Bookworm Transcripts

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So I have to say last week was a lot of fun, Mike.

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It was.

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It was great to hang out with the B-Ligs.

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There's only a handful of times, it seems like, when Mike and I get a chance to actually

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be in the same room together, last week was one of them.

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We did something very fun, which was to put our entire families together for the first

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time.

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And that was very loud at times, but also very fun.

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So it was a good time.

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I'm glad you invited us up.

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Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

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Thanks for coming.

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I think it was approximately 12 minutes for Adelaide and Hazel to become BFFs.

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It's true.

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It's true.

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It was a very, very quick adjustment on their part, but it was a good time.

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It's good.

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I know that one of the things that came from that is my oldest daughter, Emma, was inspired

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by your oldest, who I didn't know that Toby was such a game stats nerd.

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And he inspired Emma to come up with her own game stats process, but she doesn't own

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an iPad as Toby does and decided to do it all on pen and paper.

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And I sent pictures of this to Mike, but it's pretty stellar what she came up with.

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It's pretty cool.

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It is.

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Yeah.

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And for people who are curious, Toby uses an app called board game stats.

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And actually I have it on my phone too, and it's synced to the same library.

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So basically whenever we play a game, he logs the statistics.

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And we've been playing cribbage a lot lately.

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So for example, you can put not just who won, although those sorts of things go into the

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stats for like when you play a four player game, you win so much percentage of the time,

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right?

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You get hundreds of games in there and then you can get some pretty crazy insights like

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one of the pieces of metadata that he has for my brother-in-law, Soren.

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He's like, hey, Uncle Soren, did you know that when you use

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nails as pegs, you're undefeated.

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So he logs all this stuff.

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And obviously like you have to create your own metadata and it takes time to put that

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stuff in, which is why he's the one who actually logs it all.

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I probably would stick with it for a couple of days and then be like, this is too much

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work, but he logs every single game that we play hundreds of them now.

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And the results are some pretty crazy statistics, which he was kind of sharing what we were

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together.

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Yeah, it was a good time.

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I will say that there were a couple points when I noticed he was playing games with his

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siblings and then he would lose.

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And then he was always just a little bit slow to enter those stats.

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That's kind of the joke now is like whenever he loses like, hey, put that one in the stats.

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He always does.

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But super fun.

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Well, we've also got some other follow-up we need to jump into.

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But you've got a very special thing coming up and you should talk about this now because

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I'm going to join this and I think it's going to be a good time because I could use this

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right now.

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Sure.

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So I have put together as part of my faith-based productivity course a long time ago, this

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idea of a life theme.

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And a life theme is basically like a personal mission statement.

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And over the years I've talked about this and I've even put together like little challenges

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and steps that you can use to kind of craft your own life theme because it's hard if

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you everyone understands the idea of a personal mission statement, but it's hard to just sit

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down and be like, okay, now write it.

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Like where do you even start?

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And I'm a productivity nerd.

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So I've read all these books and I've done all the exercises and I've kind of condensed

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down like the ones that have made the most impact for me into there's like five different

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steps here for creating your own life theme.

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And it's not a secret.

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We actually Rachel and I recorded a intentional family episode on this not too long ago.

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I'll put a link to that in the show notes for people who want like an overview of the

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five different steps, but you just kind of think through like, what are the times in

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your life when you've felt the most alive?

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And then I encourage people to like think bigger.

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So what would you do tomorrow if you couldn't fail?

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And then you start to like build out this picture of what your future life could look

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like in vivid detail.

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So where are you?

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Who's there with you?

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What are you doing?

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That sort of thing.

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And from there you think about what are the core values that are guiding your life are

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those reflected in that picture of your ideal future.

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And then you take all that stuff and you condense it down into a single sentence that encapsulates

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your reason for being.

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And that serves as a filter for deciding what you want to say yes to and what you should

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say no to.

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But it also serves as like once you understand the things that you're doing and how they

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connect to your life theme, it brings motivation.

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So you don't even have to change what you're doing.

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I think we kind of talked about this a little bit in the last book on motivation.

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Like what you're doing doesn't have to change.

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Just your perspective about it does.

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So once you identify the why, like it brings meaning to everything that you do.

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There's a saying don't follow your passion, but always bring it with you.

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That's what a life theme enables you to do.

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So I was encouraged in the faith-based productivity community to put together a cohort for this.

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And I've been a part of and helped lead different cohorts for different people and different

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things.

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But I've never actually led one myself.

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So I wanted to do this.

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This is almost like a mini cohort.

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This is not like you invest 30 hours a week, like part-time YouTuber Academy and you publish

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six videos and you figure out, you know, your whole niche and things like that.

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It's broken down into some pretty simple action steps.

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So I thought those five steps could make a pretty cool like five week cohort where we

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go through this together.

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And essentially what it will be is a live call every Friday for five weeks starting April

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28th, where I'll present a little bit of information on like the steps and kind of walk through

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how to do it, do some Q and A.

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And then basically whoever signs up for this, we're all going to go through this together.

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So you do it with a bunch of other people and you share your process along the progress

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along the way.

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You get live feedback and you can kind of tune this thing in, but you walk out of it basically

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with a personal mission statement.

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So what the heck do I charge for this?

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I have no idea, but these are like five group coaching calls, which I think I'm pretty good

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at, you know, having done them previously.

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And so I'm going to put this at $97.

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I think that is actually pretty, pretty reasonable.

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But I have no idea what to really expect from this one.

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I just want to start moving in this direction because I think this could be, this could

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be kind of cool.

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So I have a link which I will put in the show notes that people want to sign up for this.

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All the video calls will be recorded.

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So if you miss one, you can catch up.

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But basically just so you know, it's not an information thing.

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The real value of a cohort is that you don't just get the information in a video course,

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like a lot of people do and then you never go through it.

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You get out of it what you put into it.

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And then there's like public accountability as you go.

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So that's kind of the whole idea behind it.

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But yeah, starting April 28th, five weeks in a row, we're going to be building or revising

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our life themes together.

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And if you want to join us, there will be a link in the show notes would love to have

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you on board.

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Well, I know I'm planning to join this.

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Hopefully I'm able to make all of them.

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I know that, you know, as I was working through one of my follow up action items, which I guess

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I can jump into as part of this, I was trying to work through something.

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I ended up having a long conversation about it with my wife on our way back from Wisconsin

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last week.

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But this whole content creation thing that I know you and I have done over time, like

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we've I have done this a lot with bookworm, obviously, we're at episode 168, which is

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nuts to me.

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But I've not really done much for like my writing and such in a very long time.

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And I started to play that three C's concept, like the choice connection competence piece

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from our last book on that particular topic of content creation.

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And there's a couple of things that came out of that for me.

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One is like, I don't really have a clear like connection to both myself and other people

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on that particular one.

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Like, why is it that I'm doing this, which I think comes back somewhat to this life theme

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concept, because I don't really have a set, like, here's Joe's mission in life.

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Like I have a lot of like here's some to use Mike's favorite term, short term goals.

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Like here's what I'm doing over the next couple of years to prepare the church for this particular

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technology feat.

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And here are the things that I'm trying to do on our homestead of sorts.

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So like I know those things, but why?

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Like that's the part that I think I tend to struggle with.

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So like when I walked through that three C's concept, I identified that as a big pain point.

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So whenever you mentioned that you were going to do this cohort when we were together last

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week, yes, please, where is the place that I submit an email address?

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Because Mike needs my email address for this one, I'm sure.

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So yes, I'm excited about that.

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The faith based productivity circle community.

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So yeah.

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Super fun.

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Well, since I'm on the topic, I should, I suppose, do the other things because with

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it, the action I'm talking to is the work about was to work through these three C's on

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three different situations.

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Some of my rationale for that was mostly to try to figure out, is this a viable thing

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to do?

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Is this baloney like that?

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That's this, this is Joe's litmus test of, is this ridiculous or is it valid?

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And I think I can say it's valid because I think with this content creation piece and

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working through Mike's life theme thing and working on like some accountability stuff

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with my wife, that's, that's something that I think I'm, I'm, I've had a pretty good jump

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start on right now.

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So that's one.

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Another one was setting up lights for a good Friday.

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Now that sounds like a pretty lame thing, but our church is doing a good Friday service

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here.

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We've not historically done that.

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And the specific service requires some fairly advanced, I don't want to say advanced, but

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a lot of like lighting challenges with spotlights and zones and things that we don't normally

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do.

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And there are a bunch of reasons for that, but we decided we were going to do them this

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time.

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Well, I needed to like set aside some time to go like work on this and do some planning

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for it and try to get some ideas on how it could work.

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And for the life of me, I kept avoiding it over and over and over.

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And ultimately, I think it came down to basically a lack of choice on my part.

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I felt like it was something that was being thrust upon me that I didn't really support.

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So then it was like out of my hands, which then led me down the path of, okay, well, if

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that's out of my hands, how do I spin this mentally to make this my choice?

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And I think I found some ways to do that, like different ways to take advantage of what

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I was being asked to do, but then to put my own little flair on it.

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And that seemingly had a pretty big effect on me.

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Because once I figured that particular part out, it was done pretty quick.

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So there's something we said there.

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And then the last one, which is really quite boring because I wanted to use it on something

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that was boring that I really, really don't like doing.

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And that was taxes because welcome to tax season in the United States.

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And really, like I'm fully capable of getting everything together for taxes.

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I'm very capable of, and like realizing that I have a choice to do this.

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But again, didn't really connect with why on earth I might have to do this other than

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the government tells me I have to do this.

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I don't want to do this.

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Have I mentioned that I don't want to do this?

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And I'm picking up on that.

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Just through like changing like some of the choice stuff and the connection stuff of like

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this is a way to help us do XYZ for some financial stuff that ended up being something

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I was able to motivate myself to get started on.

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I don't want to say that I use that to motivate me to do the whole thing just because it ended

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up happening over the span of a couple days.

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But once it was started, it was pretty easy to keep it going.

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So it was mostly just to get the ball rolling on that one.

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So at the end of the day, I think what I have realized is that if you are willing to go

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through the process and take the time to break down those three C's, it can work pretty well.

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What I also learned though is that it takes a little bit of time to determine what those

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potential pain points are.

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It's not something that's always super obvious and it can take a little while to get it figured

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out and it feels like a waste of time.

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That's the potential pain point, at least for me because it's like, okay, if I'm going

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to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out why I'm not doing this, why don't I just go do

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the thing instead?

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Which is a weird spot to be.

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To be like, I would rather just get the thing done because it's going to take 10 minutes

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versus the 20 minutes to figure out why I don't want to do it.

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So I had a couple of things.

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I can't remember what they were.

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There was a couple of things that I was debating using this on.

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I had gotten which one.

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I had done the taxes one and realized how long it took me to figure that one out.

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And then just decided I'm not taking the time to do that.

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I'm just going to do it quick.

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So just the threat of trying to work through the three C's was enough to get me to go do

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the thing.

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So it was weird.

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That was a weird revelation on my part.

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But I can't say the three C's thing does seem to work.

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Cool, cool.

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I've got two action items.

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Make a list of the things that I value and craft my own credo.

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Both of these things, of course, live inside of obsidian.

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And I have started these and starting to make progress on them, but I don't think they're

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finished.

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And I don't know when they will be.

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I do like having these as just kind of save notes and I keep adding things to them as

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I think of them.

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Sure.

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So I can share some examples here.

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Things I value, honesty, integrity, authenticity, time, discipline, commitment, personal growth,

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simplicity, calm, which I put in parentheses, a lack of drama.

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And then these are kind of tied to the, what I'm calling the faith-based productivity manifesto,

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but it's basically a personal manifesto, personal credo, whatever.

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Do what's right, not what's easy.

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Show up every day, progress, not perfection, things like that.

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Create, don't consume.

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I've talked about that.

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Just ship it, embrace constraints, connect the dots, trust the process.

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Don't be a jerk.

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Follow your path.

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Then quantity, be a river, not a reservoir.

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Say what you mean and mean what you say.

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So I kind of like how this is shaping up, but definitely not done yet.

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I do this manifesto specifically.

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I want to end up taking all of these short little sayings and then creating a graphic

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for it.

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But I don't know when I'll think that this is done enough to actually do that.

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But that's ultimately what I want the end state of this to be.

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Cool.

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So I guess, does that bring us to the fun part of the day?

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Yep, you can't avoid it any longer.

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Okay.

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I don't know that I'm actually avoiding it.

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I don't know.

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There's something about this.

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I'm kind of, yeah, I don't know.

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Well, you're not running into the discussion.

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I'm not.

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I'm really not.

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Okay, let's go.

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So 12 Rules for Life, Jordan B. Peterson.

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I picked this book partially because it seems like I keep showing up on lists every time

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I look up like potential books or bookworm and it just struck me that I need to pick

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a book for bookworm.

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So if you have one you want, put it in the chat.

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This one continue to show up on all the things.

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And it's one that I know is very controversial in the sense that people are very split by

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Jordan B. Peterson and having read this, I think I understand why and have lots of

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feelings about this that we'll go through.

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And it's one that I feel like I've wanted to read for quite a while just because it

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keeps showing up on so many different arenas.

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And yet I've been a little afraid to pick it just because I knew some of the drama around

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Jordan Peterson.

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So at this point, I'm kind of glad I finally got it in my hands and had a chance to go

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through it.

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But what were your initial thoughts on this one, Mike, before you started the process

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of reading what turns out to be a very talk-worthy book?

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Let me answer that by telling you a story.

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Okay.

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I used to travel fairly often every couple of months.

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And whenever I was in the airport, I always look at the books that people are reading,

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not like reading over their shoulder, but they always just jump out to me.

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That intrigues me.

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And a lot of times they're fiction and have no interest in the romance novels, so whatever.

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I'll move on quickly.

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But if it's a biography or a business book or a personal development type book, I'm usually

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pretty intrigued.

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So I remember seeing 12 rules for life a long time ago.

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Huh, it's kind of interesting.

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What is that?

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And I looked at it and I immediately did not want to go anywhere near it ever again.

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So when you picked this one, I was like, okay, fine.

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I guess I have to.

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Yeah.

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I've never tried to talk you out of a book for bookworm.

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Probably the closest one would have been Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance.

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But it was just like that one that one, I had the same sort of feeling.

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I've heard people talk about, oh, this is a great book.

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I had absolutely no interest in it.

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Did not want to go anywhere near it.

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There's plenty of other books I would rather read than that one.

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So that's probably like the closest thing where I would have been like, hey, Joe, you

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sure you want to do this one?

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Can we maybe pick something else?

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And I had the same feeling when you picked this one.

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I know I've got a good one on my hands.

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Is there fun that way?

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That is not a quality judgment on the book itself.

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That's just my personal taste.

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And since you're asking about my first impression of the book, it was like, oh, I guess we have

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to.

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Yes.

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That you do.

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You have to do this, Mike.

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I'm forcing you into it.

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Well, I think the easiest way to do this is, you know, I wrote all 12 rules down in the

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notes.

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There's a handful of these.

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I think you're going to be very, very quick.

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And unless there's something I'm missing that you feel like you want to cover on these,

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there's probably about four of these I think we'll spend most of our time on.

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But I think it's going to be at least somewhat helpful if we discuss all of them.

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At least somewhat.

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Is that fair?

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Let's do it.

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The beginning of it, however, starts with a forward and an overture.

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So there is a person, I don't have his name in front of me, that wrote a forward for it,

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which is basically how he met Jordan B. Peterson and how he really liked him.

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And then the overture is written by Jordan Peterson himself, who basically is setting

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up why rules.

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And in this world, why do we need more rules?

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Which is basically his justification, like his justification for that is just that there

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are some things that we need to follow that will make everything else go better.

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That was kind of my very brief summarization of what I got out of that overture.

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But yeah, that's really all I've got on that part before we jump into rules.

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Anything strike you from those two pieces?

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No, just how long they were.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Which is a pretty good foreshadowing of this.

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Would we decide 360 some page book?

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Yeah.

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That's a short one.

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So that said, let's jump into rule one, which is stand up straight with your shoulders back.

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And I have lots and lots of handwritten notes on these particular rules.

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I'm not going to share all of them, but this one starts off with a story about lobsters.

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That is not where I expected this book to start.

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Something about lobsters and how there's basically hierarchies in the animal world, as is with

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crustaceans, there is hierarchy.

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The moral of the story is by the time you get done with this particular rule in this

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chapter is that if you stand up straight with your shoulders back, it essentially helps

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release certain chemicals in your brain to make you feel more confident.

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That's the very, very basic understanding I have on it.

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That said, there's a lot more in this book or in this particular chapter, but that's

00:23:07

the big overarching point here.

00:23:09

Yeah.

00:23:10

So the lobster story I actually thought was kind of cool at the beginning.

00:23:19

And then I realized how these chapters and the book itself are put together and it lost

00:23:26

some of its significance, shall we say, because he jumps from there to something else to something

00:23:35

else to something else.

00:23:36

And there's like seven or eight different jumps in each one of these chapters.

00:23:41

And every one of these jumps is a bit of a leap.

00:23:45

He's a good writer.

00:23:46

So it's a very smooth transition.

00:23:51

But after a while, you start to just feel overwhelmed with all the different places that

00:23:57

he's taken you.

00:23:59

And he always ends these chapters by coming back to the name of the chapter itself.

00:24:04

So kind of a poetic envelope thing going on here always comes back to, you know, stand

00:24:09

up straight with your shoulders back.

00:24:11

But I feel at this point, just in the first chapter that this is not for me.

00:24:24

Kind of talked a little bit about this before we hit record.

00:24:28

Very intellectual.

00:24:30

And the arguments are linked together so carefully is basically creating like this patchwork quilt

00:24:40

story of these different principles.

00:24:44

And I feel like this is the type of person, not Jordan Peterson himself, but I feel like

00:24:50

I have met people who are sort of in this vein, this ilk, right?

00:24:57

And they're impossible to talk to because they know all these facts and they are convinced

00:25:01

that because they put together this, you know, those those things from like the murder movies

00:25:07

with all the different strings that tie together.

00:25:10

There was no whiteboard with like things written on the strings and what they mean.

00:25:15

Yeah.

00:25:16

Yeah.

00:25:17

So this is what people think of the people who don't like PKMs and app like the apps

00:25:21

like obsidian that they think, Oh, there's the people have all these different connections

00:25:25

and they're going to sort through all these different connections.

00:25:27

They're going to connect all these dots.

00:25:28

And it's going to magically open up the skies and they're going to see the truth.

00:25:32

Like that's not how it works.

00:25:34

But that's kind of the journey that he's taking you down.

00:25:38

And very quickly, even in the first chapter, you know, that more and more Adler, how to

00:25:42

read a book, this is supposed to be a conversation, right?

00:25:46

And I'm supposed to be weighing these arguments that he's making and then responding.

00:25:49

I feel like I stopped responding because even just reading this book, it's like, well, he

00:25:55

doesn't care what I'm going to say.

00:25:59

So yeah, not a great setup for the rest of the book.

00:26:05

I would would say if you're going to go into it, like we do, I guess, or I do for bookworm

00:26:14

where it's like, what are the nuggets here that I can extract because he's so carefully

00:26:20

cherry picking certain things to weave this big web that it feels like a fruitless exercise

00:26:28

to try to dig any deeper on any one of them.

00:26:31

Yeah, we talked about this beforehand a little bit, which is a little dangerous sometimes.

00:26:39

But I've watched a number of Jordan B. Peterson's videos, his short form videos over the last

00:26:47

maybe six months or so, which is partly why I was interested in reading his book.

00:26:51

But at the same time, I know that a lot of his posts and those of people who have debated

00:26:59

him because I wanted to make sure I was understanding the other side of it, not just the cherry-picked

00:27:05

segments he wanted us to see.

00:27:07

But any time he is in a debate or a conversation with someone and there's any chance of getting

00:27:14

him to question his current thought, you have to have a lot of data and a lot of debate

00:27:23

background to get him to even question his current viewpoint.

00:27:27

And if you do get him to question that, which is a challenge, he will very quickly, in almost

00:27:35

every scenario, have some kind of rebuttal that slightly changes it off topic, it seems.

00:27:40

Not completely, but somewhat just enough.

00:27:43

And that's a little frustrating at times.

00:27:47

That makes perfect sense to me based on how he jumps from thing to thing here.

00:27:51

Correct.

00:27:52

Yeah.

00:27:53

And there's a couple points.

00:27:54

I'm not seeing it quickly in my notes, but there's a couple times when he had a heading

00:28:00

in the book and then it was like the rest of it was designed to try to defend that argument.

00:28:08

And I got to the end of it, I don't feel like you defended that argument at all.

00:28:13

You walked around it the whole time, but I don't feel like I'm actually buying your

00:28:20

viewpoint here.

00:28:22

And again, this rule number one is where he kind of sets the stage for that.

00:28:25

This is where I realized that if he needs to set up background for something, that he

00:28:31

will spend multiple pages setting up the background for one sub point.

00:28:38

And sometimes he doesn't always use it.

00:28:39

There was a thing later on about black squirrels in the park and they're not normally there.

00:28:45

It's like, what's that got to do with anything?

00:28:50

And from what I could tell, he never brought that one full around anyway.

00:28:52

So rule number one, stand up straight with your shoulders back.

00:28:56

Generally, this is a very specific thing he's recommending, which is stand up straight,

00:29:01

shoulders back.

00:29:03

And I actually wrote this down as an action item at the time.

00:29:05

I don't know if I'm going to follow through on this.

00:29:07

We can put it through.

00:29:09

But just like I have my watch kind of tap my wrist every 15 minutes because I'm time blind

00:29:15

on so many things.

00:29:16

It's like every time I goes off, I just got to make sure my posture is okay.

00:29:22

And that's it.

00:29:23

That's as far as it goes.

00:29:24

But as I've finished reading the book, I'm not sure I'm going to follow through on that

00:29:27

just because I think there was maybe a flaw somewhere in this that I just didn't catch.

00:29:34

That said, let's go on rule number two because this is going to be way more fun than rule

00:29:38

number one.

00:29:39

Rule number two, treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping at the surface

00:29:46

that that concept.

00:29:48

This is actually one of the things I really like is if you were to read these 12 rules,

00:29:52

just read the table of contents, you can get a lot of value just by reading the list.

00:29:57

I just want to point that out.

00:29:59

There's a lot of good stuff here.

00:30:01

We're already being nitpicky on this one, but there is some value in a lot of this.

00:30:06

But treat yourself like someone you were responsible for helping.

00:30:09

And he starts this off by talking about the difference between chaos and order and the

00:30:15

juxtaposition of those two needing each other, which very quickly takes him into what I was

00:30:24

not prepared for, which then turned into a theme throughout a lot of the rest of the

00:30:30

book, which was like a biblical scriptural deep dive and a theological deep dive.

00:30:37

I was not prepared for that at all.

00:30:42

I knew that Peterson was not against talking about the Bible and would sometimes use biblical

00:30:50

references in his talks.

00:30:52

But I did not know he would go this deep or for so long on this topic.

00:31:00

There's a whole bunch of stuff here.

00:31:02

I know you've been thinking about this one quite a bit, but at the surface of this, he's

00:31:09

essentially going back to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the fall of man to use

00:31:18

the Christian terms, right, and using that scenario as the basis for this chaos and order

00:31:26

conversation.

00:31:29

What are your thoughts on this?

00:31:30

I know you have a lot around this particular one.

00:31:33

It was at this point that I know I started very seriously questioning his belief systems,

00:31:38

but what are your thoughts on this one, Mike?

00:31:42

He really wants to be seen as a deep brother.

00:31:47

Keep in mind, one of the things that I just shared that I value is simplicity, right?

00:31:52

So we'll say when I read this and he did the deep dive into certain scriptural passages

00:32:01

from the Bible that kind of helped me understand why certain people that I know have referenced

00:32:11

this book, kind of like they like it so long.

00:32:15

I kind of question whether they actually read it, but I think there is a stigma type of person

00:32:22

who you could say like, "Oh, well, obviously."

00:32:26

They like Jordan B. Peterson, and I think you and I are probably close to falling into

00:32:31

that circle or that avatar.

00:32:35

So I actually did not appreciate it at all.

00:32:40

I thought it was interesting at the beginning.

00:32:42

I'm not surprised in the direction that he went.

00:32:44

I also think they're in lies folly.

00:32:50

When it comes to Christianity, I think there is a danger of trying to make things too complicated.

00:32:56

And I went to Bible college.

00:32:58

I have a Bible college degree.

00:33:00

My whole brand is faith-based productivity.

00:33:03

So on one level, it's cool that he's referencing this.

00:33:07

However, this is the mistake I see a lot of people make is they try to get so deep that

00:33:12

they lose the forest through the trees.

00:33:16

I think he even said at one point in here, or maybe it was a different book, but I thought

00:33:22

he referenced a version of like there are different famous people who through they've

00:33:28

been anti-Christian in their life.

00:33:31

And the big problem they have is that while you Christians don't act like you're Christ,

00:33:36

the actual gospel message is very simple.

00:33:39

And it's all based on loving your neighbor as yourself.

00:33:43

So I don't know.

00:33:45

I mean, let's keep the main thing, the main thing here.

00:33:50

And that's totally not what he's doing.

00:33:51

It's not the way this book is structured.

00:33:55

So I don't know.

00:33:57

I mean, at this point, I was honestly disconnecting from the book itself.

00:34:05

Like Martin said in the chat, this feels like he's showing us how clever he is.

00:34:16

And it's almost like in the second chapter here with the deep dive into the scripture,

00:34:20

where it's like, Oh, yes, see, I know about this area too, which doesn't surprise me from

00:34:25

an academic.

00:34:28

But also I don't think is really a great perspective to have.

00:34:33

That's just me personally based on the stuff that we read, but I'm thinking of like liminal

00:34:38

thinking by Dave Gray specifically, we develop these bubbles of belief.

00:34:43

And I feel like the approach that I see Jordan Pearson taking here is just whatever data

00:34:49

point he finds instead of questioning like, is that true and going outside his bubble?

00:34:54

Oh, let's figure out a connection to that.

00:34:56

So it reinforces the bubble.

00:35:00

Or as is the case on some of these, it's like he wants to bring it up simply to show how

00:35:05

he can deconstruct it and show how it's not true.

00:35:10

And there's like in this particular section, he contradicts himself in a couple ways.

00:35:17

And in primarily, you know, using the biblical references, you know, he makes a comment that

00:35:25

God couldn't keep evil out of the garden, which is why the original sin happened.

00:35:31

So God couldn't keep evil out.

00:35:33

And then he says, why would God ever do such a thing?

00:35:38

But then it wasn't what is this three pages later and the underlying tone there with that,

00:35:45

by the way, is like, you don't need to ask him because I already know.

00:35:50

Yeah.

00:35:51

But then, and that's just one particular case, he's got a number of these worries like asking

00:35:55

these questions like God, why would you ever, why wouldn't he do x, y, z?

00:36:01

But then on page 52, he has a quote, but who would dare to question God?

00:36:05

And I wrote my own note next to that Jordan B. Peterson apparently.

00:36:10

So I think okay.

00:36:13

Let me address that specifically because that like you and I are kind of like, well, how

00:36:18

could you possibly question God?

00:36:22

It takes an awful lot of assurance in your, in yourself to do that.

00:36:30

But that is still the wrong approach, even if you're just talking about other people's

00:36:35

ideas.

00:36:36

So it's take it outside the religious context.

00:36:39

The approach here is still fundamentally broken, I feel.

00:36:42

Sure.

00:36:43

It's like, I know best and you know nothing.

00:36:46

Yeah.

00:36:47

I'm not sure that's how he intends it.

00:36:49

I think that's the right tone.

00:36:51

I think you're absolutely correct.

00:36:53

That's the tone that it comes across as.

00:36:55

I don't think that's the way he intends it though.

00:36:57

Yeah.

00:36:58

I know a lot of people take it as he intended it that way.

00:37:02

Just and I'm the only reason I'm saying that is because I have watched him debate people

00:37:07

over video a number of times and he's generally not always sometimes he's like out to get somebody's

00:37:16

argument and prove them, prove that they're wrong and that he's right.

00:37:19

But generally speaking, it's mostly that he's trying to get himself down to the fundamental

00:37:24

truths and what is actually happening.

00:37:28

And I think that's what he's attempting to do just with flawed logic.

00:37:33

But again, he's using an arena that you and I both know very well.

00:37:38

So he, the way he talks and the way that he presents his arguments, I have this picture

00:37:45

because I have competed in Toastmasters and part of the comp, one of the competitions

00:37:49

they have is this table topics, extemporaneous speech where you go up to the front of the

00:37:54

room, they give you the prompt or the topic and then you have to on right there for three

00:38:00

minutes, talk in response to that.

00:38:04

And one of the strategies that people use is when they give you the topic, you start

00:38:12

talking about something else unrelated at the beginning.

00:38:17

And sometimes if you're good, like you can wrap it back into that theme.

00:38:21

Some people just don't care and they use it as an opportunity to just get on their soapbox

00:38:25

and talk about whatever the heck they want.

00:38:28

But I could totally see Jordan Peterson getting up there and like, okay, could you tell us

00:38:34

why X, you know, and then he's like, well, let me tell you a story about Z.

00:38:40

And then Z led to A and then A led to B, which by the way, as you can see, that ties to

00:38:47

X.

00:38:48

And by the time he's like taking you all these different places, the judges, they're basing

00:38:53

it on your ability to speak, right?

00:38:54

So it's all like how you feel about what was said.

00:38:57

It has nothing to do with the actual content of the writing.

00:38:59

Those are the people who win those competitions.

00:39:02

Sure.

00:39:03

Jordan B. Peterson would be great at Toastmasters.

00:39:05

Well, let's go on to rule number three, make friends with people who want the best for you.

00:39:14

I don't have a whole lot to say on this one.

00:39:16

He starts out with a story about his hometown.

00:39:19

You know, people choose friends for a variety of reasons.

00:39:22

He points out a few of the bad reasons, which is like to rescue them.

00:39:26

You know, you have a friend and they have a bunch of problems and you feel like you can

00:39:29

help them.

00:39:30

So you become friends with them.

00:39:32

Or you don't want to be challenged in your own belief systems or your own day to day choices.

00:39:38

So you go be friends with people who are easy to be around and won't challenge you.

00:39:45

But you know, ultimately bad friends are easier to be around and the good ones will,

00:39:49

you know, hold you to a higher standard.

00:39:51

So pick good friends.

00:39:54

That's it in a nutshell.

00:39:59

But he takes 50 pages to talk about the people from his hometown who couldn't escape and

00:40:05

committed suicide and stuff like that.

00:40:08

He's a good writer like those stories are entertaining as a story about suicide can

00:40:13

be like he does a good job telling it.

00:40:16

But yeah, you're right.

00:40:18

You can encapsulate it in a couple of sentences like you did.

00:40:21

One of the things that did kind of stand out to me from this is he says loyalty must be

00:40:27

negotiated fairly and honestly.

00:40:30

I have been described by my wife as loyal to a fault.

00:40:38

So that that one specifically gave me something to chew on.

00:40:41

No action item associated with that.

00:40:43

But at the very least, nothing else in this book, it encouraged me to not just blindly

00:40:49

be loyal, but ask essentially what is the transaction that is happening here, not that

00:40:56

it's all based on like, well, what can you do for me?

00:40:59

But I also think it's okay to kind of stand up for yourself maybe a little bit.

00:41:03

So rule number four, because we'll need to keep moving here.

00:41:07

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

00:41:12

I feel like this is a topic we've talked about.

00:41:14

A fair amount on bookworm.

00:41:17

If you start comparing yourself to someone else, you're always going to find somebody

00:41:20

who's better.

00:41:21

And that's really what he's saying here.

00:41:23

He talks about being born in a small town.

00:41:25

I was born in a small town.

00:41:27

That was pre days when everybody had social media.

00:41:31

So it was a thing that people still knew everything you were up to.

00:41:37

That's been something that's been in my life from the day I can remember.

00:41:41

I know that a lot of people, that's not the case.

00:41:43

But in small town America, that's the way it is, even more so now with the social media

00:41:48

internet world.

00:41:50

But ultimately it's big fish, small pond at the beginning, big fish in the ocean.

00:41:57

Not so big, that scenario.

00:41:59

But if you compare yourself to who you were yesterday, ultimately what you're doing is

00:42:06

you're focusing on your own actions and not letting somebody else's actions get in the

00:42:12

way of what you're after.

00:42:14

Again, that's really the distillation of what he's getting at with this one.

00:42:20

Pay attention to yourself, not so much everybody else.

00:42:25

Which I agree with.

00:42:26

I mean, if you just take the rule itself, I feel like this one really resonates.

00:42:31

But again, the style, it's like, do you really have to drag me through 50 pages of this?

00:42:37

I guess the thing that I can't quite wrap my head around, and maybe it's just because

00:42:41

I'm not an academic.

00:42:43

But the topic here, compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is

00:42:52

today.

00:42:53

That is essentially the whole idea of the gap versus the gain by Dan Sullivan.

00:42:58

Have we talked about that on Bookworm?

00:42:59

I feel like we have.

00:43:01

Maybe a cursory level.

00:43:03

Okay.

00:43:04

Well, I'll just review it real briefly as a whole book about it.

00:43:08

But imagine three dots on a straight line going top to bottom.

00:43:15

The middle dot is where you are.

00:43:19

You can compare yourself to somebody else who's more successful.

00:43:22

Or another version of that is where you want to be.

00:43:26

This is why I hate goals.

00:43:28

Because you have this picture of your ideal future at the top.

00:43:30

You look at where you are right now, and you get discouraged.

00:43:32

There's a gap there.

00:43:34

You feel like, especially once you set a goal and you get there and the goal posts move

00:43:38

on you, and now you have another goal that you have to achieve, you feel like you're

00:43:43

not making enough progress fast enough.

00:43:46

It's never good enough.

00:43:47

But if instead you look at where you are now, and you base it off of habits, right, so you

00:43:52

can see your progress, and you compare that to where you started, that's the gain.

00:43:56

You can see how much you've grown.

00:43:57

And then they're like, "Oh, hey, actually, this is working."

00:43:59

And then you just continue to do it.

00:44:02

And then you have motivation to keep going there.

00:44:05

So that's essentially what he's saying here.

00:44:07

But Dan Sullivan talks about that.

00:44:09

And yeah, he's extrapolated it to a higher book at this point.

00:44:12

But for years he talks about this.

00:44:13

This was like three pages.

00:44:14

It was a simple concept that he brought up in the midst of a whole bunch of other things.

00:44:20

And it's so direct, and it's so clear.

00:44:23

And by the time you get done reading this chapter, your eyes are glossed over, and you're

00:44:26

like, "I don't even know what I just heard, man, but it was good."

00:44:30

But me, I'm asking myself at the end, like, "Who cares?

00:44:37

What am I going to do about this?

00:44:38

What impact has this hat on me?"

00:44:40

And this one specifically, because he ends it with that same phrase, I'm like, "Dan Sullivan

00:44:46

did this way better."

00:44:48

Well, I know that in today's world, it's easy to see how other people are doing things

00:44:56

and how well they're doing with them.

00:44:59

And it's easy to get into the comparison game with that.

00:45:04

And to do the comparison thing at a very, very basic level can cause problems, it's okay

00:45:13

to notice how well something else is done.

00:45:16

Like there's a fine line between viewing what other people are doing and using that

00:45:20

as inspiration to do better yourself, and watching something somebody else is done or

00:45:26

is in the middle of doing and then saying, "Why can't I be like that?"

00:45:31

Those are two different realms.

00:45:33

And if we focus more on how am I doing as compared to how the rest of my stuff is doing,

00:45:39

am I on the mission to do my thing, or am I just trying to beat this other person, the

00:45:47

whole competition thing like that?

00:45:50

That can get to be a problem.

00:45:51

So if you focus on your own thing and use the other as inspiration instead of comparison,

00:45:59

I feel like that's the benefit in it.

00:46:01

I think he would probably agree with this on that, though it would take a very long process

00:46:07

of him talking about inattentional blindness, religion, a slipped in attack on atheism.

00:46:14

I was not prepared for that one either, to get to the point where he says, "Pay attention

00:46:19

to yourself."

00:46:20

What was this?

00:46:21

38 page endeavor to get to that point.

00:46:26

Yeah, he likes his meandering journeys.

00:46:30

He sure does.

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00:48:13

All right, rule number five.

00:48:16

And I think you briefly mentioned this one when we were together last week.

00:48:20

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

00:48:23

Okay, now let's move on.

00:48:25

Like that's great.

00:48:30

This one is, I don't have a lot written down from this, but there is a quote that I wrote,

00:48:38

which is, it's an act of responsibility to discipline a child.

00:48:46

And I think that's very valuable.

00:48:49

This is one of the sections where like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:48:54

It was also one of the longer ones as well.

00:48:57

Though I have to admit, it was hard at times to not skim some of this.

00:49:03

Yeah, it's great stories.

00:49:04

It's great things, but I want to move on.

00:49:06

Wait, don't let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

00:49:09

Like on the surface, that sounds awesome.

00:49:12

I haven't really found anything that I, in this particular one that I felt like was wrong.

00:49:19

But it's a good charge to take responsibility for discipline, for disciplining your child.

00:49:28

Yeah.

00:49:30

This one feels like parenting advice, but also like at this point in the book, I'm looking

00:49:41

at it with a side eye.

00:49:44

So some of this stuff I feel in here is probably decent advice that he doesn't speak to directly.

00:49:53

So it doesn't really have sort of impact that it could have.

00:49:56

I mean, I jotted down a few things from here.

00:50:00

Not like, oh, I'm going to change this.

00:50:01

This is an action item sort of a thing.

00:50:03

But I feel like there's a few nuggets of wisdom in here about not trying to be your

00:50:09

kid's friend and how kids can be damaged by a lack of attention as much as by mental or

00:50:14

physical abuse.

00:50:15

It's kind of shocking to hear that.

00:50:18

But I think I can see that.

00:50:20

Can't avoid being the bad guy, you know, kind of stuff like that.

00:50:24

But I don't know, I didn't come to this book for parenting advice.

00:50:30

And I am skeptical of any parent who thinks that they can condense everything about parenting

00:50:38

into even 12 rules.

00:50:40

Like if this whole book was written as here's everything you know about parenting, I still

00:50:44

don't think I would trust it.

00:50:47

Parenting is one of the most difficult things in the world to do.

00:50:52

Simply because each kid is completely different.

00:50:56

So the whole rules format doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

00:51:00

My personal opinion, you have to get the plan for each kid.

00:51:05

You got to figure out who they are.

00:51:08

And I personally believe that given to you for a reason.

00:51:12

So you have what it takes to raise them right.

00:51:15

But you can't just follow a formula.

00:51:19

And the more that I see the, I guess, kind of longer I've been a parent, the more I've

00:51:25

seen people who have taken that approach.

00:51:28

I know one person specifically who is kind of a famous football player at one point.

00:51:34

I'm not going to share their name, but they had a bunch of kids and was very rigid.

00:51:40

And on the surface, you know, it looks like they've got a great family.

00:51:43

The kids are real well behaved.

00:51:45

And then he ends up going crazy and the family falls apart.

00:51:49

And then you kind of see, like, if you watch long enough, you know, that it wasn't exactly

00:51:54

what it seemed.

00:51:55

I don't want to pretend like I've got it all together.

00:51:58

I hope I've got a strong foundation and I'm going to do whatever I can to build it.

00:52:04

But it's not going to be condensed into a rule or rules.

00:52:10

Sure.

00:52:11

Well, let's keep moving here because I don't want to get into the parenting advice realm

00:52:17

at the moment.

00:52:18

Rule number six, set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.

00:52:26

The emphasis on that is mine on perfect.

00:52:29

The reason I put the emphasis there is because he talks about how things fall apart, things

00:52:37

break, things don't always stay in perfect order.

00:52:43

And before you start trying to worry about someone else's world, you need to make sure

00:52:49

you are right in that same realm or to use his word.

00:52:54

It needs to be in perfect order before you start worrying about somebody else's territory.

00:53:00

Now, it's interesting to me, you know, one of his rules later is going to be about being

00:53:06

precise in your words and your speech.

00:53:09

But it's interesting to me that if that's the case, he's being very precise with this

00:53:12

choice of words, knowing how he operates.

00:53:16

He's usually quite precise with what he's saying, which meant that me coming into this,

00:53:23

that's probably a little bit of the weird bias that I had coming into this.

00:53:27

Like I'm taking every word as if he means it and didn't have some unintended bias behind

00:53:33

it.

00:53:34

So he's saying put it in perfect order before you criticize the world.

00:53:38

Now here's the catch.

00:53:40

When is it ever in perfect order?

00:53:44

Whether that's relationally cleanliness, you name it, you know, perfect politically, that

00:53:50

doesn't exist.

00:53:52

So if that's the case, when is the point at which you would criticize the world?

00:54:01

Never.

00:54:03

So it based on that terminology and the debate that he took us through in this, it led me

00:54:09

to believe that there is never a point at which you would be willing to criticize the

00:54:14

world because your stuff would never be put together perfectly.

00:54:19

So why is he criticizing so many things in the world?

00:54:25

Is that the point?

00:54:26

I mean, is that maybe I haven't watched, I haven't watched any of his other videos or

00:54:30

followed anything else that he does online.

00:54:32

So I can't compare, but you know, if you're looking at this book, I mean, that would be

00:54:36

a fairly effective point to make is like, hey, don't worry about what other people are

00:54:41

doing.

00:54:42

Just worry about yourself.

00:54:43

I'm eating.

00:54:44

Yep.

00:54:45

And Jesus said that.

00:54:47

Yeah.

00:54:48

Worry about the log in your own eye before you dig out the spec in your brother's eye.

00:54:52

Correct.

00:54:53

That's kind of what the title implies here.

00:54:56

The things I jotted down from this chapter, there were only a couple of points.

00:54:59

Right.

00:55:00

They are all relate to not finding somebody else to blame and cleaning up your own life,

00:55:06

not doing what you know is wrong, all that kind of, that kind of stuff.

00:55:10

Self determination, personal responsibility, those sorts of things, which at this, I don't

00:55:18

know, like we're repeating the same model, obviously every single chapter.

00:55:24

We're not speaking real strongly directly to any one of these things, but let's just

00:55:27

say he did, right?

00:55:29

Self, self determination, you are in charge of your own future.

00:55:32

We talk about that a lot on this podcast, but let's say that's what Rule 6 is all about.

00:55:41

Is this transformational for people?

00:55:46

Like five million copies sold.

00:55:50

So it says on the cover of mine anyways.

00:55:51

Right.

00:55:52

Yeah.

00:55:53

Mine too.

00:55:54

So I'm kind of blown away that people are encountering this idea and thinking that this

00:56:02

is brand new, maybe the way he describes it using all the fancy words is new, but five

00:56:11

million copies of what exactly?

00:56:15

I mean, at this point, feels like a bunch of fluff.

00:56:20

I don't know.

00:56:21

I mean, Martin made a point in the chat.

00:56:23

This might be one of the few books where the Blinkist version would be better.

00:56:26

I pity the person who has to try to make the Blinkist version of this.

00:56:32

You consolidate some of the things that he's trying to say here.

00:56:37

If you did that, I feel like he gets surface level.

00:56:41

It feels like a thousand word blog post that was turned into, I don't know, 90,000 words

00:56:50

in a book, but sort of chat GPT style where it's added a whole bunch of volume, but there's

00:57:00

not a whole lot of signal here.

00:57:04

There's not a whole lot of boosting of these ideas.

00:57:08

And again, maybe it's just because I'm not the right person for this.

00:57:11

It doesn't really click with me, but silent says that the Blinkist version is one minute

00:57:15

long.

00:57:16

It's just the 12 rules.

00:57:19

That's it.

00:57:20

Also, I suppose if you took your time and just said them with conviction, you could get it

00:57:28

to be a minute long.

00:57:29

I do know, and he mentions this in the overture at the beginning, that this started out as

00:57:37

a list of things to live by on Quora.

00:57:43

He was answering a question on Quora, and then he had a publisher reach out to him and

00:57:49

want to make it into a book, and then it slowly got whittled down to these 12 rules.

00:57:54

So it did start out as a blog post of sorts that then got expanded into 300 plus pages.

00:58:03

So you're not wrong in that.

00:58:07

I just think I should probably look up the Quora answer and read that and be done.

00:58:11

Okay, let's go on to rule number seven, which is pursue what is meaningful, not what is

00:58:19

expedient.

00:58:21

And the premise here goes that we tend to believe the concept life is short, so live

00:58:27

it up.

00:58:30

That's like the short-sighted view of life.

00:58:34

Whereas if you want to have a meaningful life, it always requires sacrifice of some kind.

00:58:43

So then the rest of the chapter is basically showing us the reasons behind sacrifice and

00:58:50

why sacrifice is important.

00:58:52

He gets into another biblical stance here, basically saying that God is dead.

00:58:59

He has a whole, I forget how many pages it was, like an eight or nine page thing trying

00:59:04

to prove that God is dead in here.

00:59:08

And I was usually pretty good at following his arguments, but that one I couldn't follow.

00:59:15

Maybe you figured it out, but I couldn't even follow that.

00:59:18

So in my notes, I just wrote that I couldn't figure out his argument.

00:59:22

He's just rambling.

00:59:23

So I don't know.

00:59:25

Anyway, that one.

00:59:26

One of the things I jotted down is that he says when atheists argue against Christian

00:59:32

creationism, they are doing so using truths established over centuries of Christian culture.

00:59:38

So I kind of had the opposite conclusion.

00:59:40

He was saying that atheists believe in something.

00:59:43

They just don't really even realize what they believe in necessarily.

00:59:46

Sure.

00:59:47

I must have missed that.

00:59:48

But I don't know.

00:59:50

I mean, at this point, it's easy to lose the plot.

00:59:55

Yeah.

00:59:56

This is also where that stories to get to one point.

00:59:58

Yeah.

00:59:59

This is also where that quote that I mentioned came in.

01:00:02

I found it in my notes.

01:00:04

Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them.

01:00:07

That was, I don't know how to pronounce his philosopher's name, Nietzsche.

01:00:11

Oh, yeah, Nietzsche.

01:00:14

Yeah.

01:00:15

So I like the general idea, you know, you should, and Dave Ramsey says it a different way, you

01:00:24

know, pay now, play later or play now, pay later.

01:00:28

That's essentially what he's saying.

01:00:29

Work is a delay of gratification.

01:00:31

You sacrifice now to gain later, but don't need all the meandering to land on that, in

01:00:40

my opinion.

01:00:42

Yes.

01:00:43

So let's go on to rule number eight.

01:00:46

Tell the truth or at least don't lie.

01:00:49

There you go.

01:00:52

Tell the truth.

01:00:55

I literally wrote down one thing.

01:00:57

The truth may sometimes be hard, but it's always strengthening.

01:01:04

Like that was the one point I got from this.

01:01:05

So I don't really have anything more on that one because it's pretty self explanatory.

01:01:09

Don't tell lies.

01:01:11

I hate this chapter.

01:01:13

Really?

01:01:14

Okay.

01:01:15

I mean, just like that whole title kind of encapsulates, I feel like the whole academic

01:01:23

mindset around what is truth, right?

01:01:27

Yeah.

01:01:28

So tell the truth.

01:01:30

I feel like that is a good rule to live by.

01:01:34

Very black and white.

01:01:35

And then he adds the, or at least don't lie.

01:01:37

So don't say something you know is not true, right?

01:01:42

Which opens up everything else to interpretation.

01:01:46

And I don't know.

01:01:47

On one level, I get that, but I also don't like the whole door that opens up.

01:01:55

Yeah.

01:01:56

There's not a whole lot of notes I have in the next chapter, either black to your comment.

01:02:02

Yep.

01:02:03

There, I don't know.

01:02:05

There's some interesting stuff in here, I guess, where he talks about the two different

01:02:07

types of sin.

01:02:09

And this doesn't have to be religious context.

01:02:10

But basically, if you're talking about right and wrong, there is wrong or sin of co-mission

01:02:16

where you actually do something that you know is wrong.

01:02:18

Or also there is the sin of omission where you let something bad happen when you could

01:02:23

do something to stop it.

01:02:25

And I feel like there was a, maybe it was a Gladwell book link we talked about about

01:02:31

that a little bit about how people will tend to just kind of like not want to get involved.

01:02:37

And I feel like that's the wrong approach here.

01:02:42

But also just like the underlying tone with all of this feels shaky.

01:02:50

Yeah.

01:02:51

I feel like if that was exactly what you said, that would be a lot stronger, a lot more clear

01:02:59

and have a lot more impact.

01:03:01

Like don't just sit on the sideline when something bad is happening.

01:03:04

Do something to stop it.

01:03:05

So just tell the truth.

01:03:07

Yeah.

01:03:08

Do what's right, not what's easy.

01:03:10

You know, that's something my pastor says all the time.

01:03:12

I mentioned that in my manifesto sort of a thing.

01:03:14

Like that sounds better to me than tell the truth or at least don't lie.

01:03:19

Yeah.

01:03:20

All right.

01:03:21

Let's go to rule number nine where I have one word written as a note.

01:03:29

Rule number nine is assume that the person you are listening to might know something you

01:03:34

don't.

01:03:36

And the word that I wrote down as a note for this entire chapter was listen.

01:03:41

I feel like that's what you need to know.

01:03:43

Listen, when you're in conversation, listen, because the other person may have things that

01:03:50

they need to say and by me speaking, to use his terminology, he may inflict his own ideology

01:03:57

on the other person.

01:03:58

Now, Greg, he was speaking about that from a clinical psychologist viewpoint to a patient.

01:04:06

So he's not always trying to put his own thoughts and ideas into the person's mind.

01:04:14

Having seen how he operates, that is absolutely what he tries to do is put his ideologies

01:04:20

into your brain.

01:04:21

So he's on the opposite end of the spectrum whenever I've seen him in that scenario.

01:04:27

But this one is basically just listen.

01:04:30

Well, I mean, I can't, I can't, because I haven't looked at anything else.

01:04:35

That's probably a benefit when it comes to some of these books is like, I can't judge

01:04:39

that like authenticity of the author.

01:04:42

And I agree with the things he's saying in this chapter, some of the things that he's

01:04:48

saying, you know, that it's amazing what people will tell you if you listen.

01:04:51

You can be pretty smart if you just shut up.

01:04:54

Yeah.

01:04:55

Yes.

01:04:56

So I look at arguments from others perspective.

01:05:00

That's good advice.

01:05:03

But again, like liminal thinking speaks to this a whole lot better.

01:05:09

I feel.

01:05:11

And I probably do this every single episode where there is a chapter in a book where

01:05:15

I'm like, there's a whole book that speaks to this better.

01:05:18

So I recognize that's kind of my bias here.

01:05:23

But it's also like, I kind of can't get over the fact that there's 370 pages here and he

01:05:33

really doesn't say anything real strongly.

01:05:36

Yes.

01:05:38

So yeah, is what it is.

01:05:41

Which I think that's a perfect place to start talking about rule number 10.

01:05:46

Be precise in your speech that you made a comment that it might be better having not

01:05:54

seen his work online because then you maybe don't have our tainted view of that.

01:06:03

And I kind of struggled with that, you know, having seen so much of his stuff and like,

01:06:07

as I'm reading it, I can hear his voice reading it.

01:06:12

And there's there's definitely like some bias and stuff that comes in because like some

01:06:16

of the things I know he said, I'm like, yes, that's your spot on with that.

01:06:20

The way you're coming about this is probably not all that great.

01:06:23

But this be precise in your speech.

01:06:25

That's actually a word that he likes to use in his debates precise.

01:06:30

It's like whenever somebody brings something up, you know, one of them that I've seen him

01:06:37

do quite a bit is the equality and pay process between men and women.

01:06:44

He likes to debate that one quite a bit.

01:06:47

And whenever it comes up, he's always wanting to know, well, be precise about the arenas

01:06:52

you're talking about.

01:06:53

He's like, everybody wants to talk about sea level positions.

01:06:56

But what about the garbage collectors who are 99% male?

01:07:00

Like those are the things that he'll bring up.

01:07:02

But he always wants people to be precise.

01:07:04

He likes to use that word, which is fascinating given how imprecise he's been on so many topics

01:07:12

so far because he's like dancing around things instead of pinpointing it.

01:07:16

He wants people to pinpoint it, but then he doesn't himself.

01:07:20

That's the type of thing that gets to be kind of frustrating for me.

01:07:25

That part aside, like take Jordan Peterson out of that equation, be precise in your speech,

01:07:31

that concept, I think can be very helpful.

01:07:35

If you were to do that and one of the things I wrote down just wrote again one thing at

01:07:39

the end of this, it's like ultimately what I was coming to in reading this was like,

01:07:45

there's so much that has to do with chaos in the world, like disorder.

01:07:49

Being precise helps you define the problem very clearly, which then makes the answer

01:07:54

easier to come to.

01:07:56

So that precision in defining it, the precision in the words you use to define that problem,

01:08:01

that's the important part in that process.

01:08:03

So that part of this, I could definitely get on board with.

01:08:07

Well, let me defend him a little bit because I think it kind of depends on how you define

01:08:12

precise.

01:08:14

I think he actually is pretty precise in his words and in his communication because you

01:08:21

have to be to jump from this thing to that thing to that thing to that thing to that

01:08:26

thing and then back to the beginning again.

01:08:28

If you're not precise in your words, that is just going to leave you feeling motion

01:08:33

sick in addition to the feeling I have where like you didn't really tell me anything, bro.

01:08:38

Right.

01:08:39

So I feel like he is precise, but he's trying to connect all these different domains going

01:08:47

all the way back like 12 rules for life.

01:08:50

And he starts with a story about the lobsters.

01:08:53

Why?

01:08:55

At some point you kind of can't figure out why he's selecting any single one of these

01:09:00

stories and weaving them together, which kind of comes back.

01:09:05

I was sort of saving this for like the style and rating, but who is this book for 12

01:09:11

rules for life?

01:09:13

Are people just like getting to a certain point in their life and I've never read a

01:09:16

book?

01:09:17

I wonder which one I should pick up.

01:09:18

Oh, this one will tell me everything I need to know about life.

01:09:22

That's the only person I can think of with like this sort of thing is like, Hey man, this

01:09:26

is really great.

01:09:28

If you've read anything else, this is like why 370 pages of why?

01:09:37

Yup.

01:09:38

Those are hours of my life.

01:09:40

I won't get back.

01:09:42

All right, let's go to rule number 11.

01:09:48

Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.

01:09:52

This one was just kind of odd for me.

01:09:55

I think I understand his process here.

01:10:01

Let me attempt to explain this and then you can point out where I'm wrong because I feel

01:10:05

like you're better at grasping this type of stuff.

01:10:08

He talks about skateboarding and based on what I'm reading here, skateboarding can be

01:10:15

dangerous and that danger has lessons that come with it.

01:10:21

You learn how to deal with hardships and trying to overcome difficulties and pulling

01:10:27

off tricks or skating down a half pipe and such.

01:10:31

You learn how to be tougher in doing that.

01:10:37

If you don't do that or if you prevent kids from being able to learn those lessons, they

01:10:46

end up becoming a weak adult or a weaker person later on in life and then they can

01:10:54

end up having very flawed views of the world and be a detriment to society.

01:11:01

I think that's the logic here.

01:11:04

Now, where am I wrong on that?

01:11:06

It just felt like a weird debate to me.

01:11:11

I can tell you it's jarring to me all the different places he tries to take you in each

01:11:18

one of these chapters.

01:11:19

I feel like at the beginning of this he's actually making it a pretty solid point which

01:11:23

is that we generally are risk adverse.

01:11:28

We want to be safe, especially if you're a parent.

01:11:31

You want your kids to be safe.

01:11:33

However, to really protect your kids and keep them safe, you need to expose them to

01:11:41

a certain amount of risk so that they develop competence because with skateboarding specifically,

01:11:47

competence is what makes that dangerous activity safe.

01:11:51

If you don't have the competence and you try to even step on a skateboard, you're going

01:11:55

to fall on your butt and break your neck.

01:11:58

If you know what you're doing, then trying to go down, grind down the hand railing isn't

01:12:02

really all that dangerous because you know what you're doing.

01:12:06

How do you know what you're doing?

01:12:07

How do you expose yourself to different levels of risk and you develop the skill to be able

01:12:11

to do that?

01:12:13

Then he gets into hierarchies and then he talks about how the hierarchies aren't all

01:12:18

men's fault.

01:12:21

This is stuff that he says explicitly and just like the way that he says that I'm like,

01:12:26

"Dude, why?"

01:12:29

I don't know.

01:12:30

It's like there is a certain type of person who can't articulate their own arguments and

01:12:37

would totally latch on to specific statements from this chapter and be like, "See?

01:12:43

See?

01:12:44

I knew it."

01:12:45

Just go read Jordan B. Peterson's book because I'm too lazy to articulate this myself and

01:12:49

decide what I actually think.

01:12:53

But that's not me.

01:12:56

This did nothing for me.

01:13:00

It's a thing.

01:13:01

I've never been one who's overly protective of my kids.

01:13:04

I regularly let them make what I would consider bad choices in safe ways.

01:13:13

You want to climb that tree?

01:13:14

Sure, go for it.

01:13:16

That particular tree has all bunch of dead branches and I know it's very likely you're

01:13:19

going to fall, but those branches are only four feet off the ground.

01:13:26

You're going to fall, but you might break an arm, break something like that.

01:13:30

You're not going to die from that.

01:13:33

I'll let them take that risk so that they become better at stability, balance, etc.,

01:13:43

so then they are safe whenever I'm not there.

01:13:46

They don't need me there all the time to not die.

01:13:52

I'm comfortable with my kids in pretty risky situations because I know that they can

01:13:56

handle themselves in those situations, but it's because they've been allowed to be tested

01:14:01

at small scales.

01:14:02

I get that.

01:14:04

I don't know that particular concept was one that I got from this, so I'm grateful you

01:14:09

brought it up.

01:14:11

Well, I'm not sure even that's the main point that he's making to be honest.

01:14:17

He spends quite a bit of time attacking these hierarchies and mentions that hierarchies

01:14:25

can exist for a lot of different reasons.

01:14:29

Science can be biased by the interests of power, so he gets you to question everything

01:14:34

that you believe here.

01:14:36

He does make one solid point in this chapter, I feel, which is worth calling out that a

01:14:41

lot of the resentment around different groups of people, which he talks about resentment,

01:14:50

there's two options for that being taken advantage of or refusal to accept responsibility and

01:14:54

grow up.

01:14:55

So, he's very direct in his confrontation of this mindset, but group identity can be

01:15:01

fractioned down to the individual.

01:15:04

And I think I like that statement because we all have these groups that we identify with,

01:15:13

but really people are way more complex than a group identity.

01:15:18

If you keep digging deeper, the pool of shared characteristics keeps getting smaller and smaller

01:15:24

until you are the only person left, and then that ties into the whole idea of the self-determination

01:15:30

and taking responsibility for your future.

01:15:34

It doesn't matter if, and I'm not saying bad stuff happens to people, that it's your fault.

01:15:40

Maybe it's not your fault.

01:15:41

Maybe you were completely wronged by someone, some way, somehow.

01:15:46

But as long as you stay in that place where there's nothing I can do about this because

01:15:50

this person put me or these people put me in this situation, then your power lists to

01:15:55

get out of that.

01:15:56

The minute that you're like, "Well, it may not be my fault, but I'm going to be the

01:15:59

answer.

01:16:00

I'm going to find the solution because I have the ability and the power within me to do

01:16:05

that."

01:16:06

That's when your future starts to change.

01:16:09

So I think that's a really powerful idea.

01:16:10

Then again, he's not really speaking to.

01:16:11

I'm connecting two ideas from two totally different chapters.

01:16:14

In a very different way than he does and with 60 less steps in between.

01:16:19

Yes.

01:16:21

Not so much a meandering journey, which is what we get in Rule 12.

01:16:25

It's a fun little segue.

01:16:29

Rule number 12, "Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street."

01:16:33

This one starts exactly the way you would expect by talking about dogs for the next

01:16:39

five and a half pages because I wrote it down that he specifically talked about a dog for

01:16:45

five and a half pages at the beginning of a chapter talking about cats in order to show

01:16:51

that he's not just going to talk about cats and that he also likes dogs.

01:16:56

Yes.

01:16:57

It's really weird.

01:16:59

You're right though.

01:17:00

He tells a story about his family dog.

01:17:05

Then basically four pages later, he says, "I did this just so that people couldn't say

01:17:10

I was biased."

01:17:13

He calls out the reader for that.

01:17:15

It's like, "Why?"

01:17:16

Yes.

01:17:17

Now we're in argument and you're trying to defend yourself against me when a book is

01:17:22

supposed to be written for those who are on your side.

01:17:25

What?

01:17:26

I'm a dog person anyways.

01:17:29

I'm probably the person that group who he's writing that for but I didn't care.

01:17:37

I feel like the people who are going to pick up a book in order to actually get something

01:17:41

out of it aren't going to care.

01:17:43

The bookworm listeners are not going to care because they've developed the skill to pick

01:17:47

through the crap and find the gold nuggets that they can apply to their own life.

01:17:52

He's just assuming that you're stupid and you can't do it.

01:17:55

Here's my summarization of the actual point of the chapter which is that, and this is

01:18:02

me being a dog person who also has cat's, outdoor cats.

01:18:08

Take that however you like.

01:18:11

Basically, if you're on a street, you're walking on the sidewalk and a cat comes up to you,

01:18:17

that's a pretty rare occurrence.

01:18:19

Cats wouldn't normally do that.

01:18:21

Take advantage of the opportunity and pet the cat when it's there.

01:18:27

Take advantage of good things when they come.

01:18:30

That's the way I took this chapter.

01:18:34

That could very well be the point you was trying to make but that's not at all what I

01:18:38

I'm not only jotting on a couple things from here but had nothing to do with that.

01:18:41

I really have no idea.

01:18:42

Yeah, how'd you take it?

01:18:44

This is the problem with this style of book, right?

01:18:47

I really have no idea what, yeah, I'm not sure.

01:18:53

But the three things I jotted down is that being requires limitations.

01:18:56

When you love someone, it's not despite their limitations, it's because of them.

01:19:00

He also mentioned that the parts of your brain that generate anxiety are more interested

01:19:04

that there is a plan than in the details of the plan.

01:19:07

I don't understand really having finished the book, how those wrap back into rule number

01:19:12

12 anymore.

01:19:14

But those were my couple takeaways.

01:19:19

The moral of the story is we're not real sure what rule 12 is about.

01:19:26

I'm joking.

01:19:29

It was a weird spot for this end.

01:19:30

He does have a postlude of sorts but I wrote nothing down because nothing about it struck

01:19:37

me.

01:19:38

Unless there's something there you want to throw in.

01:19:42

I jotted on two things from the coda, which actually that's where I think he tells the

01:19:47

pretty emotional story about his daughter and all the health trouble that she's had,

01:19:53

which makes him feel much more human, much more relatable.

01:19:58

At that point, I'm starting to not quite get so angry at him and start to feel sorry for

01:20:01

him.

01:20:02

So, coda does what it intends to do probably in terms of generating empathy and sympathy

01:20:09

for the author.

01:20:11

But the two things I jotted down, which really have nothing to do with the story, consider

01:20:17

how you may be wrong even if you won't like the answer and continue asking questions.

01:20:21

I think those are two great principles and I don't think that was the prevalent theme

01:20:30

throughout the book.

01:20:33

It's kind of weird how it ended that way.

01:20:38

And again, I feel like this is probably just the message getting lost, not in translation

01:20:46

but just in the volume.

01:20:47

Like it gets watered down as he makes all these different connections and pieces together

01:20:53

all this intricate stuff.

01:20:55

Like the actual story he's trying to tell and the points that he's trying to make.

01:21:00

He's too smart for his own good.

01:21:02

At least in terms, I think of the bookworm audience engaging with this book and being

01:21:08

able to understand the arguments from a how to read a book perspective and asking how

01:21:12

do I apply this to my life and really like what was the benefit of reading this.

01:21:20

I can think of lots of other books which speak to lots of these other like random topics

01:21:27

that he kind of touches on that I would point people to instead.

01:21:32

Maybe that's getting in the style and rating.

01:21:35

So I'll stop there but maybe it's just like the whole broad approach of like these are

01:21:40

the 12 things you need to know for your entire life.

01:21:43

That's not exactly what he's saying with the title but kinda.

01:21:46

So I don't know.

01:21:47

Okay.

01:21:48

Well before we go style and rating and all the fun things, action items.

01:21:54

I have two down here.

01:21:56

One of them I have mentioned which was checking my posture.

01:22:02

Stand up straight.

01:22:04

Maybe when I'm tapped on the wrist.

01:22:08

The second one, this is more general.

01:22:11

I didn't come from any specific place in the book and I just wrote down say yes more to

01:22:18

my kids.

01:22:19

Say yes to my kids more often.

01:22:21

I guess it's the cleaner way to say that.

01:22:23

Grammar good sometimes.

01:22:26

And that primarily comes from the idea of as I was reading this, obviously the rule 5

01:22:35

about children and then don't bother children.

01:22:39

Obviously those two kind of come into play here but it was more general across the book.

01:22:43

Just that I tend to say no by default in some situations.

01:22:49

Primarily when I get home from work, I usually get asked to do different things or play certain

01:22:54

games and such.

01:22:55

It's like I've got things I've got to get done.

01:22:59

No I don't.

01:23:00

I can wait and play with the kids when I get home.

01:23:03

So I know that that time will not always be there so I need to say yes more to my kids.

01:23:08

So I've got those two from this.

01:23:10

So I've at least got that from this one.

01:23:12

How about you?

01:23:14

I do not have any action items.

01:23:15

I kind of guess that.

01:23:16

My action item is to never pick up this book again.

01:23:21

All right, well then let's go to style and rating.

01:23:27

I think it's a weird position to be in to say that Jordan B. Peterson is a good writer

01:23:33

but not necessarily a good book putter together in that I think he's really good at telling

01:23:40

his stories and getting his point across in a subsection level.

01:23:46

When he's making a specific point within a chapter like over that page, I feel like he

01:23:52

does a really good job of putting that one little piece together.

01:23:56

When he goes to putting those sections together within the chapter, I very regularly got lost

01:24:03

because I think he was putting together, he was building the foundation for his arguments

01:24:08

in order to prove the rule that he's setting out to prove.

01:24:13

But sometimes I just got so spun around that I got lost on some things.

01:24:18

Like I mentioned this one earlier, there was one section where he was talking about his

01:24:22

wife going out for a walk and they saw a bunch of black squirrels and the negative 40 degree

01:24:26

weather out in the park and thought that was really weird because they would never be out

01:24:29

that are hibernating.

01:24:31

But then he never really tied that one off and just kind of left it.

01:24:36

At least about that I caught anyway.

01:24:39

Like why are we talking about this?

01:24:41

It was a handful of those.

01:24:42

I don't even understand what you're getting at here.

01:24:47

Maybe my brain's just not smart enough to handle that at the moment, but that was the

01:24:52

way I took it.

01:24:54

And so I feel like he's good at writing his stories.

01:24:56

Putting the whole thing together is a challenge to follow with him.

01:25:01

I'm not entirely certain why this is 12 rules for life other than just a, it almost feels

01:25:08

like a money grab of sorts.

01:25:10

Like he's really good at laying out debates.

01:25:12

He's really good at putting these arguments together and saying lots of words around them.

01:25:20

Really good at driving a lot of attention.

01:25:23

People watch him because he's kind of a wild card.

01:25:27

Sometimes you never really know what he's going to say and he even has a point in the

01:25:32

book.

01:25:33

Don't hold back.

01:25:34

Say what you think and let the consequences lie where they may.

01:25:40

So he does have kind of that mindset.

01:25:43

So as far as like, would I recommend this or not?

01:25:47

From a Christian viewpoints, I have a lot of people.

01:25:50

I don't want to read this because I don't think they're going to catch some of the flaws

01:25:56

in biblical knowledge here.

01:25:59

So like that one, I don't quite follow.

01:26:05

Good point, Martin, about squirrels, not hibernating.

01:26:10

The thing that I know when it comes to like, would I recommend this or not?

01:26:14

If you don't have a solid standing on some of these topics, I don't think you should

01:26:19

touch this because you're going to have to be in a challenge mode, trying to make sure

01:26:26

that you actually believe what he's saying or disagreeing with what he's saying and be

01:26:31

able to articulate that.

01:26:32

So you have to be pretty grounded in your ideas on those subjects before you're willing

01:26:39

to take on Jordan B. Peterson.

01:26:41

That's primarily because he's well studied and he does lay out his arguments very well.

01:26:48

So if you're going to pick it up, please be in that position.

01:26:52

So I am not going to tell you that you absolutely should read this like we have with other books.

01:26:57

As far as how to rate it, that's a struggle for me because there's a lot of these that

01:27:01

I'm like this, this idea of I just read the table of contents.

01:27:04

Yeah, I can get on board with pretty much all of these depending on interpretation.

01:27:11

But knowing that there's a lot of things that I got value out of this and yet completely

01:27:18

lost on this as far as a rating goes, I think I'm going to put it at a 4.0 just because

01:27:24

I think there is some value here on a surface level.

01:27:29

I don't think I want people to deep dive this too far.

01:27:34

So I'm not going to go above that just because of the struggles there, not to mention the

01:27:38

borderline heresy at times.

01:27:42

So be careful with this one if you're going to read it.

01:27:45

Personally, there's stuff here that I got a lot of value out of just having read it even

01:27:49

just from a motivational stance on a minor level.

01:27:51

So that's helpful, but I'm not going to go beyond that.

01:27:56

Alright, well, as I have kind of alluded to throughout this entire recording, I did not

01:28:06

enjoy this book and I would not recommend anyone read this.

01:28:10

I feel like this is a lazy book recommendation.

01:28:15

If you follow along with Bookworm at all and you've listened to even 10 different episodes,

01:28:23

you have a breadth of knowledge that is going to make this a very difficult read for you.

01:28:30

If this is the one nonfiction book you have ever read, it probably is entertaining.

01:28:36

And you're right, there are certain things in here that can provide a lot of value.

01:28:39

However, I would argue the way that he presents them.

01:28:42

They won't.

01:28:43

You have to dig deeper than anything that he shares in here.

01:28:48

I don't like the approach.

01:28:51

I don't like the tone.

01:28:53

I agree with you that he's a talented writer, probably even a talented storyteller.

01:29:01

I think that diminishes value in how many jumps he makes between different things as

01:29:08

he's trying to create this intricate web and I'm projecting there.

01:29:11

I understand that, but didn't like this book.

01:29:18

Walking out of it.

01:29:19

What did I get out of this book?

01:29:21

No action items and really nothing that I jotted down anyways that was like even that's interesting.

01:29:33

I'm going to have to really think about that more or that challenges the beliefs that I

01:29:37

had in certain areas.

01:29:40

There's lots of opportunity here for confirmation bias.

01:29:44

You walk into this with your beliefs and you're looking for something to back it up so you

01:29:47

don't have to defend it.

01:29:49

You could just point at this.

01:29:52

I do not think this is a good book.

01:29:58

Have you ever seen the movie Billy?

01:29:59

I think it's Billy Madison.

01:30:01

Adam Sander, one we're going to have in the day.

01:30:05

You know the end of the movie where he has to describe the industrial revolution and he

01:30:10

launches into this big story about the little engine that could.

01:30:15

You know and everybody's kind of nodding and then at the end the judge goes, "I award

01:30:20

you no points and we are all dumber for having listened to you."

01:30:26

That's how I feel at this book.

01:30:31

So I'm actually looking at the Bookworm Stats page right now and I have the ratings for

01:30:36

myself in reverse order.

01:30:39

All right.

01:30:40

So the lowest rating I have ever given a book.

01:30:44

You know which one it was?

01:30:45

It was a 2.0 wasn't it?

01:30:46

Or 2.5.

01:30:47

I don't remember what it is.

01:30:49

It was 1.5.

01:30:50

Yeah, 1.5 for Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

01:30:55

The next one up from that was the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer at 2-Stars.

01:31:01

And walking out of this 370 page book I feel like I got about as much out of this one as

01:31:06

I got out of that one.

01:31:07

So I'm going to put it at 2-Stars.

01:31:08

You're putting it 2?

01:31:11

Yeah.

01:31:12

What did I rate that one?

01:31:15

You rated that one 3.5.

01:31:17

Fair enough.

01:31:18

I don't think you're wrong given that rationale by any means.

01:31:25

Okay.

01:31:26

Great fun.

01:31:28

Let's make this one disappear on the shelf.

01:31:30

What's next, Mike?

01:31:32

Next is the Pathless Path by Paul Millard.

01:31:36

I mentioned last time.

01:31:37

This is actually an Ali Abdahl recommendation.

01:31:42

And Ali Abdahl occasionally will put together these videos of like top 10 books this year

01:31:47

or whatever.

01:31:48

Every time I watch one of those, he does his little short explanations.

01:31:52

And I can usually tell right away whether a book is going to resonate with me or not.

01:31:57

Read a couple of books that he's recommended that I did think resonated with me and been

01:32:02

pleasantly surprised each time.

01:32:05

So I think this one is going to be good, but we will see.

01:32:09

That's why I'm going to make you read it with me.

01:32:12

All right.

01:32:14

And then following that, I went and looked up my books to read list.

01:32:20

It's like, oh, yeah, I've had this one on my list for a very long time and I've wanted

01:32:24

to read it.

01:32:25

The Almond Act of Nival Robocont.

01:32:27

I think that's how you say that by Eric Jorgensen.

01:32:31

Have you seen this one?

01:32:32

Heard of this one?

01:32:33

Scared of this one?

01:32:35

I had not heard about this until you put it in the notes, but I pulled it up.

01:32:40

It looks really great, actually.

01:32:42

So there's a website where you can actually read the whole thing for free.

01:32:47

You can even get the free ePUB or Moby files if you wanted the digital version.

01:32:53

But the book itself is by Eric Jorgensen and the forward is by Tim Ferriss.

01:32:59

Who cares?

01:33:00

That means it's a great book, obviously.

01:33:02

No, no.

01:33:03

The visuals, though, are by, is it Jack Butcher?

01:33:07

This is the guy behind.

01:33:08

Are you familiar with visualized value?

01:33:10

No, I'm not.

01:33:12

Okay.

01:33:13

So, visualized value is probably the best entrepreneurial follow on Twitter that I have

01:33:20

found.

01:33:21

It's basically all these business principles that he illustrates very simply.

01:33:25

He's got a whole course associated with it that I've actually bought, but he tweets out

01:33:29

these images.

01:33:32

I don't have an example to, but they're all very simple, black and white, couple of arrows,

01:33:39

sort of a thing.

01:33:40

It's simplifying these really complex business topics.

01:33:44

And there's some really great information there.

01:33:47

So I've been familiar with Jack Butcher for a while.

01:33:49

And the fact that he illustrated this book makes me instantly want to read it.

01:33:52

It is very well rated on the Amazon.

01:33:56

I could find my thing.

01:33:59

It's 13,426 ratings at the moment.

01:34:03

It's a four and a half star book.

01:34:06

So, that'll tell you something there.

01:34:09

Should be good.

01:34:10

I'll go with that one.

01:34:11

But, yeah, it's been on my list for a long time.

01:34:13

How about Gap Books, Mike?

01:34:14

Did you manage to slip in another book on top of this one?

01:34:18

I did not.

01:34:19

I've got a couple others that I am probably going to read before next time.

01:34:26

So I will probably have a Gap Book for next time, but not currently.

01:34:30

What about you?

01:34:31

Yeah.

01:34:32

I'm kind of in the same boat.

01:34:34

I was struggling to get through this one because I felt like I had to go slow trying

01:34:37

to understand his stuff.

01:34:39

So maybe I'm not well read enough.

01:34:43

So no, I don't have any this time.

01:34:44

Maybe next time.

01:34:45

All right.

01:34:47

That said, super big thanks to all of you who have joined us live in the chat.

01:34:51

If that's ever something you want to do, you need to join the Bookworm Club, club.bookworm.fm.

01:34:56

And you'll find the live events.

01:34:57

We'll post them.

01:34:58

Actually, when we're done here, I'm going to need to post the next one once we've got

01:35:01

a date and time locked in.

01:35:02

So, we'll post those two weeks in advance so you'll know when they're happening.

01:35:06

Join us live.

01:35:08

Join the chat.

01:35:09

Tell me I'm reading things too highly, which thanks Martin.

01:35:13

I get that.

01:35:14

But it's super fun to have you guys in the chat with us.

01:35:18

So big thanks to all of you who have done that.

01:35:20

Also a huge thanks to those of you who have successfully made the transition over to circle.

01:35:26

I feel like we need to put some tweets on about that or something.

01:35:29

But the transition to circle has gone pretty smoothly.

01:35:33

And those of you who have managed to get the Bookworm Pro membership moved over.

01:35:38

I hope that's been a smooth process from what I've seen.

01:35:41

It seems to go pretty smooth.

01:35:42

But we have transferred all of the book notes that Mike had, all the different feeds and

01:35:49

stuff.

01:35:50

There's the Pro feed that has no ads on it.

01:35:52

There's a bootleg feed, which you get immediately after the show recording.

01:35:57

It includes the pre and post show.

01:35:59

And it is well, completely unedited.

01:36:02

Also promises on quality, balances, all of that is out the window.

01:36:06

So that's what that is.

01:36:07

Super fun.

01:36:08

But if you're interested in all of that and you want to join that Pro membership, pretty

01:36:12

simple, Bookworm.fm/pro, you can still go to the slash membership as well.

01:36:17

That'll get you there as well.

01:36:18

Just wanted to make it easier.

01:36:20

Thus Bookworm.fm/pro.

01:36:21

We'd love to have you there.

01:36:24

So the real question you mentioned the sending out some tweets.

01:36:28

Is Bookworm on Mastodon?

01:36:29

Do we get to send out some toots?

01:36:31

Do you want to be on Mastodon?

01:36:32

I've asked you this a couple times.

01:36:34

Bookworm is not currently on Mastodon.

01:36:36

I don't share it.

01:36:37

Should it be?

01:36:38

That's the question.

01:36:39

Yeah, I'm not sure.

01:36:41

I've tried Mastodon.

01:36:43

It's fine.

01:36:45

It hasn't really clicked for me.

01:36:47

It's not somewhere I feel like I need to go hang out every day.

01:36:50

In my world, it's just another Twitter.

01:36:53

So yeah, I don't.

01:36:56

It's whatever.

01:36:57

I'm on both the same thing as in both places.

01:37:00

All righty.

01:37:01

If you are reading along with us, pick up The Pathless Path by Paul Millard.

01:37:08

And we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.