Bookworm Transcripts

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I found a really cool thing, Mike.

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- What's that?

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- Remember how we were talking about

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wanting to edit the same document at the same time

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and how base camp is ridiculous

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and doesn't let us do this?

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- Yes.

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- There is an obsidian plugin

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that is called Obsidian Multiplayer.

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Have you seen this?

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- I haven't.

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We were just talking about this

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and you were holding off for the show.

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- I was holding off.

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(laughs)

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- There is a plugin called Obsidian Multiplayer.

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I have not had a chance to test it

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because you were the person I should test this with

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and life and it uses some backend thing

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that's open source, that's public and such

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and this guy tied it into Obsidian

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so that you can take notes within your existing database

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and share them with other people

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and they can edit them live together.

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- Love it.

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- They have no idea how well it works.

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I don't even know if it works

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but it sounds cool.

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- This is the perfect thing for you

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to spend hours testing.

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- Yep.

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- That's how this goes.

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- I definitely want to try this.

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So you tell me what to do

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and we'll make it happen.

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- Yeah, I feel like we should at least try this

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for the next bookworm episode.

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- Done.

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- We totally should.

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- I will say I hate this name

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because multiplayer is the term

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that everybody in the Rome research community would use

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when I was involved with the,

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what do they even call it?

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It's not insider, that's Obsidian.

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True believer calls or something.

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- Sure.

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- They're always like, oh, multiplayer's coming.

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It's gonna be a game changer

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and I'm like, I don't want multiplayer.

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I want my notes.

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- No, so maybe that's where it came from.

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I don't know.

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I didn't know that that was the thing at all.

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I have not kept up with Rome, one Iota.

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However, I found this plugin in the midst of searching

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for ways to like live edit text files

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like collaboratively.

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And I ran across that plugin,

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but it's not, it's like barely documented

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and it's not shared publicly.

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Like the only place I found it existing was on GitHub

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where you could download the code.

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Like it's not even in the plugin store

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from what I can tell.

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So that's why I'm a bit like,

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I don't know how well this'll work,

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but is what it is.

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- Cool.

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- Super fun.

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So anyway, we should try that out for next time.

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That's kind of sort of follow up, but.

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- Oh, it totally is.

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- Yes.

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I have been playing around with reading more, Mike, have you?

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- Ah, no, I think I read less actually.

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(laughing)

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- What?

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How did you go backwards?

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- Well, so it is Thursday at 2 p.m. Central Time

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as we record this.

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And Timery says that I have worked 42 hours

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and 43 minutes this week.

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So that's why.

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It doesn't include the time prepping for Bookworm,

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which thankfully this book was a little bit easier to do.

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- Yeah, this is an easy one to crank through.

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So the desire is still there.

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It just has not manifested yet for me.

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- Okay, so Mike didn't do well on that one.

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- I did not.

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(laughing)

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- I did though.

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I started reading a gap book for once.

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This has been years in the making it feels like,

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but I started reading one called Read People Like a Book

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by Patrick King.

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And I'm almost done with it.

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- That Patrick King.

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- That Patrick King.

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And anyway, I'm about done with it.

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So I'll jump into our next book afterwards.

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But being by Patrick King,

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that's why I decided that we wouldn't do this for Bookworm.

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Because--

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- Gotcha.

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- Mike's a fan.

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Mike's a really big fan of Patrick King

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if you didn't know that.

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(laughing)

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- So much.

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- Super big fan.

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- I'm about halfway done with my gap book,

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which was the Digital Zettle Caston.

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And this book you would actually like,

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at least up until this point.

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It is not what you think it is.

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It is a very thoughtful approach.

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There's a whole chapter on analog versus digital.

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And it says, digital is good for this.

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Analog is good for this.

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And usually when I see those lists,

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I'm like, well, maybe--

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- No, no, you're wrong.

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(laughing)

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- Sure.

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- You can tell the author, David Kedavi,

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I think that's how you say it, knows his stuff.

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So that would be an interesting one to cover,

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but it's not one of the big name productivity,

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typical productivity type books, I guess.

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- Sure.

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You have one down here, get busy living.

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I don't know how to hold you to this one,

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but how'd you do on it?

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- I'm here, ain't I?

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(laughing)

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No.

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- Hi, Mike's living.

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(laughing)

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- Uh, good question.

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The thought behind this was,

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essentially don't wait to do the things

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that I really wanna do.

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And I would argue I have done a decent job of this.

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The last several weeks have been crazy for me,

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partly of my own making,

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'cause I've gone through the Part-Time YouTuber Academy.

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And then also, I'm in the middle of Ship 30 for 30,

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and this is day 13, I think, of Ship 13 Days in a Row.

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So I've written and published basically 13 Days in a Row.

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Oh, by the way, related to Part-Time YouTuber Academy,

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long-term follow-up, the episode before this last one,

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I said I was gonna try to make a YouTube video.

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(upbeat music)

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Before the next episode releases,

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I will have published at least one YouTube video.

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That is not a sermon sketch note video.

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(upbeat music)

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And I made it by the skin of my teeth.

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(laughing)

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- I wouldn't say it was by the skin of your teeth.

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You released this a few days ago.

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- It was-- - We were talking about

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release date, is that what you're talking about?

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- Yeah, so I think I published it the morning.

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No, it must have been the day before,

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but I only recorded it, I think, two days before that.

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(laughing)

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- Ooh.

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- Yeah.

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- That's tough.

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- Knowing how long that stuff takes to edit.

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Ouch.

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- I'll put a link here in the chat,

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and then also in the show notes.

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This is inspired by Ship30.

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With Ship30, you basically pick something

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to write about every day,

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and so I was thinking, what am I right about today?

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And one of the things I want to get better at

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is pointing to Bookworm from all the other things

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that I do, because we read all these books,

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and get all these ideas from these books.

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It's easy to expound on those,

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and point to the Bookworm episodes where appropriate.

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So I made this thread, five books every creative should read,

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and I link to the Bookworm episodes in the tweet thread,

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and then also in the YouTube video description,

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like four out of the five we had covered,

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but I took that thread when I saw it,

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I'm like, this would make a cool video,

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so I turned it into a video,

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and published my first real YouTube video in air quotes there,

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because I've been doing sermon sketch notes for a while,

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but this is my first part-time YouTuber Academy endorsed,

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like after I've gone through all that stuff and figured out,

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this is kind of the direction and the things

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that you should consider, took all that into consideration,

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made my first video with the title slide, thumbnail,

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all that kind of stuff,

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and it's performing pretty well.

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I never really had anything, there was no momentum there,

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so it just kind of appeared out of nothing.

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(laughs)

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Yeah, but I had a bunch of people waiting for the next video.

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Yeah, I did have one video that I recorded a long time ago,

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like how I did my sermon sketch notes stuff

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inside of Obsidian,

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and that one has been generating a ton of views for me over time,

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it has almost 8,000 views, I think, last time I looked.

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So actually, I'm at 300 subscribers or something on YouTube.

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I'm over the 4,000 hour mark for monetization,

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so now I just need to get to the, for view time,

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I just need to get to the thousand subscribers, so.

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Yeah, smash that bell, like and subscribe,

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all the YouTube things.

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(laughs)

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We got into this, I was streaming yesterday,

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and I was like, turn it, I was like,

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okay, as the YouTube thinks, I stream on YouTube,

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it's like, what are you supposed to,

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like there's a bell thing, what's the bell do,

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like I could not for the life of me remember,

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like, oh, that's right, it sends the notifications,

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like, please don't, please don't hit that button,

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like, yes, subscribe, but please don't hit that notify button.

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I love you, I appreciate you, but please don't do that.

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(laughs)

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It's not worth it.

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Yeah, I honestly had no idea,

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I just thought that's what everybody says.

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Back to the original thing though,

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about the get busy living,

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so I've been going through all these courses,

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and I actually have another one that starts next week,

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called Pencil Pirates. (laughs)

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Yeah.

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And this one, have you heard about this?

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You mentioned it last time, I wrote it down,

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I didn't get a chance to look into it, but what is it?

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Pencil Pirates is basically a online cohort base course

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that walks you through visualizing ideas.

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So I kind of do this already in a very narrow way

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with the sermon sketch note stuff,

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and so this, I think, is the final piece to the puzzle

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for my big vision on what YouTube could be for me.

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It's the talking to a camera,

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talking about things that I talked about other ways,

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but in a video format, and then incorporating visuals

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and animations, which is really just timing

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that the live drawing on the iPad captured via screen floor

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or whatever, for some of the sketch note type

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visualization stuff.

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I've done this occasionally when I get these pictures

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in my head, just to communicate an idea,

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but this is, I think, gonna help me do that more systematically

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and combine that with the systematic writing every day,

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and then turning those writing ideas

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into other pieces of content, other places.

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There's that word you hate, content,

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but don't have a better one.

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- Hey, yeah, if I could find a better one,

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I would use it, but I haven't found it.

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(laughs)

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- Sure.

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So yeah, that's the next one.

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So I'm not gonna have a whole lot of spare time here

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at any point in the near future, but learning a ton.

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And feel like I'm kind of hitting my creative stride.

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I guess I had 13 days in a row or something like that

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publishing for Ship 30 for 30, and feels really good.

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I'm like seeing ideas for, oh, I could write about this

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in this way, all over the place now.

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My giraffes is full. (laughs)

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Idea generation is no longer a problem.

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- No, if you know how to, and we'll get into this

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a little bit today, but if you know how to qualify

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something as a potential idea that you could share,

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they're everywhere, and if you consume any form

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of content at all in audio, video, written form,

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if you do that for like 30 minutes a day,

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which most people do significantly more than that,

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you're gonna have a ton.

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You just are.

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- Yep, super fun.

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I will mention this now because regarding

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the pencil pirates course last thing with this,

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if people are checking that out and are interested in it,

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there is a code I think it's ship love, all one word,

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that will get you 10% off.

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And by the time it's published is that class will be live.

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So for people who are watching live

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or are gonna watch this replay on YouTube

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in the next couple of days, and you're interested

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in that course, and you wanna save a little bit of money,

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use that code.

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- Ship love.

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That's not a bookworm affiliated thing I assume.

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- That is not, so that is just like the general code,

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and then from there it'll ask you,

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how did you hear about it?

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And if you put somebody's name who's in the cohort,

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I guess it ties to an affiliate account,

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but I never set one up, so.

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- Whatever, you can put my name in there if you want,

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but the code alone will save you 10%.

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Even if you hate affiliate stuff,

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feel free to use that code and just leave the referr blank.

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(laughs)

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- Perfect, perfect.

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- Well I have two other follow up items

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on the list here for myself.

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The three total that I had one was read more.

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Another one was writing out a plan for my online business,

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which I did exactly nothing for,

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because life, though I have to say,

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it's getting a lot better.

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I've been spending a little more time reading,

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which has been helpful, but I haven't had

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error to breathe in evenings and such lately,

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'cause I've got a different website thing

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I'm building for a client.

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So anyway, I've been super busy,

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that wraps up here this weekend,

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so I should get to where I can spend some time on that

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instead of writing code.

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So getting there, Mike, getting there,

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I will get that done.

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And then my last one was to write out the plan for my day.

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Mike wanted me to time block, that's what that is.

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And Mike dictated the terms of this contract.

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- Hey, in my defense, only one asked.

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- That is true, that is true, I should not have asked,

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because it got to be significantly more complicated

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after I asked.

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(laughs)

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So I brought out my notebook and was like,

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each day was trying to write down my hour by hour,

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30 minute by 30 minute blocks,

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what's gonna happen, where and when.

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I would say I got it done about half of the time, Mike.

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And the results of this are mixed,

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because there were a couple days

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where it was really, really close to what I was able

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to achieve.

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The other times it was more of a,

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hey, this is cool, by 9.30,

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the whole thing's out the window.

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And I rewrote it one of those days.

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An hour later, what I had rewritten was out the window.

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It's like, I'm not gonna keep rewriting this.

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- No, don't rewrite it.

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- It's not worth it.

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Just like a page. - Set it and forget it.

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Honestly, I don't understand people

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who feel the need to modify those plans

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or even manually write out what they did

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so you can compare the plan versus the actual.

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Let the computer be the computer.

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It can track your time and you can look at those numbers

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if you really want to, but there ain't nobody got time

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to go back and write.

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This is what I actually did right now.

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- Yup, yup, as Blake says in the chat,

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like Cal Newport talks about, like that's the thing.

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The rewriting is the main thing, but.

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- I get it.

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- I disagree though.

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I disagree.

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- I think I would just, I would spend probably 45 minutes

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of my day rewriting that schedule.

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The days that I had that issue,

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it was probably at least 45 minutes worth of rewriting

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that I would have done.

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And if I had done that every time it was going to be off.

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And so anyway, it's about a fourth of my days,

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I was able to time block and it worked.

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Another fourth, I time blocked and it fell apart.

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And the other half, I didn't do it at all.

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And the only, the only thing I can give you as far as like,

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here's how I feel about it, was that the days that I did it

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and it worked, I felt a lot more accomplished.

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'Cause it was as if, like, hey, I did what I set out to do.

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Like there was that sense of accomplishment.

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The days where I did it and it completely fell apart

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were even worse than had I not done it at all.

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Because I felt like I was way off base

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and there was nothing I could do about it

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and I had no control over what I was getting into.

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I don't know if that's just my mindset being the issue.

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You're looking at me like bonkers.

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- I feel like there's an hour long conversation to be had

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on that statement you just made.

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- All right.

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- We've got this now.

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- This is why I've restrained from doing this time

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blocking thing many, many times.

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Anyway, I feel like that's probably a follow up thing.

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Yeah, as Silent says, an after hours podcast.

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(laughing)

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Anyway, my experience, and I'm sure there's a mind game

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going on here, it felt like it was significantly worse

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on those days where I didn't manage to follow through on it.

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No, even though it was not my,

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like it wasn't anything I did.

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It was simply things out of my control.

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And I can't quite figure out if,

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and maybe this after hours thing needs to happen

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at some point so that you can explain this hour

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a long thing that I don't understand right now.

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But if I were to continue doing it,

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I'm a bit torn because some days it would be super helpful

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and super good in other days,

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I feel like it would make it worse.

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And then sitting somewhere in the middle

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when I don't time block is kind of what I do by default.

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So right now, as we speak on this Thursday afternoon,

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I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow

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'cause today was my last day of doing this experiment.

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- I'm gonna give you another action item.

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(laughing)

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- Versus.

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What?

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- Okay, your action item is to the next time you go for a walk,

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ask yourself why you feel stressed out

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about creating the plan when you can't stick to it.

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Just think about, think about,

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like when it doesn't work, why didn't it work?

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- Okay.

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- That's all you gotta do.

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- But I know why it didn't work.

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- Well, you know the symptom of why it didn't work.

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But I think if you wrestle through and identify

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the root causes and then you give yourself permission

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to not care about those anymore,

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you will get to the place where you'll feel the benefit

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of doing it when it works without all the stress

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of when it doesn't.

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I don't think those two are intrinsically tied together.

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I think they are at the moment for you,

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but they don't have to be.

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- What if it's always outside forces?

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- It will be outside forces.

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- It always is.

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Like the days that it fell apart,

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it was always an outside force.

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- Okay, what we can do this live, that's cool.

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(laughing)

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- So why do you get upset when you can't stick to your plan

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'cause of outside forces?

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Why do you get upset about the outside forces?

00:19:38

You can't control it, right?

00:19:40

Well, what if you just disconnected the part

00:19:44

that you can't control from what you feel

00:19:47

about the time block plan?

00:19:49

How does that map to the things that are on there

00:19:52

and the sense of satisfaction you get

00:19:55

when you do a good job?

00:19:58

Is it that you followed through on the tasks

00:20:00

that you identified you were gonna slide in there?

00:20:03

Then since you get thrown off all the time,

00:20:06

maybe we just reduced the number of things

00:20:08

that you slide into your schedule.

00:20:09

You know, you build in more buffer

00:20:10

or another thing could be you make your blocks longer.

00:20:13

Like there are different tactics you can deploy here

00:20:15

to alleviate that feeling I feel.

00:20:18

- Sure.

00:20:18

Yeah, 'cause I think a lot of it comes down to,

00:20:21

like these are the things I had in my head.

00:20:24

Like the way my brain works is whenever I put that list together,

00:20:28

like I know that that's the plan for today,

00:20:32

but because I've got that plan for today,

00:20:34

my brain immediately jumps to what that means for tomorrow.

00:20:38

And when the whole thing, it's derailed today,

00:20:40

that means it's not just today that's the problem.

00:20:43

It's possibly the rest of the week

00:20:45

that I've already got laid out in my head.

00:20:48

So it's not just a derailment of this afternoon.

00:20:51

It's the cascading effect that causes,

00:20:54

but it's because my brain jumps ahead so fast.

00:20:56

And I can't really get that part to subside,

00:20:59

but I should be used to this.

00:21:01

My schedule has to change all the time.

00:21:03

- Yeah, we gotta disconnect that.

00:21:04

And one way to disconnect that,

00:21:06

at least a little bit would be to build in more margin

00:21:08

with your time blocks, but.

00:21:11

- Okay.

00:21:12

So do I still have an action item or did we just do it live?

00:21:15

- We kinda did it live, so maybe I'll give you

00:21:16

a different action item of continuing it

00:21:18

for another couple of weeks.

00:21:19

So we can talk about it some more.

00:21:23

- All right.

00:21:25

Okay.

00:21:26

Well, that's it, I have for follow up.

00:21:28

Let's get off of this topic before I get more work to do.

00:21:31

And let's step into today's book,

00:21:34

because this is one that I think Mike,

00:21:36

you have brought up at least 4 million times

00:21:39

on the course of this 144 episodes of Bookworm.

00:21:44

And. - That's probably accurate.

00:21:46

- This is the 10th anniversary of this book,

00:21:51

"Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Cleon.

00:21:53

And it's New York Times Best Seller.

00:21:57

The one I have is the gift edition.

00:21:59

Did you rebuy this to get the gift edition?

00:22:03

- I did, yep.

00:22:04

- Just out here. - Yep, the hardcover one.

00:22:05

- Okay.

00:22:06

He's got an afterword that he put together on this,

00:22:09

having been through the 10 years.

00:22:11

And the subtitle on this is "10 Things Nobody Told You

00:22:16

About Being Creative."

00:22:18

And I have to say that as a first overarching view

00:22:22

of this book, it kind of struck me how much of this

00:22:27

had little to do with being an artist.

00:22:30

Did you catch this?

00:22:31

I'm sure you did.

00:22:32

But there's so much of this that I was surprised

00:22:36

by how far outside the realm of creativity

00:22:41

and artist life this covered,

00:22:44

and got into just life in general.

00:22:47

- Yeah.

00:22:48

- So maybe that didn't surprise you at all,

00:22:50

but it struck me.

00:22:51

- I can see that, I guess.

00:22:54

I do think that this book is really for creative people.

00:22:57

- Absolutely is, yes.

00:22:58

- But "Steal Like A Creative" doesn't have the same ring to it.

00:23:01

- No, it does not.

00:23:03

It does not.

00:23:04

But it works because people refer to an artistic view

00:23:09

or an art, like, I'm working on my art,

00:23:12

and they could be talking about woodworking.

00:23:14

They could be talking about,

00:23:15

there's all sorts of stuff.

00:23:16

People use that term for a lot of arenas.

00:23:20

So it does work.

00:23:21

I'm not upset by that part at all.

00:23:24

- I have a admission here right at the beginning,

00:23:27

'cause you mentioned I've quoted this book

00:23:29

like four million times, and that's probably true.

00:23:31

I think I've misquoted this book four million times.

00:23:34

(laughing)

00:23:36

- Sure.

00:23:38

- 'Cause I have said before that "Steal Like An Artist"

00:23:41

was the book that explained that when you create something,

00:23:46

all you're doing is you're connecting dots in new ways.

00:23:49

That's actually not in this book.

00:23:51

That's a Steve Jobs quote that I must've came across

00:23:54

at the same time as this book.

00:23:57

- So that there's a Steve Jobs quote in here.

00:24:01

- Yes.

00:24:02

- It talks about you have to look backwards to connect dots.

00:24:05

You can't look forward to connect dots.

00:24:07

- Correct.

00:24:08

And there's lots of talk about the dots later on in the book.

00:24:12

There's a page that says, "Share your dots,

00:24:15

"but don't connect them," which is what stood out to me.

00:24:18

It's like, "Wait a second."

00:24:19

(laughing)

00:24:20

- Yeah.

00:24:21

- But there's another idea here in chapter one,

00:24:23

which is basically saying that same thing.

00:24:25

But essentially I have synthesized the ideas from this book

00:24:29

syntopically with quotes from Steve Jobs

00:24:31

that I collected from other sources

00:24:33

and given Austin Cleon credit for low these many years.

00:24:36

(laughing)

00:24:39

- Welcome to the messy world of being an artist.

00:24:42

(laughing)

00:24:45

- So sorry about that. - Kind of hilarious.

00:24:47

It's kind of hilarious.

00:24:49

- Yep.

00:24:50

- Yep, you definitely stole it.

00:24:52

Let's just jump into it,

00:24:53

'cause I feel like we're gonna cover a lot of things

00:24:54

and this could go long if we're not careful.

00:24:56

But chapter one is just that steel like an artist

00:25:00

out of the 10 chapters.

00:25:02

And this is where he's really just laying out the groundwork

00:25:06

of what does it mean to be an artist, I guess,

00:25:10

would be the way I'd explain that.

00:25:12

In that you are to use the terms,

00:25:16

you're stealing ideas and concepts from your mentors,

00:25:21

the giants that you look up to,

00:25:24

synthesizing those into your own

00:25:28

and creating something new based on the things you stole

00:25:32

from other artists.

00:25:34

That's really the summarization, I feel like,

00:25:36

almost of the entire book,

00:25:37

but it obviously goes into more than that.

00:25:40

But that's, I think, what he's getting at.

00:25:43

- That is absolutely what he's getting at.

00:25:44

And that's why I misattributed that quote to this book

00:25:49

because it fits perfectly.

00:25:51

He should have included that Steve Jobs quote.

00:25:54

(laughing)

00:25:55

Maybe he did and I just missed it.

00:25:57

But looking back through it,

00:25:58

when I came across that page later on that said,

00:26:01

collect your dots or share your dots,

00:26:02

but don't connect them,

00:26:05

that triggered that in my brain.

00:26:07

I was like, "Wait a second, that's anti this thing

00:26:09

"I've had in my head for years."

00:26:11

And then I started flipping back through

00:26:12

and I couldn't find it.

00:26:14

(laughing)

00:26:17

But yeah, this chapter is the book in a nutshell.

00:26:21

And I still do think that this book was very influential

00:26:24

for me in this chapter specifically,

00:26:27

for giving me permission to create

00:26:29

because for a long time I didn't think I was creative.

00:26:32

Kind of at the time I read this book,

00:26:34

I was at a point where my creativity was expressed

00:26:38

through songwriting for a play guitarist

00:26:41

singing on the worship team at my church.

00:26:43

And I would write a song and I loved writing songs,

00:26:45

but then every time I would write it,

00:26:47

I would be listening to the radio or something

00:26:49

and I would hear this melody line or this guitar riff

00:26:52

that I didn't realize I had stole.

00:26:54

And I was like, "Gah, dang it, I ripped this off

00:26:56

"from this other place."

00:26:57

And I guess I'm just not creative.

00:27:00

But that's literally the story I told myself.

00:27:03

It's like, I just don't have what it takes to be creative.

00:27:06

All I can do is mash up other things

00:27:09

that other people have done.

00:27:10

And he quotes Ecclesiastes one night in this book,

00:27:15

"There's nothing new under the sun.

00:27:18

"You are a mashup of what you allow into your life.

00:27:21

"All creative work builds on what came before it."

00:27:24

So when you recognize that you're going to be stealing

00:27:29

if you are going to be creating,

00:27:32

you combine that with what he says on page 14,

00:27:35

your job is to collect good ideas.

00:27:37

I kind of reframe that as collect dots, right?

00:27:40

The more ideas you collect,

00:27:42

the more you can choose from them to be,

00:27:45

which ones to be influenced by.

00:27:46

And I think I would take that even a step further

00:27:49

where if you are just connecting,

00:27:51

or if you're collecting dots,

00:27:53

your brain is actually connecting those things for you.

00:27:56

And sometimes you see how it works, sometimes you don't.

00:28:00

That's what's so exciting to me about all of the,

00:28:03

the linked based note,

00:28:05

making note-taking applications out there is like,

00:28:08

that's the first time I've been able to visualize

00:28:10

that sort of stuff happening outside of my own head.

00:28:14

And it does it in a way where it's pretty effortless

00:28:17

instead of, okay, I can link to this note,

00:28:19

but then I gotta go back to that other note

00:28:20

and I gotta add a link back to the other one.

00:28:23

That's just too much friction for me to do that.

00:28:27

So I love this.

00:28:30

The whole book is basically just an exhortation to create.

00:28:33

And this first chapter is probably the strongest one

00:28:36

in the entire book I would argue.

00:28:39

Couple of other specific things I wanna talk about

00:28:41

from here, page 20, he says, "Collect books,

00:28:42

"even if you don't plan on reading them right away, check."

00:28:45

(laughs)

00:28:48

And I really liked that idea.

00:28:50

Actually, just today, because we finished this book,

00:28:53

we've got some time before the next one,

00:28:55

and I was looking for another gap book,

00:28:57

and I had this idea that I,

00:28:59

this book that I wanted to read,

00:29:00

I'm like, I have that book somewhere.

00:29:02

So I found it on my bookshelf behind me,

00:29:04

and I have something now that I'm going to read,

00:29:07

but I bought that book a long time ago

00:29:09

without worrying about when I was gonna read it,

00:29:11

and it's just been sitting there ever since.

00:29:13

And because I have it, it triggered that in my head,

00:29:16

and I was like, oh, I should go read that book.

00:29:18

It's Purple Cow by Seth Godin, by the way.

00:29:21

- Yeah. - If you're curious.

00:29:23

- Let's go on. - Yeah.

00:29:24

And then the other thing I wanna talk about here

00:29:26

is these swipe files.

00:29:27

Do you know where I'm going with these?

00:29:30

I am not sure we were going with it,

00:29:32

but I know what you're talking about.

00:29:34

- All right, so how would you define a swipe file?

00:29:38

- Things you've swiped off other people.

00:29:41

- But what do you, the way he defined it though

00:29:43

is like you put them somewhere,

00:29:45

and you're not really sure what to do with these yet, right?

00:29:47

- Correct.

00:29:49

Sounds an awful lot like a map of content to me.

00:29:52

- I was just a map.

00:29:54

(laughs)

00:29:55

- Sure.

00:29:56

(laughs)

00:29:58

- It's classic, right?

00:30:00

And I, obviously, when I hear of something like a swipe file

00:30:03

and I hear you talking about it,

00:30:04

I know it's gonna go in obsidian for you,

00:30:06

and everybody under the sun knows that.

00:30:09

But the thing that I find interesting is that

00:30:14

this is actually,

00:30:16

and I kinda got into this a little bit.

00:30:19

This is, so I started doing a new segment of sorts

00:30:22

on the streams that I do personally,

00:30:25

where we're essentially just making notes

00:30:28

in this case obsidian,

00:30:30

making these notes and creating the links,

00:30:32

and just talking about random topics

00:30:34

and making those connections.

00:30:36

But it's ultimately,

00:30:38

the concept of a swipe file is just collecting things

00:30:42

that you don't know what you're gonna do with,

00:30:44

and then they get connected elsewhere later.

00:30:47

And something like one of these link-based note makers

00:30:51

is something that's super easy to do

00:30:55

and it happens all the time.

00:30:56

So I would imagine your take on this is that,

00:31:00

hey, I do this all the time already.

00:31:02

Ding, done.

00:31:03

- This is literally the definition of a map of content

00:31:06

that I picked up from Nick Milo,

00:31:08

because he defines a map of content as like your workbench

00:31:11

when you're wrestling through,

00:31:12

what do I really think about this thing?

00:31:14

So the swipe file would be basically,

00:31:18

you create a topic,

00:31:21

map of content, or map in your case, right?

00:31:24

'Cause we don't wanna use that map of content term.

00:31:26

- I like Blake's moratorium on context.

00:31:29

(laughing)

00:31:31

Blake's always trying to find a different word

00:31:33

for a different way to spell out MOC for me.

00:31:35

We haven't found a really good one yet,

00:31:36

but that's a good one.

00:31:37

- That is a good one.

00:31:39

So you have this file named after this topic

00:31:42

that you're trying to figure out what you think about this.

00:31:45

That's where you would dump all of these things

00:31:48

that Austin Cleon would say,

00:31:50

go into your swipe file.

00:31:52

So you, I myself would have a bunch of MOCs,

00:31:57

mashups of cutouts, nice one, silent wolf.

00:32:02

Right, on these different topics.

00:32:05

And I would just put the things that I would,

00:32:08

instead of putting it in one giant swipe file,

00:32:10

I would just put them in those

00:32:12

mementos of contemplation.

00:32:13

Thanks, Blake.

00:32:14

Let's see how long we keep this up.

00:32:15

(laughing)

00:32:18

- This is good.

00:32:19

This is good.

00:32:19

I like this.

00:32:20

(laughing)

00:32:22

- Oh, yes, I get it.

00:32:24

I think I get it anyway.

00:32:26

Really, the thing that,

00:32:29

and I've not been somebody who gets into

00:32:32

the whole map of content concept, I guess.

00:32:37

I make these like home notes, if you will,

00:32:39

for different topics,

00:32:40

which I know that people who are deep into this MOC world

00:32:44

tend to say are not the same thing,

00:32:49

but my simpleton brain that summarizes things down

00:32:54

can't quite tell the difference,

00:32:56

and I get that it's semantics at which point

00:32:58

it's too subtle,

00:33:00

and I think it's nonsense at that point,

00:33:02

but that's me,

00:33:03

and I know that people hate on me for that.

00:33:05

That's fine, bring it.

00:33:06

And I know that I like to make these jumping off points,

00:33:11

they get me to other places,

00:33:16

and you can do that from a letter from it.

00:33:19

Methods, anyway, we're getting into the weeds on

00:33:22

like notes and such,

00:33:23

but the swipe file is really just that.

00:33:25

Like it's a way to capture things.

00:33:28

If you wanna use GTD terms,

00:33:30

it's a way of capturing things onto a someday,

00:33:32

maybe file, if you will,

00:33:34

that you can then expand and connect to other things.

00:33:38

That's really what he's advocating for here.

00:33:41

- Yeah, and I call it-- - It's unfair.

00:33:42

- It is, I call it out just because I feel like

00:33:46

this is actually really great advice.

00:33:49

And 10 years ago when he wrote it,

00:33:52

probably had no idea what the digital tools

00:33:55

that we were gonna have at our disposal

00:33:57

would allow us to do with this sort of thing.

00:34:00

I'm kind of curious what Austin Cleon would use.

00:34:05

Another person I'm curious about how they would do

00:34:08

this sort of thing is Derek Sivers,

00:34:10

'cause he wrote recently about the Powerplane Text Files,

00:34:13

and a lot of the stuff that he talked about.

00:34:14

I totally agree with.

00:34:17

It's not, the way it's framed is not,

00:34:20

well, let's use this old stuff because

00:34:23

that way we'll always have something that can open it,

00:34:27

but really it's just the lowest common denominator

00:34:30

so that it's completely future proof.

00:34:32

People, when people recommend text files,

00:34:35

I think the initial reaction is,

00:34:36

"Oh, quit living in the past,"

00:34:37

but then you realize,

00:34:38

"Oh, actually they're thinking about the future."

00:34:40

(laughs)

00:34:42

- Right, right.

00:34:43

- I was surprised how well that comment

00:34:45

about the swipe file actually aged over the last 10 years.

00:34:48

- Correct, yeah.

00:34:49

I've had conversations in the last week about,

00:34:52

where do you store information

00:34:55

when you need to hold onto it for later?

00:34:57

And the people I was talking to were like,

00:35:00

I don't know, I just throw things in Word documents

00:35:01

and my head cringed.

00:35:03

It's like, "Oh, that hurts so much."

00:35:07

And I said something about,

00:35:09

I don't ever use PKM or Obsidian or any of those terms.

00:35:12

I just say, I keep it in text files.

00:35:14

- Yeah.

00:35:15

- And people look at you like, "What?"

00:35:18

Oh, you're just a techie.

00:35:20

You're one of those tech nerds.

00:35:22

- That's the Digital Zetal Caston book

00:35:23

is advocating for, I forget exactly how he said it,

00:35:25

but basically don't trust an app,

00:35:28

trust a technology, like playing text files.

00:35:31

- Right.

00:35:32

- And then you can use whatever app you want

00:35:34

that interfaces with that technology.

00:35:36

- Yep, yep, exactly.

00:35:39

Thus, like so much of the stuff I work towards

00:35:41

is like the non-proprietary world.

00:35:44

But yes.

00:35:45

- Weeds, you guys got some good ones here.

00:35:48

Minelessly organized consolidations,

00:35:51

milieu of concepts.

00:35:53

I like it.

00:35:55

This is good.

00:35:55

- This is good.

00:35:56

- We better move on.

00:35:57

This is gonna be a long one.

00:35:58

- It could be.

00:35:59

We're on to chapter two and we've been at this

00:36:01

for 36 minutes.

00:36:03

Don't wait until you know who you are to get started.

00:36:08

And I think it would be very easy

00:36:13

to say that Cleon would probably jump into the boat

00:36:17

of don't hold on to your art for too long.

00:36:20

Boat, 'cause that's kind of what he's getting at here

00:36:22

is like don't be afraid to push things out there.

00:36:25

He doesn't say that.

00:36:26

But he's ultimately saying that whenever you are,

00:36:31

when you're in the creative mode,

00:36:32

like a lot of times people say like,

00:36:34

I haven't found myself,

00:36:35

like I'm still learning about myself in a certain way

00:36:37

or I don't feel like I understand this imposter syndrome.

00:36:41

Like it's rampant, right?

00:36:44

Everybody's faking it to some degree.

00:36:46

And that is ultimately what he's telling you,

00:36:49

don't let that get into your head.

00:36:52

Don't let that be your hang up for publishing things

00:36:56

and getting things out the door.

00:36:57

You don't have to wait until you have all the answers

00:37:00

before you publish things.

00:37:01

Like how many times, Mike, if you and I release something,

00:37:03

it's like, I don't know how this is gonna work,

00:37:05

but this is what I know right now.

00:37:07

And I'm gonna publish that.

00:37:09

This is something at least I do,

00:37:10

fairly regularly.

00:37:11

Like this is where I'm at in my journey.

00:37:14

It will hopefully help somebody

00:37:15

who's not quite that far on that journey.

00:37:17

Maybe there's somebody further, that's fine.

00:37:19

I can learn from them.

00:37:20

But there are people who are not as far as I am,

00:37:22

always are, always will be.

00:37:24

And it's just life.

00:37:25

So don't wait until you have all the answers

00:37:29

to get started on those.

00:37:29

Like that's, and I think this is what you were saying,

00:37:32

or like this is kind of a raw book.

00:37:35

Like let's get going.

00:37:36

Like this is, get you fired up.

00:37:38

This is absolutely one of those parts.

00:37:40

Yeah, I mean, there's honestly not a whole lot extra

00:37:44

to add to this.

00:37:45

I do like the quote from Salvador Dali.

00:37:47

It's those who do not want to imitate anything,

00:37:49

produce nothing.

00:37:51

That's where I found myself for quite a while.

00:37:55

So I'll just agree with Mr. Cleon here and say,

00:38:00

just start making stuff.

00:38:02

Don't worry about imitating other people

00:38:05

because you're going to.

00:38:08

That imposter syndrome, he defined it here,

00:38:10

which I thought was kind of interesting,

00:38:12

psychological phenomenon in which people

00:38:14

are unable to internalize their accomplishments.

00:38:17

So when you think about that in terms of,

00:38:19

I don't want to imitate or I'm a fraud.

00:38:21

And who am I to say this?

00:38:25

I feel like the ship 30 for 30 course

00:38:28

that I'm going through right now does a good job

00:38:30

of speaking directly to this.

00:38:33

And the advice that they say,

00:38:34

the way they say it is interesting.

00:38:35

They say, don't write for anybody else

00:38:39

right for you two years ago.

00:38:42

And the two years thing is the thing

00:38:44

that kind of catches me off guard

00:38:45

because that's not that long ago.

00:38:47

Your life is probably not completely different

00:38:49

than it was two years ago.

00:38:51

But it doesn't have to be.

00:38:53

You're just trying to communicate

00:38:57

what you've learned in a period of time

00:39:01

and you're trying to help out that person

00:39:03

who you used to be, who you can still relate to.

00:39:06

And when you do that,

00:39:07

you don't have to compare yourself to anybody else.

00:39:10

And you don't have to judge what you're saying.

00:39:12

It's just, you know, this is,

00:39:15

don't paint yourself as an expert if you're not,

00:39:17

but just say like, this is my experience,

00:39:19

this is what I learned from it.

00:39:20

And then nobody can argue with it.

00:39:23

People can attach to it if it's helpful

00:39:25

or they can leave it if it's not,

00:39:27

but it's not a judgment against you as a person

00:39:30

and you don't have to try to pretend.

00:39:32

- Yes.

00:39:33

- Well said, what's going on?

00:39:34

Let's keep going.

00:39:35

Chapter three, write the book you wanna read.

00:39:38

This is like, okay, so this concept is one that's come up

00:39:42

in developer circles quite a bit, like startups and such.

00:39:46

The startups and such that are successful

00:39:48

are generally the ones where the founder

00:39:52

and the people who created the thing

00:39:54

are solving a problem that they themselves struggle with.

00:39:57

This is that concept.

00:39:59

And this is where, if you're gonna write a book,

00:40:02

if you're gonna make art, you wanna make the art

00:40:05

or make the book that you want to read.

00:40:08

If you wouldn't read the book that you're writing,

00:40:11

why are you writing it?

00:40:13

One, which is probably an indicator

00:40:15

of like a money grab, possibly, not for certain,

00:40:19

but it's, I'm guessing finances are involved

00:40:22

if you're doing it and you don't want to,

00:40:24

or it's not something you would be excited about.

00:40:27

So that little element is out there, yes, dog fooding.

00:40:31

And this is something that I know,

00:40:35

like I have no plans to write a book,

00:40:37

but where I to do that, I would probably struggle with it

00:40:40

'cause I'm not sure what that book would be

00:40:43

as far as like what I want to write or want to read.

00:40:47

Therefore, I want to write it

00:40:48

'cause it seems like every time I want to read a book

00:40:50

about something, I can generally find it,

00:40:53

if not 400 of them and have to pick one.

00:40:55

So I think from a book stance, it's not something

00:40:59

that I find myself wanting to do.

00:41:02

I definitely do this when it comes to like coding and such

00:41:06

and like writing little scripts and little packages

00:41:08

and gems and stuff that I can use for other projects.

00:41:10

Like that sort of thing I do,

00:41:12

but I can't say that I would do it as far as like a book goes,

00:41:16

but that's also not his focus here.

00:41:18

I'm extrapolating it into that.

00:41:20

- Well, I am going to write a book.

00:41:22

- Fun!

00:41:25

- I did, I'm gonna write another one.

00:41:27

I'm gonna update it.

00:41:28

And I got a kick in the pants to do this

00:41:30

even before you read this because I recently went

00:41:33

to the library with my son and showed him all

00:41:37

of the sections that I would typically hit up

00:41:39

before I just started buying everything.

00:41:41

That sounded interesting to me off of Amazon.

00:41:45

That's a place to start.

00:41:46

If you can't afford to buy all the books,

00:41:47

just go to the library.

00:41:48

They're there, they're free.

00:41:50

Cost nothing to get a library card.

00:41:52

But anyways, there was a book there

00:41:55

and it was called Redeeming the Time,

00:41:58

Forget Who It Was By.

00:42:00

And it's basically a Bible-based approach to productivity.

00:42:05

And my son got it and looking through

00:42:08

like the people who were raving about it,

00:42:09

there's the, we covered that one,

00:42:13

but Matt Pearson, is that the guy?

00:42:15

So there's like a blurb from him.

00:42:17

There's a blurb from Cal Newport,

00:42:19

like all these big names, right?

00:42:21

And then in the introduction,

00:42:23

he's going through and he's explaining

00:42:24

like the typical way people view productivity

00:42:27

and then he tries to introduce this new term,

00:42:28

which I thought was kind of clumsy,

00:42:29

grace-based productivity.

00:42:31

And I was like, faith-based productivity.

00:42:35

Way cleaner.

00:42:38

- You had your chance.

00:42:41

- Yeah, I know exactly what verses they're basing

00:42:43

everything off of.

00:42:44

Like I've gone through that

00:42:46

and I have succumbed to imposter syndrome

00:42:50

for long enough in terms of updating that book

00:42:54

and expanding it really.

00:42:57

Like the book that I initially wrote,

00:43:00

that was the thing that got me writing every day

00:43:03

and that's what got me doing all of the things

00:43:06

that I'm doing online now.

00:43:07

And kind of just left it at that.

00:43:10

It's like, well, there it was a gateway

00:43:11

into a whole new world of content creation for me,

00:43:14

but also it's time to go back to my roots,

00:43:18

do the thing that I started doing,

00:43:20

Ship 30 for 30 has helped me create

00:43:22

that consistent writing habit.

00:43:24

So once I'm done with that,

00:43:26

once I dial in a lot of this other stuff,

00:43:28

I'm already starting to write things in terms

00:43:32

that are going to appear in that book.

00:43:34

That's another thing I learned from Ship 30 is

00:43:37

you can take a single idea

00:43:38

and write about it the rest of your life

00:43:40

because you can talk about it from every different angle

00:43:43

and it could go all the way from this tiny little tweet

00:43:46

all the way to a 60,000 word book.

00:43:49

And it's people build whole careers off of that.

00:43:53

Just think about habits with James Clear.

00:43:55

(laughs)

00:43:56

Right?

00:43:57

So that was inspiring to me and I've got something there.

00:44:00

I've got something to share.

00:44:02

It's something that I've been passionate about

00:44:04

for a very long time and it's time for me

00:44:06

to write the book that I wanna read.

00:44:08

- There you go.

00:44:09

I'll buy it.

00:44:10

- Cool.

00:44:11

- Let's go on 'cause if you're gonna write a book,

00:44:15

chapter four, you need to use your hands, Mike.

00:44:20

- But, so.

00:44:21

- Yeah.

00:44:22

(laughs)

00:44:23

- Sure.

00:44:24

So that's, yeah, it's very short the way I said that

00:44:29

but this chapter, use your hands.

00:44:31

He's talking about basically the value of the analog world

00:44:35

to use the terms I like to use

00:44:37

and the value of doing things physically

00:44:41

and even to the point where he talks about how he has

00:44:45

two different desks, one's his digital desk

00:44:47

and one is his analog desk

00:44:49

and the digital stuff's not allowed to touch his analog desk.

00:44:53

It's okay to go the other way, just not digital to analog

00:44:56

and I totally get what he's getting at here.

00:45:01

Like if you wanna like prompt your creative brain

00:45:05

doing things physically like with a whiteboard,

00:45:08

with a notebook, with a walk in the woods,

00:45:12

with a paintbrush, whatever that is,

00:45:14

like doing it physically does make a big difference,

00:45:18

I find anyway.

00:45:19

But you've heard me preach this for years now.

00:45:22

So I'm gonna quit talking about it

00:45:24

'cause you guys know exactly where I'm going.

00:45:26

- You are analog Joe after all.

00:45:28

- Exactly.

00:45:29

- Now a couple of cool ideas,

00:45:34

that's the gist of the chapter, absolutely,

00:45:36

but a couple of cool ways that he says it,

00:45:38

work that only comes from your head isn't any good.

00:45:41

I like that, I think that's true.

00:45:43

My best ideas come when I am intentionally going for a walk

00:45:48

and I'm just gonna wrestle with this problem

00:45:51

or I'm gonna go for a run or whatever,

00:45:53

but getting out and moving my body definitely helps with this.

00:45:57

By the way, a plug here for the bookroom episode

00:46:01

on the extended mind by Annie Murphy-Paul

00:46:04

because I feel like there's a whole bunch

00:46:06

of other stuff in there, it's not just your hands.

00:46:08

Use your body, basically.

00:46:11

- Yep. - And that book talks about a lot of the ways

00:46:14

that you can do that.

00:46:16

I love the analog versus digital.

00:46:18

I want to have an analog and digital desk.

00:46:21

My way my office is set up right now,

00:46:23

especially with all the things I've done to make it

00:46:25

so I can record YouTube without having to set anything up.

00:46:29

It's not possible at the moment,

00:46:31

but I definitely wanna do that

00:46:34

and find a way to bring your body into your work.

00:46:37

This doesn't have to be difficult.

00:46:39

It doesn't have to be complicated.

00:46:41

You don't have to go outside for a walk

00:46:44

if it's raining just so you can use your body.

00:46:48

It could be as simple as a standing desk

00:46:51

or if you're talking, I do this all the time.

00:46:54

We're on videos we record these,

00:46:56

but a lot of times when I'm just doing audio even,

00:47:01

I am like talking with my hands and I am very expressive

00:47:04

because that injects life into the thing that I'm making.

00:47:08

I've found.

00:47:10

And the computer is good for editing ideas,

00:47:12

but not generating them.

00:47:14

Totally agree.

00:47:16

I have been thinking about this a lot.

00:47:19

Steve Jobs, the quote,

00:47:21

the computer is a bicycle for the mind.

00:47:23

But I think a lot of people view technology

00:47:29

as this is going to help me be more productive

00:47:32

because it's gonna allow me to be more efficient.

00:47:36

That's not really what we need to manage at this point.

00:47:40

What we need to manage is our minds.

00:47:42

And if you're not careful,

00:47:45

then the computer can actually hinder that.

00:47:49

So I don't know, there's a whole other tangent to that

00:47:52

that we should explore at some point,

00:47:55

but probably not right now.

00:47:56

No, it totally makes sense

00:47:58

'cause I know that whenever I have,

00:48:01

like whenever I'm creating ideas,

00:48:04

like writing down concepts,

00:48:06

like if I'm doing that on pen and paper,

00:48:08

it allows me to get to more of them.

00:48:11

Like I generate more ideas doing that.

00:48:13

Whereas if I'm trying to do that in a list on a computer,

00:48:18

there's something about,

00:48:20

it's harder for whatever reason

00:48:22

to move from one bullet down to the next,

00:48:25

or to generate a new bubble on a mind map.

00:48:28

It takes more to do that than it does to just slide your hand.

00:48:32

I don't know why that is,

00:48:34

but simple stuff like that seems to make it so much easier

00:48:37

to just get things out of my brain.

00:48:40

So I'm with you.

00:48:42

Coming up with the ideas is way better on paper.

00:48:45

Come at me.

00:48:47

(laughs)

00:48:48

Chapter five, side projects and hobbies are important.

00:48:53

And this one, I know people have had a little bit of blowback

00:48:59

on from other people.

00:49:03

I'm drawing a blank on his name right now.

00:49:04

I can see his face, I can see his avatar,

00:49:08

but I can't think of his name right now.

00:49:10

Who, people talk about how do something you love,

00:49:15

you'll never work a day in your life,

00:49:17

or try to do the side thing until it becomes your full-time gig.

00:49:22

And he's kind of making the argument

00:49:26

that it's almost better to keep him as side gigs.

00:49:30

I don't think he would say that 100% of the time,

00:49:33

but regardless, it's the side projects and hobbies

00:49:36

that help you stay energized

00:49:39

and help you come up with even more ideas

00:49:42

and have some of that creativity

00:49:43

because it allows you to have a bunch of different arenas

00:49:48

that you're thinking in.

00:49:49

And because of that, you can cross the dots

00:49:52

over from thing to thing.

00:49:55

Whenever I think about my day job,

00:49:56

like we were talking about beforehand,

00:49:58

like all the video stuff that I do.

00:50:00

And because of all the video stuff,

00:50:03

it means like there's tons and tons of video gear

00:50:05

that I deal with all the time.

00:50:06

There's tons of networking and internet stuff I do,

00:50:08

tons of audio gear, like high-end audio stuff

00:50:11

and video stuff.

00:50:12

And yet I go home and swing an axe and split wood.

00:50:16

And I think tomorrow I'm building garden beds.

00:50:20

And what am I, I'm like plowing some dirt up,

00:50:24

moving dirt with a skid steer.

00:50:25

Like I've got some like very labor-intensive things

00:50:28

I'm doing tomorrow.

00:50:30

It amazes me how many times the two can cross,

00:50:34

like to get ideas for one or the other

00:50:37

when I'm in either arena.

00:50:39

So it is fascinating to me how those two can help out.

00:50:43

But again, like the side projects and hobbies thing,

00:50:45

like it's great to have those other arenas

00:50:48

that you can bounce between

00:50:49

in order to get some of the creativity going.

00:50:52

So it's absolutely worthwhile.

00:50:55

- I completely agree.

00:50:57

It's the side projects that take off is what he says.

00:51:02

But I think the real value of the side projects

00:51:06

is kind of what you were saying

00:51:08

that it allows you to develop things in a different arena.

00:51:11

I was stressed out about that for a long time

00:51:14

because I didn't find a,

00:51:16

I couldn't find a common through line

00:51:19

between some of the stuff that I was doing for a while.

00:51:23

That's why I hesitated to do the sermon sketch note stuff.

00:51:28

It's like this doesn't fit with a bunch of other things

00:51:32

that I've done real cleanly.

00:51:34

So I don't wanna throw it out there.

00:51:38

And there's a phrase he says in this chapter

00:51:40

which I liked,

00:51:41

"What unifies your work is the fact that you made it.

00:51:43

"You don't need anything else."

00:51:46

And so I like that it's empowering

00:51:49

and encouraging basically like whatever appeals to you

00:51:52

is a side project do it.

00:51:54

It doesn't have to make any sense.

00:51:56

It doesn't have to plug real cleanly

00:51:59

into something else that you're doing.

00:52:01

And I found that like with the YouTube stuff,

00:52:05

I drank my feet on YouTube for a really long time

00:52:09

and I've only published one real video.

00:52:10

So I can't say that I've like figured this out.

00:52:13

But just the fact that I have done that one

00:52:19

and I'm starting to get that flywheel going

00:52:22

and seeing how the ideas I generate for writing

00:52:25

can translate to other things.

00:52:27

There's connections there that I didn't realize

00:52:29

until I started to do the thing.

00:52:32

And I don't know why it was so hard for me to connect.

00:52:37

We have this podcast where we read all these books

00:52:40

and these books talk about all these other things

00:52:42

that I talk about and write about

00:52:45

all these other places online.

00:52:46

So I could just point to the stuff

00:52:48

that I already do about the books.

00:52:50

Like I never saw that until I engage with this thing,

00:52:55

which I wasn't sure was gonna fit.

00:52:59

And then once I did it,

00:53:00

that's like the path forward became clear.

00:53:03

So I just want to call this out

00:53:04

because I'll add my admonition here to Austin's

00:53:09

that just do the thing if you think it's interesting

00:53:12

and figure out how it fits later.

00:53:15

And if it doesn't, if you don't ever figure that out,

00:53:17

but you like to do it anyways, don't even worry about it.

00:53:20

Just continue to do the thing.

00:53:22

- Yeah, 'cause you don't know where it's gonna go.

00:53:25

And it seems like it usually ends up someplace

00:53:26

you didn't plan on anyway.

00:53:28

- And don't put pressure on it to be something.

00:53:31

Like that's the other thing.

00:53:31

It's important to have a hobby,

00:53:32

something that gives but doesn't take.

00:53:34

The minute that you try to make something a job

00:53:36

or a revenue stream,

00:53:40

then it's taking from you

00:53:42

because you gotta continue to pump stuff out there.

00:53:46

And that was my mistake the first time

00:53:48

that I tried to go off on my own

00:53:50

and do faith-based productivity.

00:53:52

I wanted to launch this business

00:53:55

and this was gonna be the thing that paid the bills

00:53:58

and it was never ever going to do that.

00:54:01

It's a part of maybe something like that,

00:54:04

but even if it's not, that's fine.

00:54:05

There's something later on in this book

00:54:07

that I really wanna talk about regarding day jobs

00:54:10

and side hustles, but it doesn't need

00:54:15

to turn into that.

00:54:17

It's not the fact that it only grows so far

00:54:21

is not a judgment of whether this thing is of the thing's value.

00:54:26

- Yeah, this kinda goes back to chapter two.

00:54:31

Like don't wait until you know who you already started.

00:54:33

It does kinda go back to that

00:54:35

because you're essentially not worrying

00:54:38

about the quality of it.

00:54:40

But like if you try to figure out all the details

00:54:43

of how you want things to go with your creative life,

00:54:47

before you start, then you're putting yourself in a box

00:54:53

that's very likely too small

00:54:56

and you're probably not gonna start

00:54:58

because you don't feel like you know the end of the story.

00:55:00

Hey, guess what, nobody does.

00:55:02

(laughs)

00:55:04

You don't know where that's gonna go until you start.

00:55:08

So you have to get started at some point.

00:55:12

You know, whenever I started streaming,

00:55:14

which has been a while back now,

00:55:17

it was something that I was doing

00:55:18

just kind of trying to figure out how streaming works.

00:55:21

I had been forced into it with COVID and church stuff

00:55:24

to learn how it all worked.

00:55:26

And once I did that, it's like, well,

00:55:27

it's not too hard for me to translate that over

00:55:28

into some of the personal stuff I do.

00:55:31

I have no idea what I'm gonna talk about,

00:55:33

just me on camera for an hour and a half.

00:55:36

But we'll try it and see what happens.

00:55:38

And it's morphed into some interesting things.

00:55:40

And now we're talking about,

00:55:42

should you own social media data or not?

00:55:44

Like that's, what does that even mean?

00:55:46

Like these are the things we're talking about just yesterday.

00:55:49

So it's been kind of fascinating to see

00:55:50

like how does that morph over time

00:55:53

and what can become of them.

00:55:55

So you don't know, like that starts off as side hustle stuff

00:55:58

and it's okay for it to stay there.

00:56:00

It is a thing that can go places you never expected it to.

00:56:05

And that's okay.

00:56:06

You have to be okay with that part.

00:56:08

Agreed. That brings us to chapter six.

00:56:14

Chapter six, yes, chapter six.

00:56:15

The secret.

00:56:16

You wanna know what the secret is, Mike?

00:56:18

What is the secret?

00:56:20

Do good work and share it with people.

00:56:22

It's not really a secret.

00:56:23

Sounds so simple.

00:56:25

It is very simple to say.

00:56:27

(both laughing)

00:56:31

Do good work and share it with people.

00:56:33

This is, yeah, what is good.

00:56:36

The thing here is that work on making things quality

00:56:41

as per your mind and share it.

00:56:45

You know, people, one of the things he calls out in here

00:56:47

is like how do you become found?

00:56:49

Like how do people find you?

00:56:51

And he mentions like you should relish the fact

00:56:54

that you're not found upfront

00:56:57

and take advantage of the fact that nobody knows who you are

00:57:00

because it gives you a chance to publish things

00:57:01

without dealing with all of the ramifications

00:57:05

of emails and support.

00:57:07

And did I get this paid or did I get that?

00:57:09

Or who's doing what?

00:57:10

And admins and such.

00:57:12

Like you don't have any of that.

00:57:13

You can just focus on the art side of it.

00:57:16

That's a big value and you don't even realize it's there.

00:57:19

Yeah.

00:57:20

I wish I had thought about that more.

00:57:22

(both laughing)

00:57:24

Exactly.

00:57:25

Makes your approach to the things

00:57:30

that you are currently doing, speaking for you, I guess,

00:57:33

but for myself too, a little bit different, right?

00:57:36

Yeah.

00:57:38

Yeah.

00:57:39

Let's just enjoy the fact that we are the size we are

00:57:42

and talk about what we want to talk about.

00:57:45

There's a lot of benefits that come with that

00:57:47

that you don't realize when you're just chasing a goal.

00:57:51

Enjoy the journey.

00:57:53

One of the things I liked about this chapter

00:57:57

is the encouragement to give your secrets away.

00:58:01

I don't know what you think your secrets are,

00:58:06

but I don't think it needs to be something

00:58:09

completely profound.

00:58:11

One of the things that I thought of

00:58:13

because every time I share it with people,

00:58:14

they are kind of blown away by it when they try it

00:58:18

is the three questions from my personal retreat course.

00:58:21

What should I start doing?

00:58:22

What should I stop doing?

00:58:23

What should I keep doing?

00:58:24

For a long time I felt like,

00:58:26

well, I can talk about the personal retreat stuff

00:58:27

and the value of that whole process,

00:58:29

but I can't give away those questions

00:58:32

because that's what makes it all work.

00:58:35

Right.

00:58:35

And that whatever, take the questions.

00:58:37

Who cares?

00:58:38

(laughs)

00:58:39

Yeah.

00:58:40

One of the things that he defined as a secret was Bob Ross.

00:58:45

And when he used that example,

00:58:49

I knew immediately what he was talking about

00:58:52

because there is a sushi place near us

00:58:55

that my wife and I love.

00:58:56

It's so good and we go there almost every week

00:59:01

for our date night.

00:59:02

They just do all this like crazy kind of sushi.

00:59:05

They've got fried rolls, they've got baked rolls.

00:59:08

Really, really good.

00:59:09

And it's like this old martini bar that you go in

00:59:14

and they have these TVs up on the wall.

00:59:18

And every time we go in there,

00:59:20

they are playing Bob Ross videos.

00:59:23

And so I see the happy little trees almost every week.

00:59:26

(laughs)

00:59:28

And it occurred to me watching these

00:59:30

'cause I don't know when these were filmed.

00:59:32

These are old.

00:59:33

It's a while back, yeah.

00:59:35

I'm like, "Bob Ross is the OG YouTuber."

00:59:37

(laughs)

00:59:38

He's just up there doing his thing,

00:59:41

showing people how to do this.

00:59:43

He doesn't care.

00:59:44

Like just go ahead, copy what I'm doing.

00:59:47

And that's what made him successful.

00:59:50

And so when Austin's talking about that

00:59:54

and he's saying, "Be like Bob Ross, basically."

00:59:57

I was already thinking that way.

00:59:58

And I was like, "Yeah, just share it."

01:00:01

And YouTube is interesting

01:00:03

because the way that you make money on YouTube is not,

01:00:06

well, I guess you could like sell your own stuff

01:00:09

if you go to audience big enough

01:00:10

but the way that a lot of people get paid on YouTube

01:00:13

is they just do exactly what Bob Ross was doing.

01:00:16

And they do it long enough and consistent enough

01:00:18

and they monetize

01:00:21

because they've attracted enough attention.

01:00:23

And the way you're gonna attract enough attention

01:00:25

is just keep giving stuff away.

01:00:27

So that's very different than my paradigm on

01:00:32

content creation, I guess, is looking for a better term

01:00:35

but I can't think of one.

01:00:37

The stuff that we make and like giving away parts of it

01:00:40

but keeping the real good stuff behind a paywall,

01:00:43

that's kind of how I used to think about it.

01:00:45

And ever since part time, YouTube or Academy

01:00:47

and reading this book was another push in that direction.

01:00:52

It's like, just share it.

01:00:54

- Yeah, it's scary to do that though.

01:00:57

- It is. - Because you feel like

01:00:59

once I've given this out,

01:01:00

everybody's gonna be just like me.

01:01:02

Like, well, it's not true.

01:01:05

It's not true at all.

01:01:07

Like I know that, and this is a little bit different realm

01:01:09

but we regularly have other churches come and tour

01:01:13

our church from a text dance.

01:01:16

They wanna like see what we're doing and how.

01:01:19

And I have toured other churches that are bigger than us

01:01:22

to just see how they're doing things as well.

01:01:25

And every once in a while, you will run across a church

01:01:29

that's like, no, we don't do that.

01:01:31

And it's always like, huh, interesting.

01:01:35

Like, we're churches together.

01:01:37

Like from a Christian stance, like we're working together

01:01:40

towards the same mission

01:01:42

but you don't wanna share that you're quote unquote secrets.

01:01:46

And that's ultimately what a lot of folks are.

01:01:49

Like they don't want other people

01:01:51

to start producing the exact same thing they are.

01:01:53

Like, well, we're not.

01:01:55

(laughs)

01:01:56

I don't want to be like you in that sense.

01:01:58

I just wanna know how you're doing it.

01:02:00

And then I wanna morph that into what I'm doing.

01:02:03

I'm gonna steal some of what you're doing

01:02:05

into what I'm doing, but I'm not copying that exactly.

01:02:09

I don't want to.

01:02:10

So it is interesting whenever you come across that,

01:02:13

that when people have that sense, like those churches,

01:02:17

I don't want anything to do with anymore.

01:02:19

Like it's just completely weird how that happens.

01:02:23

But other churches that, like in other groups

01:02:25

that I can have that connection point with,

01:02:28

I kinda wanna know more about them

01:02:30

and you have a closer relationship with them.

01:02:33

So it is just kind of fascinating.

01:02:35

(laughs)

01:02:37

- Indeed.

01:02:38

- All right, let's go on to the next one,

01:02:40

which is geography is no longer our master.

01:02:46

Basically, you can go anywhere you want,

01:02:49

which isn't true.

01:02:51

I actually had a hard time fitting this one in.

01:02:54

Like really?

01:02:54

- I love the chapters here.

01:02:55

I felt like made a lot of sense.

01:02:58

This one, maybe I need you to explain this one for me

01:03:01

because geography is no longer our master.

01:03:04

He goes on about how you can pick where you are

01:03:08

because of the way life works today, which isn't wrong.

01:03:14

So you need to pick a place that you want to be

01:03:17

and build from there.

01:03:19

But there's so much of my history that's around

01:03:22

where you are is a part of who you are.

01:03:25

And I guess I have a hard time just connecting that.

01:03:29

Maybe that's the farm boy in me coming out.

01:03:31

I'm not sure what it is. - Sure.

01:03:32

- So maybe I need you to take this one.

01:03:35

- Well, that's certainly part of it.

01:03:38

But I don't think that's the whole thing.

01:03:43

One of the things he says in this chapter

01:03:45

is that there's always a community

01:03:47

that you can connect with online.

01:03:50

And that is more true now than it has ever been.

01:03:55

Remember, this is the 10th anniversary edition.

01:03:57

So this was written 10 years ago.

01:04:00

But it was probably about 10 years ago,

01:04:02

maybe not quite that long,

01:04:04

when I was doing that exact thing,

01:04:08

but I did not realize it

01:04:10

because I was downloading podcasts for productivity nerds

01:04:15

and people who were a part of the Apple community,

01:04:18

even though I had never met or been with any of these people.

01:04:23

I was actually, the big thing in the Apple world

01:04:28

was the Macworld Conference,

01:04:30

and it was in California.

01:04:32

I'm in Wisconsin.

01:04:34

So I had finally convinced somebody who lived in San Diego

01:04:38

to go with me so I wouldn't have to be there alone.

01:04:42

The year that it got put on hiatus

01:04:44

and obviously it never came back.

01:04:46

So I never had a chance to go to that,

01:04:47

never had a chance to go to WWDC and Unconference,

01:04:50

any of that stuff.

01:04:51

But that same year,

01:04:54

I also took the first step of going

01:04:57

and getting involved with that real community

01:04:59

by driving down to Macstock, not so obviously a small,

01:05:02

a small portion of Macworld, WWDC,

01:05:06

all those kinds of people.

01:05:08

But my point is that I was listening to those podcasts

01:05:12

and so I felt like I had a seat at the table.

01:05:15

I was allowing those people to speak into my life,

01:05:18

even though it wasn't a two-way conversation.

01:05:20

It didn't even need to be.

01:05:23

I was around my people and I couldn't find them

01:05:27

where I lived.

01:05:28

So I just, that was one way that I interacted with them,

01:05:36

quote unquote, interacted.

01:05:38

Then Macstock was another one

01:05:39

and there's different forums and things

01:05:42

that different communities that I've engaged with

01:05:45

over the years, there's lots of different vectors

01:05:49

into these communities.

01:05:52

And I think that is the main point here

01:05:55

with Geography is no longer our master.

01:05:57

I do agree with them on some level.

01:05:59

I'm not gonna pick up a move either.

01:06:01

I've got five kids, we're real involved

01:06:02

with the church that we're at.

01:06:04

But if I wanted to, it would not be impossible.

01:06:09

I work for a company that is local,

01:06:12

but it's basically a remote.

01:06:14

Most of the team is remote.

01:06:16

And I could go work from anywhere in the world

01:06:20

if I wanted to because that's just like the way

01:06:22

that the world is changing.

01:06:24

I'm not going to for several other reasons

01:06:27

and it's easier to do when you don't have

01:06:28

a whole bunch of roots planted in a specific area.

01:06:31

But that was the big thing

01:06:34

that would hold people back a lot of times.

01:06:35

It's like, well, if I pick up and move,

01:06:38

I'm not gonna have a job.

01:06:39

How am I gonna pay my bills?

01:06:40

Like, there are a lot of scenarios

01:06:42

where that is not necessarily the thing

01:06:45

that is gonna be holding you back.

01:06:47

But then also you don't have to physically

01:06:50

be in those locations either.

01:06:52

You can find other ways to connect

01:06:53

without the borders.

01:06:58

- So maybe I took this wrong.

01:07:00

'Cause the way I took it was he was advocating for moving.

01:07:04

To a place with people.

01:07:07

- There definitely was a hint of that.

01:07:08

- 'Cause that was the part that stood out to me.

01:07:10

It's like the part of like,

01:07:11

you can connect to any community you want online today,

01:07:15

knowing that this is 10 years old.

01:07:18

In today's world, it's even more so true.

01:07:20

The concern I had was like,

01:07:24

if he's advocating for moving,

01:07:26

so that you can be around people

01:07:28

or an area that helps you be creative.

01:07:32

Like, it's not necessarily wrong.

01:07:34

But being someone who advocates

01:07:37

for putting down deep roots

01:07:40

and working through difficulties,

01:07:42

whether you want to be through them or not,

01:07:45

like I feel like that's,

01:07:47

there's value in that.

01:07:50

And leaving for the sake of creativity,

01:07:52

I feel like sets a standard and makes it

01:07:57

a little too open ended.

01:07:59

Like this is where like constraints

01:08:02

or when creativity thrives, it's that concept.

01:08:05

And if you take away the constraint of geography

01:08:09

for the sake of creativity,

01:08:10

it feels like a backwards move to me.

01:08:13

- Well, maybe I'm weird in that.

01:08:16

- I would say it's not removing the constraint

01:08:20

for creativity, but it is removing the excuse

01:08:24

for creativity where you would say,

01:08:27

"I can't do this because I'm not by these other people

01:08:31

"who are doing this thing."

01:08:32

- Sure.

01:08:33

Yeah, and that I get.

01:08:36

Like if you're a filmmaker,

01:08:41

you're probably moving to LA,

01:08:44

somewhere in that area is my guess,

01:08:46

at some point in life.

01:08:48

Like that's just the way it works.

01:08:50

So like things like that I get,

01:08:52

you know, if you're gonna be someone who's photographing,

01:08:57

icebergs, living in the depths of Kansas

01:09:01

probably isn't a good idea.

01:09:03

Like there's some pieces of this that I totally get,

01:09:07

but for the general average person,

01:09:09

like those are exceptions.

01:09:11

Those aren't the rule, I wouldn't say.

01:09:13

- Yep.

01:09:14

- So I think maybe that's where I was getting, anyway.

01:09:17

This could just be me, like,

01:09:19

- I just wanna stay where I am.

01:09:21

Like that's totally what it is.

01:09:24

So it was a little bit,

01:09:27

I don't wanna say it's off-putting

01:09:28

and it's not wrong, I don't think.

01:09:29

It was just a little bit like,

01:09:30

hey, I guess maybe I'm not following

01:09:32

what he was trying to get at, but I-

01:09:36

- Let me try to explain this book in a nutshell

01:09:41

from my perspective.

01:09:44

He's got these 10 different chapters,

01:09:46

which are like these big ideas.

01:09:48

And then inside there,

01:09:49

he's basically sharing every idea he's had

01:09:53

that fits under that heading.

01:09:54

Much like Derek Sivers, in my opinion.

01:09:57

And if you've read any of Derek Sivers' books,

01:10:00

there tends to be contradictory advice in those books.

01:10:05

And you're not intended to follow it all.

01:10:07

You're intended to take the ones

01:10:09

that resonate with you and do something with them.

01:10:12

And he's kind of explicit in saying,

01:10:14

like, these are just all my ideas.

01:10:16

Austin Cleon doesn't say that.

01:10:18

So maybe that's where you feel like

01:10:20

this doesn't reconcile in your brain.

01:10:23

But when I read that part about physically moving,

01:10:26

that's the way I interpreted it

01:10:27

through the Derek Sivers lens.

01:10:29

It was like, oh, this is just another way

01:10:30

that this geography is no longer our master.

01:10:33

It could be manifested.

01:10:34

And this one doesn't apply to me 'cause I ain't moving.

01:10:37

- Right, right.

01:10:38

And that was kind of the reaction I had.

01:10:40

I was like, I'm not doing that.

01:10:42

And then moved on, but it was,

01:10:44

I think that's a good point to bring up

01:10:46

'cause like in my head,

01:10:47

this was all supposed to work together.

01:10:49

So thanks for calling that out

01:10:51

because it's not actually true.

01:10:52

And I don't know that he would even say it's true

01:10:54

'cause I don't think he even called that out specifically

01:10:57

that this is all, you need to do all of these.

01:10:59

Like, no, that's not what he's said anywhere in this at all.

01:11:04

So don't take it that way.

01:11:05

- I don't know if he would explicitly say it

01:11:09

the way that Derek Sivers says it

01:11:10

in the introduction of some of his books,

01:11:12

but that's my interpretation of how this chapter

01:11:17

specifically was put together

01:11:18

and how I flowed with what he was sharing.

01:11:22

- Sure, makes sense.

01:11:24

- And that's general advice for anybody reading any book.

01:11:27

Take the stuff you like and discard everything else.

01:11:31

- Yum.

01:11:33

- If you find yourself completely agreeing

01:11:34

with everything in a book, that's a red flag.

01:11:37

- Or it's a really good book.

01:11:38

- One of the two,

01:11:40

the only ones I can really think of

01:11:43

or yeah, I absolutely agree with everything

01:11:45

this author is saying is the ones

01:11:47

like the Victor Frankl books that we just finished

01:11:50

because that's totally--

01:11:51

- Let's look into my head.

01:11:52

- Yeah.

01:11:53

- Okay, so you read a Victor Frankl book

01:11:54

and you agreed with everything he said.

01:11:56

- But that's his experience.

01:11:58

He's telling you this is what I learned

01:12:01

when I was in the concentration camp.

01:12:02

How can you possibly in our point in history,

01:12:07

go back and say I disagree with that?

01:12:11

- Right.

01:12:12

- So it's different.

01:12:13

I think a lot of the books in the productivity space

01:12:16

try to be either intentionally or not,

01:12:20

this is how you should do things.

01:12:25

And any book that says this is how you should do things,

01:12:30

you should not do everything it says.

01:12:33

You should find one or two things that click for you,

01:12:37

but you should absolutely not try to do it all.

01:12:41

- Yes.

01:12:42

And this is a part that I'm not going to do.

01:12:44

I'm not moving, not going anywhere at all.

01:12:47

However, I will go to the next chapter,

01:12:50

which is chapter eight, be nice,

01:12:53

which is just that.

01:12:54

Be nice, Mike.

01:12:57

Don't be mean.

01:12:58

Because in the world of online,

01:13:02

if you're mean, people will find out about it

01:13:05

and it doesn't look good for you.

01:13:08

And don't try to stab people behind the back

01:13:11

because people can figure it out.

01:13:12

Because guess what?

01:13:13

It's a log of everything anymore.

01:13:15

And when you've been mean to somebody,

01:13:17

it's out there and you cannot delete it.

01:13:20

Good luck.

01:13:21

- So never forgets.

01:13:24

- Yes, totally.

01:13:26

Never, never, never forgets.

01:13:28

So yeah, I mean, Mike is always mean.

01:13:32

(laughing)

01:13:34

- I can be.

01:13:38

So my four year old, whenever we watch a movie,

01:13:43

there's a bad guy, right?

01:13:47

And every time she identifies the bad guy

01:13:50

acting in a way which is mean,

01:13:52

she tries to say he's a jerk,

01:13:56

but it usually comes across as he's a joke.

01:13:59

(laughing)

01:14:01

So we've just internalized that as a family.

01:14:04

And anytime we see somebody being a jerk,

01:14:07

we say that he's a joke.

01:14:09

(laughing)

01:14:11

- I like it.

01:14:12

- And there are so many jokes online.

01:14:16

It's easy to spot them.

01:14:18

- Totally.

01:14:19

- But yes, this is not hard.

01:14:23

Look to give more than you take,

01:14:27

really is what this boils down to.

01:14:30

I wrote a book for our men's ministry at Define.

01:14:34

I think it's called "Maximize Manhood"

01:14:36

by Ed Cole.

01:14:38

He talks about love versus lust.

01:14:40

Love is a desire to benefit the other at the expense of self.

01:14:43

Lust is the desire to benefit self

01:14:45

at the expense of others.

01:14:47

So from a religious context where you're supposed to

01:14:51

love everybody, that's kind of what that looks like to me

01:14:55

is don't look at what you can get.

01:14:58

Look at what you can give.

01:14:59

You can apply that through whatever other lens you want.

01:15:04

But that's what I view this as.

01:15:06

And one of the coolest stories from this book

01:15:09

is it found in this chapter where he talks about

01:15:12

Harold Ramis.

01:15:14

I don't know how to say last names, I'm sorry.

01:15:17

But he said, find the most talented person in the room

01:15:19

and if it's not, you go stand next to him,

01:15:21

hang out with him, try to be helpful.

01:15:23

That's great advice.

01:15:25

And I feel like that's essentially

01:15:27

what my online career has been.

01:15:29

(laughing)

01:15:31

It's just trying to be nice, trying to help people

01:15:33

and then when you help someone, they're like,

01:15:35

hey, that actually that was pretty cool you want to do.

01:15:36

So the thing, and that opens up a lot of other

01:15:39

opportunities for you.

01:15:40

- Yeah, and he's got a thing in here

01:15:43

is like make friends, ignore enemies.

01:15:45

This is totally a, in the world of online,

01:15:51

ignore your trolls, they do exist, they're all over.

01:15:55

If you're doing anything of any worth or value,

01:15:58

they will find you.

01:15:59

- Mm-hmm.

01:16:00

- And as you're getting into YouTube,

01:16:01

there are lots and lots of trolls on YouTube.

01:16:04

- Oh, I know.

01:16:05

I've seen quite a few of them already.

01:16:10

- Yep.

01:16:10

- So the one video that's kind of taken off

01:16:12

has been like the cross-reference library

01:16:14

I do for my sermon sketch notes

01:16:15

and I get comments all the time about,

01:16:18

oh my goodness, I'm so sick of these Bible thumpers

01:16:21

talking about obsidian.

01:16:22

Sorry, that's how I use it.

01:16:24

(laughing)

01:16:24

- Yep, get over it, it's okay.

01:16:27

(laughing)

01:16:29

Yep, later out there.

01:16:30

All right, let's keep moving.

01:16:31

Chapter nine, be boring,

01:16:35

which is just all the little stuff

01:16:38

about how to get work done.

01:16:40

Like what does he have in here?

01:16:42

It's like taking care of yourself,

01:16:43

staying out of debt, keep your day job.

01:16:46

Mike, don't quit your day job,

01:16:48

according to Austin Clean.

01:16:49

Which is kind of going back to what we were talking about

01:16:51

with like side projects and stuff.

01:16:53

Get yourself a calendar, keep a log book,

01:16:56

which is what he's referring to as far as

01:16:59

like the, keep the chain.

01:17:02

Like if you've got a calendar,

01:17:03

like did I do it today or not?

01:17:06

It's kind of that concept.

01:17:07

- Yeah, he mentions Jerry Seinfeld in this chapter,

01:17:11

but we don't need to go into all of that 'cause yeah.

01:17:15

- So yeah, I mean, these are all the,

01:17:17

like super short productivity advice sort of things,

01:17:23

not all, but to somewhat,

01:17:26

and that's what he's getting at.

01:17:28

He's like, do the boring stuff

01:17:30

so that you can get the work done.

01:17:33

So you can do the creativity thing.

01:17:35

And he's not wrong, like absolutely not wrong.

01:17:38

So he gets the whole concept of, you know,

01:17:40

show up and do the thing every day,

01:17:42

build routines, build habits,

01:17:44

keep track of it so that you don't break the chain.

01:17:47

Like these are all very standard,

01:17:49

I guess recommendations,

01:17:51

and not really anything I was surprised by,

01:17:55

other than the fact that he was calling it boring

01:17:57

to do all of those things,

01:17:59

which I figured you wouldn't be too thrilled about.

01:18:01

I was like, no, that's the exciting part.

01:18:02

Like building habits and routines, that's not boring.

01:18:05

- Like, well, it is when you first encounter it.

01:18:08

- It totally is. - If you're looking

01:18:09

at somebody that you admire,

01:18:12

and you're like, I wanna do what they do,

01:18:15

and you see what they produce, their art.

01:18:18

- Yep.

01:18:19

- And then you get to know them

01:18:20

and you see how they actually make it.

01:18:23

There's always a little bit of a let down.

01:18:25

- Always. - It's like, always is.

01:18:26

- I thought this was gonna be a lot more impressive

01:18:29

than it really is.

01:18:30

- It always seems like it should be like

01:18:32

some big fanfare filled,

01:18:35

bouncy houses to make my painting all this stuff.

01:18:38

And it's like, oh no, he gets up at five in the morning

01:18:41

and does the same thing every single day.

01:18:44

That's boring.

01:18:46

- That's why people gravitate towards the tools

01:18:48

and the apps I feel.

01:18:50

- Oh sure. - Because it's new,

01:18:52

it's approachable, I can just throw money at this thing.

01:18:55

And then this is gonna provide the breath of life

01:18:59

into the habit or the routine.

01:19:01

No, it's not.

01:19:03

You gotta deal with the motivation.

01:19:05

You just gotta show up every day.

01:19:07

- Yep.

01:19:08

- And you're right, when you do that long enough,

01:19:09

you see the results that come from it,

01:19:11

and that provides excitement.

01:19:13

But when you first encounter that idea of like,

01:19:15

so I just gotta write for an hour before I go to the office.

01:19:20

- Yeah, you do.

01:19:22

(laughs)

01:19:23

- You do.

01:19:24

- Yup, and if you're gonna be a YouTuber,

01:19:26

you gotta write scripts and record and edit, like every day.

01:19:30

- Yep.

01:19:31

- Welcome.

01:19:32

- There is a quote in this though

01:19:33

that I wanted to talk about.

01:19:36

Page 125 says,

01:19:38

"The trick is to find a day job that pays decently

01:19:41

doesn't make you want to vomit

01:19:43

and leaves you with enough energy

01:19:45

to make things in your spare time."

01:19:46

This is great advice.

01:19:49

(laughs)

01:19:53

This is unbelievably good advice.

01:19:57

I wish I would have caught this

01:20:00

the first time I encountered it.

01:20:03

Not that I regret anything about my journey

01:20:07

and how it's played out here.

01:20:08

But one of the things I have noticed,

01:20:11

having reflected on the last several years,

01:20:14

and the last couple of years specifically,

01:20:16

being a part of the Vlanc Media Team,

01:20:17

I loved my time there.

01:20:19

I loved working with all those people.

01:20:22

I recognize though that I had pressure

01:20:27

to create on a regular basis.

01:20:31

It was my job.

01:20:32

It was what I was getting paid for.

01:20:34

And it feels kind of nice not to have that anymore.

01:20:39

I don't know how to explain this.

01:20:45

And I hope this comes across the right way.

01:20:50

I really had no intention of leaving Vlanc Media.

01:20:53

I kind of stumbled into an opportunity

01:20:56

that was too good to say no to.

01:20:59

And it was an opportunity for me to grow in areas

01:21:03

that I was curious about,

01:21:07

relating to business and management.

01:21:09

But I've found that with creating on the side

01:21:18

and not having the pressure of,

01:21:20

gotta have this workshop this month,

01:21:23

or get this course done by this time.

01:21:26

I'm kind of driven and I wanna get stuff out there,

01:21:29

regular basis anyways,

01:21:30

and podcasts sort of do that with every other week.

01:21:33

But that's a little bit different.

01:21:36

This doesn't feel to me like I'm making something

01:21:41

from a quality standard.

01:21:43

I mean, yes, there is because we've done it long enough.

01:21:46

I've been able to delegate a bunch of that stuff.

01:21:48

But this kind of feels like I'm just showing up

01:21:50

and talking to my friend as opposed to like a YouTube video

01:21:55

where I could always tweak that until it's good enough.

01:21:57

And then I release it or a blog post

01:22:00

where you continue to tweak things until it's good enough

01:22:02

and you publish it.

01:22:03

Does that make sense?

01:22:04

- Mm-hmm, yeah, absolutely.

01:22:06

- So-- - Because it's more like documenting

01:22:08

an existing thing you're going to do anyway,

01:22:11

instead of creating something out of nothing.

01:22:13

- Yeah, yeah, this, I mean,

01:22:15

podcasts for me have always just been like a moment in time.

01:22:17

And this is what I was thinking about at that moment.

01:22:19

I guess blog posts and videos are kind of that way,

01:22:22

that way too, but not having to do that on a schedule

01:22:27

or being able to just chuck that schedule

01:22:29

and say, you know what, I don't feel like it today.

01:22:32

Giving myself permission to do that

01:22:33

and not having the way that I provide for my family

01:22:38

be affected by that.

01:22:40

A lot of stuff that I do on the side,

01:22:44

like focus podcasts, we sell ads and things like that.

01:22:47

So if I were to say, you know, I don't want to do this anymore,

01:22:49

I would feel that a little bit,

01:22:51

but it's not the primary thing.

01:22:53

- Right. - There's no pressure

01:22:55

to continue to do that as a job.

01:22:59

It's something that I can just do

01:23:01

and I don't have to do the SEO if I don't want to.

01:23:05

And I don't have to follow the formulas

01:23:07

for the headlines to get the clicks if I don't want to.

01:23:10

I can just be me if I want to.

01:23:12

- Yep. - And that's good enough.

01:23:14

And that feels really, really good.

01:23:17

- I find that the people that I follow online,

01:23:20

that I really, really respect

01:23:22

and that I get the most from are people with day jobs

01:23:26

and it's not their main thing.

01:23:27

Do you feel that way?

01:23:29

Maybe this is me, but I feel like the people

01:23:31

that I really love learning from

01:23:33

are people who have a day job like I do

01:23:36

and can do the sort of thing on this side.

01:23:38

It's kind of like they're living it

01:23:40

and making stuff about it at the same time.

01:23:43

- Yeah, I think maybe.

01:23:46

I think that can be the case.

01:23:47

I don't think it has to be the case,

01:23:48

but I also see a whole bunch of people lately

01:23:52

who quit their day job to do their art full time

01:23:57

and the online community tends to celebrate that.

01:24:00

One of them is my focus co-host, David Sparks.

01:24:03

And I'm happy for David that he is able to do that.

01:24:06

But what I don't like or what I think is dangerous

01:24:09

is putting people like that and John Syracuse

01:24:12

and the other people have done that

01:24:15

and they tend to get put on a pedestal

01:24:19

and then kind of subconsciously everybody else

01:24:22

who's making anything,

01:24:24

there's implicit pressure to do that too.

01:24:29

And there shouldn't be.

01:24:31

I think the ideal way for most people to do this

01:24:35

is exactly what Austin Cleon talks about,

01:24:37

exactly what Derek Sivers talks about.

01:24:40

Just do the day job

01:24:41

and it's actually a benefit that that doesn't have

01:24:44

to drive the art.

01:24:45

And then on the side, you can go do the art

01:24:49

and it can just be what it is.

01:24:51

There's no pressure to make it into something that it's not.

01:24:53

- Right, I'm with you.

01:24:55

All right, let's go to our last chapter here,

01:24:57

which is creativity is subtraction,

01:25:00

which is 100% true.

01:25:04

Like whenever, if you wanna use the video concept,

01:25:07

you record a big bank of video

01:25:11

and when you're done,

01:25:12

it's usually less than 10% of what you recorded

01:25:15

or even less than that.

01:25:17

I just did a big video project

01:25:19

for an afternoon session.

01:25:22

The video, the part that I'm referring to

01:25:25

was three and a half minutes long.

01:25:27

When I guess how much raw footage I had

01:25:29

for that three and a half minute video mic.

01:25:32

So somewhere in the realm of four and a half hours

01:25:35

worth of raw footage that went into that three and a half minutes,

01:25:40

it was nuts.

01:25:41

And that's absolutely what he's getting at here.

01:25:43

It's like whenever you sit down and write something,

01:25:45

you always write it to be significantly longer

01:25:48

than what you're gonna end up with

01:25:49

'cause you're gonna edit it down.

01:25:51

And the creative part is knowing what to keep

01:25:56

and what to get rid of.

01:25:57

That's the part that's really difficult and unique to you.

01:26:03

So as we're talking about steel like an artist,

01:26:05

you steal, take ideas, connect dots

01:26:09

from a lot of different people to make a thing.

01:26:12

And then knowing what parts of that thing to remove

01:26:15

is what makes you you.

01:26:16

That's kind of the way I took this, which I really like.

01:26:21

- That is one approach.

01:26:22

That's not the angle I took from this.

01:26:24

- Okay.

01:26:25

- Go for it.

01:26:26

- I agree with that 100% by the way.

01:26:28

That is absolutely true.

01:26:29

When you start with something,

01:26:34

basically what makes it great is the stuff that you take away.

01:26:36

I'm not sure if you talked about that

01:26:38

with the Michelangelo's David and stuff like that,

01:26:41

but I've heard that story before where

01:26:44

I just chipped away all the excess stuff

01:26:48

and what was already there came out

01:26:50

was kind of the story that people tell.

01:26:53

But I took this in terms of the actual process.

01:26:56

So just getting started with creating

01:26:59

'cause one of the things he says in this chapter

01:27:01

is that nothing is more paralyzing

01:27:02

than the idea of limitless possibilities.

01:27:05

And the way to get over a creative block

01:27:07

is to place constraints on yourself.

01:27:09

This is also 100% true.

01:27:14

- Oh yeah, definitely.

01:27:15

- That's kind of what the Ship30 for 30 program does

01:27:18

is it gives you constraints.

01:27:21

You've got these short little essays

01:27:23

and you're gonna do it every day.

01:27:25

And just having those constraints has allowed me

01:27:30

to write and publish for 13 days in a row,

01:27:33

hopefully going on 30.

01:27:36

But if you start with,

01:27:40

I don't know what to write about,

01:27:42

then the tendency is to go rack your brain

01:27:45

for the best idea.

01:27:47

And I've captured a whole bunch of stuff.

01:27:49

So I looked through those and I kind of sniff test each one

01:27:53

and no, I don't wanna do that one right now.

01:27:55

I don't wanna do that one right now.

01:27:56

Then I got to the end of the list and I'm like,

01:27:57

oh, that's it.

01:27:58

I just got a bunch of junk in here.

01:28:00

But if you just take the first idea

01:28:03

that you jotted down, first one you encounter in the list,

01:28:05

like, okay, that's it.

01:28:06

I'm doing this one.

01:28:08

You can create something kind of cool from that.

01:28:10

- You can, absolutely.

01:28:11

- And then you just get that out there

01:28:14

and then the next day you pick the next one.

01:28:19

And then in the meantime, you're replenishing that

01:28:22

because you build up confidence

01:28:24

that you can turn any one of these junky ideas

01:28:26

into a good one that into something valuable

01:28:30

that you don't judge stuff in the moment anymore.

01:28:32

You're like, oh, that's an idea, that's interesting.

01:28:34

I'm just gonna capture that, I'll capture that, capture that.

01:28:36

And then, like, you put in the reps,

01:28:40

you place constraints and then you create the momentum,

01:28:42

you start where you are with what you have.

01:28:44

It's kind of the phrase I jotted down

01:28:46

to kind of summarize all this.

01:28:48

You just start going and then that creates the momentum

01:28:51

to keep going.

01:28:53

So I think that's the thing that most creative people

01:28:58

will struggle with at the beginning.

01:29:00

Is I don't know where to start.

01:29:02

I gotta have this awesome idea in order to start

01:29:04

no, you need to have an idea in order to start.

01:29:06

It's a quantity problem, not a quality problem.

01:29:10

And once you have something,

01:29:13

you have everything that you need in order to start.

01:29:16

Once you start, then you will find,

01:29:18

the next kind of fear is that,

01:29:21

well, I won't find something else to replace that

01:29:23

once it's gone.

01:29:24

Yes, you will, especially once you teach yourself

01:29:26

not to care about the quality,

01:29:28

you will find something and then you will refine it

01:29:30

and that thing will be cool too.

01:29:32

Mateo, 100%.

01:29:34

This is one of the things that I really like about this book

01:29:37

in that you can take a lot of different things,

01:29:40

a lot of different ways inside of this.

01:29:43

Yes, he has his intended way,

01:29:46

but he wrote this in such a way that you can interpret it

01:29:49

a few different directions if you want to,

01:29:52

which is what I tend to do that with things regularly.

01:29:55

I tend to conceptualize and try to get my head around

01:29:59

what is the raw idea.

01:30:01

They're trying to convey.

01:30:03

I do that a lot, which is where Mike sometimes

01:30:06

looks at me funny, like, how did you get that?

01:30:08

That's usually what's happening.

01:30:11

But I love that whenever it's possible to do that.

01:30:15

This is absolutely one of those.

01:30:17

So yes, you're absolutely right.

01:30:18

Putting the constraints on is sometimes the best way

01:30:23

to do it.

01:30:23

It is all the time, like whenever I'm looking for

01:30:27

a specific product, open source project

01:30:31

or something that does a thing I want to do,

01:30:34

I will mentally put in constraints of things

01:30:37

that I want it to be able to fit into.

01:30:39

You probably do this with obsidian plug-ins and such.

01:30:41

Like here's the thing that I want to happen.

01:30:44

And here are the constraints that I'm putting in place

01:30:47

in order to do what I want to do.

01:30:49

How can I make that happen?

01:30:51

And there's so many different ways

01:30:52

that you can come at things, like just trying to find products

01:30:55

in ways of working with tools.

01:30:57

It's kind of fun.

01:30:58

But anyway, constraints.

01:31:01

Yeah, so there's a lot of different ways

01:31:03

you could embrace this.

01:31:04

You could use the technology, say, this is good enough.

01:31:09

This is my minimum bar like you were talking about.

01:31:11

That's why I always tell people when you're starting

01:31:13

with productivity systems and things.

01:31:15

Start on paper first.

01:31:16

You can always scale it up.

01:31:17

But yeah, with paper, you can do anything.

01:31:19

And then that'll influence the direction that you go.

01:31:21

You could do this with time constraints.

01:31:23

One person that comes to mind is,

01:31:25

I think his name is Jonathan Mann, the song of day guy.

01:31:28

Yeah, yeah.

01:31:30

The guy who wrote the ATP theme song,

01:31:32

literally committed to writing a song every single day.

01:31:39

And just the act of doing that makes it easier to keep going.

01:31:45

And then also, if you were here and I could talk to him,

01:31:48

I'm sure he would say that he's been able to grow his skill

01:31:51

and develop his art to a higher level, higher quality,

01:31:55

because he's put in so many reps.

01:31:56

Yes.

01:31:57

I think this brings us to the end of the book, Mike,

01:31:59

which gets us to, he's got an afterward

01:32:04

where he really just kind of reiterates a lot

01:32:07

of what we've already covered and talks about how he's moving on,

01:32:12

I guess.

01:32:12

He's like, yeah, one of the good things you can do

01:32:14

is when you create something is don't fixate on it.

01:32:18

Be willing to move on to the next thing.

01:32:20

Once you've released something,

01:32:21

that's kind of the main thing I took away from that.

01:32:25

So he's like, I'm not going to spend too much time here

01:32:26

because I'm on to the next thing.

01:32:28

Like, OK, I appreciate that.

01:32:30

But it's done well.

01:32:30

What you should do.

01:32:32

Correct.

01:32:32

Yeah, exactly.

01:32:33

That part almost seemed like the publisher had this idea

01:32:37

for 10th anniversary edition.

01:32:39

And they're like, we're going to create something extra

01:32:42

from the author and we're going to stick it here at the end.

01:32:45

And then he's like, fine.

01:32:47

I've moved on, like you said.

01:32:49

Yes.

01:32:49

So that's one approach.

01:32:51

The other approach, which is probably more likely,

01:32:54

would be that he just wanted to drive home a theme

01:32:58

in this book because he mentioned earlier, I believe--

01:33:01

I don't think it was at this part in this section.

01:33:04

When you post to a blog, the new stuff goes to the top.

01:33:08

And so you just need to keep creating--

01:33:11

there's pressure there to keep creating something new.

01:33:14

And that's really what you should be focusing on.

01:33:16

So don't dwell on this thing that you did in the past

01:33:19

because you don't want to try to catch lightning

01:33:22

in a bottle and make something perfect.

01:33:24

You want to consistently make something.

01:33:26

And the process of making the thing

01:33:27

is going to lead to higher quality over time.

01:33:31

Yes.

01:33:32

All right, Mike, that brings us to action items.

01:33:35

Unless there's something else you want to cover first.

01:33:38

Nope.

01:33:39

Let's talk about action items.

01:33:40

I have one unless you give me more,

01:33:44

which you're making it a heavy lid.

01:33:46

I already did give you more.

01:33:48

We did it live, so it's done.

01:33:50

I've got it checked off.

01:33:51

So unless you're changing it.

01:33:55

Nope.

01:33:56

But I have one.

01:33:57

And it's something I've done in the past,

01:33:59

but I just haven't done it in recent months, maybe last year.

01:34:05

But building out a--

01:34:07

basically, it's a daily tracker for creativity,

01:34:10

like making sure I'm writing every day in some form,

01:34:14

or recording or editing or something along those lines.

01:34:17

So I want to build out a calendar for that

01:34:19

so that I can keep track of those things

01:34:23

and make sure that I've got a way to know

01:34:25

if I've got the chain going or if I've got it broken or not.

01:34:28

That's what I want to work myself towards.

01:34:31

That way I can keep track of it and such.

01:34:33

And I think I've been pretty good about making things,

01:34:35

at least internally at work stuff and a few things online.

01:34:40

But I haven't been too good about some of the writing

01:34:44

and video stuff that I've been wanting to do online.

01:34:46

So getting there.

01:34:48

So yes, that's ultimately what I'm working on.

01:34:51

You?

01:34:52

Both of my action items come from chapter eight,

01:34:54

so apparently I do need to work on being nice.

01:34:56

[LAUGHTER]

01:34:58

All right.

01:35:01

By noise.

01:35:02

One thing that I want to do from this chapter--

01:35:06

I talked about writing fan letters.

01:35:08

And there are a lot of people that I have really looked up

01:35:12

to over the years.

01:35:14

And I've talked about how they have reached out to me

01:35:18

and written letters.

01:35:20

And that has been very helpful to me, which is kind of the other thing.

01:35:26

Keep a praise file.

01:35:27

So that stuff I want to collect.

01:35:30

So I can go back and look at it occasionally.

01:35:32

There's lots of people who will say mean things.

01:35:35

But collect and review the ones that actually are nice.

01:35:40

And then also the big one for me is to write that fan letter.

01:35:44

So tell somebody else that I really appreciate their work.

01:35:50

And the way that he frames this in the book is important, too.

01:35:54

You're not doing it in a way to create an opportunity for you

01:35:59

to get something from them.

01:36:01

You're just telling them that you appreciate them

01:36:05

and what they're doing.

01:36:07

So give more than you take, right?

01:36:09

Not looking to get anything from this,

01:36:11

but just encourage somebody.

01:36:13

Now, if I do that online and I tweet somebody and I say,

01:36:19

really appreciate this, I have no idea sometimes

01:36:21

if they're going to see that.

01:36:22

Doesn't matter.

01:36:24

That's the big takeaway here.

01:36:26

If it's an actual letter that I write,

01:36:28

maybe that's what this looks like.

01:36:29

I haven't clearly thought about that yet.

01:36:31

I just want to pick somebody who has been influential

01:36:35

and I want to say, I appreciate you, basically.

01:36:41

And I think this needs to be somebody that I don't have

01:36:46

a direct connection with.

01:36:48

Kind of another version of this would be reaching out

01:36:54

to the people that I have been able to develop a relationship

01:36:58

with via text message or something like that

01:37:00

and say, hey, I really appreciate you.

01:37:01

But that's not what I'm talking about.

01:37:03

I'm talking about writing something with a good chance

01:37:06

that I never hear a response.

01:37:08

I never encounter this person again.

01:37:11

And that is completely OK.

01:37:13

Yeah, that's a good one.

01:37:14

All right, I'll hold you to that and I'll expect a letter.

01:37:18

[LAUGHTER]

01:37:19

All right.

01:37:21

All right, that's what I've got.

01:37:22

So I guess that brings us the style and rating.

01:37:26

And I'll kick us off here.

01:37:28

So steal like an artist.

01:37:30

Austin has a really good style.

01:37:32

Obviously, this is easy, easy, easy to read.

01:37:36

It's like a three day read if you want to take your time.

01:37:40

And this is one that you could sit down and read probably

01:37:43

in a sitting if you really wanted to.

01:37:45

There's lots of artwork in it and a fair amount of blank space

01:37:52

to process.

01:37:53

I partly wonders why he made that choice.

01:37:56

But at the same time, that's very much an artist feel,

01:38:00

is to have the space to add to it,

01:38:02

like add your own thoughts to it, which I don't do.

01:38:05

I put those at the back in the doodles section

01:38:09

that he left at the back of it, which I appreciated very much,

01:38:13

which was very fun.

01:38:16

So as far as a style goes, I like it.

01:38:19

It's kind of fun.

01:38:19

It's unique.

01:38:20

It's its own thing.

01:38:21

And I appreciate that coming from a book that

01:38:23

is about being an artist.

01:38:26

So I'm very grateful for that.

01:38:27

Very easy to read.

01:38:28

He's good at writing.

01:38:31

As far as a rating goes, I feel like there's

01:38:34

some spots in here where I kind of struggle

01:38:37

to get my head around it.

01:38:38

I know that you love this book.

01:38:39

And I had very, very, very high expectations

01:38:42

because you've mentioned it four million times.

01:38:45

So I was expecting borderline Victor Frankel level books here.

01:38:51

And I have to admit, it's not at that level as much as--

01:38:56

it's a great book.

01:38:57

But I wouldn't put it up there.

01:38:59

I really wouldn't.

01:39:00

It's got a lot of really great points in it.

01:39:04

It's one that I think if you want motivation

01:39:06

for starting your own art or beginning

01:39:10

to create things of any kind, this

01:39:12

is a good one to pick up that you could get through very

01:39:14

quickly that would give you that kind of kick

01:39:15

in the pants to get going.

01:39:17

It's absolutely gold for that.

01:39:21

I know it's done that for me, like putting together

01:39:23

this calendar to make sure that I'm holding myself accountable

01:39:25

to that recurring pattern is something that

01:39:28

could go a very, very long way.

01:39:31

So I'm looking forward to that.

01:39:33

So as far as the rating goes, I'm

01:39:35

going to put it at 4.5.

01:39:37

I think it's way up there.

01:39:38

But I don't think it's--

01:39:39

I don't think it's 5.0 standard, Mike.

01:39:42

I really don't.

01:39:43

So I'm going to put it at 4 and 1/2.

01:39:45

All right.

01:39:47

It's kind of interesting.

01:39:48

I think you think I'm going to rate this at 5.0.

01:39:50

I kind of feel like you should just because of how much

01:39:53

you talk about it.

01:39:53

But I don't know.

01:39:56

I don't know what you're going to do now.

01:39:57

Yeah.

01:39:58

Well, I agree with you.

01:39:59

It's at 4.5.

01:40:00

It's not Victor Frankel level.

01:40:03

It's unfair to compare anything to Victor Frankel.

01:40:10

He needs to be like 10.0.

01:40:11

And then we just back everything off of that.

01:40:15

Yeah, that's true.

01:40:17

That's true.

01:40:18

So this book, as I mentioned, it has been very influential

01:40:24

to me over the years.

01:40:26

And I think there is still some incredible advice in here.

01:40:31

So I was thinking, who is this book for?

01:40:34

It is for everyone who thinks that they are creative.

01:40:37

And my follow up argument to that is everyone is creative.

01:40:42

So I think maybe some people will see this book

01:40:46

and think that that's not for me.

01:40:47

But I think it is.

01:40:50

And I would say this is one of those books

01:40:52

that everyone should read.

01:40:53

I also think that it's very easy to read.

01:40:57

Very interesting visual style.

01:41:00

So going all the way back to the beginning,

01:41:02

and I was talking about pencil pirates,

01:41:04

I feel like Austin Klyan is the poster person

01:41:09

for pencil pirates, which is essentially

01:41:13

learn how to visualize your ideas.

01:41:16

This is kind of the thing that I want to do, not probably

01:41:18

as many visuals as Austin Klyan has in this book.

01:41:23

But the reason this book is so successful,

01:41:24

he is a good writer.

01:41:26

There's not any fluff in this book.

01:41:28

And it's very interesting visually.

01:41:30

The visuals help tell the story.

01:41:33

And story maybe is the wrong word.

01:41:35

Like there's a bunch of different mini sections

01:41:38

that are inside of these chapters, these 10 chapters.

01:41:42

And they've all got cool visuals that go with them.

01:41:44

And like you said at the end, he's got deleted scenes.

01:41:47

He calls them, which is a whole bunch of visuals

01:41:49

that he had drawn that he didn't finalize

01:41:53

for the production of this book.

01:41:54

There's, I don't know, 40, 50 of them.

01:41:58

- Right.

01:42:00

- So he's living what he's preaching in this book.

01:42:03

It's an authentic message from an authentic person.

01:42:06

And it's something that anyone could benefit from.

01:42:10

You're not gonna take it all, but there's gonna be something

01:42:13

in here that is applicable to you and would improve your life

01:42:16

by helping you create.

01:42:18

So you don't think that maybe that applies to you

01:42:23

as you're listening to this,

01:42:23

I would encourage you to rethink that.

01:42:25

I think it does.

01:42:26

And I think this is a great book that you should buy

01:42:29

and read because it's not gonna take you very long.

01:42:32

And there's a good chance that something will speak

01:42:34

to you from this.

01:42:36

- There you go.

01:42:36

So you have your action items team.

01:42:38

You have to go buy a book 'cause Mike says so.

01:42:41

Ready to go.

01:42:42

Awesome.

01:42:44

All right, let's put on the shelf, Mike.

01:42:45

What's next?

01:42:46

- Next is Things That Matter by Joshua Becker.

01:42:49

Joshua Becker is the first person, I believe,

01:42:52

to have three of their books covered by Bookworm.

01:42:55

And I almost didn't pick it because it'd be the third one

01:42:58

that we've covered, but this is if we were to go back

01:43:01

and redo Bookworm, this would probably be the one

01:43:04

that we would pick.

01:43:05

- Very likely.

01:43:06

Patrick Lencioni, we've covered two.

01:43:09

- Yep.

01:43:10

I have a third one I've debated putting on the list,

01:43:14

but another day, another day.

01:43:16

All right, Things That Matter by Joshua Becker.

01:43:18

That'll be fun, that'll be a good one.

01:43:20

From what I've heard, this is the one you should read

01:43:22

of all his books.

01:43:24

- That is also what I've heard,

01:43:25

but I have not started it yet.

01:43:26

- I haven't either.

01:43:27

I haven't either.

01:43:28

After that, I am selecting a book

01:43:34

which is very recently released called Bittersweet

01:43:38

by Susan Cain.

01:43:39

If you remember, we covered Quiet by Susan Cain.

01:43:44

This is her introverts at World.

01:43:48

The tagline on this one is how sorrow and longing

01:43:50

make us whole has some accolades from Bernay Brown,

01:43:55

a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of people.

01:44:00

So now looking forward to this one,

01:44:02

I'm not sure that I'm excited about this one,

01:44:05

(laughing)

01:44:06

but it'll be interesting nonetheless.

01:44:08

So it should be good.

01:44:10

- All right.

01:44:11

- So yeah, Gat Book's Mike, we got.

01:44:14

- I mentioned this earlier,

01:44:16

but I'm gonna read Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

01:44:21

What inspired this, by the way,

01:44:23

was my latest sermon sketch note

01:44:26

because there's a verse that my pastor used about

01:44:29

you are a peculiar people

01:44:31

and I thought of the Purple Cow analogy.

01:44:33

- Got it.

01:44:34

- So I actually drew a Purple Cow in my--

01:44:36

- No, Sky's work.

01:44:38

That's solid.

01:44:39

Nice work.

01:44:40

- But then I realized I never actually read this book.

01:44:44

I've understood the people referring to that before.

01:44:48

I even heard Seth Godin refer to that

01:44:51

when he spoke at the Entre Leadership Summit,

01:44:53

but I have not read this book.

01:44:55

So I'm going to learn how to transform my business

01:44:57

by being remarkable.

01:44:58

- That's a good book.

01:44:59

I've read that one.

01:45:00

It's a good one.

01:45:02

It's Seth Godin though.

01:45:03

You can't go wrong with Seth Godin.

01:45:04

- That's true.

01:45:06

- That's the way it is.

01:45:07

As far as a Gat Book goes,

01:45:08

I know I'm gonna have time for one.

01:45:10

I'm not sure what it should be yet

01:45:11

'cause I'm finishing up the one I mentioned earlier

01:45:15

and need to get the next one picked.

01:45:17

Somebody should tweet a book to me and I'll--

01:45:21

- Digital Zettle Castin.

01:45:22

- How to take smart notes round two.

01:45:24

So I feel like you're gonna pick that one

01:45:26

very shortly for Bookworm.

01:45:26

- No, this is the good one.

01:45:27

This is the good one.

01:45:28

It's really short.

01:45:30

- Digital Zettle Castin?

01:45:31

- Yep.

01:45:32

- Is it actually worthwhile

01:45:33

or are you just trying to get me on the train?

01:45:36

- No, so far I'm up to chapter eight.

01:45:38

So I'm only about halfway through,

01:45:39

but it's a short book and it's really good.

01:45:41

- Okay, very hesitant.

01:45:43

I say that knowing that I'm slowly getting into this world.

01:45:47

I'm very aware of what's going on

01:45:48

and you've been aware of this.

01:45:49

- Resistance is useless.

01:45:52

- Hmm, okay.

01:45:53

Maybe, maybe.

01:45:56

- Okay.

01:45:58

- Maybe.

01:45:58

(laughs)

01:45:59

Okay.

01:46:01

Big thanks to all of you who have joined us live.

01:46:03

I know we got a couple extra folks in today.

01:46:06

Big thanks to you, silent, especially.

01:46:09

Lots of stuff going on in the chat.

01:46:10

We've mentioned some things, not all of it,

01:46:12

but it's super fun to have folks here

01:46:14

when we're recording live.

01:46:15

And we kind of made a change in schedule.

01:46:18

I think we're trying to do these on Thursdays,

01:46:20

somewhere around two o'clock or so central.

01:46:22

So if you're interested in joining us live,

01:46:24

we'd love to have you join us.

01:46:26

If you haven't already,

01:46:28

we'd also love to have you as part of our Bookworm membership

01:46:31

and join the club there.

01:46:32

If you wanna do that,

01:46:33

you can have our undying gratitude

01:46:37

and help us keep the lights on here at bookworm.fm.

01:46:41

And you can help us out by going to bookworm.fm/membership.

01:46:45

It's five bucks a month, 60 bucks a year,

01:46:47

your call, the math works out the same,

01:46:50

if you didn't know that.

01:46:51

And it's super cool.

01:46:53

You get access to all of Mike's,

01:46:55

my node files, who talk about this every couple of weeks,

01:46:58

but you get some cool perks.

01:47:00

And especially, the big one is like,

01:47:03

you get to help us keep the show going.

01:47:05

And we're super, super grateful for you who've done that.

01:47:08

So thank you to all of our Bookworm club members.

01:47:12

- All right, if you're reading along with us,

01:47:14

which you totally should be,

01:47:15

pick up things that matter by Joshua Becker,

01:47:19

and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.