Bookworm Transcripts

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Ready to cry today Mike

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No

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I'm not gonna lie that this and we kind of alluded to this before we started like today's book might be kind of a

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touchy feely

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scenario

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Would be my guess

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Looking forward

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Hopefully not too much, but this is this is potentially a thing that's gonna happen today. Is this a four tissue podcast Joe?

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I I

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Am not one that cries John recordings like ever that I know of but today might push those limits. We'll see

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We'll see right I

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will not say

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Because I don't know how many but I will not say how many tissues I went through reading it

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Interesting I'll say that okay

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Interesting pray we would there follow up before we go into the book because it's always way more fun to do follow up

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I

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Guess I had two that I can cover here

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One doesn't really get me anywhere, but one of those was I want to start asking as part of like my morning routine

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today I commit myself to fill in the blank and

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I have been doing that I just added it to

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The list of questions I ask in the morning cut out a few others that I'm currently asking and

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I don't know that I have anything

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Groundbreaking to report on that other than it's just interesting to get kind of the perspectives of here's

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Here is what I'm thinking about

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Accomplishing for today like it's kind of good to have that kind of that that intention for the day set so

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Yes, super fun. Good job

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Did you read any?

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Read any books from previous centuries

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No, but I've been trying to figure out what those would be

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Let's that's something. It's kind of an interesting

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Development in that as I started doing some research on what these books might

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Be that I wanted to select from previous centuries like you're you're getting into

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philosophers you're getting into mostly fiction books and I was

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trying to pigeonhole it into

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like

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Similar books to what we do on bookworm. I was trying to find like what what's a book that fits this category from 200 years ago?

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Like the the list of those is quite small if it exists at all so

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It's kind of an interesting

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Dilemma, I guess trying to figure out maybe why that is

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So I'm not sure what I'm doing with that one quite yet. I'm just kind of exploring it at the moment

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But at this moment in time I haven't nailed down what those are but I'm just doing some research on it

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So we'll see what comes to that

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All right things I never thought I would be looking into anyway, those are mine. How about you?

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Mine was to ask how does this action benefit someone else and I didn't really do this I feel

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so I guess I failed second week in a row for our second episode in a row for

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for follow-up

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This is sort of baked into a lot of the things that I do but also I did not consciously think about this at all

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Yeah

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So I'm not even gonna give myself partial credit for this one

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Just complete with complete with yep. All right

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Wow, that was quick. What are we in on this four minutes? Yeah?

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Are we fastest follow-up ever we're gonna set a record for how fast we're gonna get into a book here

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I feel like we should bring something up just so we can delay

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Getting into the book now

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Now let's get in touch with our feelings. Okay, we can we can do that. So today's book is

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By an author we've covered before Susan Kane

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We covered her book quiet. This is this is a while back now

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I did not look up what episode that was

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But it's been quite some time anyway quiet was about the power of introverts and introversion and its need in

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Mostly the work environment. I guess is kind of the the perspective it came from this is a totally different realm

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this one's called bittersweet and

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This is this is about

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How do I explain this this is about?

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dealing with pain or

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uncomfortable feelings and

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how that's a good thing and

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At the end of the day. I also was not so I

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was surprised I guess that this

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jumped into the realms of I

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Guess understanding death and

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Coming to grips with shortness of life

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That is not what I was signing up for

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When I picked this book

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Just just gonna say that up front that was not my intention at all. I

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Didn't think we were gonna go that quite that far

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But here we are we will we will get to that particular point. So yes bittersweet by Susan Kane

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What are your initial thoughts on this Mike?

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My initial thoughts I

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Don't know I was excited to read the follow-up book to quiet. I enjoyed quiet a lot more than this one. Yeah

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because of

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content or because of

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Where it took you?

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If you get where I'm going with that question. I think yeah, so I guess that what you're asking is

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Was I unhappy with maybe the books desired?

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Effect was to make you wrestle with some of the stuff that we tend to sweep under the rug. I'm fine with that. I

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Love me some conflict. I'm not gonna hide from stuff even if it's interpersonal in truck personal conflict

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however

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my thought about

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chapter four maybe and

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The that perspective was kind of solidified the further I went is that this book seems like a

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Justification for a melancholic approach to life and that's fine. Everybody's trying to reconcile

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These things in their own head like why do I default this way?

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I

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Don't think her journey is my journey though, and I don't think this this book and she probably didn't intend it to be this way

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She probably wrote it for people like her who are wired this way and maybe they get something totally different from it

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But it just felt like a square peg in a round hole for me

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Sure. Yeah, and a lot of the stuff that she talks about in here. She admits at the beginning

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she's

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agnostic or atheist I forget which one but then she brings up religion over and over and over and over again

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Yeah, so a lot of the stuff she's talking about is like borderline spiritual, but

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I have a very different spiritual background that I am comparing these ideas against and

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I don't agree with some other conclusions. Let's just leave it at that

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Yeah, and and I think I would

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Agree with you on on those statements. She says towards the beginning that she's an agnostic

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but that

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She has well, she says that she was originally an atheist and then has morphed into an agnostic

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I guess would be the way to to put that

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her words there, but she

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She definitely does

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Go into religion and spiritual

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feelings a lot I

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was not ready for that one either and

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There's there's coming coming from the background that we're coming from I would say this is probably a

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Bit of a challenge to reconcile in some scenarios and I was not expecting that to come out at all so

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There's that gonna put that little preface there

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So maybe to put some more meat on what we're saying there and to try to get some

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Understanding of where we're going with this we should probably just jump in here

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And I didn't put this in the outline, but there's there is an introduction that is fairly substantial

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that isn't necessarily a

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bad

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Way to start this but she's trying to basically define the word bittersweet since she chose that for

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The book title is that where the quiz is

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I don't remember

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Maybe it's new to the beginning. I think it's I think it's in that introduction. Yep. Okay. Did you take the quiz?

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Kind of I did the whole like mental math thing super fast to see where I landed on it

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I don't know the exact number, but I know that I was

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Very high on the list. Do you remember?

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Do you have it in front of you what the the range is?

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Like if you score above this this point. It's a you are a bittersweet type of person

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5.7. Okay. Yeah, that's what I thought it was somewhere around there. I didn't write that part down

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but did write down all my answers and

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My I did the the quiz in in drafts. I just jotted down for each one a couple of observations from this quiz

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Again recognize background and assessments research based assessments. Yes. Oh

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one of the things you see in a research based assessment is if you know what to look for you can kind of see how the

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questions are

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grouped together and

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Every research based assessment I've ever seen has been like this they may come at it from different perspectives

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But you kind of if you really know how to look at the questions you can tell what

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Value this is tied to and these were just all over the place

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Okay, I feel like these were coming at it from the same perspective, but the questions were just

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Totally random and I had zero for several answers and I had some very high answers

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But they're all weighted the same way, right? So the high answers

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Indicate more of a bittersweet personality, but most of mine were extremely extremely low with a few outliers

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My overall average was 3.66

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my

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Note in drafts the title literally says bittersweet quiz parentheses garbage

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Before I even got into it. I had judged the format of this quiz

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That's totally fair. Yeah, I don't remember

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What the exact number was but I think I was closer to like a seven on this so based on their scale which at the beginning

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She says that this was developed in collaboration with a research scientist at John Hopkins

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Medicine that's the part I could not wrap my head around because this is not a research based

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assessment

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I know how those are put together. I've seen the research studies, you know this

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This is a very haphazard and I'm interesting. I'm my impression on this. I don't have the book in front of me

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But I do remember her

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Couching it. She wasn't professing this is an assessment

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She she kind of said this is an informal survey sort of a thing so I don't hold that against her

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but I do take the

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scores here and

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This being the foundation. This is already like shaky for me now where I'm not

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100% in on the idea to begin with this was like the worst possible start for me

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Sure. Yeah, I will say that like I that part completely

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I glossed over that didn't catch anything with this quiz at all in this introduction

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the only part that really stood out to me was that

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the

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The intent of this introduction is to kind of lay the groundwork for what bitters what she means by

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bittersweet and I

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Use that word a lot like that's that's a word that I tend to say and sometimes people will look at me

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Like they've never heard that word before

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Which is always interesting because in my head it's something that's used regularly

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Maybe that's just because I grew up around it. I'm not sure what that is

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but I've used that word for a long time and I've always used it in the sense that

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Something that I don't care for happened, but something positive came out as a result of that

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So like something negative and positive both off of one event or feeling or you name it like that's that's kind of been my

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use of that term

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but

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She never really explains it in that way

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Here when so so I was a bit

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Thrown off in the sense that I was expecting that definition

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Read this and started to wonder did I do I have the wrong image of this word in my mind?

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Like maybe I'm just using it incorrectly because really the way I got it from her is just like, you know

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Sadness really was was the way I came out of this thinking of it as

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It's like that just seems way wrong. So

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Maybe you should correct me here. Did I get that wrong? Did you even catch this definition here in my crazy?

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Don't answer that last question

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I'm trying to find maybe I didn't jot down that definition of bittersweet because I wasn't 100% sold on it

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I do think that you're right in how she kind of starts this whole book

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Let's talk about these sections because these sections are kind of weird too. So part one is sorrow and longing that is

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Basically what you're talking about sadness and corrects with the story about the the up guy, but we'll get to that in a minute

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and then winners and losers and

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The last part is mortality impermanence and grief before ending with a coda how to go home. So

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Yeah, this is

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In hindsight, I can see the path that she has put together with this, but even when I

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did my how to read a book

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Approach prior to cracking this one open, you know, you look at the table of contents that goes in the middle of the mind node file

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Or that the cover that goes in the middle of mind of file then you look at the table of contents and that that's the different

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branches like I create all that stuff before I dive into the book itself

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I added all that didn't have

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A thought about it and then as we got started going, I'm like, wow, this is weird

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How do we get here? Yeah

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which is also kind of strange because

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She's a very good writer and she has real good ties between the different chapters and different sections

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So I feel that maybe this book is just not for me

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Sure, maybe for the right person. This is

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This lands a totally different way

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Yeah, and that's that's very possible because I felt like

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And we'll get into this as we go and I keep saying that and I'm aware of that but there are

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A lot of big points in here that I felt like I resonated with a lot

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But then there's some stuff here that like wait, what like how did you get there? Like that seems very strange

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so

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Overall picture I feel like this was

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Written for someone like me. So I might be that demographic that this fits well for

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But at the same time given other belief systems that I have

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There's a lot of struggles I have with this so

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We're prepping this a lot here. Maybe we should just start going but rip the bandit up

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Yeah, totally. So part one sorrow and longing

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There's what four I put three in the outline. I thought there was four chapters in this

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Now i'm second guessing myself. There are there are four. There are four. I missed one chapter one

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What is sadness good for chapter two? Why do we long for perfect and unconditional love?

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Chapter three is creativity associated with sorrow longing and transcendence and chapter four is how should we cope with lost love?

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Yeah, and so I missed that fourth one in the outline. That's my fault, but let's just kind of run through these. I don't know if

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We want to spend too much time on each one, but as opposed to looking at the overall part

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Uh, we'll kind of see how this goes, but the first one here is what is sadness good for

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and

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she

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starts off with this story about pixar

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telling the story of

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Um, oh my mind just blanked p doctor name of the movie. Oh, is it up as the movie p doctor is the guy

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No, up's not the movie

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I'm sorry inside out. He had worked inside out. He had worked on up in monster zinc previously

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Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So p doctor

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Being the director who was working on inside out inside out if you have not seen it. I would recommend you go watch it

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I love that movie

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Uh, there are some people that I'm friends with that I'm not sure how I'm still friends with who think that movie is trash

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And I'm blown away by the fact that they think that

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Uh, but it's fascinating. It's about like it's personifies and puts a character to emotions

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and and lets those emotions in your brain basically have

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arguments and conflict and discussions and it's just fascinating because it's spot on

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Uh, I never thought I would cry over seeing marbles as memories, but you know that happened

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So anyway, what is sadness good for it? She she starts with telling the story of pik doctor and how he was coming about

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the

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Every that sadness was the point or in this case in the in the movie sadness was the one that was going to tie everybody together

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And bring everyone together all of the other emotions together

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Not joy in this case

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Which is backwards from what we would normally think of like at the height when everything's great. You would think that would be the unifying

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Uh emotion and yet it's sadness that ties things together

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Uh, and that's where she starts here, which

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again, I get if you're gonna talk about bittersweet like bitter comes first in the word so start there

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Which she starts off exactly where you would expect, uh in that so yes, what is sadness good for?

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um

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The the thing about this that I find fascinating is that

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She's absolutely spot on I find that more times you have to deal with struggles and difficulties with other people

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Like that's that's when things thrive like that's when your relationships grow, right?

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Uh if I had no conflict in my marriage

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We my wife and I would not be anywhere near as close as we are today

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So like without those points. It's it's difficult to become super close to someone else

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So anyway, that's where she starts

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Yeah, and uh, what was fascinating to me about that story that she told about pik doctor is that originally

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Fear was the

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protagonist

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And that just wasn't working and they couldn't figure out why and then

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He talked to somebody who helped them understand the importance of sadness and how it triggers compassion

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And that really is the thing that brought the whole movie together

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So it's kind of funny to think about how

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Different that movie could have been like that's the most powerful part of it

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But it started off as something completely different and would have

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Probably completely flopped had they continued down that that path

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Um, so I remember seeing that movie

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It actually rachael and i were away on our

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anniversary trip and we went to a

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Theater and saw it and as the first time we had seen a movie

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In a long time

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When you have kids you basically just watch animated movies

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So we were kind of ashamed like hey, let's go see a movie and then we picked an animated movie

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But heard it was really good and we were not just not disappointed

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I remember walking out of that that movie and kind of the the picture

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I had when I started to think about bittersweet kind of what you're saying is like not just the sorrow like that was kind of sad

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But also like wow that was really impactful and i'm really glad that I saw it not because it made me happy

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but because it was important

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right, so

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I agree like starting with that story kind of sets that as the trajectory and then it kind of changes

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From there. I do like this first chapter a lot though. I feel like this is where she lays the foundation for

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sadness and compassion and why

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a bittersweet

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Attitude is is so important

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She gets into some of the

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The physiological stuff and like the brain science that pushed all my buttons

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You know when you get

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When you get heard you got excited. Yeah

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Yeah, when you get hurt the anterior

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Singulate region of your cortex activates and then she made the the point that the same region activates when you see somebody else

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get hurt

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Your vagus nerve which I believe is is tied to that is the

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the thing that fires when you

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See someone suffer and that's what compassion and humility are are rooted in

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talks about how your your vagus nerve actually doesn't fire if you think you are better than

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Somebody else talks about starting with self compassion. You got to be kinder to yourself like all this stuff. I'm like, yeah, you're

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Reading my mail and you're pushing all my buttons

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I also thought it was interesting. She talked about the survival of the fittest that term which we typically associate with Charles Darwin in evolution

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That wasn't actually coined by Charles Darwin. It was trying coined by Herbert Spencer who was a white supremacist

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took Darwinism in a totally different direction

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Uh talks about how Darwinism and Buddhism consider compassion the greatest virtue and I would argue that Christianity considers that as well

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So like at this point, you know, I'm I'm on the same page

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but then we got into

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Part two and part three and it got weird

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Before we get to part two and part three

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Uh, there's a there's a couple points in here

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chapter two is why do we long for perfect and unconditional love

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and this is where she kind of gets into the concept of

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Finding your soulmate

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Which I've always thought is a bit hokey like there's one person in this planet made for you

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I don't think that's true. I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, that's totally bonkers in my mind

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and

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The number of times that Becky and I talk about this probably more than we should but

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If you're willing

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You can learn to be married to just about anybody

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if you're willing

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and committed which is

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Depressing to think about sometimes

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But at the same point

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It can show the commitment there too

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And part of that is because you know so little about a person even in the span of

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Say four years of getting to know them dating

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Uh, you still know so little about them that

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Once you're married, that's when you truly learn who each other is and it's at that point that you can start to become

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close, so

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I think the concept of soulmates is completely, you know bonkers and hokey, but

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Uh, you know, some people buy into it, but she's got a thing here saying how she's not even for it and has a whole story about another guy

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I don't even remember his name that told they had the op-ed that was

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about that. So I think that there's

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uh

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Definitely a desire to find the perfect person

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Like we tend to have that interest in finding a perfect love

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and

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Unconditional love and yet we are human

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And have our flaws and our quirks and our weirdness and that makes it sometimes a challenge to live with

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I know my wife deals with some

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Weirdness out of me. So love you dear and I I find that

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You know, sometimes I think people should be okay with

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the messiness and

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They would be better off, but that's not always the that's not the popular answer though, Mike

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Yep

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I agree with you

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um

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I believe

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that uh

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You make a commitment and you make it work and it can be a really rewarding experience

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But if you are looking for perfection, you will never

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Find it

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You can make it

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Better over time if you have the right perspective

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And in the New York Times

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Op-ed that you mentioned why you will marry the wrong person that was published in 2016

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I'll put a link in the show notes if I can grab it

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They talk about how we should stop longing for perfect love and focus on fixing ourselves

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I agree with that to a certain extent like if you're going to find fault find it in yourself

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But I would even change that and just say

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Look to serve somebody

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kind of back to the

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The last book that we were we're reading

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this whole chapter

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Is where she starts to talk about her story

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and uh

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I think

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This is the main reason she wrote the book

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She kind of talks about that at the end that this was kind of

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One of those things that was in here for a very long time and she just needed to get it out there

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um

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And that if that was the the sole purpose of it

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like that's

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valid reason enough and then like I said there are other people who probably resonate with this because she's shared

00:26:24

her experience and that's additional reason to

00:26:28

uh to do it and

00:26:31

Proof that this should exist in the world

00:26:34

However, like I don't think this is the right perspective

00:26:37

At least for me

00:26:39

uh, I tend to be selfish

00:26:41

I'm a selfish jerk to begin with like I don't need any help thinking about that

00:26:46

I've worked very hard to get my focus

00:26:47

I mean look at my action item for crying out loud last time

00:26:51

Ask how does this action benefit someone else?

00:26:54

And I think a lot of people are that way where they don't need they don't need more help

00:26:58

Being being selfish and looking inward kind of forces you to do that

00:27:02

Now what she's talking about here is like this

00:27:05

Thing that she noticed when she was in college and her friends are like why do you like listening to this funeral music?

00:27:11

Right, so that's kind of a foundation of her story like well, huh. Why do I like this?

00:27:16

Bitter sweet this melancholy type music and she talks about people whose favorite song is a happy song

00:27:22

They listened to it 175 times, but people whose favorite song is bitter sweet

00:27:25

They listened to it around 800 times so there's a deeper connection here and all that kind of stuff, but

00:27:31

um again, this is kind of like

00:27:34

Built on this foundation of this idea

00:27:37

Which maybe if you bought into this and then she destroys that argument right at the beginning with this op-ed

00:27:42

We don't have a soulmate

00:27:43

Then you're kind of looking for something else to latch on to maybe I've just gone through that process already and I've reconciled this in my head

00:27:50

But I didn't follow her during the connection of the dots here. She's egged and I zagged

00:27:55

Yeah after that revelation

00:27:58

Yeah, I think there's

00:28:01

There's a whole bunch of different directions. I feel like I could take this but she she definitely does start in on her

00:28:06

Story here and this is this is one point that I have that I think is interesting because you don't we don't see this in both

00:28:12

books very often at least the books that we read where

00:28:15

There's an actual story that carries through the entirety of the book

00:28:21

Right did you catch that like there's there is there's sub stories. There's obviously she's great at telling stories, but she has a through line

00:28:29

across the entirety of the book and

00:28:33

That from a reading of a book stance is gold

00:28:39

And I applaud her for that because that is not easy to do and I am very grateful that she was able to do that

00:28:47

Which is maybe why we're

00:28:51

Able to make some of these nitpicks that we're going to continue making here

00:28:55

But let's let's go on to chapter three and then because I think part two and three is where we're going to probably spend a little more time here

00:29:01

but

00:29:02

chapter three is

00:29:04

Is creativity associated with sorrow longing and transcendence?

00:29:09

And and her reasoning for asking this question is that if you look back at art

00:29:14

Music etc all of the creative endeavors that people partake in

00:29:20

if you if you look at those a lot of times some of the greatest works of art are

00:29:26

they come out of

00:29:29

sadness or sorrow and grief in some form and

00:29:35

That doesn't necessarily like her point here is that that doesn't mean you need to live sad

00:29:39

Like that's that's not her call just that whenever you have those times

00:29:45

Creating is sometimes a great avenue to

00:29:49

Release those feelings and to come to grips with those

00:29:53

Emotions, I don't think it was in this chapter there was there was one later

00:29:57

Where she was telling the story of a girl whose dad passed away

00:30:02

and

00:30:04

She was basically stoic and was trying to act like nothing had happened

00:30:08

And it wasn't until she had an english teacher hander and notebook and told her to just write

00:30:12

Right like no one's going to read it

00:30:14

That she was able to process her her feelings about it

00:30:18

You know that that concept of creating things in the midst of pain

00:30:24

Can be a very good

00:30:27

process for

00:30:29

Working your way through that

00:30:31

But i'm also aware that like at this point in the book we're still on sad

00:30:35

In the midst of bittersweet right i'm still waiting for the sweet side

00:30:41

There's that

00:30:43

Yeah

00:30:44

When I got to this chapter uh it recalled the uh

00:30:50

Introduction she talks about the cellist of serie evo

00:30:53

Who went out to this field and played his his cello

00:30:58

When the bombs are going off all around him and there's this famous picture of

00:31:02

Have it has his head in his hands holding his his cello

00:31:05

And uh if you listen to that that music that's kind of the the introduction to the book and it it is a very effective way of

00:31:13

highlighting the emotional

00:31:15

Impact that music like that can have

00:31:18

And before she gets into explaining that that's the type of music that she's uh that she's naturally gravitates towards

00:31:26

And so in this chapter is kind of what i was expecting is like

00:31:29

How you can do your best creative work birthed out of that

00:31:33

Sad emotional traumatic experience and how to like spin that around or whatever

00:31:39

Not exactly what i got here

00:31:43

Which is which is fine

00:31:46

She starts this chapter by talking about people working the arts are eight to ten more times more likely to suffer mood disorders

00:31:55

She talks about

00:31:57

Um, her life story tends to go from happy we were born to sad where where we die

00:32:03

And uh

00:32:06

Tells the story of the violin prodigy. I mean i play violin so i liked that story it had her

00:32:12

Prize stratovariest stolen and in the end like after being completely crushed by it

00:32:17

She decided it was a good thing and she moved on not being ill not being tied to a single instrument in her whole life

00:32:23

Like this one just kind of felt like it was all over the place

00:32:26

But really what i was thinking as i was going through this was

00:32:28

What impact does the stuff that i make have

00:32:33

Again going back to chalice of seria, but i grew up playing violin i played with symphonies and orchestras like i

00:32:40

I know how moving those slow sad pieces

00:32:43

Can be sometimes i'll be playing one, you know and there's

00:32:49

Nothing going on in my life and then all of a sudden i i play this song and i get done and i feel like i'm gonna burst into tears

00:32:55

so like

00:32:57

That's just the way the way it is and uh

00:32:59

I wouldn't say i naturally gravitate towards that kind of stuff, but i i do appreciate those those pieces

00:33:06

And i but i don't want to

00:33:09

Stay there is there something wrong with me i mean

00:33:12

At this point in the book i feel like she's kind of not explicitly saying

00:33:16

Well, there is like you got to dig deeper and find that stuff

00:33:19

Otherwise, you're just kind of hiding behind the the toxic positivity

00:33:24

She didn't say that but that's kind of like the thought that's going through my head is like well, am i doing that?

00:33:29

And so i kind of wrestled through that while i was reading this book, which is why this one took me a while

00:33:33

um kind of where i landed with this

00:33:36

Was that uh, i don't think it's it's bad to uh like

00:33:41

in the

00:33:44

online world a lot of people tend to just share all the good stuff that happens and that actually creates a lot of

00:33:51

negative feelings for people with social media specifically because we compare our reality with everybody else's

00:33:57

Projection, right? We say all my life isn't like theirs and we get upset

00:34:01

So i don't think

00:34:04

The answer is to pretend that everything's great and

00:34:06

Nothing bad ever happens, but i also just recently stumbled across there was

00:34:13

uh

00:34:15

Forget if it was tick tock or where there was somebody who became famous like viral because

00:34:20

They would just get on and they would record the selfie style video and just complain about how everything sucks all the time

00:34:27

And i remember watching that and feeling like

00:34:31

This is not helpful

00:34:34

So i think generally i want to put out more positive into the world

00:34:42

um, am i wrong for

00:34:44

For wanting to do that i don't i don't think so. Uh, is that right for everybody maybe not

00:34:50

But uh at at this point in the book and in chapter three here where

00:34:55

I feel like i'm being told that

00:34:58

Creativity should be rooted in sour longing and transcendence like

00:35:02

Because that's what all the the masters do you know people who are doing this professionally

00:35:09

This is the way they're wired that's kind of how it starts at the the beginning

00:35:12

I don't think i'm wired that way at least i don't want to be wired that way, but i'm going to keep making stuff anyways

00:35:17

Yeah

00:35:20

i'm glad you are

00:35:22

This is this is similar to like when people

00:35:25

Bemon like twitter is just a toxic cesspool like i hear people say that it's like well

00:35:32

You're following the wrong people like stop following the toxic people

00:35:37

Like this isn't difficult

00:35:39

Like you chose that but that was your thing it didn't just happen. So you you made that choice. So i don't know

00:35:48

I don't know that I

00:35:52

jumped into her

00:35:54

viewpoint of saying that

00:35:56

Create creative endeavors need to come from a place of sadness like i don't think it

00:36:02

I don't think she ever made that comment like went that far with it correct

00:36:06

Those are just my brain connecting the dots right right. I just wanted to clarify that. I don't think that's

00:36:12

where it was

00:36:15

pointed but that

00:36:16

It is a place that makes it maybe easier

00:36:20

to come from but I

00:36:23

This is where I start to deviate a little bit because I don't know

00:36:27

I I don't know what that would mean in my world like that

00:36:35

if i'm if i'm trying to connect deep with emotions and again i'm saying this as someone who

00:36:40

Uh, you know, I can watch cartoons with my kids and get emotional over them like i'm one of those people

00:36:47

The number of times i've wished I didn't want to cry at these silly horse movies like

00:36:53

And hallmark movies like I don't like watching them, but I will cry at them which is weird

00:36:58

So it's it's one of these things that I know that this is the type of thing that I

00:37:03

Connect with and yet I don't know that I

00:37:06

agree with this concept of trying to create out of sadness like there's so much that

00:37:11

And maybe this is because i've dealt with, you know, so many

00:37:15

Morning families with funerals at at my day job at work and having to help people work through

00:37:24

You know ridiculous pain

00:37:27

That I don't even want I don't even want to mention here because it's it's it's just hard

00:37:33

but

00:37:34

There's a lot of difficulty that people have had to work through and having

00:37:37

Worked with people in those scenarios like the last thing I want to try to encourage them to do is go make something

00:37:43

Yeah

00:37:45

I I get that that could be a good thing

00:37:48

And that that works for some people, but I think there's there's an important foundation that has to be in place before that

00:37:54

Works and that is that you have to have been making things beforehand

00:37:59

as well like this would just be an outpouring of a continuation of a creative endeavor not

00:38:04

a new thing that you're taking on because of the

00:38:08

better

00:38:11

Thing that happened because again, no sweetness yet, but the

00:38:15

That that I think is an important

00:38:18

Foundational point that needs to be made here in that like that has to be in existence beforehand

00:38:24

I think now I could easily be convinced otherwise. That's just kind of my initial

00:38:29

take on that but

00:38:31

It could go a whole bunch of different directions

00:38:33

Well, we do have the seeds of sweetness here because she talks about how the goal is not to let go of the past but the transform

00:38:40

pain into creativity

00:38:42

Death into life. I feel like I agree with that

00:38:46

Statement generally speaking

00:38:50

Um, but that also seems kind of contradictory to the tone and the overall message of the rest of the the book

00:38:58

so one one thing I want to point out here with this chapter specifically

00:39:02

Is she's sharing her story and she's gone through some stuff

00:39:07

She lost a couple people to covid

00:39:11

and she mentions that in the the book

00:39:14

And she shares a lot of stories of people who have gone through really traumatic experiences

00:39:19

You were talking about how you deal with some of that stuff at the church and yeah, I don't want to pretend like

00:39:26

I have any sort of

00:39:28

Advice for somebody like that because I haven't been in that situation

00:39:33

I'm not going to tell somebody just get over it

00:39:35

Which is kind of what she's pushing back against throughout this entire book and I agree with that completely

00:39:39

But also like what do you do with that then you can't stay there either

00:39:44

she's even kind of alluding to that in this this chapter and

00:39:49

I think I would say you do need to end on a positive

00:39:55

And it kind of feels like she doesn't think that is the right

00:39:58

Approach

00:40:00

Other thing I want to say here is like the fact that I haven't gone through something like this

00:40:04

Does that mean that I should not make something? I don't think it does

00:40:09

I think you should make stuff whether you think you've got something to share or not

00:40:14

Doesn't matter if you've gone through something super traumatic or not if you've gone through something super traumatic share your story

00:40:19

Absolutely, you're going to help other people who have gone through that sort of thing

00:40:22

But if you haven't gone through something super traumatic doesn't mean you have nothing to contribute

00:40:26

Yeah, that's totally true

00:40:28

Yeah, don't get hung up on it if like don't don't sit around and wait for the sadness. I guess

00:40:33

But that would be the the point to make there let's go on a chapter four

00:40:38

Because then we can get into part two, but chapter four is how should we cope with lost love

00:40:43

and

00:40:46

To be honest, I I feel like this was her

00:40:50

Trying to just share some of her pain

00:40:53

but there's that

00:40:55

uh

00:40:56

That might be

00:40:58

insensitive of me, but anyway, they

00:41:00

How do you deal with lost love? She actually breaks this down into a three

00:41:04

A three part thing here right at the end of this chapter. Did you catch this?

00:41:09

uh in like three paragraphs here

00:41:12

uh

00:41:13

basically there are things to be aware of

00:41:15

In order to know how to deal with lost love

00:41:19

And one the first of those was that the loss

00:41:21

Helps shape your psyche like they start to lay down patterns for interactions like you need to be aware of that

00:41:28

two

00:41:30

No matter how much therapy work you do this could be

00:41:34

your Achilles heal for life

00:41:37

and three

00:41:41

The love that you lost or that you never had uh that love likely exists forever

00:41:48

[laughs]

00:41:49

Those are her three ways of dealing with

00:41:51

uh lost love which

00:41:54

Isn't a way of dealing with lost love really

00:41:58

Because and I say that knowing that the assumption in the question is that you can get over it

00:42:03

Quote unquote get over it or let it go like that seems to be the assumption in the question

00:42:09

Of that chapter and yet that's not the point

00:42:13

like I think her her point here is that

00:42:16

rather than

00:42:18

Be upset or worry or get sad about the fact that you've lost something

00:42:23

You can enjoy the fact that you had something great

00:42:28

And just know that that's going to impact you for the rest of your life

00:42:33

That's that's basically what I what I took from it. Maybe you got something different from it though. Mike

00:42:38

I don't know

00:42:39

I I jotted down those same three things in my

00:42:42

My mind node file and I also don't know what to do with them

00:42:46

There's a couple things in this chapter that seem kind of contradictory to me

00:42:51

And again, that's just based on my own

00:42:54

Syntopical reading back from how to read a book

00:42:57

Uh, she mentions the place you suffer is the place you care. I agree with that completely though the word passion

00:43:05

Is the the root word for that is the latin word petit which literally means to suffer

00:43:10

So passion is not doing what you love and having fun and being joyful all the time

00:43:15

It is caring about something enough to suffer to see it come to come about

00:43:20

Um, and then she talks about dr. Steven Hayes who identified seven skills for coping with loss

00:43:27

I jotted these down too because I feel like these were

00:43:31

Very important the way she was presenting them seemed like they were going to be foundational

00:43:35

But I got questions with these so the first five involved acceptance of the bitter knowledge that a loss has happened

00:43:41

Embrace the emotions that accompany it accept all our thoughts feelings and memories

00:43:46

Expect that sometimes will be overwhelmed with you so far. You went through something awful

00:43:51

It's gonna take some time to get through it. This last one though watch out for unhelpful thoughts

00:43:56

What's an unhelpful thought she gives some examples? It's all my fault life is unfair. I should be over this already

00:44:02

but I think there's a whole bunch more that you could add to

00:44:07

this list

00:44:10

And the thing that's going to make it unhelpful

00:44:12

Is whether it forces or encourages not forces. I think the thoughts that you think

00:44:17

Um, we'll keep you where you are

00:44:20

So you're going to continue to dwell on this thing or they're going to help you to move on and if you're going to move on

00:44:25

What are you moving on to?

00:44:27

There's got to be something positive there

00:44:29

And I feel like that the last two moving from bitter to sweet connect with what matters and take committed action

00:44:36

How do you do that?

00:44:39

Without letting go of this bitter thing

00:44:43

I am having trouble reconciling that in my brain

00:44:47

And uh, maybe that's just my personality

00:44:49

Where when I

00:44:51

I really do have to completely release these things if I don't it's just going to eat me up

00:44:56

I have the type of personality where if I don't do that, it's going to keep me up all night

00:45:02

So that's not that's not good. I've had to learn to let those things go

00:45:07

That's why journaling and mindfulness meditation is bad as I am at it

00:45:11

You know it it helps because it's like, okay. Now I can let this go

00:45:15

But when you let it go, you have to pick something else to move towards and

00:45:21

Why would anyone pick something?

00:45:25

Something besides something positive that they would want to move move towards

00:45:30

And maybe I'm over simplifying this. I don't know

00:45:36

but uh, that's just

00:45:38

That's just where my brain goes is I'm thinking about these these seven steps like

00:45:43

Ah, I don't know connect with what matters what really matters

00:45:48

It could be this picture of an ideal future that you have it could be people who are really really important to you

00:45:54

Let's just take the the relationships one. Okay, so something really bad happened your previous spouse

00:46:04

Got gut sick and died like if you are going to stay

00:46:08

morning for them

00:46:11

You will never go find

00:46:13

Somebody else you will never move on from that and that's the trap that I see

00:46:17

Myself fall into and other people fall into is like this stuff happens

00:46:23

10 20 years ago and you just attach to it that there's a

00:46:28

When I was in high school

00:46:33

Actually the year after I graduated high school. I went to a small Christian school. There was some stuff with the

00:46:39

administration that went down with

00:46:42

My family and it it wasn't good

00:46:45

my

00:46:48

My parents held on to some offense from that for a really long time

00:46:53

um, I could see the

00:46:56

I saw the the fruit of that

00:47:01

That attitude right so the thing that happened in the past and and

00:47:04

I understood what had happened and and I had had moved on but I could see how like every single time I thought about it

00:47:11

It would it would eat him up and there are other examples like at one point with the family business. There was somebody who was

00:47:17

copying this uh anger management assessment that we had and

00:47:21

Total copyright just running all over the country with it and uh like my dad sued him at the end of the

00:47:29

The end of the guy's life. He he was sick and dying and didn't have any resources like

00:47:33

20 years later, you know finally caught up with him

00:47:36

But at that point like what good is it gonna do it for those last 20 years like every time you see the guy's name

00:47:41

TV or on the internet, whatever. It's like oh that guy, you know

00:47:46

I

00:47:48

I guess you know if you really want to if you really want justice to be done in this situation

00:47:53

You really want to make the situation right like go ahead and do that, but it just always seems so

00:47:58

So pointless to me

00:48:00

Um, it's like let's let's move on. Let's decide from this moment forward. What is the best thing to do not pretend?

00:48:07

Whatever happened that was bad didn't happen

00:48:09

but also let's not

00:48:12

Build our tent in the valley of despair

00:48:15

Winston Churchill, I think said uh one time if you're going through hell keep going

00:48:21

Yeah, don't stop. Yep. It's not where you want to be done. Mm-hmm

00:48:27

I

00:48:29

Think there is a there's a lot of truth in what you're saying, but at the same time I think there's

00:48:34

a bit of an expectation of the viewpoint that we're hearing

00:48:39

here like this isn't what I

00:48:41

Believe and what I would say is your correct path forward like if you're

00:48:47

dealing with difficulties

00:48:50

Sitting and marinating in those and and starting to become identified by those difficulties is

00:48:57

Easily the worst thing you could do in that scenario

00:49:00

Having watched that happen many many times. That's not

00:49:04

not the path forward

00:49:07

But to look towards something like to what's next like what you're saying

00:49:11

if you're not

00:49:15

And this is gonna go preachy a little bit my apologies if you're not christian and if you don't have

00:49:21

That faith in what comes next

00:49:26

What else do you hold on to like what should you turn to you know what I mean Mike like if if

00:49:31

You don't have

00:49:33

the future vision of where

00:49:35

You're headed after you're dead

00:49:38

What is there to to hold on to and what what is there to hope for

00:49:44

And look forward to and to make that next thing that you're going to move

00:49:48

From this difficult path into the next thing. That's that's the hard part with it. Okay. I won't go any more than that

00:49:55

but that's that's the thing I struggled with here is just I

00:49:59

I don't get what you're telling me to do other than just be okay with it

00:50:04

And live with it. That's that's really what I heard which

00:50:07

Is almost depressing in and of itself

00:50:10

Well, I I don't think that's exactly what she's saying because she mentions the wounded healer

00:50:15

Archetype and talks about how that was Jesus and christianity and yep

00:50:20

Exists in a lot of other

00:50:23

religions and mythology as well

00:50:25

And that the best way to heal yourself is to heal others

00:50:28

So

00:50:30

I agree with that going back to my original action item like

00:50:34

The best thing you can do going back to things that matter is have a reason to live that is bigger than your yourself

00:50:41

Correct

00:50:43

However, I have trouble reconciling that this terrible thing is the message that's going to help somebody

00:50:51

I feel like the message is going to help somebody is I know what you're going through and trust me

00:50:56

It's going to be okay because I got to the other side

00:50:59

So at this point it's kind of set up to go into like how these things go together better and sweet but instead we move on to

00:51:06

winners and losers and

00:51:10

the

00:51:11

The natural tendency we have towards wanting to be positive and everything and and I want to be clear like there's a very

00:51:18

Subtle byline with this which I completely agree with and that is that you can't just pretend that everything is fine all the time

00:51:23

you should not

00:51:26

put on a

00:51:28

Put on a smile and just pretend like stuff isn't happening

00:51:31

You know in the in the bible the book of songs is written by david and half of them he's

00:51:35

Oh god, you're so great and half of them are like god. Don't you care about me

00:51:39

My enemies have surrounded me. So like I think he's a great example of this

00:51:45

This that's a picture I have of this this bittersweet there's two sides to this coin

00:51:48

and maybe she feels because

00:51:51

We have so much tendency towards the positive that that isn't the side that she wants to emphasize and that's completely fine

00:51:57

However, that is the piece that is is missing from this narrative at at this point and then she gets into the loving kindness meditation

00:52:04

Which I am aware of that I have heard of that before that is not for me though

00:52:11

No, not for me either it yeah, no, so you're talking about this positivity thing

00:52:16

let's go on to part two winners and losers and

00:52:19

And let's do there's two chapters in here. Let's do them both at the same time because I feel like they're really one

00:52:25

one part

00:52:27

How did a nation founded on so much heartache turning to a culture of normative?

00:52:31

smiles

00:52:33

And then the second one how can we transcend enforced positivity in the workplace

00:52:39

and beyond and part of the reason I want to kind of lump these together is because it's really about

00:52:43

Focusing on positive like positive thinking

00:52:47

both in culture and then also like

00:52:51

almost the in as she says the enforced piece in the workplace and

00:52:57

I feel like those kind of go together, but she starts off with the first chapter kind of giving the history of how we got here

00:53:02

in

00:53:04

America and how

00:53:06

we kind of had this journey of

00:53:08

trying to focus on the the bright side of

00:53:11

scenarios and always looking up and trying to look past our negative past and

00:53:17

Like this is this is part of what we do in the United States is like we want to make sure that the things that we did wrong

00:53:25

in the past disappear and that they never happened

00:53:27

and that we're always

00:53:30

smiling

00:53:31

Like things are going great

00:53:34

We were never bad like that's that's almost the mentality that you see

00:53:38

in the US and she does kind of give us the history of how we got to

00:53:42

To that point, but there's there's one story in the second of these chapters

00:53:47

Where she's telling the story of a worker and i'm not going to go into the details of the story, but basically he's your stereotypical

00:53:56

Uh, I have everything together

00:53:58

You know manager leader who knows all the answers can do everything right and yet

00:54:03

he's got a son that won't talk to him and a crew that's about to be

00:54:08

uh, put in scenarios that's quite dangerous honestly and they come to grips with all of that and work on the process of sharing their fear

00:54:18

and getting that out basically sharing those emotions and being willing to talk about the hard things

00:54:24

And that's what brought them

00:54:26

Together this is this is where we start to get some of these hints of the sweetness side of the bitter suite. I think

00:54:32

I guess we got some hints before but this is where you start to realize some of it

00:54:35

Uh, I I don't like the whole positive thinking world

00:54:40

Like that's always been like

00:54:43

Think great things like sure

00:54:46

I'll do that then what like this is

00:54:50

Kind of way

00:54:54

It's no secret that we're not big fans of the whole think happy thoughts culture

00:54:58

but the the thing is that

00:55:01

like that's

00:55:03

That's not necessarily

00:55:05

What am I trying to say?

00:55:07

Whenever you're able to get past

00:55:09

Some of that positive thinking and feeling willing to share the hard parts like the the difficult things that you don't want

00:55:16

Anyone to know about like if you're willing to open up and have those conversations. That's when the true connection happens

00:55:21

Uh, so yes, it can be challenged like this if there's a point in here where my definition of bitter suite comes out

00:55:28

It's this like it's it's very bitter talking about the things you are uncomfortable with

00:55:33

But it can be very sweet afterwards whenever you realize the relationship that you've built with that other person

00:55:39

Do that in a safe place choose the right person

00:55:42

That's beside the point. I'm assuming you're good at that

00:55:45

But if you're able to do that it almost always comes out for the better

00:55:50

It's my thought please do that. Just maybe not live on a podcast

00:55:57

I

00:55:59

I like the chapter five which she talks about the

00:56:01

the people that she met at Princeton

00:56:04

And they define this effortless perfection, which is the pressure to appear like a winner without needing to try

00:56:10

I definitely agree with that and I feel like that is toxic

00:56:15

She is absolutely spot on that we Americans

00:56:19

Love a good underdog story how you overcame the odds and became successful

00:56:26

I also think this is at the road of my issue with goals

00:56:28

because

00:56:31

What happens is

00:56:33

Somebody wins the championship and

00:56:35

They get interviewed and they say well, we knew we were gonna

00:56:38

We were gonna win because we had this goal at the beginning of the year and we worked really hard

00:56:42

We knew it was gonna happen, but every other team had the same goal

00:56:45

So we have this like bias towards people who

00:56:48

Are successful, but that's not the that's a factor maybe but it is not the

00:56:55

Defining factor because what about all the other teams that had the same goal that didn't get the other

00:56:59

47 teams had the same mission. Yep. Yep. So I think there is a real issue here

00:57:05

I should talk about how in some societies smiling is viewed as dishonest foolish or both. I

00:57:10

When I read that I was kind of like well, maybe I should move

00:57:13

South Korea because I don't think I I naturally smile a whole lot

00:57:19

but also

00:57:22

The the issue I have with this

00:57:24

comes from page 122 again. She's dipping her toes into

00:57:29

Christian

00:57:32

Beliefs, she says Christ dies on the cross but we focus on the birth and the resurrection

00:57:36

and she's using that to as a

00:57:39

a point of evidence for why

00:57:42

We to show that we we do this and I think she's making the argument that we we shouldn't really do that

00:57:50

but obviously that statement

00:57:52

I interpreted it quite a different way. I mean, well of course because that's not the end of the story

00:57:59

That's the whole point

00:58:03

so

00:58:05

This is not landing real well with me at this point other than to say like I agree that

00:58:09

We have a bias towards this. What do we do about that? I think we just recognize it and

00:58:14

Try try not to pretend that everything is is great all the time when it's it's not

00:58:20

and then the

00:58:21

Last chapter chapter six she talks about the university of Texas study that shows people who wrote about their problems were calmer and happier

00:58:28

so

00:58:29

if I were to sum up everything to this point

00:58:31

It is

00:58:34

Don't pretend stuff didn't happen move on and be okay being okay and journal about stuff

00:58:40

This is uh, this is actually where I have I have an action item from this book Mike. Okay

00:58:48

I'm guessing this is this is the type of book that Mike and I normally would come out of this saying

00:58:53

I don't know what to do with this book. I don't have any action names

00:58:55

um, I actually got one out of this

00:58:57

uh, and it's this is the

00:59:00

So much and maybe this is just a minnesota thing or northern or thing at midwestern thing. I don't know what it is

00:59:05

Uh people ask how are you good? How are you good? Like that that interaction is basically high back and forth

00:59:14

like that's that's really what that interaction is and

00:59:18

I I've always

00:59:20

I've always hated that interaction like it's always felt very fake and and not real to me

00:59:25

and

00:59:27

I I want to this this is going to be so weird and awkward at first and I know this

00:59:33

uh

00:59:34

I've got this whole morning questions thing now, right?

00:59:37

I want to ask myself how are you?

00:59:40

And I I want to try to get this into a single one sentence response that whenever someone asks me that day

00:59:47

How are you? I'll give them that response instead of good. How are you?

00:59:50

That's that's my goal

00:59:53

This could go south real fast

00:59:56

But it could also lead to some good conversations

01:00:00

I'm also aware that whenever I respond with something other than good. How are you?

01:00:05

And say

01:00:07

I'm exhausted and overwhelmed like if I say something like that

01:00:10

I have to be willing to have the conversation behind it, right?

01:00:14

Because it's it's it's more of an opening to a broader conversation

01:00:19

Whenever you do something like that. So I also have to be aware of that

01:00:23

Which means I'm probably not going to plan as much stuff for next week

01:00:25

Uh to do because I'm going to spend more time explaining in my life

01:00:30

Very likely, but I feel like this would lead to

01:00:33

Interesting relational conversations if if I was able and willing to do that

01:00:38

So I'm going to at least attempt it could be bad

01:00:41

Interesting we'll see

01:00:45

Yeah, the other response that people give all the time is just so busy

01:00:49

Yeah, yeah, super busy. Yeah

01:00:53

So I'm on board with you figuring out a different way to have that

01:00:58

interaction

01:00:59

I think maybe it requires a different question though instead of

01:01:03

How are you or?

01:01:05

Yeah

01:01:06

Yeah, I don't know that's that was the first starting point I thought of and I'm sure it may morph beyond that

01:01:12

Who knows we'll see

01:01:14

That's my thought you should just start asking people when you see him. Hey, what book have you read lately?

01:01:18

I have I've gone through periods where I'll ask people something other than how are you?

01:01:23

Like just like hey, would you do last night or you know, what's your favorite restaurant this week or you know, whatever

01:01:29

Whatever it is. I've done that before and people

01:01:32

what

01:01:34

Good. How are you like that's

01:01:36

No, I didn't ask you that question. Anyway, let's let's go on to part three

01:01:43

mortality impermanence and grief and

01:01:45

The first chapter there's three chapters in this

01:01:49

This part the first one should we try to live forever?

01:01:53

and

01:01:56

I know that this world exists

01:01:59

But I've never read or listened or heard

01:02:03

Seen anything from somebody who's like participated in this whole we can live forever world

01:02:11

like I know that people

01:02:13

have this mission

01:02:15

I I have always thought that it was like a

01:02:17

a view point that like yes, that's that's kind of what we're calling it

01:02:23

But actually we're just trying to help people live longer like that's kind of what I've thought of it

01:02:28

No, it sounds like these people actually think we could live forever in some way. I'm like

01:02:38

I don't think you understand things fully like this

01:02:42

That's like thought okay anyway

01:02:46

That aside

01:02:48

This whole chapter is basically about her going to a conference about

01:02:54

trying to beat death

01:02:57

Yep, and

01:02:58

It's of course got a range of people like what you're saying

01:03:01

There are people that the viewpoint that I originally explained in here that

01:03:06

That that are coming at it from the scenes of list to try to prolong human life

01:03:09

Like there are definitely people in that camp that go there. There are definitely people who think they can live forever

01:03:14

There as well. So and you've got the full spectrum of folks

01:03:18

from in the middle

01:03:21

But the part about this that I think is important is that she she doesn't really wrap this one up with a pretty bow at all

01:03:27

but but she does

01:03:30

Kind of elude towards the the idea that you may not necessarily want to live forever

01:03:37

in that the the shortness of life

01:03:40

Is actually the sweetness of life

01:03:43

Yep, and that that's what makes every moment count and that's what you should be

01:03:49

That that's why you should be taking advantage of the time that you have

01:03:53

So like that's that's kind of the story that I I want to come out of this from and she does kind of wrap that up

01:04:00

subtly in the end of this chapter, which I'm grateful for

01:04:03

but I am not a

01:04:07

Nor do I intend to be a I'm gonna live forever person

01:04:10

anytime soon

01:04:12

I I will be grateful that I

01:04:14

Will get my maybe maybe I'll get 80 years. I'll I'll be thrilled

01:04:19

If that happens and I could be done at that point

01:04:25

Yeah, so this chapter in the conference that she describes is really weird

01:04:32

however, I don't think this is maybe as

01:04:38

Let me put it this way. You probably know some people who buy into this at least a little bit

01:04:44

I think maybe this is a more popular idea

01:04:47

than a lot of people realize living forever. You think so? Well, maybe not the living forever stuff, but the

01:04:55

Extending your lifetime stuff. Oh that yes, absolutely 100% I'm with you on that part and I think both of them are

01:05:03

kind of

01:05:06

Crazy to be honest. I agree with the mindset

01:05:09

the closest I've ever gotten

01:05:12

to agreeing with anybody who has sought this way

01:05:15

Is Dan Sullivan the strategic coach guy who has done a lot of stuff that I really like including the unique ability stuff

01:05:22

he has this tool called the lifetime extender and

01:05:25

It's basically like he thinks he's going to live to be 156

01:05:31

And that's the basis of this tool that he has put together

01:05:34

but if you ask him

01:05:37

How did you arrive at this?

01:05:40

He's just like yeah, I thought it might be cool if I could really

01:05:45

Live that long. I don't want to live longer than that, but that would give me

01:05:50

Then I could live long enough to see my great great great grandchild or whatever like he had a specific point

01:05:55

And he's like I'm just gonna take care of my body and and like I'm gonna live that long

01:05:59

And if I don't live that long well, but I'll maximize the time that I have here

01:06:03

And I'm like

01:06:05

That's actually a really good approach. Yeah, but I'm not gonna go about telling people

01:06:09

Hey, I'm gonna live to be 156 like if I can be 80 90 whatever and still running half marathons

01:06:15

You bet I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna have that mindset that I'm going to be healthy

01:06:20

This is again like my issue with this whole

01:06:22

This whole book like if you're gonna focus on the negative stuff and the pains and the aches and the hurts

01:06:28

Again, you don't just pretend that stuff doesn't happen

01:06:31

But everybody that I know who's well, I just ran this this half marathon

01:06:35

And there are some older people and like wow, that's awesome that they're doing this at their age

01:06:39

Like when I get to be that old I want to be able to do that

01:06:41

I guarantee those people are not the bittersweet people that she's talking about right right and I

01:06:47

Given the option. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick that one that looks like a lot more fun

01:06:53

Now and so I feel like this is a little bit

01:06:56

She she went all the way to the extreme with this conference because this conference is literally people who think that death is a problem to be solved

01:07:03

And they are going to crack this code at some point and they are going to live forever and that's crazy

01:07:10

And but that plants the flag in the ground of like if you want to live a long life and be super healthy

01:07:15

like you're towards the crazy end if you're

01:07:18

If you're positive and joyful and not bittersweet then you're

01:07:22

Danger danger you're heading this way and I don't think that's that's true

01:07:26

And again, that's not exactly what she is is saying here

01:07:29

No, this is how I am connecting the dots in my head and I said at the very beginning

01:07:33

I wholeheartedly embraced the fact that I am not the person she wrote this book for

01:07:39

That's that's fine. She is a great writer has a lot of really great stories very well organized very well put together

01:07:45

But you're losing me at at this point

01:07:48

Yeah, yeah, I'm with you because if you go into

01:07:52

Let's just go into the next ones should we try to get over quote unquote get over grief and impermanence

01:08:00

and

01:08:03

Like like with this like trying to get past grief

01:08:08

And trying to get past the concept of impermanence

01:08:11

Knowing that we're going to die

01:08:13

It just seems strange to be trying to get past that point which

01:08:17

And this one I almost just struggled with what are you even getting at here?

01:08:23

Just the fact that you're going to die be aware of that. I think that's that's really I think the story

01:08:29

here but getting over it

01:08:32

I don't think

01:08:35

I don't think she would say that you should get over it based on what I've what I've read here

01:08:40

but at the same time like I know that some of the best things people do

01:08:44

after having gone through a

01:08:47

Death in the family and I say this knowing that in her case she lost both her dad and her brother her older brother to covid

01:08:54

Uh, I know that when people have dealt with extreme grief

01:08:58

One of the worst things they can do is try to suppress it and get over it and move on

01:09:05

uh, you're better off

01:09:07

trying to understand it and

01:09:09

Dealing with it for a period and learning how to incorporate new things in life without

01:09:16

Whatever it was person thing

01:09:19

Animal you lost

01:09:22

you know because those those are all

01:09:24

important aspects of your history now and

01:09:28

They do shape what your your future is going to look like so

01:09:34

I I don't think you're going to get over it and she wouldn't say that you need to get over it

01:09:37

She she would say that you need to to be aware of it to understand it

01:09:42

but

01:09:44

I don't really know

01:09:46

Where she would want you to go from there. I didn't really get that part

01:09:49

Out of this chapter. Maybe I just missed it

01:09:52

But I didn't catch it

01:09:54

Yeah, so let me address the the get over it part because uh, that's something she brings up specifically in this chapter

01:10:01

And she talks about how let it go is like a more temperate version of get over it and both of those

01:10:06

I felt like she was saying that that's the wrong approach

01:10:09

And and so I I agree with

01:10:13

That part of it. She mentions that death is what makes life precious and uh, she's basically saying you don't have to accept impermanence

01:10:21

but you do have to be

01:10:23

Aware of it this chapter kind of reminded me of

01:10:26

Being mortal by atul Gawande

01:10:30

you know a

01:10:32

One chapter summary of all the arguments from that book, but I like that book better

01:10:37

Yeah, just in as it returns to this particular topic

01:10:43

I feel she even mentions atul Gawande. I think in this this chapter, but he's he's the person to speak to this

01:10:49

Um, and that's not to say like her story doesn't doesn't matter, but uh, yeah this this chapter feels a little bit

01:10:58

weird

01:10:59

If I were to sum it up in a sentence, you know death is what makes life precious. So don't wish that it wasn't

01:11:04

Wasn't a thing

01:11:07

I guess that makes sense coming from the previous chapter with the crazy people who think they're gonna live forever

01:11:12

And talks about how some problems just can't be fixed

01:11:16

But that's kind of a weird place to leave it going into the

01:11:20

The next chapter here. There is an idea as she mentions in this chapter, which is kind of interesting to me defensive pessimism

01:11:28

Which is bracing for disaster

01:11:30

I need to think on this some more

01:11:33

because this is me

01:11:36

Really?

01:11:38

I yeah, I tend to think worst case scenario. What's the worst thing that could happen and then

01:11:42

What can we do to prevent that?

01:11:44

And uh, I don't think that's necessarily healthy

01:11:48

For me, but it also reminds me of something that

01:11:53

Ed Cole had said that faith and fear have the same definition

01:11:57

belief that what you can't see will come to pass

01:12:00

and

01:12:02

He talks about how faith attracts the positive fear attracts the negative

01:12:05

and uh

01:12:08

Susan can would probably not like

01:12:10

Ed Cole's writing

01:12:13

but um

01:12:15

I do

01:12:17

Yeah, and I I believe

01:12:19

I believe there's a lot of truth to that where if you're gonna think about the worst thing that can happen

01:12:26

you will

01:12:28

You'll create that sort of energy you will manifest that in your own life

01:12:33

and that's not going to be a good thing and

01:12:35

Even if you know, you're not just putting out positive vibes and saying, you know

01:12:40

That the power of positive thinking by norma vince appeal that would be a fun one as a follow up to this because it's all the way the other way

01:12:46

Um, I don't think you can just you know

01:12:50

Say words and your situation changes either, but there there is

01:12:55

Uh, there is something to that where like what are you focused on that's what you're going to gravitate towards I remember

01:13:01

Um reading a research study myself about how your brain can't differentiate

01:13:07

positive versus negative and so

01:13:09

if you uh

01:13:12

If if you were to

01:13:15

Your golfing, you know, and you're telling yourself don't hit it in the water. Don't hit in the water

01:13:18

Your brain is fixating on that point. It's fixating on the water

01:13:21

That's probably where your ball is going to go. You have to fixate on something else

01:13:25

You have to uh point in a different direction

01:13:29

Which again like going back to chapter four with those uh seven skills for coping with loss

01:13:37

I feel like the direction pointing towards the the positive

01:13:40

This is the thing to focus on after this. That is the piece that is is missing here

01:13:45

Yeah, let's let's do the last chapter here. Do we inherit the pain of our parents and ancestors?

01:13:52

and

01:13:54

This one's interesting she tells a couple of stories in here about how

01:13:59

uh

01:14:01

In one of those stories she's telling the story about how like the kids of the holocaust survivors

01:14:07

Seemed to have the same ptsd as the survivors themselves

01:14:13

Like they they had a lot of the same emotional damage and and and such

01:14:19

So it was inherited in that sense like the the pain and grief was

01:14:22

uh, definitely there biologically and physiologically

01:14:27

So because of that

01:14:29

Uh, it it means that we have to be aware of how much we let

01:14:35

the

01:14:38

The troubles and difficulties of our

01:14:41

ancestors and how much we let that impact us

01:14:47

Taking on the grief of someone else whether it's family or not or

01:14:50

Taking on the pain of someone else now. I say that knowing that sometimes that's good

01:14:55

Sometimes it's good to know

01:14:59

Or to take on someone else's pain because they're not able to fight for themselves

01:15:03

And you can take that on as a mission towards good. You can do that

01:15:07

Uh, that's not what she's talking about here

01:15:09

At least not the way I understood it

01:15:12

The the way I I took what she's saying is like sometimes we take on the grief or pain from someone else and it hurts us

01:15:19

And we're not even aware that we're doing it like it's not a conscious taking on of someone else's

01:15:25

Difficulty or or troubles. It's us taking it on

01:15:29

Unwillingly, I guess or unknowingly unknowingly is probably the better word there

01:15:36

So when we do that we can start to act and and do things that we don't want to be doing without realizing that we're

01:15:44

Making bad choices because we've taken on somebody else's

01:15:47

Pain and she does tell the story about how

01:15:51

She had taken on

01:15:53

There's a whole backstory because again, we were talking about like her story is told throughout this whole book

01:15:58

Uh, her troubles with not troubles, but her difficulties in in relationship with her mother

01:16:06

Is a through line in this book and she explains how she overcame her inability to talk about her mom publicly

01:16:14

Uh through the process of understanding that she had taken on some grief

01:16:18

Of her mothers that wasn't hers. She had her own in that relationship, but she took on her mother's

01:16:24

Responsibility for her mother's grief

01:16:26

As well. This doesn't help in in most cases. So

01:16:31

Uh, I am grateful that she at least makes that claim here at the end because it is it is easy to take on somebody else's

01:16:37

Pain without knowing it for sure. I think this is obvious to most parents

01:16:45

Um, at least it is obvious to me as a parent where

01:16:50

I notice that if I am

01:16:52

Stressed out about something my kids are stressed out about something and she's talking about this more at like the epigenetic level

01:16:59

How your genes actually change and you can pass it from generation to generation

01:17:03

But that makes perfect sense to me

01:17:06

And the big point she's making is that if trauma can pass from generation to generation, so can healing you can

01:17:12

stop the

01:17:15

the curse with

01:17:16

Yourself like you don't have to continue

01:17:18

This thing that you has been passed down your your family line and that's a really powerful idea

01:17:26

Again, I've got maybe different thoughts on how that happens

01:17:30

Based on my belief system, but I am in agreement with uh with this

01:17:36

I also think though that this is kind of a weird place to

01:17:39

To end the book like I like I said, this is a weird arc

01:17:43

Because we've gone from sorrow and longing and kind of waiting to get into the positive side of that into

01:17:50

winners and losers and why are we so obsessed with uh

01:17:54

toxic positivity as a as a uh American culture and now we're dealing with

01:18:01

death and

01:18:03

Passing things on to our children

01:18:05

Uh, this is hard for me to reconcile in my my head

01:18:10

So in isolation, I feel like this is actually a really great ending to the

01:18:15

the book

01:18:17

You have the power to change this not just for yourself but for everyone who comes

01:18:21

after you

01:18:24

But it doesn't

01:18:25

When it went taken in the the context of the the whole flow of the book. It doesn't really do it for me

01:18:30

Well that she does try to wrap things up here. She's got this coda at the end of it titled how to go home

01:18:38

and in this

01:18:41

like when when you hear that phrase how to go home like

01:18:45

There there are two things that come into my mind immediately one is baseball

01:18:50

Like how fast can I run the bases how to go home? Like that's that's what goes through my head first

01:18:56

uh second is

01:18:59

uh leaving this world and going into

01:19:01

The world we're going to afterwards having her hell like that's where my brain

01:19:06

jumps to

01:19:08

and

01:19:09

knowing that she's

01:19:11

agnostic slash

01:19:13

Maybe still somewhat atheist

01:19:15

uh

01:19:17

I wait what like I struggled with what do you mean by this?

01:19:21

and

01:19:22

She tries to like put a put a bow on the whole book and ends it with

01:19:26

the words of

01:19:29

her father the lat which

01:19:31

her last words with her father were over the phone due to covid and uh

01:19:36

She ends with that and

01:19:40

That would have all the indicators to me of going to heaven like going home, but I don't think that's what she's

01:19:48

intending with that phrase maybe i'm wrong on that

01:19:51

Because I don't think she fully spells it out or if she did I missed it which is very possible because Jo's scatterbrained

01:19:58

uh

01:20:01

I felt like what she was trying to to get across is that

01:20:04

Whenever you come full circle here whenever you you have the sad

01:20:09

Moment at the beginning if you can use that to get to some of the sweet points like you've then come full circle on it

01:20:16

I think like that concept is what she was trying to

01:20:19

Pull together, but she spent so much time on the sad side of

01:20:24

This and dealing with the painful side of the term better sweet that it didn't really get there

01:20:32

For me, so I finished this feeling like wait what

01:20:36

Now what like that that was how it ended

01:20:39

For me and I felt like there needed to be like another

01:20:43

Another wrap up of the wrap up in order to get it to all to tie off there

01:20:47

I don't know. Did you figure it out?

01:20:50

I

01:20:51

Wrote down two things from this this code up which really have nothing to do with

01:20:56

The story and the narrative that she was

01:20:59

Was okay. Well done. That's how I take notes with books though is like I just jot down this stuff that stands out to me

01:21:06

I'm not trying to recreate the the arguments of the book itself. I'm trying to figure out how do I get something out of this

01:21:13

The things I jotted down are what are you longing for?

01:21:15

And the second one is that the sacred and the miraculous are everywhere

01:21:20

I feel like both of these are religious ideas

01:21:23

So again, it's kind of weird that she's agnostic sounds like she grew up Jewish

01:21:30

Her dad was sounds like not a practicing Jew though. Maybe that's what fueled her agnosticism

01:21:39

I don't know. I've that that that is what it is. I'm not trying to trying to judge that but for me

01:21:44

I feel like this is something that I have wrestled through. I mean faith-based productivity is built off of this

01:21:50

What am I longing for? What is my purpose? What is my vision?

01:21:53

I call it a life theme and I haven't memorized it is to help people answer the question

01:21:57

Why am I here by inspiring encouraging and teaching them to connect to their calling discover their destiny live a life they're created for?

01:22:03

That is very very very very very important to me

01:22:07

Everything I do gets filtered through that if it's not connected to that then I'm not doing it

01:22:12

So I know what I'm longing for

01:22:14

The trick for me

01:22:16

I guess is recognizing the sacred and the miraculous and the the day-to-day and because I feel like those moments are there and you can easily

01:22:22

Miss them when you're just moving on from from thing to thing, but

01:22:24

What does that have to do with being bittersweet? So like that doesn't tie into her story arc. I I feel

01:22:31

again, like this is where she's putting a bow on her relationship with her mom and

01:22:37

All the personal stories she's been telling and if that this was just a therapeutic way for her to share her story and other people who have been through the same sort of

01:22:44

Things to resonate with her telling her story. That is completely justified

01:22:49

Reasoning for this book to exist, but at this point like it's just solidifying

01:22:55

Not the person this book was written for

01:22:57

Totally fair totally fair. I feel like I want to like do wrap up thoughts here

01:23:03

Which means we need to get through action items so that I can get to style on reading

01:23:07

Um

01:23:08

Which I have one of unless there's something else you want to say before we go there. Nope. I'm good

01:23:13

Okay, so I have one of one action item that I collected which was the

01:23:18

Coming up with a different response for how are you an honest response? Not just good. How are you like I don't want to do that

01:23:25

Uh over the next two weeks. So that's that's my attempt

01:23:29

We'll see how bad that fails

01:23:32

And we'll have fun with it next time

01:23:35

I'll probably have some interesting stories for us

01:23:37

Would be my guess

01:23:40

We'll see maybe not I could be completely wrong, but that's that's what i'm gonna

01:23:44

That's the one that i'm gonna shoot for. How about you Mike?

01:23:47

I actually did not have any action items from the book itself. However, I'm gonna join you with that one

01:23:54

I'm gonna I'll do it a little bit different though. I'm gonna try to come up with a different question to use instead of how are you?

01:24:01

Yeah, at the very least i'll have some options and hopefully i'll have had a chance to test some of these and

01:24:07

Maybe I can report back on which ones worked and which ones didn't

01:24:11

Okay, that'd be good. I would love to get different questions to ask too. Yeah for sure

01:24:16

All right, that said let's let's go ahead and do

01:24:20

style and rating here and i'll i'll kick us off but

01:24:24

uh

01:24:26

The one of the things that I I love about what susan cane did here was that

01:24:31

She has this story that she tells across the entirety of the book

01:24:35

I mentioned that earlier like that's not easy to do

01:24:39

to have

01:24:41

Nine chapters here across three parts that are split up three or four two and three

01:24:47

Like in order to do that

01:24:49

It takes quite a bit of time and you have to know your whole whole line of thinking

01:24:57

Probably not before you start but you have to be willing to do a lot of work to get that put together

01:25:01

So i'm aware of how much work went into that

01:25:03

Uh, so I applaud her absolutely for that and it's a good story to tell i find

01:25:09

uh as far as a you know tell us your story and how you got to this point and

01:25:14

What is it that you have struggled with that you've dealt with that you've?

01:25:19

Contemplated when it comes to the topic of the book which in this case would be

01:25:25

bittersweet

01:25:27

however, I think the disconnect that I have here is that

01:25:32

This appears to be a book designed to talk about the topic of being bittersweet

01:25:40

and

01:25:43

being aware that bad things happen in life

01:25:46

But there can be a good side to that

01:25:51

Like that that is the topic that I think this is designed

01:25:53

Or intended to to go around but what I think actually needs to happen is here

01:25:59

She she really wants to write her own memoir

01:26:02

I I think that's what needs to happen. What this was want like what really needed to be

01:26:08

here and

01:26:11

That's not necessarily bad

01:26:13

But I I think trying to sell a nonfiction book called bittersweet

01:26:18

By someone who already has a highly successful book

01:26:21

Uh is a lot easier than selling that person's memoir

01:26:25

Would be my guess. So I don't know if that was part of the conversation

01:26:31

I don't know I like you know like steven saying in the chat

01:26:34

I don't know what her motives and intentions and the meanings behind so many some of these things

01:26:41

Are I feel like that's what we're trying to get to

01:26:45

Like we're trying to understand what those could be. That's not necessarily bad

01:26:49

It's interesting to me that we're we're trying to discern what she meant by things

01:26:53

when

01:26:55

She's the one writing the story like I feel like you want to convey that

01:26:59

But we're trying to get at it from a stance of like where what is the basis you're coming from

01:27:04

Spiritually and I think that's because she made so many religious and spiritual comments throughout the entirety of the book

01:27:10

I find it very difficult to

01:27:13

grasp what you're getting at when you make a lot of spiritual and religious comments and and

01:27:18

Claims but don't spell out your own

01:27:21

Religious and spiritual beliefs like that wasn't clear

01:27:25

I didn't find it anyway. So like that that disconnect is is difficult

01:27:31

so

01:27:34

All of that said like whenever I'm trying to figure out what

01:27:36

Like would I recommend this to someone?

01:27:39

Probably not

01:27:41

Did it resonate with me? Yeah in a lot of ways like I I find that it was something that

01:27:46

You know that there are definitely parts of this that I was like, yeah, absolutely. I'm with you like this this had me

01:27:53

Crying at times because of the the stories that are there and like I had absolutely seen myself in these scenarios and

01:27:59

I can easily resonate with somebody else's

01:28:02

emotions

01:28:04

I don't think that means I'm sad all the time, which is kind of the implication. I feel like I got from here

01:28:11

Um, as far as the rating goes, I think I'm gonna put it at 4.0

01:28:15

Just because I know there's there's a lot of good comments here. I don't feel like I would agree with all of

01:28:21

The stuff that's here. I think it's good for some people

01:28:24

Um, but again, I don't think I'm gonna recommend it to very many people probably one-on-one like very specific folks

01:28:31

I can think of like two people off the top of my head that I would recommend this to the rest

01:28:35

Just listen to this podcast. You'll be okay. You'll be better off

01:28:39

So if you're wondering if you should read this or not listen to the podcast and share the podcast with your friends

01:28:43

That's that's the answer

01:28:45

Uh

01:28:47

So I'm not sure I agree with the recommendation to listen to the the podcast

01:28:52

But that's just my perspective on the book because I feel like if people are tuning in to hear what I think i'm gonna steer you away from this

01:28:59

Uh

01:29:01

But I at least recognize my bias. I guess so I'll say that

01:29:05

um

01:29:07

I I guess I could say I could you know, there's a person that this

01:29:11

Could potentially resonate for but I can't put myself in that person's shoes and say oh, yes, this book was amazing

01:29:18

So I have really have a hard time

01:29:20

Rating this book. I will say Susan kane is a phenomenal writer

01:29:25

This book is very very well

01:29:27

Put together to accomplish the mission. I feel that she wants to accomplish

01:29:34

again, I've said it feels disjointed to me and I zigged she's egged like I

01:29:40

Can picture somebody though who is just in lockstep with her and

01:29:45

and her writing style and

01:29:48

all of her stories and uh

01:29:50

She really did like a a ton of experiential research for this

01:29:54

She's like I heard about this person and I flew to this place to meet with them, you know went to

01:30:01

So that type of thing is is really cool. Um, it's just not for me

01:30:06

So I guess I'm just not a bittersweet person

01:30:10

I'm gonna rate it at 3.0. I

01:30:14

Recognize that's just my rating. Maybe that's unfair

01:30:18

Maybe there's somebody that this is a 5.0 book for

01:30:22

but it's

01:30:25

I have a hard time picturing that the type of person that I know in my life that I would

01:30:31

Say yeah, you gotta go read this

01:30:33

I would definitely recommend quiet before this one

01:30:35

Totally fair

01:30:38

All right, we can put it on the shelf

01:30:40

You're you okay with that we can put it on the shelf. What's next Mike? I am okay with that

01:30:46

Uh, so next is here on a mission by donald miller. Maybe another one that I will have strong opinions about

01:30:54

We shall see

01:30:59

All right, super fun

01:31:00

super fun and then

01:31:02

After that, uh, is one that you cannot get your hands on quite yet, but by the time we get there you will be able to

01:31:09

Uh, tiago forte has a book coming out building a second brain

01:31:13

the more I've been getting into this whole note making thing mike's smiling because he knows what i've been doing and

01:31:19

He would love to go through this as well. So, uh, I think it'd be good for us to cover

01:31:24

We'll we'll get into this whole externalizing your thoughts thing and

01:31:29

And

01:31:29

This is probably a good excuse for us to have an entire bookworm episode to talk about it

01:31:33

Awesome. I I actually have this book

01:31:37

Oh, that's right. You got the pre-release. I did. Yep. So i've gone through it. It's it's going to be an interesting conversation

01:31:43

That's for sure. Okay. This is all right. Yeah, this is a very very good pick

01:31:47

Okay, good to know I don't have it in my hands yet. We'll see it doesn't release for I think another two weeks

01:31:54

We can have something like that. I don't remember what it is

01:31:57

11 days maybe I am I am interesting to see how this book launch goes for tiago because I know he's built a pretty successful business

01:32:04

on the building a second brain cohort based classes that he does and charges a pretty penny for those courses

01:32:10

and

01:32:12

this

01:32:13

book is

01:32:15

Maybe going to compete with that. I

01:32:17

Can't wait to see how this this shakes out for him. Yeah, I know that uh, just from following him on

01:32:25

Twitter. I know that he uh

01:32:27

Amazon plays such a large order that they had to start a second run on the book

01:32:34

Before it's even released. So I know that that has happened. So there's that nice

01:32:40

For what's worth

01:32:42

Uh, how about gap books mike we got?

01:32:44

I actually don't have anything

01:32:46

Picked out yet. I have not done well with the gap books. So I am hesitant to say I'm going to read one

01:32:53

I'm going to try and

01:32:55

I'm anticipating having a gap book I can report on next time

01:32:59

Because I've read other donald miller books. So I think I can get through this one fairly quickly. There you go

01:33:05

But I don't have anything. I'm willing to to put as a

01:33:09

Stake in the ground and say this is what I'm going to do by next time

01:33:12

Yeah, I actually

01:33:15

Uh, I just finished rereading things that matter. I just decided to read it again

01:33:21

Like right away. I've not done that before but I I took a step back and reread it

01:33:25

Before I jumped into bittersweet, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge because I ended up texting mike was it yesterday

01:33:32

It's like any chance you get time on monday

01:33:34

For recording. It's like I'm I'm a bit behind on this one. It was because I went and did another book

01:33:40

Right away and this one's not short. So there's that

01:33:44

So anyway, I did do that

01:33:47

so there's

01:33:49

I got it done though. We're we're here. So anyway, nice job that all said and done

01:33:53

Uh, thank you to everybody who's listened. Thanks to those of you who have joined us live always fun to have you guys

01:33:59

Join us when we do these live recordings. I should probably start scheduling those a little bit quicker

01:34:04

So more people know when they're happening. So I'll I'll take that action item for next time

01:34:09

Super big. Thank you to all of you who are on the the bookworm club membership plan

01:34:15

Super grateful for all of you if you haven't done that

01:34:18

Uh, go ahead and go over to bookworm.fm/membership

01:34:22

That'll take you to the forums where you can sign up five bucks a month get access to mike's mind node files some cool wallpaper

01:34:30

Awesome people to talk to like it's it's great. So we're super grateful for for those of you who have done that and we always always are appreciative

01:34:41

uh to those who

01:34:43

Hey the monthly because that helps us keep the lights on so we're super grateful for all of you. So thanks for that

01:34:49

Yes, we are

01:34:52

All right, if you are reading along with us pick up here on a mission by donald miller and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks