Bookworm Transcripts

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So Corey, how did you do on your action items?

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- Ah, pretty terrible.

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So Mike, I'm trying to diagnose why I'm so bad

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at action items.

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And I think it's because I have these like grand visions

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for these action items.

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And then I roll into, we stop recording

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and the rest of life hits me like a gigantic wave

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crashing into me, be that family or the next book

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or my job or whatever it might be, right?

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I get crashed on this.

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And then I go, I didn't even know I had action items.

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And they just go away.

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So I need a better system.

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And this is not just for bookworm action items.

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This is for life more generally.

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I need a better system, but not,

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it isn't the tool, right?

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I know you talk about this all the time,

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I'm focused in different places.

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Like the tool doesn't matter.

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I've tried paper, I've tried this app,

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I've tried that app, I've tried this other thing.

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So that's why I say I need a better system.

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And where it comes down to it is I need a system

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that I actually care about.

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And like when I write something in there

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and then it pops up a reminder or notification,

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I actually pay attention to it.

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And it's like, so there is a fundamental disconnect

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and it's not that I don't care,

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it's not that I don't want to map out

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a strategic listening plan,

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or it's not that I don't want to ask

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how do I put others first today.

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It's a matter of, I need a better system

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that actually encourages me to do that

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and to stay on top of it.

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And to continually stay on top of it.

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So how did I do on mapping out a strategic listening plan?

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I did not map out a strategic listening pin.

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How did I do on, how did I put others first?

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I'll tell you, I probably thought about this two times,

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maybe three times, but I definitely did not think

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like about it every day or regularly enough

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as I wanted to in there.

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So that is my mini little die tribe on actual items.

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How did you do Mike?

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50%, but let me back up just a second here

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because you mentioned a system.

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And I guess this is a good spot to mention

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that I am working on a system,

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not just for action items,

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for running your entire life out of obsidian.

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So happy to give you a beta version of that

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if you think it could be helpful

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for anyone who is interested in this sort of thing.

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I will create a landing page

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where you can go put in your email

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and I'm getting ready to launch it

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in the next month or so.

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So if you fill out that form,

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I'll make sure that you get the email

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as soon as it's available

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and you get the option at the best price.

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But basically what I'm doing is I'm taking everything I do

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inside of obsidian,

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making a pre-made vault with pre-configured plugins

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and a whole bunch of dashboards.

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That's the thing that really stands out to me

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is like the way that my action items get done

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is I put those into obsidian

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and then they show up on these lists

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in this canvas dashboard that I've created.

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I think I probably showed you a screenshot of this

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at one point.

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- I saw a screenshot,

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I think in one of your newsletters.

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- Okay.

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- And before you keep going,

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let me tell everybody,

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I did not do this on purpose.

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I made the statement that I made

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knowing that Mike is the focused guy.

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I had no idea that he had this whole,

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well, I have this canned system

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that's gonna come right at you.

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I mean, I've heard him talk about it before,

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but I was not,

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this was not like some sneaky mechanism

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for him to talk about his thing.

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So, but I'm interested, keep going.

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- Okay, I'm terrible at self-promotion.

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So I don't like talking about it.

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But basically, yeah, so I have in,

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it started with me building my task dashboard in obsidian

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where I've got all these colored lists

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for things that I do today,

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things that are on the back burner,

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things that I'm waiting for someone to get back to me on,

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things that need to clarify,

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things that I do the next week,

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I have an inbox,

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which is basically things that haven't been processed

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so they don't have a date, they don't have a tag.

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And I basically just kind of thought through,

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how does this system work?

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What are the rules that I'm playing by

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as I'm putting things in here?

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And then I found that if you just capture tasks

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to a single list, it'll show up in these,

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in a single note,

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it'll show up on these lists

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if it has the right metadata.

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So I started building more dashboards

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and now I've got them for all of my daily questions,

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all of my journal entries.

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I mean, if you've been following my YouTube channel

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at all, I've been talking a lot about this stuff,

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the quote books thing where it's got a special beta plugin

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formats, the query a certain way.

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So you can see the source and also command app,

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you can find whatever quote you're looking for.

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I started showing that to people in my community

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and they're like, "Hey, this is cool,

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"I'll be interested in trying this."

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And so I've been working on this Pro Vault

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for several months now.

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And I'm building all the documentation.

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So it's the dashboards and things,

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but also a whole bunch of lessons.

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This is how you use it.

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At the, there's 40 different workflows

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that I've built into it.

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And each one has a summary at the top

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where if you don't care about the philosophy,

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just press this keyboard shortcut to do this,

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then do this, then do this.

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But I want people to understand how it works

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and I don't want it to be like a turnkey system.

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I want people to like customize it and make it their own.

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So below that screenshots and I'm working on videos

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where it's like, this is everything that goes into

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why I'm doing it this way.

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So it's essentially a PKM course,

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but also a done for, inside of a done for you vault

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that has all of the stuff reconfigured.

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And there'll be two versions.

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One will have all the how to's.

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One will just be the blank one.

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So you can just open it up and you're off to the races.

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So yeah, I think maybe this could help you

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with your action item problem.

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If you're interested in city,

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I know you've been like obsidian curious in the past.

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I don't know how invested you are into it.

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- Not so.

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- I mean, not enough to like say I don't like it,

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but it's just not also not enough to say I use it

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like every day.

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It's not definitely not the first thing I open them

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when I open a computer.

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- Well, I mean, if you're not doing task management

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in obsidian already, then maybe it's not gonna work for you,

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but I don't know.

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If you want it, let me know.

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(laughs)

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- Well, I think if nothing else would be fun to play around

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with it and talk about in a pro show, right?

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I mean, it's like, like I messed around with your vault

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and let me tell you all the things that I liked

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and all the things that I didn't like.

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(laughs)

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- That's fair.

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All right, so yeah, there's that.

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And then as far as my action items go,

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I had two of them.

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So one was find something hard to do.

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I survived a trip to London.

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Does that count?

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- That does count.

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(laughs)

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- That does count.

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That was not the intention.

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I joke about that because we just talked about

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that for the pro show.

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So if you want to find out more about the,

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my trip to London, then we talked about it

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for about 20 minutes before this.

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And you can find out more about the pro show

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at patreon.com/bookwormfm.

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The one I did succeed at was finding someone to praise weekly.

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And I guess you could say that this isn't really done.

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Like I don't have a system for this,

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but I have been doing it.

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And it really hasn't been specifically,

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I'm picking someone to praise them

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for something specific that they did.

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It's more just sending an encouraging note to somebody,

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which I think is the way I framed it last time

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my memory serves.

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That's really what I was after.

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And that part has stuck so far.

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So not enough to say that,

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oh yeah, this is ingrained in it's now a habit,

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but at least enough to give it a green check mark

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instead of a red X.

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- Okay, so I'm in this show enough now.

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And I don't know if I've asked this question

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or not before, so if I've asked this question,

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just tell me to tell me something.

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What is the point of action items

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and what was the original point of action items

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and what should the future of action items look like?

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Or is this something we should talk about?

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Is this something we should talk about

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and on a different thing?

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And we should get to the book because we're already

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a bunch of minutes into recording.

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- Well, I don't know.

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I mean, I guess if you have feedback

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for the action items and what you think we should do with them,

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then let us know.

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But the original intention was we read these books

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and what's the point of reading the books?

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It's to do something with what we have read.

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So jot down the things that we wanna do

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based on the books that we have read.

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And then in theory, because we have shared these publicly,

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we don't want to look like a fool next episode.

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(laughs)

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Not do them, but.

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(laughs)

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- So that's where I fall down is because

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I don't take me not doing it as looking like a fool,

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which maybe I should.

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Maybe that's a me problem.

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- Well, I don't know.

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I mean, I've failed at this too.

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You mentioned, you had a phrase,

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I forget how you set it.

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But what I heard in my head was that life has life to you.

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Which happens.

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And I think it's finding.

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If you're consistently finding, you know,

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behind the scenes in front of everybody, I guess here.

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If you are finding Corey,

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that you think the action items are not serving

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the purpose in the future,

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we can definitely think about getting rid of them.

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- No, it's more a matter of like,

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I want a longer term way to track.

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- That's fair.

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- You know what I mean?

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So, okay, I write them down.

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And I mean, I think maybe it's just,

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I need to go back through the episodes

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and write down all my action items.

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And then I don't need to follow up on them

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by the next show.

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But it's like, if I can say within six months,

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I'm at 80%, right?

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I've hit 80% of my action items.

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Okay, like I like that metric.

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That seems like a realistic metric for me.

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I don't know if it's true or not,

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but it's like that's almost what I want.

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Because when I make them,

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when I make the action items, I want to do them,

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but then life life's me.

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And it's like, will I ever get back to that?

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Because if not, I mean, what do we read

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in all these books for?

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Like what do we, other than just the general,

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general like lifting up your base knowledge,

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which we're gonna talk about that later

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with a David Brooks quote.

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Okay, so maybe that's something I need to do

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with your vault system that you share with me.

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I need to figure out a way to track all the action items.

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Could be.

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We'll work on this.

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We've done different things in the past

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where we've tried to, for example,

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share the action items publicly.

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That just ended up being too much maintenance.

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But I don't mind pinging you and being like,

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"Hey, just so you know, recording on this a couple of days,

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"and you said you were gonna do this."

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So.

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Well, and what it might be is you and I schedule, right?

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We calendar like a follow up show

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or something like every six months,

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and we're like, okay, let's look back at our action items

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and how many of them have we actually tried to do

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and tried to do, and that'd be a fun additional show.

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All right, I'm game.

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All right, cool.

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Man, that was fun.

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Okay.

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(laughs)

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All right, let's talk about today's book.

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Today's book is Hidden Genius by Paulina Miranova-Pompliano.

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I believe is how you say it.

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And to be honest, I had not heard of this book

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prior to hearing her as a guest

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on one of my new favorite podcasts, which is Good Work

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by Bear Brooks.

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Do you know who Bear Brooks is?

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I know of Bear Brooks.

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I don't know much about.

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Okay.

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So Bear Brooks is the former second-in-command

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at ConvertKit and was basically the operations guy

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when he was there, and he left a couple of years ago.

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He's still a part owner in the company,

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but now he is basically a consultant

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for smaller businesses to help them dial in there,

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their business operations.

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And he started a podcast called Good Work,

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which has quickly become one of my favorites,

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in part because I find the whole concept

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of business operations to be fascinating.

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So if you're hearing me describe that

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and you think that sounds boring,

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like don't bother with this podcast, you're not gonna like it.

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But I think he does a really good job.

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He interviews a lot of interesting people,

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and he's one of the best interviewers that I've heard.

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It's not your standard interviews.

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He is very articulate, very intelligent

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in the way that he frames his questions,

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the conversations that come up as a result

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end up always being great, in my opinion.

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So he was interviewing Paulina Miranova Pompiano

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on his podcast, and that's how I found out about this book,

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Hidden Genius, which I'm not quite sure

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how to classify this book.

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There's an introduction and a conclusion

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and then 10 separate chapters.

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So there's not like sections associated with this,

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which is kind of nice actually.

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The first chapter, Unleashing Your Creative Potential,

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second chapter, Mastering Mental Toughness.

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And then as you go, you get into leadership type topics,

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taking risk in times of uncertainty,

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clarifying your thinking, optimizing your content diet.

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It has an arc to it, but it's very wide ranging.

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And also, I guess just about the book in general here

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before we get into the specifics.

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It is definitely not written as an I am the guru

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and you should listen to what I say type of narrative.

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A lot of the chapters are constructed

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of a lot of the ideas that she has picked up

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from other people, other places.

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But it's also not just a restating of other people's ideas.

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She does a great job sprinkling, in my opinion,

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sprinkling in her own experiences and stories,

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along with what she shares.

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But all that to say, it's a little bit different type of book.

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There's still a lot of great information in here,

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but it's packaged in the form of like a lot of profiles

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and quotes.

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Several of the pages are just a giant quote

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by one of the people in the profiles that she talks about.

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And yeah, what was your first impressions

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when you picked this one up?

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Yeah, so you did a good job given the overview.

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It's a tough book like you were doing

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to try to wrap your head around

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until you've thought about it a little while.

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I think the tagline or like the,

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what is it after the colon, right?

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So you have a title, it's hidden genius and then colon,

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whatever that the subtitle is

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or whatever you wanna call that it.

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The secret ways of thinking

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that power the world's most successful people.

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I think that actually does a really good job.

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In this book that what it's gonna give you

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is it's gonna give you these 10 different ways of thinking

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or 10 different ideas that power,

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I don't like the world's most, but I like successful people.

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Like if you would have just gone,

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the secret ways of thinking that power successful people,

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I think that would be good.

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And that's the way I broke down the 10 chapters is like,

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here's an idea, it's a really interesting idea.

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Here's another idea, it's a really interesting idea.

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And where does it come from?

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I think she does a good job explaining how

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her writing trajectory, in 2020,

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she quits her job and then starts the profile,

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which is this newsletter about,

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it's like profiling people.

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And you can easily see how she goes from there

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to writing this book.

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This book is not just,

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she could have written this book in terms of like,

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here are the 10 best profiles

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and what I learned from those profiles.

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And she didn't do that, she kinda did what

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in the research world, she did all these profiles

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and then said, what is the key theme?

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And then like, so you can see how she created this book.

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I thought that was a good way to do it.

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And we'll talk about the 10 different things,

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but overall, like I think she organized it.

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It's organized well and it's clear, very clear.

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- Yeah, you were talking about the world's

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most successful people.

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And I actually don't mind that descriptor there.

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I get why just taken out of context

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that sounds kind of grandiose and maybe sets a,

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creates a picture of a tone for this book

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that's not really there in my opinion.

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But also one of the things that gave some credibility

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to this book when I was looking at it before I bought it,

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is that there's a blurb on the front cover by James Clear.

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- I knew you were good.

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I knew you were gonna be excited

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about the James Clear stuff that's in here.

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- Yeah, to be honest,

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Atomic Habits is a great book,

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but I don't think it's even my favorite book

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on the topic of habits.

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That would probably be Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg.

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But I do think that James Clear does a great job

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in Atomic Habits.

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And I also think that it's kind of cool

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to see his career trajectory,

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because I knew of him.

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I never actually met him,

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but I knew of him when I was working with Asian efficiency.

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And that was obviously long before he wrote the book

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and he was starting a blog and trying to write consistently

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and build this email newsletter,

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which now he's probably got one of the biggest newsletters

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on the planet, but before he was a big deal,

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he was the guy who was hungry to learn and get better.

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And I appreciate that about him.

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I actually got to interview him

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for the productivity show back in the day.

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That was a fun interview.

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Just seems like a very genuine authentic person,

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in my opinion.

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And those are the people that I like to surround myself with

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and the people I like to listen to.

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So if he is saying that this is a good book,

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that does carry a little bit of weight for me,

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but not just because it's atomic habits

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and that's been at the top of the bestsellers list

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for so long.

00:18:13

- Well, and if you like the books that are covered

00:18:15

on Bookworm, this book fits right in the center of that.

00:18:19

Like a lot of the referenced people in this book

00:18:23

are authors that have either been previously talked about,

00:18:26

right, their books have been read

00:18:28

and we've talked about them previously on the podcast.

00:18:31

So I'm talking James Clear, Morgan Haussel.

00:18:34

I mean, there's quite a few,

00:18:37

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of other ones,

00:18:39

but it's like, there's quite a few here

00:18:40

that we've covered their books or Mike and Joe covered

00:18:43

their books before I came on the show.

00:18:44

So this fits right in the wheelhouse of, you know,

00:18:48

what we do, you know, basically every other week.

00:18:52

- Yep, absolutely.

00:18:54

You will find as you go through it,

00:18:57

that some of the ideas that she's referencing

00:18:59

in these other books, there's a whole lot more to them,

00:19:02

obviously, than she's going to be able to get into

00:19:05

in the context that she has,

00:19:07

but we should probably just dive into the book here.

00:19:10

So let's start with the introduction,

00:19:13

which is the first section here.

00:19:15

And a couple of things to call out in this first section,

00:19:20

for me, she kind of frames it

00:19:24

through the lens of people focused learning

00:19:27

and she's got this emphasis on storytelling,

00:19:30

which I think is really cool.

00:19:32

And essentially what she's saying is that

00:19:35

you can pick up information,

00:19:38

but you remember it more,

00:19:39

and it has more impact a lot of times

00:19:41

when there's a story attached to it.

00:19:43

So people focus learning specifically,

00:19:45

is a notion that people and their stories are at the center

00:19:48

of any learning pursuit.

00:19:50

And I've heard about the power of story

00:19:52

and why stories are important previously,

00:19:55

but something about the way that she framed it here

00:19:57

at the introduction made it click for me.

00:20:01

So this isn't laying the foundation

00:20:04

for the whole concept of hidden genius.

00:20:06

She's just kind of talking about,

00:20:08

this is what I'm going to do throughout the rest of the book,

00:20:11

which I thought was kind of interesting.

00:20:13

- Yeah, and I like how she frames it

00:20:16

in terms of we're not idolizing these people.

00:20:18

So we're not putting them on this overly grandiose pedestal.

00:20:21

What we're doing is basically we're trying to say,

00:20:23

there's something about them or some way that they think

00:20:26

or something they've talked about at some point,

00:20:27

and that's interesting, and let's learn from that,

00:20:30

which I like a lot.

00:20:31

I can also tell you that from the educator in me

00:20:35

says it's very, very true in terms of stories

00:20:40

have a huge impact when you're trying to teach somebody something.

00:20:43

So you'll have a class where what we do,

00:20:46

we came in all day and we just delivered content.

00:20:49

It's fact, fact, definition, fact, equation,

00:20:52

try an example, whatever it is.

00:20:54

And then you'll have other classes

00:20:55

where it's story this, story that, add fact, add definition,

00:21:00

add a show, like I showed use of the formula

00:21:02

within a context.

00:21:04

And the students get way more out of it

00:21:07

if you put it into context through stories,

00:21:09

if you put it into context through design problems

00:21:11

and this type of thing.

00:21:12

So I was on board, right?

00:21:14

When I read the introduction, I was like,

00:21:16

yep, this is gonna be a good way to think about this.

00:21:20

And I'm also a social psychologist,

00:21:23

a social science researcher.

00:21:25

So I was in, right when she said about,

00:21:26

we're gonna learn from other people,

00:21:28

I was like, yeah, let's do this.

00:21:30

- Cool.

00:21:31

All right, so the first chapter,

00:21:33

chapter one is unleashing your creative potential.

00:21:38

She's starting off with a topic

00:21:41

that is very important, inspiring,

00:21:46

and intriguing to me.

00:21:49

The whole idea of creativity

00:21:52

is always kind of fascinated me.

00:21:54

For those who know my story,

00:21:56

at one point I said, I guess I'm just not creative.

00:21:59

I thought I didn't have the gene,

00:22:02

and I looked at what other people could make,

00:22:04

and I was like, that's amazing.

00:22:06

They make it look so easy and effortless.

00:22:09

I obviously can't do what they do.

00:22:12

And I had to kind of learn

00:22:15

that creativity is a process, it's a system,

00:22:20

and kind of started with steel like an artist

00:22:23

by Austin Cleon, where he's talking about,

00:22:27

if you create something new,

00:22:28

you're really just connecting dots

00:22:29

in ways that haven't been connected before.

00:22:32

And that really stuck with me,

00:22:35

and I've been trying to collect better dots for years.

00:22:39

I've noticed through the process

00:22:41

that when I collect better dots,

00:22:43

it's easier to create things.

00:22:45

So just get better inputs,

00:22:47

the outputs get better regardless.

00:22:48

But then as you continue to think about this,

00:22:51

obviously the next step is the process.

00:22:54

And that I think is kind of what she's talking about here.

00:22:57

Creativity is a skill, it can be learned.

00:23:00

There's different ways to approach this.

00:23:04

I just wrote a newsletter as we record this

00:23:06

on my framework for this,

00:23:08

just trying to make sense of it in my own

00:23:10

had on the creativity flywheel.

00:23:12

So I'll put a link to that in the show notes

00:23:14

for people who are interested in that sort of thing.

00:23:16

We don't need to talk through all that.

00:23:18

Today we'll focus on the book here.

00:23:20

But all that to say that I think she has a good job

00:23:24

of talking about the key elements of creativity.

00:23:27

One of the things that I liked that she brought up

00:23:30

was that in the 1500s,

00:23:31

Leonardo Vinci used a process called connecting the unconnected,

00:23:35

which ties into what I was talking about

00:23:37

with Steelick and Artists and connecting these dots.

00:23:40

I mean, they're using a little bit different terminology

00:23:43

to describe this,

00:23:45

but also they're talking about the same things.

00:23:48

And by describing it a different way,

00:23:49

it clicks in my head a little bit better.

00:23:52

I understand it a little bit more fully.

00:23:56

And the story that she shares with this,

00:23:58

which I'd never heard before was kind of interesting,

00:24:01

how Leonardo was standing by a well.

00:24:04

And then he noticed that when a stone hit the water

00:24:06

at the moment, he noticed a stone hitting the water,

00:24:10

the moment that a bell went off at a nearby church tower.

00:24:14

And he saw that the stone caused these circles

00:24:16

that spread until they disappeared.

00:24:18

And then he kind of translated the context and he's like,

00:24:21

"Oh, that's probably what's happening

00:24:23

with the sound waves from the bell,"

00:24:25

which I think is kind of cool.

00:24:28

I mean, there's so much we could talk about with this.

00:24:31

Just one highlight, I guess,

00:24:34

from all the places my brain is racing right now.

00:24:36

I talk about connecting notes in Obsidian a lot

00:24:42

and the videos that I make and stuff like that.

00:24:45

And one of the questions I get asked all the time is,

00:24:47

"Well, should I have separate vaults for this,

00:24:48

that other thing?"

00:24:50

And I'm always like, "No, because I like the fact

00:24:52

that I can take something from one domain

00:24:54

and connect it and apply the concept

00:24:56

to something in a totally different domain."

00:24:58

So I can see a lot of overlap with some of the stories

00:25:03

that she shares with us and my whole approach to creativity.

00:25:08

She also talks about the chef and the cook.

00:25:10

Maybe this is a place for some conversation here

00:25:14

where a chef is someone who creates recipes.

00:25:16

A cook is someone who follows them.

00:25:18

And I think that there's probably a different times

00:25:23

that we should be in cook versus chef modes,

00:25:28

regardless of how creative we think we are,

00:25:31

the type of work that we do.

00:25:33

- I recently got to interact with a guy

00:25:35

who is the chef as she would describe it.

00:25:38

And his job is to create the menu

00:25:41

for different restaurants, right?

00:25:42

And like, so what's he do?

00:25:44

He basically thinks about what flavor combinations

00:25:47

would go together well,

00:25:48

and then what would people want to buy

00:25:49

and how would they want to put plates together.

00:25:53

And then he develops that for like three different restaurants.

00:25:55

And it's like, that's his job.

00:25:56

He doesn't actually cook any of the food

00:25:58

on the nightly basis.

00:26:01

His job is to make the new cool dish at the menu

00:26:05

or on the menu and to develop that new thing.

00:26:08

You talked about kind of making the connections

00:26:12

within Obsidian.

00:26:14

Your episode, I'm not the whole way through it right now,

00:26:16

but your episode interviewing Bob Dotto on Focused

00:26:20

was really, really good.

00:26:21

Like, 'cause that's, I forget whether it was

00:26:23

the second or the third layer,

00:26:24

so you can correct me where it was, but, okay,

00:26:26

we put in these notes and they're just single ideas.

00:26:29

And if we don't go back in

00:26:30

and we don't think about how these notes

00:26:32

connect to the other notes, we're missing it.

00:26:34

Like we're actually missing what we're doing.

00:26:36

It's not the, it's almost like the ingestion of ideas

00:26:42

is table stakes.

00:26:43

We have to do that.

00:26:45

But if we do that and we don't do the second layer

00:26:48

where we try to connect things and, you know,

00:26:50

write these maps of content or I forget what,

00:26:53

what it was called in Dotto's system.

00:26:55

What did he call the one where you try

00:26:57

to put things together?

00:26:59

- Well, he's got a very Zettelkasten approach.

00:27:02

I forget the specific terms that he uses.

00:27:05

I've got a mine node for this.

00:27:08

I'd be actually, I almost picked that book

00:27:10

as the next book for Bookworm,

00:27:12

but I wasn't sure you would actually be interested in it.

00:27:14

So if you're a game.

00:27:17

- I'm totally interested in it.

00:27:18

- All right.

00:27:19

- So, yeah, so, but it's like that, that's that idea.

00:27:21

This creativity isn't, it's, isn't just the capturing

00:27:26

of things or the coming up with the good idea.

00:27:29

It's also the combining different things.

00:27:31

When we, when we teach different entrepreneurship classes,

00:27:35

one of the activities we'd take them through is

00:27:37

we would give them like 15 or 20 different existing things

00:27:42

and we'd say, okay, you're only allowed to create ideas

00:27:45

with these 15 or 20 things, but you have to smoosh them

00:27:47

together and you can smoosh two of them together.

00:27:49

You can smoosh 15 of them together, whatever it is.

00:27:53

And we had some really cool ideas come out of it.

00:27:56

Like one of them that I believe is still a company,

00:28:00

but it's called Cardile and they were like,

00:28:02

we wanna be like the red box of greeting cards.

00:28:06

So what they did was they smoosh together this idea

00:28:09

of red box having this little kiosk that sits

00:28:11

in the middle of your store and then the greeting card aisle

00:28:14

and it's like, how can we smoosh those two things together?

00:28:17

So I really liked that idea of this idea of combinatorials

00:28:21

or combining different things into ideas.

00:28:24

The key takeaway I have from this chapter,

00:28:27

basically these three characteristics, right?

00:28:29

Original creators have three characteristics.

00:28:31

They have a unique point of view.

00:28:32

They're confident they can achieve their goal

00:28:34

and then they're willing to fail spectacularly.

00:28:36

And I was like, man, that's a really good way to do this

00:28:39

because if you think about it,

00:28:41

like that's a lot of the people I like to watch on YouTube

00:28:45

or I like to listen to, it's like they do have a good idea,

00:28:48

a good point of view, that's why I cared about listening to them.

00:28:51

Two, they do it well or they've done the work

00:28:54

or they've practiced to do it well.

00:28:56

And then three, right?

00:28:58

There's a good chance that it's gonna fail.

00:28:59

I kinda wish that more of them would be willing to fail more

00:29:03

and to throw those things out there and be like, hey,

00:29:07

that thing we did two weeks ago, it was not good.

00:29:10

And we learned a lot from the fact that it wasn't good

00:29:12

and we're not gonna do that anymore.

00:29:14

Because I just think there's a creative honesty in that.

00:29:17

That we were trying to think and it just didn't go

00:29:19

the way we thought it was gonna go.

00:29:20

So that was kind of my big takeaway from that section

00:29:25

was that were those three points,

00:29:26

those three unique characteristics.

00:29:28

- I like that term creative honesty.

00:29:31

Never heard it framed that way,

00:29:32

but yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

00:29:34

- You do something with your YouTube channel

00:29:36

and then come back the next video and we're like, nope,

00:29:39

just didn't work.

00:29:40

Like that was not very good.

00:29:42

And I put it out there and feedback says it's not very good

00:29:45

and I don't think it's very good and everybody would just go,

00:29:47

oh yeah, okay, that makes sense.

00:29:48

Now if you do that a lot, right?

00:29:50

We're gonna stop watching, right?

00:29:52

Like, you know, people are gonna stop caring

00:29:53

and stop paying attention.

00:29:54

But if you do it every so often

00:29:55

'cause you were trying that new thing on the front edge,

00:29:58

I think it's awesome.

00:30:00

- Yeah, you're kind of hitting on one of the struggles I have

00:30:04

with making the stuff for YouTube

00:30:06

and I mentioned the Pro Vault earlier,

00:30:09

but I don't wanna put something out there

00:30:11

that isn't tested that I haven't used for a long time.

00:30:16

And so it's hard for me to do that

00:30:19

because I feel like, well, I've only been using this

00:30:21

for three months, six months, 12 months, two years,

00:30:23

but at this point, you know, at some point,

00:30:28

it is battle tested enough,

00:30:29

but I have trouble saying that publicly

00:30:31

'cause I feel like the minute that you put it out there,

00:30:34

you are endorsing this as essentially a bulletproof system

00:30:37

even if you're not really saying that.

00:30:40

So interesting.

00:30:42

All right, ready to go on to the next one?

00:30:44

- I am.

00:30:45

- All right, so chapter two is Mastering Mental Toughness

00:30:50

and the main character from the story of this one

00:30:54

is David Goggins, excellent choice.

00:30:57

Do you know? - It was an excellent choice.

00:30:58

- Yeah, so you're familiar with David Goggins,

00:31:00

it sounds like-- - Have you read

00:31:01

many of his books?

00:31:02

- Not many, I've read, can't hurt me,

00:31:05

and that's enough. - Yeah.

00:31:08

- Okay.

00:31:09

That was difficult to get through.

00:31:11

(laughs)

00:31:12

Number one, it's a very emotional

00:31:16

and somewhat disturbing story that he tells from his life.

00:31:21

And then the other thing is just,

00:31:22

there is so much language.

00:31:24

(laughs)

00:31:25

- Yeah.

00:31:26

- The other thing, or the thing that gets me is

00:31:29

what you said, but additionally,

00:31:31

his mindset is so radical.

00:31:34

- Yes.

00:31:35

- It is so different than most of the world.

00:31:37

And he'll say that.

00:31:38

Like he will 100% say that to you.

00:31:41

And if you ever listened to him be interviewed by anybody,

00:31:44

like he knows that he is not like other people

00:31:47

and that for him to live the life he wants to live,

00:31:49

he cannot be like other people.

00:31:51

So, but if you're gonna pick a mental toughness

00:31:56

example, man, Goggins is no.

00:31:59

It's not a bad choice, let's just put it that way.

00:32:02

- Yeah, probably him and Jaco are the other one

00:32:05

that would fit here.

00:32:06

And just by using those two names,

00:32:08

there's gonna be people who are familiar with them

00:32:11

as characters and instantly bristle at the message.

00:32:16

And what I wanna call out in this book is that

00:32:19

you don't have to be as crazy as the Goggins are Jaco willing

00:32:23

in order to benefit from some elements of the message

00:32:27

that they share.

00:32:28

So what Palina is doing a great job of in this chapter

00:32:33

is distilling the core principles

00:32:37

that just about anybody can apply.

00:32:39

So if you were to summarize what the big takeaway is

00:32:44

from David Goggins story, essentially it's

00:32:46

you're tougher than you think.

00:32:48

And there's a couple things specifically that she calls out

00:32:51

that he talks about. One is the 40% rule.

00:32:54

And according to David Goggins, this is when your mind

00:32:57

is telling you that you're done, you can't go any further,

00:32:59

you've actually only, you're only about 40% done.

00:33:02

I get the number mixed up, but it's below 50%.

00:33:05

That's what I wanna just clarify here.

00:33:08

You've got a whole lot more in the tank

00:33:10

than what you think you do.

00:33:12

And then the other thing which I think is maybe less useful

00:33:16

is the accountability mirror, which is something David

00:33:19

Goggins uses where you face your insecurities

00:33:21

in order to overcome them.

00:33:23

And it makes sense if you know his story

00:33:26

because he grew up in a terrible situation,

00:33:30

ran away from an abusive father

00:33:32

and was just struggling.

00:33:34

Was way overweight, was spraying cockroaches

00:33:40

as like a pest control thing.

00:33:42

And one day it was like, what am I doing with my life?

00:33:44

And so the way that he got himself to change

00:33:47

was look in the mirror, say you're fat, you're lazy,

00:33:50

you're a liar, what are you gonna do about it?

00:33:52

(laughs)

00:33:54

I don't think I'm gonna practice that,

00:33:57

but I do have an action item from this though.

00:34:01

So one of the things that David Goggins

00:34:04

has made a career of doing is finding something

00:34:08

that in his words sucks and do it every day.

00:34:12

So that's one of my action items,

00:34:14

is do something that sucks every day.

00:34:16

Yeah, see, and as we were talking earlier,

00:34:18

six months from now, I would love to follow up on that

00:34:21

and be like, Mike, what are the sucky things

00:34:25

that you've done every day?

00:34:27

So just to kind of bring that around, that'd be fun.

00:34:29

Yeah, well, to be honest, if I knew that I was gonna

00:34:34

be reporting on the six months from now,

00:34:36

I may not do it.

00:34:37

(laughs)

00:34:39

So I kind of selfishly like the fact

00:34:42

that I can find something sucky and do that

00:34:47

and check this as done,

00:34:49

is like I've at least moved in that direction.

00:34:50

Now it's not the intention, I set it in the action item.

00:34:53

I want to do something that sucks every day.

00:34:56

But this could, this doesn't have to be something

00:34:59

that I really, really am not looking forward to doing

00:35:02

and have been procrastinating on for months.

00:35:05

I view this as just doing something difficult,

00:35:10

when I'm hungry and I forgot to pack a lunch,

00:35:14

instead of going to get food, maybe I decide,

00:35:19

no, you're just gonna fast today

00:35:20

'cause I do that occasionally.

00:35:22

That's really not that big a deal,

00:35:25

but that's what this looks like for me.

00:35:27

And it's really just small doses of this self-discipline

00:35:33

or self-control maybe.

00:35:36

She talks about the four pillars of mental toughness here,

00:35:38

which maybe we should talk about these

00:35:40

before we get too far.

00:35:41

Goal setting, mental visualization, positive self-talk,

00:35:44

and then arousal control.

00:35:46

So essentially when you feel like doing something,

00:35:48

you don't have to follow through and do that,

00:35:51

you can actually control that.

00:35:53

And for me, I think that applies a lot of different ways.

00:35:58

It could be, like I said, with food.

00:36:01

It could be, I'm just feeling tired

00:36:02

and I don't really want to go work out

00:36:04

or go for a run today,

00:36:05

but I'm gonna force myself to do it.

00:36:09

I don't have a specific use case in mind for this,

00:36:13

but I can totally get on board with the benefit

00:36:15

of practicing this regularly.

00:36:18

- Yeah.

00:36:19

- One of the ways that she talks about people

00:36:23

being able to do this is through the act of referring

00:36:28

to oneself in a third person or Iliism.

00:36:31

And one way of doing this is to create an alter ego.

00:36:34

And David Goggins calls it Goggins,

00:36:37

so he'll refer to Goggins when you're talking to him

00:36:40

and it sounds kind of weird.

00:36:41

But she shared some other examples

00:36:43

which I thought were kind of cool.

00:36:44

Beyonce has one called Sasha Fierce,

00:36:48

which is her stage personality

00:36:49

and it was her way of overcoming her own personality

00:36:54

when she was nervous to perform.

00:36:57

Kobe Bryant had one where he referred to it

00:36:59

as the black mamba, right?

00:37:02

And I like the way that she explained this

00:37:05

because I've heard different versions

00:37:07

of this sort of thing in the past.

00:37:09

And it always kind of seemed halfway between

00:37:13

this person is delusional and maybe they're possessed.

00:37:17

(laughs)

00:37:19

The way that they referred to it.

00:37:21

But the way that Palino was describing it in this book,

00:37:25

it's recognizing that your default personality

00:37:31

is not going to embrace some of these hard things

00:37:35

that are worth doing.

00:37:37

And so by changing your identity a little bit,

00:37:42

you can make it easier to do that

00:37:44

because the black mamba has hit the game-winning shot

00:37:48

so many times.

00:37:49

So when Kobe Bryant is sitting in the timeout

00:37:53

in the drawn up the play, he can say,

00:37:56

"Get me the ball," because he's been there before,

00:37:58

even if it feels like that wasn't actually him

00:38:02

that was doing it.

00:38:03

We've all kind of been in those situations

00:38:04

probably where we were pushed beyond our limits

00:38:07

and we did things we didn't think we could do.

00:38:09

That's the picture I get with these alter egos.

00:38:13

- And this is where I think she could have done

00:38:15

a little bit of a better job tying this whole chapter together.

00:38:19

It felt like a couple of different pieces

00:38:21

that weren't tied together or I didn't tie it together.

00:38:25

Like I didn't listen to her tie together well enough.

00:38:27

Like I got distracted during that point when I was reading it.

00:38:30

But you get this idea of listening

00:38:32

versus talking to yourself, self-distraction,

00:38:34

and then the identity piece.

00:38:36

And I think these are the three core things

00:38:38

that really, really tie together.

00:38:39

So she has a clear, James Clear reference

00:38:43

that says your current behaviors

00:38:44

are simply a reflection of your current identity.

00:38:46

Well, okay, so if we think about that, right?

00:38:47

My current behaviors are a reflection of my current identity.

00:38:51

So you've ever do talk about this before of like,

00:38:53

"I am a runner."

00:38:54

So what do runners do?

00:38:55

Runners run.

00:38:56

So therefore like, my behaviors running

00:38:59

is tied to my identity.

00:39:00

I'm a runner, right?

00:39:01

Like so, and when we do this all over the place,

00:39:03

like I am a father, I am a professor,

00:39:05

I am whatever, you know, whatever it might be.

00:39:07

So therefore my behaviors tie into that.

00:39:09

Well, when my behaviors don't tie into that

00:39:12

the way I want them to,

00:39:14

then there's this idea of self-distancing.

00:39:15

Well, if I self-distance and I create this alter ego

00:39:19

or I create this other thing that says,

00:39:21

"This is the behavior I wanna have,"

00:39:22

no, sorry, this would be the identity I wanna have,

00:39:25

which then would lead to these other behaviors,

00:39:27

that self-distancing allows me to do that.

00:39:29

So for instance, Beyonce,

00:39:31

I wanna go on stage and just command the stage,

00:39:34

but my current identity does not lead me to do that.

00:39:38

So what do I do?

00:39:38

I create this self-distanced, you know, alter ego

00:39:43

that then is allowed or enables me to go on stage

00:39:47

and command that stage.

00:39:49

And the way that is enacted,

00:39:50

I think is a lot of times by talking to yourself, right?

00:39:53

Like so, who am I?

00:39:54

Like I just switched into, you know, Kobe Bryant.

00:39:56

I just switched into Black Mamba mode.

00:39:58

So what am I gonna do?

00:39:59

I'm gonna go out there and I'm just gonna,

00:40:00

I'm gonna own the court, right?

00:40:01

I'm gonna absolutely own the court.

00:40:02

I'm gonna hit the game, winning shot.

00:40:03

I'm gonna do all those things.

00:40:05

Would Kobe Bryant do those things?

00:40:07

Maybe, maybe not.

00:40:08

Would Black Mamba, yes.

00:40:09

Like without a doubt, 100%.

00:40:10

And it's like, when you put those three pieces together,

00:40:14

this is like a really interesting framework

00:40:17

or a really interesting, you know,

00:40:18

system for lack of a better word,

00:40:20

to get yourself, sorry, to encourage yourself

00:40:23

to do things that you wouldn't normally do.

00:40:26

And then how does that turn into the next point

00:40:29

she brings up in this chapter

00:40:30

of this idea of like metamorphosis?

00:40:32

Like, okay, so now we're gonna actually change my identity.

00:40:35

We're gonna change who I am.

00:40:37

And then she says about Beyonce

00:40:39

being able to drop the Sasha Fierce at some point

00:40:42

where it's like, oh, I didn't need her anymore.

00:40:44

Like that alter ego went away.

00:40:46

And now this is just who I am.

00:40:48

Like I go out there and I run the show.

00:40:50

Like I control the stage and it's my show

00:40:54

and it's my concert and I'm gonna just captivate the audience.

00:40:57

And it's like, wow, I could actually see

00:40:59

that being an effective thing.

00:41:01

My challenge with this, you know,

00:41:03

as I think about like doing this, it's like,

00:41:05

well, what the heck do I want that like identity to be?

00:41:07

Right?

00:41:08

You know, so the point, like, you know,

00:41:10

I lose it on the, well, what identity do I want it to be?

00:41:12

And then how do I alter ego down to behaviors

00:41:15

and talk to myself and it's like,

00:41:16

"What?"

00:41:17

It's like, oh, that gets a little jumbled in my head.

00:41:19

But I like the framework, like I like the system.

00:41:23

- Yeah, I agree.

00:41:24

I don't know exactly what it would look like for me either.

00:41:27

And maybe that means I don't necessarily need it.

00:41:32

But I don't think it needs to be like a crazy thing.

00:41:35

Like one of the ways I could see this being played out

00:41:40

is if you're an author and you've got a pen name.

00:41:43

That's another identity that you're publishing under.

00:41:47

People are familiar with that person.

00:41:50

And it could be just a way for sharing things

00:41:53

that you have trouble verbalizing

00:41:58

in your everyday identity.

00:42:01

I don't know, I can see value in flipping that switch

00:42:03

and being like, oh, well, Mike is this way.

00:42:07

And I hesitate to even say this

00:42:09

because I've done hard things for long enough

00:42:12

that I've seen my preferences change.

00:42:14

I was the one who never wanted to be on the stage.

00:42:18

And then I started doing podcasts and then webinars

00:42:22

and then public speaking.

00:42:23

And I realized that holy cow, while this is still terrifying,

00:42:26

it's also very rewarding.

00:42:27

- Yeah.

00:42:28

- So, yeah.

00:42:30

But if you're trying to get to that point,

00:42:33

and you're wrestling with the story

00:42:34

that you're telling yourself,

00:42:35

well, I'm just this shy, quiet, whatever.

00:42:39

Embracing an alter ego is a quick way to,

00:42:42

no, I don't have to act that way.

00:42:45

- So, I think we're gonna transition into chapter three.

00:42:48

- Let's do it.

00:42:49

- But like, this is where the book is a little bit strange to me

00:42:54

because I'm used to books having like a thread

00:42:57

that ties one section to the other.

00:42:59

But like the thread here is mainly just like a,

00:43:02

well, it's like a two sentence thing

00:43:05

at the end of every chapter that says,

00:43:07

and now if you've thought about mental toughness,

00:43:10

let's move into healthy relationships

00:43:11

and you're like, wait, what?

00:43:13

Like, what?

00:43:14

Like creativity, mental toughness,

00:43:17

unlocking healthy relationships?

00:43:18

Like, yes, this is a good thing.

00:43:20

We should be thinking about this,

00:43:22

but it really had nothing to do with creativity

00:43:23

or, you know, mental toughness.

00:43:26

So, I think this is one of those things

00:43:28

that caught me off guard,

00:43:29

and I had to like think about that tagline of the book

00:43:31

and be like, no, no, we're just talking about principles here,

00:43:34

and every chapter's gonna be a principle,

00:43:35

and we don't have to weave them together super well.

00:43:38

Yeah, it does feel a little bit weird that they aren't

00:43:41

woven together, but I'm also not sure how you would do that.

00:43:44

Agreed.

00:43:45

And I don't think it's necessary.

00:43:48

I mean, see the last episode where we had issues with,

00:43:52

where they tried to do that forcefully,

00:43:55

but yeah, unlocking healthy relationships

00:43:57

is kind of weird following mastering mental toughness,

00:44:00

maybe just because you don't, I don't know,

00:44:04

David Goggins to, now for something completely different.

00:44:08

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:44:10

But let's just tackle the content of this chapter.

00:44:13

I do think it's actually really good.

00:44:16

One of the things that she talks about in this chapter

00:44:18

is a trust battery, where when you enter into a personal

00:44:22

or a professional relationship with someone,

00:44:25

visualizing the trust that you have with that person

00:44:28

as being roughly 50%, and then every interaction,

00:44:32

either charging or discharging that battery a little bit.

00:44:36

I had never thought about this in terms of a battery,

00:44:39

but it definitely reminded me of an idea from,

00:44:43

I think it was Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits

00:44:45

of How They Affected People, the relational bank account,

00:44:48

where you are either making deposits or withdrawals all the time.

00:44:53

And the other thing with the battery metaphor

00:44:56

was it reminded me of an article/podcast

00:45:02

that I came across by Michael Hyatt a long time ago

00:45:06

in terms of emotional intelligence

00:45:09

and working with other people saying,

00:45:12

don't hire people unless the batteries are included.

00:45:15

So it's a little bit different approach here,

00:45:17

but essentially his point was there are two types of people,

00:45:20

when it comes to work teams, the ones where you feel

00:45:22

like you're dragging them along all the time

00:45:24

and their life taking, or the ones who are go-getters

00:45:28

and they're a joy to work with and their life giving.

00:45:30

So they either have their own energy source

00:45:32

or they don't in the words of that blog post by Michael Hyatt.

00:45:36

And this was several years ago,

00:45:37

so I'm not even sure if this blog post is still on the web,

00:45:39

I'll see if I can find it,

00:45:41

put it in the show notes if it's there.

00:45:43

But all of these things are bouncing around in my brain

00:45:46

as I go through this and then she mentions the ratio,

00:45:49

the five to one ratio,

00:45:51

where happy couples have five positive interactions

00:45:54

for each negative interaction.

00:45:56

I don't have a specific action item associated with this,

00:45:58

but I have to admit that I am thinking about this.

00:46:00

And not in terms of, well, what am I getting,

00:46:04

but what am I giving?

00:46:06

When my wife has an interaction with me,

00:46:08

is it a positive one or is it a negative one?

00:46:11

And that's kind of spilling over

00:46:12

into other relationships as well.

00:46:14

I'm not necessarily keeping score.

00:46:16

That could be a valid action item.

00:46:18

I don't really wanna do that though,

00:46:20

I just wanna be aware of this.

00:46:21

And I wanna do my part in terms of the interactions

00:46:24

that I have with other people.

00:46:27

I can't control what other people are going to do

00:46:29

or what other people are going to say,

00:46:32

but I can control how I make somebody else feel.

00:46:36

And if I'm in control of that,

00:46:38

then there's the chance of me getting thrown off

00:46:42

and upset by something small,

00:46:44

because when that stuff happens,

00:46:46

I tend to brew on it and it just kind of permeates everything.

00:46:50

That's what I wanna avoid.

00:46:52

And I feel like by controlling what I can control

00:46:56

and trying to make a positive interaction for somebody else,

00:47:00

I'm significantly and exponentially increasing

00:47:02

the likelihood of that interaction

00:47:04

being positive for me as well.

00:47:06

- The five to one ratio was definitely something

00:47:09

that stood out to me.

00:47:10

And I've thought about that multiple times since I read it.

00:47:13

The other one was the bids.

00:47:15

And bids are random requests for connection made

00:47:17

throughout the day.

00:47:19

And I was like, oh my goodness,

00:47:20

I see this all the time, right?

00:47:22

I see where somebody throws that thing out there.

00:47:25

And it isn't intense.

00:47:27

It isn't like, what am I starting to say?

00:47:29

Like grandiose or I don't know what word.

00:47:31

Like it's not this huge thing.

00:47:32

It's more a matter of,

00:47:33

I wanna talk to you and connect with you.

00:47:37

Are you going to respond to me about this thing, right?

00:47:40

Like are you going to engage with me about this thing?

00:47:42

And this is one of those things that I tie

00:47:45

into the problem with cell phones and social media.

00:47:48

And our distraction is like,

00:47:50

I think people throw these bids out all the time,

00:47:52

but we're too distracted by other things

00:47:56

that we don't acknowledge the bid and engage

00:47:59

where before we used to acknowledge the bid and engage.

00:48:02

Why? 'Cause we weren't distracted 24 hours a day.

00:48:04

Like we weren't, it's like, oh yeah, okay.

00:48:05

Like I'll entertain this thing.

00:48:07

And I think it's a potential area

00:48:10

where emotional connection is not happening.

00:48:15

It's not being achieved where it was before.

00:48:17

Like it was before we had so many distractions.

00:48:20

So that was another big one I took away from this.

00:48:24

The last one I took away from this chapter

00:48:25

was the Charlie Munger's Invert Always Invert

00:48:29

where you flip the problem by asking,

00:48:32

"What would ruin or be the worst action for this thing?"

00:48:35

And I think about this one from like a work

00:48:38

or a family standpoint.

00:48:39

It's like, okay, instead of thinking,

00:48:41

what would the best trip to whatever mountain town be?

00:48:45

And it's like, okay, that's an idea.

00:48:47

And then what would be the worst experience?

00:48:49

How do we avoid the worst experience for that trip?

00:48:54

I really like that Invert Always Invert idea.

00:48:57

- Yeah, I like the trust formula that she has

00:49:01

where trust equals consistency plus time.

00:49:05

And she hits on the fact that both negative

00:49:08

and positive actions compound to build or destroy trust.

00:49:12

And the more consistent the action is,

00:49:14

the faster the compounding.

00:49:17

I don't have anything specific associated with that,

00:49:19

but it definitely has my wheels turning.

00:49:21

- Yeah, this chapter, I mean, they've all been good so far,

00:49:25

but this chapter was the one that really kind of sunk in.

00:49:29

It's the one I remember probably the most out of the book.

00:49:32

- Nice.

00:49:33

All right, ready for chapter four?

00:49:35

- I am.

00:49:36

- All right, chapter four is telling better stories.

00:49:41

This one I think I probably expected a little bit sooner

00:49:45

based off of the introduction.

00:49:48

But I don't think that there's a whole lot in here

00:49:52

that was life changing either.

00:49:55

My big takeaway from this is that we are all unreliable

00:49:59

narrators of our own lives.

00:50:02

And there are three sides to every story,

00:50:05

which I never thought about it this way,

00:50:06

but there's your side, there's my side,

00:50:09

and then there's the truth.

00:50:11

So typically you would think about that

00:50:12

as there are two sides to every story

00:50:15

as a way to think about what does the other person

00:50:18

think about this, but by framing it this way,

00:50:21

there are three sides to every story.

00:50:22

Essentially what you're saying is that

00:50:25

even when you compare notes, my perspective

00:50:29

and your perspective, each of those is going to be colored

00:50:34

in some way, and it's not gonna be the canonical

00:50:38

truthful version of what actually happened.

00:50:42

So I think that's valuable.

00:50:44

Again, not necessarily an action item associated with it,

00:50:47

but just recognize that because I have my own version

00:50:50

of the story I'm telling myself,

00:50:51

this is what happened, that doesn't mean

00:50:54

that that's actually what happened.

00:50:56

And I know this, one of my favorite quotes by Ed Cole

00:51:01

is that we tend to judge others by their actions

00:51:04

and ourselves by our intentions.

00:51:07

So what does that mean?

00:51:08

It means that if I do something jerky to Corey,

00:51:13

I feel like, well, he understands that I didn't mean

00:51:17

to do that, and he's actually thinking,

00:51:20

Mike's a jerk because he did this,

00:51:21

and he knows that I hate this, but if we're flip-flopped,

00:51:26

then it would be the other way around.

00:51:28

I wouldn't be thinking about, well,

00:51:30

what did Corey actually intend to do?

00:51:32

And you can flip these scripts,

00:51:34

but that's just kind of the default pathways in our brains.

00:51:39

So, yeah, just recognizing that there are multiple versions

00:51:44

to what's going in or what actually happened.

00:51:48

And then when there is uncertainty,

00:51:51

we tend to fill in the blanks with things

00:51:53

that are terrifying instead of positive.

00:51:55

I used to think that maybe you are generally more positive,

00:51:59

optimistic or generally more negative or pessimistic.

00:52:02

And because my brain would always fill in those blanks

00:52:05

with the negative stuff,

00:52:06

therefore I was a pessimistic individual,

00:52:08

I actually think that's not really the case anymore.

00:52:13

I think she's right that even if you are an optimist,

00:52:17

there is an element of this.

00:52:19

Maybe I'm wrong and you can add some more context to this.

00:52:23

Do you consider yourself to be generally optimistic

00:52:25

or pessimistic, Corey?

00:52:27

- I'm optimistic.

00:52:28

Yeah, I'm optimistic.

00:52:29

And then the other one I would put in there is realistic.

00:52:33

So there's optimistic, there's pessimistic,

00:52:35

and then there's realistic, right?

00:52:36

Where I tend to be more on the optimistic side,

00:52:38

my wife would tend to be on the more realistic side.

00:52:40

So she's definitely very optimistic,

00:52:42

but she leans way more realistic than I do.

00:52:44

Like I like to get out there and be like,

00:52:46

what if, and she's like, no, Corey,

00:52:48

that's just not gonna work.

00:52:49

- Do you still struggle with this?

00:52:51

Do you fill in the blanks with terrifying things

00:52:54

or is that just not something that you deal with?

00:52:57

- No, I don't fill in blanks with terrifying things

00:53:00

'cause I've done enough work now to know that,

00:53:03

if I just don't know something,

00:53:04

I just let it sit there as a black box

00:53:06

and say, I don't know this,

00:53:08

we'd have to find more information out about this

00:53:10

before we would make any kind of decision.

00:53:13

- Okay.

00:53:14

Well, maybe I am a little bit more pessimistic than I do.

00:53:16

- I don't know.

00:53:17

(laughs)

00:53:19

- Yeah.

00:53:21

We're gonna do this chapter fast

00:53:22

because there weren't a huge number of takeaways from me

00:53:26

on this one, but I did get an action item out of this one.

00:53:28

And it was the exercise where she starts

00:53:30

and has tried this exercise.

00:53:32

So start with a blank sheet right about a situation

00:53:34

that's making you anxious from your perspective.

00:53:35

And the word anxious there isn't relevant to me,

00:53:38

but it's like something that you're thinking about,

00:53:41

something that's bothering you,

00:53:42

something that's on your mind, right?

00:53:43

Like, so write it out from your perspective

00:53:47

and then write about it from someone else's perspective

00:53:50

or a different character in the situation.

00:53:53

So, you know, I could think about it

00:53:55

in a bunch of different ways.

00:53:56

There's a bunch of different contexts for this,

00:53:58

but I wanna try this one

00:54:00

and see what comes out of it.

00:54:02

Like, okay, here's this thing.

00:54:04

I'm thinking about it a lot.

00:54:05

It's really on my mind.

00:54:07

How is so-and-so thinking about it?

00:54:10

Are they even thinking about it?

00:54:11

You know, like it may not be,

00:54:12

it may just be a blip on their radar,

00:54:14

and I wanna see what it does to my own perspective of it.

00:54:17

So basically tell the story from another perspective,

00:54:20

and I wanna see how that goes.

00:54:22

- Nice, I like that.

00:54:24

All right, the fifth chapter

00:54:28

is becoming a more effective leader.

00:54:32

And to be honest, I don't think that

00:54:37

I wanna talk a whole lot about the stuff that's in this chapter

00:54:42

because this is a really big topic

00:54:47

and it's a surface level discussion

00:54:50

of some real important leadership stuff.

00:54:52

The big takeaways for me from this

00:54:57

are to make new mistakes every day,

00:54:59

don't just make the same ones over and over,

00:55:02

which I guess in a weird way,

00:55:05

I need permission to do that.

00:55:08

Starting a creator business,

00:55:12

I put a lot of pressure on myself,

00:55:14

gotta make this work,

00:55:15

and I feel like there's not really room for error.

00:55:18

I feel like any mistake that I make

00:55:20

could very negatively impact not just the business,

00:55:24

but also my family.

00:55:25

So this framing is kind of like,

00:55:27

well, you're gonna make mistakes,

00:55:29

so it just makes different mistakes.

00:55:31

So it's a different way of thinking about it,

00:55:33

it takes a little bit of pressure off, I think.

00:55:36

And then there's also a big emphasis in here about systems,

00:55:38

which obviously I like,

00:55:41

focus on the system, not the outcome.

00:55:43

We've heard different versions of that

00:55:45

in different books that we've read,

00:55:48

but essentially what that means is you can't judge

00:55:50

whether a system is working or not working

00:55:52

simply by an isolated outcome.

00:55:55

Well, one of the things that stands out to me as an example,

00:55:58

not from this book, but from Grit, I think,

00:56:01

about making good decisions was when Pete Carroll,

00:56:06

the coach of the Seattle Seahawks,

00:56:07

decided to go for it on fourth down in the Super Bowl,

00:56:10

and they threw a pass,

00:56:11

and it was picked off as opposed to running the ball.

00:56:15

And you can look at the outcome,

00:56:16

be like, well, obviously that was the wrong decision,

00:56:19

but you can always look at the outcome and say,

00:56:20

well, maybe that was the wrong decision.

00:56:23

Based on the percentages,

00:56:25

all the analytics would say that was the right decision,

00:56:30

it just wasn't the right outcome.

00:56:32

So disconnecting those two, I think, is important.

00:56:37

And then always understand the system

00:56:39

of how you got where you are.

00:56:42

I don't know exactly how you do this.

00:56:44

I think it's an important encouragement

00:56:47

to be considering that, but again,

00:56:49

I think it's necessarily simple.

00:56:52

There's a lot of depth to that statement,

00:56:55

but it's something that I want to keep in mind.

00:56:57

And then the very last thing,

00:56:59

this is all kind of related in my head,

00:57:00

but there's a quote from Nick Saban,

00:57:02

don't look at the scoreboard, play the next play.

00:57:05

- Yeah.

00:57:06

- I think that is a very good encouragement,

00:57:10

especially when you're trying to do something big,

00:57:12

you can get paralyzed by how big something is.

00:57:17

And I've been in that place myself

00:57:20

where it's hard to wake up in the morning

00:57:23

and do the thing because it just feels

00:57:26

like such a monumental, heavy lift.

00:57:29

But when you break it down and you are just focused on

00:57:33

run the next play, that feels a lot more feasible.

00:57:38

- Yeah, this is probably the chapter

00:57:42

that I was left wanting.

00:57:44

I was like, "Ah, I just want more.

00:57:46

"I just want more.

00:57:46

"I just want more."

00:57:48

Not that what's in here is bad or not good,

00:57:50

but it's more a matter of just,

00:57:52

there's so much here to talk about.

00:57:53

It's such a deep and wide topic, right?

00:57:57

I mean, leadership is all over the place.

00:58:00

But the main takeaway that I got out of here is

00:58:04

that the leaders should invert the pyramid

00:58:07

and try to be the very bottom.

00:58:09

And I was like, wow, that's a really interesting way

00:58:12

to think about that.

00:58:13

It's like, you aren't trying to be the top,

00:58:15

the pinnacle, the ideal person in the organization.

00:58:19

You're basically trying to be the person

00:58:21

who enables everything else to get done

00:58:23

and gives everyone else the ability to do their job better.

00:58:29

And then there's another thing in here

00:58:31

where the best leaders are those that become invisible.

00:58:34

And it's like, man, what a counterintuitive way

00:58:36

to think about leadership?

00:58:38

'Cause that's not what you see in the media,

00:58:40

that's not what you see anywhere else.

00:58:41

It's like, oh, this person's out there and they're loud

00:58:43

and they're doing this thing and they're doing that thing.

00:58:45

And it's like, but there's a lot of leadership,

00:58:47

sorry, there's a lot of leaders who practice

00:58:49

this leadership where it's like, my whole job

00:58:51

is to just make you be the best that you can be

00:58:53

or help you be the best that you can be.

00:58:56

And then enable all of that stuff.

00:58:58

And I'm like, man, what a good way to think about leadership

00:59:02

is it's a very, she ties it into servant leadership

00:59:05

and the idea of servant leadership.

00:59:07

But just take the focus off myself

00:59:10

and put it more on you all and the people

00:59:14

that I am leading and how can I enable them

00:59:17

to be the best that they can be.

00:59:19

So I think that was my big takeaway.

00:59:23

I was underwhelmed by the systems discussion.

00:59:28

Like, I liked that it was there.

00:59:31

I really was excited that it was there.

00:59:34

And I think that's definitely the mindset to have,

00:59:37

but man, I just wanted more.

00:59:38

Like I just wanted so much more on the practical nature

00:59:42

of it, but I don't think that's the nature of this book.

00:59:44

Like I don't think she was trying to be,

00:59:46

give us all the practical stuff out of it.

00:59:48

But that's what I wanted.

00:59:49

Like when I was reading it, I was like,

00:59:50

oh, more, more, more, more on the systems.

00:59:53

- Yeah, we'll have to read a systems book together

00:59:55

at some point. - Yeah.

00:59:56

- And just thing to hear you talk about

00:59:58

the inverted pyramid, I jotted that down in my notes,

01:00:02

but it didn't really hit me.

01:00:05

I think because I had read a different version of this

01:00:10

a long time ago within the five levels of leadership

01:00:13

by John Maxwell.

01:00:15

And that did hit me when I read it,

01:00:17

because essentially that was saying

01:00:19

that the higher you go in the pyramid,

01:00:22

the less it's about you and the more it's about the people

01:00:27

that you're helping people that you're serving,

01:00:30

which was a radical idea to me at the time,

01:00:33

because you tend to think of like the leaders

01:00:35

being the people at the top of the pyramid

01:00:38

and they've earned the right to demand all these things

01:00:42

and the people that are following them.

01:00:44

And he was basically saying like,

01:00:44

no, the more that you ascend that pyramid,

01:00:48

the less selfish you can afford to be,

01:00:52

and the more it's about the people that you're serving.

01:00:57

So I guess if you're interested in that topic

01:00:59

and wanna go deeper,

01:01:00

five levels of leadership by John Maxwell.

01:01:02

Great next step. - Oh, and the other one,

01:01:04

which I know you've read, and I haven't read it yet,

01:01:06

but leaders eat last, right?

01:01:07

Like how would that tie into,

01:01:09

how would that tie into this concept?

01:01:12

- That's a good question.

01:01:15

I read that book a long time ago,

01:01:18

so I'm not,

01:01:20

I'm a little bit fuzzy on all the details

01:01:22

without pulling up the notes in front of me.

01:01:25

I do remember the big idea being there,

01:01:28

that the story from that book essentially was

01:01:31

they've got these mess halls

01:01:32

and in the army or the Air Force

01:01:35

and the higher up you were in the food chain

01:01:41

the longer you waited to eat everyone ate before you,

01:01:44

hence the name of the book, leaders eat last.

01:01:47

So I think there's probably a lot of parallels there,

01:01:52

but John Maxwell just has a great way

01:01:54

of creating these frameworks

01:01:56

that help you understand things.

01:01:59

So Simon Cinex's book was really good.

01:02:00

It was one of my favorite books that I've ever read.

01:02:03

Some of those stories still stick with me,

01:02:05

including the one about how we arrived

01:02:08

at the divisive political atmosphere

01:02:13

that we find ourselves in.

01:02:15

He actually traces it back to this decision

01:02:17

that New Gingrich made in like 1990 something

01:02:20

where they changed a rule that allowed

01:02:22

Republicans and Democrats to go back

01:02:24

to their home districts during the week.

01:02:27

Before that everybody lived in the same neighborhoods.

01:02:31

Their kids went to the same school,

01:02:32

so you humanize the other side.

01:02:34

Now it's very us against them, very tribal.

01:02:38

So interesting.

01:02:40

Yeah, I think it's probably a different perspective

01:02:43

on a lot of the same stuff, same ideas.

01:02:47

All right, let's talk about taking risks.

01:02:49

So this is chapter six,

01:02:52

taking risks in times of uncertainty

01:02:56

and the idea behind this one,

01:03:01

I think is that we tend to make a big deal of things.

01:03:05

At least that was the message that I heard.

01:03:08

Our anxiety elevates whenever we see a problem

01:03:11

as a life or death situation that needs to be solved.

01:03:14

And that's kind of like the fight versus flight scenario

01:03:19

that you probably heard described a million different times.

01:03:22

The problem is that we feel that when we're in a meeting

01:03:26

in the conference room, as opposed to being out

01:03:30

in the Savannah and hearing a saber to tiger

01:03:33

behind the bush.

01:03:34

So our brain can't differentiate between those.

01:03:39

And yeah, I think that there's a big encouragement

01:03:44

to maybe just chill a little bit,

01:03:45

but then also make a decision.

01:03:48

One of the big things that I jotted down from this,

01:03:52

a quote by Tony Schneider,

01:03:53

"Make reversible decisions quickly

01:03:54

"and irreversible ones deliberately."

01:03:57

I've heard that framed before, again,

01:03:59

you can go deeper on any of these topics.

01:04:01

There's books written on all this stuff,

01:04:03

but I like that framing of reversible versus irreversible

01:04:07

decision.

01:04:07

I kind of heard it described before as like a door

01:04:10

that you would go through.

01:04:11

And if it locks from the other side,

01:04:13

then you got to be a little bit more careful about it.

01:04:15

But I tend to just overthink everything

01:04:18

before I even go through the door.

01:04:20

So it's helpful to me to think about,

01:04:22

is this a reversible decision?

01:04:24

Oh, it is.

01:04:25

Well, no big deal then.

01:04:26

Just make a decision and do something,

01:04:28

which I've done enough reading about business operating systems

01:04:32

and business strategy that this is the thing

01:04:35

that paralyzes a lot of businesses.

01:04:37

It's not that they make wrong decisions,

01:04:38

it's that they take so stinking long to make any decision.

01:04:41

And then once they make the decision,

01:04:42

there's new information,

01:04:43

all let's get back together,

01:04:44

let's have another meeting,

01:04:46

'cause it's different now.

01:04:47

And you arrive at the same decision

01:04:49

and you've just wasted a week of everybody's time.

01:04:51

Just do the thing.

01:04:53

- Yeah, just do the thing.

01:04:54

Is it reversible?

01:04:55

Just do the thing.

01:04:56

- Yeah, and that ties into Hausle's aspects of risk.

01:05:01

Right, what are the odds you get hit?

01:05:03

What is the consequence of getting hit?

01:05:04

Then what's the tail end,

01:05:05

the consequence of getting hit?

01:05:06

And it's like, okay,

01:05:07

and getting hit in this situation

01:05:08

is like the bad thing happened.

01:05:09

So it's like, what are the odds of bad things gonna happen?

01:05:12

What is the average expectation?

01:05:14

Which, if you've done any kind of risk work,

01:05:16

any kind of risk analysis,

01:05:17

this is the way you think about it.

01:05:18

It's like, what's the probability of the bad thing happening?

01:05:21

And then what's the impact of the bad thing happening?

01:05:23

And that's, I mean, really all you're doing in risk analysis.

01:05:26

I liked Franklin Chang Diaz's quote here,

01:05:30

"Take small risks frequently rather than huge risks seldom."

01:05:34

So I like that idea,

01:05:36

and I like to think about that,

01:05:37

it's like, okay, how do I take this risky thing

01:05:41

and break it down into smaller risks

01:05:43

that I can reassess, and I can reassess,

01:05:45

and I can reassess, so it's like,

01:05:47

oh, okay, well, I could do this,

01:05:48

and then do this, and then do this.

01:05:49

And if at any point, I decide we're gonna bail,

01:05:52

we're gonna pull the rip cord on that.

01:05:54

Like, I like that way of thinking about it.

01:05:56

That's kind of what I took out of there,

01:05:57

is the smaller risks more often

01:06:00

will put me in a better place than, all right,

01:06:04

we're just gonna punt, like we're just gonna sell the house

01:06:06

and move to London and blah, blah, blah, it's like,

01:06:09

no, no, no, like, let's explore some things.

01:06:12

I heard somebody else talking about on a podcast,

01:06:16

about people who make job transitions,

01:06:17

and before you make those crazy job transitions,

01:06:21

why don't you try it out first, right?

01:06:23

Or go talk to a bunch of people, shadow people.

01:06:26

And I think about this from a advising and counseling

01:06:29

students who are gonna go into the job market,

01:06:31

and it's like, well, go interview a bunch of people

01:06:33

that are gonna do the job you think you wanna do,

01:06:34

or go intern there, or just try to shadow somebody

01:06:38

for a couple of days, to see if you even like that idea,

01:06:42

and it's like, those are small risks,

01:06:44

'cause what are you risking?

01:06:45

You're risking time.

01:06:45

You're risking attention, you're risking time,

01:06:48

versus, okay, I'm gonna go get that job,

01:06:50

and then realize I don't like it,

01:06:51

and now, six months in, I gotta read into a whole

01:06:54

another shuffle and possibly move.

01:06:56

So I like that idea.

01:06:57

My whole long-winded thing is that I like that idea

01:07:00

of the small risks frequently,

01:07:02

rather than the big ones seldomly.

01:07:04

- I like that too.

01:07:06

And kind of along those same lines towards the end,

01:07:09

she mentions that you're a master.

01:07:11

When you think you know nothing,

01:07:14

kind of reminds me of, is it the Dunning-Kruger effect,

01:07:18

where you've got that chart,

01:07:20

where you think you're really smart,

01:07:22

and then immediately after that,

01:07:24

you think you know nothing,

01:07:25

and then it slowly, you build up that confidence over time,

01:07:29

as you continue to go and learn things.

01:07:32

And along those same lines,

01:07:33

if your experiment works perfectly,

01:07:35

then you've learned nothing.

01:07:36

So failure is not the worst thing,

01:07:38

at least you learn something.

01:07:39

In fact, if you do an experiment,

01:07:41

and it works perfectly,

01:07:42

what was the point of the experiment?

01:07:45

- So.

01:07:46

- And there was a tie back to something you say,

01:07:49

quite a bit, where this dress-rehearsed catastrophic events,

01:07:54

I won't go as far as that,

01:07:55

but it's like thinking about,

01:07:56

what's the worst case scenario in this situation?

01:07:58

So we go and we try this thing,

01:08:01

and if everything goes wrong,

01:08:03

what does that look like?

01:08:04

Like what does that mean?

01:08:05

Oh well, this would have to happen,

01:08:07

and this would have to happen,

01:08:08

and this would have to happen.

01:08:09

And I remember you talking about doing this

01:08:11

when you quit the day job.

01:08:14

- Fear setting, yeah.

01:08:16

- Yeah, the fear setting exercise,

01:08:17

I couldn't think of it, thank you.

01:08:18

But it's like, I love that idea,

01:08:19

it's like, okay, what's the worst that happens?

01:08:21

And most of the time,

01:08:22

the worst that happens is like,

01:08:24

I'm inconvenient and slightly annoyed.

01:08:27

And it's like, that's not that bad, right?

01:08:29

Like, you know, okay, that's really not that bad.

01:08:32

We can figure it out from there.

01:08:34

- All right, the next one is,

01:08:36

clarify your thinking,

01:08:38

and the big thing from this, for me,

01:08:43

is the Soldier vs Scout mindset,

01:08:46

where the Soldier mindset is,

01:08:49

I'm gonna go learn about this,

01:08:52

but I'm doing so through a perspective

01:08:55

of a motivated mindset,

01:08:59

reasoning to defend one particular side,

01:09:01

because I want that side to win,

01:09:04

whereas a Scout mindset is seeing what's actually there

01:09:07

as accurately as you can,

01:09:09

even if it's not pleasant.

01:09:11

So seeing things the way that they actually are,

01:09:15

instead of through rose-colored glasses, I guess.

01:09:18

And I'm kind of curious,

01:09:19

you know, I have my pessimistic approach to this,

01:09:22

you're the optimist.

01:09:23

What do you think about the Soldier vs Scout mindset,

01:09:26

and how do you see this playing out?

01:09:28

- I was a huge fan of this separation, right?

01:09:31

Like, so clarifying your thinking is the title of chapter.

01:09:36

And I think this is a really good way

01:09:38

to be smart about the way you approach situations.

01:09:42

So there are situations,

01:09:43

and I don't think it's a one or another always.

01:09:47

I think it's a, you use them strategically.

01:09:49

Like, there are situations where I'm gonna walk in

01:09:51

and I'm in Scout mode.

01:09:53

I don't have a, you know,

01:09:55

I don't have a stake in this battle.

01:09:58

I'm just gonna go in there and just assess the land

01:10:00

and see where everybody's at,

01:10:01

and then I'll make my decision,

01:10:03

you know, when I need to make my decision.

01:10:04

And then there are times when it's like, no, no,

01:10:06

I'm a motivated player,

01:10:09

and I want a certain result to happen out of the situation.

01:10:12

And I think thinking about these two different perspectives

01:10:16

or views on the world,

01:10:19

and how do you use them strategically?

01:10:22

I think that's a whole fun conversation that you could have.

01:10:25

Yeah, it's like, okay, how do I go into this situation?

01:10:28

But I think that leans then into coaching, right?

01:10:30

Like, okay, now you have a coach and you say,

01:10:34

all right, this is the scenario.

01:10:35

I'm gonna go into it in Scout mode.

01:10:38

What would that look like?

01:10:39

And then you run through the scenarios of like,

01:10:41

what it would look like to go into Scout mode.

01:10:42

Here's another scenario.

01:10:43

I'm gonna go into this into soldier mode.

01:10:44

And, you know, like, oh, okay,

01:10:46

so this is the way you could probably

01:10:48

make your tie into there, make your tie into there.

01:10:51

I liked this framework a lot.

01:10:54

Yeah, I think it's a useful framework.

01:10:58

I think the big thing for me to take away from this,

01:11:03

because I generally don't want to be wrong.

01:11:06

But I also recognize that

01:11:09

you're gonna be wrong frequently.

01:11:12

So I guess this kind of gets into growth versus fixed mindset,

01:11:17

where a growth mindset is willing to change your mind

01:11:20

about things in order to overcome the obstacle,

01:11:23

whereas a fixed mindset is gonna fight

01:11:25

to protect a specific worldview

01:11:28

and everything that's a threat against that

01:11:30

kind of feels a little bit like the picture I get

01:11:33

with a fixed mindset is sort of conspiracy theory

01:11:39

where I have this version of truth

01:11:43

and I don't want anyone to tell me otherwise.

01:11:45

And so I'll just make up these stories

01:11:48

and yeah, make up is a strong word,

01:11:50

but I think it's probably pretty accurate

01:11:53

to support the reality in my head

01:11:55

as opposed to being willing to change my mind about stuff.

01:11:58

I have this framing for my life

01:12:02

of being impermanent beta,

01:12:04

where you're constantly being willing to rewrite things

01:12:09

and take things away, add other things.

01:12:13

Nothing is really set in stone, nothing is really released.

01:12:17

And she says in this chapter

01:12:19

that changing your mind is a feature, not a bug.

01:12:22

I really liked that specific phrase.

01:12:25

Also, Daniel Borstein was one of the quotes

01:12:28

that I jotted down here,

01:12:29

the greatest obstacle discovery is not ignorance,

01:12:31

it is the illusion of knowledge.

01:12:33

And obviously that has me thinking about

01:12:36

where are all the things where I think I know things

01:12:39

and I actually don't have an answer to that,

01:12:42

but something I'll brew on.

01:12:44

- I had the exact same thought

01:12:47

and I flagged the exact same quote

01:12:48

'cause it was like,

01:12:50

it's a big difference between undergraduate

01:12:52

and graduate school, right?

01:12:54

When you're an undergraduate,

01:12:56

you're learning all this new stuff,

01:12:57

but a lot of it's new

01:12:59

and you're experiencing it for the first time.

01:13:01

And then when you get into graduate school,

01:13:04

you think you know a lot.

01:13:06

And the whole first, I don't know,

01:13:08

it depends on the person,

01:13:09

but the whole first like six, 12, 18 months

01:13:14

is really just teaching you everything you don't know.

01:13:17

And it's like, okay,

01:13:18

here are all the other ways to think about that same thing.

01:13:22

And we're not gonna tell you necessarily

01:13:24

the right way to think about it.

01:13:25

We're just gonna show you all the different ways

01:13:27

that people think about it.

01:13:28

And then we'll give you our perspective

01:13:30

or we'll give you our opinion on it if you ask.

01:13:33

But really, it's just looking at all the different ways

01:13:36

to think about that.

01:13:36

And it really ties in this idea of like

01:13:40

the illusion of knowledge and the illusion of,

01:13:42

you know, oh wow, I really knew what that was.

01:13:46

And I like that.

01:13:48

Like I like that way of thinking about it

01:13:49

because it really makes you check and recheck

01:13:52

and check and recheck.

01:13:53

And I think that makes you stronger

01:13:56

going out on the other side.

01:13:58

The whole latter part of this section

01:14:02

tied into this idea of social norms and conformism

01:14:05

and those type of things.

01:14:07

And my big takeaway from that was really like

01:14:11

how easy it is to one,

01:14:15

think the thing I wanna think

01:14:17

because there's a group of people out there

01:14:19

who also think that thing, right?

01:14:21

Like welcome to the problem of the internet, right?

01:14:22

Like, oh, I want to think this thing.

01:14:24

So what do I do?

01:14:25

I go and find all the resources that tell me that I'm right.

01:14:28

Okay, like that's a problem.

01:14:30

But then there's also the sneaky,

01:14:32

like the more sneaky way where you watch a series of videos

01:14:37

or TikToks or, you know, you read a series of articles

01:14:41

and they kind of start to get that,

01:14:43

oh, well, that's a decent idea.

01:14:45

Okay, I kind of like that idea

01:14:47

or that idea resonates with me.

01:14:48

So then you click on the links there

01:14:50

and it keeps going and it keeps going

01:14:52

and it keeps going.

01:14:53

But you never break out to then think

01:14:56

about other perspectives on it.

01:14:58

And you never break out to think about like,

01:15:00

well, what are the other 10 plausible arguments

01:15:04

for this thing?

01:15:05

You know, it's like there are 10 other plausible arguments,

01:15:07

but I really liked this one.

01:15:09

And I've been reading about that one for four weeks, right?

01:15:11

And I've been watching videos on that one for four weeks.

01:15:13

It's like, hold on, pump the brakes, you know.

01:15:16

But I think this is where it's really hard

01:15:19

to do that on our own.

01:15:20

And we have to really like have a team of people

01:15:24

and I tie this into like your mastermind group

01:15:27

or, you know, there are these groups of people

01:15:30

that you get together with that are very different from you,

01:15:32

but like everybody has the same goal of being better

01:15:36

than they were, you know, the day before.

01:15:38

So you come in and like you're talking about a topic

01:15:40

and somebody's like, well, did you think about it

01:15:41

from this perspective?

01:15:42

And you're like, dang, I didn't think about it

01:15:45

from that perspective.

01:15:46

I'm just gonna go stew on that for a little while.

01:15:48

And it may not change, it may strengthen, it may,

01:15:51

you know, like it may, it may not change anything

01:15:54

or it may change everything.

01:15:55

And it's like, man, that's why I think surrounding yourself

01:15:58

with, I'm gonna say it this way just for the sake of time,

01:16:01

the right people, you know, like surrounding yourself

01:16:04

with the right people who are gonna encourage you

01:16:05

to think clearly and to think in ways that edify everyone.

01:16:10

Man, I think that's just so valuable.

01:16:14

And I think we underestimate that.

01:16:16

- Well, that is probably the right place

01:16:19

to go into the next chapter,

01:16:21

speaking of surrounding yourself with the right people.

01:16:24

- Wow, didn't even do that.

01:16:26

I didn't even know when we did that.

01:16:28

- Nice segue.

01:16:29

So chapter eight is building an engaged community.

01:16:32

And this one, I appreciated this chapter,

01:16:37

but to be honest, it was a little bit weird being

01:16:41

in the book, I thought, because it seems very specific.

01:16:45

Now it's relevant to me because I am trying to build

01:16:50

an online community, but that's kinda the framing

01:16:54

for everything that's in this chapter

01:16:56

is building an online community.

01:16:59

- I agree.

01:16:59

- So the big idea is there's a difference

01:17:04

between solitude and loneliness.

01:17:06

Solitude actually helps us regulate our emotions,

01:17:08

but loneliness will just dull them.

01:17:10

And loneliness is perceived social isolation,

01:17:13

the gap between what you want your social relationships

01:17:16

to be like and how you perceive them to be.

01:17:18

That, I think, drives a lot of people

01:17:20

to find communities online.

01:17:24

She talks about the difference between a community

01:17:26

and an audience.

01:17:27

An audience is a group of people who may be interested

01:17:30

in the content that you produce,

01:17:31

but a community is like-minded people

01:17:33

who are driven by a mutual purpose or interest.

01:17:36

And I think what you were talking about

01:17:37

with surrounding yourself with the right people,

01:17:39

those are people who are driven by a mutual purpose

01:17:41

or interest, the mutual purpose or interest

01:17:44

being personal development, growth-minded individuals

01:17:48

who want to make the most of the resources

01:17:52

that they have to work with.

01:17:53

It's not to necessarily to achieve a specific outcome.

01:17:56

We're not all trying to become millionaires.

01:17:58

We're not all trying to grow our companies to a certain size.

01:18:02

What we do for a living, where we live,

01:18:05

that could all be very, very different.

01:18:08

But the beautiful thing about these online communities,

01:18:10

I feel, is like you can get around the people

01:18:13

who have that perspective and are gonna encourage you

01:18:16

to become the best version of yourself.

01:18:19

That is 100% what I am trying to do with the library,

01:18:24

which happens to be my online community.

01:18:27

And I've struggled with this.

01:18:28

Like, what is the library?

01:18:30

Who is it for?

01:18:32

And I guess as I think about that,

01:18:35

really it is just these people who have a growth mindset

01:18:38

and are trying to make sense of all of these things.

01:18:43

One of the phrases that she used in this chapter

01:18:47

was to create an environment that facilitates

01:18:50

falling into intellectual rabbit holes.

01:18:52

And I was like, yes, that's the perfect description.

01:18:56

Like we're all just trying to learn here.

01:18:57

We're trying to make sense of the information

01:19:00

and apply it to our lives in a way that is actually useful.

01:19:04

So I don't really have anything specific

01:19:06

that I'm gonna do from this.

01:19:09

I do think that there are other books and resources

01:19:12

that speak more directly, yet again,

01:19:14

to how do you actually build a good online community?

01:19:18

But there are some good stuff here in the big takeaway,

01:19:20

essentially, is that the bedrock or community building

01:19:23

is forming an emotional connection with your members.

01:19:25

Again, I had heard this before,

01:19:27

but as a good reminder,

01:19:28

when I'm trying to build my community,

01:19:30

I'm trying to build the library.

01:19:32

The thing I should be doing is not trying to get a message out

01:19:36

and have a certain number of people read it.

01:19:38

But how can I really just provide those moments

01:19:42

for people where they're just over the moon

01:19:46

because I went out of my way to do something specific for them?

01:19:50

Do the things that don't scale, I guess,

01:19:52

is another way to say it with the intention

01:19:55

of eliminating loneliness.

01:19:57

- Yeah, I think this chapter comes into

01:20:02

what is your definition of successful?

01:20:05

And I think that really ties into,

01:20:07

and I'm not trying to say,

01:20:09

"I understand Paulina's definition of successful."

01:20:14

I'm saying, "You can write this chapter

01:20:16

"a bunch of different ways."

01:20:17

This chapter was written from the perspective

01:20:19

of large audience, big community,

01:20:24

very highly engaged community.

01:20:25

And that's by the examples that she gave.

01:20:27

So the examples that she gave were multi-million dollars,

01:20:32

not multi-million dollar,

01:20:33

multi-million people communities.

01:20:35

They're huge communities,

01:20:36

and people that are incredibly popular and successful

01:20:40

and all those things.

01:20:42

But I don't think that is everyone's definition

01:20:45

of a successful community.

01:20:46

My successful community might be

01:20:48

the 40 or 50 people I engage with every week.

01:20:51

And am I developing that community well,

01:20:54

and is it what I want it to be in terms of my success?

01:20:59

That said, I think all of the stuff she talked about

01:21:01

still applies.

01:21:02

The audience versus community,

01:21:05

I really like the difference between there.

01:21:07

So as someone who's dabbled around

01:21:09

creating stuff on the internet,

01:21:11

it's like, "Oh man, that's a really good distinction

01:21:13

"between the two.

01:21:14

"And what do I want?

01:21:15

"Do I want an audience or do I want a community?"

01:21:17

Because these are two very different things,

01:21:20

and my interaction with them is very different.

01:21:23

My engagement with those two groups is very, very different.

01:21:28

I think the three points she lays out

01:21:30

for building a community from scratch,

01:21:32

over-serve, build goodwill,

01:21:35

and then create moments of serendipity.

01:21:36

Man, I think those are true no matter what you're doing.

01:21:40

I think those are really, really strong.

01:21:41

It's like, "Oh, they went above and beyond."

01:21:44

Oh man, I'm really connected with that person.

01:21:46

And then, wow, that was surprising and really cool.

01:21:50

I think if you can do those three things,

01:21:52

you're probably going to serve your audience

01:21:55

and your community really, really well.

01:21:58

And I think about the creators that I follow,

01:22:01

and it's like they do those three things.

01:22:04

Some of them do certain ones better than other ones,

01:22:06

but they all do that.

01:22:07

So I think this shed a little bit more light

01:22:12

into the people and the communities

01:22:17

and her little bit of an understanding

01:22:21

of what success looks like.

01:22:22

And I think this is where it might distance itself

01:22:25

from the reader a little bit,

01:22:26

depending on what your definition of success

01:22:29

is and how that relates to community.

01:22:32

- Sure, yeah, that makes sense.

01:22:33

All right, let's talk about chapter nine.

01:22:37

I've been wanting to talk about this one for a long time.

01:22:40

- I loved it, I loved it.

01:22:41

- Chapter nine is optimizing your content diet,

01:22:45

which again, this could probably be the whole conversation.

01:22:49

I know there's a book, Rachel read it,

01:22:52

called The Information Diet,

01:22:54

and the cover looks like one of those nutritional labels.

01:22:58

And she really liked it, I haven't read it yet,

01:23:03

but I think it's a topic we maybe should dive

01:23:07

a little bit deeper into.

01:23:07

We don't have time to get into it too in depth here,

01:23:12

but I like this idea of thinking about the information

01:23:15

that you're consuming in terms of quality nutrition.

01:23:19

Is this the vegetables?

01:23:21

Is this meat and potatoes?

01:23:23

Is this junk food?

01:23:25

- Yep, yep.

01:23:25

- And I think that's the big takeaway,

01:23:29

like that's the action item, is to do a content audit

01:23:31

and to think about what is the nutritional value,

01:23:35

what are the things that I'm consuming,

01:23:37

the information that I'm consuming,

01:23:38

what is it doing in my life?

01:23:41

Set a different way, Jim Rohn had these three questions,

01:23:44

which I liked, who am I allowing to speak into my life?

01:23:46

What effect is that having on me and is that okay?

01:23:50

So essentially you have the ability to change

01:23:53

who you're allowing to speak into your life,

01:23:55

and I really just want people to think about that.

01:23:58

She talks about how the mind is our mental hardware,

01:24:03

but our beliefs are our mental software,

01:24:05

and those beliefs are directly created

01:24:08

by the information that we consume.

01:24:11

So, yeah, it's important,

01:24:16

and it's something that we don't think enough about,

01:24:18

case in point being one of the statistics that she shared,

01:24:21

is that people check their phones

01:24:22

three hundred forty four times per day,

01:24:24

or once every four minutes.

01:24:25

I've heard different versions of this statistic,

01:24:28

and every once in a while I go look like searching

01:24:30

for this stat, and every time I do,

01:24:33

I find a webpage that's like two years old,

01:24:36

and it's like 189 times or something.

01:24:39

So, this was like double, and I was like,

01:24:43

whoa, just something we need to pay attention to.

01:24:47

- Yeah, I have the least notes on this section,

01:24:50

and it was the most meaningful,

01:24:51

like it was the most.

01:24:52

- Yeah.

01:24:53

- Like I just read it, and it's probably

01:24:55

because I was so engaged that I took less notes

01:24:57

while I was reading it,

01:24:59

but I get two actions, action items out of this.

01:25:01

The first one is look up the MBSR.

01:25:03

So, MBSR is mindfulness-based stress reduction.

01:25:07

- Oh, okay.

01:25:08

- And I just wanna look it up and read about it, right?

01:25:10

I don't think I'm gonna do anything with it.

01:25:11

I don't know if I'm gonna do anything with it,

01:25:12

but I wanna look it up,

01:25:13

'cause it sounded intriguing and interesting,

01:25:15

and she didn't talk about it a ton.

01:25:18

The next one though is like a multi-part.

01:25:20

I wanna do a content on it,

01:25:22

I wanna develop a content strategy,

01:25:23

and then I wanna rearrange my physical environment.

01:25:26

Like I can tell you right now what I need to do, right?

01:25:30

(laughing)

01:25:31

I need to get rid of the TV in our main room.

01:25:36

I need it to go away, right?

01:25:39

Because the fact that it's there,

01:25:42

I will sit down and watch a dumb movie

01:25:44

or a TV show that doesn't matter, right?

01:25:47

Instead of doing something way more productive.

01:25:49

I know that I need to rearrange the physical environment,

01:25:52

but I also know that that's not going to happen in my house.

01:25:56

So it's like, I don't know how to resolve

01:25:58

those two different things,

01:26:00

and I get why, right?

01:26:02

Like during the day,

01:26:04

the kids will watch a new show, right?

01:26:07

As part of their homeschool,

01:26:09

and it's like the TV being where it is,

01:26:11

it makes the most sense.

01:26:12

So I need to change my behavior

01:26:14

or not be in that physical environment in the evening,

01:26:17

but man, that ties back into the do something

01:26:20

that sucks every day.

01:26:22

I gotta figure out a way to do that.

01:26:24

But overall, I mean, absolutely loved chapter nine.

01:26:28

Loved chapter nine, I thought it was really, really good.

01:26:30

And I would tie that into a hidden genius tip

01:26:35

for successful people.

01:26:36

- Yeah, 100%.

01:26:38

Before we get into chapter 10,

01:26:40

I just wanna call it one other thing here.

01:26:42

'Cause she mentions James Clear again

01:26:44

and mentions that he has books all over his house.

01:26:48

And I feel vindicated.

01:26:50

(laughs)

01:26:52

Because I have physical books,

01:26:54

and I have a giant bookshelf in my office, which is full.

01:26:57

I have an Ikea, what do they call it?

01:27:02

The Cubes, against the other wall with books that is full.

01:27:06

We have this tree-shaped bookshelf in our bedroom,

01:27:10

which is full.

01:27:11

Like there are books everywhere in our house.

01:27:12

We even have them in the windowsill in the living room.

01:27:16

In fact, I grabbed a book to take it to London

01:27:18

and I realized that the cover of it

01:27:20

because of where it was in the window,

01:27:23

the part that had stuck up higher

01:27:25

was all bleached out from the sun.

01:27:27

Like, what happened to this cover?

01:27:28

Oh, it's been sitting up in the sun.

01:27:31

- You are a publisher's dream, Mike.

01:27:33

(laughs)

01:27:36

So I said I would talk about this later,

01:27:38

and we're finally to later, I didn't remember it.

01:27:41

But David Brooks' theory of maximum taste.

01:27:44

- Oh yeah, yeah.

01:27:45

- I had never heard of this before,

01:27:46

and I think this is a really interesting,

01:27:48

like basically what you're doing is your,

01:27:50

help me if I'm wrong,

01:27:52

you're setting the upper limit.

01:27:54

- I've got the definition here, yeah.

01:27:56

So each person's mind is defined by its upper limit,

01:27:59

which is the best content that it habitually consumes

01:28:03

and is capable of consuming.

01:28:05

This is the argument to read more non-fiction books

01:28:08

because it's hard, but it's quality information,

01:28:11

and the more that you do it, the easier it gets,

01:28:13

and it does expand your mind

01:28:15

and it increases the maximum taste level

01:28:20

is how he would put it.

01:28:21

- And I really like the way that's framed.

01:28:25

I really think that if you're on a continual basis,

01:28:28

remember habitually, it doesn't mean

01:28:29

that you don't ever do the other stuff, right?

01:28:31

You don't ever watch this silly movie

01:28:32

or you don't ever do the other stuff.

01:28:33

But it means like if it's 80/20 rule, right?

01:28:36

Like 80% of your content is non-fiction books

01:28:40

or really thought-provoking fiction books

01:28:44

or long-form articles from trusted sources

01:28:48

and places that you're getting good,

01:28:51

high quality content from.

01:28:53

It just has to, it sounds so pretentious,

01:28:56

but it's like it just has to elevate the way you think

01:28:59

in terms of you just don't get that

01:29:02

from watching slapstick comedy

01:29:05

and you don't get that from watching these silly movies,

01:29:08

adventure movies and different things.

01:29:10

So I just have to think that that's true.

01:29:13

100%.

01:29:14

All right, ready for the last chapter?

01:29:17

I am.

01:29:18

Okay, so chapter 10,

01:29:20

"Discovering Your Hidden Genius."

01:29:23

And this is kind of an encapsulation

01:29:27

of a lot of the things that she's talked about.

01:29:30

The big idea or the story that she really uses

01:29:34

as the framing for this chapter is the ship of Theseus.

01:29:37

Are you familiar with this story?

01:29:38

- I am, yes.

01:29:40

- Yeah, so I actually wrote a newsletter

01:29:41

about this long time ago.

01:29:42

I've been fascinated by this concept.

01:29:43

Essentially, the thought experiment goes,

01:29:47

the Thesis was the guy from Greek mythology

01:29:49

that went to the labyrinth,

01:29:51

slew the minotaur, came back,

01:29:53

boats in the museum,

01:29:55

and slowly over time,

01:29:56

each piece of the boat wears out and has been replaced.

01:29:59

So after a while,

01:30:01

none of the pieces are original

01:30:03

and the thought experiment is,

01:30:04

is that still Theseus's ship?

01:30:07

And you can apply this to yourself as a human.

01:30:10

I've never really dug into the specifics of how,

01:30:15

and how quickly which types of cells regenerate,

01:30:21

but the general idea is that your cells

01:30:23

are replacing themselves all the time.

01:30:25

So who you are today is not the person who you were yesterday.

01:30:30

And even if you go back further,

01:30:32

to some point in history,

01:30:34

every cell of your body is now different from some point

01:30:38

in different organs, you know, reproduce cells more quickly

01:30:42

than others.

01:30:42

She shared some specifics,

01:30:44

which I thought was kind of interesting.

01:30:46

But the big takeaway essentially is that we're always,

01:30:48

these works in progress,

01:30:49

we're always changing.

01:30:50

And just an encouragement to embrace that growth mindset,

01:30:53

resist the fixed mindset

01:30:55

and try to protect the status quo.

01:30:57

And this is the way things are.

01:30:59

I guess a different way to frame this would be

01:31:01

to develop a curiosity filter,

01:31:03

which I really liked that word curiosity.

01:31:07

I try to apply that in my own life.

01:31:11

I was actually recording focused earlier today.

01:31:13

I was talking to David about this

01:31:15

and talking about our media consumption habits.

01:31:18

Going back to your content diet,

01:31:20

what I mentioned,

01:31:21

and I'm taking notes on books that I read.

01:31:24

I'm looking for things that are resonating,

01:31:26

things that are like pinging off the inside,

01:31:31

the reverberating in my soul.

01:31:34

And really what does that mean?

01:31:35

I'm interested in this thing.

01:31:37

I'm curious about it.

01:31:38

I want to know more about it.

01:31:41

And that really is this last chapter in a nutshell.

01:31:46

There is one more thing in here that was inspiring to me,

01:31:50

that successful people are willing to bet on themselves.

01:31:53

I feel like I'm in the middle of betting on myself.

01:31:55

It feels sometimes like it's not gonna work.

01:31:57

But also, and I read that,

01:32:00

it was like, yeah, this is the right path.

01:32:03

Even if this isn't the right thing,

01:32:05

going back to the growth mindset,

01:32:06

I want to be willing to say,

01:32:08

well, I made a mistake,

01:32:09

I'm gonna do things differently,

01:32:11

change things, et cetera.

01:32:14

But the approach is still,

01:32:17

I'm not going to try to do things

01:32:19

the way that everybody else does them.

01:32:20

One of the quotes I jotted down is by Lily Tomlin.

01:32:22

If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.

01:32:24

Never really thought about it that way.

01:32:26

But yeah, it makes sense.

01:32:29

- Yeah.

01:32:30

So this chapter, like you said,

01:32:33

is trying to wrap everything up.

01:32:35

It's trying to give us a take home.

01:32:38

Here you go.

01:32:39

There is a conclusion.

01:32:41

The conclusion we'll talk about here in a second,

01:32:43

but it's written in a very specific way.

01:32:45

This one's trying to wrap it up

01:32:46

and trying to just hit a couple other key points

01:32:48

and tie some things together.

01:32:51

I can't tell you that I really got anything major

01:32:53

out of discovering your hidden genius.

01:32:55

I can't even tell you that I'm gonna walk away

01:32:57

and go like, oh, I get what hidden genius is in her mind.

01:33:02

And I know-- - Sure.

01:33:03

- No, I can't do that.

01:33:05

I can say that this book had some interesting ideas

01:33:08

and some things that I think I could do better.

01:33:11

One of the things she lists as an exercise to do,

01:33:14

who is the person living my dream life?

01:33:17

Well, my biggest problem with that is like,

01:33:19

I don't know what my dream life is.

01:33:20

So therefore, if I'm gonna know who the person

01:33:22

living my dream life is,

01:33:23

I gotta figure out what my dream life is.

01:33:25

And it's like, that is the value of this book in my mind.

01:33:29

It's like, it isn't the thing she recommends you do.

01:33:33

'Cause that came from like, Kobe Bryant, I think,

01:33:35

was like, well, who's the person living your dream?

01:33:37

Well, go mimic them and go like,

01:33:40

figure out what they're doing and try to do that.

01:33:42

And my thing is like, it's the deeper level of like,

01:33:44

well, have I even thought about like what that is?

01:33:47

And what does that mean?

01:33:49

And like, how do I do that?

01:33:51

You had said about the Lily Tomlin,

01:33:53

if you win the Rat Race, you're still a rat, quote.

01:33:55

I actually screen grabbed the whole Anna Quinlan's

01:34:00

commencement speech,

01:34:01

because I think that whole speech,

01:34:03

I'm not gonna read it here 'cause it's too long.

01:34:05

But I think that whole speech is really, really good

01:34:08

in terms of like, just reframing and rethinking about like,

01:34:13

just like not redoing things,

01:34:17

but like being okay with going and getting after it.

01:34:21

And like, you know, set aside old traditions.

01:34:24

You know, it's like, it's, I just really like,

01:34:26

it's kind of like a motivational like,

01:34:28

go out and get 'em, you know?

01:34:31

Kind of a thing.

01:34:32

So I really, I really like that.

01:34:34

But overall, this chapter just felt like,

01:34:37

all right, let's button some things up

01:34:38

in nine seemingly disparate chapters.

01:34:42

- Which I think is really the intention.

01:34:45

Let's talk about the conclusion.

01:34:48

But the thing about the conclusion is,

01:34:52

well, there's a couple, I guess,

01:34:54

ideas associated with this that success is personal

01:34:57

and that overnight success is a myth.

01:34:59

But the big takeaway here are 10 key questions that she asks

01:35:03

that pertain to each of the topics

01:35:05

in the 10 different chapters.

01:35:06

So for example, chapter one,

01:35:08

what is the biggest, boldest, most original endeavor

01:35:10

that you can conceive of?

01:35:12

Chapter nine, how can you improve your content diet this year?

01:35:15

So I think these questions are great.

01:35:18

Some of the biggest aha moments I've gotten

01:35:22

have been from considering questions like these

01:35:25

that you wouldn't normally think about.

01:35:28

So I think this is pretty brilliant

01:35:31

as you're wrapping up a book like this

01:35:33

to ask these questions, not that you're gonna take

01:35:35

an entire day and think through all of these

01:35:37

and come up with answers to all of these,

01:35:39

but maybe there's just one that gets you to think

01:35:41

about things in a different way.

01:35:42

Therefore reading the book is worth it.

01:35:45

- Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

01:35:47

Like these are the, okay, I just talked about a lot

01:35:49

of things for 10 chapters.

01:35:52

Here are some action items or here's a way

01:35:53

to make it a little bit more tangible

01:35:56

as you think through moving forward with this.

01:36:00

I would like to tell you that I'm gonna go through these 10

01:36:02

and actually think about them.

01:36:03

I think this would be a fun reflection,

01:36:08

like a journal prompting where you get one of these

01:36:11

every day for the next 10 days.

01:36:13

And I think you'd get some value out of that.

01:36:16

I'm not gonna do that, but I think that would be

01:36:19

a good, useful way to do that.

01:36:20

Or if you're reading this book in a group discussion,

01:36:23

you talk about these with the group

01:36:26

and your answers.

01:36:27

- That's true, yeah, group discussion.

01:36:29

I never, I didn't think about that,

01:36:30

but that's the perfect application of this.

01:36:33

All right, action items.

01:36:36

Got a couple, you've got a couple.

01:36:40

I guess I'll go through mine first as my book.

01:36:45

I want to, as mentioned previously,

01:36:48

do something that sucks every day.

01:36:49

Yet to be determined what that is.

01:36:53

And then I want to do a content audit.

01:36:56

I sorta already did this because David and I

01:36:58

were talking about, we're focused.

01:37:00

And that episode will actually be out before this one.

01:37:02

So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

01:37:04

But we talked through our content consumption strategies,

01:37:08

our philosophy behind it.

01:37:10

So I'm sorta cheating in that I've done this already

01:37:12

for another podcast, but definitely was inspired

01:37:15

as I was reading chapter nine for optimizing

01:37:19

your content diet from this book.

01:37:20

So full credit for the action item goes to this book.

01:37:25

How about you?

01:37:26

- So I've got three.

01:37:29

I want to think about something that's anxious or bothering,

01:37:32

or on my mind, I should say.

01:37:33

So think about anxious bothering or on my mind.

01:37:37

And I want to write about it from somebody else's perspective.

01:37:39

So there are a lot of things that I could do this for.

01:37:43

So one time between now and then,

01:37:45

or one thing between now and then I want to do that.

01:37:47

I want to look up the mindfulness based reflection.

01:37:52

I forget what that, it's MBSR.

01:37:54

- Stress reduction.

01:37:54

Yeah, I've heard that acronym before.

01:37:56

I forgot what it meant till you brought it up again.

01:37:59

- Yeah, so I want to look that up and just read more about it.

01:38:01

And then I do want to do a content audit.

01:38:04

I want to do a content audit and develop content audit

01:38:07

and then develop a content strategy.

01:38:09

I'm not going to commit to rearranging my physical environment,

01:38:11

although I'm already kind of doing that

01:38:13

because I'm setting up a new office at work

01:38:16

and therefore that is rearranging my physical environment

01:38:19

to not be distracted and actually get more work done

01:38:24

during the day.

01:38:25

So I'm going to already check that one as done.

01:38:26

- Yes.

01:38:28

- There you go.

01:38:29

- Yeah.

01:38:29

- Get in the hang of it.

01:38:30

- All right.

01:38:31

- Style and rating, it's your turn, your book.

01:38:34

- That is true.

01:38:35

All right, so this is a little bit of a different style.

01:38:39

As mentioned at the beginning, I personally really liked it.

01:38:45

I liked it so much that when I got done,

01:38:49

I felt a little bit ripped off

01:38:52

because it's, I don't have the book in front of me.

01:38:55

I forget how many pages it is.

01:38:57

It's kind of your standard self-help link.

01:39:00

But like I said, there are lots of pages

01:39:02

that just have like a single quote.

01:39:04

And I was like, "Aw, if you hadn't done that,

01:39:06

"you could have written a longer book."

01:39:08

(laughs)

01:39:09

- 252, by the way, is the hardcover.

01:39:12

- 252, it doesn't feel like 252 pages.

01:39:15

- I agree completely.

01:39:17

I agree completely.

01:39:18

- Yeah, which is probably overall a good thing.

01:39:21

I mean, it's better to be short than it is to be long,

01:39:25

I think, when you're writing about this sort of stuff.

01:39:29

However, there was lots of opportunities

01:39:31

to go deeper with some of these things.

01:39:34

And I'm not saying she should have,

01:39:35

I think actually she took the right approach.

01:39:38

I think she struck a great balance

01:39:40

between telling stories and incorporating

01:39:43

her own personal experience into the stuff.

01:39:47

The examples that she used were great.

01:39:49

At this point, I've read enough books

01:39:53

and I've heard enough of these stories familiar

01:39:55

with enough of these people

01:39:56

that frequently when stories get told,

01:39:59

something goes off and I'm like,

01:40:01

that's not quite right. (laughs)

01:40:04

Because the tendency when you're telling stories

01:40:06

can be to adapt what happened

01:40:07

to fit the narrative you wanna tell.

01:40:10

And she did not do that with these.

01:40:13

At least it didn't hit me that way.

01:40:15

Everything that she was sharing,

01:40:17

there was additional information,

01:40:18

additional context, it's like,

01:40:19

oh, I didn't know that about that story.

01:40:21

That's interesting.

01:40:22

Now I understand that story a little bit better.

01:40:25

So, I don't know.

01:40:27

I think the only thing that is kind of holding this book back

01:40:31

is kind of what you said, the hidden genius.

01:40:33

What exactly does that mean?

01:40:35

How do we do that?

01:40:36

Why should we do that, et cetera?

01:40:38

I think if you're just looking for a bookworm style book

01:40:42

about bookworm style topics,

01:40:44

this is a great one to pick up and read.

01:40:47

But I really am struggling for a lot of times,

01:40:50

I'll pick up a book to solve a problem that I'm facing

01:40:53

or I wanna really master this particular thing.

01:40:56

What exactly is that that this book is gonna solve?

01:40:59

I don't think it has that strong hook.

01:41:04

I think it's a very entertaining, useful,

01:41:08

helpful productivity book

01:41:11

that covers a lot of different things

01:41:13

from personal productivity, mental toughness,

01:41:16

creative potential, all the way up

01:41:17

to some pretty heavy leadership stuff.

01:41:20

And just that in a loan, being able to speak

01:41:22

to those two ends of the self-help market

01:41:26

and tie them together is an amazing feat.

01:41:31

But when I think about the five star books,

01:41:33

I think of something that is just like,

01:41:36

this is the definitive work on X

01:41:39

and this doesn't get to that.

01:41:41

So I think I'm gonna rate it four stars,

01:41:43

but I would absolutely recommend this one

01:41:46

to anybody who listens to the bookworm podcast.

01:41:50

And if you want my notes, as I normally do,

01:41:53

I'll put them together and put a link in the show notes.

01:41:56

But I think this one is worth picking up.

01:41:58

- I agree with you more.

01:42:00

So I'll put the rating first.

01:42:01

It's a four star book for me.

01:42:03

I definitely would recommend people read this one.

01:42:06

If you're interested in kind of, you know,

01:42:10

self-help productivity, success, like those type of things,

01:42:15

I agree that there is not a like,

01:42:19

here is the thread or the takeaway of this book, right?

01:42:21

Like here it is, you know, boom, you're gonna,

01:42:24

this is the one thing that you're gonna

01:42:27

wanna get out of this book, I guess.

01:42:29

But what I'll tell you is,

01:42:30

I think there is something for everyone in this book.

01:42:33

Like if you read it, you're gonna walk away with something.

01:42:35

And I think that is the sign for a successful book for me.

01:42:39

So I like the way you framed it in terms of,

01:42:42

a five star book would be like the go to like, okay,

01:42:46

if you wanna read about this thing, boom,

01:42:47

here's this five star book, go read about this thing.

01:42:50

I think this one is much more of a generalist.

01:42:53

If you wanna read about success and ways to think

01:42:56

about different things that will maybe make you

01:42:58

more productive or increase your ability

01:43:03

to do certain things or be successful,

01:43:05

well, hey, check this one out.

01:43:06

This one seems well written.

01:43:08

I think for 252 pages, it flew by.

01:43:12

Like I had no trouble easily reading this one

01:43:17

and staying engaged in, I think this was a really good

01:43:21

recommendation, so I'm grateful to you for finding this one

01:43:24

and suggesting it to us.

01:43:27

So yeah, overall four stars.

01:43:29

Awesome.

01:43:31

All right, let's put potential on the shelf.

01:43:33

What's next, Corey?

01:43:34

All right, so my book is next and it's called

01:43:36

The Ritual Effect from Habit to Ritual Harness,

01:43:39

The Surprising Power of Everyday Actions.

01:43:42

This is a book by a guy named Michael Norton

01:43:46

and Michael Norton is a behavioral scientist.

01:43:51

I'm trying to remember that exactly

01:43:55

what is blanking on it right now.

01:43:57

But he's a prof and he's done a bunch of studies.

01:44:00

So this is, when you start reading this book,

01:44:02

it's going to be based off of research studies

01:44:05

where he started to look at rituals

01:44:09

and what he calls legacy rituals

01:44:11

and then how those converted into more everyday rituals

01:44:15

that we develop.

01:44:17

I picked this one up because I like the idea

01:44:19

of not thinking about habits,

01:44:22

but thinking about systems and rituals

01:44:24

and ways that we can trick,

01:44:27

I guess is the lack of a better word

01:44:28

or lack of a better word or design into our day,

01:44:32

ways to get ourselves to do the things we want to do

01:44:35

and then turn those into consistent things.

01:44:38

So pick it up, The Ritual Effect,

01:44:40

if you're reading along, we'll talk about that one next.

01:44:43

How about you, Mike?

01:44:44

What's the book after The Ritual Effect?

01:44:47

Well, as I mentioned earlier,

01:44:48

I was a little bit hesitant to pick this one,

01:44:50

but now knowing that you're interested in the topic,

01:44:54

I want to cover a system for writing by Bob Dotto.

01:44:58

We interviewed him for the Focus Podcast

01:45:00

and spoiler alert, I like this one.

01:45:02

I mean, you listened to the podcast already,

01:45:03

so you knew that.

01:45:04

No pressure or anything.

01:45:06

- Well, I don't feel any pressure at all,

01:45:08

but I'm excited to read it.

01:45:09

Like you, I actually picked up that episode on purpose

01:45:14

'cause I was like, I wanna hear what they have to say

01:45:16

about this book 'cause I think that book was interesting.

01:45:19

- Yeah, so a long time ago, we read a book

01:45:22

called How to Take Smart Notes by Sanki Arons.

01:45:25

And when we first read it, I rated it pretty low.

01:45:29

I didn't really care for the book,

01:45:31

but it was the one that everybody held up

01:45:32

as the book about settle costume

01:45:35

that everyone needs to read.

01:45:36

And I was kind of disappointed by it.

01:45:39

And then I went back and I reread it again later

01:45:41

and I realized that, oh, some of the ideas in here

01:45:44

are actually kind of powerful,

01:45:46

so maybe I should have rated it a little bit higher.

01:45:48

And at one point, Joe and I had an episode,

01:45:51

maybe it was like a episode 100 or whatever.

01:45:54

We could go back and we could change

01:45:55

a couple of our ratings.

01:45:56

So I bumped it up a little bit,

01:45:58

but I've never really liked the book.

01:45:59

And I always was like, there's gotta be a better

01:46:01

Zetal custom book out there.

01:46:03

That's what a system for writing is.

01:46:05

It's about Zetal custom.

01:46:07

So it'll be a really interesting conversation.

01:46:10

I'm curious to hear what you think

01:46:12

about the Zetal custom system

01:46:13

and then also how you might apply elements of that

01:46:17

to what you do.

01:46:18

- Good, good, good.

01:46:21

- Any gap books?

01:46:22

- So I just finished one.

01:46:24

Now you're gonna say this is cheating,

01:46:26

so don't yell at me, right?

01:46:28

Like, not that you would yell at me,

01:46:29

but don't ridicule me or whatever.

01:46:31

I have been doing more running.

01:46:34

And a lot of times I will preview a book while I'm running.

01:46:38

So I'll like listen to it.

01:46:39

I'll get the audio book and I'll listen to it

01:46:41

and just be like, okay, is this worth me?

01:46:42

Is this worth my time?

01:46:44

Because I'm running anyhow, right?

01:46:45

Like I like to listen to something while I'm running.

01:46:48

So I'll throw a book in there as I go.

01:46:50

So I just finished one that I'm gonna count as a gap book.

01:46:55

And it's called Good and Angry.

01:46:57

And it's basically thinking about anger

01:46:58

and thinking about it in a different way.

01:47:00

So yeah, so Good and Angry was the gap book.

01:47:05

I'm intentionally not choosing a gap book

01:47:07

between now and our next recording

01:47:09

because I'm doing some travel

01:47:11

and I just won't have a lot of time

01:47:13

to read extra during this period of time.

01:47:17

- Got you. - How about you?

01:47:20

- I don't have a gap book, but I need one

01:47:22

because my next book is one that we have covered already.

01:47:27

So...

01:47:29

- Fiction, fiction, fiction, fiction.

01:47:32

- Well, I'm still working on the third body problem.

01:47:35

I did finish the alchemist.

01:47:37

So I have read a fiction book since the last time

01:47:39

that we have recorded.

01:47:40

- Nice.

01:47:42

- I'll continue to work on the third body problem

01:47:44

but also I have this one that I picked up

01:47:48

called The Elements of Eliquents,

01:47:51

Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase.

01:47:54

- Ooh.

01:47:55

- This came again by a podcast episode.

01:47:59

I was listening to How I Write by David Pirel

01:48:01

and I forget the author that he was interviewing

01:48:04

but they were talking about different parts of speech

01:48:06

and making writing that was more interesting to read.

01:48:10

And this was the book that came up.

01:48:14

So I'll grab a link to that.

01:48:15

I'll put it in the show notes that people are interested

01:48:17

in that but I'm working on writing things.

01:48:21

Figured, can't hurt to work on the craft a little bit.

01:48:25

- I'm excited.

01:48:26

I won't remember to ask you about this book

01:48:28

but I would really love to hear like a report back

01:48:30

after you read this book.

01:48:32

I'm not gonna give away my cards

01:48:35

even though my face probably shows it right now

01:48:37

but I'm very intrigued.

01:48:39

- Nice.

01:48:41

- For each 39 figures he explains

01:48:43

a well-known hyperbole paradox rhetorical question.

01:48:45

Interesting, very interesting.

01:48:47

All right, well, thank you for listening.

01:48:50

If you want to support the show

01:48:52

there is a way that you can do that.

01:48:54

patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:48:57

Seven bucks a month gets you access to a 4K wallpaper.

01:49:01

Couple of bonus feeds including a bootleg feed

01:49:05

which is unedited and gets uploaded

01:49:07

as soon as we get done recording.

01:49:08

Usually about two weeks before the show gets released.

01:49:11

A pro show which has an extended ad-free version.

01:49:16

So that has an extra segment today in the pro show.

01:49:20

We talked about my trip to London.

01:49:22

And yeah, if you are willing to support the show financially,

01:49:27

if you're already doing that, thank you so much.

01:49:30

If you're willing to do that

01:49:30

it would really help out a lot.

01:49:32

We are just trying to figure out a way

01:49:34

to pay the bookworm bills

01:49:36

and this is the primary way that we can do that.

01:49:38

We don't have a ton of ads.

01:49:39

So if you get a lot out of bookworm

01:49:41

and would like to support the show

01:49:42

you can do so at patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:49:46

If you are reading along with us,

01:49:48

pick up The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton

01:49:51

and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.