Bookworm Transcripts

00:00:00

Welcome back, Mike. How has your week been?

00:00:03

It's been busy. For reasons talked about in the bootleg.

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I guess I'll just get this out of the way, because I should mention Life HQ

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one more time. The working really hard at this Life HQ is my done for you,

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Obsidian Vault. It's not completely done for you.

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I'm trying to give you all of my workflows, but in a way that you can take

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the modules that you want and just start journaling or managing tasks and

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projects or connecting book notes or tracking habits, all that stuff is in there.

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We mentioned this, I think, on the last show. As this one goes live,

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I need to mention it one more time because it's going to be released October 1st.

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So before this releases, but after we record, and if you buy it in that first

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week, I'm actually going to be doing a live onboarding call with everyone who buys.

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So like a free webinar where we walk through how it all works and I'll answer

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any questions that people have. So price is going to be $197 for that first week.

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It's going to go to $297 after that. So if you want to save $100,

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you can go check it out at practicalpkm.com/lifehq.

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Put a lot of work into this. There's videos there which show all the workflows.

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The one about halfway down the page is like 22 minutes and it walks through

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most of the stuff that's in there. But I keep adding new things to it.

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And yeah, it's a labor of love,

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but I'm really excited to get this out into the world.

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Yeah, let me add a little bit of here commentary.

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So Mike's getting put through the ringer right now, for those of you who

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might be seeing this and might not or might know nothing about this.

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The community has been bombarding him with feedback and it's good feedback,

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which to be clear is what I want. Yes, it's not, but it's not the kind of

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feedback to where it's like, oh, like, Mike, you're amazing.

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And you know, like you don't have to do anything and it's perfect and it's shiny

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and it's golden and just ship it. It's like, okay, here's, you know,

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a thousand words of feedback and 800 of those words are,

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I think you should consider doing the following, which means it adds a ton of

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work to Mike's plate as he's making revisions.

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Which again, that's exactly what I wanted.

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You know, I asked the people to be in that beta program because I knew they were

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going to not pull any punches and tell me, oh, this is great.

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Like, I want to know what is not great about it.

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And all the feedback has been incredible.

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Most of it has been, you know, this is a great product, but it's confusing for new

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users or I wish you had some, this sort of onboarding thing.

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And so that's the kind of stuff that I'm building out there.

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Yeah. So my point being is it's, uh, it's getting refined and refined and refined.

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And I think when, when, well, I think when it, when it ships, it's going to,

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it's definitely a significantly better final product.

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I think, um, you know, from, from what it started as.

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And I told, I think I told last time, um, it started out really, really great in

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terms of where it was and the, the improvements are so much better.

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And then I told Mike earlier on the bootleg, it's like, I also learned that I am

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not nearly as critical as a lot of people.

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And I don't know if I, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

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Like when people ask me for feedback, I should probably be a little more

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critical because I tend to be a little too, uh, like kind of hand wavy.

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You know, nice about it.

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It's, it's all good.

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Um, I will say that, uh, one of the things I want to do with this,

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we talked about this before we hit record, people who buy this are going to get

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lifetime updates.

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This is going to be my signature product.

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I, if I'm going to be known for one thing on the internet, I want it to be this,

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like this is what I want to continue to build over the next 10 years.

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And, uh, I already have a public, uh, based on the feedback I created a public

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roadmap.

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So it's a public Trello board.

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Oh, yeah.

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I have probably 12 months worth of things that I want to add to life HQ already

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on that Trello board.

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Yeah.

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I, uh, I saw you put that out there and I was like, man, that's a really smart

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idea to, to throw that Trello board out there.

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So that wasn't my idea.

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That was one of the points of feedback I got.

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It's like, can we see what other people have shared more easily and I'm like,

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let me figure that out.

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Yeah.

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That's awesome.

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That's awesome.

00:04:05

All right, Mike, let's move into follow up.

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So we had a couple of different items.

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Um, I'll start.

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So my first item of follow up was to keep playing around with Zettlkasten.

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And I will tell you that in true fashion, you know, the second ish, first

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ish, second ish, third week of semester, I have not done this because I have not

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had any spare time, uh, other than to family read book and do my job.

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So therefore my entire existence now has been full in a good way, like not in a

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bad way, but it's been full in terms of, you know, getting things done.

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So I haven't had time to really play around with anything.

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Um, and that's why, you know, it's going back to your life HQ thing.

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I've, I've been lacking on the feedback side of it because it's just, um, yeah,

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it'll, it'll settle down now.

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We're into, you know, once we get into week four, week, um, week five, things

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really start to settle down.

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You start to get near groov and find your pockets of a plane around time.

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I can tell you that, um, I'm still strong on the idea of, um, Zettlkasten.

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So just like before, when we talked about in the episode, uh, I think, uh,

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thought his book made it the most accessible kind of way to, way into it or

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thinking about it that I've, that I've had.

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Um, and I still like the idea of it, but I also am learning, and we kind of debated

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this.

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I can't remember how much we debated this, um, in the episode, but like, I still

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think there's a separation from me for my Zettlkasten from a connecting ideas

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standpoint and then like a using obsidian for the life HQ type stuff.

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And you and I kind of disagreed on like one vault versus two volts.

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And I just think my brain works better with two different vaults or two different

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spaces for these kinds of ideas to where when I go into the one, I'm connecting

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ideas, I'm making these things.

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And then when I go into the other one, I'm managing life, like I'm managing the

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day and I'm managing life.

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And I probably, if, if I, you know, hired you as a consultant, I could probably

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figure out a way to do that within one vault and like actually be okay, like clean

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brain, uh, way to do that.

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But for some reason, I default to two different vaults.

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So keep playing around with Zettlkasten.

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That is a, uh, red no go.

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Haven't been able to play around with it that much, but I still like the idea of it.

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And it's going to come back for sure.

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Uh, my second one was capture and process fleeting notes.

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So I've actually done a really, in my mind, I've done a really good job on this

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primarily for two different tools.

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So this comes off of, um, some of your, your PKM stuff where, you know, what's

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the, what is the job for this specific tool?

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And it's okay if that's the only thing that does, right?

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It doesn't have to do everything.

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If it's okay, if it does that one job.

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So what I always run into is the idea that I don't always have my phone with me.

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And that's on purpose, but then I'll get these ideas and I want to, I want to capture

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them, but then when I do have my phone, they always get converted into digital.

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So I may as well put them in digital if I have my phone.

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So drafts and then I carry around this little notebook now.

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And I think I'm going to keep, keep these two things where it's like, I always

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have a notebook in my back pocket and then I always have the, the draft

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app available.

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And what I really like about the draft app is if I'm on a run, which I get a lot

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of ideas on runs, but I don't like to pull out my phone and like try to run

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while I'm looking at my phone, or I don't like to stop my run.

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But if I hit that little button, it's on my home screen, I hit the little button,

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the little drafts button on my, my watch, I can then dictate in and get good, a

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good enough version of that idea to where when I get back to my computer or my

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phone or whatever it is, and I can process that and like retain that idea.

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So the draft app has been huge for runs and like those quick notes while you're

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driving or whatever it is where you can dictate in.

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Um, and then in particular the Apple Watch app and then my little, um, uh, my

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little pocket notebook that I carry around for when my phone's off somewhere

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laying around on the, in the house, I can just write down that quick little

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note to, to do what I want to do where I'm falling down on this, I would say is

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the fact that, um, I'm not as good at processing them.

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So it's like, I need to be more regular on processing them and turning them from

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these fleeting notes into either tasks or ideas that go into like a zedelkast

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and system, but you know, progress, progress, not perfection.

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That's my, that's why I take on this.

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So how about you?

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Well, I want to just, I want to just double, double click on something that

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you mentioned there about the needing to be better at processing them.

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I would argue that you, you really don't.

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That's the nature of the fleeting notes.

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If it never makes it into anywhere else in your system, then it's just a value

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indicator of there really wasn't a whole lot there.

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And then you just keep capturing things.

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And if it comes back, you know, then you have your antenna up for that sort of

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thing, but, uh, I think it's totally fine to just process that inbox that you

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capture things into drafts periodically.

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I think probably the ideal cadence for me is about a week.

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But if it goes longer, I'm not going to stress about it.

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I'll go through that stuff and then it's totally fine to just select all archive.

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If nothing is jumping off the page, uh, at you when you are processing that stuff.

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Um, so I, I don't think that it's, I would say I guess it's, I think it's

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serving its intended purpose as is, even if you don't, uh, transfer that stuff

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over as, as often as, as you'd like.

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But glad that you are using the drafts complication on your watch.

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Um, I think that that's the ideal workflow for this.

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Yeah.

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I've been doing that for, for years and it has worked really well for me.

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Awesome.

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Okay.

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So my action items, um, the impromptu life HQ sales pitch was a justification for

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saying I didn't really do this.

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Um, so one of them was ask what other notes should I connect to this when creating a

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note?

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I really haven't created any new notes other than stuff that I need to create for

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a life HQ.

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Um, that has taken over my life recently.

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And then the other one is right for social.

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I haven't done this yet either.

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And the intention of this was to start building a tension for the life HQ launch.

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Um, I just haven't had the bandwidth.

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It's more important for me that I get the product.

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Great.

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Uh, however, I know this is important and I have a feeling this is going to change

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shortly because I have signed up for the very last rite of passage cohort.

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I wondered if you were going to.

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Yep.

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Well, I am not in a spot to drop four grand on a cohort, but I did get a pretty

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hefty scholarship.

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So, um, I've, I've wanted to take rite of passage for a long time.

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And, uh, I went, when this was the last one, I tried to figure out a way to make a

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work on it.

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I really just can't, I can't do it.

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And then I saw David Parell mentioned the, the scholarship on, on Twitter and I was

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like, I just feel it out.

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What's, what's the worst that can happen?

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You know, you don't get in.

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So, uh, I filled it out and, um, yeah, I got a significant scholarship.

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So I'm excited to be a part of the, the last one here kicks off on October 7th.

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So.

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Right after life HQ, I get to do a whole bunch more writing.

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And I know that there's a social component to this.

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So, um, I'm believing that that's going to help kickstart this.

00:11:15

Nice.

00:11:15

Very good.

00:11:17

All right.

00:11:17

Are you ready to get into today's book, Mike?

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Let's do it.

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All right.

00:11:22

So today's book is 101 essays that will change the way you think by

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Brianna, waste, uh, the format for this one is going to be very different because

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this is literally 101 essays that are not organized in any fashion, but they are

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essay one, essay two, and the whole way through down to essay 101 in the true

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spirit of the different style that we're going to do.

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Let me give you an idea and then I'm going to pitch something to Mike that he

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doesn't know.

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I'm going to pitch to him and see how, see how you're supposed to.

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So we're going to do this in rounds where Mike and I have chosen, um, the ones

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where we got the biggest takeaway or the meaningful ones to us.

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So it'll go, um, myself and then Mike and myself and the mic.

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And we'll do that the whole way down around or we'll, we'll switch the rotation,

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but it'll be one of us per round.

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We're going to get as many as we can get done.

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Uh, we've prepared a list of at least 10, um, maybe a few more.

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And then if we have a lightning round at the end, uh, we'll do a lightning

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round at the end.

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Here's the, here's the thing I'm going to throw up Mike right now.

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Mike, do you want to do style and rating right now?

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Because I feel like I need to get styling rating, like off my chest.

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Like I feel like I need this to be out there that way.

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Like it just isn't bothering me for the next hour and a half or however,

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long we record, but I understand if you don't want to and I can suppress that

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if you don't want to change the format of the show.

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Yeah.

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I think we got to save that for the end, make people listen.

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Well, we do have chapters in the podcast.

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So if you want to skip to it, you can, but oh my goodness.

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Okay.

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All right.

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I will do my best.

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Um, but if you, if you start to feel the anxiety and the tension, um, just

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know that that's where that's coming from.

00:13:00

All right.

00:13:01

So I will say that this book forced me to change the way that I take notes.

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So I started with the mind map format and you mentioned it is literally 101 essays.

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And most of them involve some sort of longer listicle.

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So I did the first one and then I realized like there is no way I'm

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capturing all this stuff.

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Agreed.

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So what I did is I actually just underlined the things that stood out to me as I was

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reading it and then I created a personal index in the, the back.

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So I've got the page numbers and then I started the ones that I really wanted

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to talk about.

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I think I've only got five or six stars.

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So, um, but I realized as we were getting ready for the, the episode here,

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that because I had done that, I don't have like a text based version of this that I

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can pull up on my computer and look at.

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And then I thought about, do I want to create one?

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Like you actually did that and provided a link inside of the notion doc for, for

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this episode.

00:14:08

But every time I thought about doing that, I was like, no, I don't want to spend

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more time on this.

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You should, you should not have done that.

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The only reason this went this way was because I do my highlighting and I did

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the exact same thing.

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Like the way I normally take notes, I would have done essentially like most of

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the essay titles and I started to do that.

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And I was like, Oh no, like I was like, I can't do 101.

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Like, so I, then I just started to like essentially read the essay first,

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figure out if there was anything or how many relevant things were in there.

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And then if it was relevant enough, then I'd go back and I'd acknowledge the essay

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title and bring it into like a full, okay, this is one I actually care about.

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But like I had the let, I mean, the majority of them just fall away because

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I was like, yeah, this just isn't good enough for me to, for me to capture anything.

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So, um, okay.

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So we got a, we got an idea on, um, the idea of the book.

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Like if you had to, um, if you had to summarize the core ideas before we get into

00:15:04

the, the rounds, like we're, I have like three or four different themes that I've

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developed and I'm curious at what yours were, like, what would you say the three

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or four or five themes that she talks about?

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The author talks about.

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Mm.

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I don't know.

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So I, I actually felt there was some contradictory stuff in here because it is

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just the, the essays.

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So I guess the, the framing I had for this, when I picked it up, it reminded me a

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lot of the practice, I think, by Seth Godin.

00:15:39

Okay.

00:15:39

A lot of Seth Godin's books are simply like a bunch of essays.

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And I think actually in that one, he had several essays that had the same title,

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if I remember correctly, because he just publishes them to his blog and then he

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packages them up in a, in a book.

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So that's kind of what I thought was happening with this from the very beginning.

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And that I think kind of set a tone for me, like these have to be viewed in isolation.

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So I'm having a real hard time thinking about the, the themes.

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I guess if I had to pick one, there's a lot of stuff in here about like asking

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questions, clarifying questions.

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There's a lot of stuff in here, I think about changing the way that you think about

00:16:27

your work and what you do professionally, some of which I agree with, some of which

00:16:31

I disagree with.

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Um, we'll get to that when we get to the bullets.

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And, um, I guess the other big thing that kind of stood out to me was, uh, and maybe

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I'm just hypersensitive to this.

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I don't know, but it seemed like she talked about sex a lot.

00:16:46

Okay.

00:16:47

Yeah.

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And love in particular, but, um, as a broader theme for like the essays, but I was

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kind of, kind of surprised how often it started.

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I'll say devolved into like, do what feels good.

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Um, because I don't agree with that.

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Uh, so I would go love was a big one.

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Uh, and then tied closely to that, we're relationships in general, right?

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So love and relationships were, were a theme in my mind.

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Suffering was a theme.

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I thought that he hit on in a couple of different ones and then like, um, what do I

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do with my life?

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I thought was another one, like, okay, um, I'm lost or whatever.

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Like, what do I do?

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I don't know where I'm going to go.

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Um, that was another one.

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And then, um, I'm blanking on the, the fourth one.

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I had a, I had a fourth one, but like, like there was, so there, I felt like there

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were the pockets, but I completely agree with you that I very much got the impression

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that this was written, these were all written separately.

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They did not feel like, and then, and I got the impression again, I don't, I don't

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know how she actually wrote it.

00:17:53

Um, that they were all written separately.

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They were not like, Oh, I'm going to write a series of essays on this topic.

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I'm going to write a series of essays on this topic.

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It was more just like, I wrote a bunch of essays and now I'm going to package

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those into, into a book, but I'm not really going to like organize them in any way.

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And that's, that's not the point of, of this text.

00:18:10

So, okay, so now we've got an idea of kind of where we, uh, where we went.

00:18:14

Um, I would, I would agree with you just to, to say there were certain things in here

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that I thought were wonderful.

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There's certain things in here where I like, uh, Viament is probably too strong of a

00:18:24

word, but I strongly disagreed with, right?

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Like, so I, I will, I will do that.

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I'm probably not going to go into as much of the disagreement, uh, side of it, um,

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today, just because of the, the nature of the way we, we do the show.

00:18:36

Um, but one of the things she does call out in one of the essays is like, Hey,

00:18:39

we can be in a world where we disagree with other people and that's okay.

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So if we get into those disagreement, I, uh, things, um, Brianna's a wonderful person,

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right?

00:18:48

Like we, we are talking about a book just like we talk about any other book.

00:18:52

Um, and it's okay that, that we, we disagree because I, I get the impression

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that she has a fairly strong social media following.

00:19:00

Um, and we may, we may be kicking a hornet's nest here on some of the

00:19:04

but let's go into the round one.

00:19:07

Uh, do you want to start or would you like me to start?

00:19:10

Go for it.

00:19:10

Okay.

00:19:11

So round one, I didn't make it very far in.

00:19:13

Um, uh, oh, and the other way we did this is Mike and I said, let's do it in the

00:19:18

order that they appear in the book.

00:19:19

That way if you're following along or you want to look at this,

00:19:21

we're going to try to stay true to that.

00:19:23

We might be a little bit off because Mike and I didn't like fully share our

00:19:26

lists before the show.

00:19:27

So we might bounce a little bit, but it'll be like generally in the order of the

00:19:30

book goes.

00:19:31

So my first one comes from SA two, uh, which SA two is the psychology of daily

00:19:35

routine.

00:19:36

This is probably not surprising.

00:19:38

I'm a big routine ritual kind of person.

00:19:40

I like the idea of this.

00:19:41

Uh, she talks about that.

00:19:43

Um, most people that we, that we refer to as geniuses or masters in their craft

00:19:48

have a thing in column, uh, common that they adhere to a routine that's

00:19:53

tended to be very rigid.

00:19:55

Um, and then impulsiveness was, uh, or it is a bad thing, right?

00:20:00

Like that it actually kind of pulls you away from, from doing those things that

00:20:03

you want to do.

00:20:04

Ah, I got, I got my fifth theme now, cause it's, it's in my notes here.

00:20:07

Happiness.

00:20:07

She got into happiness a lot.

00:20:09

Right.

00:20:09

So that was another thing.

00:20:09

Sure.

00:20:10

So, um, but then that happy happiness is, um, um, not how many things you do,

00:20:15

but how well you do them.

00:20:16

And I really liked the general framing of this idea, right?

00:20:20

Like, so we need routines and rituals.

00:20:22

Um, they help us kind of not get distracted and not, you know, get pulled away

00:20:27

from those things that if we really want to live a purposeful life, that helps us

00:20:31

stay connected and then get rid of the idea of this, like happiness is, you

00:20:36

know, Oh, I did a million things today.

00:20:38

No, happiness is I did the things I wanted to do and I did them well, uh, for

00:20:43

that day.

00:20:43

So as a two psychology of daily routine, that was my number one for round one.

00:20:47

Go ahead.

00:20:48

All right.

00:20:50

Well, I'm trying to fit mine within the outline that you've got here.

00:20:56

So I will pick one from page 22, where she mentions this is the essay, 10 things.

00:21:05

Emotionally intelligent people do not do.

00:21:07

Okay.

00:21:07

Um, and she said they don't think that being fearful is a sign that they are

00:21:11

on the wrong path.

00:21:12

The presence of indifference is a sign that you're on the wrong path is what she

00:21:16

says.

00:21:16

Uh, fear means you're trying to move towards something you love, but your old

00:21:20

beliefs or on healed experiences are getting in the way, et cetera.

00:21:24

And, um, I think this is an important point.

00:21:27

And this is kind of the nature of the book.

00:21:30

There's some gold nuggets in here that you kind of lose the value because she

00:21:34

immediately moves on to like the next thing in a, in a list.

00:21:38

And, um, I guess that stood out to me because I've sort of gone through this in

00:21:47

the last year and a half, uh, with leaving the, the day job and, uh, finding

00:21:56

something completely different.

00:21:58

One of the books that I had read when I was going through that was the pathless

00:22:04

path by Paul Millard, which I really enjoyed.

00:22:06

And, uh, the TLDR of, of that book essentially is like, there is a default

00:22:13

path, which is kind of what people are sort of naturally pushed down by the

00:22:20

culture that we, we live in.

00:22:22

And, uh, my big takeaway from the pathless path was essentially be brave enough to,

00:22:28

to carve your own path and do the non-traditional thing, figure out a way to make

00:22:35

it work.

00:22:35

It's been hard.

00:22:37

I feel like I'm finally getting to the point where I can, uh, I can say that I've

00:22:41

done that.

00:22:42

Um, and so when I was reading that list, it kind of stood out to me, but I never

00:22:47

really made the connection before about the emotional intelligence piece.

00:22:52

I guess, you know, the, the thing that stands out to me is she's saying that if

00:22:56

you're emotionally intelligent, you're going down this, this path and you are

00:22:59

facing this fear, um, and a person who does not have the emotional intelligence

00:23:05

to see things correctly could view that as a sign that I'm on the wrong path.

00:23:10

I'm going the wrong way.

00:23:11

And she's saying that no, essentially like the obstacle is the way the, the

00:23:15

fear is an indication that you're doing something that's worthwhile.

00:23:19

But I've now talked way more about that point than she did in the book.

00:23:23

Yes.

00:23:24

Yeah.

00:23:25

How, how do you feel about, she has a phrase in there since you brought this

00:23:28

topic up that fear equals interest.

00:23:30

Like she has this phrase and I, I, I don't think I agree with that.

00:23:35

Right.

00:23:35

Now this is, it's at a different essay than, than you are, but like fear equals

00:23:39

interest. Well, I mean, I don't, I don't know.

00:23:43

I just, I don't think that just because I am fearful of something, I think it's

00:23:47

fear is telling me or it's acknowledging to me that it's on my mind or that it's

00:23:53

something that I am thinking about, but that doesn't mean I'm actually like interested

00:23:58

in it.

00:23:58

Um, but maybe I'm defining interest the wrong way.

00:24:02

Yeah.

00:24:03

I think if you are afraid of something, it could be an indication that it's

00:24:08

important to you.

00:24:09

Um, if you're afraid, you maybe are not wanting to lose something or, uh, in the

00:24:18

terms of choosing the, uh, different, a different professional path, for example,

00:24:24

I know a fear of finding out that you don't have what it takes can be something

00:24:29

that would hold people back.

00:24:30

You don't want to put yourself out there as long as you don't actually leave the

00:24:35

day job and try to make something happen.

00:24:38

There's always the thought in the back of your head that I could do this someday

00:24:41

if I really wanted to.

00:24:42

And a lot of people find comfort in, in that.

00:24:45

I think you do have to figure out what you're going to do with that fear because

00:24:51

it's not going to go away.

00:24:52

And so one of the things that I did with Rachel was, uh, we, we went through

00:24:58

Tim Ferriss's fear setting exercise where, okay, let's just follow this to its

00:25:03

logical conclusion.

00:25:04

Okay.

00:25:05

I leave the day job.

00:25:06

I go out of my own as a creator and it completely flops.

00:25:10

What do we do in that case?

00:25:12

Well, I can go get a another job, right?

00:25:16

Oh, that's the worst case scenario.

00:25:17

That doesn't seem so bad.

00:25:18

And are there things that we can do to mitigate against that?

00:25:21

Yeah.

00:25:21

So when you actually consider it for what it, what it is that can help you

00:25:27

overcome it, like as long as you don't define it, it feels bigger and scarier in

00:25:33

your, your head than it really is.

00:25:34

Which I think is why it, it fits in this emotional intelligence section.

00:25:38

Yeah.

00:25:38

Um, emotional intelligence, I guess, is a theme.

00:25:41

If you go back to that question, you asked me, she brings that up several times,

00:25:46

but I also think, uh, this is also a theme on bookworm.

00:25:50

Uh, anytime somebody brings up emotional intelligence, I feel like they don't do

00:25:55

a very good job of addressing it for what it really is.

00:25:57

That is definitely a theme in the short time I've been on the show.

00:26:01

I would agree that completely.

00:26:03

All right, let's move on to round two.

00:26:05

So, um, my round two comes from SA 12.

00:26:09

Now, SA 12 is the knowing, doing gap, why we avoid what's best, um, for us

00:26:14

and how to conquer resistance for good.

00:26:16

Um, I like this idea, um, or kind of this essay, this essay's main thesis.

00:26:22

Basically, it's like, we know, we know what we should do.

00:26:27

And I've talked to you about this before.

00:26:29

I can't remember what, what episode it was on where it's like, Oh, I know the

00:26:32

things I should do, but then that action intention, right?

00:26:35

Like that, or so intention action, right?

00:26:36

I have intention to do these things.

00:26:38

Do I actually act on those?

00:26:40

And do I do those?

00:26:40

So, you know, she makes a statement in here that, uh, writing each night,

00:26:43

eating better, waking up earlier, choosing affirmative thoughts, uh, speaking,

00:26:47

honestly, those kinds of things, we know we should do those, but then we, do we

00:26:51

actually do them and her, her takeaway is like, come on, like step up and actually

00:26:55

do those things, do the things you know you should do.

00:26:58

Another point she makes here, um, it's easier to act your way into, um, into a

00:27:03

new way of thinking than to think your way into new way of acting.

00:27:07

And I like that a lot, right?

00:27:08

Like basically, okay, if I can change these little daily actions that then

00:27:15

adjust my thinking, it, that is a more straightforward path than me just

00:27:20

continuing to tell myself, do this better, do this better, do this better, do this

00:27:23

differently.

00:27:24

Um, and I, and I like the framing of that because, um, the way, what, something

00:27:30

that's been on my, kind of on my mind, on my heart lately a lot has been like

00:27:33

mantras, if you will, like what are the things that I can help myself do?

00:27:40

Or what are the little rituals that I can set up?

00:27:42

Or what are the things I can do to help me be more of the kind of person that I

00:27:45

want to be?

00:27:46

And the reason why I like that is because I have to think really, really hard

00:27:49

about setting those things up.

00:27:50

So the mantras is the more thinking side of it.

00:27:52

The rituals is the more doing or acting side of it.

00:27:55

But I think if you put those two things together, you can almost like

00:27:59

gamify yourself and like trick yourself into doing an intentional or being

00:28:05

intentional in a way that you wanted to, when you actually had time to sit down

00:28:09

and do your retreat or do, you know, you're, you're really hard thinking.

00:28:13

Um, so that's my number two is basically this knowing and doing gap and how do we

00:28:17

kind of encourage ourselves to be more of where we want to be in life.

00:28:23

Yeah, this one, I like the topic.

00:28:25

I don't think she did a great job of speaking to this, at least for me.

00:28:31

Um, the, the, the things that you shared, like the, the highlighted sections

00:28:39

sound good in isolation.

00:28:42

Uh, but this is like the, the subject of so much science and research.

00:28:49

This is the ultimate human problem.

00:28:51

We don't do what we know we should do.

00:28:53

So I guess it's just the packaging.

00:28:57

I don't like that.

00:28:58

This topic is trying to be addressed in a couple of pages in an essay, but that's

00:29:04

not really her fault.

00:29:06

Cause again, it was probably initially just an essay on her website.

00:29:10

It wasn't intended to be part of a book that spoke to this particular topic.

00:29:15

So maybe my issue is more with the, the style than it is with the, the,

00:29:21

the content, but I think there's, there's so much more to unpack with this.

00:29:26

So this is just kind of like a tiny little taste of the, the topic.

00:29:30

And this is one of the ones where I really wish you would have talked about this

00:29:34

more.

00:29:34

Yeah.

00:29:34

Yeah.

00:29:35

All right.

00:29:37

What's your number two?

00:29:37

All right.

00:29:39

My number two comes from page 83.

00:29:43

So this one actually, uh, this is read this.

00:29:46

If you don't know what you're doing with your life kind of related to the previous

00:29:49

one, I realized that I just shared, but I underland quite a bit from this particular

00:29:55

section.

00:29:56

And, um, she says on page 83, the idea that we should know essentially what,

00:30:02

what we're doing is a heaping pile of socially crafted BS that's been super

00:30:06

imposed on our psyche since kindergarten and it's holding us back.

00:30:09

I really like that.

00:30:10

Uh, she continues to talk in this section about how you don't have to know

00:30:19

your, and I think the thing that trips people up is they feel like they have to

00:30:24

figure this out, lock it in.

00:30:25

And then their whole life becomes, uh, in alignment with this.

00:30:30

You know, I've encountered this a little bit with some of the life-themed stuff

00:30:33

that we do.

00:30:33

I always tell people though that it's not written in stone.

00:30:36

It's going to change.

00:30:37

It's going to evolve.

00:30:38

You just need to have something that's going to help you set a direction for right

00:30:41

now.

00:30:41

If you can get that then mission accomplished.

00:30:44

So she mentions later on on the bottom of that page, which I think is again,

00:30:48

really great advice.

00:30:49

You're not responsible for being the person that you once thought you'd be.

00:30:52

So give yourself permission to change your mind and do things differently.

00:30:56

Um, if you're wondering what you should do with your life, it's likely that you're

00:31:00

in limbo between realizing you don't want what you once did and giving yourself

00:31:05

permission to want what you want now.

00:31:07

I think that's, that's really true.

00:31:09

We can get anchored on the, the things that we decided in the past.

00:31:12

I made this commitment, this decision 10 years ago, and I'm just going to continue

00:31:16

to, to stick with it.

00:31:19

Um, people don't thrive when they're fulfilled.

00:31:21

They stagnate.

00:31:22

You know, I always say, keep going, keep growing.

00:31:25

Like that's why this podcast and the whole idea of personal development is so

00:31:29

important to me.

00:31:29

I feel like you're never going to arrive.

00:31:31

You just got to learn to love the, the journey.

00:31:35

Um, and then lastly from this section, what do I want is a question you need to ask

00:31:39

yourself every day.

00:31:40

Now that's not the only question that you ask every day.

00:31:44

And it's not even the ultimate question or penultimate question, the most important

00:31:49

question that you ask every day.

00:31:50

Um, there are lots of different things.

00:31:52

I think that you can decide are important and it's not all based off of what you

00:31:59

want, but that is something to pay attention to.

00:32:01

You have to find the balance between the things that you want and the things that

00:32:06

you can give and the people that you're going to help, because ultimately, if you

00:32:09

just got everything that you want, that's not going to lead to a fulfilled life.

00:32:12

Either.

00:32:13

I would argue, but it's something to keep, keep a, keep tabs on.

00:32:18

And I think for myself personally in the past, I tend to be a people pleaser.

00:32:22

I can neglect this part of it.

00:32:24

Like, well, hold on a second.

00:32:25

What do I want out of this, you know?

00:32:28

And it's okay to stand up for, for that, that sort of stuff.

00:32:31

So you highlighted it's funny that you called out the exact same things that I

00:32:35

called out.

00:32:36

So I won't repeat them, but like I was listening to you and I was looking at my

00:32:40

notes and I'm like, Oh yeah, I caught out the exact same things in the section.

00:32:43

So we aligned on this.

00:32:44

My, my dad told me when I was younger, you know, I was thinking about making a

00:32:48

pretty big decision and he goes, well, are you in jail?

00:32:51

And I went, no, and he goes, okay.

00:32:54

He's like, if you're not in jail or in the military, I mean, you can pretty much do,

00:32:58

you know, like, like nobody's telling you can't make a change.

00:33:01

But like there's a balance there between do we bail too early and then do we

00:33:07

acknowledge it's time to change, like it's not acknowledged, it's time to make an

00:33:11

adjustment.

00:33:12

So I like, I like this section a lot too.

00:33:13

So glad you flagged that one because I actually didn't flag this as one of my top,

00:33:17

my top 10.

00:33:18

All right, my next one is SA 25.

00:33:21

So SA 25 is the psychology of getting unstuck and the three stages of making

00:33:27

habits autonomous.

00:33:28

So the reason I'm not saying page numbers is because Mike, I think our page

00:33:33

numbers are different because you had said about page 83.

00:33:35

Well, mine was not on page 83 for some reason.

00:33:37

So, but the psychology of getting unstuck and the three stages of making,

00:33:41

making habits autonomous.

00:33:43

Now, the reason the reason I like this is because I think, I think getting

00:33:48

stuck is a, is an issue that a lot of people have, right?

00:33:53

Where they feel like, oh, I want to make a change, but I can't because of XYZ.

00:33:56

And you start making excuses and you start, you know, like just kind of finding,

00:34:01

creating all of the reasons why you can't do the thing that you want to do.

00:34:06

And I, and I like how she calls out the fact that like, we have a limited

00:34:10

means for self control.

00:34:11

So how do we, how do we balance that and like, where do we apply self control?

00:34:16

And then where are we okay with kind of not being so strict on that?

00:34:21

They, we eliminate, you know, people who use time wisely eliminate unnecessary

00:34:26

decision making, they reduce distractions, they minimize what doesn't matter.

00:34:29

And they focus.

00:34:30

I mean, you, you, you do a podcast called focus, right?

00:34:33

So it's like, this is just a, in my mind, a good principle of like, how do we keep

00:34:38

ourselves organized focus in more on the autonomous way in a way that it real

00:34:46

aligns to our goals and aligns to our mission and aligns to the things that we

00:34:49

actually want to do.

00:34:50

And I think if you can combine those two things, so essentially intentionality

00:34:54

and autonomy.

00:34:56

And if you can put intentionality and autonomy together and you can figure out

00:34:59

a way to, you know, do your flywheel thing where it's like, that thing starts

00:35:03

to just go in a flywheel.

00:35:04

And now I'm, I'm doing the things I want to do.

00:35:07

And it's just coming naturally to me and it's coming effortlessly to me.

00:35:10

I mean, I think you're, you've hit the sweet spot.

00:35:13

Now that's really, really hard to do.

00:35:15

Like the, like I, by no means say like, oh yeah, it's just easy.

00:35:19

Just think about it and, or just start doing.

00:35:21

But I like the, I like that she brings this up.

00:35:24

And like I think she hit it, you know, in a fairly decent way.

00:35:27

I want to say successful.

00:35:29

But the reason why I didn't want to say that was because like she has another

00:35:31

quote here that's a success as a product of more product of habit than skill.

00:35:35

And that ties us into a bunch of old episodes that we've done and a bunch of

00:35:38

books where, you know, you're essentially thinking about how do I develop the habits

00:35:42

that get me to the successful end goal that I want?

00:35:45

Not how do I do the outcomes or not?

00:35:49

How do I, you know, do the individual one off tasks, but I develop that habit, that

00:35:53

routine that gets me to where I want to get to.

00:35:55

So I kind of rambled and all around places there.

00:35:58

But I like the idea of this idea of habits and getting unstuck from where you're stuck.

00:36:03

Yeah, I like this one too.

00:36:06

I feel like this topic again is of great interest to me.

00:36:14

And she sort of does a surface level approach to it.

00:36:18

But I think the things that you pulled out here are very good.

00:36:23

And essentially like the understanding and using your time wisely has been the

00:36:33

core topic for self improvement for as long as people have written books.

00:36:39

Like I have some books from 18, 1900s that speak to the topic of time management.

00:36:46

And I bought them because I saw them, you know, some thrift stores somewhere.

00:36:50

And I'm like, I want to see what the issues were for people back then.

00:36:54

And some of it, you know, is is completely, they got a totally different context and

00:36:59

they're talking about things a totally different way.

00:37:01

But if you can see through the surface level stuff, you realize it dealing with the same

00:37:06

issues.

00:37:07

It's just more accelerated now with the digital culture that we we happen to to be in.

00:37:14

I will say that I don't think it's as simple as

00:37:20

just make it a habit and continue to develop the skill.

00:37:24

And eventually you'll become a master.

00:37:26

I feel like that's the beginning of the process, but you're going to have to

00:37:30

figure out a whole bunch of stuff along the way.

00:37:33

And it's going to be way more complicated than you realize.

00:37:38

And you're going to run into a whole bunch of roadblocks.

00:37:40

You had no idea.

00:37:41

We're there.

00:37:42

Yeah.

00:37:42

But that doesn't package quite as nicely.

00:37:47

I agreed.

00:37:50

All right.

00:37:50

So my next one, I'm going to say, uh, essay 28.

00:37:57

So this page 139, the paperback one, 16 questions that will show you who you are

00:38:01

and what you're meant to do.

00:38:02

I really like this as an essay.

00:38:05

I, I think this is a really cool listicle, because these are not a question that you

00:38:13

would ask, but they are going to be clues that you can use to kind of figure out what's

00:38:19

really important, which essentially is the same approach I take in the life theme stuff.

00:38:22

I agree.

00:38:23

We walk through those, those different exercises.

00:38:25

And then I give people a whole bunch of questions and I tell them, you know, don't

00:38:29

try to answer all of these.

00:38:31

Answer the ones that really resonate with you.

00:38:33

And some people try to answer them all anyways when we go through the, the cohort,

00:38:38

but the ones who really make traction, you know, there's one or two things in there

00:38:41

that really, um, stand out to them and then they go deep on that particular stuff.

00:38:46

So the 16 questions here, you know, what and who is worth suffering for?

00:38:50

What would you stand for if you knew that nobody would judge you, et cetera?

00:38:53

But there's, there's two that I highlighted that I really liked.

00:38:56

Number one, based on your daily routines, where will you be in five years, 10 and 20,

00:39:00

essentially thinking about if you just kept doing what you are currently doing,

00:39:05

where is the logical destination?

00:39:09

This is something people don't think about enough myself included.

00:39:13

We get so caught up in what we have to do today.

00:39:16

And so you end up, um, doing the things that are urgent, urgency kind of

00:39:21

masks itself as false importance.

00:39:23

So you're like, well, I'll do this thing, but it's okay if I don't get to the gym today.

00:39:27

And just that one isolated incident, you're right.

00:39:31

It's not that big a deal, but if it's the beginning of a habit and it's really

00:39:34

easy to, to make that an unintentional negative habit.

00:39:37

If you are just so caught up in this, like responsive mindset, I'm just responding

00:39:44

to the, the things actually responding is not the right word.

00:39:47

Responding indicates I feel some level of intention and thoughtfulness

00:39:52

into the response.

00:39:54

It's more reacting.

00:39:55

It's like knee jerk.

00:39:57

This thing happened.

00:39:58

And so without even thinking about it, I'm going to go do this thing.

00:40:01

It's like when you are bored and you reach into your pocket to pull out your

00:40:06

phone and open social media because your brain is telling you, I need to hit a dopamine.

00:40:10

That's a reaction.

00:40:12

That's not a response.

00:40:14

So I feel like this is something that's, that's helpful.

00:40:18

And the way she frames this, this is a really cool thought exercise.

00:40:20

She has no explanation for this, but I'm just saying this is how this works.

00:40:24

When you think out into the future, what she's doing with this question is pretty

00:40:28

brilliant because you're anchoring that future outcome that you're trying to achieve

00:40:33

with what you are doing today.

00:40:34

Today.

00:40:34

That's what the life theme stuff is designed to do is like you, you anchor your daily

00:40:39

actions to that ideal future.

00:40:40

And then the other one that I liked here, if you didn't have to work anymore,

00:40:43

what would you do with your days?

00:40:44

And again, like the framing of this question, I think is pretty brilliant because

00:40:49

I've asked this different ways in life theme cohort, essentially, like if money

00:40:53

was no issue, what would you do?

00:40:55

Because that's what's implied with work is I have to go to work to get a paycheck

00:40:59

so that I can live and support my family, pay the mortgage, have food in the

00:41:03

refrigerator, stuff like that.

00:41:05

Well, take all of that out of the picture.

00:41:07

You don't have to work anymore.

00:41:09

You just inherited a large sum.

00:41:12

Like what are you going to do with your days?

00:41:14

I think this is a really cool question.

00:41:16

And I think the closer you can get to the things that I'm doing right now,

00:41:21

the more happy and fulfilled you will end up being.

00:41:25

Which again is like the whole idea behind the life theme and stuff like that.

00:41:29

I tell people when we go through the cohort, you want to think big and then act

00:41:35

small.

00:41:36

So you want to have this day in the life of future you, but then how can you start

00:41:40

to live aspects of that today?

00:41:42

Now she didn't say that, but that's where my mind went with this, this question.

00:41:46

So I think these are really cool questions.

00:41:48

And I think the whole framing of this particular essay is pretty cool for people,

00:41:52

especially who have never really never really thought about this stuff before.

00:41:55

You know, you just need something to get you going.

00:41:57

And I think any of these questions could could be the thing that kind of jump

00:42:02

starts that process for people.

00:42:03

Yeah, I agree.

00:42:05

I called out the same question you did if you didn't have it to have to work

00:42:08

anymore.

00:42:08

What would you do with your days?

00:42:10

The other one I called out in this section was, um, what are the five most common

00:42:13

things in your daily routine aside from basics such as eating and sleeping?

00:42:16

I think that one's a really interesting one.

00:42:18

And then it gets more powerful when you do the one right below it, which is the

00:42:22

follow up to it of, um, where is it at?

00:42:25

I lost it.

00:42:26

Uh, what would you, what do you wish those five most common things were instead?

00:42:29

And it's like if you package those two things together, it really tells you

00:42:32

about where your head's at for your daily activities and whether or not it's

00:42:36

in line with, with what you want to do.

00:42:38

So I liked, I liked to say 28 as well.

00:42:40

So, okay.

00:42:42

Uh, we are at round four.

00:42:44

Uh, round four is, I'm going to go to essay 40, which is why logical people

00:42:50

lead better lives.

00:42:51

Um, in a generation where passion is the premium, um, being somebody who's

00:42:57

been trained for many, many, many, many years in engineering, it probably is

00:43:01

not surprising to you that logical, uh, makes a lot of sense to me.

00:43:04

Uh, this also ties into, you know, I've heard other people talk about this

00:43:08

like Mike Rowe has talked about this and basically, you know, come out and

00:43:12

then like, okay, I understand that everybody wants to talk about passion,

00:43:15

but then there's the reality of work, right?

00:43:17

Like, so you don't have to be passionate about your work.

00:43:19

If it does exactly what you need to do, it pays my bills.

00:43:22

It, you know, it provides value to society and he'll, he'll list these things.

00:43:26

He's like, it doesn't really matter if you're passionate or not.

00:43:28

You know, it can be a very fulfilling and productive type of thing.

00:43:31

So she gets in here, uh, into this and, and talks about the fact that like the

00:43:36

opposite of passion isn't settling for lukewarm.

00:43:38

It's saying, okay, this is logical.

00:43:41

It gets me to where I want to go.

00:43:42

Am I passionate about it?

00:43:43

No, but it might allow me to do six other things that I want to do in my life.

00:43:48

And there is a reason for it.

00:43:50

There's a link, a link to that.

00:43:52

I deal with this all the time with students, right?

00:43:54

Like students are, they'll come in and they'll be like, Oh, I just, I want to

00:43:57

follow my passion.

00:43:58

And it's like, well, what's your passion?

00:43:59

And they're like, I don't know.

00:44:00

And I'm like, okay, well, then logically, what would the next step be?

00:44:03

Like, what do you, what do you need to do?

00:44:05

And they're like, well, I need to pay these bills.

00:44:07

And I want to live in this city because it's so and so and it's close to friends

00:44:11

or it's close to family or whatever it is.

00:44:12

Um, and it's like, okay, then run the logic route and like, don't worry about

00:44:17

the fact that, you know, you're not the most passionate of ever that's, you know,

00:44:21

existed about, you know, doing whatever kind of engineering work that you want to do.

00:44:23

Um, she, she calls out here that logic helps you make decisions for the person

00:44:28

you hope to be passion helps you make decisions for the person you are or were.

00:44:33

Um, and, and I think that's, it adds this future aspect to it of it.

00:44:37

Like you're thinking ahead, you're thinking forward.

00:44:40

There's a lot of other like kind of pull quotes I have from this, um, this

00:44:46

logic section, the one that I think is the most snarky that I like, uh, I like

00:44:51

more is take $150,000 in loans to study something you love for five plus years,

00:44:56

but not be able to move out, travel, get married, have kids work a job you actually

00:45:00

like, uh, because you're drowning in debt for the next 30 years.

00:45:03

Uh, that's what passion does.

00:45:05

And it's like, I don't know.

00:45:06

There's something about that.

00:45:07

I read that and I just, you know, I started laughing out loud.

00:45:10

I was like, yeah, yeah, that, that is kind of what passion does.

00:45:13

And it's unfortunate and that's kind of a bummer.

00:45:16

So, um, so that's, that's my, my take on the whole one.

00:45:20

I like the fact that she's contrasting logical path forward to passion.

00:45:26

Oh man, he brought a passion.

00:45:31

So this was actually one that I had, uh, I had called out to, um, the only thing I

00:45:37

wrote in the book, I did not underline a single thing, but I wrote right next to

00:45:44

the title, hard disagree.

00:45:46

Okay.

00:45:47

Now that I think I don't disagree with the things that you were saying.

00:45:54

I disagree with the meaning of and framing of passion here.

00:45:57

Okay.

00:45:57

Okay.

00:45:58

Which she talks a lot about this in the book and I hate it when people

00:46:04

define passion this way because essentially what she's saying, when she

00:46:09

uses the word passion is people who are doing what they love.

00:46:13

That's probably the agreed upon definition for most people.

00:46:17

So you can't really fault her a whole lot for that.

00:46:20

But, uh, to quote the princess bride, you keep using that word.

00:46:25

I don't think it means what you think it means.

00:46:27

Okay.

00:46:27

So I agree with a lot of the points that she's making, you know, the, the working

00:46:37

five years to get a degree that costs you a hundred, fifty thousand dollars and

00:46:40

you put yourself in a great, big hole.

00:46:42

That is not a great idea.

00:46:45

But passion, I think means something totally different than what she says here.

00:46:52

And my basis for this comes from Todd Henry, who shared, I forget where the book was,

00:46:59

but I remember reading he, he defined passion.

00:47:03

Um, the root word for passion actually comes from the Latin word petit.

00:47:07

And it, it means to suffer.

00:47:09

So passion is not doing what you love.

00:47:15

People don't love to suffer.

00:47:17

Okay.

00:47:19

But what passion is is something that is very meaningful.

00:47:24

It's very important.

00:47:26

It means so much to you that you are willing to suffer to see this thing come

00:47:32

about. Okay.

00:47:34

And just as an example, this is a religious example, but people refer to Jesus dying

00:47:41

on the cross as the passion of the Christ.

00:47:45

You can't tell me he was looking forward to all the pain that he had to go through.

00:47:51

Nobody likes doing that kind of stuff, but it was part of the bigger plan.

00:47:58

He was focused on the outcome.

00:48:00

And that's the part that we can apply to, to our lives.

00:48:03

A lot of people love the idea of being the noun without doing the verb.

00:48:10

So I think the traditional definition of passion would say, well, you just don't

00:48:16

love writing enough.

00:48:18

That's why you don't get up and write every day.

00:48:21

And I would say, no, it's just not important enough to you.

00:48:26

So once it is important enough to you, you'll start getting up early.

00:48:31

You'll start writing for an hour before you go into the office.

00:48:35

I mean, that's what I did.

00:48:37

And that's how I started doing all the things that I did online.

00:48:39

And that beginning of the writing habit, it wasn't because I enjoyed getting up at five.

00:48:46

Yeah.

00:48:47

It was because I had this burning desire to write a book.

00:48:54

And I did self-publish that book.

00:48:56

I hate pointing people to it because it was the very first thing that I wrote.

00:49:00

And I look at it now and I'm like, I wish it was, I need to redo it.

00:49:02

I could do it so much better, so much better now.

00:49:05

But don't despise the small beginnings either.

00:49:08

Like that's the thing that launched me and know what I'm doing.

00:49:10

So it was the process.

00:49:13

You know, you can learn to love the process, I would argue, for something like

00:49:18

writing or creating or exercising.

00:49:21

It's not something that you maybe enjoy doing at the beginning, but your

00:49:25

preferences can change.

00:49:27

And the reason that your preferences change is not because you've uncovered

00:49:31

some secret way that you're wired.

00:49:33

It's because you realize that this is working and it's having an out, it's

00:49:38

having an impact and it's creating this thing that is valuable to you.

00:49:44

It's meaningful to you.

00:49:47

So I guess that's my framing with this.

00:49:50

But anytime I hear people talk about passion in the context that she talks

00:49:55

about it here and because she has a whole bunch of bullets that go along with this

00:50:00

and it's comparing and contrasting directly passion versus logic.

00:50:06

And I don't think they are at odds.

00:50:09

I think actually there's maybe a lot of overlap there.

00:50:13

Maybe you use your logic to discover your passion.

00:50:17

You know, that's kind of what we do to the life-themed stuff.

00:50:21

I don't mean to like keep talking about the life-themed stuff, but it applies to

00:50:25

a lot of things that she's talking about here.

00:50:26

The very first step that we walk people through is identifying the moments

00:50:30

of impact.

00:50:30

When did you feel fully alive?

00:50:33

And again, there's a whole bunch of questions you can use to define that sort

00:50:37

of stuff.

00:50:38

But what people find is, you know, usually it was the moment that they did

00:50:41

something they didn't think they could do.

00:50:43

They were really scared about giving a talk and then they got up and they crushed

00:50:47

it and the response that they got from people made it all worthwhile.

00:50:51

Like, those are the things.

00:50:52

It's not, oh, I just really love doing this thing.

00:50:55

Wouldn't it be great if I could just do this thing for work and people could

00:50:58

just pay me money?

00:50:59

That's not how it works.

00:51:01

Yep.

00:51:02

You get paid for creating things that are valuable.

00:51:05

You create things that are valuable when you care enough about them to go

00:51:09

through the process and pay attention to the details and really just try to do

00:51:13

an excellent job.

00:51:15

And then you look at what you made and you ask yourself, how could this be better?

00:51:19

You realize it's not perfect and then you do it again and then you do it again

00:51:22

and then you do it again and the quantity produces the quality.

00:51:26

I'm kind of devolving into the creative process here, but.

00:51:28

All right, you're up.

00:51:31

It's your.

00:51:32

I got a pick on after that.

00:51:34

Oh, my goodness.

00:51:34

All right.

00:51:35

So let's see.

00:51:37

Where was my next one?

00:51:39

I think it was page 198.

00:51:43

Yeah, this is just a short one, but this is this is one that I think is is important.

00:51:47

This comes from things you need to know about yourself before you'll have the life you want.

00:51:52

So I underlined a couple things from here.

00:51:55

When you go in choosing what you want each day of your life to consist of how much

00:51:59

paperwork, how much time at the computer, how many hours of leisure you're able to

00:52:03

actually build the existence you want from the ground up.

00:52:05

Kel Newport calls this lifestyle design.

00:52:07

And I think it's a really important concept.

00:52:09

But then later on, she mentions that everything is hard in some way.

00:52:15

So this kind of speaks directly, I would say to the myth that when you find the thing

00:52:22

that you were made to do, that everything just becomes easy, I really believe that

00:52:29

there's always going to be some element of your life that is hard, which is kind

00:52:35

of why I'm not a big fan of goals, because if you all you do is set goals, what you

00:52:40

the picture you have in your head when you set those goals is once I get to this

00:52:43

point, things are going to click.

00:52:45

And then I don't have to worry about this anymore.

00:52:47

No, what happens when you get to that point is you realize that there's

00:52:52

actually something else that you need to do as well.

00:52:54

The goalposts have now moved on you and you feel discouraged after you do that a

00:52:59

couple of times because you're not making the progress you thought you were going

00:53:02

to make and that gap develops as opposed to looking back at the progress you've

00:53:06

made and you see the gain, right?

00:53:08

So I think the thing to be cognizant of here is to choose your hard.

00:53:16

Choose the thing that you want to work on that is going to be hard.

00:53:20

Don't shy away from things because they are hard, but also don't try to do all

00:53:24

the hard things either focus on the thing right now that you are trying to do

00:53:29

that is hard.

00:53:30

And again, focus on the growth that you are able to achieve, not on the outcome

00:53:36

and get frustrated at how slowly you are making progress towards it.

00:53:41

The fact that you are making progress is the important thing here.

00:53:45

But I just like that term.

00:53:47

You know, she didn't actually use this, but this is what I wrote in the margin is

00:53:50

everything is hard in some way.

00:53:51

Okay, so we shouldn't just find the things that are easy.

00:53:54

We should choose the things that are going to be hard.

00:53:58

And we focus on those aspects of the options that we have available to us and

00:54:05

the existence that we have and the things that we do every single day.

00:54:08

And again, if you can tie that back to true passion, something that provides

00:54:13

meaning, you know why you're doing the hard thing, you know why it's valuable.

00:54:17

You know why it's going to make your relationships better or whatever other

00:54:21

outcome you're trying to achieve that creates the motivation to show up and do

00:54:26

the thing every day.

00:54:27

Okay, I want to do a thought experiment before we move on to the next essay.

00:54:30

So you brought it up.

00:54:32

It was something I didn't know if we were going to get to or not, but she

00:54:34

she basically makes the comment and you said it and I don't remember the way you

00:54:38

phrased it.

00:54:39

But basically like the thing you should be doing should feel effortless.

00:54:42

Okay, like she makes some sort of comment around there that it should feel

00:54:45

effortless.

00:54:46

So my first, my first intro question to you, Mike, is do you have a thing in

00:54:51

your life that feels effortless?

00:54:53

Like when you do it, you're like, oh, this is just, I just do this naturally.

00:54:58

No, I mean, if you probably followed me around every day and said, well,

00:55:03

about that, what about that?

00:55:04

What about that?

00:55:05

You would find something we tend not to value the things that come easy to us.

00:55:14

Um, so it's hard to identify them when asked a question like you just asked me,

00:55:19

but also, uh, I think the larger point here is, I think I disagree with, well,

00:55:27

find the thing that's easy for you to do, but it's hard for everybody else and

00:55:29

just do that.

00:55:30

You could start there.

00:55:32

That's a good, especially if they're, if people are willing to pay you money

00:55:37

for the thing, Kelanu part talks about how money is a neutral indicator of value.

00:55:42

That's a great place to start in becoming so good they can ignore you and

00:55:46

developing the value that you can contribute to the marketplace.

00:55:50

But I disagree with the fact that you should just do the easy things.

00:55:54

I think that is a quick way to a fixed mindset.

00:55:56

Okay.

00:55:58

So the reason I asked this question is because she makes a statement and I think

00:56:01

to myself, all right, what is the thing that I, that comes to my head first,

00:56:05

that it is effortless for me?

00:56:07

And immediately I go, Oh, teaching, facilitating learning, right?

00:56:13

Like put me in front of a room of people and have me guide them in a learning

00:56:19

process.

00:56:19

And like that's effortless.

00:56:21

But here's the problem.

00:56:22

I've got like 20 years of experience, right?

00:56:27

Doing this, right?

00:56:28

Like it was not effortless by any stretch of the imagination when I first started

00:56:32

doing it.

00:56:32

Like the amount of prep that I would have to do to figure out like, what is the

00:56:36

right flow to get people into thinking about it and to talking about it, to help

00:56:42

them introduce, help them, help introduce them to this concept versus this concept

00:56:45

or this style of thinking versus this style of thinking.

00:56:47

And even today, the actual interaction in the classroom is fairly effortless.

00:56:55

But the amount of work I do prior to entering the classroom that allows it to be

00:57:01

effortless, it's, it's by no means effort.

00:57:03

Like it's there's a substantial amount of prep and thinking and

00:57:08

stewing on an idea and like thinking about the way I want to introduce

00:57:11

something or whatever it is.

00:57:12

And it's, and it's like, I don't know.

00:57:15

I just, I wish it was that easy.

00:57:18

Like I wish there was this, this thing where it was like, Oh, this is just

00:57:21

effortless to me and somebody's going to pay me a million dollars to do it.

00:57:23

And I'm just going to do it.

00:57:24

And it's going to be 100%, you know, hunky dory and that's, and that's life.

00:57:27

But I just don't think that's real.

00:57:30

Like I really don't think that's real.

00:57:31

Um, and you brought it up.

00:57:33

So you got me on my, you got me on my soapbox, but it's like, I just think

00:57:37

that's a now.

00:57:38

I think finding the things that you enjoy that feel effortless.

00:57:44

Okay.

00:57:45

Cool.

00:57:46

Like I'm, I'm in for that.

00:57:47

Right.

00:57:47

Like that, that's an idea that you enjoy them.

00:57:49

They feel effortless.

00:57:49

Cause I think it's easier to get into that state of flow where you're like really

00:57:53

excelling, but then trying to say that it's always going to be effortless.

00:57:57

And there isn't going to be a period of hard work either before or after or

00:58:01

during that you're going to really have to like, you know, plug, plug in and

00:58:05

like really hunker down for that.

00:58:07

I just don't think that's realistic.

00:58:08

So, okay.

00:58:09

Sorry.

00:58:09

So pocket.

00:58:10

Yeah.

00:58:10

So we need to, we need to unpack this a little bit further since we're camping

00:58:17

out on this.

00:58:18

I actually recorded an episode of Focus, which will be released before this.

00:58:23

So I'll put a link to this in the, the show notes, but, um, the whole episode

00:58:28

was in response to a listener question about developing skills and the framing

00:58:34

that I used when I was building out the outline was the book, Peak by Anders

00:58:38

Erickson.

00:58:39

Okay.

00:58:39

Have you read that book?

00:58:41

I've not.

00:58:41

No.

00:58:41

It's a great book.

00:58:43

Um, and one of the things that he calls out in there is this example of a 10,000

00:58:48

hour rule, which was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell with the violinist who

00:58:51

spent 10,000 hours.

00:58:52

Now they're experts at what they do.

00:58:54

Are you familiar with that?

00:58:55

I am.

00:58:56

At least the, okay.

00:58:58

So he basically debunks that.

00:59:00

He says there's nothing magical about that 10,000 hours and that Malcolm

00:59:06

Gladwell, when he, when he referenced this claimed that all of the violinists at

00:59:11

age 20 had put in that much time when in reality, uh, only about half of them

00:59:17

did.

00:59:17

So some of them were experts, but they hadn't put in the 10,000 hours.

00:59:21

And so Anders Erickson's thing is, well, what allows you to develop a skill

00:59:25

quickly is this concept of deliberate practice or purposeful practice.

00:59:29

I guess depending on whether this is just going to be something fun that you do

00:59:33

or something that you do professionally that you're going to get paid for.

00:59:37

Um, so the difference here, there's like common components that go go into

00:59:42

this, but, um, when you're talking about deliberate practice and purposeful

00:59:47

practice, you essentially have well defined specific goals, uh, just an

00:59:52

intention on what a, what tiny piece of this are you trying to improve right

00:59:56

now?

00:59:56

So you're not trying to improve your ability to play the guitar.

00:59:59

You're trying to improve your ability to play a hard passage of music or you

01:00:05

want to master the pentatonic blues scale and the key of C, et cetera.

01:00:09

And then, um, you have to be, uh, if you focus on, on that, uh, improving that

01:00:16

specific thing, you need to involve some sort of feedback mechanism so you can

01:00:20

look at what you did and you can recognize, Oh, I could actually improve with this.

01:00:25

And then you have to get outside of your comfort zone.

01:00:28

So that's not effortless.

01:00:30

If you want to get to the point where things are effortless, you have to put

01:00:33

in a significant amount of effort.

01:00:35

Yes.

01:00:37

But that's the, they catch 22.

01:00:40

I think Adam Grant talked about this in a book, not too long ago about how we tend

01:00:45

to gravitate towards the things that are easy for us, but the things that are

01:00:50

easy for us are easy because we develop expertise there and the way to develop

01:00:53

the expertise is to do the things that are hard.

01:00:55

Yeah.

01:00:56

So if all you do is focus on, well, what's easy for me, you're never going to grow.

01:01:00

Agree, couldn't agree more.

01:01:02

Okay.

01:01:03

Let's move to round five.

01:01:04

Um, so we're, I'm at SA 50 at this point.

01:01:07

So roughly halfway through the book, um, how we lose our minds to other people's

01:01:13

gods.

01:01:14

I thought this was an interesting one just to kind of call some folks out.

01:01:19

But basically she thinks about it as something that's worshiped and adored.

01:01:22

Um, she kind of hones in on, uh, the, like the dollar bill and money and how like we,

01:01:30

we tend to society, you know, kind of gets us into this idea that like money

01:01:35

rules all.

01:01:36

So therefore that's what we should, we should go after.

01:01:38

Um, then she also ties it to kind of power and ego and this idea of power and ego

01:01:44

and how that, um, connects there.

01:01:46

So, um, the one, uh, statement that I'll pull here is, uh, it seems like the task

01:01:51

of the, of the generation and she says, century, maybe, uh, we'll be radically

01:01:54

accepting ourselves in a society that feeds the opposite.

01:01:57

So like what is, uh, the core idea that I liked here was basically what are people

01:02:02

pushing down on you that you should care about?

01:02:05

And then are you actually paying attention to that?

01:02:08

Or are you driving the things that you should care about?

01:02:12

You know, so, um, part of this might come from the fact that like,

01:02:16

I feel like we're always being told how to be told, how to act, told how to, uh,

01:02:23

where to spend our money, what to do with our stuff.

01:02:25

You know, like, I feel like that's a very, very common thing right now where, um,

01:02:29

we're always trying to be influenced, if you will, like for lack of a better

01:02:33

phrase.

01:02:33

And I have a vendetta against that because it's like, no, I don't think like

01:02:38

that's the best way to approach our lives.

01:02:40

So I think that's why this chapter resonated with me, uh, sorry, this essay,

01:02:44

why this essay resonated with me so much.

01:02:46

Cool.

01:02:47

Yeah.

01:02:47

I don't really have a whole lot to, uh, to add to that.

01:02:51

Don't worry.

01:02:52

Should I move to the next one then?

01:02:54

Yeah.

01:02:55

Let's move to your number five.

01:02:56

Okay.

01:02:57

So this is actually like the last official one that I've got.

01:03:00

I've got one more I could pull, but we sort of talked about it already.

01:03:03

Um, the next one I've got here is a 57 50 people on the most liberating thought

01:03:11

they've ever had.

01:03:13

And, uh, I thought that these were kind of cool, uh, in terms of like the examples,

01:03:19

uh, and the approach here reminds me a lot of 30 lessons for living by Dr.

01:03:25

Carl Pilmer, which again, like I prefer that book.

01:03:29

But there's a lot of work that went into that.

01:03:32

Like he was a, a doctor who went into nursing homes and interviewed, I think

01:03:37

a thousand people who were there just live in their best life and asking what

01:03:41

made your, your life good.

01:03:44

You know, what, what was it, what was it that allowed you to, uh, look back

01:03:48

at fondly on, on the life that you've lived and condensed all of their responses

01:03:52

into 30 specific lessons.

01:03:54

These are basically just like 50 anecdotes, kind of along the same lines,

01:03:57

though, asking people, you know, what is the most liberating thought that you've

01:04:01

had in terms of creating the life that you want to live, which I think is, is

01:04:04

an important concept.

01:04:06

The number one one here that she mentions, I get to choose what I think about.

01:04:11

That's really good.

01:04:12

She talks about that again, I think later in another essay about how, um, you get

01:04:17

to control your thoughts.

01:04:19

So you can't really control whether something like pops into your brain, but

01:04:23

you can control whether you are going to meditate and ruminate on those things.

01:04:28

Like you can dismiss those negative thoughts and bring your, your focus to,

01:04:31

to something else.

01:04:32

Um, so that I think is really powerful.

01:04:35

And the number seven, she mentions, um, I don't have to accept anything.

01:04:39

And kind of related to that, I don't have to change everything.

01:04:42

That's the big one for me.

01:04:44

I guess the, the don't have to change everything.

01:04:47

That's at the root of like the memento mori stuff that I do with the daily note

01:04:52

and obsidian is like cosmic and significant theory.

01:04:56

Oliver Berkman would call it.

01:04:57

You don't have to change the entire world.

01:04:59

Do what you can with what you've got.

01:05:01

But at the end, that's all you can do.

01:05:03

Um, number 15, nothing is permanent.

01:05:06

Not even the worst feelings that one speaks to me because it's been a rough year and a

01:05:11

half.

01:05:11

Um, trying to get my business off the ground.

01:05:14

And then you add the creator stuff on top of that where it's kind of surprising to me.

01:05:19

Uh, I realized when I was at Craft and Commerce this summer, there are a lot of

01:05:23

creators that deal with mental health stuff.

01:05:27

And I think it's because you, you, you try to keep it separate, but ultimately you

01:05:33

can't like you make this thing and you share it with the world and it's you.

01:05:37

Yeah.

01:05:38

And then when people don't download it or view it or like it, it's kind of like,

01:05:45

Oh, nobody likes me.

01:05:47

Yeah.

01:05:47

Sounds stupid to verbalize it.

01:05:50

No, but it makes sense.

01:05:52

Yeah.

01:05:52

And then you, you do it regularly.

01:05:54

Like it kind of can compound.

01:05:56

Um, what you focus on expands this to show pass.

01:06:01

I don't know.

01:06:02

That's just a whole bunch of really good questions in here.

01:06:03

You haven't failed till you've stopped trying wisdom is knowing that you don't

01:06:08

and will never really know anything.

01:06:10

Um, you teach people how to treat you.

01:06:13

You get in life, which you have the courage to ask for.

01:06:15

Uh, when you step into a library, all the knowledge in the world is before you.

01:06:19

I think that's the big one.

01:06:21

You know, that's number 44.

01:06:22

That's the, just to camp on that for a little bit.

01:06:25

That's a big reason why I've got so many books around my house.

01:06:29

Uh, one of the pieces of advice that I, I give people all the time is when someone

01:06:33

that you look up to recommends a book, don't jot it down, draft style on your Apple

01:06:40

watch, like Corey does his ideas when he's out for open up the Amazon app, buy it

01:06:46

immediately.

01:06:47

It'll show up in your house, at your house in a couple of days, add it to your

01:06:51

and Lord of the comfort, call this an anti-library.

01:06:53

Actually, I think it was the same Nicholas Taleb.

01:06:57

Maybe who came up with that concept first.

01:06:59

I can't remember, but, uh, the concept of the anti-library is you have all these

01:07:02

books that are speaking to all these topics and they're already giving you value,

01:07:06

even if you haven't read them yet.

01:07:07

Well, how can that be?

01:07:08

Because I know that if I needed to go dig into whatever topic, I've kind of

01:07:13

pre filtered the sources for that and it's within arms reach.

01:07:17

You know, I haven't read all, I think we have 1,700 books throughout our, our house.

01:07:24

How do you know that?

01:07:25

How do you know you have 17 books?

01:07:27

Cause, cause Toby tracked them at one point inside of an app called Book Tracker.

01:07:31

So at that point, I think it was like 1500, 1600 and we keep buying books.

01:07:37

Books.

01:07:37

So, um, we've got them everywhere.

01:07:39

I've got a bookshelf over there.

01:07:40

I got a calyx over there.

01:07:41

I've got books not even on the wall behind me.

01:07:44

So we record this.

01:07:45

Uh, we've got books in the windowsills in the living room.

01:07:49

We've got this like tree shaped stand in our bedroom.

01:07:52

Like there are books everywhere.

01:07:54

And I kind of love it.

01:07:55

Yeah.

01:07:56

I agree.

01:07:56

Um, but basically, you know, when we, if, if you were to say today, you can never buy another book.

01:08:04

We could keep bookworm going for several years.

01:08:07

Just because I have, yeah.

01:08:10

And it's not because I have that many books.

01:08:12

It's because that I have that many books that are relevant for the bookworm audience

01:08:15

because I'm naturally curious about these things.

01:08:17

And whenever I've come across something that somebody mentions in a YouTube video

01:08:21

or I hear about on a podcast, I'm like, I'm going to buy that book.

01:08:25

It's going to be on my bookshelf.

01:08:26

And then occasionally when I'm like, I don't know what to read next.

01:08:29

I just look at what I've got there.

01:08:31

Like, Oh, that one, that's right.

01:08:33

I was, I bought this when I was interested in figuring this out.

01:08:36

Well, that's still something that's that I'm curious about.

01:08:38

So I'll pick that up and I'll, I'll read that.

01:08:40

So yeah, I mean, if it was, those are going to be one essay out of this whole book

01:08:46

that was like the most valuable, I think it's probably that one.

01:08:51

I could not agree with you more.

01:08:53

I could not agree with you more.

01:08:55

I'm really glad you brought this one up in round five.

01:08:57

I have a bunch of, you know, things I pulled from this one.

01:09:01

Interestingly, we pulled different.

01:09:03

Now there's 50 of them.

01:09:04

So that actually kind of would make sense.

01:09:06

But like you don't remember your years or you remember your moments.

01:09:10

There is no grand moment in life.

01:09:12

You wake up and you go, I've made it like happiness is in the details, the joys in the journey.

01:09:17

Like she gets into the idea we take our lives too seriously.

01:09:20

And a few hundred years, most people will be completely forgotten about.

01:09:23

Like that's the momento momento mori kind of thing.

01:09:26

Now I think she goes too far in that one because at the, at the end of it, give love and do.

01:09:30

We most generally want to, it won't matter anyway.

01:09:33

So make it matter now, which I get what she's saying, but it's like, I think that's a little

01:09:38

nihilist to say like it won't matter anyway, because it's going to matter, I think to somebody.

01:09:41

So, but like I like, I thought this, these 50, if there was a like pull away, recommend it to somebody else.

01:09:52

You know, I would not, I'll preview, I would not recommend the whole book.

01:09:56

I would recommend SA 57.

01:09:59

You know, it's like read a 57 and maybe these other, you know, a couple, a couple of the other ones.

01:10:04

I, I thought this was one of the sheer highlights of the book.

01:10:10

OK, at this point, Mike, at this point, Mike, we have to talk about what we want to do.

01:10:16

Right.

01:10:16

So we're about an hour and a half into the, into the episode.

01:10:21

I'm OK stopping here.

01:10:22

You said that was your last one that you had like really identified.

01:10:25

Do you want to do one more or do you want to just call it now and move on to action items and

01:10:29

silent rating?

01:10:30

I'm good either way.

01:10:30

I don't think we'll, I don't think the audience will be upset if we, if we, if we, if we, if we, yeah.

01:10:35

Well, I'll just, the last one that I had starred was she mentions the, the Stoics had this exercise for

01:10:43

embracing the thing that they were scared of, which I already mentioned, like Tim Ferriss's fear setting example.

01:10:50

So that, that particular section is towards the end of the book.

01:10:54

I think it's on page four, 28 and the printed one.

01:10:56

It's a little bit weird because she's sort of talking hand wavy about the Stoics, but doesn't really get deep

01:11:02

into the Stoic stuff, which is when I had the idea and I asked you if you wanted to cover meditations by Marcus.

01:11:11

It really is at some point because stoicism seems to be a thing and granted we've covered a lot of Ryan

01:11:16

holiday books and he's kind of the stoic guy.

01:11:18

So, but it, I feel like it's, it's becoming more popular in a lot more productivity and self-help books are

01:11:27

referencing stoic philosophy.

01:11:29

So she just kind of sort of hand wavy about it and doesn't really talk about what it really is.

01:11:33

That's fine.

01:11:35

It's not her thing, you know, but I was thinking, you know, I've, we've never really gone to the source with, with this stuff.

01:11:42

Yeah.

01:11:42

And meditations by Marcus who really seems to be like the one that a lot of people will refer to.

01:11:48

So I don't think we'll cover it next.

01:11:51

I've already got a book that I want to cover for that.

01:11:54

And then I think you've got a different book, but now that I know that you're open to the concept, I think we'll probably cover it at some point.

01:12:00

Oh, yeah.

01:12:01

OK, good.

01:12:02

So there are more that I've kind of pulled out some from gems from, but we're going to move on for the sake of, of the show and keeping it, keeping it reasonable.

01:12:11

Let's move to action items.

01:12:13

I'll go first.

01:12:14

I do not have any action items for this and I don't feel bad about it for a second.

01:12:18

Like I am totally OK with 101 essays, you know, kind of doing the whole like slap your hands, dust stuff, the dust and just moving this one forward.

01:12:28

So I will freely tell you I have no action items.

01:12:32

And now on to you.

01:12:33

Yeah.

01:12:34

Well, I think I probably could have found some action items if I had looked for them.

01:12:39

But as I mentioned at the beginning, my approach to taking notes for this book

01:12:43

was forced to be different.

01:12:45

So I did not go back through all of my highlights and look for, you know, what do I want to take action on from this book?

01:12:54

So I also have no action items, which is probably a good thing since I failed at both of them this time.

01:12:59

Anyway, it's you got you got a lot going on.

01:13:01

So that that actually makes a bunch of sense.

01:13:03

All right.

01:13:05

So now we move into style and rating.

01:13:06

You've made me wait an incredibly long time to do style and rating.

01:13:10

Here we go.

01:13:13

The style of this book is, as we've said and described many times, it's 101 essays.

01:13:19

So it's 101.

01:13:21

What I believe to be independent thoughts written and then compiled.

01:13:27

And there are connections between them, but I don't believe they are intentional

01:13:32

connections between them.

01:13:33

There's no references between the different essays.

01:13:35

There's no like, I would say like there's repeated ideas, but there's no like repeated, like,

01:13:42

oh, I'll get to this one in SA 47 or 52 or whatever it is.

01:13:45

Right.

01:13:45

So there's there doesn't feel like there's a theme or a thread other than the ones

01:13:49

that kind of just naturally came up.

01:13:50

The it feels like you know, you caught out listicles.

01:13:54

I think I was very disheartened when I got into it and we got into like, you know,

01:14:00

the second, the third, the fourth one where it was, here's the essay, here's a paragraph or two of text.

01:14:05

And then now I'm going to talk about the 17 of these things.

01:14:08

And then I'm going to talk about the 20 of these things.

01:14:10

I'm going to talk about the five of these things.

01:14:11

And I don't mind reading those things, but it was different than what I thought it was going to be.

01:14:19

And I did not like it.

01:14:20

Like I did not like the listical idea.

01:14:22

It gets to something you've said.

01:14:24

So hopefully I don't I don't steal this one from you.

01:14:26

Everything felt very surface level.

01:14:28

So it felt very like I'm saying I'm writing this to be a catalyst to, yes, change the way you think,

01:14:36

but not giving enough thought or detail, like if she'd have shrunk it down to 50,

01:14:42

but then she'd unpack them more.

01:14:44

If she'd shrunk it down to 30 and she'd really unpack them more, I just think it would have had had more meaning.

01:14:50

I understand that that wasn't the gist.

01:14:52

It just was 101, you know, whatever.

01:14:54

But like for me, from a style and rating standpoint, for me, less would be would have been more,

01:15:00

less, but more depth would have been more and better to me.

01:15:04

So it felt if I already said this, I'm sorry, but it felt like a very, these were my blog posts

01:15:09

or these were my Instagram posts that I flushed out a little bit more

01:15:13

and turned it into a book, you know, and kind of went went that that realm.

01:15:18

I believe the Pareto principle applies to this book, right?

01:15:23

That 80% of the value comes out of 20% of the of the text that like there's good stuff in here.

01:15:30

I don't like I don't think it's a complete like waste of time to read it.

01:15:34

Like I actually think there are some good thought provoking things here.

01:15:36

I mean, we just talked for an hour and a half about some of those good thought provoking things.

01:15:40

And I really think those are there, but I really think it's the 80/20, right?

01:15:44

Like 80% of the value really comes from a smaller amount.

01:15:47

The challenge of this from a recommendation standpoint is I think the 20% of the book is different

01:15:54

for everybody that reads it.

01:15:56

And I think it's very, very personal.

01:15:58

It's very, very individual.

01:15:59

So I actually think if I read this book five years from now,

01:16:04

I would highlight very, very different things that I highlight than I highlighted right now

01:16:08

or in this current reading.

01:16:10

So my general gist for the style is did not like the style.

01:16:15

My general gist for the kind of the content was I could have done with significantly less

01:16:25

of the listicles, significantly less of the highlight touch points and much more of the breaking down.

01:16:32

But in all fairness, I did get value out of the book, right?

01:16:35

Like, so the things that I highlighted, the things that I took away are good,

01:16:40

but they're good for me thinking about them deeper.

01:16:45

They're not necessarily good for exactly what I got out of the book,

01:16:49

like I would have with some other books.

01:16:51

OK, so very, very long winded style discussion.

01:16:55

Mike, my rating on this book is a one.

01:16:59

Right.

01:17:00

I did not like this book.

01:17:04

Wow.

01:17:05

This this this book took me a lot of willpower and effort.

01:17:12

And like I wanted to say to you, like, have we not been freely?

01:17:17

Have we not been talking about this book and not been doing this for a bookworm episode?

01:17:21

I would have stopped reading this book.

01:17:23

I would have closed the book.

01:17:24

Maybe I maybe would have made it to SA 20.

01:17:27

Maybe.

01:17:28

I don't even know if I'd have made it that far and I would have closed the book

01:17:31

and just been like, yeah, I'm done.

01:17:32

Like I I I don't need to read this book and I'm I don't put it away.

01:17:36

I just really did not care for for this book.

01:17:41

So there you go.

01:17:42

There's my my style and rating, but I will say I got I got some value out of it.

01:17:46

So I'm not going to tell you to get a value out of it, but I just didn't like it at all.

01:17:49

So good.

01:17:50

All right.

01:17:52

Well, the whole thing that I've been thinking about with this book is who is this book?

01:17:59

Four.

01:18:00

So I picked this or I read this because you picked it, but I was trying to envision a scenario

01:18:08

where I would have stumbled upon this and thought, yeah, I need to read this.

01:18:14

Because my approach to reading books typically is to solve a problem that I am currently facing.

01:18:20

I'm curious about whatever topic.

01:18:23

I'm having trouble getting my habits to stick.

01:18:25

So I'll go pick up atomic habits by James Clear.

01:18:28

Like that's how I typically approach books.

01:18:31

And as you mentioned, it's kind of hard to identify a specific theme or this is the problem.

01:18:40

If you're dealing with this, this is who this this book is for.

01:18:42

Now I've read a different book, The Mountain is You by Brano.

01:18:46

We this was for bookworm episode, like one 24, I think.

01:18:52

And I just looked it up.

01:18:53

I gave that book three and a half stars.

01:18:55

So that was when I was doing half stars, but Joel gave it a three.

01:18:58

I rated it higher than he did.

01:19:00

So I think that there is a version of this where she's speaking to a specific topic and she is a good writer.

01:19:08

That's not what this book is.

01:19:10

You know, reading the blurb on the back of the paper back here, it says 101 essays that will change what you think.

01:19:16

The goal of a seller in social media phenomenon is a collection of author,

01:19:20

Brano East, most beloved pieces of writing.

01:19:22

Her meditations include Why You Should Pursue Purpose Overpassion, Embrace Negative Thinking,

01:19:26

See The Wisdom and Daily Routine.

01:19:28

Become aware of the cognitive biases that are creating the way that you see your life.

01:19:32

Some of these pieces have never been seen.

01:19:34

All those have been read by millions of people around the world, regardless, each will leave you thinking, this idea changed my life.

01:19:39

So this is for people who are Brianna, we used fans.

01:19:43

This is the ultimate collection of Brianna, we used and I have purchased books on Amazon previously that were the ultimate

01:19:52

collection by, I don't know, Jim Rohn, I think was one that I bought via Audible specifically because that's the kind of thing that I typically just want to like listen to when I'm not listening to a podcast and got a long trip or offer run, something like that,

01:20:06

where it's just kind of in the background.

01:20:08

I want to hear more about what this person has to say.

01:20:10

So all that to say, my only exposure to Brianna, we previously was that I had read this other book by her.

01:20:19

I am not who this book is written for.

01:20:22

From a bookworm perspective, I agree, this is not a great book because this book is not solving a specific problem.

01:20:31

You think about people who are downloading bookworm, I think a lot of people will look at, some people just download this in every episode.

01:20:39

We love you guys, thank you for doing that.

01:20:42

But there are other people who will look at the book that we're covering and the topic that we're going to talk about and they will decide whether or not they're going to listen to the episode.

01:20:53

Those poor people had no idea.

01:20:54

What the heck is this?

01:20:58

What does this book want to be when it grows up?

01:21:00

So I don't know, from a bookworm perspective, I think it probably ranks a little bit lower from the purpose that it was written.

01:21:09

I think it probably ranks a little bit higher.

01:21:12

I will say, I don't think Brianna Wiest is my personal cup of tea.

01:21:17

I think she is a great writer.

01:21:20

I think she writes very well about the topics that she speaks about.

01:21:23

I think she has a unique voice that is going to resonate with certain people very much.

01:21:30

And those people, if you like Brianna Wiest, this is a great book for you.

01:21:36

You will get more Brianna Wiest, you will get things that have not been written or published to other places.

01:21:41

And if you're just trying to get like the whole catalog by a particular author, then

01:21:47

this is one that you should add to your collection.

01:21:51

That's not my preference.

01:21:54

I brought up multiple times.

01:21:56

He speaks very briefly about this thing in this particular essay.

01:21:59

I would rather dive deep into this.

01:22:02

And let's talk to an expert and read 200 pages about this specific thing,

01:22:08

not a short little essay.

01:22:11

That doesn't mean that the essay is bad.

01:22:14

That's just my preference.

01:22:18

I want to dive deep into these things.

01:22:21

I don't really care for the cursory surface level stuff,

01:22:26

which again is a preference.

01:22:28

It kind of reminds me of Seth Godin.

01:22:33

But the difference with the Seth Godin books that I have read is Seth basically knows

01:22:39

I'm going to dive deep onto this particular topic.

01:22:42

And I'm going to collect all the essays that speak to this particular topic into this book.

01:22:48

Where this is kind of a survey.

01:22:52

Right?

01:22:54

It's your professor.

01:22:55

It's a survey course.

01:22:56

It is.

01:22:56

It's super yeah.

01:22:57

At least.

01:22:57

And I wouldn't be surprised if that's why it's the 101, right?

01:23:00

Because that would be your inter classes, your 101 class.

01:23:03

So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a tie there.

01:23:06

Yep.

01:23:07

Yep.

01:23:07

So I'm actually going to rate it three stars.

01:23:13

And that's just because of the context that I have.

01:23:15

And the other books that I have rated two stars.

01:23:17

I don't know that I've ever given a book a one-star rating.

01:23:20

Because I can always find something that's valuable to me going through it.

01:23:24

Sometimes it's hard.

01:23:25

There are a couple of books specifically.

01:23:28

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

01:23:30

The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer.

01:23:33

Like there are some books that you're describing the slog to get through it.

01:23:38

I get it.

01:23:38

I've been there.

01:23:39

But yeah, I think that there were some things in here that made me think.

01:23:46

And for that reason alone, I think it was valuable.

01:23:49

I don't think I'm going to necessarily recommend that everyone go pick this one up.

01:23:53

No.

01:23:53

If you are excited about this one, you know who you are.

01:23:56

Go ahead and get it.

01:23:57

Everybody else.

01:23:58

You can probably skip this one and pick something different.

01:24:01

And big disclaimer out there, if you look at Amazon, this is a very highly rated book.

01:24:07

Right?

01:24:08

So there are thousands of people, tens of thousands of people who very much like this book.

01:24:13

Like you said very well that I didn't say any of these well.

01:24:17

It just wasn't my cup of tea.

01:24:18

Right?

01:24:19

So it wasn't the kind of book.

01:24:20

And I hadn't thought about like maybe it just wasn't the bookworm book.

01:24:23

Like I said to my wife at one point, I was like,

01:24:26

man, I picked a really bad book for the show.

01:24:28

Right?

01:24:29

On this round.

01:24:29

And I was like, I feel bad about it.

01:24:31

I picked a really bad book for me personally for the show.

01:24:33

So I think there's nothing wrong with this type of book.

01:24:38

You know, we just got to change the approach, which I think we just talked about the topics.

01:24:42

And I'm glad to have talked through that stuff.

01:24:44

Regarding the rating, I wanted to call this out because it's on the Amazon page.

01:24:47

You mentioned like it's got 16,000 ratings and it's 4.7 on Amazon.

01:24:51

On Goodreads, it's got a 3.8.

01:24:54

So the difference there of almost a full point between Amazon and Goodreads

01:24:59

is an indication to me that with Amazon ratings, like you can just send all your fans there

01:25:05

and leave a five star rating and it can skew a little bit, bit high.

01:25:09

But when you've got the, I like how they've got the the star rating for Amazon.

01:25:13

And then right below that, the Goodreads rating, the closer that those are,

01:25:16

I feel like the more true representation of the rating of the book you're seeing when you're

01:25:22

looking at the stars.

01:25:23

Yeah, that makes sense.

01:25:24

All right, so let's go ahead and move on to upcoming books.

01:25:28

So Mike, you have the next book.

01:25:30

What are we reading?

01:25:31

I do.

01:25:32

One that I've had for a long time but have not gotten through.

01:25:36

We're going to read Story Worthy by Matthew Dix.

01:25:38

And this was one that was recommended by Ali Abdahl back in the day when I came across him as

01:25:43

Proactive YouTubers, I were binging all this stuff.

01:25:45

You mentioned a couple of books.

01:25:46

I mentioned The Pathless Path, I think, earlier, which I really enjoyed.

01:25:49

So that was a big Ali Abdahl recommendation.

01:25:53

Talked about that one multiple times.

01:25:54

And then Matthew Dix Story Worthy is another one that just keeps coming up.

01:25:59

And essentially Matthew Dix is a phenomenal storyteller.

01:26:01

So I think we're going to learn how to tell better stories, but time will tell, I guess.

01:26:05

Awesome.

01:26:06

And then after that is my book.

01:26:08

So a guy I know tells me that if a guy recommends a book, you should probably pick it up and read it.

01:26:14

So Mike recommended a book called Good Work, Reclaiming Your Interimvision by Paul Millard.

01:26:21

Paul Millard is the guy who wrote The Pathless Path.

01:26:23

So it's a new book out fairly recently.

01:26:27

It's outright, Mike.

01:26:28

It's released, hasn't it?

01:26:30

Yeah, OK.

01:26:31

So it's a fairly newly released book.

01:26:33

So we're going to look at that.

01:26:36

And that'll be in two episodes from now.

01:26:40

Mike, do you have any gap books?

01:26:41

Well, I wasn't going to read Good Work as a gap book, but

01:26:45

that's when you decided to pick it. I think I'll say I don't have a gap book then.

01:26:51

I will say I ordered that one.

01:26:53

I always get the physical copies.

01:26:55

So as we record this on a Wednesday, it was released yesterday on paperback on Tuesday.

01:27:01

The Kindle version has been available since Monday.

01:27:03

I don't know why the Kindle on the paperback weren't released at the same time, but whatever.

01:27:07

So I've ordered the paperback version.

01:27:09

And I am going to read that one when it comes, just because I've been looking forward to this book for

01:27:14

quite a while.

01:27:15

Pathless Path was a very influential book for me.

01:27:19

And I really like Paul Millard's style.

01:27:21

So I am going to start this one probably pretty early since we're not going to cover it for

01:27:28

another two episodes. But looking forward to reading it.

01:27:31

Nice. I do not have a gap book right now.

01:27:34

My gap book will be an activity.

01:27:37

It's actually an action item.

01:27:38

And that's to give critical feedback on Life HQ.

01:27:42

So that's my gap book.

01:27:45

Because that's more relevant and more important to my life.

01:27:48

Well, technically that is kind of like a book because I've written 50,000 original words for it.

01:27:54

Yes, it is. It's very much like a book.

01:27:55

And lots of screenshots.

01:27:59

Thanks everybody for listening.

01:28:02

If you're interested in ad-free content, if you're interested in the bootleg version of the show,

01:28:09

if you're interested in the Pro Show where today we talked about if we could kind of instantly

01:28:15

and/or even by working get some sort of expertise in a craft or in some skill,

01:28:21

what would we want to get?

01:28:23

If you're interested in those, we do have a Pro Feed.

01:28:26

You can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm.

01:28:30

And you can subscribe to join into the Pro Feed and get those perks.

01:28:37

You also can get a digital wallpaper there.

01:28:39

Like I said, the show comes out early.

01:28:41

You get the bootleg copy early.

01:28:43

And then you get the Pro Show that is also as added content and is ad-free.

01:28:48

If you're, we're going to put 101 essays on the shelf.

01:28:54

If you're reading along with us, pick up Storyworthy by Matthew Dix.

01:28:59

And we'll talk to you next time.