Bookworm Transcripts

00:00:00

You know my historically were really good about planning ahead and knowing when big events have come up

00:00:05

and

00:00:07

You know what we missed. I do know what we missed. We missed two things. Do you know two things that we miss?

00:00:13

One this is episode 150 and I don't have any trivia for you

00:00:18

The second one probably is the bookworm birthday. I think it was yeah seven years recently or something like that six or seven

00:00:29

So I think it's six because it's roughly 25 26 a year

00:00:34

Because you know half of 52 right and we're at 150 so

00:00:39

Here we are at

00:00:41

150 episodes and we're doing absolutely nothing special other than recording yet another book and

00:00:47

We completely missed our sixth birthday happy birthday bookworm

00:00:51

so

00:00:53

There's that we're great podcast hosts. We completely missed our big events

00:00:59

Yeah

00:01:01

That's okay. We will we will just continue to make

00:01:07

great pods

00:01:10

150 episodes and

00:01:13

Six years we are going to record

00:01:15

Another book for you. Yep. Yep. Exactly

00:01:20

So that said my big question for you Mike is did you take the standout assessment and was it's all?

00:01:28

You did dreamed did I got to find my results here, okay?

00:01:32

While you're hunting I did order a fan for my camera

00:01:36

I know that was an action item I had I have a fan point right at the back of the camera nice so

00:01:41

Hopefully we don't have this overheating nonsense happening once more

00:01:47

All right, I got my my report. Yes. I did take the assessment. It's a 13 page report

00:01:54

It's actually free to take so I would recommend people do it

00:01:57

there are nine roles and

00:02:00

They are advisor

00:02:03

connector creator equalizer influencer pioneer provider stimulator and teacher and

00:02:10

My two highest are provider and stimulator

00:02:14

Okay, which I don't know if I 100% agree with that. It's fine. Yeah, I

00:02:20

These types of assessments

00:02:23

Never land exactly how you think they're going to

00:02:27

I

00:02:28

Will I think that?

00:02:30

Just based on the definitions of those those different categories, which I've read the descriptions I

00:02:36

would wait creator a bit heavier and having gone through the unique ability thing I think

00:02:45

Other people might say the same thing about me. So it's not just my two cents. So I

00:02:52

Was a little bit surprised by the results creators actually number six on my list. So I

00:02:59

Don't think that makes a whole ton of sense, but the assessment itself is really well put together

00:03:04

you know how a

00:03:07

Lot of people will get paralyzed when they take assessments and the general vices just go with your gut whatever you initially think is

00:03:13

The right answer well instead of just trying to pick the right perfect thing, right? Yep

00:03:19

So instead of just telling you that they do two things number one

00:03:24

Every question is read aloud by I believe Marcus Buckingham

00:03:30

So before you even get to the answers you have to sit and listen to the question being read to you or statement being read to you

00:03:37

Okay, and then they time

00:03:39

The answers I forget how much time they give you for each response

00:03:44

But it gives you one question at a time and once the timer goes off then whatever answer you have highlighted

00:03:51

I assume that's the one that it selects and then it just moves on to the next one

00:03:55

So there's a forcing function you can't sit there and be paralyzed by the choice

00:03:58

It's gonna just pick one for you in a minute and a half or something like that sure know so it's a pretty clever way to

00:04:05

build an assessment in

00:04:07

my opinion I

00:04:09

Just I'm not so sure about these these results, but

00:04:13

I wonder if because there's there is a personality where

00:04:18

People will sometimes like they know themselves well enough that they're trying to process

00:04:23

what the answer is to the question based on what they know about themselves and

00:04:29

Sometimes I wonder if that just takes enough time that it may force you to pick something even though it might not be a hundred percent

00:04:37

Correct. You just haven't had the time to get it fully process totally get it that some people need that nudge

00:04:42

That need to be kind of forced into that. I am not one of them

00:04:46

I tend to pick the answers very quickly and move on give me like four seconds and I probably haven't selected

00:04:51

Yeah, but I know that's not that's not for everybody. So I don't know. I just kind of wonder if that maybe

00:04:56

Shoots somebody in the foot like a certain type

00:05:00

possibly

00:05:02

The other thing that I think is going on here because it is a free assessment the more

00:05:07

people you have go through the assessment the

00:05:11

more valid the assessment becomes

00:05:13

So it would not surprise me if this is still an early stage assessment

00:05:19

And they're trying to get it in as many people's hands as they can which is why it's still free and once they hit a

00:05:24

number of a hundred thousand or a million or whatever that then they start to charge for it so sure maybe

00:05:30

That contributes to the fact that it's free and also to the fact that they're still trying to dial things in in terms of the waiting of the

00:05:38

questions and things and

00:05:40

Why my results were kind of surprising to me

00:05:44

How how old is this test? How long have I been doing it? You know I?

00:05:48

Don't know but from reading the last book it sounded like

00:05:54

Marcus Buckingham had been at the

00:05:57

Strengths finder the Clifton company for quite a while and just recently gone out on his own

00:06:04

Those my impression. I did not look at when he made that move or anything though

00:06:09

Sure, no that makes sense

00:06:11

Cool well sounds like you have results that you maybe don't trust

00:06:16

So now what you do with it

00:06:20

Well, I'll keep them, you know, it's another data point

00:06:23

Right, but the more of these types of assessments that I do the more I can kind of spot the ones that are not quite

00:06:31

Right not quite in line with everything else. This feels not quite in line with everything else

00:06:39

The unique ability thing if I were to give somebody somewhere to start the unique ability is the place that I would I would go because that

00:06:45

Combines a couple different it combines the Colby it combines the Strengths finder and then it combines some some real world feedback

00:06:52

I know I had asked you and it's several other people

00:06:55

some questions about my strengths and things and so the whole idea is that you get people to validate what your strengths actually are and

00:07:02

That process was much more enlightening than taking the standout assessment sure

00:07:08

I kind of wonder if you know something like taking a whole bunch of these assessments actually can serve you well in the in

00:07:17

the

00:07:19

Collection of them more so than the independent

00:07:22

Test it's similar to like we know when a book generally doesn't follow

00:07:27

standard protocol as far as like this science just seems a bit iffy compared to all the other ones that we've

00:07:34

Read or this one has a section. It's very weak in comparison to the five other books that we read about habits

00:07:40

You know what I mean? Like so you can kind of pick the ones that

00:07:43

Don't really add up. I wonder if taking tests like these like these these assessments is similar

00:07:50

You take enough of them you can start to pick out which ones aren't quite right

00:07:55

Granted you have a little bit better skill at that than I do but that's

00:07:59

Working theory obviously

00:08:03

Yeah, I think there's probably some some truth to that and then ultimately

00:08:07

It's all just information and you got to do something with it. So you can decide for yourself which assessment you want to wait

00:08:14

more heavily

00:08:16

you know, what are the most important factors for you but

00:08:21

without digging into it too far I think the

00:08:25

the order of of weight that I would give to

00:08:30

These assessments this one's near the bottom of the list

00:08:33

sorry Marcus

00:08:36

It happens that it does

00:08:38

Well as far as my side like I mentioned earlier got a fan on the camera

00:08:43

So hopefully it doesn't overheat the other thing I had on my list was to go through the red thread

00:08:46

questionnaire, this is from our last book where

00:08:50

There was a series of questions that

00:08:52

That Marcus had for you to go through that would kind of help you identify some of the things that you

00:08:58

love to do just for you

00:09:00

whether it pays or not is and it just doesn't apply and I went through this and

00:09:06

at the end of the day

00:09:09

like there were some stuff I would I wouldn't say that anything was like super surprising but I

00:09:16

I discovered like there are some small things. I love to do

00:09:21

that make absolutely no sense, you know in the grand scheme of trying to earn an income which is kind of the lens that I was

00:09:28

originally seeing that through and

00:09:30

One of those is just like I like to build random organization stuff for myself

00:09:36

Thus like I've got a post out on all the different socials about this random wood scrap bin thing that I made

00:09:43

In the span of a couple hours. I saw that. Yeah, just total random thing

00:09:49

Makes my messy wood pile looks slightly less messy still looks messy, but it's kind of fun

00:09:55

I at least know where the different sizes of wood are now

00:09:58

Super fun, but just stuff like that is is kind of what I was discovering

00:10:03

But again, nothing really groundbreaking but at least somewhat enlightening at least kind of informs some minor decisions here

00:10:09

So I don't know that I would recommend people go through this questionnaire, but

00:10:14

It was fun

00:10:17

Didn't take too long, but that's me and I make decisions very quickly apparently

00:10:20

There's that

00:10:23

All right, all right, that said

00:10:25

Let's jump into today's book, which is do the hard things first

00:10:29

by scott allen and I originally picked this book because I know that I tend to

00:10:35

And a lot of people tend to procrastinate and I tend to put off things that I don't want to do like the hard things

00:10:42

You know, I tend to put these things off and don't want to

00:10:45

Follow through on them and then it can eventually become an issue

00:10:48

so I was trying to find a book somewhere in that territory to maybe inform my thoughts around that a little bit more and

00:10:55

Landed on this particular book what I did not know when I selected it

00:10:59

I need to get better about vetting books. I think what I did not know is that this is the first book in a series

00:11:04

Did you realize this? This is a whole series of books that he's got put together

00:11:09

I did not however

00:11:13

It does not surprise me and I feel like this whole series should probably be contained to a single volume

00:11:19

I'm okay with that. Yes

00:11:22

After reading this one I

00:11:25

I agree with you

00:11:27

It should be stuck right here

00:11:29

Uh, but yes, there are a whole series of books that follow this

00:11:34

And this one came out in 2021

00:11:39

And it's the first of those but you can order all the other ones

00:11:41

So it makes me wonder if he released them all at once it seems kind of odd

00:11:45

How that does in my mind you would release one and then release the next and keep going

00:11:51

But these seem to be all done at the same time, which is fairly substantial

00:11:54

Uh to say the least so anyway

00:11:58

That was my original choice

00:11:59

The the tagline on this is how to win over procrastination and master the habit of doing difficult work

00:12:05

And I think the two words in there that caught my attention were procrastination and habit

00:12:09

Because we like to talk about habits and I've struggled with procrastination for a long time

00:12:13

So I was thinking this would maybe help with that and

00:12:16

I'm still looking for a book on that mic

00:12:19

so

00:12:22

What were your initial thoughts on this because mine were uh, yes

00:12:27

I'll stop there

00:12:29

So, uh, I'm just looking it up

00:12:33

Real quickly you're right as part of the bullet proof mindset mastery series of which there are 10 books

00:12:39

Yes

00:12:41

Which is a little bit

00:12:43

surprising

00:12:45

Yeah, I was surprised that you picked this one to be honest

00:12:48

Uh

00:12:49

For a couple of reasons number one. I know you've shared

00:12:52

about struggles with adhd

00:12:55

And the thing that came to mind right away

00:12:58

Was the advice I saw in an atomic essay by jesse janderson

00:13:03

Um about

00:13:04

Eating the ice cream not the frog

00:13:06

Right, right and jesse is

00:13:10

Kind of the person when it comes to adhd productivity at the moment

00:13:16

He's kind of leaned into that angle. He's got a adhd nerds podcast that he records now

00:13:22

So, um

00:13:25

He talks about it a lot shares his own experience a lot and is kind of becoming

00:13:29

at least in my world the voice when it comes to this kind of stuff so that felt a little bit

00:13:33

contradictory to

00:13:35

the goal you had for

00:13:37

picking this book in the first place

00:13:39

the other thing and I I've dismissed this one pretty quickly because

00:13:43

I haven't read all the books on procrastination. I don't know which ones are the good ones

00:13:48

But my second thought was why didn't he pick eat that frog

00:13:51

That's like the book on overcoming procrastination

00:13:56

And then I'm and then I quickly dismissed that like not has got to be other good ones

00:14:00

I'll give this one a shot and then further along we went I was like

00:14:04

We should don't eat that frog

00:14:06

Yeah, I'm with you. I am and I and I know that

00:14:13

some of the rationale is that

00:14:17

I know that if I did the whole eat the ice cream thing first

00:14:22

Uh, I just eat ice cream all day long

00:14:26

So I know that that actually doesn't work for me

00:14:28

I mean it's good in principle, but it doesn't pan out

00:14:32

And I won't get to

00:14:35

the hard things at all. So I know that that works for

00:14:37

some people. I know it doesn't

00:14:40

for me and to be honest when it comes to eat the frog first scenario or

00:14:46

What was his name? Tracy?

00:14:49

Brian Tracy. Yep, Brian Tracy

00:14:51

Uh when it comes to his book, I completely spaced on it to be honest

00:14:55

I should not have spaced on it, but I did

00:14:58

Well, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to pick something else instead of that because

00:15:03

We've been in the productivity space long enough that you probably have heard

00:15:09

All the the good bits from that book

00:15:12

quoted by myself and others at this point

00:15:15

There wouldn't be a whole lot new there. However, I'd argue there isn't a whole lot new in this one either

00:15:21

Correct. Yeah

00:15:23

I suspect we could run through this fairly quick

00:15:25

Um, which I guess we should jump in so that our

00:15:28

complaints are

00:15:31

solidified for everybody listening

00:15:33

Um, but okay, so do the hard things first

00:15:37

Essentially that is the topic of the entire book of don't put things off do the hard things first so that you can get to the fun things

00:15:45

Okay, you can put the book down and move on now like that's

00:15:51

I feel like that's your your thing

00:15:53

Um, I do have a lot of things in the outline here just because there's like these real quick things that we could

00:15:58

Discuss but there's uh, this is a four part book

00:16:02

Mike

00:16:03

This is not a three part book plus an introduction. So if you want to count the introduction, that's five

00:16:07

so bonus bonus, but we don't normally do it

00:16:09

so

00:16:12

the the thing that stands out to me here is that

00:16:15

uh, there is a lot of like duplication of

00:16:20

stances and he reiterates things quite a bit here, but uh, let's just jump into

00:16:26

the very beginning of this so the introduction

00:16:30

why we do hard things last and

00:16:35

Basically, he's explaining what is procrastination putting things off and

00:16:40

telling you that you need to do something different in order to succeed and

00:16:45

this is where he originally starts to

00:16:49

Show his colors and sharing other people's stuff because he starts off

00:16:53

Not right away, but pretty close sharing some things from like Tim urban from weight but y.com

00:16:59

and is just kind of reiterating some of the things that are said there and elsewhere, but

00:17:06

Really, why do you do hard things last? Well, they're not fun. That's that's really the moral of the story there

00:17:15

I will say that this was my favorite part of the entire book

00:17:19

Nice

00:17:24

so

00:17:25

You mentioned he defines procrastination, which we've all heard before

00:17:29

but he does a pretty good job of leaning into

00:17:33

a unique angle on this, I think

00:17:36

which is the

00:17:40

Driving force behind procrastination and that's the prioritization of the short-term mood repair and emotional regulation over long-term

00:17:47

achievement and well-being

00:17:49

So the framing of that I feel is pretty solid

00:17:53

Like you're doing this because you're trying to feel better now instead of being better

00:17:59

in the future if I were to

00:18:01

paraphrase that

00:18:02

He talks about goals which exist in the future, but the problem is that you can only take action in the present

00:18:10

And he talks about how we're hardwired to

00:18:13

prioritize the the present

00:18:16

with time inconsistency he he defines it

00:18:19

That's the tendency of the brain to prefer immediate rewards over future rewards

00:18:23

And so there's enough unique stuff there that I feel like this is a pretty good setup for the the rest of the book

00:18:31

Um, however, I feel like that's about the extent of the original ideas in here

00:18:38

Uh, the rest of it is packaged into these different parts because that is where his lists of lists

00:18:45

are cleanly defined

00:18:48

There are so many lists in this book that they lose their

00:18:54

uh, that like normally you would create a list when you want to condense a whole lot of information into an approachable

00:19:00

approachable

00:19:03

You want it to be digestible by the person that's reading it. However, he goes from list to list to list to list to list to list

00:19:09

And they quickly just all meld together

00:19:12

Yeah, and and you can easily get lost in them

00:19:15

And the other thing too is if you're going to make a list

00:19:18

Of things that you want people to be able to remember

00:19:22

You either have to come up with

00:19:25

like two

00:19:26

Of these lists and make them memorable and make them not too long

00:19:30

and

00:19:33

You know, if you let's go back to building a second brain, right

00:19:36

uh, tjago forte had really two

00:19:38

lists

00:19:41

For you to remember para and code

00:19:44

Right and and we could probably both sit here and explain to you how both of those are supposed to work

00:19:48

even though it's been

00:19:50

a month since we read it now and

00:19:53

This is very different from that in that there are so many of these in there so long

00:19:58

That I started off trying to like write some of these down, but

00:20:03

Forget it. Did you manage to get these all written into your mind node?

00:20:05

File did you try?

00:20:08

sometimes I mean even the

00:20:10

the

00:20:11

Actual delivery of the list was kind of all over the place the table of contents is not really the chapters

00:20:17

There's a whole section in there. I think it's the fears

00:20:19

Where they will start they're listed in the table of contents, but they will start in the middle of a page

00:20:24

So you have no idea where the chapters are and then some of the quote unquote chapters

00:20:29

Like here are 11 things

00:20:31

About this topic and then there's a list of three and then there's a list of four and then there's a list of three

00:20:36

And then i'm like that's not 11

00:20:38

Yes, so

00:20:40

Some of these I was thoroughly confused by the ones that made sense. I jotted down

00:20:45

But I did not try to I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to

00:20:50

Figure out how to fit the square peg in the round hole

00:20:52

After a little while because I knew there was another list waiting for me in the next chapter

00:20:58

Yeah, and the one that really bugged me was that the formatting for them was different too

00:21:03

Like when he did have a solid like here are the 10 things

00:21:07

Sometimes he would just list them as he wouldn't even put a number in front of them

00:21:12

Sometimes they had a number in a dash sometimes they had a number and parentheses on each side of them like

00:21:15

Yep

00:21:16

If you're gonna have all these lists like at least be consistent with how you're going to

00:21:20

Present them. So I think he sorely needed an editor

00:21:25

I was going to say I will defend him because I think he self edited self published this

00:21:29

Um, it was just a bit that yeah

00:21:32

I noticed several typos which is the kind of thing that an editor would would find now as a fellow self editor self publisher

00:21:39

I'm willing to give him a a break there

00:21:42

Yeah, I do think if you really want to be taken seriously, you do get a dial that stuff in

00:21:47

Hopefully by the time I write another book. I'll have an editor who can help me with that

00:21:52

That would be great. But the other thing I want to mention here regarding the lists

00:21:56

Um, you mentioned like building second brain has a couple of lists and that is true

00:22:00

But I was also thinking through like what's the best application of a list like if I'm gonna

00:22:06

Use a book that we've read as an example of this is how an author could clearly communicate a message and make sure that it sticks in somebody's brain

00:22:14

The absolute best one that I can come up with is atomic habits by james clear

00:22:20

Because he frames the four laws at the beginning

00:22:25

And then he reframes them in the form of questions

00:22:30

So you've got the same list but different angles on it

00:22:35

For as you build out the rest of of your book

00:22:39

And what that does is it kind of anchors like this is the the key takeaway from everything that you're reading here

00:22:46

make sure that you remember these four things

00:22:50

And uh, cue craving routine reward, you know mission accomplished

00:22:54

Right and I feel like uh

00:22:58

Scott could could take that same approach with some of this stuff. Maybe

00:23:02

Maybe this book by the way is

00:23:05

simply supposed to be the

00:23:08

Like the definition of done for this project is he writes regularly and these are all blog posts

00:23:14

And he put them together in a book for people to buy and in that case

00:23:18

All my criticisms are invalid like if this is what he meant to do then that's fine

00:23:23

But coming at it from the approach of the other books that we have read

00:23:27

Yeah, one of these things is not like the other right

00:23:31

Yeah, totally get it. It reminded me a little bit of uh

00:23:35

What was the name of the book? Michael Hyatt wrote it and it was exactly that it was a conglomeration of his blog posts about

00:23:42

Making uh an online presence and building a personal brand online

00:23:48

Oh

00:23:49

I remember that one. It was red and white

00:23:53

Yes

00:23:55

And I can't place what the name of a story brand, but that's not it

00:23:59

No, but it it actually was just copy paste of a whole bunch of his blog posts and put together into a book

00:24:06

And I remember picking it up thinking I was getting something that was like

00:24:11

a rewritten

00:24:13

Thought out put together a process for that but

00:24:17

It was just copy paste off of a blog that I had read probably 90 percent of at that point

00:24:23

It's like, okay. Well, that wasn't really worth it

00:24:26

So it kind of turned me off to Michael Hyatt at that point

00:24:29

Which is kind of sad because you know, he's a good dude, but platform university. That's what it was. There you go platform. Yep

00:24:36

That's what it was

00:24:38

But I don't know. I feel like this is similar in that. Yeah, these are definitely

00:24:42

Short enough that they could be

00:24:45

Blog posts for sure, but yeah, the introduction

00:24:48

One of the stronger points probably

00:24:51

Uh, then we get into part one

00:24:53

Which is breaking fear minimizing excuses and the science of delaying gratification

00:24:58

and

00:25:00

This is this is where it gets messy as far as the

00:25:03

flow of the book because

00:25:06

It might be four chapters. Maybe it's five. Maybe it's nine nine. Yeah, I don't really know

00:25:14

I'm not sure how how this

00:25:16

is supposed to go, but

00:25:19

uh, the one that stood out is the

00:25:21

There's one called coping mechanisms and procrastination

00:25:24

And the part of this that I thought was interesting was the the coping mechanisms list because you know, it's all lists

00:25:31

and

00:25:33

How many are in here? Can I actually find them? He has these numbered these ones are numbered

00:25:37

And then he gives you solutions to each of them, but they are self isolation

00:25:42

distraction

00:25:43

comparison emotional distancing or minimizing

00:25:46

denial avoidance

00:25:49

Valorization or identification making big plans that never happen

00:25:54

externalization self blame or rumination

00:25:57

And he gives you a solution for each one of those

00:26:00

Uh, the problem with it is there are probably about three or four of these that overlap with each other if you really dig into them

00:26:05

Which gets to be a bit of an issue

00:26:09

Because then the question is which one is it actually so then trying to follow through with it makes it a challenge

00:26:14

but

00:26:15

Regardless of that

00:26:17

looking for the positive side of this

00:26:19

uh

00:26:21

These are all

00:26:23

coping habits, I guess would be the way I would put it in that we have a tendency to find excuses for doing hard things

00:26:30

And this is a very point blank list of ways that we do that

00:26:36

Like we're we're hunting for reasons to not do the hard thing

00:26:39

and if you feel like you have

00:26:42

justified rationale for not doing something

00:26:45

Uh, he does kind of quell that here. It's like, oh, no, mm-hmm. Nope

00:26:50

And he does get into like he got to take responsibility for this later, but

00:26:54

Uh, at least thought this list was helpful helping to identify some things

00:26:58

I was wondering if you were going to say that these lists were helpful or if they were just not

00:27:06

Uh, specific enough since like you said a lot of times there's overlap and it's a combination of factors

00:27:12

Um, it feels very prescriptive

00:27:16

I don't my first reaction when I read this was that there's no way things get categorized this cleanly

00:27:24

And the solution that you're presenting makes it seem so simple and so effortless

00:27:31

And uh, yeah, it didn't really sit super well for me

00:27:35

I also

00:27:37

I have to say that at this point in my life. I'm not the person he's writing this book for

00:27:42

Uh, that is not to say that I have mastered procrastination or anything like that

00:27:50

But a lot of these tactics I have heard before and so

00:27:54

the

00:27:56

Curse of knowledge, right? You forget what it's like to be a

00:28:00

beginner and hear some of these things and be like, oh pomodoro timer. I should totally do that

00:28:05

Oh my gosh that changed my life, right?

00:28:07

I've kind of gone through that already and I

00:28:09

Realize that that kind of works sometimes and I use it tactically, but it's not the thing that I I try to follow

00:28:15

All the time that the system that sort of thing

00:28:18

So I don't have a whole lot to add actually to these specific coping mechanisms other than to say in this chapter

00:28:25

I did like one specific phrase that he used

00:28:28

Which was run your race at your own pace

00:28:31

one of the things that I mentioned

00:28:34

Before we hit record I shared with you the slides that I put together for the max.comference

00:28:38

And as I was putting that together

00:28:41

There were a couple of tips in there like follow your own path and tell your story

00:28:47

And you don't have to go pro all that kind of stuff because

00:28:51

What happens is you tend to look at somebody who's doing something you want to do

00:28:57

and then you feel like that's the blueprint. I'm going to follow that exactly

00:29:01

and the most recent examples I have are people like David Sparks and

00:29:07

John Syracuse, uh

00:29:09

They're probably the most famous ones, but kind of the dream for every creator

00:29:13

Right is like I can go independent people are going to pay me lots of money to make my art

00:29:17

And if you can get to that point that is awesome. Absolutely go for it

00:29:20

But uh if you aren't in a position where you can make that leap because you don't have

00:29:27

Bunch people who are willing to pay you money for it yet

00:29:29

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, you know if we we're taking that approach with bookworm

00:29:34

We are just now selling ads 150 episodes in we have not made money from this podcast

00:29:41

Is it therefore not worthwhile doing because they're not a good return on investment?

00:29:47

I would argue no

00:29:48

If we were going to try to feed our families off of it. Yeah, then that is that

00:29:52

By that criteria. Yeah by that criteria. We should acquit a long time ago, but that's not yes

00:29:58

That's not the goal. So there there are ways that you can combine these things

00:30:02

And figure out the right mix for you and i've mentioned the Derek sivers that that balance

00:30:09

Quote that he had like how to

00:30:11

How to uh make good money and do what you love it's have a well-paying job and then do your art for the art

00:30:19

Right and get the joy out of doing it and that was kind of

00:30:22

That that was a light bulb moment for me. It's like oh well

00:30:27

Yeah, I could do that and I don't have the pressure to make the whatever I create

00:30:31

I don't have to do the

00:30:32

That's you if I don't want to because I don't have to sell certain number of copies of it

00:30:37

Pay the bills and all that kind of stuff but not having that pressure that would actually be kind of nice

00:30:41

You know, I would have a little bit more more freedom a little bit more ownership over with the stuff that I make

00:30:45

And ultimately I believe that in a long game

00:30:47

That's the kind of thing that resonates with your audience anyways, so

00:30:51

Long-winded way of yeah, you have to figure out your own direction

00:30:56

And you need to figure out your own timeline and anytime you're going to try to do something

00:31:02

Somebody else has done that should be a red flag. It's not going to work that exact same way again

00:31:07

Yeah, you got to pave your own path exactly. I mean you can follow what somebody else is doing, but

00:31:16

You got to put your own flavor on it. Just just copy pasting their stuff doesn't work

00:31:20

Because everybody knows who it came from

00:31:23

So yeah, pave your own path once he once you get through this he gets to

00:31:28

an introduction to fear

00:31:31

and

00:31:34

He has this explanation of how fear is a big part of what stops us from doing hard things

00:31:40

and that is what prevents us from

00:31:45

moving forward and then

00:31:47

We have a five chapter one chapter confusion point here

00:31:51

where he has five fears listed in the table of contents and

00:31:57

You could say it's all in one chapter because he's got them all

00:32:02

In one place and they don't line anyway. We've talked about this

00:32:06

The five fears that he has here are the fear of commitment

00:32:10

the fear of the unknown

00:32:13

the fear of discomfort

00:32:15

the fear of decision-making and the fear of negative feedback and I feel like these are all

00:32:20

Fairly obvious. I feel like these are all things that we've kind of talked about to some degree or another

00:32:27

uh, the only one that I really felt like

00:32:29

Discussing a little bit more was the fear of negative feedback

00:32:33

Maybe that's because that's one of my bigger

00:32:37

Fears, it's the one I resonate with more than than some of the others like fear of commitment

00:32:43

No, I'm kind of a loyalist when it comes to

00:32:45

That sort of thing

00:32:47

Uh fear of the unknown. I dive into new stuff all the time

00:32:51

I'll make people uncomfortable. So discomfort's not it

00:32:54

Uh decision-making I do that all the time like that's that's not it at all

00:32:58

So the negative feedback piece is the part where I tend to

00:33:02

To stall out because I'm always just a little bit nervous about what somebody's gonna think of something when I put myself out there

00:33:09

Like that that is a real thing. So if I have a fear of something that's creating the procrastination piece

00:33:16

per his list

00:33:19

That's here that would be

00:33:21

it of these five now

00:33:24

That said

00:33:27

I feel like this is maybe an incomplete list

00:33:30

Because this is a case where I feel like there's probably four or five more of these that could be put in but then at that point

00:33:38

you're starting to consolidate them

00:33:40

and it gets to be

00:33:42

Confusing the fear of confusion and then I find that like then I'm just yeah going off the deep end

00:33:51

So anyway, those are the five fears

00:33:53

Those are five fears. Yes

00:33:56

Yeah, those are five fears not the five fears good call

00:34:00

Yeah, now the fear of negative feedback though the thing that comes to mind with that is uh

00:34:05

something I addressed in the talk at max stock that I mentioned

00:34:09

um

00:34:11

That there will be people who will dislike what you make

00:34:15

And so I definitely understand that fear. I have wrestled with this myself

00:34:22

Uh, this is the reason that I don't look at reviews for anything that I make

00:34:32

I uh, don't even check the for a while we were looking at the

00:34:35

Like the apple podcast reviews. Yeah, is this gonna bring that up?

00:34:39

You used to bring those up all the time about the firm reviews. Yeah, I did

00:34:43

Uh, I stopped looking at those

00:34:46

As well and it's kind of interesting because as we record this in a recent upgrade episode my curly and uh

00:34:54

Jason snell kind of talked about that

00:34:56

And Jason's like, oh, yeah, obviously you never go read those

00:35:00

Yeah, yeah, and uh, it occurred to me that the people who are going to leave the comments on

00:35:05

the uh podcast specifically, there's no investment in a podcast you just sign up download listen

00:35:13

So

00:35:14

I'm sure there are people who have stumbled upon the things that I make who if you understood my perspective my belief system

00:35:20

You would never have chosen to download the podcast in the first place

00:35:24

Right, so I'm not for you. That's fine

00:35:27

But those are the people who are incentivized to go and leave

00:35:30

a review

00:35:32

It's not the people who are going to tell you what a great job you've done and how much

00:35:38

That really meant to them

00:35:41

Interestingly, I got to have a conversation with somebody at max stock who um a while ago when I wrote my my book

00:35:50

I uh published it and I was looking at the reviews for that and I was watching the positive reviews roll in

00:35:57

And that was great and then there was the one negative review that kept me up at night for about a week

00:36:01

You know, I don't have an opportunity to have a conversation with this person even if I could I'm not going to change their mind

00:36:07

They completely twisted some things that I said

00:36:10

And I'm like well, it's not what I meant at all, but

00:36:13

What are you gonna do with that? Right? So it's a one it just makes no sense

00:36:17

Julia Cameron in the artist way it calls those people crazy makers

00:36:21

Right

00:36:23

And the people who are the most crazy making are people who know that they should be making something themselves, but they are stuck

00:36:30

And so instead of trying to get unstuck themselves, they're gonna try to pull down everybody that they can

00:36:36

That is comments and reviews in a nutshell

00:36:40

You know that the people who are really gonna resonate with your your stuff

00:36:44

Like the person that I mentioned that I got chance to talk to at max stock

00:36:47

I have held on to an email that they sent me big long email

00:36:53

Basically saying this is the this your book was the right thing at the right time for me and interestingly enough

00:36:58

When I was being distracted by the the negative reviews and then eventually, you know, they they stopped coming in

00:37:04

It's kind of like well, did this make any difference at all

00:37:06

and uh, it was that that email

00:37:10

that

00:37:13

Was the right thing at the right time for me?

00:37:15

So if you really want to encourage some of your favorite creators for number one thing you can do

00:37:19

Is go monetarily support the stuff that they make

00:37:22

Not just bookworm if there's somebody who makes something that you like and you want them to keep doing it

00:37:26

Throw a couple bucks their way

00:37:29

Vote with your dollars

00:37:30

The second thing you can do is you can reach out to them directly not via these mass feedback mechanisms

00:37:35

Which they are not checking because the minute that they do

00:37:39

they're going to

00:37:42

Instantly lose the motivation to make the thing that you like

00:37:44

And thanks from miro for your comment at exactly the right time. Yeah

00:37:52

So if you have it, you can also join us live and leave your comments while we're having the conversation. It's super fun

00:37:57

So yes, I I'm with you like the negative feedback thing is one that I know that

00:38:01

I've

00:38:03

Like that's a fear that I have and yet

00:38:05

it's it's a weird dissonance for me because it's

00:38:09

a thing where

00:38:11

yes, I tend to be

00:38:13

Nervous about the negative feedback, but at the same time

00:38:16

I tend to

00:38:20

Ignore it a lot

00:38:22

so

00:38:24

It's absolutely paramount that I don't go read reviews and don't check numbers and such like do your thing

00:38:30

But the rest of it come like that's that's what I really have to do

00:38:34

But I still want to see the numbers sometimes and and well see that's that's the thing is

00:38:40

If you don't go looking for it in the wrong

00:38:46

Places when it comes to you you can say yeah, I know that stuff's out there and then just dismiss it

00:38:51

Right, but if you're going into those reviews and things look expecting to get the warm fuzzies from all the people who love your stuff

00:39:00

Like that's that's gonna be mad the wrong thing. Yep

00:39:03

Well, he has a couple chapters here at the end of this first part

00:39:07

one of those is the 10 reasons we delay doing the work

00:39:13

And he doesn't put numbers on any of these so it's just the headings

00:39:18

That are in here. There's only one of these that really caught my attention

00:39:22

And one of the this is so weird

00:39:26

One of the reasons he puts in here for delaying doing the work is ADHD

00:39:33

That is one of the reasons like what

00:39:37

Okay

00:39:40

He may just gonna sound like he's been diagnosed with it, but I don't think yeah explicitly said that anywhere correct

00:39:47

And yet I I don't know I got so confused by this one. It's like, okay. Why is that

00:39:54

considered a reason and it's also the one where he has no real

00:39:59

Information on it is just a here's the thing that might be causing this visit your local doctor read this book

00:40:08

And learn more about it at this web address

00:40:10

Basically he punted that one

00:40:13

And didn't take it on but felt it was important enough to stick it in there

00:40:17

So I was just a bit perturbed over that that's all it was and I wanted to point it out. That's all

00:40:23

That is this book in a nutshell though

00:40:27

It is it is but that was the first point. So this is on what pages this 65

00:40:33

That was the point at which I was a bit

00:40:38

Like I came to that realization that he's just going to bring things up and then not go into them

00:40:44

Like that's that's kind of what I

00:40:47

Discovered that same page also has one of your favorite topics on it though. Mike. Did you catch this?

00:40:53

I know I will get the book and you're not I didn't write it down. So what is it? So this is where he mentions smart goals

00:40:59

Like you need to have like one of the reasons this is the the next reason right after ad

00:41:06

One of the reasons we delay doing the work is abstract or unclear goals

00:41:10

And he says that putting things like get into shape or begin exercising is too vague

00:41:15

Instead you need to get very specific on what you want. I'll quote him here

00:41:20

I want to lose five kilograms in the next 60 days and to achieve this goal

00:41:25

I will work out three times a week on monday, wednesday and friday in addition

00:41:28

I will stop eating sugar based snacks and do 20 minutes of cardio per day end quote

00:41:35

Is that how you write your goals out, Mike?

00:41:37

exactly

00:41:39

Not exactly

00:41:43

Anyway goal setting uh, but again he he lays that out like this is how you need to lay out your goals

00:41:51

But then he just moves on moves on so

00:41:55

Just gonna skip over it apparently

00:41:58

So many issues with that

00:42:00

um

00:42:02

The biggest one I think is the fact that

00:42:05

You think you're going to nail all of the variables by setting that smart goal right at the beginning

00:42:12

That kind of gets into the whole book that we read on scrum and

00:42:17

The cascading

00:42:20

Waterfall method of project management. He's applying that to his personal life here with these these smart goals, but

00:42:26

Yeah

00:42:29

I don't know

00:42:30

That the point below the point here

00:42:32

I think you're that I jot down in my notes where I think that comes from is the abstract or unclear goals

00:42:36

I didn't write down the smart stuff, but basically I think what he's getting at here

00:42:40

Is that you have to be able to see it before you can achieve it

00:42:44

You have to have a vision of what you're moving towards and I think I agree with that

00:42:50

so

00:42:51

I'll cut him a break there, but

00:42:54

Yeah, smart goals aren't the way to uh

00:42:56

to do that

00:42:58

Let's move on to

00:43:00

Part two. Oh goody

00:43:02

Are you excited about this?

00:43:05

I love me a 22 part system

00:43:07

Uh, I one of the notes I wrote down before I started reading it

00:43:16

Uh was did I pick a system book?

00:43:19

Like I wrote that down. I was like I don't I did not intend to do that if I did

00:43:25

And it was because he has these steps in here. I did not realize how many steps

00:43:29

That he had here until I started diving into it and looking through table contents and stuff, but

00:43:34

Uh, he had this is called part two practical steps for doing the hard things first

00:43:39

And like Mike said, this is a 22 step

00:43:42

Thing that he has here and I say thing because it's not a system

00:43:48

It's not a process and he doesn't even tell you you need to do all of these steps. He just says these are the steps

00:43:53

Okay, so but in my head steps come one after another you can't just skip around you have to follow the steps

00:44:01

But exactly two of them. I don't know. It's weird

00:44:05

So I picked five out of these 22 to discuss

00:44:09

The first of which is actually step one because this one I actually kind of get

00:44:15

Uh take total ownership for behavior change

00:44:19

And I think this is actually true. It's like personal responsibility, right?

00:44:23

You you can't

00:44:25

Explain away your actions by something somebody else did or said like it's up to you to make the call

00:44:31

what you're going to do

00:44:34

but

00:44:36

I guess that's as far as it goes

00:44:38

This is the uh the best step out of the whole thing to be honest

00:44:44

Starting with yeah, I mean this is this is the place to start. So this is the right step one. Yes

00:44:53

Um, it it derails from from there in my opinion when I was reading through these I did not

00:44:58

Look back at the table of contents to see how many steps there were

00:45:03

And so I read this step one. I'm like, okay. I'm on board with you step two make your list of things to get done

00:45:09

Well, that's a weird

00:45:11

Framing but okay step three decide you're doing it now

00:45:13

Okay step four write it down five times. I don't know it's the next one you want to talk about

00:45:18

And then by the time I got to step five time block five minutes start doing it. I was like

00:45:23

uh

00:45:25

You're drifting and how many of these are there? Yes

00:45:28

22 are you kidding me?

00:45:31

Like like you said so step four is write it down five times

00:45:35

Which was strange to me like why do I need to write it five times?

00:45:39

Like I don't understand that like I get like stick it in your brain

00:45:42

but

00:45:44

If i'm writing it down five times like I would do that for something i'm trying to remember without having to the need for the paper

00:45:50

Then I'm writing it on too like that so if you're using omni focus do you create five tasks?

00:45:55

Yeah, that's I mean it doesn't or even if you've got it in a note system like are you gonna put it in there five times?

00:46:02

Well, then it's this copy paste and it didn't actually have the effect of

00:46:04

You know writing it. I don't know it seemed weird. So that step was weird to me

00:46:10

step five time block five minutes to start doing it

00:46:14

As an ADHD person, I kind of get this one

00:46:19

but it has one glaring flaw

00:46:21

in that

00:46:24

If I time block okay, so let me back up if I say i'm going to take five minutes to start a task

00:46:29

Like i'm only going to work on this for five minutes

00:46:31

That usually will work in helping me do the thing I don't want to do because that is not what he's suggesting though

00:46:39

No, it's not

00:46:41

But that is that is what works for me like okay

00:46:44

I know if I can just say i'm going to take five minutes and i'm going to start this thing

00:46:49

I don't have to work

00:46:51

Longer than five minutes, but I can't work less than five minutes like that will work for me

00:46:55

I will just do five minutes. Yep. I am a hundred percent on board with this

00:46:59

Yes, but setting aside five minutes to to start doing it

00:47:05

like the way that he has that frame is like well

00:47:09

I immediately think five minutes

00:47:13

I could put a lot of five-minute blocks in an hour

00:47:17

Like that is where my brain went and i'm like, huh?

00:47:20

So it doesn't add up. I don't think it actually works because I feel like that's what he's saying

00:47:24

But he doesn't spill it out that way

00:47:26

Well, he uses the term time blocks. So

00:47:28

That is what I thought of as well is you are planning your day in five-minute increments correct. Yes, which is

00:47:36

Madening that that's madness. Who does that and if you did do that you're going to be upset

00:47:44

Within the first 15 minutes of your day because it's not going to go

00:47:48

According to your schedule. I have a pretty autonomous schedule

00:47:53

And I don't even think I could do this

00:47:56

I know there's no way you could do this based on the reason action

00:48:01

I was trying to get you to time block

00:48:03

So if you want the quickest way to decide that time blocking is not worth it

00:48:09

Follow this

00:48:13

Because it's not going to work for you. I don't think this could work for anybody

00:48:16

but

00:48:18

And he's got a

00:48:20

Where's this at? I opened up the thing, but it's

00:48:25

It's a thing that he does like he sets aside a five-minute time block

00:48:31

But he even says he was like don't stop after five minutes if you want to keep going

00:48:37

He's like well, it's not a time block then. Yep

00:48:40

It's actually the next one I wanted to talk about which is step 15 because I skipped straight from five to 15 because I was

00:48:46

Frustrated by the ten in the middle

00:48:49

But 15 is begin with one small action like it's kind of the same thing like you're going to do something like if it's five minutes

00:48:56

It's a small task

00:48:58

So then that can get the momentum going

00:49:01

That makes more sense than saying i'm only going to give myself five minutes

00:49:06

But it's not a time block if you're saying that you're allowed to go beyond that

00:49:11

At least I wouldn't think of it that way. Maybe I don't understand time blocking and this is why it's always failed for me

00:49:15

But this is not it like this is you know, do the one small thing

00:49:21

And then that can give me the momentum to get the rest of it done

00:49:24

And then I usually find out that the project or whatever is i'm doing is not anywhere near as big as I thought it was and not as

00:49:29

Nearly as overwhelming as I thought it was and i'll actually get it done much quicker than I thought I would

00:49:33

but

00:49:35

That's different than time blocking. That's not the same at all at least to me

00:49:39

I agree with you

00:49:42

Number 16 is the one that I wanted to talk about oh sure

00:49:47

Adopt the 80/20 principle and then he gives a whole bunch of bullet point examples of the 80/20 principle

00:49:53

And most of them you've heard before

00:49:55

But I got to share this gem from page 34

00:50:01

20 percent of the students will score higher than 80 percent of the class

00:50:06

Solid right there

00:50:09

But would it be true that 25 percent of the students would score higher than 75 percent of the class

00:50:14

Or 80 percent of the class will score less than 20 percent of the class

00:50:19

The point that he's trying to make is that there's a small percentage of activities that provide a disproportionate amount of value

00:50:27

But by using that percent that score higher than the other percent you completely invalidate that argument

00:50:33

50 percent of the students will score higher than 50 percent of the class you're literally just cutting it down the middle

00:50:41

This is how math works Mike

00:50:45

Oh

00:50:49

This is fun

00:50:51

Okay, so that was step 16. What else is in here? What have I got step 17?

00:50:56

I put I had to put this one in you know I had to put this one in

00:51:00

Step 17 is schedule a one-hour weekly review session

00:51:04

This is this is a thing and inside of this he recommends taking like a was it five-minute daily review

00:51:12

as well and

00:51:15

Like I've tried these things in the past and it it never goes away. I think it will and

00:51:20

I get his intention, but

00:51:22

a weekly review like

00:51:25

What I've run into is that the concept of a scheduled recurring review period

00:51:30

is too rigid

00:51:34

for

00:51:35

The flexibility of life like that's that's what I run into if your weeks are all identical like roughly

00:51:41

Then sure this could work out well, but some projects need more touch points than others

00:51:47

Like if you're always doing the same types of projects then sure even video work like

00:51:54

the scale of the video dictates

00:51:56

how

00:51:58

Long it's going to take and the weeks can be different so

00:52:01

A weekly review is in a scheduled review period is not something I find helpful. It has more

00:52:08

I find it has a lot more value to notice like when you have an unknown or a pain point

00:52:14

A pinch point or the the bottom of a funnel if you will

00:52:18

where you're not real sure what the

00:52:21

Decision is you need to make about what's coming up next or what project comes next

00:52:24

That's when the review needs to happen

00:52:26

If you can't make a decision correctly or cleanly that's when you need to do the review

00:52:32

And I don't think it needs to be an hour most of the time when I've done full system reviews

00:52:36

Uh, I usually get them done in five ten minutes like this is not

00:52:41

A big hairy process, but he makes it sound like a big hairy process just like david allen

00:52:46

super fun

00:52:48

I feel like that's at least a good tactic that uh that you could use

00:52:51

I want to talk about step 18 control your distractions and manage shiny object syndrome

00:52:56

using the static method

00:52:58

Which sounds catchy right static method. Yep. All right. Let me just tell you what this stands for stop

00:53:05

think

00:53:07

argue the pros and cons

00:53:09

Stay as you are for 24 hours

00:53:12

revisit the decision in 48 hours

00:53:15

Complete what i'm doing first

00:53:19

And if you're thinking to yourself that doesn't equal static

00:53:22

You are correct. You are correct. Yeah, it took a lot of creative license

00:53:27

In grabbing a letter from anywhere in that first word to create this acronym

00:53:32

Which completely defeats the purpose of the acronym

00:53:37

Staserc staserc. I think is what it is

00:53:40

Stop think argue stay revisit complete. Yeah, that's both static good job

00:53:47

Yeah, this should have just been a six point list and like this is what I follow

00:53:50

This is my method

00:53:52

Don't try to name it cleverly with this mnemonic

00:53:55

If it doesn't line up. This is

00:53:58

square peg round hole

00:54:00

Or like look up some synonyms, right?

00:54:04

Like stop think argue stay has all sorts of synonyms like surely you could find something that

00:54:09

Like

00:54:12

Basically what that tells me is like yeah, it's cool to do the acronym thing you could do that but

00:54:17

Just my experience if you take the time

00:54:20

Like you could find the words that do what you want like you can you can make that happen

00:54:26

This is somebody who didn't have an editor and who is just trying to do things quickly

00:54:30

Yeah, that's what this is

00:54:33

And that's the hard part with that's what clicks for him like that's that's awesome, but the way it's packaged in the book

00:54:40

I don't know if he's writing it for himself. That's one thing if he's writing it for somebody else

00:54:45

This is not the way that you get someone to retain this right so

00:54:49

Just my two cents any other of these steps you want to talk about

00:54:54

No, let's get out of here

00:54:57

Some of them are quite funny like we've talked about okay, so part three

00:55:01

breaking negative behavior

00:55:04

Uh, there are three chapters here, I think and they are breaking your negative

00:55:10

Yeah

00:55:13

Least structure. I think we've had maybe ever in a book

00:55:18

breaking your negative conditioning breaking anxiety and overwhelm breaking your limiting self-talk

00:55:25

and

00:55:28

We could cover each of these independently, but I think it'd be more fun to do it in

00:55:32

Mass because these are what one the first one's one page long

00:55:37

Yeah, they're within five six pages

00:55:41

first one being one, but basically

00:55:44

Like this is this is a reiteration of some fears and solutions that he talked about back in part one

00:55:50

That's that's really what this is like so you have patterns that you repeat all the time negative conditioning

00:55:57

That you have taught yourself to to do some of those could be

00:56:01

Leading you to anxiety and overwhelm, which is some of my deal right

00:56:05

Uh, and then some of those could also lead you to the limiting self-talk

00:56:09

Which we talked about in soundtracks with

00:56:11

John a cuff like that is a big part of this now

00:56:15

I will say that breaking your limiting self-talk that

00:56:19

Going all the way back to like the introduction like the introduction had a strong point. I feel like this one may actually be

00:56:25

Super helpful for some people again. We've had entire books about this

00:56:31

and and would probably recommend that

00:56:34

Way before we would recommend this particular chapter

00:56:38

but

00:56:39

This one I feel like does have some good points like whatever it is that you're repeatedly telling yourself

00:56:43

That's what's going to come true if you're always telling yourself you're a bad procrastinator. Guess what?

00:56:47

You're focusing on being a bad procrastinator

00:56:50

Like this is the whole whatever you repeat in your mind that tends to be the thing you focus on or the the thing you focus on is what you lean towards

00:56:57

If you're telling yourself to stay out of the left lane while you're driving and you're constantly telling yourself stay out of the left lane

00:57:03

Stay out of the left lane stay out of the left lane. Eventually you're going to drift into the left lane

00:57:07

That's just what your eyes are focused on because of that. Yep. So that when I get like

00:57:13

The whole what you tell yourself like you got to watch that you got to be careful with it

00:57:18

Yeah, that gets into the whole topic of visualization, which

00:57:22

I don't think he really talks about in this book, but it's hard to remember because they're

00:57:28

Yeah, but there are lots of topics in here that there are whole books written on and and he

00:57:33

He can't cover them in depth

00:57:36

that it's kind of interesting because um

00:57:39

I feel like everything I've read on procrastination this book and eat that frog

00:57:45

Uh, and maybe I've read some other stuff and it just never jumped to the top of mind

00:57:49

I'm sure I've read other things on the topic of procrastination

00:57:52

But it seems like it always ends up talking about these ancillary things

00:57:58

Like one of the things he mentions here on breaking anxiety and overwhelm is practice deep breathing meditation

00:58:04

and I focused on that one because I just

00:58:08

re-listened to

00:58:10

Chris Bealee's audible original how to train your mind, which is all about the productivity benefits of mindfulness meditation

00:58:17

Which is sort of what he's talking about here. Not exactly the same

00:58:20

Chris does a phenomenal job in that three hour audible book

00:58:24

and that's not a long audible book

00:58:29

but it is

00:58:32

significantly more in depth than

00:58:34

The things that scott alan is talking about here and thinking back to the brine tracy book

00:58:39

Also, I feel like that was a bunch of tactics as well in order to defeat procrastination

00:58:45

Maybe procrastination is just one of those topics that doesn't lend itself well to

00:58:50

Diving deep on on something, but it is really annoying to hear somebody say like oh, yeah

00:58:56

Here's a really complex topic two sentences on it go figure it out for yourself

00:59:01

Yeah, and I think it's partially because

00:59:04

procrastination is so unique to each person

00:59:09

And it's extremely unique depending on the task that you're procrastinating on

00:59:16

Sure, I think that's part of it

00:59:18

Like I have my tendencies and I have certain types of tasks that I will procrastinate much sooner than others

00:59:24

But some of them I'll jump to right away

00:59:27

Like it just depends and it can depend on how much sleep I got last night

00:59:31

Like it's so variable that I feel like it's not something that you can easily

00:59:36

Write a book about or discuss like it's so dependent on the person in the situation that you can't

00:59:43

Especially in two sentences. You can't can't nail it down

00:59:46

So you mentioned you have your tendencies are there four of them

00:59:49

Oh, I just have one

00:59:52

Okay

00:59:53

Maybe that's maybe that's what we need is the more tendencies as it pertains to procrastination

00:59:58

What is your procrastination type? Yeah

01:00:01

Yeah, so that's part three and then we get to part four

01:00:08

uh, which is do hard things every day and

01:00:13

There are what is what is this a theoretical six chapters?

01:00:19

Maybe seven depending on how you count the final thoughts thing

01:00:22

Uh, this is do hard things for your health do hard things around your home

01:00:26

Do the hard things around your workspace do the hard things in your personal relationships

01:00:30

Do hard things for your finances and then final thoughts on doing the hard things first

01:00:34

and

01:00:36

This is this is basically examples of doing hard things things that are hard

01:00:41

That you're going to do

01:00:43

That's what this is

01:00:45

And doing them in prioritize the order. Yeah, you may say doing them first

01:00:50

I

01:00:52

I I guess this is just a list of things

01:00:58

To help you identify what the hard things are that way you know what it is you're fighting against

01:01:04

I think I think that's what is intent is here

01:01:08

It's just that it's just you know examples of hard things. That's that's really I mean

01:01:14

That's what I put in the show notes basically examples of doing this

01:01:19

I don't know what else to tell you about it. Just like you know, it's hard to exercise the first time

01:01:23

So you're procrastinating on it. Why?

01:01:26

He doesn't really go into that, but

01:01:29

He already did he has a 22 step process for you to overcome that

01:01:33

um

01:01:37

But yes, there are examples here. That's that's really all it is. That's all I got out of it

01:01:41

I

01:01:43

This is my second favorite section of the book. I feel uh, I feel approach is the right one

01:01:49

Uh, I agree with you

01:01:51

primary for the most part with uh

01:01:54

What what it actually reads as yeah, which is like oh, yeah, there's hard things in this area and there's hard things in that area and there's hard things in that area

01:02:02

Yep

01:02:04

It would be interesting in an alternate universe

01:02:07

this book and the other nine in the series are related

01:02:12

in the form of

01:02:15

helping you live a life

01:02:19

of intention

01:02:20

and one of the first things you do in that is you identify the areas of your life that are important to you

01:02:27

and then

01:02:29

You do something like a wheel of life exercise to reach your current satisfaction with those different areas

01:02:34

You pick the areas that are low and then you talk about this is what doing hard things in this area looks like

01:02:42

And this is the benefit that you're going to get as a result from that

01:02:47

I would also take the do hard things for your health. He has some questions here. I'm obviously biased towards questions

01:02:54

I love me some questions

01:02:56

Personal Socrates great book because of all the questions

01:03:00

Yep, but what do I want my healthy life to look like? Why is my health important to me?

01:03:05

What is my health plan what habit sabotage my health plan? What are my health strengths and weaknesses?

01:03:09

What will this food do for my health? These are all great

01:03:11

Not as in like follow this checklist when you are in this situation

01:03:17

But just planting the seed of like hey consider some of these things and ask yourself some of these questions

01:03:22

Because when you ask the right questions, maybe you'll get some better answers

01:03:26

However, those questions don't exist for the other areas

01:03:30

I do think there is some untapped potential in some of these sections

01:03:38

So one section in particular that challenged me

01:03:43

Is the do hard things around your home because he talks about how he tends to avoid

01:03:47

the home improvement projects

01:03:50

That's me

01:03:53

So I actually have an action item

01:03:55

To make a list of the things to fix around my house

01:03:59

Whether those are like big remodeling projects that I'm going to hire out because someone else can do that and I don't know how

01:04:03

Or just I got to change these light bulbs and I've been dragging my feet on it

01:04:08

I actually want to to do that

01:04:11

But there could have been a whole lot more around that

01:04:17

I feel I don't have anything specific with that

01:04:20

that section

01:04:23

But when you think about the hard things in your personal relationships and finances specifically

01:04:28

I feel there is some

01:04:30

Opportunity there to give give people some more clarifying questions to help them identify

01:04:37

What are the areas that are kind of

01:04:40

Holding them back

01:04:41

I kind of accidentally stumbled into that one about the hard things around your home

01:04:45

Because the way he was describing it I could relate to that 100%

01:04:50

But I feel like if he had a little bit more time and a little bit more creativity

01:04:55

He could apply it in a couple different vectors and

01:04:59

Make it make that same kind of reaction happen a lot more often in this section that makes sense

01:05:07

Yeah, because that to be honest that one is the one that hit me the least

01:05:10

Because I do massive remodel projects all the time. Yes, you do you've got a

01:05:15

Woodbin storage thing that you made just to store your

01:05:19

Extra wood scrap wood yep

01:05:21

I had to burn a bunch of wood too because I just had so many of these little tiny things

01:05:25

I had kept that wouldn't fit in this big massive storage thing I built so

01:05:29

Yeah, I the whole home thing

01:05:32

didn't strike me

01:05:35

At all I understand that that is a lot of people though

01:05:39

like the the concept of like

01:05:42

If I if I mentioned something like taking out load bearing walls and putting beams in

01:05:47

like

01:05:49

Most of the population says who do I hire to do that?

01:05:52

Like that is that is the first reaction most people have

01:05:56

Uh, whereas my wife and I said, oh, well, okay

01:05:59

Well, tear the ceiling down tear the wall out move all the electrical and then take those out and put beams in sure

01:06:04

That's fine. We're not all crazy like you Joe be like yeah, we're insane. Absolutely insane

01:06:09

Don't recommend that for most people. There are some people who are fairly handy that I don't recommend doing that too. So

01:06:16

It it's not a thing for me, but I know that

01:06:19

There are things around like health like that one struck me given my history with

01:06:25

Lyme disease and mold and such

01:06:27

Uh, you know that that one does stand out

01:06:30

Uh things with relationships personal relationships

01:06:33

You know, everybody's got some relationships somewhere that's strained in some form it seems

01:06:37

And uh, so I mean there are hard things in those areas those resonate with me quite a bit more

01:06:43

but

01:06:45

I don't know that I need

01:06:47

These lists and these examples to get there like I can get there pretty quick

01:06:51

Exactly, but see that's the thing like I didn't write down anything for do the hard things personal relationships do the hard things for your finances

01:06:57

Literally like that's just the only point in that whole branch in my mind node file

01:07:02

There could be some additional stuff there that would be helpful for me

01:07:07

I mean the entire book is a list of lists and do this in this order essentially

01:07:11

Right, but not the health section

01:07:14

Which is good because he can't say well you need to run three miles every day and you have to do a hundred push-ups

01:07:21

And you have to eat these things. You can't be that prescriptive. So what does he do? He asks a bunch of questions

01:07:28

I wish you would have asked those questions throughout the rest of the book

01:07:32

Correct or at least the rest of the areas in this fourth part here

01:07:37

So because what that does like what will this food do for my health?

01:07:42

You don't have to tell somebody don't eat that chocolate bar. You need an apple instead

01:07:46

You just give them that question and they if they ask the question they arrive at their own conclusion

01:07:50

Yeah, the chocolate's not good for me or whatever it is, you know that you you tend to

01:07:55

Your guilty pleasure because he talks about you know going all the way back to the beginning

01:08:00

The reason we do stuff in the short term is because it is a release valve essentially. Well

01:08:06

when it comes to health and in your

01:08:09

eating habits that absolutely

01:08:11

applies, but

01:08:14

If you ask the right question, you don't have to tell people

01:08:16

Don't do this and do this

01:08:19

Which is what the rest of the book is

01:08:21

And I find the questions are a lot more relatable to me and I want to engage with those a lot more than when you tell me to follow

01:08:30

Things in a specific order

01:08:32

Okay, I I kind of want to be done

01:08:34

Do you have more do you want to say?

01:08:38

Nah, that's good

01:08:40

Okay

01:08:42

uh

01:08:42

action items

01:08:44

I

01:08:45

I have a qualified action item

01:08:47

This this may or may not be one and it starts with a question to you which is

01:08:52

dangerous territory whenever we're

01:08:57

Talking about joe's and action items and then relaying to mic but

01:09:00

If I were to

01:09:04

Set aside time

01:09:07

Every day to be available to people that's slightly more than half of the day. Does time blocking make sense

01:09:15

Or is that

01:09:19

Not enough to warrant doing it if we're only talking about three hours or so

01:09:25

I would say that it's still worth doing and that's actually the ideal way to do it

01:09:30

because

01:09:32

if you're coming from

01:09:34

not

01:09:36

Not feeling like you can provide intention to your day

01:09:39

And the gold standard is I want to provide intention for every hour of my day eight hours for a working day or 16 hours

01:09:46

If if you want to do your your personal life as well like every hour of your day like I do

01:09:51

That's a big leap

01:09:53

And so being able to say well, I'm in a time block

01:09:56

The mornings, but the afternoons whatever happens happens

01:10:01

You don't have to feel bad about things going off the rails there. You don't have to even

01:10:05

Father to plan that out

01:10:08

That is uh making it a lot more attainable. It's kind of uh

01:10:13

Level one

01:10:17

And uh, that's

01:10:18

100% the the place to start with this

01:10:21

Wasn't the answer as after but i'll take it

01:10:26

Uh

01:10:28

I'll try answer is yeah, it's worth it

01:10:30

I'll try it. Okay, and I say that because

01:10:34

I'm in the middle of like changing up some timing

01:10:39

Of when I have people coming to help me do things

01:10:42

and I think

01:10:45

It makes it possible to where I could

01:10:49

Potentially have the mornings to where I could devote myself and kind of seclude myself to do two to three hours worth of

01:10:56

Scheduled work at those times and nail that down distraction-free

01:11:02

Uh, and then allow myself to be quote unquote distracted

01:11:07

All afternoon because I like part of my job is being available to people

01:11:12

I'm aware of that

01:11:13

So I can't be completely unavailable all day long. That's

01:11:16

Part of the issue with it. So i'm trying to figure out how that could pan out and this comes from

01:11:23

Really not anything in this

01:11:26

book

01:11:27

Uh, it comes from the collection of everything he's talking about and

01:11:31

He's got so many of these like rapid fire tips

01:11:35

That it just kind of triggered that so

01:11:37

I'll attribute it to the book somehow

01:11:42

Yeah, so I wouldn't actually call it distraction. I would

01:11:46

borrow terms from

01:11:48

Chris Bailey and hyper focus and what you're scheduling for your three hours. That's your hyper focus time

01:11:54

Yep, and then the other stuff. That's your scatter focus time

01:11:58

Scatter focus

01:12:01

Do you remember how you define those two? Yep. I remember now. Yep

01:12:05

Bouncy bouncy

01:12:09

Exactly, but if you're gonna try to hyper focus eight hours and day, it's not gonna work anyways. So

01:12:13

No, no, it's somewhere around three to four people can pull off in a day. Yep. So if you could do that for three hours

01:12:20

You're probably a pretty good

01:12:24

Pretty good chunk of the way

01:12:27

To where most knowledge workers who have complete control over the schedule can get

01:12:32

Great. Totally fair. All right. I'll try it

01:12:35

Uh, what are you gonna do? How many action items you have here five six

01:12:39

twelve

01:12:41

I have three

01:12:42

Whoa, I was not expecting that

01:12:44

Well, see that's what I do with books like this is I

01:12:48

Say I disagree with your conclusions, but you have a good idea here and I'm gonna make it my own

01:12:55

Yep, you do that with the books you don't like

01:12:58

It gets lots of action items the books you totally resonate with like building a second brain. You have nothing

01:13:03

Okay

01:13:05

I see how this works. Okay

01:13:08

All right, so

01:13:10

I don't have an order for these necessarily

01:13:13

I think the first one is to add a daily win

01:13:16

to my journal

01:13:19

I have the um

01:13:21

the daily questions

01:13:23

inspired by

01:13:24

Triggers by Marshall goldsmith. He's got another book outreach recently, which looks pretty cool by the way

01:13:29

the earned life

01:13:32

But I really like that that's the foundation of my journaling habit

01:13:37

And that all happens in obsidian. I got a video on that which I can add a link in the the show notes for that

01:13:43

But um, I've also been adding a section for

01:13:47

My journal entries a section for learnings and a section for gratitude

01:13:51

I'm gonna create another section for wins and I'm gonna try to put something there every day

01:13:55

I'm not gonna force myself to put something every single day. That's kind of the

01:13:59

The impetus behind my journaling habit is I do the daily questions every day

01:14:03

But I don't do all the other stuff if I miss some if I miss a few days of those, it's it's not that big a deal

01:14:08

um, so I'm gonna do that

01:14:10

And then I am going to build my quote book. He mentioned in passing

01:14:17

Quotes that you may want to remember

01:14:20

This was in part three the breaking negative behaviors

01:14:22

So it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that he was saying but I was like, huh

01:14:26

I haven't been able to figure that out yet the way that I like inside of obsidian yet

01:14:31

So I'm gonna try and figure that out

01:14:33

And then the one I mentioned from part four make a list of the things to fix around my house because there are

01:14:40

a handful of of things

01:14:43

So

01:14:44

I'm gonna do that and include on that list the long-term projects like putting a bathroom in the basement

01:14:49

That I want to do as well

01:14:52

Bathroom in the basement sounds really important

01:14:54

Well

01:14:56

You've been to my house. We have a walkout basement

01:14:59

My office is down here. The older boys bedroom is down here

01:15:03

And it would be nice to have a bathroom

01:15:06

In the base like on that same level

01:15:09

As well because there's one in the master

01:15:11

And there's one other bathroom in the entire house. So when it's bedtime

01:15:15

Four people are trying to use the bathroom at the same time the bathroom is like four feet by five feet

01:15:19

So

01:15:23

It would it would be nice and it's it's already

01:15:26

Stubbed for a bath. We just have to get somebody into do the rest

01:15:30

That that takes half the problem out. I should just call Joe Buelegan have him come on over and we'll put it in in a weekend

01:15:38

Super fun. All right. Well, I guess that brings us to style and rating

01:15:44

Uh, I kind of feel like two-thirds of this podcast have been about the style of the book

01:15:53

And uh, I would just add to what we've been saying so far is that

01:15:57

um, this needed an editor pretty bad

01:16:01

and

01:16:03

It it needed some stories

01:16:06

pretty bad

01:16:08

Like so many times I feel like we're talking about a book and it's like he's got they've got you know

01:16:12

A two or three page story that illustrates a point perfectly and they articulate it really well

01:16:16

And that seems to happen more often than not

01:16:21

Uh, this is a reason that like this this will show you why people do that because

01:16:26

There are some stories in here and he has

01:16:28

A number of them, but they're like a paragraph to two paragraphs long

01:16:32

You know a one and a half page story is the exception

01:16:36

So to what he's any he's explaining concepts for the most part

01:16:40

But he doesn't illustrate those concepts very well. So I think that adds to

01:16:46

Some of the angst that comes with trying to understand what's going on or why he's doing things

01:16:51

Uh

01:16:53

Some of that's because he's just trying to run things rapid fire it feels like

01:16:56

It almost seems like this is a

01:16:59

A dumping ground for all the thoughts around how to get stuff done that you don't want to do

01:17:05

Like that that's what this kind of feels like now. I say that and yet

01:17:09

There's a lot of good ideas in here

01:17:12

Just not packaged like this

01:17:15

You know that you know the concept of an 80/20 rule

01:17:18

Well, that's not a bad concept and applied correctly that can help you understand things and help you get some things done

01:17:25

Uh, you know put your put your time where it really needs to be

01:17:29

Um saying that 20 of the students out did the 80 percent

01:17:33

That that isn't the way to illustrate that principle

01:17:39

Things like put it on your calendar

01:17:42

You know things like, you know, if you're not gonna do it now

01:17:44

When are you gonna do it and decide when you're gonna do it and put it on the calendar?

01:17:47

Like that's not a bad concept

01:17:49

But you got to explain it in such a way that it makes sense and give us something that helps us understand when and how to do that

01:17:57

appropriately

01:17:59

Uh none of that's done. So again, these are it's rapid fire on these tips

01:18:04

But not explain super well. Um, I think I would actually discourage people from picking this one up

01:18:12

because I I feel like if you don't have

01:18:15

If you don't have a

01:18:18

strong base

01:18:21

on

01:18:23

Productivity in general. I feel like this could actually lead you down some rough paths

01:18:27

Like you you'd have to overcome some things and it could potentially start you off on some bad habits

01:18:31

That said, how do you rate this? Oh gosh

01:18:37

Part of me wants to just say 0.5 just to be a snot but

01:18:40

That's I don't think it's that bad

01:18:44

Uh, you know, it's got a lot of work that needs done

01:18:47

Uh to because I feel like this is a this feels like a rough draft to me

01:18:52

Like I feel like we're reading a first or second edit and it needs

01:18:56

So a lot of cleanup and and some rewrite and stuff so it needs a few more passes if not, you know

01:19:03

Another complete rewrite

01:19:06

Uh, that said I think

01:19:08

2.5

01:19:11

I'll put it in there

01:19:12

Just because I know there's some concepts in here that makes sense, but I I think it's done very poorly

01:19:18

Just my take on it. So anyway, I must say 2.5 Mike your turn

01:19:23

Uh, I don't like this book

01:19:26

They're done really wow

01:19:30

Shocker

01:19:35

Yeah, I shared a bunch of my nitpicks with it, but the biggest thing I think

01:19:40

Is if I were to summarize this I don't even know where I would start

01:19:45

Lists of lists of lists

01:19:48

Um, I've got some specific action items which are not related to uh, anything that he shared. It's just

01:19:55

He said something and I was like, oh, yeah, I want to figure out how to do that in obsidian

01:20:01

So I'm gonna I'm gonna mess with that all of my action items are obsidian related by the way

01:20:06

So I don't I don't credit him for any of those

01:20:11

Um, I do think there's some

01:20:14

Decent information in here. I don't want to rail on them too much about

01:20:17

Bringing other people's ideas in because I

01:20:23

Feel like I would probably take somewhat of a similar approach if I was writing a top a book on this particular topic

01:20:31

However, I would give him the same advice that somebody once gave me

01:20:34

That you should be willing to own

01:20:37

Your own ideas like it's fine to say that somebody said this thing

01:20:43

But then how can you internalize that and make it yourself and

01:20:47

And present it as your your own not that you're

01:20:51

completely

01:20:54

plagiarizing somebody's idea, but

01:20:57

There's there's nuance here. I want to make sure I I say this right, but the whole idea of like stealing like an artist

01:21:02

That doesn't mean just flat out copy what somebody else does

01:21:05

But take those things those ideas that you share in this book and then figure out what that means to you and put your own little spin on it

01:21:13

Kind of like my five sees of creativity sort of a thing, you know, like nothing there is like completely original

01:21:19

But when I mash everything up in my own brain, it comes out as something that is quote-unquote original

01:21:25

So I feel like there's opportunity to do that here

01:21:29

I'm going to join you at 2.5

01:21:32

And I don't think I would recommend this to very many people either

01:21:35

If you're looking for a book on procrastination, I think I would still recommend eat that frog by brian tracy

01:21:42

It's quite possible that that was one of the first productivity books that I read and if I go back and read it

01:21:48

I'm not going to like it nearly as much as I remember I do

01:21:53

I remember I think it was episode 50 when we picked our best books that we had not

01:21:58

Covered for bookworm or something like that. That was one of mine

01:22:02

Because it was so influential for me when I I read it and I recognize there's a good chance that it lands quite differently now but

01:22:11

I still feel like if you know what I mean or what what that phrase eat the frog

01:22:19

Means if you've heard that story before you probably don't need to go back and read it

01:22:23

But if you have internalized that and tried to apply that personally, you probably aren't looking for a book

01:22:30

To solve a problem on procrastination either if you still are

01:22:35

You know, then that's the one that I would I would go recommend that you

01:22:39

You uh, you pick up instead

01:22:42

I don't know. I mean

01:22:45

I feel like there's

01:22:46

Some good raw material in this book. I agree with you that having an editor would help

01:22:54

Maybe understanding the other nine parts of the series would help us

01:22:59

I don't know. Maybe he he talks about like closing open loops from a creative standpoint

01:23:06

You want to create open loops in people's brains so that they

01:23:08

Continue to engage with your content and find the answers, right?

01:23:12

So maybe he opened up a bunch of open loops and he closes them in books two through ten

01:23:17

But I got to tell you after reading this one. I don't want to read books two through ten

01:23:22

Yeah, I don't want to either. Let's let's skip those please

01:23:26

All right

01:23:28

I pulled up because

01:23:30

It was curiosity to me

01:23:33

You having you at 2.5 me at 2.5

01:23:36

We've done that one other time

01:23:39

Do you remember what it was? No, I was that

01:23:43

Episode number 27 out of our minds by Ken Robinson

01:23:46

Oh, yeah, I was thinking about that book the other day. Yeah, there was another one getting results the agile way

01:23:53

You rated it a three. I rated it a two oh

01:23:56

So combined it comes out of 2.5 and then the other one that

01:24:00

Combined comes out at 2.5 was zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance

01:24:04

That book came up by the way the other day in

01:24:12

my mastermind group, okay

01:24:14

and

01:24:16

Someone who as a Buddhist meditator for many many years

01:24:22

Said quote that book is overrated

01:24:25

So I feel somewhat validated by that rating totally fair

01:24:31

totally fair

01:24:34

Yeah, the other books that are in that territory are the art of asking

01:24:37

Pick three by randy succerberg crossroads of shid and must

01:24:41

Those those are all in that territory, but this puts it as far as combined rating it puts it put it at the bottom within the bottom four

01:24:49

Of bookworm so happy episode 150

01:24:53

Like we've been talking about one of the worst books that we've read

01:24:58

And for what it's worth

01:25:02

The way that i'm getting all of that is through this amazing bookworm stats website that's put together by one of our

01:25:10

Amazing fans so if you had a bookworm.fm/statts it'll do the redirect and get you there

01:25:17

But that's where I was pulling that from

01:25:20

Thank you joshua

01:25:22

Yeah, totally love that thing. I'm over there more than I probably should be

01:25:30

Super fun only that site had existed when I put together the trivia for you last time

01:25:35

I know I could have got somewhere with it. I could have like said

01:25:37

I spent hours creating a google sheet and plugging in the numbers from all of the episodes. Yes

01:25:45

Oh super fun

01:25:48

Uh upcoming books mike what's next now that we get to put this thing in the

01:25:53

on the shelf not the trash

01:25:58

Uh, the next book is a story of you by Ian Morgan crun and this has to do with the anneagram and

01:26:05

Um the heels of this one. I'm a little bit nervous

01:26:08

But I have been interested in the anneagram for a long time and i've heard that this is a good book about the anneagram

01:26:14

So at the very least we're going to have an entertaining discussion about another

01:26:19

Self-discovery assessment. I'll be at this time an ancient one per the book description

01:26:27

so

01:26:29

Do we need to take the test before we read this one? Is that how that works?

01:26:34

I don't know. I'm kind of I haven't opened this book yet actually. I do my goal tomorrow. So that's why i'm asking

01:26:42

Okay

01:26:43

Um

01:26:44

Yeah

01:26:45

I am kind of expecting that at some point in the first part of this book

01:26:49

They will point you to a resource to take the test because I know there's a bunch of places you can do it for free online

01:26:54

Sure, and then it will probably explain the different types because there's nine different types

01:26:59

So

01:27:02

Yeah, I don't know just talking out loud here. We haven't discussed this previously, but I think it would be kind of interesting to lean into uh

01:27:08

our types and the pros and cons of dealing with those types

01:27:13

Okay

01:27:16

That'll be fun

01:27:18

Well following that one

01:27:19

Mike and I had a discussion before we started because I had a different one on the list and it's like

01:27:23

I don't know if this is gonna work out well. So he kind of helped me find a different one

01:27:27

um

01:27:29

This is mind map mastery by tony bizan

01:27:32

I've had a fascination with mind map for mind mapping for a while, but i've never it's never clicked for me. Mike

01:27:39

I know this is something you do a lot of

01:27:41

at least for bookworm

01:27:43

and it's something that i've

01:27:45

Dabbled with in the past, but i've always felt like an outline served me better

01:27:51

than a mind map

01:27:53

so i'm very curious to see

01:27:55

the

01:27:58

Supposed inventor of mind mapping tony bizan

01:28:01

his viewpoint on it

01:28:03

Obviously he's for it, but how do you master mind mapping mike?

01:28:08

We're gonna find out

01:28:10

We're gonna get the answer

01:28:12

Very soon, but that's coming up after the story of you

01:28:15

How about gap books we got?

01:28:19

I have a book called emergence by steven johnson, which was recommended to me by nik milo of linking your thinking

01:28:27

and nik has this part of his workshop is this uh,

01:28:32

This levels of of idea emergence. It was one of the things that clicked for me when I went through his his workshop

01:28:39

And from looking at some of the other steven johnson books seems like he talks about ideas and creativity quite a bit

01:28:46

So I think this is a pretty fascinating topic of where ideas come from, but i'm not going to drag you through this one just yet

01:28:55

Well, we'll save that for another day. Is that what you're saying?

01:28:59

Maybe if it's good. Yeah

01:29:01

Well, i've got a gap book. I i'm

01:29:04

In the middle of i guess uh, and that is digital zettlekosten by

01:29:11

kadavi is this are you the one i've heard this from i was trying to place where i heard of this

01:29:17

I can't no one who recommended this one to you

01:29:20

Okay, I wasn't sure if that came from you or if i'd seen it through nik milo stuff or what it was but

01:29:25

It's interesting

01:29:29

Yeah, we're gonna have to talk about that one at some point. Okay

01:29:32

Maybe we need to do like a bookworm after hours and do an extra thing at some point, but i'd be game

01:29:39

So yes, that's that's what i'm in right now because i kind of hustled through this one to make it go away

01:29:45

So i can move on to something else i was like, oh, i got some time before the next one gets here. I'm gonna do this so

01:29:52

That's what i'm in the middle of

01:29:54

Cool

01:29:55

Super fun. Well, thanks to those of you who have joined us live

01:29:59

Super super glad to have have you guys here it always makes the makes the show

01:30:04

A little more fun. Well, we're recording not that it's not fun as it is

01:30:08

But we're also super grateful to those of you who are on our bookworm club membership list

01:30:13

Uh, if you haven't done that

01:30:15

Uh, yet you should go to bookworm.fm/membership

01:30:18

You can join the club for five bucks a month sixty a year and uh, it's a sixty a year

01:30:24

I'm drawing a blank on that this 50 discount. It's a 50 discount. Yep

01:30:28

and uh

01:30:31

Yeah, you get you get access to some cool stuff when you do that

01:30:33

Uh, we talk about it all the time, but you get access to mics my node files some

01:30:39

Special perks like a high res wallpaper and stuff

01:30:42

Uh, but yeah, always super grateful to have

01:30:45

To have you guys uh on that membership and we don't talk about it

01:30:49

Much, but you can get bookworm shirts yet

01:30:53

Like that's kind of an ongoing thing. We don't I guess we don't really say that a whole lot

01:30:58

But there'll be a link in the show notes. I can say that because I don't build the show notes

01:31:02

but

01:31:03

You can check the link and you can get

01:31:06

Uh a shirt or a sweatshirt. I know maybe there might be more than that too. I don't remember

01:31:11

You get a bookworm onesie if you want. Oh

01:31:14

I don't need one of those, but

01:31:18

I know that the sweatshirt is amazing. Like that is it's true easily my go-to sweatshirt

01:31:24

I don't know what it is

01:31:26

About that sweatshirt, but there's it's super comfy and warm. I like it a lot

01:31:30

This is not the time of year to buy a sweatshirt, but if you need a sweatshirt

01:31:33

That's the place to go

01:31:35

Caught the rom makes a good sweatshirt

01:31:37

Super good. Anyway, you can do that. We'd love to have you guys on board

01:31:42

All right, if you're reading along with us pick up the story of you by Ian morgan cron and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks