Bookworm Transcripts

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So follow up from last time, we talked about AI, and you had challenged me to figure out

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what I am going to delegate to AI.

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And I feel like I'm making progress here, but I still don't have a ton of clarity on

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what exactly this is going to look like.

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I will share that I have found this tool.

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We talked about this in the Pro Show last time, but this spiral.computer app that I mentioned,

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I continue to use that and continue to be impressed by the results that it gives me.

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The trick is that I can drop in my newsletter text and ask for multiple outputs of like a

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Twitter thread.

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And then I always have to clean it up a little bit before I publish it, but it definitely

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gives me a jump start on that kind of stuff.

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And I've been looking for other tangential ways to do that sort of thing.

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One of the tools that I use to publish to Twitter and now to threads and LinkedIn and

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Instagram is hypefury.

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And they have a tool that actually can pull in from your YouTube channel, the videos that

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you've created and turned those into threads.

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I haven't done a whole lot with that because I tend to write about things in the newsletter

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before I make the YouTube videos, but this has really got me thinking about how I can

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repurpose the content that I'm already writing that I'm already making.

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And obviously it's not just copy paste, put a bunch of different places, but I think that's

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really the spot that AI is working for me is in the, I'm not going to say like creating

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the content, but once I have a start on creating the content, getting it available to share

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in multiple formats, multiple places, because I recognize that there are people who subscribe

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my newsletter, there are people who subscribe to the YouTube channel, people who follow

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me on whatever social media network.

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Those people tend not to be the same.

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As much as I would like to point everything back to the newsletter, I noticed that there's

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quite a few people who will follow me over here, but not over there.

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And I don't know, I guess I was a little bit surprised by that.

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So I'm going to continue to try to move in this direction.

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Like I'm doing the work, I'm writing these newsletters on these topics.

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I know like the core things I want to say, now how do I package that in a way that it's

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appropriate for these other places that people may want to encounter the stuff that I'm making?

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But still got quite a bit of work to do here.

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Not to go too deep down this rabbit hole, but like don't you find that hard to manage

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and hard to balance and like where do you get most of your people, like lead generation?

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Like where does most of that come from?

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Any single source or is it just a mix of all of them put together?

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Yeah, well for me, it's definitely a specific source and that has been the starter vault

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that I put together and I promote at the end of the YouTube videos.

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Although lately I've been pointing people to the newsletter itself as opposed to the

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starter vault when the topic is appropriate.

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I think it's important to have a right call to action at the end of video based on the

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content in the video.

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You can't just tag tag on, "Hey, before you go, you should check out this other thing."

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Like people are smarter than that.

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So I try to keep that in mind when I'm putting together the videos.

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Like I'm working on a video right now, hopefully it will be open time this episode goes out

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on how I do Bible study in obsidian and I'm putting together all of these resources for

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people for the different ways that you might want to do it starting from just the King James

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version of the Bible and the verses as note format plus then there's one which has all

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the Greek and Hebrew lexicon stuff tag plus then there's one that has all my personal

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tags and my topical Bibles and packaging that all up in a, I have to create that page.

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I have to create those resources.

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I have to zip everything up, make sure it all works, create all the systems but I feel

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like that's better for that video than just, "Hey, I make some other stuff on obsidian."

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So it definitely be easier but I think that the appropriate calls to action tend to be

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a lot better and then I think when people join your list from that they have a better

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first impression of who you are and what you make too.

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Yeah, that makes sense.

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But yeah, most of it's been YouTube.

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I've been trying to branch that out a bit whenever we publish one of these episodes.

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I frequently mention my mind map file at some point in the episode, not intentionally but

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just kind of comes up.

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I make those available for download because I share those also in my newsletter every

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week.

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So typically before the episode goes out I'll put together a landing page.

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If you want to download the notes for this book and I'll stick that in the show notes

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for the episode and then people can download that and they'll get future book notes because

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they're part of the newsletter.

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But I get from the co-intelligence one I think I got to the next day, it's not huge.

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It's a couple here, a couple there but you have enough of those things out there and

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then it does kind of add up over time.

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I'm up over 5,700 email subscribers which last September I think it was at like 1,700.

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So that's quite a bit of growth.

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I'm happy with that.

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Yeah, that's awesome.

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Good for you.

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All right, so I'm up on follow up.

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So my first one was to plan how to teach more intentionally with AI.

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I'm still thinking about this.

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I'm teaching a lot of classes in the fall.

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So I need to be smart about the way I do this and this has kind of evolved.

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I went to a conference between the last time we recorded it now and this is kind of evolving

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into less about me planning on how to teach with AI and more I'm thinking about is there

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a faculty development opportunity to help other faculty think about AI and how to integrate

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it and that into their classes and how to integrate it in well.

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And I think there is an opportunity there.

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The real question is do I want to take that on?

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Do I want to take on the fact and do I think anybody would actually show up to it because

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if you don't time that well people just don't care and they don't have time and their schedule

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is too busy.

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So that one's morphing into less about me and my personal classes.

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Like I'll still integrate it into my personal classes but it's more about that faculty development

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side of things.

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And then the next one was keep working on developing more in-depth prompts.

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So I want to continually like every time I interact with one of the machine learning

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tools I want to think about like is this prompt in-depth enough?

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Is this prompt describing exactly what I want it to do?

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And I was driving to work or driving to school today to record the show.

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And I was listening to our episode and I remembered even then like oh there's so many more ways

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that we can prompt these things than you normally think about and you can guide the prompts

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and you can tell it exactly what you want it to give you or what you want it to exclude.

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So that's going to be something that's just going to keep going on and on and on.

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As I every time I interact with one basically I'm going to be thinking about is this prompt

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in-depth is the best way I can word it.

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Describe, does it have a good enough description?

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Does it give enough examples?

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I think that's I'm going to keep working on those.

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So no like clear yay takeaway from them but the action items definitely helped me to think

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more critically about the co-intelligence book.

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Cool.

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I need to actually follow up with that because I did something specific based on our discussion

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of those prompts that I forgot to mention.

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So I'm building this done for you Obsidian Vault which has all of my workflows.

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So task management, journaling, all that kind of stuff.

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As part of that I'm going to include, I've got 50 of them so far but I want to include

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at least a hundred of my book notes files.

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So it's got a page which is a data view query that shows the book, it shows the author,

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it shows the rating.

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You can change the ratings one to five stars based on your own ratings of the books but

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then the contents of the note actually have the mind map, the markdown notes themselves,

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all of the quotes and things which are fueling the quote book which is again already set

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up for you and then a three sentence summary up at the top.

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Now those three sentence summaries as I typically what I do when I bring notes over is I look

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through everything that I've captured and I condense it down into three sentences about

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what are the big ideas from this particular book.

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However when I was working on adding all of these I noticed I had a whole bunch of holes

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and I was like I can't, no, I can't go through that many book notes and create these so like

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maybe AI can help me with this.

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So what I did is I took some time but I crafted this prompt that gave me a starting point

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for the big ideas and then basically I refined it after that but that was a huge mental savings.

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Every time I thought about just even doing one of them I'm like oh that's so hard.

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I can't even.

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So I'll share the prompt that I used which I think is kind of interesting.

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So the first thing I wrote was you're my trusted friend who I look to for book recommendations.

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I want you to give me three sentence summaries of various books using my personal writing

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style.

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Please look at the example and describe my writing style to me.

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After that I want you to ask me for a book title and provide me a three sentence summary

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that matches the style of the example.

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We'll repeat this for about a hundred books.

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Do you understand if yes asked me for the example?

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Okay and then it says I understand your request.

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You please provide me with the example you mentioned so I can understand your personal

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writing style better.

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And then I gave them the one that I had written from Atomic Habits by James Clear which is

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goals aren't enough to get you where you want to go.

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You must have a system in place that you can get you there.

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Number two very small changes in your daily actions are habits aligned with the identity

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of the person you want to become compound to significant results over time.

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Number three there are four steps to the habit cycle not three that you can leverage to make

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it easier to take the desired action or avoid the undesired action consistently.

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Okay so then from the example provided here's a summary of your writing style.

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It says I'm clear and direct.

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I'm detailed, practical and actionable advice.

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Now let's proceed to summarizing a book.

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This is where things get interesting because I asked for tiny habits by BJ Fogg and it gave

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me four disciplines of execution by Chris Mateszny, Sean Covey and Jim Healing.

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And the results that I got back were very, they weren't quite what I was looking for.

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So after a while I'm like let's try that one again.

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And then I'd like these points to be a little bit more direct and instructional.

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Let's try it again so it revises it again.

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That's better but let's be a little bit more descriptive.

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Okay so then it tries again and then after a while you know of going back and forth actually

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make it a little less instructive or prescriptive.

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Just describe the key ideas from the book without instruction on what to do with them.

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You know it took a while to get here.

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Now don't say the author's name, the book title or the book in these summaries.

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Just summarize the ideas.

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Okay so it keeps trying and then don't use verbs like delves to describe what happens

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in the book.

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Just describe the ideas.

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Pick something a little more concrete than the third point which just tells me that there's

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historical examples.

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Where's the big idea?

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And then by the time I get it down I'm like okay let's use this going forward.

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And then again like it's giving me maybe 80% of what I need.

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I have to tweak every single one of them but it gives me a starting point based on the

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contents of the books that are available.

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And I've also noticed that RayCast has added a feature where you can upload PDFs and images

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to the AI as well.

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So I could theoretically take like here's my notes and PDF format from this now condense

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this into three sentences but I haven't tried that yet.

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So I had two questions or maybe a comment or question.

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The first one was are you using RayCast to do this?

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So is all that in RayCast?

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It's all in RayCast yeah.

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And it will retain these things it's learning quote unquote learning.

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It will retain that.

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Well you can have this two different types of AI in multiple types of AI inside of RayCast

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because you do images too.

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But basically you can have like the one off requests and then if you hit command J I

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think it is you see all of the chats.

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So you can actually look reference those older chats and continue those conversations in

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a list in the left sidebar.

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Okay.

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Well and the second thing was more of a comment.

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Okay so even if the 80% is getting you over the hurdle of doing it that's worth it right.

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Because like before you said like oh man it's just too monumental like I don't even

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want to start like brain is you know but if it just says like oh well I'm not starting

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you know the tool is starting for me and then I'm just tweaking the tool like exactly.

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I mean and the difference the difference is that prior to reading co-intelligence I would

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have given up because I'm like it's not getting me where I wanted to go.

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Yeah you know but I stuck with it and eventually I got there.

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That's great.

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Yeah that's a great example.

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It's a great example.

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Alright well ready to talk about today's book.

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I am ready to talk about today's book.

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Alright so today's book is Right Thing Right Now by Ryan Holiday.

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This is the third book in the Stoic Values series.

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And I think I've read every Ryan Holiday book at this point with the exception of the marketing

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book that I just heard a couple people talking about and I think I need to go back and read

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that one.

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Trust me I'm lying.

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Are you familiar with that book?

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He wrote it when he was like 20 didn't he?

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I mean he was like super young.

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Yeah and I don't really know the premise of it but I was listening to do you know who

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Barrett Brooks is?

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I don't.

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Okay so Barrett Brooks is the former CoO of ConvertKit.

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And I met him at the Craft and Commerce Conference.

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I had actually met him previously too through Sean Blunk and he's a really smart guy.

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Really got a brain for systems and went to his talk and it was really really good.

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Anyways he's got a podcast that he started not too long ago called Good Work.

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And the most recent episode that I listened to had an interview between him and Nathan

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Berry basically sharing like all the things that they learned in their three and a half

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years of working together on ConvertKit and growing it from three million to thirty million

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a year.

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Like I said he's since moved on ConvertKit continues to grow but Barrett is a super smart

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guy.

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So they were talking in this podcast episode and they just briefly mentioned you know the

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stuff that Ryan Holiday had talked about and that Trust me I'm lying book still holds

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up today.

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I was like huh I need to get that one.

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Yeah.

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So when that's going to slide in as a gap book or something I don't think it's really bookworm

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material but all of the other Ryan Holiday books are.

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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I have not read the other two.

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I know of them and I've listened to you talk about at least one of them.

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Which one would it be?

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Courage is calling?

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It was at the latest one.

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To be honest I don't even know.

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Yeah I can't remember but.

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Courage is calling and discipline is destiny.

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I think courage is calling was first.

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And I liked that one a lot.

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Discipline is destiny.

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I think I didn't like that one quite as much.

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And the backdrop for this book is that this is another book in the Stoic Values series

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but it's been quite a while since the previous one had been released.

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And I think part of that was tied to this idea because Ryan Holiday I heard share this

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that he thought this one would sell the worst out of all of the books in that series.

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When he pitched it to the publisher he's like hey just so you know this is the one that

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people aren't going to like as much.

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And this one I've seen him post on social platforms was like the quickest one to the

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bestsellers list.

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Oh really.

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Kind of interesting.

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But I think that's just because of the topic that this one tackles which is justice in

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an unjust world.

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It's kind of the subtitle here.

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Follows the same format as the previous Stoic Values books.

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So there's an introduction.

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Well first of all it talks about the four virtues.

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Then there's an introduction.

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Then there are three parts.

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Part one is the me.

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That's personal.

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Part two is the we which is social political.

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Part three is the all is one.

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And then the last part is a short afterward kind of about his own personal journey in

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how Stoicism has benefited him.

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So I thought for the format of this book we would probably just tackle the different

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parts and call out some of the things little chapters because there are lots of little

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chapters.

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They're all for the most part three or four pages long.

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It tells a lot of stories.

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And I tried to capture a couple of things from each one of those chapters in my map file

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here just stuff that that stood out to me.

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But I think that there's too much to try and grok like all of the stories that he told

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and they're kind of told in these bite sized snippets anyways.

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So I think we'll probably just go through these sections and grab a couple each that

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we particularly liked.

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How's that sound?

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Sounds good.

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The one thing I want to add is he'll start each part with like a main story or a main

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like historical narrative.

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And then he'll try to refer back to that through like the tiny little chapters that

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he has through.

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And when we say there's a lot of chapters, what Mike, there's probably like 10 or 15

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within each part.

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I mean I'd say like there's a lot in there.

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So that's the thread that like holds it together.

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So for instance the first one in part one was Truman.

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If I'm remembering correctly.

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Yeah.

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So Harry has Truman, right?

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Like that's the major thread that runs through part one.

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But he'll do that for kind of each of the different parts to tie it all together.

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Yeah.

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And I think part two, if I'm not mistaken, was Martin Luther King Jr.

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And then the part three was Gandhi.

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But that doesn't mean that he's not referencing those stories of other places.

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Like you said, he does tie these together.

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And it's not just the stories in the first section that he ties together.

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He is an expert storyteller and he weaves together a whole bunch of stories of a whole

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bunch of historical figures from people in modern history, like American history all

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the way back to the lives of the Stoics, which is no surprise since he's got so much

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Stoic stuff.

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You know, it's kind of interesting.

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I think at this point Ryan Holiday is probably the Stoic guy.

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Like that's what he's known for.

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And I don't think that's the stuff that I really like from him though.

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A little bit concerned maybe for the future of Ryan Holiday's book and my fandom of it.

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But I did enjoy this book.

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So and you've read more on him.

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Trust me, we're going to get to the book.

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So, but you've read more on him than I have.

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This one felt a lot like mastery.

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Right?

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I know.

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So the feel of it and he worked with Robert Greene on 48 Laws of Power.

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So it's like, is this like his other ones?

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Like is this a very similar style to his other books?

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For the most part.

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So I think the one that he wrote before the Stoic virtues series was, I remember right,

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stillness is the key.

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And I really did enjoy that book, but that one very much had the three part formula and

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he told lots of little stories, the ones before that, which ego as the enemy was, was, is

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the one that I actually have not read.

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But then there was the obstacle is the way.

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Okay.

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Man, that was like one of the first books that we covered for, for bookworm.

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So I had to go back into the archives.

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That one I liked a lot.

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This one is like, so his writing style, I wouldn't say it's completely different or

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anything, but it's definitely evolved and you can see that.

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Evolved.

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All right, good.

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Let's go ahead and get into it then.

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All right.

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So the first section, this maybe isn't going to be very long, but we should call out the

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four virtues section.

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And probably this is the same in every single one of these books.

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So maybe I've even repeated this previously.

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But essentially there are four virtues, four Stoic virtues, and they're tied to the story

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of Hercules, the legend goes that Hercules stood it across roads.

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There were two goddesses there.

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One offered him a life of ease.

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He could have everything that he wanted.

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Another one offered him a life of virtue and this is going to be a hard life, but this

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is the, this type of life will produce the character of a God.

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And so he took the, the hard road and the four virtues that are tied to that are courage,

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temperance, justice, and wisdom.

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So spoiler alert, the next book in the series is going to be about wisdom.

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That one actually I'm very excited for.

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I'm interested to see his, his take on, on that.

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But the virtues essentially are designed to act as a comp, as a compass and virtue is

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something that we actually do.

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It's not just something that we believe.

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So my pastor is saying that the word you believe is the word that you actually do.

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And I really think that that's true.

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It goes beyond just Bible study, but you can read these books and collect all the

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these ideas, capture all these notes.

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Oh, that was so good.

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His life changing.

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Well, what are you doing different as a result?

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If it's nothing, then what was the point?

00:21:53

Yeah.

00:21:54

So I would say I didn't know the story of Hercules.

00:21:57

This is a, I like the idea of thinking about the soic virtues.

00:22:02

I don't agree completely with all of them that they're like the end all be all.

00:22:06

And I'm not saying he would say that they're the end all be all, but I agree that they're

00:22:10

all, they're all important.

00:22:11

He to bounce into the, to enter a little bit.

00:22:14

He says that justice is the most important of the virtues, which I think that's funny

00:22:18

because he, he told his publisher, this book's probably not going to sell the best, but this

00:22:22

is the most important of the, of the topics from, from all of those.

00:22:26

And I want to reflect on that, you know, like, do I think or Mike, I'll, I'll pose this

00:22:31

question to you, you know, on the spot.

00:22:33

What do you think courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, like what do you think in your mind

00:22:37

is the, is the most important of those virtues?

00:22:40

Well, I don't know.

00:22:42

But if I had to take a stab at it, I would probably guess that wisdom is the most important

00:22:46

followed by justice.

00:22:47

So kind of like a reverse order here.

00:22:50

I don't know that that is accurate necessarily, but that's my first impression.

00:22:54

Yeah.

00:22:55

I would have said the same thing.

00:22:57

Like I think, you know, but the lay my cards on the table, I think that's because, you

00:23:02

know, for a biblical standpoint, I think, you know, biblical wisdom, you know, leads

00:23:06

to righteousness and leads to, to all these other things.

00:23:08

So, so it's like, I think that's why I would say wisdom is the, is the most important for

00:23:12

me as well.

00:23:13

So thank you for entertaining my on the spot on the spot.

00:23:16

Which one of these is the most important?

00:23:17

Well, I think you would probably agree.

00:23:19

Cause I mean, the title of this book, the right thing right now.

00:23:23

So doing the right thing at the right time, essentially, how do you even know what the

00:23:25

right thing is?

00:23:28

There has to be some sort of wisdom applied here.

00:23:30

And I think he kind of alludes to that in the contents of the book, but doesn't go hard

00:23:35

on that because there's a whole not the book coming about that particular topic.

00:23:39

Yeah.

00:23:40

Yep.

00:23:41

Yep.

00:23:42

And he had a lot to say about this one too.

00:23:43

So, you know, it's not like he was struggling for things to say.

00:23:45

Yeah.

00:23:46

If you like, they are getting longer.

00:23:47

This one was like 340 pages.

00:23:50

So maybe the next level will be 400.

00:23:53

I don't know.

00:23:55

All right.

00:23:56

So after that, there is a short introduction, which there's just a couple of things I jotted

00:24:02

down here.

00:24:05

He pointed out that there is no virtue to counterbalance justice.

00:24:12

Justice is what it is.

00:24:15

He also says that until we stop debating, we can't start doing and that justice is holding

00:24:20

the line.

00:24:21

So what line is that the line between right and wrong?

00:24:26

And again, that's kind of why I feel like wisdom is the foundational part of this, which

00:24:31

will get to at some point.

00:24:34

But yeah.

00:24:35

Anything else you want to say about the introduction?

00:24:38

Yeah.

00:24:39

So I have a, I pulled a quote out of here.

00:24:41

The presence of injustice instantly renders any act of virtue.

00:24:44

And then he says courage, discipline, wisdom, any skill, any achievement, worthless or worse.

00:24:48

Right.

00:24:49

So it's like, if we're doing something that is unjust, even if it's courageous, you know,

00:24:56

so oh, wow, look how, look how courageous they were.

00:25:00

But it was unjust.

00:25:01

Look how disciplined they were, but it was unjust.

00:25:04

Look how, you know, and this is the one I don't understand.

00:25:07

Like I'm trying to wrap my head around.

00:25:08

Look how wise they were, but it was unjust.

00:25:10

And in my mind, those two, those two things like, you know, they contradict each other.

00:25:14

I'm doing a wise thing.

00:25:15

It's going to be a just thing, but maybe I just haven't processed on this enough.

00:25:19

But I like the made the major point here is like, if we're doing a courageous, disciplined

00:25:25

thing, but it's not the right thing.

00:25:29

Yeah.

00:25:30

And we're going to render that worthless and we're going to render that as like a bad overall

00:25:35

thing that was done.

00:25:37

And we, I think we see this all the time, right?

00:25:38

We see this where somebody's held up on this pedestal and they're put up on this pedestal

00:25:43

where, oh my gosh, look at, look at how much, you know, they dedicated their life to that

00:25:48

thing.

00:25:49

Look how much they were disciplined in doing that and waking up every day, but it was the

00:25:54

wrong thing for them, their family, society, whatever it might be.

00:25:59

And it's like, you know, like the sub, the sub thing is like interesting, but then the

00:26:03

major thing just cuts it away, like it cuts the foundation off of it.

00:26:06

So I thought you made a really good point there that we really have to be doing the right

00:26:10

things for, for everything else to matter.

00:26:12

Yeah.

00:26:13

And the right thing, I feel like can be different on the different levels that he's talking

00:26:19

about in this particular book, which just makes it more complicated and confusing maybe.

00:26:26

And I think one of the things that he doesn't address and I can kind of understand why he

00:26:32

doesn't address is what does the right thing mean?

00:26:36

So the right thing for me and the right thing for you and the right thing for any of the

00:26:41

listeners, like we could debate that all the time, like over and over and over again.

00:26:45

I mean, and we do, you know, these are ethical discussions and discussions of morality and

00:26:52

it's like, well, okay, in this situation, what is the right thing to do?

00:26:56

And I don't think you and I should go into that right now because that's a whole tangent

00:26:59

topic.

00:27:01

But like that is a, that's a challenge, right?

00:27:04

Like, I think he hits, he hits some of them that are more universal, I would say, like

00:27:09

he hits the ones that are more agreed upon and it's, you don't really have a very super

00:27:14

strong argument on it, but there are some other ones where it's, you know, you can, you see

00:27:18

people do it all the time where they're debating what the quote unquote right or just thing

00:27:23

is and why that's the case and why it's not.

00:27:26

And I think that is a, that's another book, but I think that book's been written a bunch

00:27:32

of a bunch of times.

00:27:33

Yeah.

00:27:34

Like these are, these are the books that tend to have the word ethics in the, in the title.

00:27:36

So.

00:27:37

Yeah.

00:27:38

Well, that's actually a great place to get into the first section.

00:27:41

So let's go there.

00:27:43

The first part is the me personal and kind of what you were alluding to is the last,

00:27:51

is covered again in the last chapter of this section, which is right thing right now.

00:27:55

A couple of things that I jotted down here are the right time for the right thing is

00:28:00

always right now.

00:28:02

You do have to figure out what the right thing is.

00:28:06

And I think I would argue the right thing being the thing that is in line with your values.

00:28:15

Values can be shaped a lot of different ways.

00:28:19

I think what he's trying to do in this book is essentially get people to think about the

00:28:24

different layers.

00:28:25

So if you look at someone who thinks they're doing the right thing, because they're just

00:28:30

looking at it from, this is going to benefit me, then getting them to consider, well, what

00:28:35

about everybody else that's on the team?

00:28:37

Or even further, part three is all about what about all of humanity?

00:28:41

What about everyone else on this planet?

00:28:43

Have you thought about how this decision actually impacts those people?

00:28:46

And I think that's the big win for most people.

00:28:50

The human brain, I don't think is naturally wired to think about others that way.

00:28:57

We need the reminder.

00:28:59

There are times when we do, you know, I've heard it said that love is the desire to benefit

00:29:02

the other at the expense of self.

00:29:04

So when you love someone, that's cool.

00:29:07

That's easy to do.

00:29:09

I care about them as an individual, so I'll sacrifice something for myself personally.

00:29:14

Seems like the right thing to do.

00:29:15

But then you're supposed to love your enemies.

00:29:17

So now, like, but I don't want to.

00:29:21

Like, where are the, where's the balance there?

00:29:24

And you're right.

00:29:25

He doesn't give you clear cut.

00:29:28

This is how I would define this, but that's because I think you have to struggle with this

00:29:32

yourself and it has to be personal.

00:29:35

But one thing that I think once you do that, that is important and he calls out in this

00:29:39

last chapter of this first part, is that discipline is often a battle against procrastination.

00:29:45

So I think just speaking for myself, a lot of times I can feel like I know what the right

00:29:50

thing to do is and he's encouraging us that if you know what the right thing to do is,

00:29:54

then right now is the time, the right time to do it.

00:29:57

Okay.

00:29:58

So don't delay those things.

00:29:59

And how often am I guilty of that?

00:30:02

And to cure it defined as procrastination kind of hurts a little bit because I'm supposed

00:30:07

to be this productivity guy.

00:30:09

Yep.

00:30:10

That's fine.

00:30:12

But if I'm honest, you know, then this is, this is a struggle sometimes.

00:30:17

Yeah.

00:30:18

I, tying into what you said, the chapter right before that is the choose the North Star.

00:30:22

Yep.

00:30:23

And I really, I really like how that leads into the right thing right now because it's like,

00:30:29

whatever your North Star is going to be.

00:30:31

You know, that's the kind of, that's where you're setting the what, what is right?

00:30:34

Like what is the, what am I going to consider right in different contexts?

00:30:38

And one of the nuances I think that comes here is like, there isn't necessarily, I don't

00:30:44

think there's necessarily one North Star.

00:30:46

Like I think there's an overarching North Star, like I'm shooting towards this, but I

00:30:49

think there are North Stars in the different areas of my life.

00:30:53

And when I'm thinking about the right thing right now, it's in the context of, of that

00:30:57

thing that I'm doing, some of them will be more overarching and they'll encompass a

00:31:00

couple of different buckets of my life, but others will be more specific to a certain

00:31:04

bucket of my life.

00:31:05

So I think really where from out of this first part is really thinking about like, what's

00:31:12

that North Star?

00:31:13

What are those values?

00:31:15

What is that thing I'm going to reach for or pursue or, you know, hold above from a goal?

00:31:21

Goal is the wrong word, but you know what I mean?

00:31:22

Like from a striving toward standpoint, like what am I, what am I going to do?

00:31:27

I think the other things in this part are good like smaller pieces.

00:31:33

You know, it's like, oh, tell the truth, take responsibility, you know, be an open book,

00:31:39

be decent, be do your job.

00:31:40

Like, I think these are good and these are all good practices, but those last two parts

00:31:44

are really the take home, you know, the meat of part one is like, if we can set our values,

00:31:51

figure out what that North Star is and then do that thing and do it daily, shoot for that

00:31:56

thing and shoot for it daily.

00:31:58

And then the part I think where I know you're a big fan of this with personal retreats and

00:32:03

with reflections and that can we really reflect back on it?

00:32:07

He doesn't hit this much, but can we reflect back on it?

00:32:08

Can we take a time when we say, okay, this is a time when I actually did the right thing

00:32:13

and went towards that North Star, here's a time where I shirk responsibility and I didn't

00:32:18

or I procrastinated or I was off the mark.

00:32:21

And what can I learn from that?

00:32:23

And I think that would be a good, more actionable side of, can I really identify those things?

00:32:28

And then all the other stuff I think just builds on that.

00:32:31

Yeah, well, I think you're right that a lot of the stuff that I make is kind of tied to

00:32:38

values based productivity, maybe for lack of a better term here.

00:32:46

So I did really like the discussion of the North Star.

00:32:50

I like the term he used, plea anexia, which is a self serving life, what the Greeks believe

00:32:58

to be the worst kind of life.

00:33:00

So I think there's lots of little things that he drops in here and there like that, which

00:33:06

are just additional pieces to the puzzle for me and they help me see it a little bit more

00:33:12

clearly.

00:33:13

But essentially what he's advocating for is what you were just describing and what I

00:33:17

try to do with the personal retreats, you know, identify your vision and your values,

00:33:22

do your best to live those out.

00:33:24

And then every three months, the whole purpose behind the personal retreat process is you

00:33:29

need a mechanism to help you come back and get your bearings again.

00:33:33

He says that in this section.

00:33:34

One of the things that jotted down in the mind map, we will lose our bearings, but we

00:33:37

need to get it back.

00:33:38

So how do you actually do that?

00:33:40

You have to take all this stuff into consideration.

00:33:42

And so that's part of the part of the process for me.

00:33:44

I consider the life.

00:33:45

And I consider the values.

00:33:47

I take stock of where things are at.

00:33:49

Am I moving in the right direction?

00:33:50

What should I start stopping, keep doing?

00:33:52

And you don't have to follow my format, obviously, but Ryan Holiday is essentially advocating for

00:33:57

the same sort of thing.

00:33:58

And I think it really is that simple.

00:34:01

Decide what's really important.

00:34:03

Try to live your life in accordance with those values.

00:34:05

And then every once in a while, ask yourself, how the heck am I doing?

00:34:09

Make adjustments where necessary.

00:34:11

But I do want to mention, because you shared a couple of the titles of the different chapters.

00:34:16

And if you just take those at surface value, you can be like, Oh, well, I already know

00:34:19

that already.

00:34:20

I don't need to read this.

00:34:21

You haven't heard it the way that Ryan Holiday is going to be describing it because there

00:34:26

are a lot of these things.

00:34:27

I'm looking at the mind map.

00:34:28

A lot of these things like, yeah, I understand the principle behind taking responsibility.

00:34:34

But I jotted down there before we can take responsibility for another life, we need to

00:34:38

take responsibility for our own.

00:34:40

Now that is kind of like I've heard the story about when you're getting on the airplane,

00:34:44

they tell you put your own oxygen mask on first before you assist your kids.

00:34:48

Because if you're no, if you pass out, then you're no good to anybody.

00:34:53

But Ryan Holiday has a way of saying this.

00:34:55

It's like, you know, this is the fundamental thing.

00:34:57

I'm not going to wrap it up in a cute little analogy that's going to sound good and a sound

00:35:01

bite, but just bam, here it is.

00:35:04

You need to wrestle with this.

00:35:06

And so he asks, you know, a quite another question he asked from that section.

00:35:09

Am I someone who does a great job or am I someone who does the minimum?

00:35:12

Because taking responsibility isn't just, well, I did the thing.

00:35:16

There you go.

00:35:17

What are you upset about?

00:35:18

Did you give it your best effort?

00:35:21

He's the kind of guy I feel like we would be pretty good friends because he, you can

00:35:28

tell by the way that he writes, he doesn't have a high tolerance for people who aren't

00:35:33

going to do things with excellence.

00:35:37

And I definitely get annoyed by that myself.

00:35:39

Like, come on.

00:35:41

This is the best you can do.

00:35:43

The very next chapter actually is be your own referee.

00:35:47

You know, I shouldn't have to say this isn't good enough.

00:35:52

You should be able to tell and like something should be going off inside of you.

00:35:56

Like I can't share this because it's not the best that I can do.

00:36:00

He says in that section, one of the things, just as another example, something that really

00:36:03

just kind of jumped off the page to me, without honor, victory is meaningless.

00:36:07

Well, what does that mean?

00:36:09

It means that like, I'm trying to build this, this creator business, right?

00:36:14

And I've been working hard for a long time.

00:36:16

We talked in the, was it the pro show or maybe just the first section about the things that

00:36:20

I've been trying to do to grow my email list and sell different products and things like

00:36:24

that.

00:36:26

Everyone in that situation wants it to happen faster.

00:36:30

But I guess the way I think about this is my goal has been 10,000 email subscribers.

00:36:37

But if I could just pay somebody, couple grand tomorrow and they dump a bunch of names on

00:36:42

my list, that that's kind of the meaningless victory in my opinion.

00:36:47

Well, it's like, it's like buying an Instagram account that already has a hundred thousand

00:36:51

followers, right?

00:36:52

Like, I mean, I remember when that was a big thing going around, it's like, oh, we sell

00:36:55

Instagram accounts that have these many followers, but who are they?

00:36:58

Like, and they're not connected at all, you know?

00:37:01

Exactly.

00:37:02

The obstacle is the way.

00:37:05

The publishing good stuff every week so that people don't want to unsubscribe from the

00:37:11

newsletter.

00:37:12

That's the slog, but it's also the thing that makes the victory worthwhile once I eventually

00:37:18

get there.

00:37:19

So I just love the style that Ryan Holiday writes, like the way that he writes.

00:37:24

And as he's going through these things, which are basically doing the right thing for yourself.

00:37:31

And it's not all just, you know, without context to other people.

00:37:34

He says in realize your potential, for example, that you're not here for yourself and to who

00:37:39

much is given, much is expected.

00:37:41

But just considering, you know, what is right by me, you know, the way that he writes it,

00:37:47

I instantly can fill in the blanks with all of these different examples of what this looks

00:37:51

like for me.

00:37:52

And oh, you know what, I should really tweak this a little bit.

00:37:55

That's a good reminder.

00:37:56

You know, I really need to double down on this.

00:37:58

Interestingly, I don't have a ton of action items from this particular book, but there's

00:38:02

lots of good encouragement here, which I think is just sort of course correcting vision adjustment

00:38:11

at this point in the book for me.

00:38:12

Yeah.

00:38:13

I would say a couple of things came out for me during part one is one, he's incredibly

00:38:18

well read, incredibly well researched and communicates and summarizes and like ties

00:38:26

ideas together very, very well.

00:38:27

So that was, that was good.

00:38:29

The other one would be like, these are just really good.

00:38:32

You said course correction, you know, did you say course correction is a, is a last thing

00:38:36

you said?

00:38:37

Yeah.

00:38:38

But it's like, these are really good reminders to where even if you go back to it and you

00:38:41

just look through the different chapter titles, you know, we have our mind maps, but like

00:38:46

even if somebody doesn't do what we do and take these crazy mind map, no, no things,

00:38:50

you need to go back and just look at the chapter, you can pretty quickly go, okay,

00:38:55

I'm doing a okay job there.

00:38:57

Like I'm, I'm struggling on that one, you know, like I'm doing a okay job there.

00:39:00

I'm struggling on that one.

00:39:01

And it's a way to, to course correct.

00:39:03

And then you can dive into the one that, that you actually care about or the one that

00:39:07

you're, you need to focus on more.

00:39:10

And I think, I think that was a, that was a good one overall, like I said, I don't have

00:39:15

like a ton of like things that really, really jump out of me.

00:39:19

It's like, oh my gosh, that was life changing.

00:39:21

But at the same time I'm reading through this going, yeah, that's a good point.

00:39:24

Yeah, that's a good point.

00:39:25

Like, yeah, that's a good point.

00:39:26

You know, like, and I get the number of times I did that was, was kind of fun.

00:39:30

It was, it was fun in a book.

00:39:32

Yeah.

00:39:33

One other example, there's a chapter in here called be an open book, which really challenged

00:39:38

me, he mentions that being a leader means you have chosen to be a public figure.

00:39:42

Well, I'm not a, I wouldn't call myself a public figure, but the truth is that I do

00:39:48

have leadership positions in different places.

00:39:50

I'm an elder at my church.

00:39:52

I co-host on this podcast, like my life is public in, in some way, shape or form.

00:39:59

And I've learned over the years that that just comes with the territory.

00:40:03

And essentially what he's admonishing us to do in this section, he says, try not to

00:40:08

do anything that requires walls or curtains.

00:40:10

If you're inclined to hide it, you probably shouldn't do it.

00:40:12

And you could read that and be like, well, wait a minute.

00:40:15

So I don't get to have any privacy.

00:40:18

Like that's not what he's saying, but he's sort of saying it.

00:40:21

He's saying it in a way that you could very easily get offended with this and be like,

00:40:26

no, no, no, I'm not going to do it that way.

00:40:28

And turn them out for the rest of the book.

00:40:30

Or you could be like, you know what, maybe he's right.

00:40:33

And so like, that's one of the, one of the spots.

00:40:35

You know what?

00:40:36

Maybe he's right.

00:40:37

He's like, I need to do a little better job of living above reproach for lack of a better

00:40:42

term.

00:40:43

Like I got to be really careful about the things that I say and the things that I do because

00:40:46

someone somewhere, I mean, all parents know this.

00:40:49

Your kids are watching you all the time and they're going to, they're going to replicate

00:40:53

what you do more than what you say.

00:40:56

And you can hide behind, well, I didn't mean it that way and they should think the best

00:40:59

about me.

00:41:00

Or you could take responsibility and be like, you know what, I shouldn't have said it that

00:41:03

way.

00:41:04

Or I shouldn't have said that.

00:41:05

You don't even need to say it that way.

00:41:06

Like you don't have a justification.

00:41:08

Just accept the fact that as a leader, you're under a microscope.

00:41:12

It is what it is.

00:41:14

And the quickest way to get buy in from everybody that you're trying to lead is to say, you

00:41:19

know what, my fault, I'm sorry, I'll do better next time.

00:41:23

Yeah.

00:41:24

And I say the same section there.

00:41:26

He quotes Joseph Polter.

00:41:28

There's not a vice, which does not live by secrecy, right?

00:41:30

And it's the whole like, you know, a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square

00:41:34

kind of thing.

00:41:35

That doesn't mean that everything that you do in private or in secret is a vice, but

00:41:39

that means that like, vices, you're going to try to like hide those from people and

00:41:43

you're going to try to be secret about those, you know, so there's that.

00:41:46

And then he talked about the city on a hill, right?

00:41:48

You hear the quote about, you know, city on a hill, city on a hill, blah, blah, blah.

00:41:51

Everyone looks at, okay, I think that's where most people stop.

00:41:55

He says, be the city on the hill that everyone looks at and respects and like in season goes,

00:42:01

oh, yeah, that's, you know, that's good.

00:42:03

That's just.

00:42:04

I liked, I liked those two, those two quotes out of there as well.

00:42:08

So.

00:42:09

Nice.

00:42:10

Ready to go on to the next section?

00:42:12

I am.

00:42:13

All right.

00:42:14

So the next section, part two is the we, the social political.

00:42:21

And this is really just like the people that are on your team for lack of a better term.

00:42:27

You know, we're talking about ourselves in part one, part three, we're talking about

00:42:30

everybody part two is kind of like the people that we would surround ourselves with.

00:42:36

And again, lots of different chapters here.

00:42:39

And I want to start with the one on start small.

00:42:45

So one of the stories that he tells here is about Mother Teresa.

00:42:52

And she has, he has this quote from Mother Teresa, which I think is amazing that if I

00:42:58

look at the mass, I will never act.

00:43:00

If I look at the one, I will.

00:43:04

And he's basically encouraging us in this chapter to take the first step.

00:43:08

No changes possible without that first tiny step.

00:43:10

He says, and says that as humans, we tend to think big picture before we think little

00:43:16

picture and I'm definitely guilty of this myself.

00:43:19

But essentially like this is something that I've known already.

00:43:23

It's a good reminder and it's something that I probably need to action on more.

00:43:27

But just do what you can do where you are with what you have.

00:43:32

One of my favorite Bible verses is Zachariah.

00:43:35

I think it's 410, which says, do not despise these small beginnings.

00:43:41

The Lord rejoices to see the work begin.

00:43:44

And you could take that like you don't have to have a Christian belief system in order

00:43:48

to apply that principle.

00:43:49

It's essentially what Ryan Holiday is talking about here.

00:43:51

In fact, you know, he incorporates a lot of different stories from a lot of different

00:43:55

religions.

00:43:56

He does.

00:43:57

He uses a lot of Bible verses and a lot of Bible stories.

00:44:00

And he frames them in ways which you could argue with theologically, but that's not

00:44:03

the purpose of this book.

00:44:05

He's just kind of, this is what Jesus did.

00:44:07

You're like, yeah, you're right.

00:44:10

I get it.

00:44:12

Yeah.

00:44:13

Yeah.

00:44:14

I think the one that stood out to me on this one was see how the other half lives.

00:44:16

And I know that this is the one that really will, I guess, pull with the heartstrings,

00:44:23

but for me where it's like, it's so easy to get caught up in my routine, my daily where

00:44:29

it's like, this is just what we do.

00:44:30

And this is how I do things.

00:44:32

And this is how my family does things.

00:44:33

And this is, and this is, and this is, and this is, and then, you know, you get shocked

00:44:38

out of that and you get into a situation, a context or an environment, a culture or something

00:44:43

like that.

00:44:44

And you're like, oh my goodness, like this is nothing like my every day, right?

00:44:48

This is completely different.

00:44:50

So an example of this would be you're going to a different part of town, right?

00:44:54

So Denver's huge.

00:44:55

You know, you go to a different part of town and you're like, wow, this part of Denver

00:44:58

is very, very different than the part of Denver I live in.

00:45:01

Or you go overseas, right?

00:45:03

Like, and you see like a different kind of a culture and you see the way they operate.

00:45:08

And I think like the thing that gets me about this, I mean, he's going to tie it into injustice

00:45:14

and justice and, you know, kind of how the other half lives, whether it's just or unjust.

00:45:18

But like, I think there's a bigger idea here that's just like, we need more experiences.

00:45:23

We need more diverse experiences to see what's happening in the world, how it's happening

00:45:29

in the world and get out of our own little, you know, focused bubble.

00:45:35

I think this ties into something that's in part three, which is like expand the circle.

00:45:39

Because if we don't see these things, how can we expand the circle?

00:45:42

If we don't, if we don't interact with these things, like this was definitely one of the

00:45:46

chapters that jumped out to me.

00:45:49

And he quotes in here, "We should seek out experiences that show us what other people

00:45:53

experience daily and whether they're really close to us or whether they're like close

00:45:57

meaning like their life is like ours or whether their life is significantly different."

00:46:02

I think the more of those experiences we get, you know, the more well-rounded we'll be and

00:46:07

the more we'll be able to be just broadly.

00:46:09

100%.

00:46:10

So, another section I liked in here was growing a coaching tree.

00:46:17

Do you know who Greg Popovich is?

00:46:19

Are you a basketball fan?

00:46:20

I do.

00:46:21

I'm not a basketball fan.

00:46:22

I'm not very a basketball fan, but it's hard to not know who Greg Popovich is.

00:46:25

So, in the United States.

00:46:27

I did not realize, so that's the story that he's telling here.

00:46:32

Greg Popovich, I believe he's still the coach of the San Antonio Spurs.

00:46:35

He's getting older now.

00:46:38

And essentially the point that they're making is that a lot of the head coaches that are

00:46:43

in the NBA today can be traced back to they were on Greg Popovich's staff.

00:46:50

And I've seen a couple different places where he's given specific people like Tim Duncan

00:46:54

and for blanking on the woman's name that he mentions Becky who became a WNBA coach.

00:47:04

But they got their shot essentially underneath Greg Popovich.

00:47:07

And I remember watching the game where I'm feeling really bad that I forgot her name,

00:47:15

but she was the first woman to coach a game in the NBA because she was high on the assistant

00:47:22

ladder and he intentionally gets himself thrown out of a game so that she can have the experience.

00:47:27

You know, like Becky Hammond.

00:47:29

Becky Hammond, thank you.

00:47:31

I didn't know it.

00:47:32

You did a great job getting Becky Hammond.

00:47:35

She's a Las Vegas aces coach.

00:47:37

Yeah.

00:47:38

So now she's a coach for the WNBA.

00:47:40

But he's constantly putting people in positions where they can do things.

00:47:47

Essentially, he's opening doors for people.

00:47:49

And I forget the percentage, but there's a very high percentage of all the coaches in

00:47:53

the NBA that got their start under Greg Popovich.

00:47:55

And that's interesting because that's a very different side of him than you see when you

00:48:00

watch games on TV.

00:48:03

He's kind of famous for when they do the interview, the coaches between like the first and second

00:48:08

quarter or the third and fourth quarter, depending on the home coach or the away coach.

00:48:12

You know, this is a different slot.

00:48:14

And he's kind of famous for being really, really short with those reporters.

00:48:18

And like you can tell when they're doing a Spurs game, they get all nervous because

00:48:22

they don't want to ask a question in a dumb way that's going to set them off because he'll

00:48:26

just be like, that's stupid and walk away.

00:48:30

Yeah.

00:48:31

You know.

00:48:32

And so that's like the public persona of Greg Popovich, but obviously all of his players

00:48:37

really enjoy playing for him.

00:48:38

He's been with the Spurs for a really long time.

00:48:40

So he's got like a pretty crazy legacy there.

00:48:44

But it was kind of cool to hear how much he goes out of his way.

00:48:49

It's a very different side of him that you don't see on TV.

00:48:51

Like the people that are with him, he does his best to propel them to like beyond where

00:48:58

he would go, which is essentially what you want to do as a parent.

00:49:01

You want your kids to go further and do more than you've been able to do.

00:49:05

And it's one thing to say that in the position that he has like, oh yeah, I want, you know,

00:49:09

whoever comes after me to be better.

00:49:11

But it's a very another thing.

00:49:13

It's a totally another thing to actually apply that.

00:49:16

Like actually live that out by your actions.

00:49:19

And he's done it consistently for a really long time because the proof is that all of

00:49:24

these people can be traced back to, oh yeah, I got my start under Greg Popovich.

00:49:29

It encourages me, you know, I'm not in a position like he is and I can't open those

00:49:33

kinds of doors for people, but I can do what I can where I am.

00:49:36

So look for those opportunities, I guess is the takeaway there.

00:49:40

Well, and I think this is cool because that's an example, but I think if you looked and

00:49:46

you don't have to look very hard, you can see this example in music.

00:49:50

You can see this example in teaching.

00:49:52

You can see this example in business where it's like the tree goes up and it will make

00:49:59

it to like a person or two.

00:50:01

And then all of these successful people come out of having worked with that person or two

00:50:05

or, you know, they worked at this company or they all started, you know, and they were

00:50:10

all like middle managers at this one company and then they all spawned off and like started

00:50:15

their own things and they were all successful, but they can all trace it back to, you know,

00:50:18

the leadership or the training that they got there.

00:50:20

So I think there's a lot of different situations where you can see the evidence of this and

00:50:26

this is probably the area where, I don't know if it's the teacher in me or what it is,

00:50:30

this is the area where it's like, I want to do this.

00:50:32

Like it's like, I want to figure out a way to be the rock that launches.

00:50:40

That's probably the wrong metaphor, but you know what I mean?

00:50:41

Like to be like that thing that launches all these other successful people, that actually

00:50:46

sounds way more exciting to me than me being the ideal successful people is, but to be

00:50:51

able to look down and be like, yeah, like they did a good job.

00:50:54

They did a good job.

00:50:55

And I had a small piece in that.

00:50:56

Like I had a really small piece in them and then being successful.

00:51:00

I want to tie two together as I talk about the next one.

00:51:02

And I think you have to tie them together or else it gets tricky real fast.

00:51:06

So develop competence and then make good trouble.

00:51:10

And the reason why I tie these two together is because I really like the idea of make

00:51:14

good trouble.

00:51:15

I think we are, we as a society are too afraid to push back, to make trouble, to be confrontational,

00:51:24

but in a good way.

00:51:26

So like there are the people who do it and you're like, yes, you're doing it wrong.

00:51:29

Like that is not the way you want to do this.

00:51:31

You're actually going to get into trouble.

00:51:33

And then there's the people who do it well and they come at it from a, they're causing

00:51:37

trouble again, but they're right.

00:51:40

And like we all kind of need that and we all needed to hear that and change will happen

00:51:44

out of that.

00:51:45

And one more of what he's talking about here is he's talking about those people who yes,

00:51:48

they're causing quote unquote trouble, but they're doing it in the right way for a good

00:51:52

cause for the right reason.

00:51:54

Now I think an important piece of this is the develop competence because I think if you

00:51:58

don't develop the competence first, it's really hard to make good trouble.

00:52:02

You make trouble, but you don't make good trouble.

00:52:04

And it's because you don't know the right ways to make trouble.

00:52:08

Like you end up making trouble in ways that are, that miss the point or that are doing

00:52:15

the wrong thing.

00:52:16

So you know, competence is basically like you're incredibly skilled at your thing.

00:52:22

Like you are the expert, the leader, the people that everyone looks to, if they want to know

00:52:28

how to do the job right or get things done or they would go to you to get things done.

00:52:31

So it's like if you were that person and then you come into the meeting and you're like,

00:52:35

listen, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to stoke this fire.

00:52:38

Like I'm going to, I'm going to poke and figure out, I'm going to poke the bear, if you will,

00:52:42

right?

00:52:43

And everybody looks at it and they're like, well, if he's doing it or she's doing it,

00:52:47

maybe there's something there and, and like it just gives you a different perspective on

00:52:50

it.

00:52:51

So I like these two pieces tied together, holiday didn't tie them together, but, but my brain

00:52:54

wanted to tie those two pieces together.

00:52:57

Yeah.

00:52:58

I think you're right.

00:53:00

One other thing from this section that I liked was the section on creating alliances.

00:53:06

And the story that he tells here is of Harvey Milk, who I believe was a governor or some

00:53:14

person in, in local politics in California.

00:53:19

Yeah.

00:53:20

All I know is politicians.

00:53:22

So former member of San Francisco board of supervisors, I'm looking them up right now.

00:53:27

I'm cheating.

00:53:28

That's okay.

00:53:30

The thing that is important for the story here is that he was a open homosexual at a time

00:53:37

when that was not accepted.

00:53:40

And essentially the way that he got his message out was that he created these alliances with

00:53:47

other people who vehemently disagreed with him on certain things, but they were able to

00:53:52

find common ground.

00:53:54

And this story is impactful to me because I don't think that I could picture myself in

00:54:03

some of those stories, I guess, just like very much different opinions about certain

00:54:08

things.

00:54:09

But essentially what he was able to do was to add new and diverse voices as allies.

00:54:14

And then eventually those things allowed those alliances that he had made allowed him

00:54:20

to achieve certain things based on causes that he was supporting.

00:54:27

And I call this out because we're fairly open about our Christian faith and our perspective

00:54:33

on things in the podcast.

00:54:36

I see a lot of people around me not wanting to embrace different points of view and create

00:54:44

allies of people who think differently than them.

00:54:47

And it convicts me, like I don't want to be like that.

00:54:51

I don't want to surround myself in my own little bubble.

00:54:55

Going back to liminal thinking again, the bubble of belief.

00:54:59

People who look, sound, talk, act, exactly like I do.

00:55:05

And then there you go, this is reality, it's not.

00:55:10

And I think that by creating these alliances, by looking for people who are, I want to say

00:55:20

intentionally different, like finding people who are in different phases of life, who believe

00:55:25

different things than I do and trying to understand their perspective, not from the, not with

00:55:32

the intention of, well, maybe I need to change some of my convictions.

00:55:37

So sometimes that happens, the church that we're at, I said at one point, that's the

00:55:42

last church I will ever set foot in through a set of circumstances.

00:55:45

That's where I am now an elder.

00:55:47

Like I changed my mind about things.

00:55:50

And that's, I think that's, that's good.

00:55:52

We should be looking to not just collect new information, but we need to be constantly

00:55:58

asking ourselves, like, where am I, where am I not understanding things fully?

00:56:03

But that's not even the point of the chapter here.

00:56:05

The point of the chapter here is you're different than me.

00:56:09

You live somewhere else.

00:56:10

You believe something else.

00:56:13

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't connect.

00:56:16

In fact, it probably is an argument that we should connect because the big takeaway from

00:56:21

these stories is that people saw Harvey Milk on the surface of this is what he stands for.

00:56:26

And they're like, oh, I hate that guy.

00:56:29

But then when they got to know him, they ended up being on his side for different things.

00:56:34

You know, that one of the examples they share is the Teamsters Union for like the truck

00:56:39

drivers.

00:56:40

You know, that was an important alliance.

00:56:41

And they were able to find common ground there.

00:56:44

And I just, so this is my, I think my one action item from this whole book.

00:56:49

There are lots of things that even from what we talked about today where you could say,

00:56:52

well, that's kind of an action item.

00:56:53

That's kind of an action item.

00:56:54

This is the one that felt significant enough that I needed to codify as an actual action

00:56:59

item was.

00:57:00

And it's one of those ones that you'll never be able to say, did I do this or not constantly

00:57:05

be on the lookout for new allies?

00:57:07

Yeah.

00:57:08

Okay.

00:57:09

And not, who can I get on my side?

00:57:10

But just like, who can I make connections with?

00:57:12

Because you don't know where these relationships are going to go.

00:57:15

And you don't know when these connections are going to be valuable in the future.

00:57:19

But if we're really trying to do the right thing at the right time, we should constantly

00:57:23

be trying to understand what the, where the other side is, is coming from.

00:57:28

And again, that doesn't mean just because they say this thing, like, oh, well, now, you

00:57:33

know, obviously, because we're mentioned it multiple times on this, this podcast, I may

00:57:38

as well just go all the way down the rabbit hole, right?

00:57:41

We consider the, as Christians, we consider the Bible to be the, the code of conduct that

00:57:45

we live by, right?

00:57:46

And a lot of this stuff that Ryan Holiday is talking about, replace stoic virtues with

00:57:50

specific Bible verses and you've got the exact same thing.

00:57:54

But you could say, well, that's, you know, I'm not trying to conform, you know, what I

00:57:59

believe about the Bible based on these other data points and other people's experiences.

00:58:05

That's not what I'm, what I'm saying.

00:58:06

But what I'm saying is by connecting with other people and understanding other contexts,

00:58:12

it gives me better understanding of the, the convictions that I'm holding a lot of times.

00:58:18

And again, I'm not afraid to say, you know, strong, strong convictions, lightly held.

00:58:22

I was wrong about this.

00:58:23

It's happened multiple times.

00:58:25

I could make the list of all the things that Mike was wrong about, but I see so much benefit

00:58:30

that comes from looking beyond the me and the we.

00:58:36

So this is kind of like, for me, the, the point where we're probably transitioning into

00:58:41

part three after this, all the other people that you typically don't see, all the other

00:58:46

people that it's inconvenient to think about them a lot of the times.

00:58:51

Like those are the people that Jesus went after.

00:58:54

That's who I should be focusing on.

00:58:56

Yeah.

00:58:57

I mean, I think where, where this gets mixed up a little bit in my mind is people think

00:59:03

allies is best friends.

00:59:04

And I don't think that you know, like that doesn't have to be the case.

00:59:08

Allies are two people that find common ground around something.

00:59:12

It doesn't have to be around everything, but it's around something.

00:59:15

It's like, oh, okay.

00:59:16

In this context, you and I, and where this gets really meaningful for me, and where I think

00:59:22

everything you said is spot on is where this gets really meaningful for me is, okay, we

00:59:26

said earlier in this book doesn't talk a lot about what the right thing is.

00:59:30

Well, when I'm interacting with different people and then we make a partnership or an

00:59:35

act like we become allies on this topic, well, on the things we disagree with, we have the

00:59:41

ability now to talk about what the right thing is around what we disagree with.

00:59:44

And that doesn't mean your perspective is going to change.

00:59:48

That doesn't mean my perspective is going to change necessarily.

00:59:50

We may walk out of that saying, nope, we both feel more strongly than we, than we did before

00:59:55

about our position, but like there also is the other case where we might change our mind

01:00:00

and be like, oh, I actually see the other side of that argument right now and how that

01:00:04

works.

01:00:05

And I think if you take it from the perspective of allies doesn't mean we agree on everything

01:00:10

and we have to be best friends, allies means we're open to the idea that there might be

01:00:15

common ground somewhere.

01:00:17

And if that common ground somewhere benefits people, benefits society, benefits the mission

01:00:25

that we're trying to accomplish with whatever we're trying to accomplish.

01:00:28

I mean, that's a, that's a positive.

01:00:30

So yeah, I, I'm glad you brought up the allies one because I don't think I would have an

01:00:34

eye and I like that a lot.

01:00:41

The, the thing just to put a period on the, the sentence for this topic, I think is what

01:00:43

you were saying and kind of what I really want to just drive home is that when you're

01:00:48

talking about creating these alliances with people who believe differently than you, you

01:00:54

have to have the conversations.

01:00:57

You aren't afraid to talk about the things that you disagree with.

01:01:02

And you're not going to get violent and come to blows.

01:01:06

Although there's plenty of historical examples of how that happened.

01:01:09

He even shared the story like the guy that wasn't a lion, wasn't an alliance with Harvey

01:01:13

Milk ended up shooting him in the head and murdering him.

01:01:17

Like that's, that's not the goal.

01:01:20

But the, the thing that the takeaway for myself and everyone listening to this, I think, is

01:01:27

that you can't just sweep all that stuff under the rug.

01:01:30

It's an important part of humanity and who we are.

01:01:34

And we should be able to have adult conversation about it without people flying off the handle.

01:01:41

I feel like that's missing a lot.

01:01:43

It's like, oh, well, that's private.

01:01:44

You just keep that to yourself.

01:01:45

Yeah.

01:01:46

Right.

01:01:47

And then there are all these people who just push it a little bit further.

01:01:49

Well, yeah, that's private, but I can't believe people think this.

01:01:52

And so they'll share that on social media and they'll get a whole bunch of people like,

01:01:55

yeah, how dare that guy, you know?

01:01:58

Yep.

01:01:59

And we'll create this tribalism because we won't talk to people.

01:02:02

It's stupid.

01:02:03

I agree.

01:02:04

I agree.

01:02:05

Yes, I agree completely.

01:02:06

All right.

01:02:07

Exit soapbox.

01:02:08

Should we go on to part three?

01:02:09

Yes.

01:02:10

The all, the all, the all.

01:02:12

All right.

01:02:13

So part three is the all and this is, as says in the, the title thinking about kind

01:02:19

of humanity in, in general, everyone on the, the planet.

01:02:23

So as I mentioned before, this is the previous section, we're going from talking about,

01:02:29

talking about people that are on our team to everybody who's not on our team.

01:02:32

That's really what, what this is, this is about.

01:02:35

And lots of different things here that I could call out.

01:02:39

I guess, well, let's start here.

01:02:41

So we actually covered a book previously, not you and I, but before you join the podcast

01:02:45

Corey, we covered a book called The Second Mountain by David Brooks.

01:02:50

And he refers to that in the second chapter of this, this section, Climb Your Second

01:02:56

Mountain.

01:02:57

And that book is really impactful for me.

01:02:59

I'm not sure you know anything about this book.

01:03:02

I, not, I don't remember much.

01:03:04

So go for it.

01:03:05

Okay.

01:03:06

So if I were to paraphrase the entire book and Ryan Holiday does a great job of it here,

01:03:12

that we typically spend the first part of our lives very ambitious, trying to achieve things.

01:03:18

We climb this mountain, we get to the top, and then we feel depressed and we're like,

01:03:23

is that it?

01:03:24

And then we look around and we see, oh, there's a second mountain over there.

01:03:28

And that's the one I should have been climbing the entire time.

01:03:31

Okay.

01:03:32

And that second mountain is always about someone else.

01:03:37

So the first one is like, I'm going to do this for me.

01:03:39

I'm going to become great.

01:03:41

And then the second one is really, I'm going to help other people become great.

01:03:45

I'm going to champion a cause.

01:03:46

I'm going to help other people.

01:03:47

I'm going to pay it forward.

01:03:48

You know, all of the rest of the themes that he talks about in this particular section.

01:03:54

So I think that second mountain idea is really powerful.

01:03:57

And again, I do really recommend that book.

01:04:01

As it pertains to this book, it really doesn't matter what that second mountain is.

01:04:05

It just has to be about more than your personal well-being.

01:04:09

And then kind of coupled with that, I think he mentions that as we get older, ambition

01:04:13

starts to burn away.

01:04:15

And I guess I'm old enough where I'm starting to experience this where I don't really care

01:04:23

so much about what sort of success I'm able to achieve.

01:04:28

Yeah, I've got the goal of 10,000 email subscribers and I want to be able to provide for my family

01:04:33

and all that kind of stuff.

01:04:34

But really the thing that keeps me going, the thing that really gives me energy is when

01:04:42

I am able to help somebody else.

01:04:44

So the very best case scenario here is that I can make a good living helping other people

01:04:49

do things that they want to do.

01:04:51

And I'm still trying to figure out how exactly to do that best.

01:04:57

But we're getting there.

01:04:58

I'm making progress.

01:05:00

And I think this is worth calling out to all listeners of the Bookworm Podcast, whether

01:05:06

you are, you know, in high school listening to this because you like the books that we're

01:05:12

reading or you're a seasoned veteran who thinks that your season of life has passed, it hasn't.

01:05:18

And whether you are 17 or 77, this is something that we should all be keeping in mind.

01:05:25

This part three was actually my least favorite section of the book.

01:05:30

It wasn't that it was bad.

01:05:31

It was just a, it felt, I don't know, it felt more ethereal as the word that's coming to

01:05:38

my head.

01:05:39

But I don't know what, if I know what, if I know what I mean by that.

01:05:41

But it was more like out there.

01:05:43

So if you talk about, you know, give them hope, be an angel, forgive, make amends.

01:05:47

Like the ideas were just more abstract or more like kind of out there.

01:05:53

I also had very little background knowledge on Gandhi.

01:05:59

So that was interesting to me.

01:06:01

Like I was learning about, you know, Gandhi, it was almost like a mini bio of Gandhi, which

01:06:07

was very interesting to me.

01:06:08

Like one of my major takeaways was Gandhi's seven blunders of humanity.

01:06:13

So wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without

01:06:18

without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without

01:06:22

principle.

01:06:23

I thought those were really interesting and like I would love to, I need to go read, that's

01:06:27

maybe an action item for me.

01:06:29

Did he write on those?

01:06:30

Like, does Gandhi have like a, a tome that like talks about those seven, seven blunders?

01:06:35

I'd be shocked if he didn't.

01:06:36

But I thought, I thought that was an interesting part of it.

01:06:40

Another, another one that I, I liked because I resonate with this principle so strongly

01:06:45

that like, you know, he was preaching to the choir, stop asking for the third thing.

01:06:50

So the third thing is like the extra recognition, the extra gratitude.

01:06:55

Like I did the right thing.

01:06:56

Now somebody tell me how awesome I am, right?

01:06:59

Like that thing.

01:07:00

And he makes the statement here.

01:07:02

This is where you talk about like how he doesn't really sugarcoat.

01:07:04

He kind of just says it how it is, which I really like about holidays.

01:07:07

Like you did what you were supposed to do.

01:07:11

Just move on.

01:07:12

Like keep going.

01:07:13

Right.

01:07:14

And it's like the doing is the reward.

01:07:15

Like these are the quotes that he has.

01:07:16

Like he makes these like one off kind of statements in the, in the book.

01:07:19

And I was like, yes, like I completely agree.

01:07:23

And maybe I'm jaded by this because I've worked with a group of people or because I

01:07:26

work with younger, younger students who always want to be told like how, how good what they

01:07:31

did is, right?

01:07:32

And it's like, and I get that we all need to be told at some point, you're doing a good

01:07:36

job.

01:07:37

Keep it up.

01:07:38

You're doing a good job.

01:07:39

Keep it up.

01:07:40

But like I think I've seen the extreme of that where it's like, Hey, that tiny little

01:07:43

thing you did, man, you put your name on the top right hand corner of that paper.

01:07:47

You really killed it.

01:07:48

You really killed it there.

01:07:49

And it's like, no, that's just what you do.

01:07:51

Right?

01:07:52

You put the name on the, on the file or on the paper.

01:07:55

But like that was my big one is like stop asking for that third thing in terms of just

01:08:02

do the right thing and do it right now.

01:08:04

Just do the right thing and do it right now and just keep moving.

01:08:06

Yeah.

01:08:07

In terms of impact, I've heard it said that it's amazing what we could accomplish if we

01:08:13

didn't care about logos or egos.

01:08:15

That's sort of tied to this.

01:08:18

But there's also a quote that he shared, which is awesome, better to do right and go unrewarded

01:08:23

than to do wrong and go unpunished.

01:08:25

Oh, yeah.

01:08:26

Yeah.

01:08:27

Which I really like that as well.

01:08:30

The other one that really I guess kind of stood out to me from this section was that

01:08:36

love wins, which again, you could be like, oh yeah, I've heard that message before.

01:08:41

But there was a question that he asked here, which kind of challenged me.

01:08:47

So I remember the original Grinch movie growing up.

01:08:54

Do you remember that one?

01:08:55

Oh, yeah.

01:08:56

Okay.

01:08:57

So the part in that movie at the beginning where it's like the visual is permanently imprinted

01:09:04

on my brain about how his heart is two sizes, too small.

01:09:09

Yes.

01:09:10

Okay.

01:09:11

I know exactly what you're talking about.

01:09:12

Go ahead.

01:09:13

Okay.

01:09:14

So the question Ryan Holiday asks and immediately evoked that image was, is your heart growing

01:09:19

or shrinking?

01:09:21

Okay.

01:09:22

Because I think it's difficult and this is sort of tied to the creating alliances.

01:09:27

And like making your world bigger, right?

01:09:31

That's what a growing heart does.

01:09:33

But a shrinking heart is let's batten down the hatches.

01:09:37

Let's really put up the walls and protect what we have.

01:09:41

Don't let anybody get in who might disrupt this.

01:09:46

And that the visual of your heart either growing or shrinking, because I think the principal

01:09:52

here, which he didn't explicitly say this, but I think I would argue that nothing is

01:09:57

static.

01:09:58

It doesn't just stay the same.

01:10:00

At least what he's talking about here in terms of growing or shrinking.

01:10:04

It's not that actual physical size of your heart, but just how you feel like, is there

01:10:10

room in your life for more people besides yourself?

01:10:15

And that's a challenging question.

01:10:18

Oh, yeah.

01:10:19

Because you can't just be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that.

01:10:22

And of course, I will seek out people with diverse backgrounds and opinions and give them

01:10:30

a seat at the table and listen to what they have to say.

01:10:33

That's one thing to say that it's another thing to do that.

01:10:36

And then you got to put your life under the microscope and you got to say, have I actually

01:10:41

done that?

01:10:42

Or have I done it as much as I should?

01:10:44

Sometimes you haven't done it because you haven't had the opportunity.

01:10:48

But look for those opportunities then.

01:10:50

That's kind of where I'm at with this is like look for those opportunities and embrace those

01:10:54

opportunities and don't just, well, I'm busy right now and I'll come back to that later.

01:10:59

Going all the way back to the right thing right now, the procrastination being the thing

01:11:03

that keeps us from doing the right thing.

01:11:07

I don't have an action item associated with this necessarily, but it was a pretty effective

01:11:12

way to end the book.

01:11:14

And I say end the book because the very last chapter in this section comes right after

01:11:17

that and that's the whole idea of paying it forward and all of us bear a great debt to

01:11:21

those who sacrificed it yesterday so that we could have better today's.

01:11:25

We can't just be takers in this life.

01:11:28

It's a really powerful way to end a discussion about justice in my opinion.

01:11:35

It's not fully the end because there's the afterword, but the end of this section anyways.

01:11:39

I think I hope Ryan got to write the title.

01:11:43

I hope it wasn't part of the editorial process where somebody else came up with it.

01:11:48

I really hope because I think it's perfect, right?

01:11:51

The right thing right now and the fact that you could pop it in and he does it a few different

01:11:56

times throughout the book where he pops it in right now and I'm like, "Dad, go on it.

01:12:00

That is a really good title."

01:12:03

Because he does it in such a good way throughout the different parts of the book.

01:12:07

So I really hope he was the brainchild behind the title.

01:12:12

Yeah, me too.

01:12:14

All right.

01:12:15

Should we talk about the afterword?

01:12:17

Yeah.

01:12:18

Okay.

01:12:19

So the afterword, I don't think that there's a whole lot I need to say about this, but

01:12:22

it was interesting.

01:12:24

I think he couldn't have written this afterward with for sure the first book and maybe the

01:12:30

second book, but at this point he's been practicing Stosism and talking about it long enough

01:12:35

that it was interesting to hear about this is kind of the way I was prior and this is

01:12:40

how it's helped me.

01:12:43

And to be clear, I'm not sure I'm 100% on board with the idea of Stosism.

01:12:50

I think there are elements of it that I like.

01:12:53

He mentions in this last section all the different things that he's written about and

01:12:58

the things that he does about Stosism.

01:12:59

He mentions the stoic coins, which I actually have one on my desk right here.

01:13:04

Oh, do you really?

01:13:05

I wouldn't look them up.

01:13:06

So that's funny that you have one.

01:13:07

Okay.

01:13:08

What you have is a morphe, not merely to bear what is necessary, but to love it.

01:13:13

So essentially it's the love of fate.

01:13:16

And kind of as it pertains to the things that he's talking about in this book, you

01:13:20

know, these things are happening.

01:13:22

You could get upset that this is happening to you and this is completely unfair and I

01:13:26

shouldn't have to do this or you could just be, yeah, this is the way that it is.

01:13:30

May as well make the most out of it.

01:13:33

And this experience is going to make me a better person in the process.

01:13:37

And I feel like it's missed opportunity if you're just upset about, oh, this thing is

01:13:41

unfair and I shouldn't be have, I shouldn't have to go through this.

01:13:45

I feel like you might get through that and you miss out on the virtue that could have

01:13:51

been built in your life when you just resented the whole time.

01:13:54

So I don't know.

01:13:55

I have it on my desk as like a reminder like, Hey, there's a difficult season that you're

01:13:58

in.

01:13:59

You can be upset that this is the difficult season is here or you could be just to embrace

01:14:03

it and become a better person as a result.

01:14:07

So I do, I do think that there's, there's value in some of this stuff, but like anything,

01:14:12

like my approach to reading, you kind of have to test it out for yourself, take what works

01:14:17

and spit out the sticks.

01:14:19

He talks about in this section how time and experience should make us more generous and

01:14:24

less threatened.

01:14:25

No one throws you a parade when you're doing the right thing.

01:14:29

He asks a question, are you being a good steward, which that's the thing that got me into doing

01:14:34

what I'm doing anyways.

01:14:35

Like I was reading these books and I was teaching a Bible college class on personal management

01:14:42

and reading Matthew 25, the parable of the town, which is all about biblical stewardship.

01:14:47

Like, man, this is a big deal.

01:14:48

Like, we need to be good stewards of what we have been entrusted to and for a long time

01:14:54

that that has fueled my life theme at this point.

01:14:57

It's gone through different revisions, but I'm a multiplier.

01:14:59

I help people multiply their time and talent and leave a bigger dent in the universe.

01:15:04

So that's very personal to me.

01:15:08

And then one other like off-handed comment that he made is that men are struggling.

01:15:13

It seems like with the culture, the higher percentages of women are able to succeed in

01:15:19

these different scenarios where historically, that hasn't been the case.

01:15:23

That men in particular tend to be struggling with their role in society.

01:15:30

And I think there's a much larger rabbit hole to go down there.

01:15:34

I don't want to go down that today, but I will mention that I bought a book at a used

01:15:38

book story that I came across that looked interesting by Lewis House.

01:15:41

Are you familiar with Lewis House?

01:15:43

Not off the top of my head.

01:15:45

So Lewis House has an interesting story.

01:15:47

One of those guys who is living out of friends, sofa, hit rock bottom, and then built himself

01:15:54

back up.

01:15:55

He's an ex-football player, runs a very successful podcast and brand called The School of Greatness.

01:16:01

School of Greatness.

01:16:02

I actually have seen this before.

01:16:03

Yeah.

01:16:04

So he's written another book though, something about the masculinity crisis, something along

01:16:11

those lines, which I have.

01:16:12

I bought the book because it looked interesting and I haven't picked it up yet.

01:16:16

So I don't know exactly what's in there.

01:16:19

But I think Ryan Holiday is onto something there.

01:16:24

And I want to dig a little bit deeper into that.

01:16:30

Maybe that book will make an appearance at some point in the bookworm schedule.

01:16:33

I haven't decided yet.

01:16:35

Gotcha.

01:16:36

So my big takeaway from the afterward, well, let me say what I agree with you first.

01:16:43

I definitely don't have any issues with the Stoic series, like with the four virtues and

01:16:49

those type of things.

01:16:50

But that's because I think they're founded in greater truths, right?

01:16:54

That my belief system has these greater truths embedded in them.

01:16:59

So I think they're good.

01:17:04

So the Stoic series is fine with me.

01:17:09

I think the thing that my biggest takeaway from the afterward is he talks about this idea

01:17:13

that people typically start earlier in their life.

01:17:17

They're more concerned with the all and then they get more conservative as they age.

01:17:22

And he said, what if it was different?

01:17:23

What if it was the other way around?

01:17:25

What if we were more conservative when we're young and then we get more concerned with

01:17:29

the all later in life?

01:17:31

And I thought this was a really thought provoking way to think about justice and to think about,

01:17:37

okay.

01:17:38

If we are more conservative young and therefore we're working on kind of ourselves and developing

01:17:45

the virtues and we're working on figuring out a lot of these things for the me and the

01:17:50

we, how much more powerful will we be to impact the all when we get wisdom and when we get

01:17:58

older in life and we have more courage and risk is a little bit different because maybe

01:18:03

we've established ourselves and we're able to do these other things.

01:18:06

And it's like there's pros and cons to each of these.

01:18:08

I can fully see the pros and cons to each of these.

01:18:10

But the fact that he threw it out there as like a thought experiment, I thought, man,

01:18:14

that's a really interesting way that I've not thought about because you always think

01:18:18

about a more rebellious is in the right word, but I'll take more risk.

01:18:23

There you go.

01:18:24

I'll take more risk at a young age and then I get more conservative as I get older or

01:18:26

I think more about like just retirement and winding down kind of a thing as I get older.

01:18:33

What if it was the other way around?

01:18:34

What if I got more adventurous and more about society and more about the all as I got older

01:18:39

and I was like, oh, that's a really, really cool way to think about that.

01:18:42

Yeah.

01:18:43

And that was actually spurred by a offhanded comment that his dad made at like a dinner

01:18:48

one time about how just politically people tend to be more liberal when they're younger,

01:18:53

more conservative when they're older.

01:18:54

Ryan's like, huh, why is that?

01:18:56

That shouldn't be the case.

01:18:57

And I think I agree with that too.

01:18:59

Yeah.

01:19:00

All right.

01:19:02

Well, let's talk about action items.

01:19:05

Okay.

01:19:06

You want me to start?

01:19:07

Oh, yeah, go ahead.

01:19:08

Okay.

01:19:09

So I had a couple.

01:19:11

So the first thing is I want to plan new things into my reflections and my personal retreat.

01:19:18

So the first thing I want to plan in is are you thinking about what you've or whether

01:19:22

you've done the right thing and whether you followed your North Star?

01:19:25

So it's that thing I talked about at the beginning when we were talking about part one.

01:19:28

I want to actually try to do that.

01:19:30

So I go, okay, let's analyze the last week, two weeks, month, whatever, however long it

01:19:35

is and say, did I do the right thing in these situations and these scenarios?

01:19:40

And if not, why didn't I do the right thing?

01:19:42

What could I have done to do the right thing?

01:19:44

Where is it off?

01:19:45

And then how do I do better next time?

01:19:47

So I think that's my first action item is to think about those things more actively in

01:19:51

my reflections.

01:19:53

The second one is I do want to look up Gandhi seven blunders of humanity and see if there's

01:19:58

any bit anything written on that, whether or not that's packaged in a series of short

01:20:03

papers or whether it's packaged in an actual book or a text of some sort and take a look

01:20:09

at that because I think those would be interesting to unpack.

01:20:13

How about you?

01:20:14

All right.

01:20:15

Well, I just have the one official action item which is to constantly be on the lookout

01:20:18

for new allies.

01:20:20

Although I think the impact of having read this book will manifest in multiple other ways.

01:20:29

I don't know exactly how or when that's the hard thing with picking action items from

01:20:34

a Ryan Holiday book, in my opinion.

01:20:37

But I do think this book was pretty impactful.

01:20:41

So I guess we're getting into style and rating now.

01:20:43

I may as well just just go there.

01:20:46

I really like this book.

01:20:49

I have had mixed reviews on the Stoic virtue series.

01:20:55

I really enjoyed Courage is Calling.

01:20:59

I didn't enjoy Discipliniz Destiny quite as much.

01:21:03

But with this one, we're back, baby.

01:21:07

Maybe it's just the subject and justice is a thing that is important to me.

01:21:13

So like the whole concept and the whole book about it seemed like the right thing at the

01:21:18

right time for me.

01:21:20

I remember my parents describing me at one point as being, they were talking to somebody

01:21:29

else.

01:21:30

They didn't know that I heard I think, but they were describing me as being very self

01:21:33

righteous.

01:21:34

And the reason is that I tend to see things as right and wrong.

01:21:39

There is not a whole lot of gray area in my brain.

01:21:43

This is the right thing to do.

01:21:45

So just do it.

01:21:47

So in a lot of ways, he's preaching to the choir here.

01:21:51

This is the message that I want to hear.

01:21:53

But again, it's interesting because he doesn't just say this is where I draw all the lines.

01:21:58

And he shares a lot of examples where you can tell, we've got some different belief

01:22:02

systems, but that doesn't mean that I can't learn from the principles that he's talking

01:22:07

about in this book.

01:22:09

It may manifest a little bit different in my life.

01:22:12

I weigh the Jesus examples more than the Buddha examples, but that's just me personally.

01:22:21

And I actually appreciate the fact that he grabs a whole bunch of reference points outside

01:22:27

of the stoic philosophers, which is kind of his thing.

01:22:32

It would be very easy to do that, I think.

01:22:34

And he does talk about the stoic philosophers.

01:22:35

He talks about Marcus Aurelius, but he doesn't go nearly as hard on it as someone who is

01:22:41

steeped in stoicism could.

01:22:43

I see an alternate scenario where he's like, oh, stoicism is the thing that completely

01:22:47

changed my life.

01:22:48

Stoicism is all based on the philosophy of these old guys.

01:22:51

So really, let's just talk about the old guys.

01:22:53

And if people do that, I'm gone.

01:22:56

I'm not interested in that at all.

01:22:59

But because he sprinkles it in with a whole bunch of other things and a whole bunch of

01:23:03

other examples and a whole bunch of really awesome stories, which again are woven together

01:23:07

throughout this book, kind of like a tapestry.

01:23:10

One of the stories we didn't talk about was the guy, I think his name was Cato.

01:23:15

He was a prisoner in Carthage and he goes back to Rome because they wanted to do this

01:23:19

prisoner swap and he gets there and he's like, no, don't do it.

01:23:21

Just go, you're going to win, so keep up the fight.

01:23:26

And instead of staying with his family, he goes back and then later on, he finishes the

01:23:31

story about how when he got back, he was tortured and killed.

01:23:35

Like, why would you go back?

01:23:36

And his family is all sad because he's going to, he's like, I have to do it.

01:23:40

It's the right thing to do.

01:23:41

They let me go so I could deliver this message.

01:23:45

And then he goes back and he faces certain death.

01:23:48

Stories like that are inspiring to me.

01:23:50

Not that I want to be in that situation.

01:23:52

But whenever I hear those stories of people who are giving their lives for a cause, it's

01:23:56

bigger than their own.

01:23:58

I always admire the resolve that they have and the courage that they have to do the right

01:24:04

thing.

01:24:05

And you always kind of ask yourself, could I do that if I was in that situation?

01:24:08

You'd like to think that you could and you make daily decisions.

01:24:13

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

01:24:17

So you could do the things daily that you believe are going to create the character that

01:24:21

you may need to call on when you're in that situation.

01:24:24

But you never really know until you're there.

01:24:27

So part of this, you know, read all these stories about people who are making all these

01:24:31

sacrificial choices.

01:24:32

And sometimes it's just like, that's stupid.

01:24:34

Why would they do that?

01:24:35

Don't they know that they're going to be worse off?

01:24:38

Those of that, but they can see bigger.

01:24:39

They've got a bigger vision and they understand how the world is going to be better because

01:24:43

they are going to do those sorts of things.

01:24:46

So this book is full of all those stories.

01:24:48

You mentioned like the make good trouble.

01:24:50

That's actually a story that I had heard about previously from a different stoic virtue

01:24:53

series.

01:24:54

I think maybe it was the courage is calling book.

01:24:55

He talks more about that John Lewis example.

01:24:57

So they're not all original, but a lot of them are.

01:25:01

And a lot of them are told even that John Lewis one in ways that are new.

01:25:06

It's not just rehashing things that he's said previously.

01:25:11

You can tell a lot of work went into this book in particular.

01:25:15

I think because we shared at the beginning, he didn't think it was going to do that well.

01:25:19

He spent a little bit of extra time with it.

01:25:22

And I think there's a lot of polish here that that shows.

01:25:25

And I definitely would recommend this one to, I would say everyone.

01:25:31

It's not even just the bookworm audience.

01:25:33

This is one where if I have any inclination that you're interested in doing more of what

01:25:40

matters, like this is one of the first books that I'm going to recommend for you.

01:25:44

It's kind of weird to say like, well, this one stands out above all the other stoic virtue

01:25:48

ones, but it really does in my opinion so far.

01:25:50

So I think this one is an easy five stars.

01:25:54

Yeah, I'll get my rating first.

01:25:56

I agree.

01:25:57

I think it's an easy five stars.

01:25:58

I hope when the wisdom one comes out that the wisdom and justice one can be paired together

01:26:07

and it's a two book set that you just recommend to people left and right.

01:26:10

It's like, oh, well, I just want to think about making an impact on the world.

01:26:15

I want to think about the way I'm living my life or I want to think about this.

01:26:18

It's like, boom, okay, here are these two books.

01:26:20

Just go take them in peruse and you're going to get good stuff out of them.

01:26:25

I mean, I was a big fan of the way he weaved things together.

01:26:32

The stories he told were actually relevant.

01:26:35

The people that were referenced were relevant and like he doesn't, like you said, he doesn't

01:26:42

sugarcoat anything.

01:26:43

He doesn't like try to, you know, he says the good and the bad.

01:26:45

He doesn't say like, oh, they were perfect or they weren't or anything like that.

01:26:50

It's like, here's here's the what they are and here's how it ties to the point I'm trying

01:26:53

to make.

01:26:54

Overall, I mean, I easily read through this one and walked away going, yeah, like that

01:26:59

was a good one.

01:27:00

This is one that I would actually listen to again while I'm running just because there's

01:27:06

good stuff in there and like stewing on some of these concepts or hearing it the second

01:27:11

time I think would be valuable for me as I go through.

01:27:16

The one knock, you know, if I have to, I don't have to, but it's like, there's one knock is

01:27:21

the intro to each part.

01:27:24

I didn't always see the tie into that right away.

01:27:30

Like it should be a little bit longer to get that intro.

01:27:33

So it's like these would be if you're looking at the table of context right now, they're

01:27:38

titled to stand before Kings, you to you from falling hands, we throw the torch and then

01:27:46

to to so love the world.

01:27:49

Like I didn't always see the tie in for the content within those until maybe later on

01:27:55

when he tied a couple other pieces back in.

01:27:57

And it's like, I understand what he was doing.

01:27:58

He was doing a set in the stage and he was kind of getting us thinking about this new

01:28:01

part of the book.

01:28:03

But those would be, I mean, that would be the only one and that's a very, very little,

01:28:07

like very small kind of blemish on what overall was a fantastic book.

01:28:13

So easily a five star book, easily one that I would recommend other people to just think

01:28:19

about justice and think about doing the right thing and doing it right now.

01:28:23

Yeah.

01:28:24

And I feel like if everyone in the world bought this book and read it, even if they arrived

01:28:31

at completely different conclusions of what that looked like, the whole idea of acting

01:28:39

justly, it would have a significant impact in making the world a better place.

01:28:45

Yes, I agree.

01:28:46

All right.

01:28:48

Let's put right thing right now on the shelf.

01:28:50

What's next, Corey?

01:28:51

All right.

01:28:52

So our next book is a book called uncommon greatness by Mark Miller.

01:28:59

And I learned about this book.

01:29:03

He was a former vice president.

01:29:06

Mark Miller is a former vice president of high performance leadership at Chick-fil-A.

01:29:11

It's a leadership book.

01:29:12

So five fundamentals to transform your leadership.

01:29:16

And I just thought that it would be a fun book to kind of get us an idea of a different

01:29:22

perspective on leadership.

01:29:23

So fairly new.

01:29:25

He has a leadership consulting company.

01:29:28

He's a best-selling author of a book called culture rules.

01:29:31

So there's a little bit of face value credibility there.

01:29:36

And I just thought another book on leadership from this perspective would be really interesting.

01:29:41

So cool.

01:29:42

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one.

01:29:45

After that, I have picked a book called hidden genius by Paulina Miranova-Pompliano.

01:29:53

And you're probably thinking, what is this book?

01:29:55

Who is that?

01:29:56

I've never heard of this.

01:29:57

And that was me.

01:29:59

Prior to listening to a Barrett Brooks good work episode where he interviewed her.

01:30:05

When I got the book, I realized that the blurb on the front cover is by James Clear.

01:30:09

I just saw that.

01:30:11

Yeah, he says, "A goldmine of actionable ideas and useful advice from top performers in all

01:30:15

fields."

01:30:16

And if you look at the back, the people who have recommended this, you've got Morgan

01:30:20

Howl'sl, I guess the rest of it, I saw some other names on the Amazon listing that I recognized.

01:30:27

People whose opinions I respect, books I enjoyed.

01:30:30

So the interview was really good.

01:30:32

I will grab a link to that episode and I'll share it in the notes for people who want to

01:30:36

check that out.

01:30:38

But as she was talking about her book, essentially in that podcast, I got interested in it and

01:30:44

I bought it and I was looking through all the books that are on my bookshelf that we have

01:30:50

not read yet.

01:30:51

And I was like, this one looks interesting.

01:30:55

I saw the James Clear blurb.

01:30:57

I'm like, this seems like the perfect book for Bookworm.

01:30:59

Let's give it a shot.

01:31:02

Wonderful.

01:31:03

All right.

01:31:04

And then I do have a gap book and actually before I get book, I have to go back and make

01:31:07

a correction because I mentioned the Lewis Howl's book and I misstated the name.

01:31:11

It's the Mask of Masculinity.

01:31:13

That's the book that I picked up.

01:31:15

So links to everything we talked about is in the show notes as always.

01:31:20

So it'll be right there.

01:31:21

But that makes me happy because I looked that up real quick and I was like, I couldn't

01:31:24

find it.

01:31:25

And I was like, that's weird.

01:31:26

Like, how can I not find that too?

01:31:27

Sorry about that.

01:31:28

No, thanks for clarification.

01:31:30

Real time feedback from myself.

01:31:34

I've got a gap book that I want to try to read.

01:31:36

However, I'm getting ready to leave for London.

01:31:39

I'll be at the relay 10th anniversary show.

01:31:42

So if you're there, come say hi.

01:31:44

There's a book that comes out as we record this tomorrow though by a guy named Bob Dotto.

01:31:49

It's called A System for Writing.

01:31:51

And I have not pre-bought this yet because it's only available on Kindle for pre-purchase.

01:31:59

But I have been told, because I've had some back and forth with Bob Dotto, that the paperback

01:32:03

version will be available when it releases tomorrow.

01:32:05

And it's basically about Zetlakastin, but Bob is actually someone who speaks intelligently

01:32:10

about that in this space right now.

01:32:14

So typically Zetlakastin, you hear about people who idolize Nicholas Lumens and he did all

01:32:19

these papers and they're these academic people who construct these way too complicated obsidian

01:32:26

type systems.

01:32:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:28

I feel like Bob actually does something with it.

01:32:30

So I'm looking forward to reading this book.

01:32:34

You got any gap books?

01:32:35

Yeah, so I'm working on one that I've been working on for, I don't know, probably four

01:32:41

months now or something like that.

01:32:43

But it's, oh my gosh, I'm totally blanking on it.

01:32:48

It's a work and worship book.

01:32:49

Oh my gosh, why am I blanking on the name of this book right now?

01:32:53

Like I'm just-

01:32:54

New rule, you can't pick a gap book if you don't know what it is.

01:32:56

Well, I feel so silly that I can't remember the name of this book right now.

01:33:02

Every good endeavor.

01:33:03

Oh my goodness, why did it take me so long to get to every good endeavor?

01:33:05

But I've been, I've been working on it off and on as I read it.

01:33:08

And then the other one, I've actually kind of got two, it's called The Christian Technology.

01:33:15

It's a small book that was written based by a guy who developed a chapel series for one

01:33:23

of the seminaries out in California.

01:33:25

And then everybody was like, hey, this is really good.

01:33:28

Like your series was really great.

01:33:29

Can you turn it into a book?

01:33:31

So I would call it more of a booklet.

01:33:33

Like it's a little mini book, but I've been working through those two things and kind

01:33:37

of popping back and forth as I can find time for those.

01:33:41

So it's been good.

01:33:43

It's part of my work as with faculty with the faculty job.

01:33:47

So that's why I'm wearing those.

01:33:49

Awesome.

01:33:50

Well, thanks for listening and a special thanks to the Bookworm Pro members.

01:33:57

If you want to support the show, you can do that by going to patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:34:02

Seven bucks a month gets you access to a couple of perks, a 4k Bookworm wallpaper, a bootleg

01:34:09

feed that gets uploaded usually the same day as we record this, usually about a couple

01:34:15

of weeks before it goes live, a profeed which has a separate section and is an ad-free extended

01:34:21

version of the show.

01:34:22

Today in the pro version, we talked about running gear.

01:34:27

And if you are willing to support the show, it really means a lot to both Corey and myself.

01:34:35

You may have noticed we don't have a ton of ads.

01:34:36

So this is really the way to keep the show running.

01:34:41

And if you want to support our work, then you can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:34:48

And if you're reading along with us, pick up on Common Greatness by Mark Miller and we'll

01:34:52

talk to you in a couple of weeks.