Bookworm Transcripts

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So I am conducting this obsidian experiment, Joe.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I have messed around with task management and obsidian previously,

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but I am all in this time.

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So no other task management tools at all,

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100% an obsidian done.

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Well, we're getting to that point.

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I'm still using do a little bit because I don't trust myself quite yet.

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Uh huh.

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Yeah.

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Do is a gold app.

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Like if they ever stop making it because of some of Apple's whatever,

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I'm going to be very upset.

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Like I love that app.

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Yeah, it's, it's really good.

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Um, but I was inspired by a recent Cal Newport podcast episode where he was

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talking about the essential lists that you need.

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And I realized that those lists could basically serve as the foundation for a

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pretty killer task management system and obsidian using obsidian tasks.

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And I have been crafting, I started with the six that he listed, and then I added

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a few additional queries and I sent you a screenshot.

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But what I've got is basically a canvas dashboard with these different

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colored boxes with these different queries, like ready, backburner, waiting

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to discuss, clarify this month, scheduled later someday, unscheduled, and

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then inbox.

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And this is like every view I could possibly think of.

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I'm not going to need all of these day to day, but you can craft some pretty

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cool queries with the obsidian tasks plugin.

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And so that's where I started as I created these all as individual notes.

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And then once I got the queries away, I wanted them, I actually put them inside

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of these, these cards on the obsidian canvas and color coded them.

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And I really like the way that this looks.

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And I think I'm really going to like the way that this works, although I'm

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still kind of getting everything in here, but.

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This is really cool.

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So you've got ready backburner.

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So I assume like ready is for today.

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Backburners kind of like when you get to it sort of thing.

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Yeah.

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So the way this is set up, ready and backburner were ones that that

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Cal had mentioned.

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So ready is basically things that are able to be actioned on in the next week.

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And that's kind of the basis already for the way that I was doing weekly

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planning using the periodic notes plugin is showing me everything that's,

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that's due this week or scheduled this week is the other part of that particular

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query.

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The backburner is simply a list of tasks that have a backburner tag.

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And that backburner, I know we've talked about that previously and how you kind

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of thought like backburner is kind of a useless context.

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Yes, especially like I think of it is almost useless when you also have a

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later someday list.

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Like what is the difference between those two?

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Like that's my hang up with it.

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I get it like you've committed to one.

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You've not committed to the other.

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It just seems redundant.

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Yeah.

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So in the way that I'm thinking about this and backburner was specifically the

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term that Cal used.

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So I feel enabled by him.

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OK, but backburner in my opinion is like, this isn't the stuff that needs to get

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done this week, but it's almost like on deck.

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It's coming shortly.

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That's the, when the stuff that I'm focused on gets done, this is the stuff

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that's going to take its place.

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And Cal advocates for checking these lists at the beginning and at the end

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of every day.

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And I think there's value in kind of seeing like what's up next.

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And that's kind of what that is.

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Now there's a bunch of reasons why it could be there.

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It could be that I need to make a decision about something that's on there

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or it could just be like it's not scheduled time for that thing yet, which

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is why I signed at the tag and not just a date range.

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This the waiting, discuss and clarify are all also tag based.

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OK.

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And the way I'm doing those is like, I just have a task and I take it, you

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know, backburner and it shows up in that list.

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Same thing with waiting, but with waiting, I will also tag a person because

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I think a version of this down the road is there's going to be a note for the

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person.

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And that's where I'll keep like all of the meeting notes for, you know, if I do

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coaching with Matt Raglan, I've got a Matt Raglan note and I just had a new entry

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for the different dates and add the notes there.

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But at the top of that, have that query of things that are tagged, you know,

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waiting or to discuss, actually, that's kind of the one I'm describing right now.

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Sorry, I got these mixed up.

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Two discusses, like, I need to talk to the person about this, but waiting also

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could be like, I'm going into a meeting and I need to know like this is the type

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of answers that I need to need to get.

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So yeah, that's the basis of it here.

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And I'm sure, you know, it's going to evolve a little bit, but I really like being

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able to dump everything in like one big long list.

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Yeah, it took me a little bit to get over that, but now now it's there and I've got

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quick ad just depending things to the top of that list.

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And just using the filters to, to resurface all that stuff.

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What does, how does clarify fit into this?

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Is this like tasks that you're not certain where they go yet?

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So it's there or is it something completely different?

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I'm not thinking of.

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Yeah, that one I'm not entirely sure about, but the way I'm thinking about that

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is there's still a little bit of ambiguity around what this exactly is.

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So like the ones that I have in my clarify section here are like figure out, well,

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I guess, spoiler alert, we are trying to figure out how to do like a paper planner

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sort of a thing for, for focused.

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And so I don't know exactly what that's going to look like.

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So that needs to be kind of clarified.

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And then also like the task management system that I've got here.

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This is sort of like it's still evolving.

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And but eventually I want to nail it down and I want to create the documentation for this.

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But I can't do that obviously while it's still in flux.

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So it's still kind of fluid, I guess, is the way I would describe that category.

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Interesting.

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I have like, so I tend to use reminders lists

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and have been for a while now.

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Lots of reasons for that.

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But I have one that's called to research.

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Basically it's stuff I need to go down the internet rabbit hole of how does this work?

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What products should I be using?

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Shouldn't I be using what hardware should I be buying or not buying?

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How does one even?

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I don't even know.

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How does one store flower bulbs over the winter?

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You know, sometimes it's silly stuff.

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Sometimes it's super important, but I have a list of those things because otherwise

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I will just go research them immediately.

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And that's a bad day as in nothing else gets done because I will just research all day long.

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So I do not try to do those immediately.

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But that's what I call it is to research.

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So that seems to help me quite a bit.

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This looks really interesting.

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I may steal some of these ideas.

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Cal Newport, do you know what episode it was when he talked about these?

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It was.

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I'm not sure.

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It might be the most recent one.

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It might not be.

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I will for sure put the link in the show notes, but I can't remember exactly which

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which episode it was.

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Sorry.

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I'm asking because there was a couple of folks that asked the last time we

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mentioned Cal Newport's podcast.

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It's like, Hey, yeah, he talked about this.

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Like, where was that?

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I don't know.

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So I'm asking the question now.

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Yeah.

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The problem is with Kels podcast.

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He, he's he talks about a lot of every single episode.

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So it's it's hard for me to pin down exactly where each idea came from.

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But it's definitely in my regular rotation.

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I like that one a lot.

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Yeah, he does well with that.

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Cool.

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Well, we should probably talk about follow up.

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Yeah.

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So I have a couple items here.

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One is a carryover from last time, which was to do this hidden potential quiz

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from Adam Grant.

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I went and did this.

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And I completely understand what you mean by this thing looks like it's

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way old school.

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I get where they're like trying to make it look good.

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The part that got me more than anything is I went ahead and did the test

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just because I wanted to know, like, what are some of these questions and like

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there were a couple of questions that I

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or no, there was one question I didn't answer.

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I don't remember which one it was, but it was because the answers that they

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provided is options, like my actual answer isn't any of those.

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And it wasn't even close.

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It's like, wait, so then how, what if I don't do any of those things?

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Now what do I do?

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So that was that was a little bit of a moment.

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Anyway, so for the life of bookworm, we have known that Joe is a perfectionist

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intends to not complete things because he can't do them absolutely perfect, right?

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Like this is not an unknown thing.

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Like I've known this for a long time.

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And perfectionist causes all sorts of issues.

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Guess what it tells me?

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Based on your responses, your strongest character skill lies in being an imperfectionist.

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Oops.

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Huh.

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OK.

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And then it's suggestion because what's the other thing I do all the time?

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I constantly research things and I'm constantly trying to learn things, right?

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And I have to like set reminders or put things on lists so that I don't do that.

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Guess what it recommends that I do to unlock your hidden potential.

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It might be helpful to work toward becoming more of a sponge.

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That involves expanding your capacity to absorb and adapt to new knowledge.

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OK.

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All right.

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So I don't think you should take this test.

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And if you do take it, take it for fun, not for actually, you know, learning to do

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anything because this is not helpful.

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Yeah, I, I agree.

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In fact, I don't even think I'm going to put the link in the the show notes this time.

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Yeah, I wouldn't.

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I would not do that because this is this is nuts.

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So anyway, that was my first follow up.

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The other follow up is one that kind of cropped up this week.

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And this is more I guess this is more of an announcement than it is a follow up sort of thing.

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But I had sent Mike an email because I know Mike's been doing a lot of obviously,

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Mike, you've been doing a lot with your online business and stuff and trying to get

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that spun up.

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And I'd been thinking about it's like, OK, are there ways I can help Mike?

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And I had kind of noticed, like, it seems like with bookworm, there's a little bit of a.

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How do I say that?

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Like a lackluster feel to it almost.

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It seems like this is something that's quite quite seemed right.

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You know, I had the little five episode spell where work made it impossible for me

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to to record and Mike did a great job carrying the baton during that time.

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And well done, Mike, like very grateful to you for pulling that off, came back.

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And it just hasn't seen the same since I came back.

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And I don't think I can give you clean answers as to why that is.

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But what I do know is I sent Mike an email about, you know, maybe this is the time

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to shut bookworm down.

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Is this something that you could take?

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And somehow use like your book notes and use the audience, use something to help

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with your online business, to help you get going, get me out of the way and make it

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easy for you.

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Mike was very astute and realized that I wasn't actually trying to help him in the

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process, but that for some reason I was wanting to step away from bookworm.

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And I could not have told you that prior to Mike saying it in that email.

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And once he said it, I did not respond right away because I was dumbfounded by

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the fact that he noticed this and I did not.

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So it sucked me a little bit to process that and realize that, you know, with,

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and we've talked about this many times recently, Mike's life theme cohort, having

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gone through that and realizing that a lot of what I'm attempting to do with my

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life involves like music and running sound and helping other people to do the same.

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And helping other people get better at that.

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The more time goes on, the more I'm focusing on that and the less time I have for

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things like bookworm and such.

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So as hard as this is to say for me, it is time I think for me to step away from bookworm.

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And it's not going anywhere.

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Mike is going to continue that.

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I'll let him talk about what he knows about that process here shortly.

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But I think it's time that I, I stepped away from it.

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It's not something I want to do, but I think it's the right, the right call.

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So at this point in time, like there's lots of other other things going on behind

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the scenes as well.

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But I just know that bookworm has been something that's been a big part of my

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learning ability and the, what's it been?

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Seven years.

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So it's been something more than that.

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Yeah.

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Sevenish years that we dreamed this up and started recording every two weeks and

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releasing books, book episodes.

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And it's something that I know I've learned.

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Gobs and I'm not going to stop reading what I read might change a little bit, but

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I will continue down that process.

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But I think it's time that I stepped away from bookworm, but I am very grateful that

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our community has continued to grow and the feedback you guys have given us over the

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years.

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And I love seeing bookworm continue to grow.

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And I'm glad to know that Mike is going to continue the show.

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I don't want it to die.

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So me leaving, I hope it doesn't cause, you know, a lot of strife in general.

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But yes, I just want to say thank you to the community.

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Thank you to all of our listeners.

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You guys have been great to me.

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I think it's simply time that I passed a baton to someone else to fill the gap

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and for Mike to take it and continue to grow it from here.

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So big thanks to all of you for listening.

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Yeah.

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Well, first of all, thank you, Joe, for what is this, a hundred and eighty six

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episodes.

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Yeah.

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So a lot of books that we have read and

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just a little bit of behind the scenes, I guess the astute observation that that you

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said I made.

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I don't think it was all that astute.

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I just noticed in the email that she sent that there were a couple things that you

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were particularly excited about.

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And you mentioned that they were kind of tied to your life theme.

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I'm in the middle of going through that life theme cohort right now.

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And one of the things that I tell people all the time is that good is the enemy of the

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best.

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And once you figure out that this is really the thing that scratches the itch for me,

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moves the needle, insert whatever term you want here.

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It makes it easier to say no to things that are good.

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Bookworm is a good thing and it is not a failure on anybody's part that you got to a

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point where it's just not the best use of your time.

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So I 100% support Joe in the decision to step away.

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I totally get it.

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I wish it wasn't happening.

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Like the other thing I want to say is the future of Bookworm, the immediate future.

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The plan is to do what I did when you had to step away previously, Joe, which was

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use my internet, roll it X and get some people on to talk about books with me.

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Because ultimately that's the thing.

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Like I just really love talking about these books.

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And the thing that I will miss the most is the chemistry that we have developed

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over 186 episodes.

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We are not going to be able to replace that.

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But I don't think that that means that Bookworm should not exist either.

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If it was going to be degraded in quality enough, I would say it's time to just shut it down.

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But I still believe that there is something here.

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And as I mentioned to Joe in the email shows transition all the time, I took over

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for Jason Snell on free agents and that became focused.

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Stephen took over for Katie Floyd on Mac Power users.

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Was it just too off the top of my head?

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But I'm sure you could find 100 different examples of shows that have had to go

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through go through transitions.

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So we'll do that.

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We'll figure it out and we'll continue to make it the best show that it can be.

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I really appreciate everybody who shows up and reads these books with us.

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So I'm also hoping as we pivot it to like set of Joe Bueleg and Mike Schmitz

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running Bookworm, Mike Schmitz and friends that every once in a while, Joe

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Bueleg comes back and we can talk about books again.

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I definitely want to be kept in that list of people.

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Yeah.

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Because I want to come back occasionally.

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Yes.

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Yeah. So hopefully this is not goodbye.

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It's just see you later.

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And yeah, I'm going to do everything that I can to keep the podcast going.

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Which is great to hear.

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OK, before I start breaking down, we should get into these books so that I don't

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you know, so that I can't record this one because we do still need to cover a book today.

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That's true.

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That's true.

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All right.

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Well, today's book is same as ever by Morgan

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Housel, weird name for.

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I know.

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I know.

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I thought of this episode.

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But this is an interesting book, to be honest.

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I came on my radar because a bunch of people that I respect were talking about it.

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And I had not read anything by Morgan Housel before, although Morgan Housel has

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been around for a while and the cover it talks about.

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He's the best-selling author of the previous book he'd written was a psychology of money.

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You familiar with that one at all?

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I have not.

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I saw that he was best-selling author of the psychology of money.

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And I had never heard of it.

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So I don't know if that means I'm not well

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traveled in the scheme of nonfiction books or he's just in a realm that I don't see.

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I don't know which it is, but I'd not heard of it.

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Yeah.

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I think I even have this book, to be honest, but I had not read it.

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Maybe I picked it up as a gap book and started it at one point, but

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not familiar with Morgan Housel's writing at all.

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So I have no context for what kind of writing that he does.

00:19:01

This book is interesting because there is an introduction.

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There's a conclusion of sorts, which is a bunch of questions.

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And then there's a whole bunch of shorter chapters, not like

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Seth Godin short, but kind of.

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There's 23, I think, chapters that I outlined in my mind map,

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although they aren't actually numbered and they aren't broken into sections.

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So they are kind of like these short essays about a topic.

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And another interesting thing about this is that at the end of each section,

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he always has a single sentence, which sets the stage for the next one.

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And sometimes they tie together really well.

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Sometimes it feels like a bit of a leap, but I do really like the fact that

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he sets up the next section with the last sentence of the previous one.

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I thought that was a very effective mechanism.

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All that to say that for the structure of this book, I have no idea how to actually tackle it.

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So what I did is I picked for the outline here.

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We'll talk about the introduction.

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We'll talk about a couple of the sections that stood out to us.

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I didn't actually put the questions at the end because that is essentially a question

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from each one of the sections.

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It's kind of how I read it.

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They're loosely tied to the topics.

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I'm not sure if he actually uses those questions in the sections,

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but that's basically the purpose that they serve.

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So I think we don't need to reiterate all of those, but the introduction

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just to go there quickly.

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This is pretty short, but it's basically talking about how history is filled with timeless wisdom

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and the whole title of the book, same as ever, a guide to what never changes is the subtitle.

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I actually really like this premise.

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He's basically saying that in a world where things are changing quickly and there feels like

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there's so much uncertainty, the things that we tend to notice are the things that are

00:21:06

changing all the time, but the things that we should really pay attention to are actually the

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things that stay the same.

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Those are the things that are going to be the pillars of the future and we can learn from the

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past, but changes the thing that captures our attention because it's surprising and exciting.

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However, what doesn't change is actually more important than what does.

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And I really like that.

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Obviously, a great way to set up this whole book.

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Yeah, he starts off in that introduction by telling a story about a friend of his who's close to

00:21:42

Warren Buffett and they were having a conversation in, where was it, late 2009?

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So this is when the global economy was just falling apart, completely fell apart.

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And this friend had asked Warren, "It's so bad right now.

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How does the economy ever bounce back from this?"

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And he had the questions like, "What was the best selling candy bar in 1962?"

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Again, this is in 2009 and he said it was the Snickers.

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And what is it today was his question.

00:22:15

Snickers.

00:22:16

In other words, things don't change as much as you think they do, at least in that realm is what

00:22:22

he was referring to.

00:22:24

So I think that's a great way to set this whole thing up because again, like there are like these

00:22:29

timeless principles that do carry over time.

00:22:32

So the question is like, how do you use those principles in your life?

00:22:36

How do you learn from those?

00:22:37

And I think it's a great way to start the book off, for sure.

00:22:41

Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:43

Odd book to start this, like to do this episode, but you know, there we go.

00:22:49

Well, it is and maybe kind of isn't.

00:22:54

Maybe it isn't.

00:22:55

Yeah, I don't know.

00:22:57

Time will tell, I guess.

00:22:58

But let's go into the first section here.

00:23:01

I added this first one to the outline.

00:23:04

I typically don't like to add the first chapters to the outlines.

00:23:08

We've got to pick and choose specific ones because I feel like with a book like this,

00:23:13

typically they get into the meat a little bit later.

00:23:16

However, this first section is hanging by a thread and he shares a very personal,

00:23:25

very dramatic story here.

00:23:28

So Morgan Hausle sounds like a very good downhill skier and was part of these teams

00:23:37

and they would go places and they were at one of these hills for this meat or whatever

00:23:43

and they were going to go out and ski the day before.

00:23:46

So they went out, but they were so good that they traditionally didn't go to the runs that

00:23:53

everybody used.

00:23:55

I'm not a skier, so this kind of was a little bit lost on me, but my interpretation of what

00:24:00

he was saying was like, there's the open runs, which are the ones that are well groomed

00:24:05

and they're kind of for the beginners, but they were so good that they went to the less groomed

00:24:10

trails.

00:24:11

Like there's still trails on the backside of the mountain, but they aren't open to the public

00:24:16

because they're a little bit more dangerous and he and his friends figured, well, we're such good

00:24:19

skiers, like we're going to go ski the backside is how they put it.

00:24:23

And the first time that they went down in the morning, there was like a little mini

00:24:31

avalanche because of the snow conditions.

00:24:33

I forget exactly how he said.

00:24:35

I think it was like there was frozen hard snow underneath and then a bunch of lighter

00:24:42

wet snow on top of it.

00:24:44

- Other way around. - Vice versa. Okay. I had like six to eight feet of really light fluffy stuff

00:24:49

and then they got a two or three foot heavy wet snow that went on top of it.

00:24:54

So the heavy stuff on top can break loose and go through.

00:24:57

Yeah, that makes more sense.

00:24:59

Yeah, so anyways, they're skiing and then they get caught in this mini avalanche, but they all

00:25:05

skied out, get to the bottom.

00:25:07

They're like, oh man, that was crazy.

00:25:09

And they get back to the place and they're eating lunch or whatever.

00:25:14

And then the other two guys like, oh, we're going to go do it again.

00:25:17

And Morgan wasn't scared of doing it, but he just for some reason decided, no, I'm going to

00:25:22

stay back.

00:25:24

And his buddies got caught in another avalanche and basically they died.

00:25:30

They didn't realize anything was wrong until later in the day.

00:25:33

Like, why aren't they back yet?

00:25:35

Found a search party, eventually found them buried in the snow.

00:25:39

Very tragic story.

00:25:43

And the point that he was making here was his decision to stay back.

00:25:47

He was like, I don't know why I decided to stay back, but literally if you would have gone with

00:25:52

them, he would have been trapped in that avalanche and he would have died as well.

00:25:55

So his decision not to go skiing with his friends that afternoon that ended up saving his life.

00:26:04

And the larger point is you really don't know the impact that those

00:26:09

small, seemingly small decisions can actually make.

00:26:14

And then kind of at the end of that section, he talks about how no matter what looks obvious

00:26:19

today, it can all change tomorrow.

00:26:21

So this is kind of a weird first chapter in a book called Same as Ever about how like

00:26:30

literally everything can change. But what it does is it kind of like shakes you up right at the

00:26:37

beginning. It's like someone grabs you by their shoulders and jars you awake.

00:26:41

Like, okay, now that I have your attention.

00:26:42

Yeah.

00:26:44

You know, so I thought it was a very important chapter and a very like strong emotional way

00:26:52

to start the book.

00:26:53

I mean, after you read that first chapter, you want to keep reading and finding out what

00:26:58

else he has to say. So well done.

00:27:01

I was in one of those in college.

00:27:03

I took like an intro to film class.

00:27:06

It was like one of these electives that you had to take to fill a certain requirement.

00:27:11

But one of the pieces of that class was that there were certain movies that we had to watch

00:27:17

and then we would discuss. And one of the movies that was an option to watch, and I cannot for

00:27:22

the life of me think of the name of this, I've tried for years to recall what the name of this

00:27:26

movie is, but I can't find it. And it's a story of a young woman who's in her apartment.

00:27:33

It's a very mundane sequence. She gets up, she makes breakfast, she goes down the flight of

00:27:39

stairs, she walks across town to her workplace. That's the end of the story.

00:27:45

However, that same story repeats, I think it's 12 times.

00:27:48

And each time something is minutely different.

00:27:52

One time she forgets her office keys. So then she has to come back and then she ends up meeting

00:27:58

a guy. One time she accidentally spills coffee on her kitchen table. So then she has to wipe it up,

00:28:05

takes 20 seconds, right? But then she was slightly behind her schedule, which then meant she got

00:28:12

stopped by this light. And then she met this guy or she got hit in one case. Like it went from

00:28:18

this wide spectrum of she ended up meeting the guy that she ends up marrying to she was killed

00:28:23

in a car accident. Like it's that wide ranging, but the time that changed from the time her leaving

00:28:29

her apartment was 15, 20 seconds each time. So I just remember that very astutely because it

00:28:36

struck me that these real minor details can change the timing of things so much.

00:28:44

Like it can change the sequence of events so much that you just don't realize what's going on.

00:28:49

And this happens all the time. I was immediately brought back to that when I read this chapter,

00:28:54

because as much as this is about how things never change, it's good to know that one minor

00:29:01

change can make a huge, huge difference. So yes.

00:29:05

Yeah, and that actually kind of is a great place to segue into the next section.

00:29:12

So the next one I wanted to talk about is section three. And these aren't actually

00:29:16

numbered, but I numbered them in my outline here. But the third section is on expectations and

00:29:23

reality. So you've got the idea of the small differences producing the larger outcomes.

00:29:32

But then this chapter kind of talks about how if you really want to be happy, the first rule of

00:29:37

happiness is low expectations. And I think that there's something to this. There's a quote here

00:29:44

from Montesquieu that he shares that if you only wish to be happy, this could easily be

00:29:49

accomplished. But we wish to be happier than other people. And this is always difficult.

00:29:53

For we believe others to be happier than they are. And the point that Morgan makes here is that

00:29:59

the world isn't driven by greed. It's actually driven by envy. We want to be better off than

00:30:05

the other person. And so those expectations, those alter how we interpret our circumstances. And

00:30:13

we can totally see how we get used to things at a certain level. And you get a raise in your job.

00:30:20

And you've got a new level you're at financially. And at first, you're really grateful. And this

00:30:25

is awesome. And then six months later, you're like, they're underpaying me again. You become

00:30:30

accustomed to things. And then you immediately start looking at people who are just a little bit

00:30:35

further than you are. So this isn't directly tied to the idea of being content or gratitude.

00:30:42

But I think that's where my mind went when I read this. He talked about how the 1950s are kind of

00:30:49

viewed as the golden age right there a happy time because no one lived exorbitantly better

00:30:55

than their neighbors. Everyone was kind of on the same level there. And then also, with that,

00:31:02

you had just gotten through a couple of periods where things were really, really bad.

00:31:07

So people today will look back at the 1950s and they'll say, oh man, that was, those were great

00:31:13

times. We should go back to living like that. But if you actually compare the way things are now

00:31:18

versus the way things were in the 1950s, we're much better off now. I mean, just one thing that

00:31:23

he talks a little bit later, but he kind of talks a little bit about it here too, is the whole idea

00:31:28

of the advances in medicine and sanitation and just the death rates were astronomically higher

00:31:35

from really common diseases. And it was fairly common for you have a bunch of kids in your family

00:31:42

and not all of them are going to make it. We don't think about that today. It's kind of the norm has

00:31:50

been reset or the baseline has been moved. And we just have kind of changed our expectations

00:31:56

regarding that. So no specific action item with this. However, as I'm thinking through this,

00:32:01

kind of that's the nudge I got was just recognize and be content with the things that are going well.

00:32:10

And not just constantly wish that the things were better. I think that's kind of my

00:32:14

normal default mindset anyways, is to try to tweak the systems and produce better results. So it was

00:32:24

definitely a good reminder for me. I immediately thought of the book, The Gap and the Gain.

00:32:31

It's Cross Your Mind It All. So Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, the concept of are you focused on

00:32:38

the gap between where you are now and where you want to be versus where you are now and where you

00:32:45

were. So like that could immediately translate to like the expectations piece, obviously. So I

00:32:52

don't know. I thought about that and realize that if you think of your own situation,

00:32:57

I've been doing this a lot lately. Like is my current situation, am I unhappy with it?

00:33:02

Because it's actually a bad situation. And that's an exaggeration of what I'm referring to. I'm

00:33:09

just talking about like minor situations in this case. So if I'm thinking of a current situation and

00:33:15

I think it should be a lot better, I tend to be unhappy with it. But if I think about how much

00:33:19

worse it could be, I'm fairly happy with it. It's the exact same situation, but your perception on

00:33:27

which side of that coin you're on can completely alter the way that you perceive it. So as much as

00:33:34

like, this is something that I mean, I wish I had a really good action item from this. I don't,

00:33:37

other than just again, be aware of it, which I feel like is what we did with The Gap and the

00:33:41

Gain. Like this is just something you need to be aware of and it can make a big difference.

00:33:47

For sure. All right. Well, I guess we can go on to the next one then. The next one is number six.

00:33:54

So we're skipping ahead a little bit here, but number six is titled Best Story Wins.

00:34:01

And I, this section was basically what I thought it was, but it was also way better than I thought

00:34:09

it was going to be. Yeah, this was a good one. This was a good one. So for context, I believe in the

00:34:15

power of story. I think I've shared the story previously about how when I was going through

00:34:21

Toastmasters and I was doing the humorous speech competition, eventually I got to the district

00:34:26

finals and I got connected with a guy named Aaron Beverly who has since gone on to win the world

00:34:31

championship of public speaking. But one of the things that he told me when we were doing some

00:34:36

coaching was he encouraged me to build a story file, which is basically all of these stories in a

00:34:42

notes app. He mentioned Evernote at the time. Obviously now it's an obsidian, but you've got

00:34:48

these different stories and you've got different versions of the stories. So you've got like a

00:34:52

real short version, you've got a longer version. And then when you need to stand up and give a speech,

00:34:56

you have that stuff that you can draw on and you have different versions of it based on the context,

00:35:01

you know, your elevator pitch versus the bigger story and that kind of thing.

00:35:08

And this, so this chapter is kind of loosely based around like, yeah, the stories are the things

00:35:14

that really people are connected, connect with talks about a stories are always more powerful

00:35:19

than statistics, because there's too much information for people to sift through all the data, but they

00:35:24

connect emotionally with the stories. But the story that he uses in this chapter, and he's got stories

00:35:30

with all of these, but the story he uses for this chapter is Martin Luther King, Jr's, I have a dream

00:35:35

speech. But what the interesting detail here, and there's lots of like this sort of framing

00:35:41

around these stories, which Morgan Houssell is really, really good at, is that wasn't the speech

00:35:46

that he was planning to give. Like everyone knows that speech. It's a famous speech, but that's not

00:35:51

what he was going to say. And I don't know all the details with this, but the way Morgan tells it

00:35:57

is he's up there, he's got his paper, and he's about to give this canned speech. And then somebody in

00:36:04

the crowd behind him is like, tell him about the dream. And then he launches into, I have a dream,

00:36:10

and none of it is written down on the paper in front of him. It's just a really emotional story

00:36:16

to him. And those are obviously the best stories. And there's a whole bunch of stuff we could unpack

00:36:23

from that, just the fact that when you're telling a story, you don't want to have all the facts,

00:36:27

you don't want to have it all written down. You don't want to have your story dependent on a single

00:36:32

finely crafted transition sentence as you go from this section to the next section.

00:36:37

It's just got to flow. And I think that's really great. But stories help you in terms of getting

00:36:46

your point across to a larger group of people is one of the things that I teased out of this.

00:36:52

And one of the questions that he asked here that I really found profound was, who has the right

00:36:57

answer that I ignore because they're inarticulate. So on the flip side of this, on one side, you

00:37:04

want to become a better storyteller. But the other side, and this is kind of the surprising

00:37:08

piece to me, is like, there are people who have the information and the answers to what you

00:37:12

are seeking. And you might ignore them for whatever reason, what they look like, what they sound like.

00:37:19

And again, not necessarily an action item associated with this, but kind of an encouragement to dig

00:37:26

a little bit deeper, go beyond the surface with some of this stuff. Because I realized that I tend

00:37:30

to do that a little bit too, just kind of tune out because I don't think the answer can come from

00:37:36

a specific source. But really the answers can come from anywhere if you're looking for them.

00:37:39

Yeah, another one of the stories that he tells here is about there was an anthropologist who

00:37:45

wrote a review of a young author's book and said that basically the book doesn't really have anything

00:37:55

new. And what he does have is questionable as far as accuracy goes. However, this book is a best

00:38:06

seller and is one of the most successful anthropology books of all time. This is sapiens that we're

00:38:14

referring to. People love that book and how many times has it been recommended and how many times

00:38:19

have we skipped it on bookworm? So do you do now choose whether you're going to do it or not.

00:38:24

But it's not really from an anthropology stance according to this guy. It's not that great.

00:38:30

However, you've all know a Harari, the author, is just really good at telling stories. He just

00:38:39

did a very good job of explaining the anthropology background in story format. So that's what we're

00:38:47

talking about. So if you're really good at telling stories and you're

00:38:51

excellent at communicating something through story, that's the one that can win. So

00:38:56

having a story file sounds great. I don't know when I would use that, but I feel like telling

00:39:02

stories is way better at getting a point across than anything else. Yeah, well, I definitely have

00:39:08

application for this, I feel. Getting a little bit more consistent with YouTube has stretched me a

00:39:17

bit, but I realize that it's easier for me to make those videos when I have a story angle to it.

00:39:24

And a lot of it doesn't have to be as complicated as you maybe think it is. You don't have to have

00:39:32

some sensational story associated with it. A lot of times the story is just like,

00:39:36

this is the problem that I was facing and this is what I'm doing to solve it. The task management,

00:39:41

we talked about it at the beginning. Yeah. That's a story and to some people, that story is going

00:39:47

to be really boring, but to the people who are watching my videos, they're probably going to love it.

00:39:50

Right. Here's an example. So part of the reason I'm on Apple Reminders now versus like OmniFocus

00:39:58

or using Obsidian is because I had realized that one of the things I struggle with is it's not

00:40:04

visible to me at all times. And even if it's on my phone, it's not easy to get to. So I was

00:40:11

trying to do something on the stage at work for setup and I recall that there was something else

00:40:17

I needed to do on the stage. And it just didn't work. Like I couldn't find it in the system that I

00:40:24

had. And I had pulled out my phone, was looking through it, but the problem was I had pulled out

00:40:30

my phone and was theoretically looking for it. And noticed that I had, you know, five missed

00:40:36

text messages and a couple missed phone calls. So then I was like running through all of that.

00:40:40

The next thing I knew, it'd been like an hour and a half of me like sitting through like text

00:40:45

conversations and, you know, ending up on the phone. And like, that was not my intent. Now those

00:40:51

were all things that needed to happen. It was just the wrong time. Because what happened then was

00:40:55

somebody else needed to come in to use that room. So then I wasn't able to finish what I was doing.

00:40:59

And I got completely derailed. So that's actually one of the genesis stories for why I have an

00:41:06

Apple watch now. Because I needed a way to be able to check those tasks and what I need to do

00:41:12

without that distraction of being sucked into the phone piece. But in order to make that work,

00:41:18

well, I needed to use Apple reminders to make that seamless and get into that full ecosystem.

00:41:24

So thus, I'm in on Apple reminders versus Omni focus and team because of the easy integration

00:41:31

and such. So there's a quick story I just told you about the task management system I'm on.

00:41:38

And I hope that was more interesting than me just saying, yeah, it's just it's easier for me to

00:41:42

get it on my watch. Like, why? Like you can understand it better if I tell you a story about it.

00:41:47

Exactly. All right. The next section we're going to jump ahead here a little bit is number 11.

00:41:56

Overnight tragedies in long term miracles. And I picked this one because I think there's a really

00:42:05

important concept to be understood here, which really is at the genesis of a lot of the sensational

00:42:15

ized information that we are exposed to every single day, which is that good news is typically

00:42:23

invisible, but bad news is visible. Bad news is what did what did happen. Good news could be

00:42:30

what didn't happen. And when you recognize that we are in an information age and there are all of

00:42:41

these sources that are providing us information with the intention of using that information to

00:42:48

capture our engagement because that's going to drive profit for them. You can kind of see how

00:42:55

this flywheel is designed to keep us anxious. So there's obviously like a whole social dilemma

00:43:04

aspect from this. But that's not the only thing to be gleaned here. It talks about how good news

00:43:11

comes from compounding. And that always takes time. But bad news often comes in the form of a loss

00:43:19

in confidence or a catastrophic error. And that can happen in the blink of an eye. And he uses a

00:43:25

quote from I forget the person, but like a reputation takes 10 years to build, but you can lose it in

00:43:30

an instant. Like that's really the concept here. And that's not just a dire warning, like watch out

00:43:36

because if you're not careful, you're going to throw it all away. Really, the takeaway for me from this

00:43:43

is to continue to do the things that you know to do. The reason that things are going to take

00:43:50

longer to develop when they are the good things is that growth was always going to fight

00:43:56

against competition that is going to slow its rise. I thought that was a pretty profound

00:44:00

statement when I read that. And it's totally true. It's why the compound effect, you know,

00:44:06

you don't see the immediate gains right away. But it also applies to technology. He mentions

00:44:12

that new technology isn't immediately recognized for its full potential and instantly adopted by

00:44:16

the masses. Sometimes it takes quite a few years for things to be broadly accepted. And then we

00:44:23

look back and we wonder how we ever lived without this thing. And when you do that, you can look back

00:44:28

and be like, well, obviously, if I had been around when the internet was invented or whatever, you

00:44:32

know, insert your favorite technology here, you'd be like, well, I would have recognized this because

00:44:36

I can totally see now how it benefits me in all these ways. But no, you wouldn't have. That's just

00:44:43

the nature of the process. So I feel like that's what this chapter does really well is it kind of

00:44:49

explains the as new context for me anyways to the whole process of growth, which I think cultivates

00:44:56

this confidence to just keep going and to be consistent.

00:45:00

I think at the beginning, he talks about it's Warren Buffett that says it's 20 years to build a

00:45:06

reputation and 15 minutes to lose it. Hmm. So okay. But you know, that that concept is one that

00:45:12

it does make a lot of sense. I would probably argue that it takes less than 15 minutes in today's

00:45:17

world because things have accelerated so much faster. The social media side of it is made it

00:45:22

much easier to have detriments happen. Think about the number of stock prices falling because

00:45:31

a company makes an announcement. It's like instant that that can happen. So it's a delicate balance

00:45:39

that you end up walking on in today's world because of the social media phenomenon. And as much as

00:45:46

we see the benefits of social media and things with it, like obviously the beginning of bookworm

00:45:52

started through Twitter. So that's how Mike and I got connected. Because of some of the

00:45:59

positives that come with it, it's easy to lose track of those because you can see all of the

00:46:04

negative stuff and it's more fun to talk about the negative. Like we tend to be drawn towards that

00:46:09

negative because it's like a fear avoidance sort of thing. Like you're trying to avoid

00:46:14

negative things happening to you. So you're drawn to them so you can understand them better so that

00:46:19

you don't have those issues. Like that's just part of the mechanism that goes on. So because of that,

00:46:25

it's very easy for us to be drawn to all the bad sides of it. And then because the good sides

00:46:31

aren't talked about as much and we're not as drawn to them, you just don't notice them as much.

00:46:35

Thus like these long-term miracles that he's referring to, one of which was heart disease and

00:46:40

deaths caused by heart disease and how we've gotten better. Like we've eliminated heart

00:46:47

disease issues by 1% over, I forget how many years it was. And that's a long-term miracle.

00:46:54

Like we've saved millions of people's lives because of understanding heart disease. But you won't,

00:47:01

you wouldn't put that on the news. Hey, we got 1% better at heart diseases here.

00:47:09

Cool. Like what kind of gloss over that. But if you said we got 20% better at heart disease over

00:47:19

the last 20 years, it looks a little more impressive. But people like you're not going to notice that

00:47:24

until after the 20 years. Like you can't say, hey, in 20 years, 20% better. Like you could do

00:47:29

that prediction. That's great. But how many people are going to like, yeah, sure. Yeah, prove it.

00:47:34

Like that's kind of the, and there's even a section on that a little bit later.

00:47:38

But I do think like if you're willing to understand these long-term pieces over time, like, yeah,

00:47:44

it does make a big difference. You just have to be willing to look for it.

00:47:46

Yeah, I've got a maybe a different application of this too, which is more pertinent and recent

00:47:54

for me is this is the path for a creator. I have at my office here, I got this mug from

00:48:04

it's a Jack Butcher, the visualize value guy. And it basically shows like the exponential growth

00:48:13

curve, but at the very beginning of it, it's like a whole bunch of really tiny ticks. And then it's

00:48:17

not till the end. It goes up significantly. Yeah. And I like that because it's an encouraging

00:48:24

reminder to me to just keep going. And I am like seeing the growth in my creator business when I

00:48:30

first started May or June, I had roughly 2,000 people on the email list. And then I started sending

00:48:40

emails regularly and it actually went down a little bit. That always happens when you decide

00:48:45

you're going to start sending emails again. And then I started posting regularly to YouTube and

00:48:53

that has kind of compounded more recently. The first video that I published, it did okay.

00:49:01

But the second video did a little bit better. Plus, I was still getting some views from the

00:49:06

previous one and the third one, so that stuff kind of compounds. And you have to consistently

00:49:12

like make good stuff. Obviously, the quality needs to be there. But I don't think I told you

00:49:19

this, Joe, I am officially a YouTube partner now. Party time.

00:49:23

Yeah. Well, not really. I mean, I'm not getting ad revenue yet. That happens at 4,000

00:49:27

hours across 3,000 hours. But I should be at 4,000 probably by the end of the year.

00:49:32

And even then, it's going to be like a 10 cent check for the first one I realized.

00:49:37

[laughter]

00:49:38

Still.

00:49:39

But I've gone from 1,800 email subscribers to now it's about 3,300 and almost 2,000 YouTube

00:49:48

subscribers. But that has been a slow burn. And there are definitely points where it's like,

00:49:54

is this doing anything? Does anybody care? You don't notice the big spike on a specific day.

00:50:02

But slowly over time, it kind of inches upward. And that's kind of the point I'm at right now,

00:50:09

is I can look back at the graph and I can be like, "Oh, at the beginning, you know, when I started

00:50:12

YouTube videos, getting a couple email signups a day, then it became 5, then it became 10,

00:50:18

and then it became 15." And it's not every day, but it kind of averages out. You can kind of see

00:50:21

it if you take a long enough look, the curve there. So you need to just be consistent with it.

00:50:29

And I feel like reading this chapter, it would have been helpful for me to read this back in

00:50:37

September when I was going through the doldrums is how a mentor mind described it one time.

00:50:43

Like, that's definitely a real place. And I was definitely feeling a bit discouraged.

00:50:48

And you're, because you're looking for some sort of sign that this is the right thing.

00:50:52

Ultimately, if you notice the right thing, which I did, you know, had enough people telling me,

00:50:56

like, "This is the right thing to do. This is good stuff. Just trust the process."

00:50:59

But when you're like scrambling and you're trying to figure things out, you're looking for that

00:51:03

immediate feedback. It's not going to be there. You have to just do the right things. And when

00:51:10

you do the right things over time, those are going to produce the results that you're looking for.

00:51:14

Just takes time. It does take time. Let's go to the next section here. The next section is called

00:51:24

elation and despair. And I picked this one because I feel like there's a yin and a yang here.

00:51:33

Like, there's a balance that needs to be struck between these two. And it's not maybe obvious.

00:51:42

I think, generally speaking, you ask anybody, they would say, "I either am a natural optimist,

00:51:52

or I would like to be a natural optimist." And there's a framing in this chapter that I feel

00:51:58

helps create a balance between these two perspectives. And he mentions that you should plan like a

00:52:07

pessimist, but dream like an optimist. And he ties this back to the best financial plan being

00:52:12

to save like a pessimist and to invest like an optimist. So that's like translating it from

00:52:19

the financial world to the everyday world. But I feel like that is a really... I never heard that

00:52:25

before, but it instantly clicked with me. You want to save so that you have something to fall back on

00:52:31

if stuff goes sideways. But also, if you are just being pessimistic, you're not going to invest in

00:52:39

the markets, which are going to provide the 10% annual returns, which are going to compound and

00:52:43

produce the real bulk of any sort of financial fortune, if that's the thing that you're trying

00:52:48

to build. So I immediately started thinking about how do I apply that not just financially, but

00:52:56

where have I been too pessimistic? And where do I need to invest basically? Where do I need to

00:53:04

dream? Things like that. And he does a great job of translating it from these different realms,

00:53:09

because he talks about how progress requires optimism and pessimism to coexist. And then he

00:53:15

goes into the James Stockdale story, which we've heard before. I think that was good to great. We

00:53:19

talked about that, where James Stockdale said that the ones who didn't make it out of the prisoners

00:53:25

of war camp were the ones who were the optimists, because they believed they were going to be out

00:53:30

by Christmas. And then when they weren't out by Christmas, they were heartbroken, and that was

00:53:34

the beginning of the end. He talks about this idea called depressive realism, which is the idea

00:53:41

that depressed people have a more accurate view of the world, because they're more realistic about

00:53:45

how risky and fragile life is. I think that makes sense. And I agree with that. But also,

00:53:51

I don't think you want to stay there. That's obviously just one perspective, and you want to

00:53:55

balance that. And he even says that the ideal perspective here is to be a rational optimist.

00:54:00

And I'm kind of curious, not just what you think of this chapter, but where do you find

00:54:05

yourself on this spectrum? I think I'm typically a little bit more towards the pessimist side.

00:54:11

So reading this, I need to follow my own advice. We talk about this in the life-themed cohort.

00:54:18

I know this to be true, right? I need to focus on the dreaming part, and I need to be more optimistic

00:54:23

about, yeah, I could do those things. Because if I look back on my journey, you know,

00:54:28

from when we started Bookworm seven, eight years ago, I'm doing things that I never thought I would

00:54:34

be doing at the beginning of that journey. So I even have some recent evidence I can lean back on,

00:54:40

but still my brain has trouble just running with that sometimes. I need a little bit of a push in

00:54:44

that direction. Yeah, the immediate example I can think of is because I'm with you, I tend to be on

00:54:51

the pessimist side of things, which can be a bit of an issue at times because you don't always see

00:54:57

the positive side of it. So to go back to this life-themed thing and part of what I've been

00:55:02

working towards is that I want to be at the skill level from running a sound,

00:55:08

running a soundboard and running live events to the point where I'm capable of running for a

00:55:15

5,000 person venue. The problem with that is that that takes a lot of skills that I don't currently

00:55:22

have. Like I'm getting there, but I have a long ways to go. And it's easy for me to get to a point

00:55:27

where I realize like this is just going to take too long. It's just going to be a pain. And it's

00:55:33

probably not going to ever pay off. And it's going to have hours that I don't like. And it's going

00:55:38

to have, and you see how this can go, like it's snowballs. And yet whenever I turn around and

00:55:45

actually run an event, even if it's for 100 people, if it takes any form of skill to pull off the

00:55:52

sound environment correctly, like absolutely love doing that. So like I need to focus on that piece

00:55:59

and like some of the difficulties, yeah, I can work through those. And that's part of what we'll

00:56:04

talk about next. But yeah, the difficulty side of it is one that I need to embrace and look on the

00:56:09

bright side of that. If I'm willing to embrace like both sides of that coin where it's like,

00:56:14

yes, it's going to be a little difficult at times. And I know it can be hard, but at the same time,

00:56:19

like these are all the positives that can come with that. Like that's the zone I need to sit in.

00:56:24

I immediately when you brought up the stockdale thing, I was thinking about

00:56:27

Victor Frankel with Man Search for Meaning and how like the ones who didn't make out were the

00:56:36

optimists. Well, Frankel talks about that with the concentration camps, how the people who thought,

00:56:43

yeah, we're going to be out by Christmas. Like they're the ones who died like shortly there after

00:56:47

Christmas because it didn't come true and they just lost all hope. So yes, I think this is

00:56:53

very important in life saving importance at times. And yet I think it's probably one of

00:57:04

at least for me, it's one of the more difficult things to get my head around as far as like,

00:57:08

how do I actually implement that and what is it that I need to be aware of in order to actually

00:57:13

follow through on that and not just pay lip service to it. So that's the part I'm kind of struggling

00:57:19

with. Again, I don't know how to take an action item on that other than just be aware of it.

00:57:22

Right. Well, that's actually a perfect place to go into the next one I want to talk about.

00:57:28

So one of the things that you could do if you're going to take action on it is you could recognize

00:57:33

that it's supposed to be hard. Yes. And this going back to the story I shared about the creator

00:57:41

journey. No, this is something again that I should have kept more in the front of my mind that it was

00:57:48

going to be difficult. It was definitely harder to get to the point where I am now than I thought

00:57:53

it was going to be and I'm still not where I want to be. But just for context, I guess in the creator

00:57:59

world, if you grow the email list big enough, that is the thing that drives the revenue when

00:58:05

you've got the products to sell and things like that. Having a big enough specifically email

00:58:11

audience, it's great to have people who are following you on the other platforms. But

00:58:16

historically, if you sell anything, email is the way that you sell it. So that's always been in the

00:58:25

back of my mind is like 10,000 email subscribers. And getting to 3300 and I believe 5000 will be

00:58:34

maybe a little bit quicker. But to this point, it's definitely been slower than I thought it was

00:58:39

going to be. But again, you can see the compound effect kicking in. So if it's supposed to be hard

00:58:44

and everything worth pursuing comes with a little pain, then you just got to push through it. The

00:58:50

trick is not minding when it hurts is how he puts it in this section. He talks about how hacks are

00:58:56

appealing, but they rarely exist and that the right way is the hard way. So I think this has a lot of

00:59:03

application for just about anybody who's trying to do anything worthwhile. But there's one thing

00:59:10

specifically that I wanted to talk about in here, because he mentions that an essential skill is

00:59:17

identifying the right amount of nonsense to endure while you're getting ahead. And I couldn't help

00:59:23

but think back to the conversations we had about day jobs and corporate and work environments and

00:59:30

even some of the feedback that we've gotten like, well, it's cool for you guys, but you know, I'm in

00:59:34

this situation, I can't possibly change it. Like, this is where I've worked. And this is how my boss

00:59:41

does things and just is what it is. It's not necessarily it is what it is. And that's always

00:59:48

kind of been the advice that I've given people is like, well, it would be very difficult to change

00:59:52

your job, but you could change your job. You could go get another job. You could decide to do

00:59:56

something else. People do that all the time. And I empathize with the fact that it is very difficult

01:00:02

to do that. But again, Morgan Hausle, like he does so often in these these sections, he kind of

01:00:07

just shines a light on like where the decision actually gets made with this is that we all have

01:00:15

this line. And some of us are like, Nope, I'm not going to tolerate any nonsense. And the minute

01:00:21

that I get in that sort of situation, you know, I'm out. I probably lean a little bit too much

01:00:27

that way. But there are other people who lean too much the other way, where it's just like, well,

01:00:32

this is the way it is. And I'm stuck here. So Morgan kind of enables both of these parties. And it's

01:00:40

like, well, you're not necessarily stuck there, you can change your situation. But you also don't

01:00:44

need to quit the minute that somebody does something that you feel like is wrong. You got to find the

01:00:50

balance there. And I feel like everybody's going to have maybe a little bit different mix in terms of

01:00:57

like what's a little bit too far, one direction or the other. But just the way he articulated this,

01:01:04

I thought was pretty brilliant. You got to figure out what is the right amount of nonsense that you

01:01:09

are going to endure. And then at some point you say, okay, that's that's too much. I'm not going

01:01:15

to put up with that amount of nonsense and you go find something else. But the takeaway for me,

01:01:21

I think, was that there's always going to be a little bit of that nonsense, no matter what you

01:01:25

do, no matter who you surround yourself with. And you do need to learn to kind of navigate it and

01:01:31

deal with it to a certain degree. I think we're a society that loves shortcuts. We like the get

01:01:38

rich quick schemes. We like the promise of Bitcoin making me rich. And we love that type of thing

01:01:47

in that story. But I feel like there's a lot of problem with that as well. And obviously,

01:01:55

it's supposed to be hard. If you put in the work and do it the hard way,

01:01:58

yes, it's going to take longer in most scenarios. But I feel like the character building that you

01:02:06

get out of that is well worth it as well. The people who have put in the time to earn wealth

01:02:13

appreciate it significantly more than those who sign a contract and instantly have $100 million.

01:02:19

And the way that people spend that money in both scenarios is drastically different. This is not

01:02:27

new information for you, I'm sure. That's something we know. People who win the lottery

01:02:34

typically go bankrupt. This is a common thing. So I think part of that is just being willing to

01:02:42

endure the difficulty. The question is, you're saying how much is too much.

01:02:48

And I know that having been in corporate and worked in those scenarios like this,

01:02:54

there's a lot of nonsense that happens. And if you're okay with that and for the sake of

01:03:02

a paycheck, sure, go for it. I can't handle that level of nonsense. And I have stepped away from

01:03:10

that, obviously. I tried to go back to it at one point on contract and that was even worse.

01:03:14

Because then at that point, my level of dealing with nonsense was much less than it was prior. So

01:03:21

just be aware that level can change as well.

01:03:25

Yeah. Next one is section 18. And that is harder than it looks and not as fun as it seems.

01:03:35

And I don't have a whole lot from this section, to be honest. But I think there's some very

01:03:43

important things to be teased out here. Because we've heard before that on social media,

01:03:51

specifically people tend to share the highlights. And that's that there's an element of that in

01:03:57

here as well, that everything always looks better from the outside and that everyone is dealing

01:04:02

with problems that they don't advertise. But the big thing I took away from this is that most

01:04:09

people will not talk about what scares them. And I don't have an action. I'm associated with

01:04:15

this either. But again, a nudge in the direction to talk about the scary stuff. Because every time

01:04:20

I do that, I find that there are other people who are scared of the same things and are dealing

01:04:24

with the same things. And just by being the one who's actually willing to say the quiet part out loud,

01:04:29

it helps everybody. So I think that's an important perspective to have. And then the other thing

01:04:39

in here, which I liked is that everything is sales. And I know a lot of people, I've even had

01:04:46

conversations with people who are like, well, I just don't want to be a salesperson. I'm not

01:04:51

very salesy. And tell them, well, you're married. So you sold yourself at least once.

01:04:58

Yeah. It's not a bad thing. Sales is just the ability to communicate to people that you're willing.

01:05:05

You're able to take them where they want to go. It's essentially a form of leadership. It doesn't

01:05:12

have to be the sleazy use car salesman is trying to sell yellow lemon. That's obviously the

01:05:18

negative application of this. And that's typically where people's mindset goes. But that's not really

01:05:23

what it is. And it is also kind of like a little bit tangential in this chapter. Like it's not

01:05:30

really anchored on that idea of like harder than it looks and not as fun as it seems. But it was

01:05:35

something that stood out to me. He has a brief story in here about how I think it was a co-worker.

01:05:45

I don't know. Somebody was talking to you said that they were thinking about leaving their company

01:05:48

because their current company was bad at communication. And they had a lot of internal

01:05:52

struggles and they were looking at going to a competitor. And he's like, well, how do you know

01:05:56

the competitor doesn't have those problems? Well, they just look like they're completely put together

01:06:00

and they produce a lot more. Like, well, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're better at

01:06:05

communication. They just maybe have a few people that are better at tolerating it and do good work

01:06:11

despite it. Like, that may be all that's going on. But you don't actually know that they're better

01:06:17

at that. And he the last paragraph before he has his lead into the next chapter, he says,

01:06:23

everyone's dealing with problems. They don't advertise at least until you get to know them well.

01:06:28

Yep, 100%. Grass looks greener. But it looks greener from afar.

01:06:34

So I know, like, take that analogy, sure. Like, there are times when people have pulled into my

01:06:43

lawn and say, man, your grass looks really good in the front lawn. It's like, really? It's like

01:06:47

patchy and browning spots. And then I realized that if you look at it from the road or as you're

01:06:54

pulling into the driveway, you actually can't see that. Like, there's spots there that are not

01:06:58

good. But all you see is like the greener stuff. It's on the edges where, you know, the water flows

01:07:03

down the driveway and waters it really well inadvertently. Like, you can see that really well.

01:07:08

And it looks pretty good. But when you get closer to it and actually get up on it, it's not as

01:07:13

great as it looks. So even from a lawn perspective, sure grass is always greener, but

01:07:19

just walk up closer to it. It might not be as nice as you think it is.

01:07:25

Right. Okay, the last official section I've got here is number 22, which is trying too hard.

01:07:35

So I feel like the sections that I picked to discuss in this outline have kind of all been

01:07:42

sort of tied to it's going to be harder than you think. And you just got to stick with it. And

01:07:46

eventually it'll work out. So this one kind of stood out to me because it's kind of a

01:07:51

contradiction to that. But this also is very relevant for me. And probably some other people too,

01:07:58

because I tend to make things harder than they have to be. And the very first thing he says in

01:08:04

this chapter is that there are no points awarded for difficulty. So we like those big comeback

01:08:12

stories and we conquered the thing. But really the best version of this is you never had to fight

01:08:18

the thing. One of the examples he shares in this chapter is that you can't die from cancer if you

01:08:25

don't get cancer in the first place. But the healing is more attractive maybe than the prevention.

01:08:35

And taking that example out of the picture, that principle I feel like is really important.

01:08:45

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So prevention is the simple version.

01:08:52

And another way to say this, I've heard it said that it's easier to sell medicine or pain reliever

01:09:02

than vegetables, different versions of that. People want the pain to go away. But if you do

01:09:08

the right things, you won't have the pain in the first place, sort of a deal. And you obviously

01:09:14

can't escape all of the pain, but that's the big takeaway for me is like, don't look to make it

01:09:19

more difficult than it needs to be. And if you're looking at other people's stories and the things

01:09:28

that they've gone through, I think there is a little bit of a bias towards the complexity,

01:09:32

because he talks about how complexity sells better. Complexity, he also says that when we're

01:09:36

like crafting our own solutions and things, complexity gives the comforting impression of

01:09:41

control. That's the one that really hit home for me is like just using my obsidian test management

01:09:46

thing at the beginning as an example. Is there a simpler version of that that I should probably

01:09:50

get to at some point? Yes. I'm sure there is. But the fact that I have 12 different lists that

01:09:57

feels comforting. I know that the minute I start trying to use all 12 of those lists, it's not

01:10:01

going to it's going to fall apart. Because the simple thing that has the least amount of friction

01:10:07

is going to be the thing that actually allows it to stick. So I got to fight through that. I got

01:10:13

to work through that. The big takeaway, again, not an action item is just recognize that this

01:10:19

thing maybe feels right because of the complexity, but know that in the long run that actually is

01:10:24

working against me. So make it as simple as you can. And then the length of the thing also kind of

01:10:31

signals effort and thoughtfulness to a lot of people. That's why a lot of the books that we read

01:10:36

are 200 pages, I feel. A lot of them don't need to be that long. And we've gotten pretty good over

01:10:42

the years of figuring that out distilling it down. Like, yeah, this could have been 20 pages.

01:10:47

But you totally get it. You know, too, when when Morgan points it out, it's like, hey,

01:10:52

the reason that a lot of them are like that is because the fact that someone picks it up and

01:10:56

there's 200 pages on the Pomodoro method implies that they really know a lot about it. Not necessarily.

01:11:03

So maybe use that as a use that as another perspective when you're trying to filter through things as

01:11:10

well, recognize that that's something that people will will tend to do and don't ink around the

01:11:16

length as evidence of the the research or the quality of the material.

01:11:21

I think the piece from this that really struck me is that whole simplicity versus complexity

01:11:28

concept, because the more that in the audio world or in the networking world, tech world in general,

01:11:35

like you can make things ridiculously complex. Like I can put together what we call signal chains

01:11:42

for how you pass audio from the beginning to the end to get it out the speaker system. I can do a

01:11:46

lot of fancy stuff on that. But most of it is handled by how I place the microphone in front of the

01:11:55

person or the instrument. Like if that's not right, the rest of it just doesn't matter.

01:12:00

It's literally put the microphone in the right spot. If you do that, you've solved like 90 to 95

01:12:08

percent of the problems you're going to run into. Like it's that simple. But we like to say, you

01:12:13

know, I got a high pass filter. I got the EQ. I got the compressor. Got all these things.

01:12:18

Got the plug-ins. Like I got all these things. But if you have a really good source and you put

01:12:22

the mic in the right spot, I mean, that's the bulk of it. Like you can do all the other stuff. And

01:12:28

if you're going to do a really good job, you should do all the rest of that stuff. But your

01:12:32

benefit isn't near as large as putting the mic in the right spot. Like it's that simple. But again,

01:12:40

we like to make it complex. That's just one example. You can give tons and tons and tons of these time

01:12:45

management, task management, all of these things. All right. I don't think we need to cover the

01:12:50

questions section. Do you? No, I don't think so. Just ask the questions and then answer them.

01:12:56

Agree. Although I do like the fact that there are questions at the end of the book.

01:13:00

So I guess then that takes us to action items. And I don't have any. I'm assuming you don't either.

01:13:09

I don't either. It's one of these like just be aware thing. But yeah, I don't have any for this.

01:13:17

All right. Well, I guess we'll go on then to style and rating. So my book, I will go first.

01:13:26

And I really like this book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I feel like it exceeded my

01:13:33

expectations. I like the format. I like the small-ish sections. They're not tiny, like I was saying.

01:13:43

You know, this is not Seth Godin. It's still about a 200-page book, just under if you take out the

01:13:49

questions section. So still a little bit of meat here. But this is really this is really like the

01:13:57

perfect format, I feel like, for Morgan Housel. Again, not familiar with anything else Morgan

01:14:03

Housel has done. But the stories are great. The details that he teases out are great. The

01:14:11

principles that he kind of highlights and teaches in this book are great. I feel like for the most

01:14:18

part, there's there's no sections in this book whatsoever. But for the most part, there is kind

01:14:23

of a unifying thread that connects them all, which is a little bit surprising sometimes when you look

01:14:28

at the titles and even as we talk through it, you know, we ended up talking about a couple things that

01:14:34

seem like they're in direct contrast to each other. But they're really not the way that it's put

01:14:37

together, I think, is done really, really well. And I think this is definitely something that the

01:14:45

bookworm audience should read. I think if you listen to bookworm and you like the majority of the

01:14:51

books that we talk about, this one you're going to get a lot out of and it's going to be a fairly

01:14:56

easy read. It's going to be a pretty entertaining read or at least a very engaging read. Let me

01:15:03

put it that way. Definitely glad that I read it. Definitely one that's earned a spot on the bookshelf

01:15:10

and I do think I will come back to it from time to time and consider those questions.

01:15:14

I don't I didn't have any action items from it. I guess one that I could have thought about was

01:15:21

just like writing down those questions inside of a note and obsidian. But I don't know, I feel like

01:15:26

this is one that I'll probably revisit from time to time, not to read the whole thing. But just like,

01:15:32

oh yeah, I read a section about that or I'm reviewing the mind map and get triggered by one of the

01:15:37

section titles and I'll go back and read that again because it's eight pages or something like that.

01:15:43

I think it's really good. I'm going to rate it five stars actually. I don't think it's the most

01:15:51

impactful book that we've ever read. But I do think it is really, really good. And I think

01:15:57

there's something in here for just about everyone. I think the very premise of the book is different

01:16:05

and refreshing and very widely applicable. So regardless of your situation, I feel like you're

01:16:15

going to benefit from putting in the effort to read this one. I feel like Morgan Hausle does a

01:16:21

very good job of laying out the whole book from start to finish because like remember how we

01:16:27

started this where one little tiny change, again, we're talking about being the same over time.

01:16:33

One tiny little change can completely throw off the entire history of something. And then we go

01:16:40

through this process of telling stories or putting in the time to make something happen over a long

01:16:47

period of time. It's going to be difficult to do that. You need to try hard even when it's not fun.

01:16:52

By the way, don't try too hard. You follow this cadence that I'm talking about. So he's not only

01:16:58

done a really good job of telling the stories within the chapters and then helping you get

01:17:03

through them. But he's also done it across the entire book. Like you said, it's rare that you're

01:17:08

choosing that first chapter out of a book like this. But he did set up the rest of it really well

01:17:14

with that first chapter. It's also kind of odd when we do this to grab the last bit from the book

01:17:21

as well. And we usually jump to the conclusion and did that as well. I think there's one that was

01:17:27

past that. But like right there at the end, grabbing that piece as well. So like again, those are both

01:17:32

oddities in or those are all oddities and how we've covered this. I think he's done a great job.

01:17:40

Like there's there's a lot of little stuff here that you can pick up. There's a lot of books that

01:17:43

we have covered in the past that cover one of these sections in depth. And if you want to deep

01:17:48

dive those, you could grab it and go to it. But as far as like being aware of how things do and

01:17:54

don't change over time, more so how they don't change over time, is incredibly helpful because

01:18:01

you know that those principles aren't going to deviate. You can count on the history lesson that

01:18:05

they have taught. And you can use that for going forward. So as far as the rating goes, like and

01:18:12

how this book is put together and what I've gotten out of it, again, I don't have any action items

01:18:16

from it, but I think you're spot on. I think it's a five oh, and I think it's one that again,

01:18:22

I'll reference from time to time. I think you should pick it up and read it. Again, it's not like

01:18:26

groundbreaking and it's not like going to completely change your world in its like by itself. But I

01:18:34

think if you put it in conjunction with the number of lessons you're covering, like I guess when I

01:18:41

say that like the number of lessons that you're getting by going through this particular book is

01:18:46

quite large, we're probably not going to be the ones that are going to catch as much of the life

01:18:51

changing bits out of this because of the history of the books that we've read. So I think if it's

01:18:57

one that you're going to pick up and you're only going to pick up one this year, this is a good

01:19:00

one to do that. I know we've had a couple of them like that this year, where there's like two or

01:19:04

three of them like, yeah, this is definitely one you need to pick up. This is one of those I think.

01:19:08

But yes, I think it needs to be a five oh, all right. So last book we do together is a golden book.

01:19:15

That's true. Didn't count on that. But hey, I'll take it.

01:19:19

Yeah. All right. So I guess this is typically where we do gap books and upcoming books. But to be

01:19:25

honest, I don't know exactly what is going to happen or what we're going to cover. But I will

01:19:33

promise you that in two weeks there will be another bookworm episode. And hopefully I will have

01:19:40

someone who can help me talk about a book for that episode. We got a little bit more heads up

01:19:47

this time. So yeah, I don't think I'll have to do that the solo thing. But yeah, thanks for

01:19:53

thanks for a great run, Joe. Certainly. And I'm again, I'm very grateful for

01:19:59

you as listeners. And it's been a great run for 186 episodes of bookworm. And I look forward to

01:20:08

coming back from time to time. But again, thank you to everyone who listens. I will miss you greatly.