocol had they not put that protocol in place

00:55:34

They wouldn't have had that big of a backlash whenever they shut down the easy thing to use

00:55:40

So I I understand why some systems and some protocols are in place. I get it

00:55:46

But if you've got them in place and it creates a lot of extra work and it makes things more difficult to do

00:55:53

At all like you've gone way too far with it. Please stop

00:55:57

Yeah, I'm fortunate that in the position i'm in with the

00:56:02

The day job there are a lot of complicated processes

00:56:06

and i'm the new guy and i'm just like why are we doing it this way

00:56:10

and

00:56:13

Everyone seems to be on board with letting me try to figure out new things

00:56:17

But it does require blowing a lot of stuff up which

00:56:21

Makes people nervous and I understand that like going back to the Colby stuff

00:56:27

I am a high fact finder a low quick start. So if I was on the other end of that I would be freaking out. I I get it

00:56:36

but I also

00:56:39

See the importance of

00:56:41

The alignment and how that makes everything so much easier reminds me of something that I read at one point

00:56:47

I remember where it was

00:56:48

About the two horse rule

00:56:50

You're probably familiar with this kind of makes the productivity circles

00:56:53

But if you've got two horses and one can pull 300 pounds and another can pull 150 pounds

00:56:59

That's the example that I had heard

00:57:01

together

00:57:03

They can pull not 450 pounds, but there's a force multiplier that's applied

00:57:09

So it's more like 900 pounds when they're pulling in the same direction

00:57:12

If they are not pulling in the same direction

00:57:16

Then it actually gets harder, which is why

00:57:20

Process at least you know keeps that from happening

00:57:24

But the best thing that you can do is if you've got smart people say this is where we're going and then

00:57:30

you can activate that that force multiplier

00:57:34

and

00:57:36

I think as I reflect on work the system now I have to go back and reread it

00:57:40

But I'm thinking through all my big takeaways from that

00:57:44

And my question would be if I need to make all that documentation

00:57:49

Do I have the right people on this team?

00:57:52

Yeah, yeah

00:57:54

because

00:57:55

That to me is not

00:57:57

Just part of the process, but you've got to ask yourself why why is this documentation

00:58:05

necessary

00:58:06

Is it because

00:58:08

people

00:58:09

Don't understand if they don't understand why don't they understand is it because they disagree?

00:58:15

No one has convinced them that this is the right thing to do

00:58:19

Are they incapable of understanding? Are they like actively rebelling against the

00:58:25

Division of of leadership

00:58:28

Like there are other issues to be impacted rather than just get the individual to do the thing

00:58:35

right right

00:58:37

I know there's there's many many times when

00:58:39

My my underling as I refer to him. He knows I call him this

00:58:43

he's

00:58:46

so my assistant he he handles a lot of like the sunday morning repetitive stuff

00:58:50

And there's a checklist that he goes through

00:58:53

Every sunday that helps him make sure everything gets done

00:58:57

And I feel like when we talk about systems and protocols something like that is very helpful because like that's not a

00:59:04

system or a process in place to make sure that everybody complies that is so that it's not forgotten

00:59:12

And I know that we have a handful of

00:59:15

like procedures and protocols here at the church that we follow

00:59:19

but

00:59:20

The ones that are documented not all of them are the ones that are documented

00:59:24

We've been trying to make sure we put a why section in there's like why does this exist

00:59:30

And that helps significantly because when we hand it over to somebody

00:59:33

Like somebody who's new an organization. It's new to the building. They're not familiar with how we

00:59:39

Do things here like who does the setup? Who does the cleanup if you need tech help? What do you do like all of those questions like there's a whole

00:59:46

standard operating procedure for all of that

00:59:50

and each of those sections has a why underneath of it so that people who are brand new to us know where all that stuff came from

00:59:57

and

00:59:58

That has actually been more helpful than just telling people what it is. There's

01:00:02

Supposed to do follow suit like it doesn't become that it becomes a here's why you need to operate underneath these

01:00:10

Methods otherwise bad things happen and we don't want you to have those bad things happen

01:00:16

So that I find helpful

01:00:18

But if you didn't have that why section in there think about how that comes across if somebody hands you a document that explains

01:00:25

The way that you're supposed to operate with an organization. It doesn't have the why on it

01:00:30

It just seems ludicrous and ridiculous like think of the

01:00:33

The classic iminims and the candy bowl. I don't want any of the brown ones in there like that whole thing

01:00:39

Why why on earth would you ever

01:00:42

Like people are immediately second guessing it and now they don't think any of the rest of it is worthwhile because you've got this ridiculous request and

01:00:50

All these things like I when we have people outside guests come in and they always give us their tech needs

01:00:57

Every once in a while they'll have a writer that comes with it that says like they need

01:01:02

This many water bottles or they want a table of this size and like they'll have all these things that they want

01:01:08

We have had

01:01:10

One person who came in who had the iminim thing

01:01:13

On it and it had something about they didn't want more than I think a hundred iminims in a bowl or something like that

01:01:20

It was it was about iminims legitimately and I know that someone here saw that and they're like what

01:01:27

Can we cancel them like I we're not dealing with this

01:01:31

So but there was no why involved with it because we they didn't explain the purpose of

01:01:37

All of that now people who have been around it know

01:01:40

That story and why it's there but if you're not familiar with it, it just seems ridiculous

01:01:46

I'm rambling at this point, but you get you get my point anything

01:01:49

I think that that is actually an exercising getting alignment

01:01:53

From an outside source though

01:01:56

I mean they don't have the time to build the relationships and to establish trust

01:02:01

They just need to know

01:02:02

These things that are essential for me to do this thing are going to get taken care of

01:02:06

So I actually think that's

01:02:09

That's totally fine

01:02:12

And I think the one that you're talking about the checklist that's also totally fine

01:02:17

Now imagine if that checklist

01:02:19

Had all of the detailed instructions on how to do each thing and was an entire manual that you had to crank through every single time

01:02:26

Right, that's going to be cumbersome and I understand why you want all those processes documented and why you've got the why there

01:02:34

But why do you do that in the first place?

01:02:38

I think it's because

01:02:41

You're trying to get somebody new on board like you were talking about

01:02:46

Getting them up to speed in order to do this thing so you no longer have to do it as quickly as possible

01:02:52

And I think that is

01:02:53

perfectly legitimate

01:02:55

As I was reading this section though, I kind of was thinking

01:02:59

more about

01:03:01

the

01:03:03

The team itself though kind of like the talent that we have

01:03:07

assembled here

01:03:10

Do we have

01:03:11

the right people

01:03:13

And that's where the process I feel can work

01:03:17

Against you because if you have very regimented process and you insist on everybody following it

01:03:24

That's fine at the beginning when you're getting up to speed

01:03:26

But if all they do is follow that detailed process to the letter every single time

01:03:32

You're just delaying

01:03:35

Finding out whether you've got the right people there

01:03:40

At some point as scary as it seems you need to ask them to think for themselves

01:03:45

And maybe that is uh

01:03:48

Maybe that's a radical thought in the business world. I don't know but seems kind of obvious to me

01:03:54

Yeah, yeah at the same time though

01:03:58

You know, I can think of teams that I've

01:04:01

been on where

01:04:04

When it comes to writing and

01:04:06

Such like I'm not incompetent like I know how that process works

01:04:10

I've done it for years like it's not a new thing publishing blog post like I know what I'm up to

01:04:15

With that and I've been a part of teams where

01:04:19

That's my job

01:04:21

Is to do some of that writing and yet

01:04:23

There's

01:04:26

Difficulty for me to know what it is that's needed

01:04:28

Like in in the specific scenarios, you know what I mean like it

01:04:33

I know my side of it, but how do I work with you with that?

01:04:37

And that interface between me and the other person

01:04:40

Has almost no

01:04:42

Process to it and

01:04:44

Without the explanation or without the communication

01:04:47

It can become a detriment in itself and and part of it is because

01:04:51

They trust me so much in that that I can do a good job that

01:04:57

There isn't a process in place when I would really like to know

01:05:02

When do you need this in respect to a published date and what is it you need?

01:05:06

Like how much detail what format where

01:05:10

All of those things how do I get it into that thing like all of these things are

01:05:14

Potentially helpful in that scenario and yet it's not always

01:05:19

Communicated so you can go the other way with it too

01:05:22

I think like you can trust them so much that you don't help them do their job as well

01:05:28

Yeah, I think I think I agree with that

01:05:30

I think the middle ground here would be kind of the next point on the outline

01:05:33

Which was something you want to talk about that simple is sticky

01:05:37

Right. Yeah, if you're trying to delegate a process so you no longer have to do it anymore

01:05:44

Telling them every bit of information

01:05:47

That there is to know that's going to happen on this sunday morning

01:05:53

Is going to quickly overwhelm them and make it much much

01:05:57

Harder for them to get to the point where they can do it on their own

01:06:00

Right. Right. Yeah, I I wanted this part in the outline here because and this isn't a chapter heading

01:06:07

I think this is the only one on our list here. That's not

01:06:09

It's a quote that's inside of one of the explanations of a chapter

01:06:15

but

01:06:16

Simple is sticky like that quote stood out to me because

01:06:19

There's there's a lot of things where

01:06:22

You may have a process a system a

01:06:26

Way of working with someone else

01:06:28

That is somewhat complicated and the moment that you

01:06:32

Work towards simplifying it

01:06:35

And consolidating condensing

01:06:38

Bringing it down to something much more manageable

01:06:41

Like that tends to stick and it tends to not change very often

01:06:46

So the simpler it is simpler. It is

01:06:49

more likely it is to

01:06:52

Hang around so

01:06:54

I find that fascinating and it's partially because of my own

01:06:57

Drive towards like simple productivity systems like that's becoming a thing that i'm trying to work towards

01:07:03

uh, thus like dropping tasks in the middle of my project notes and being able to pull them out of it just because

01:07:10

It's simple like that sort of thing is

01:07:13

More what i'm

01:07:16

It does work well

01:07:18

So like that is something i'm pushing more for right is the simplicity side of it

01:07:24

and i think that there's there's a lot to be said for it and yet

01:07:27

a lot of

01:07:30

If we stick with productivity systems at least the ones that i've done in the past or that i've learned from in the past

01:07:36

Are fairly complicated they may appear simple on the surface but on the back side they are complicated

01:07:43

and

01:07:44

That's not

01:07:46

Helpful like on the face of things it has to be simple and behind the scenes it has to be simple

01:07:51

Communicating meeting notes should not be a complicated process

01:07:54

Figuring out how many people you had in an event should not be complicated like don't over complicate these things

01:08:00

Make them simple and the simpler you make it the the more it's going to

01:08:04

Stick around thus simple as sticky yeah

01:08:07

For reference go back and listen to the great mental models volume one where we talk about ockham's eraser

01:08:14

Yep

01:08:15

Yup

01:08:16

The simple solution kind of best solution with my my fun little underling

01:08:21

We'll keep using that term

01:08:22

I've referred to ockham's razor with him many many times because

01:08:26

uh

01:08:27

I love him, but he he jumps to the most complicated convoluted solution to anything that's wrong like

01:08:33

This video isn't showing up on that screen

01:08:36

I'm sure the memory is overloaded in the the fans are cranked up and it just can't get the video out of the port like

01:08:42

Or the tv's off

01:08:46

like

01:08:48

It could be something that simple and we go up and hit the power button and guess what it comes on

01:08:52

Oh, okay, like I love him, but well I

01:08:56

To defend the underling here

01:08:58

I feel like for someone who

01:09:03

I take takes an analytical approach to solving problems

01:09:07

That is a learned skill

01:09:10

It is to try the obvious things

01:09:13

Because when you're trying to figure out

01:09:17

All the different reasons why this this could be

01:09:19

and

01:09:21

You tend to think well, of course people tried this before they brought it to my attention. No, they probably didn't

01:09:27

Correct. Yep. The classic like have you tried restarting it everyone will tell you yes

01:09:35

Mm-hmm, but I can run a quick command and terminal and find out what the uptime is

01:09:41

On that computer and I know

01:09:45

When it was last shut down or restarted I can figure this out and when someone tells me it's been restarted

01:09:51

Guess what my first thing is I do I open a command prompt

01:09:54

And find out and if the answer is no, they didn't I will do it again

01:09:59

So

01:10:02

Yes, yeah

01:10:04

Simple

01:10:06

I like one one more in this optimized section which you picked but I also was going to pick make a plan

01:10:12

But don't plan on sticking to it

01:10:14

They mentioned my favorite Dwight Eisenhower quote in this section plans are worthless, but planning is everything

01:10:20

Yep

01:10:22

This was the one chapter in the entire thing actually where I felt like he didn't do a great job of

01:10:27

defining like obviously he starts on the

01:10:30

strong foundation with that that quote, but

01:10:33

Maybe it's just because I have kind of studied

01:10:37

This and have my own synthesize my own thoughts on this

01:10:41

But yeah, like I felt like I could have written this maybe a little bit more effectively

01:10:45

Just this one section that's it that's it

01:10:49

This is where it could have been a long chapter and it's one that you really really like so you wanted him to make it a longer chapter

01:10:55

That's completely fair. Yep completely fair

01:10:59

Oh my we do this all the time

01:11:04

We do

01:11:06

Just for summary for those who are new to that idea the

01:11:09

basic

01:11:11

argument is that you can plan out your day and

01:11:15

A lot of people will do that

01:11:18

Try it and then when it doesn't go the way that they planned it

01:11:21

They stop doing it because they're like, oh, what's the point?

01:11:24

But the point is the clarity and the intention that comes from creating the plan

01:11:29

It's not having the plan itself. It's the act of creating it that provides the value

01:11:34

And there's a whole bunch of additional things I would add especially for an individual

01:11:40

Around creating a plan, but he did talk about some of the big stuff like building in the margin

01:11:45

So when something goes over or something finishes a little bit early, you know, you can kind of shift the plan and accommodate things

01:11:52

But yeah, it's different when you're talking about doing this in a startup than you are

01:11:59

in a

01:12:01

typical knowledge worker planning their day

01:12:04

Yeah, because I know that I have long said that it's impossible for me to plan my day

01:12:09

I got I say that quite a bit because I never know

01:12:13

What's gonna come up? Like I know that I've got

01:12:15

A video editing project. I'm in the middle of right now that needs to get done

01:12:19

But I've had people interrupting me on it all week long

01:12:22

And probably gonna have to pull some long hours tomorrow to get it done like I know this

01:12:25

but

01:12:27

Yet I have to take some steps away from it like I'm doing here today because

01:12:33

I can't look at it that long

01:12:35

For like I can't look at it for 12 hours straight cannot do it

01:12:39

So I have to get some breaks from it. It's what I was doing before we started here. It's what I'm going to do when we're done

01:12:43

so

01:12:44

That sort of thing is is something I have to do because of the

01:12:49

Focus needs and such but anyway planning the day like I know that I'm going to have a lot of distractions

01:12:56

Throughout the day and I have long said like I can't

01:13:00

Can't nail down when I'm going to do what but yet

01:13:03

I have even as I've said that I've usually had a this morning

01:13:09

Even if it's just mentally this morning. I need to get this done this afternoon

01:13:12

I need to do that and somewhere between here and lunchtime. I need to get these three things accomplished like

01:13:18

I haven't formally written out like an hour by hour thing, but I kind of know

01:13:23

When certain things need to happen that day. So because of that

01:13:28

I kind of have a rough plan

01:13:31

for what I'm going to accomplish that day, but

01:13:34

I also know that like

01:13:37

It's not going to happen the way I visualize it. Maybe that's why I don't want to write it all down because I don't think it's worth it

01:13:43

Yep. Yep. Yep. Exactly. So we're creating an action item for joe here

01:13:47

Sure write it down then it's just yeah, so we could potentially do that. I'll take that. That's fine

01:13:57

I'm writing it down. I'm legit writing it down right now

01:13:59

That's the argument and I think there is diminishing returns

01:14:03

for

01:14:05

For doing this at some point, you know if you're brand new and you're to your

01:14:09

Role and you it feels like everything is just coming at you

01:14:14

This actually brings a whole ton of clarity if you're established and

01:14:16

You kind of in the back of your head know how the legos fit together then don't worry about it

01:14:23

But uh if you've not done it before I think this is absolutely an exercise that everybody should do

01:14:28

Which is why I push you to make it an action. Yeah. Yeah

01:14:32

Thanks mike you're good at that anymore. Yeah, that's why i'm here

01:14:37

All right, should we talk about the final mile?

01:14:41

Sure get me off of this

01:14:44

Whole like giving me tasks thing

01:14:46

All right, so the final mile. This is the shorter section in the book, but there's a couple of things worth unpacking here

01:14:53

The big one you picked out and that is that you are not your work

01:14:59

Let's talk about that one first

01:15:02

because this is

01:15:04

something that is

01:15:06

hard for a lot of people to separate

01:15:09

I never even made the connection about like founders of these startup companies

01:15:15

when they

01:15:17

Make the sale which is the whole thing they're working for

01:15:20

kind of the depression that sets in and the identity crisis that they go through

01:15:24

but I have definitely

01:15:27

Rousled through this myself as a creative. So definitely not on the same

01:15:33

Level he shared some stories in here about he's grandpa who sold the company and kind of went into depression afterwards

01:15:41

and uh, I there's a whole bunch of tangential

01:15:46

Topics there about finding something new to do after that and things like that

01:15:50

But I think the thing we should focus on here is that your identity is not

01:15:54

solely in your production

01:15:57

Your value is not tied to what you

01:16:01

produce

01:16:03

And I feel like we've talked about this a lot and I kind of sound like a broken record at this point

01:16:08

But I also feel it is extremely important to hammer this home

01:16:14

as often as we can

01:16:16

You are not what you do

01:16:20

And it's so hard though and this is why I wanted to talk about it again because

01:16:26

It's difficult to do this separation

01:16:30

It just is and I feel like I would keep wanting to bring it up and keep talking about it partially for my own benefit

01:16:38

And partially because I know that just about everybody I talk to struggles with this

01:16:44

It doesn't seem to matter what your

01:16:46

Industry is I know that I've talked to farmers that struggle with this one

01:16:51

Like you can do everything right and it still fails like it it can happen

01:16:56

So

01:16:57

This is this is something that I know and when that happens people can go into depressions in really bad places because

01:17:03

The thing that they were working on failed and they feel like that's a reflection on themselves

01:17:08

but this this actually

01:17:11

One of the things that uh

01:17:13

It comes back to my mind whenever I I process this is the the book thinking in bets by any duke

01:17:19

And the the concept of you can have all of the information in front of you and you can make

01:17:24

A solid decision. It doesn't turn out the way you think it will

01:17:28

And it could be a bad result. That doesn't mean you made a bad decision

01:17:31

That just means that things didn't go the way you thought they would

01:17:36

But given the information you had at the time it was the right decision

01:17:41

And if you could look back on it, yeah, you'd probably change it, but if you didn't have the

01:17:45

2020 vision or the hindsight side of it

01:17:48

Then you would have made the exact same decision ahead of time like beforehand. So

01:17:54

Because of all that concept like you have to be aware that

01:17:58

Whenever you're making something whenever you're doing work

01:18:03

and you're creating things whether it's

01:18:06

putting in a water heater

01:18:09

or

01:18:10

Making a video for youtube and anything in between

01:18:12

It doesn't seem to matter the things that you're producing are not you

01:18:18

and

01:18:20

Just because the quality of that thing is something that some random person doesn't appreciate

01:18:25

It either means that's the wrong audience for the thing

01:18:30

For the video for the work that you're doing

01:18:33

Or you're just in the learning process and you need to get better at it

01:18:38

And your skills aren't there yet

01:18:40

Whenever I listen to

01:18:42

Some of the early podcasts that I've ever recorded or watched some of the videos I first made

01:18:46

I cringe

01:18:49

This is why creators don't like to go back in the archives

01:18:52

To look at things right like when's the last time you went and looked at your first pod or listen to your first podcast

01:18:58

Not gonna happen recently. Nope. No, don't do it. It's scary. You don't want to do it

01:19:03

Because you grow and you get a lot better over time

01:19:07

So you you don't want to make that your identity

01:19:10

The thing that you're doing you have to somehow separate those two thus

01:19:15

I feel like we need to keep bringing it up

01:19:17

Because it's something it's really hard to do

01:19:18

Well, the other thing I want to talk about is related to this on the inverse

01:19:22

so

01:19:23

Overcome your resistance to a great outcome is another chapter here

01:19:27

Which is kind of tied to you are not your work

01:19:31

Because in that section he tells a story about this

01:19:33

person who had been with this company

01:19:36

Behance as they were getting ready to be acquired by adobe

01:19:39

And they kind of all knew that this was coming and this guy just kept doing dumb stuff

01:19:45

Saying stupid things and scots like this is really out of character for this guy

01:19:50

Why is he sabotaging himself? We're about to get this big payday and he's trying to get himself fired

01:19:56

Right and he tells his wife and his wife's like, oh, yeah, he doesn't

01:20:00

I forget exactly what she said, but she knew exactly what what it was and she's basically said

01:20:05

He doesn't feel like he deserves it

01:20:07

And so next time he did something scot cornered him in the conference room and he's like

01:20:11

You deserve this success and the guy's like what and he says it again. You deserve this success

01:20:18

And then the guy breaks down

01:20:20

No issues from that point forward right kind of good will hunting style, right? It's not your fault

01:20:27

Yes

01:20:29

Which seems like a ridiculous story, but I

01:20:32

I really like that one and I feel like this is something that I have wrestled with

01:20:39

Uh, not to that degree

01:20:42

But as long as you think you have to your your value is in what you do

01:20:48

If you get it better than expected a result there is the tendency to say I don't deserve this

01:20:57

And you can kind of self sabotage in a way

01:20:59

And you feel like you've got to put more effort in or you got to do more work

01:21:03

You got to make more sacrifice

01:21:05

This wasn't as hard for me as somebody else so you compare yourself and you say well, this must not be true

01:21:11

so you don't embrace the the good side of the scenario

01:21:15

and

01:21:17

I've been thinking about this a lot not as it pertains to this particular book

01:21:21

but for myself personally

01:21:22

the phrase that comes up is

01:21:25

Give yourself permission to dream again

01:21:28

like we get conditioned

01:21:31

over time to thinking like oh, it's not that easy

01:21:34

and

01:21:36

I'm not that good. I'm not that talented. I'm not that smart

01:21:39

whatever

01:21:42

and

01:21:43

You temper your expectations you temper your goals you temper your vision

01:21:49

based on

01:21:51

what you think you are capable of

01:21:54

And I do believe that we are all capable of more

01:21:57

than we realize

01:21:59

Kind of like we were talking about the very beginning. We don't really know what we're capable of until

01:22:04

being

01:22:06

asked or forced to rise to the occasion

01:22:08

And so I've noticed that myself just kind of being like well, you know

01:22:13

this is

01:22:15

Probably what this is going to look like and I I think it's I think it's unhealthy

01:22:19

to

01:22:22

Try to be too realistic when you're thinking about your future and

01:22:28

What you want to see happen. I think it's good

01:22:32

for you to

01:22:35

Assume the sky's the limit like what one of the questions I've been thinking about is what would it look like if you were

01:22:40

wildly successful

01:22:43

in

01:22:43

Whatever area however you want to apply that

01:22:46

I feel like that's a worthwhile

01:22:49

Exercise that can bring a lot of hope

01:22:51

Yes, absolutely because I feel like there's there's so much that can be done whenever you're willing to

01:22:57

Explore and be creative again

01:23:00

It's easy whenever you follow this so follow the path here, right? So you've got the the beginning idea

01:23:07

You've got a business you're starting you've got an online thing. You're going to start whatever it is

01:23:10

Uh, you're going to be a hvac guy. So

01:23:14

Whenever you first have that idea like it's the the initial high right

01:23:19

but whenever you come back off of that

01:23:20

the mundane can really get to be overwhelming and

01:23:24

And there is a point at which you're like grasping for air

01:23:28

And you're just trying to power through

01:23:32

But whether you're doing the pivots you're doing resets, you know, you're you're doing the optimized process on yourself your team the business

01:23:40

All of these things

01:23:42

It's real easy. There's there's a whole section in here. He talks about like disconnecting. It's real easy to

01:23:49

Just get stuck in the rut of

01:23:51

Always trying to optimize as well the things he's talking about are not bad

01:23:56

But you do need to take a step back from the the entire thing occasionally

01:24:01

In order to see the bigger picture like what you're saying like and and get kind of the bigger view of it

01:24:07

So that you can get the ideas and be more creative with the whole thing

01:24:11

But which is what got you in it to begin with, right?

01:24:15

So if you are willing to do that

01:24:18

That can help you keep the drive going and keep the upward tick marks up the upward stairs stepping of the graph

01:24:26

Yep, you can keep all of that moving forward, but you have to be willing to

01:24:30

Seek out outside information

01:24:34

Consume some things take the brakes disconnect like you got to give yourself the headspace in order to have that creativity come out again

01:24:41

Exactly. So it's like kind of what you were getting at

01:24:45

That's the way I saw it anyway. Yeah

01:24:47

One last thing I want to touch on here

01:24:49

Maybe you picked up on this and maybe not

01:24:53

Page three sixty seven. There is a quote from Warren Buffett about reading

01:24:57

Which we would be derelict in our bookworm duties if we did not touch on this

01:25:02

We always grab these and hold on to him, right? Yeah

01:25:05

So Warren Buffett said

01:25:08

Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest

01:25:15

All of you can do it, but I guarantee

01:25:17

not many of you will do it

01:25:20

and

01:25:22

this

01:25:23

was

01:25:25

Challenging. I mean

01:25:26

We read a lot of books, right?

01:25:28

But I read this and all my action items is actually to read more

01:25:32

Yep

01:25:34

Because he's talking about

01:25:36

I'm gonna list here. It says read more. Yeah, it's basically centopical reading, right?

01:25:42

But on a larger scale

01:25:44

and when I heard Warren Buffett talk about this

01:25:48

I was like, yeah, I need more dots

01:25:52

I feel like I've been collecting them, you know, but

01:25:55

I could I could do more

01:25:57

Yeah, I wrote this one down as well and it's

01:25:59

Exactly the same read more books is what I wrote down and

01:26:04

I I don't know when or how that's going to happen

01:26:08

Given my life right now, but I want to at least make an effort towards it

01:26:12

So I don't I don't know what the answer is quite yet, but by next time I want to get that answered

01:26:17

Right

01:26:19

But I at the same time like I mean we read a lot, right and

01:26:22

When you read a 380 page book in two weeks

01:26:26

that's not small

01:26:28

in in what we're doing so

01:26:31

knowing that and knowing the the volume of reading that we do purely for the show

01:26:39

and knowing that we want to both take on more than that

01:26:43

My challenge to you dear listener is to do half of that

01:26:48

See if you can read it like I I would ch- maybe we should do it like a monthly or a quarterly challenge of sorts to have

01:26:55

Like a book club sort of thing where you got to read a book that we pick in a month

01:26:59

Like it's not reading in it in two weeks like we'll we'll let you know four weeks ahead of time

01:27:03

And you can read it in a month and we'll cover it together. I don't know what that is

01:27:07

I feel like we should do something like that. You need to read more

01:27:09

I need to read more

01:27:13

All right, have we done it? Have we worked through this giant tome of

01:27:17

the messy middle we we have picked out some high peaks to cover yes from this thing. Yes

01:27:25

All right, so

01:27:28

Do you have any action items?

01:27:30

Well, you gave it to me. So yes

01:27:32

You're at fault

01:27:34

All right

01:27:35

But you have to go first

01:27:36

Okay, fine

01:27:38

So I have two action items

01:27:40

One is to read more books as mentioned and then there's another

01:27:44

part from the final mile here

01:27:47

Where he says you're either part of the living or the dying and uh the action item that I wrote down here was get busy living

01:27:54

and uh, I feel like I kind of do this already, but I do want to

01:27:58

take an approach to my

01:28:02

Daily routine like my ideal week the things that I do on a regular basis and reconsider again

01:28:08

Why the stuff that I do is is on there

01:28:12

And maybe make some adjustments

01:28:15

Maybe just clarify that yeah, these are the right things and infuse a little bit more

01:28:19

Motivation into them. I kind of do this every quarter as part of my personal retreat stuff anyways, but

01:28:24

I

01:28:26

Want to put everything under the microscope again

01:28:29

There's a related thing to this which maybe we should cover this at some point 30 lessons for living

01:28:35

I've mentioned this as a gap book really really great book by a doctor who went and interviewed a lot of

01:28:41

People in nursing homes who you go to nursing home and there's a lot of people who don't want to be there

01:28:46

There's usually a few people who are just loving life living their best life

01:28:48

You know, they're really social just having a great time

01:28:52

And those are the people that he interviewed thousands of those types of people

01:28:56

and what are the things that got you to the point at this point in your life where you you can

01:29:01

look back with no regrets and

01:29:04

Able to enjoy

01:29:06

However much time you've you've got left and they broke it down into like 30 different themes 30 different lessons

01:29:11

How to live your best life basically from people who have done a good job of it

01:29:15

So that is kind of in the back of my mind as i'm thinking about that too, but

01:29:19

Yeah, I just want to

01:29:22

think about all the things that i'm doing now and

01:29:26

If there's anything that I just feel like i'm obligated to do and I don't really want to do or

01:29:30

Not that i'm

01:29:33

Don't enjoy doing but things that I recognize not everything is going to be fun

01:29:37

I recognize there's some stuff that's worth doing that's not going to be

01:29:40

Easy or enjoyable and that's not what i'm talking about with this

01:29:44

But the stuff that really just i'm doing it because someone expects me to do it

01:29:47

I really see no value in doing it for myself like looking for that type of stuff to stop doing

01:29:53

I feel like that's a tough one. I'm trying to think of like what that would be in my own life

01:29:57

Like what would that equate to and that's

01:29:59

Why do you make me think these things i have figured out mike now you got me like

01:30:05

I'm so sorry

01:30:08

Guess what i'm doing on my walk tonight

01:30:11

Okay

01:30:14

All right, so I have I have three two of which I had ahead of time one of which mike decided to add to my list

01:30:20

and

01:30:21

The the first one that I had wrote down was to

01:30:24

Because as I was going through this i've been processing a lot of like my own personal online business and how I do things

01:30:30

Thus a lot of the changes i've been in the middle of lately and

01:30:33

One of the things that i'm wanting to do and it kind of coincides with an off bookworm task that mike and i are working towards

01:30:41

Um, but I want to write out a formal plan for what i'm doing with my online business

01:30:48

Which incorporates like some of what i'm doing is like the story brand thing

01:30:52

For it as well as a like a piece of that. So

01:30:56

I feel like I need a little bit of accountability with all of that

01:31:00

Otherwise, I'll put it on the back burner and just go which is unhelpful in this case

01:31:03

So I want to put that on the table as something to to work through I had the one of reading more

01:31:09

because reading more

01:31:12

readers lead and leaders read so how that goes and

01:31:17

The more that I feel like I can consume from a a long form stance. I feel like the better

01:31:23

Synthesis I would have on topics just in general, but this is you know preaching to the choir here

01:31:29

So I don't have to explain that one too much and then we have the one that mike decided to give me

01:31:33

Uh, which is writing up my plan for the day. What what am I doing? Like what's the format of this? Does it matter?

01:31:39

Am I doing this hourly minutely? What am I doing? We didn't explain that part

01:31:45

I would say hourly hourly so yeah decide hours before they happen. Is that the the concept time black your day basically

01:31:53

Is this the 24 hour thing or is this my workday? What am I how deep? Do I have to go here?

01:31:58

Ah

01:32:00

I don't know. I wasn't gonna say just the work day, but maybe you should do uh

01:32:04

Curses I should have carried on. Maybe you should do every waking hour

01:32:09

Okay

01:32:11

Thanks mike

01:32:12

You're welcome. Hey, just so I have the record here. I got read more and writing out the plan for the day

01:32:18

What was the other one?

01:32:19

The writing out a plan for my online business. Okay. Gotcha. Yep

01:32:24

All right, so plan for the day all waking hours curses. Sorry. All right

01:32:31

Maybe you'll thank me after you do it

01:32:34

Hopefully

01:32:35

Uh, we'll see all right. I'll see I'm either gonna be really excited or rather upset with you

01:32:42

All right

01:32:44

We'll see how it goes. There you go. That's what I got

01:32:46

All right style and rating

01:32:49

I guess this is my book. So I have to go first. Yes

01:32:53

The style of this book is awesome. I love these small chapters the quick hit things

01:32:59

I've talked a lot about

01:33:02

The way that scott writes and the way that he communicates these ideas and I think it's very very effective

01:33:07

There are not a whole lot of pictures in this book

01:33:11

Uh, there's the one visual which he kind of builds on that as he gets through the different sections

01:33:16

So I feel like that's really powerful as a model

01:33:18

But there's not a whole lot else visually to this. I don't think that's necessarily a negative thing

01:33:24

I think going into it

01:33:28

There's a very

01:33:30

strong

01:33:31

Vibe of silicon valley startup sort of a thing which maybe we'll put some people off

01:33:37

But I feel like there is so much

01:33:41

gold in this book for

01:33:43

Anybody who listens to bookworm to be honest

01:33:47

So I would definitely recommend this to people

01:33:51

I would not buy it and give it to somebody and say here read this except for the person that I already did that for

01:33:57

Um

01:34:01

It's hard to rate this

01:34:03

on the heels of victor frankle

01:34:06

um one hand

01:34:10

This is talking about

01:34:12

Work specifically and so it feels like it should be a level below

01:34:18

what we just read in yes to life

01:34:22

And I do think that is

01:34:25

An accurate perspective to take when considering the the subject matter

01:34:30

Especially some of the stuff that he shares in here about you are not your job and things like that is kind of chill

01:34:34

you know

01:34:36

Work isn't everything which when you consider the audience

01:34:39

These are the people who struggle with this the most so very reassuring to

01:34:43

Hear him and say that there's a lot of really cool personal stories a lot of really cool insights a lot of really cool famous

01:34:51

People that he's met and like this is what they told me and I didn't even realize the value of what they told me until years later

01:34:57

When something else happened so I feel like there's a high level transparency that comes through in this book

01:35:04

It's somebody who has done something awesome and sold their startup to adobe for 150 million dollars

01:35:10

So they've lived the dream right they've worked all the way through this

01:35:14

And basically he's saying these are all the mistakes that i've made along the way

01:35:19

So it feels very approachable

01:35:22

I don't feel like you need to have a business background in order to get something out of this

01:35:27

There's something here even for the the creatives, which I would argue everybody is creative

01:35:30

um

01:35:32

So definitely would recommend it I'd recommend pretty much anybody in the bookroom audience take a look at it

01:35:37

See if see if you enjoy it

01:35:39

I I do think there's a possibility of this just is not the thing for you and feel free to put it down at that point

01:35:44

Don't force yourself to go through all 380 pages

01:35:47

Um, it was definitely the right thing for me at the right time. I really enjoyed going through this

01:35:52

I'm really glad that we read it. I feel like this is one of those

01:35:55

foundational books those tent pole books that i'm going to refer back to for many many years

01:36:02

And uh, i'm in a rated at 4.5 stars

01:36:05

Really really good really great information

01:36:08

Not completely life-changing at least as I sit here today

01:36:13

maybe several years from now

01:36:16

That

01:36:17

Will have changed but

01:36:19

I think uh, even if you just picked it up and read a couple of chapters that stood out to you

01:36:24

You would get something from it

01:36:27

Okay

01:36:28

I will agree that this is a uh a difficult one to

01:36:32

Rate after reading yes to life with victor frankle

01:36:36

Like it seems weird because those the victor frankle books tend to be the ones that we use as the gauge

01:36:42

like uh, almost the the the bar to to shoot for and

01:36:48

I know that that's not completely true. It does deviate from that

01:36:53

But it's something that does come up here on bookworm quite a bit. So because of that

01:37:00

I think you're you're spot on with the way that you're approaching this at least so

01:37:04

With this book, I will say like almost every chapter

01:37:09

Like we talked about how there's just tons and tons of chapters. They're like three to four pages long a piece

01:37:14

at a

01:37:17

370 page book

01:37:19

You can do the math on how many chapters there are in this thing

01:37:21

but

01:37:23

Because of that format it means that generally what happens is he introduces a topic

01:37:29

He'll tell you a story about it. Maybe some derivatives of that story

01:37:33

Possibly a second story and then explain it a little bit for each of those. It's

01:37:37

Roughly speaking what each of those is like it's it's not exact

01:37:42

uh, he doesn't follow that exactly through those but

01:37:45

I find that that

01:37:47

Process is one that is fairly common. It's fairly easy to grasp and easy to understand and i'm glad that he took that approach here

01:37:56

Because there are so many different little subtopics in here

01:38:00

The the one thing that's a little weird to me is that

01:38:04

The through line between all of them isn't always clear

01:38:08

Right. We haven't really talked about that in broad scope like with each individual chapter can stand alone

01:38:15

For the most part not not completely but pretty close and because of that

01:38:20

It's really easy. I find to pick it up and jump somewhere in the middle

01:38:25

Who was it Tim Ferris that was trying to do that like each chapter was designed to be a stand alone book almost

01:38:32

Was the way it was intended?

01:38:34

I don't remember if that was four hour work week four hour chef something like that one of his books

01:38:38

I think he had that that process he was trying to do

01:38:41

This isn't intended to be that way, but it almost does work that way

01:38:45

I kind of struggled to see the through path between each of those

01:38:49

But I also i'm not so sure that that's necessary

01:38:52

in this in the way that this is

01:38:55

supposed to be followed the way that he's got the

01:38:58

the

01:39:00

The three pieces here of endure optimized in the final mile because of those big overarching headers. I think it's fine

01:39:07

It just was a little

01:39:09

Weird to me that said like so much of this I feel like you're absolutely spot on this

01:39:14

This hit me at exactly the right time very grateful for having gone through this right now because of some of the stuff i'm trying to do

01:39:20

uh in simplifying a lot of my

01:39:23

off hours work that I do and

01:39:26

Because of that this this hits me perfect

01:39:29

Timing wise so I feel like there's not really been a better time for me to go through this

01:39:34

This is one i've known about for a long time just haven't

01:39:36

Had a reason or time to pick it up. So thanks mike. Thanks for doing that as for a rating

01:39:42

uh, i'll join you. I think 4.5 despite some of the

01:39:46

The question marks I have around it, but I think that's that's absolutely right. I think there's a lot of

01:39:51

super good value that you can get from this especially if you're somebody who's running a business or

01:39:56

Is considering it or you work for someplace that

01:40:01

You know pays you

01:40:03

And you do work for them my guess is you'll see a lot of things

01:40:07

In the business that are happening and that might inform your way of helping guide the business out of those

01:40:13

So I feel like it does have a pretty wide

01:40:15

Reach and yet

01:40:19

I would be very selective in who I specifically told you should read this

01:40:23

to to your point earlier like there's a lot here and

01:40:27

To the wrong person it could give the wrong idea. I think

01:40:31

Like if I give this to my boss you might wait hold up why

01:40:36

Do you think we're in all sorts of problems?

01:40:39

You don't think we're past all of this like that would probably be the perspective you would get and that's fine

01:40:44

Just different

01:40:46

So I would be aware of that

01:40:48

All right, let's put the messy middle on the shelf. What's next joe?

01:40:53

Next is steel like an artist by austin kleon

01:40:58

Uh, I think I got tired of mike telling me about this and then me not having read it

01:41:03

So here we are. I feel like it's time we read this might guess to reread it for the 17th thousandth time

01:41:09

I'm sure so

01:41:11

I'm excited about this one. It'll be good

01:41:13

Is that have you only read it once or be read it more than that?

01:41:16

I think i've read it twice, but it's not something that I read every weekend like you make it so

01:41:22

So that might have been a slight exaggeration

01:41:27

Yeah, that'll be a fun one

01:41:32

So yeah steel like an artist and then what mike what are you what are you gonna put on us after that?

01:41:38

I've

01:41:39

I wrestled with this prior to the the show. I have a big stack of books that I want to read

01:41:45

but the one that I think would be great for bookworm

01:41:49

Even though it is now the third joshua becker book that we'll have covered

01:41:53

Is things that matter?

01:41:56

I have heard from people that this is the book that joshua becker was meant to write

01:42:02

and so

01:42:05

I want to unpack this I feel like this is

01:42:08

either

01:42:10

going to

01:42:11

resonate with us completely

01:42:13

or at least spur a lot of

01:42:15

crazy conversation

01:42:18

Yeah

01:42:19

Yeah

01:42:20

Yeah, I hear yeah, I think that'll be good. I really do so

01:42:23

Since we're both going to read more

01:42:25

What's your gap book mike?

01:42:27

I've got one right over here called digital zettlkastin by

01:42:33

David

01:42:34

kadavi

01:42:35

I don't know how to pronounce these last names. It's a short book. It's like 70 some pages

01:42:39

and

01:42:42

as you know, I am big into obsidian ding

01:42:44

so

01:42:46

I feel like

01:42:48

This will be an interesting quick read

01:42:50

I need a quick read after this one

01:42:53

Yeah

01:42:55

That was part of the discussion when we chose and decided to do the messy middle like okay

01:43:01

The one before it thankfully was a little short the one after it thankfully is a little short so we can we can do that

01:43:07

But here we are deciding to read more

01:43:09

I'm going to do a gap book. I just don't know what it is yet

01:43:12

Do you have a recommendation? I've not really done that on the show before second edition of how to take smart notes

01:43:18

Oh, come on

01:43:20

You can't be that mean. I'm just kidding

01:43:23

Uh, I feel like we're probably going to end up doing that at some point. Yeah

01:43:28

Off the top of my head. I don't know

01:43:32

Let me think about it. Okay. I'll pick something for you. Yeah a week. Got a week

01:43:38

Because I'll get through steal like an artist in a week now

01:43:41

If I follow the plan, right and then I'll have a week to do whatever's next. Yeah

01:43:46

So I got a week to find it

01:43:48

Yep, I don't know what it is. I'll tell you what it was when we record next. There you go. All right, so we have follow up next time. I like this time

01:43:55

I know right

01:43:58

Cool. So thank you to

01:44:00

everyone for listening all the way to the end. Thank you to people who have

01:44:06

Joined us live on youtube. You can do that at youtube.com/bookwormfm

01:44:11

Joe always tweets out the recording times ahead of time and uh some cool conversation that happens occasionally there

01:44:19

We see it all and it influences the discussion. We don't always respond to it directly

01:44:25

But for anyone typing in that chat, uh, who's wondering? Yes, we do see all that stuff. So thank you for for chiming in

01:44:34

Uh, thank you specifically to the bookworm club premium members who are willing to not just

01:44:39

Download the show and give us your attention, which we definitely appreciate that but people who are willing to support the show financially

01:44:47

You people are awesome. Uh, if you want to become a premium club member, you can go to bookworm.fm/membership

01:44:55

five bucks a month 50 bucks a year

01:44:58

But you get for that in addition to our undying gratitude and the knowledge that you're helping keep the lights on here

01:45:03

All the uh, my map files that

01:45:06

I put together for the books that we read pdf sand edit will my node files themselves a couple of gap book episodes bookworm

01:45:13

4k wallpaper

01:45:15

But the big thing is that you are a huge part of making this continue

01:45:20

So thank you to everyone who is willing to

01:45:22

By joe and i a cup of coffee once a month

01:45:25

Absolutely, and if you are one of those amazing people who has been reading along with us as all of you should be

01:45:32

Uh pick up steel like an artist by austin klion and we'll cover that one in a couple of weeks