Bookworm Transcripts

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So welcome back to bookworm. We have a little bit different episode for you today

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It is my extreme honor to welcome a guest to the podcast and that is Sean block

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So welcome the bookworm Sean. Thanks guys super excited to be here

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Yeah, we're excited to have you and for those of you aren't familiar with Sean

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He has a lot of different websites with a lot of great content

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Probably the one you're most well known for is the focus course which I've gone through myself

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I believe actually you told me at one point that I was the first one to buy access to the focus course

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Is that correct? You were my I had a little pilot group. So you weren't part of that right right? They don't count

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But yeah, when it launched on

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Whatever was that Tuesday morning? You're the very first person to buy it nice. Yeah, so I've followed Sean for a long time

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I've been a big fan of the content that you put out there. I'm a big fan of the focus course

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It really is very well done my wife and I actually went through it together and

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We both got a lot out of it. So that's the number one place. I'd say to go you've also got tools and toys and

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the sweet setup and

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Bunch of other things is there any ones place you want to you want to call out?

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Before we dive into the book today, you know

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I use always say Sean bonk.net was was the spot but I've kind of put everything into the focus course

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we actually just started a focus course blog and

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A little book club over there as well. So that's kind of become the new hub is on the focus course website

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Awesome

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And yeah, actually I have to give you credit for the whole idea behind bookworm because when you were doing the Sean bonk

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That net is your your main site you had a podcast for subscribers

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So if you paid a couple bucks a month you got access to this private podcast feed

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Which was always one of my favorite podcasts called Sean today and you dove into I believe it was

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40x the four disciplines of execution and you broke it down into several different podcast episodes and you actually had a term on there

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You've mentioned the podcast book club and I was like, oh, that is such a great idea

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Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on hold on so whenever we had this conversation about we were gonna have a podcast

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And we were trying to figure out what the topic of it was gonna be and you said something about the podcast book club

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You passed that off like it was your own thing the

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Bookworm I'm gonna claim as original but the term podcast book club. I have to give credit to Sean for that. Okay

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He I have passed off so many ideas as if they were they my own that they weren't

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Let someone else steal my ideas because I probably stole it from someone else

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It's not original it's all everything's a remix you know

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Well all that to say that we're thrilled to have you on our version of the podcast book club and

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I had just reached out to you on Twitter because I know that you had mentioned before that you had read this book

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The 10x rule that we're gonna cover today by Grant Cardone and you had gotten a lot out of it

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And so I just threw it out there say hey you want to come on the podcast and talk about this with us and you were

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Gracious enough to join us. So I love it. Yeah, what I love about this book is it's so it's it's divisive

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It's it's kind of you know, whatever like people read it and they either are really put off by it

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Or they really love it and it's kind of it's it's kind of you know pushes people to one side of the other

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And I think there's got a lot of it's an interesting book

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There's a lot of good stuff in it and there's a lot of it

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You know, I feel like the whole thing's just written in like all caps with exclamation marks after every point. Yep

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I've heard the audiobook is way better because it's read by Grant Cardone himself

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And so there's more of like that nuance and personality behind it

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But I read the book. I didn't listen to the audiobook. So do you think this is just divisive?

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Because I guess I didn't realize it was a divisive book

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But it makes sense now that you say that but is it divisive because some people don't see like he talks about action a lot

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In the book

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But is it because people don't see that there's a lot of action to be had from it or they want something more tactical as opposed to?

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esophical that makes sense now, I think it's divisive because he has such an emphasis on taking massive action and

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You know, I mean that's kind of one of the core themes

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Right is if you want to have massive goals

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You also have to take massive action and he just he just over emphasizes that point

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Continuously because his whole premise is that people even when people think they're taking massive action. They're taking like

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1.2

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More action, you know, like like just bear like a little bit more and he's going to take 10 times more

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Action so he really over emphasizes it in order to get his point across and I think a lot of people take that

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I don't know my my guess is that people are taking it too literally and they're like well, you know, I got kids

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I want to sleep a little bit. I'd like to be healthy

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You know, I would like to do a few other things other than only ever take action against my business constantly and

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And so it's like no, no, no, like you don't have to you know

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I think we can talk about this I put it in some of the talking points

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But the concept that you don't have to apply this to like work 24 hours a day is not what he's trying to say

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And so I just kind of chilling back, you know a little bit and saying okay with the time that I do have the energy that I do

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Have what is going to be the most effective use of that time?

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And how can I make sure I'm taking you know that that massive action during the time that I have and is there

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Other time that I can free up to focus on the things that are important to me

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And that's kind of that's kind of the takeaway for me is is that default that bias toward action?

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But it doesn't have to dominate. Yeah, exactly

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I wanted it one of the quotes that I wrote down from the book is from page 92

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He says most people make only enough effort to make it feel like work

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Whereas the most successful follow up every action with an obsession to see it through to a reward

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I think that that's why it's decisive or divisive is that it's going to challenge you to put yourself out there

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And it's going to challenge your definition of normal the definition of the status quo

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He's basically saying in a very aggressive tone throughout the entire book that that's not good enough

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And I haven't listened to the audiobook either, but it kind of reminded me his whole

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The whole color of of the language that he uses and things like that reminded me of another audiobook that I did listen to

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which was the millionaire fast lane by DJ Marco I believe and

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I both loved and hated that book because

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He just seemed like a pretty arrogant jerk at sometimes because he's just saying like this is the way things are

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Like you can't do it normal way

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You've got to do it this way if you want to get results, but also we actually just recorded yesterday

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On the personal NBA which I know is another book that you had recommended Sean and we talked about reference levels

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And how in that book Josh Kaufman talks about how you need to be constantly challenging your reference levels

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I think that's what this book does a very very good job of yeah is making you realize that what you have accepted as

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Like this is what I'm capable of this is my capacity. This is what I'm able to do

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That's not necessarily the case a lot of times we settle for things and we accept less than we are capable of

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Simply because we haven't had anybody like Grant Cardone kick us in the pants and tell us to take some massive action

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No, it's it's really true. I think it's just that mindset shift

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Okay, if I want to improve how much action I'm taking towards things

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My default is probably gonna be to like, you know, one and a half or two X my action

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I really need to think bigger than that and how can I 10x it and he gets ended later

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You know on focusing on the things that you can control and I think that that's a huge

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You know coupling that with the 10x action stuff is massive

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Yep, definitely and so maybe let's back up a little bit and just kind of define what the the 10x rule is

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I think he defines it in the book as number one assessing the level of effort necessary to realize a goal and number two adjusting your thinking

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So that you dare to dream at levels previously thought unimaginable and you kind of touched on it Sean

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Where it's just taking what you think you're capable of and just blowing it out of the water

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Not just 1.2 Xing and trying a little bit harder pushing a little bit harder to see, you know

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If I were to put this thing out there, does it have legs? Will it fly?

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will can't it survive on its own but just

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completely changing your paradigm of what you believe is possible and

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I'm kind of curious because you you have a link which we'll put in the show notes here where you actually did this back in November

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I'm kind of curious have you started applying some of this 10x

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Rule thinking to your business and are there any changes that you would be willing to share like this is how I've seen

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Things change or this is kind of what we've landed on which we didn't really think was possible before

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Yeah, and it's kind of interesting. I feel like we've kind of for us

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over here at the whatever like the Blanc media global headquarters

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and you know, it's me and Isaac kind of on a day-to-day basis and

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What we're trying to do is like we've really

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Kind of tried to install the four disciplines of execution within our office, and it's actually taken us

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Well over a year to like work through that book read it

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Go through it again go through it again and just figure out like the lead measures and anyone that's familiar with the book

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You know it talks like there's a big emphasis on what your lead measures are

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and

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Grant Gardone talks about this as well in the 10x rule with you know focusing on the things that you can control

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And that's kind of what a lead measure is it's something that is

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Influensible and that you can control, you know making it happen and so like an example would be

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a lead measure for if I want to lose weight if my goal is to lose weight something I can control is how often I go to the gym and

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What kind of food I eat a lag measure is like what my weight actually is?

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You know that's not something I can control I can't just choose what my weight is going to be

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But I can choose to go to the gym. I can't use to go running

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I can choose to eat salads instead of hamburgers or whatever and those lead measures of

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exercise and diet will directly

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Impact my actual weight which is the goal is you know it made to lose weight

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So what we're trying to do is is what the what are the lead measures we can?

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apply in our business here for accomplishing our goals and then stepping back and going okay now

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How can we take massive action against those lead measures and what are the things that we can do that are that are really going to push things forward?

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And so that's that's kind of a little bit of the context so what we've focused on actually is

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building relationships and

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Producing more content on a regular basis. It's kind of been our core

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Focus right now as our lead measures and then try to take massive action against those things

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So your your lead measures lead and lag that immediately made me think of the 12 week year

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Have you read this one shy?

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Literally like

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Someone like tweeted about it to me like 20 minutes ago. Oh seriously and what's funny is I have it on my shelf

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I

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Bought it like six months ago at the recommendation of Andrei Shepron and I haven't yet read it

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But I've heard really good things about it. And so yeah anyway, so yeah, anyways Joe tell me about yes

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So you'll get a kick out of that if you go through that because I know you're going through this whole eight-week cycle thing

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Right now because I just I got your new newsletter earlier today

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But yeah, if you if you go through that he talks quite a bit and I can't even place the author at the moment

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That's how terrible I am but he goes through this whole process of setting up goals for your 12 weeks

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and setting those goals as if they are annual goals and assuming that you can do an

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entire year's worth of work in a quarter of a year which would be 4x rule not 10x so even that's not quite big enough

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So it's interesting that you brought up the lead and lag because that's a big deal to

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The author of the 12 week year gosh, I cannot place it

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If if you look at the lead and lag because this is something I've been doing

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I've been trying to follow that 12 week year

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Process when I saw your eight-week thing it made me think about that too as I okay, I must stick with 12

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I got to get that under control first, but

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he spells out how to define your lead

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Indicators of here's here's the things I need to do up front to make sure that I'm gonna hit that end game

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and something I've started doing is setting my goals for

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12 weeks and then break that down per week and say okay, here's where I need to be at

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This week in order to make sure that I'm gonna hit that 12 weeks out

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And then next week here's where I need to be to hit that goal 12 weeks out

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And then it doesn't matter where I'm at in the process

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I can always look at it and say okay

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I'm not where I need to be this week

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Which means I need to do some extra work now or I'm gonna miss that goal and it's a great way to see where am I at in that

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Process, but that all comes from that 12 week year process, which sounds identical to what you were just talking about

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That's awesome. I need to read it obviously

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Yeah, it could be for my upcoming book

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There you go

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It's uh, it's very complimentary to the 10x rule and a lot of like Joe's saying a lot of the stuff that we're talking about right now

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By the way, it's Brian Moran and Michael Lenington

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There you go, Brian and Mike

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But the whole idea behind the 12 week here is that you're gonna take massive action and like Joe said

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It's not necessarily at a 10x

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Level but it is significantly more than most people dare to dream of and then you work backwards and you kind of deconstruct

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What are the habits and what are the things that I have to do on a regular basis to make sure that I hit these goals and these objectives?

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And so I think it lines up real nicely with the newsletter that Joe was talking about where you define this eight-week

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Cycle and I think you probably got this idea from

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The Sean West Conference when you were talking to Sean McCabe, correct? I totally ripped it off of Sean McCabe

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I've he's been talking about his sabbatical stuff. So okay, so the eight week cycle just so people know what we're talking about

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This is something we just implemented here at our offices on January 1st for 2017

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And what it looks like is it's eight weeks and we break it up into six weeks plus one plus one and

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During the six weeks we pick a very like a specific

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Project or outcome that is

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You know, it's kind of based on the action priority matrix, which is you've got the

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You know on the horizontal axis is the amount of energy and complexity required

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And I'm a vertical axis is the amount of return you're gonna get on the energy

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And so obviously something that's you know way up top but way over to the left is something that's gonna be very easy to implement

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But you're gonna get a huge return on that that time spent and so that's like hey if you this much time as you can spend there

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That's that's the way to do it and then obviously stuff that would be at like the bottom right is

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You know stuff that's gonna take a long time really hard to implement and very little return

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It's like just avoid that at all costs because you're just wasting your time

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So that's kind of our framework. So we're gonna go about six weeks to work on something

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What can we accomplish within six weeks that's gonna have the highest return on our time spent?

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Because we got it'd be done within six weeks

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And so that's kind of the that's kind of the idea and we stole that

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From base camp that stuff that they do over at the base camp offices

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And so and then we have a little buffer week and then that eighth week

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We take it off and that's a vacation or like a sabbatical, which is what Sean McCabe does with his whole Sean West crew

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So yeah, totally sold from them. So yeah, we're trying to just take that six weeks and say okay

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we've got you know we're gonna try to really do something that's the most impactful most effective and

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It's interesting because you know like when I step back I look at the 10x rule

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And I look at what we're doing and like I don't know if I'm if I'm truly following grant cardowns

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recommendations to the letter because I look at our goals and

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I'm like these are really good really valuable goals

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But they're also they feel realistic to me and maybe it's just my experience in terms of just I know

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What we're gonna get done and so I'm not gonna 10x my rule and 10x my action

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Just because Grant says I should I feel like I'm doing the most that I can with the time that I have and when I look at my day

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I don't feel like I'm wasting you know, I feel like I'm wasting very little time

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I'm not you know, I'm not wasting zero time

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But I'm probably wasting only 10 or 20% of my day which I think is actually winning because you know, you just you can only do so much in a day

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You know

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So I don't know like I don't know for 10xing stuff

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But I feel like we're really making significant movement

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We're focusing on the stuff that truly is making them have the most return and then we're trying to squeeze it into six weeks instead of

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You know 10 12 14, you know a whole year or whatever

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Which I would imagine the 12 week rule or the 12 week

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The 12 week year. Yep. Yep. Totally here

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I'm a reddit, but Joe you can tell me if I'm wrong

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But my he probably says that you're gonna get that you're gonna do it in 12 weeks

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You know, it's not you're actually not doing

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More than you can it's just you're you're giving yourself a tighter frame

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Deadline and work will just take the amount of time that it takes and so if you just say hey

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We're gonna do this in 12 weeks instead of 12 months

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You'll just do it in 12 weeks and it'll be fine and instead of wasting

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You know the additional 40 weeks on something else because you know or tweaking forever

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Whatever it's like nine just doing 12 weeks instead and it's you'll probably end up with with 90% the same result

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Yeah, absolutely. In fact in the last book we the personal MBA

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Josh Kauffman talks about Parkinson's Law

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Which basically the size the task will take as long as as you give for it to be done

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And I'm glad I'm glad that you you brought up this whole eight week in the sabbatical thing because this was the one thing that

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I wrote down that I did not agree with in the the 10x rule

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He says on page 97 you can go all in with energy as many times as you want because even if you fail you can keep going all in

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He says later

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It's a myth that your energy creativity and efforts are material things with limited quantities that cannot be replaced

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And I'm not sure that I completely agree with that

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I think the key is that they don't get replaced unless you replace them

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But that does take time you have to have that margin and I think that the whole sabbatical model that you've implemented is

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Really really important for long-term success

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You have to have that margin and that was actually a another book that I had gotten from you was the book called margin

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I forget who writes that one dr. Swenson. I believe yeah, Richard Swenson. Oh, yeah margins huge. I think

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You know Mike actually the quote that you you just recommended like I actually have that highlighted

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I'm just like you know flipped to a real quick

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I have that highlighted too and when I read that quote that your you know your creativity and your energy are

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You know they can't be depleted

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You know I think when I read that I thought long-term because at least in my experience

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I initially when I read that I initially you know

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Whatever thought of myself of course where I always do and I went back to when I first quit my job as a marketing creative director

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and I started blogging for a living this is about six years ago now and I remember this feeling of

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Oh my gosh

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I get I've got like a couple article ideas and then what like I'm screwed and I just I just in my mind

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I was afraid because I didn't have this long I was I just had no idea how long I would be able to keep up

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writing original stuff and being relevant and keeping people engaged

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But I just figured well gosh I've been doing it on the side for a few years now

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So I'll probably be able to keep on going for it

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And so when I read that you know that quote from Grant Cardone about that your your creativity

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Won't run out. That's what I thought of is like if you if you have

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You know if you're going for it and you know over the long run

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It won't go out if you're if you're doing things well

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And I think that's where the margin comes in that kind of marathon pace of

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Like you need a little bit of breathing room

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You can't just work 20 hours a day and yeah during a day like an eight-hour work day

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I just hit a wall where I'm done like my brain is done

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I'm not I'm not being any more creative today

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And so I'm gonna either just do some administrative tasks or I'm done

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I'm just gonna leave the office and be done for the day and so in that context

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Yes, it is a depletable resource that you know Mike like you said you do need to to recharge it

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But over the long run if you have that margin and you're doing things correctly

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You know your creative muscle should hopefully get stronger and grow and improve and and why not?

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How many times you read about some of the the great authors of the past who had these crazy?

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Regimented processes of writing where they had these schedules where they would write eight nine ten hours a day

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Always starting at the same time always ending at the same time

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Like you hear those stories and the question I always had was holy cow

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How did you how did you manage this sit down and be creative for that long?

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for like every single day, how do you pull that off and

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I think you're right

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It's something that you build up over time and the more that you use it the more that you have that type of thing and it's really true

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if

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It whenever because whenever I read that my I think I was with you on that Sean where I

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Think midday like sub day level or even sub hour level depending on how sensitive you are to it

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You will deplete things you need to take a break and then they'll come back like you need to have that

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ebb and flow of working something hard and then taking a break from it, but I think if you're looking

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Multi-year process and you're always trying to find what's the next big business? I want to work on

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If you're asking those questions and you're trying to be creative and and use energy towards that

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Yeah, absolutely. It's never gonna run out because the more you use the more you have that makes sense my rocker

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No, it's great. I heard I

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Think it was Scott. Yeah, not Scott Young Scott Adams that said that creativity is like a car battery

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Or your mind is like a car battery that it you know it recharges

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By you know through use basically so like if you want to recharge your car battery drive the car around

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And so like that idea of resting well and obviously like you can't you know

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Like if you're doing intense thinking then like going to read or like engaging your mind in a different activity

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Is actually going to recharge it better than just you know watching television or something like that

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I do that all the time because I so I'm a programmer. I write code all the time

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Well, at least I claim to and if I'm if I'm stuck on a problem with it

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It like I've run into a roadblock would turn us off a problem in how to write code

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I more often than not I grab a book and go sit down and read it for a while and just I mean

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I'm still engaging my brain in that way, but just engaging it in a different way

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Gives me a chance to to re-energize that same muscle

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Yeah, I cut you off. No, no, that's you made the point I was gonna make except I was thinking of the Huffington Post article

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Which highlights that the average American watches 35 hours of TV a week?

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That's what most people do to quote unquote recharge

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But like you said, it's really not helping you recharge anything

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You have to do the right things in order to recharge and I think that's where there's a lot of value here

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Is that for the average person who doesn't realize necessarily how much time they are really investing in things?

00:24:03

They might think that they're really going for it and if they were to really track their time

00:24:08

Which is one of my action items?

00:24:10

So I want to start tracking how I spend every single minute of my day

00:24:13

So I have a record of well

00:24:16

I felt like I worked really hard on this project, but I really only put in a couple hours this week

00:24:20

And that's where the whole mass of action really is important because

00:24:26

You can feel burned out and the natural

00:24:29

Response to that is well, I just got to cut some things

00:24:33

I have to create more margin and Grant Cardona is basically saying I'm putting words in his mouth

00:24:37

But he's saying not so fast. He says never reduce a target instead increase your action and so

00:24:42

That's where I think this book is really valuable is that he pushes you to take that massive action and as soon as you actually do take some massive action

00:24:52

That's when things kind of fall into place if you're gonna take massive action on your side business

00:24:57

If you're gonna finally write that book that you believe that you're supposed to be have written

00:25:00

then

00:25:02

The other things that like the 35 hours per week of watching TV the video games all the other time

00:25:07

Wasters that you typically quote-unquote used to recharge

00:25:10

Those will fall to the wayside in my own experience

00:25:13

I found that the harder I worked on certain things the more of those quote-unquote downtime like the less of that that I had

00:25:21

Up to a certain point it actually didn't reduce the energy that I had to apply to the things that I wanted to work on

00:25:27

It actually increased the energy that I had because I was directing it in the right

00:25:31

Direction and that's kind of what he talks about I think with the four categories of action he says that and page 48 you can

00:25:38

Do nothing you can retreat which is what I would define going and watching TV

00:25:43

You can take normal levels of action do the things that you know

00:25:47

You need to do in order to maintain things or the fourth one you can take massive action and that's gonna look different for everybody regardless

00:25:53

And determined determined by the specific

00:25:57

Application or what what project or what thing you're working on what thing you want to launch what thing you want to do

00:26:02

But that massive action that's where the breakthrough comes

00:26:06

So it's really important to recognize that what got you here won't get you there and then

00:26:11

Like you were saying not just try a little bit harder

00:26:14

But just what would happen if I wasn't afraid of failing what would happen if I just really did give everything that I had to this thing

00:26:22

You know what's possible?

00:26:24

Yeah, no absolutely. I love that. I like the idea of finding that massive action finding that the space for that action

00:26:31

In the other in the corners basically on the fringes of how we're spending our time and you know

00:26:38

I'm all for like Netflix, but not 35 hours a week, right?

00:26:42

You know, I mean maybe like three

00:26:44

I mean, I'm down for movie night and you know catching up on my favorite show, but that's about it and

00:26:51

You know five hours a night every night of the week is I mean, that's a lot. I don't even have that

00:26:59

I think I have that amount of time

00:27:02

Yeah, it's it's really astounding if you really

00:27:07

Sit down and think about like where are all the things that you really waste time?

00:27:11

I mean Sean you've written about the just checks, you know

00:27:13

When you're standing in line and you're pulling out your phone because you want to see what's happening on Twitter now

00:27:17

I've caught myself doing that and

00:27:19

If you really are honest with yourself and that's where the time tracking comes in because when you are time tracking

00:27:24

There's no gray area here the timer is running and you hear face to face with the record of how you actually spent your time

00:27:34

It can be really humbling. It can be really illuminating

00:27:37

But a lot of people don't think that they have the time to devote to massive action on side project side hustle

00:27:44

Whatever it is. Maybe it's even their core business

00:27:46

You know, there's a lot of things especially if you if you work from home the tendency can be to do all of these things that feel

00:27:53

Productive but if you're not doing the right things if you're you're not really being productive

00:27:58

You need to know that and so

00:28:01

It's the time tracking for me

00:28:04

It really is where the rubber meets the road. It's it's a very telling it's the tail of the tape

00:28:10

It's the the plumb line that you talked about a while back

00:28:13

It's it's the the actual measure of how you're spending your time and then from there you've got a couple options

00:28:18

You can deny you can say well. No, that's not really what I do. I don't actually spend 35 hours a week watching TV

00:28:25

Or you can say well, yeah, I guess there's something here and maybe I should I should fix this

00:28:30

What I really like about this book the big takeaway for me is that when you do the right things you get the results

00:28:37

He talks about how success is not a zero-sum game

00:28:41

How just because one person was successful? It doesn't mean that you can't be successful. I think with internet

00:28:48

business

00:28:50

And stuff like you're your focus course for example, you can look at that and you could say well

00:28:54

Oh Sean beat me to it, you know

00:28:55

I was gonna do a video course on whatever topic and I'm not gonna do it anymore because

00:29:00

There's already this thing that exists

00:29:02

but the fact that the thing that exists doesn't necessarily preclude the fact that you that your thing can exist too a

00:29:09

Lot of times actually that's just and that should be viewed as an encouragement that there actually is a market for this sort of thing

00:29:16

because your take is gonna be a little bit different than my take or Joe's take or whoever's listening to this is take you know

00:29:22

they're gonna have a little bit different angle and

00:29:24

Grant Cardone is saying that the world needs your contribution

00:29:28

Successes your duty obligation and responsibility. He says yeah

00:29:32

So I that just really hit me between the eyes is like failure is not an option. You cannot choose to be

00:29:38

Just merely average like people need what you have it is your duty your obligation and your responsibility to maximize

00:29:47

What you have been given you have to get that thing out into the world because there are people who are relying on it

00:29:54

They don't even realize it, but you have the thing that can change their life

00:29:57

Right and I love that night because his his framework for success is not you know financial independence

00:30:04

It's it's that what you're building what you care about what you're trying to do actually gets traction and

00:30:11

sees success and you know, you know manifests in the world but also manifests in the way that it should like it's not just

00:30:19

The little early beta version. It's actually like a good

00:30:23

Working version of what it is that you're trying to build or put together or put out there

00:30:27

And so he kind of defines success in that context and so when you look at it that way

00:30:32

You know then it really does make sense when he goes it is your duty. It's your obligation to be successful

00:30:38

I e it's your obligation to take

00:30:41

What you're trying to get you know together take what you're trying to build what you're trying to do and actually have it manifest in the world

00:30:49

Which is awesome. I love that and then when you pair that with the idea that it's not a zero-sum game. It's very liberating

00:30:56

It's it's interesting though. How many people don't see it that way

00:31:00

They they don't realize that you can like if you if you go

00:31:05

To use some of Dave Ramsey's turns if I don't go kill something and drag it home

00:31:09

You know if I don't go out and find something and do my own thing

00:31:13

then I'm not gonna be successful, but they tend to

00:31:17

Think that if I'm successful, it's me taking success from someone else

00:31:22

And it's that's so far from the truth because you know

00:31:26

It's a matter of what I'm manufacturing if I come up with something completely new for the market. I develop a new

00:31:32

Say touchscreen device. It does something completely different than anyone's ever even thought of you know

00:31:37

If I come up with something like that then you're creating a whole new category of success in that realm

00:31:43

you're making a whole new

00:31:45

system at that point and

00:31:47

That doesn't mean that I'm robbing from someone else

00:31:49

That's probably a bad example because in that case you're probably stealing from Microsoft and Apple a little bit

00:31:53

But that aside, you know

00:31:56

There's there's still the process of coming up with something new and going out and doing things

00:32:01

With the massive action to create something new because I think if you don't if you don't think of it that way

00:32:07

it gets easy to fall into a rut of

00:32:13

Almost the victim mentality of wanting someone else's success and trying to get it from them and being upset when you can't get it from

00:32:19

them and then you get frustrated and then you go down this big long pit of possible depression and

00:32:24

It's just not a good thing, but if you think about it from a different stance where I

00:32:30

Can manufacture this and it's not I'm not reliant on someone else to do that

00:32:37

It's purely within myself to do that

00:32:40

That's where this can really this is that's where it can have a big impact

00:32:43

Yeah, definitely and the that's one of the things he said in here that I wrote down was don't be a victim

00:32:50

It's very tempting to play the victim card because then you don't have to take responsibility for the massive action

00:32:57

You're relying on somebody else to take care of you

00:33:01

You're relying on the system or whatever the the security of your job to provide for you and your family and this whole book

00:33:09

I just feel does a really good job of

00:33:11

Challenging you by saying that

00:33:14

Success is out there and then he basically like we mentioned earlier to duty. It's your obligation. It's your responsibility to go get it

00:33:20

but

00:33:21

It's up to you like you have to make that choice

00:33:25

You have to make the decision to not think average and to think massive

00:33:31

He says never set realistic goals you can get a realistic life without setting goals for it and

00:33:36

And I totally believe that that that's what a lot of people do is they they focus on well

00:33:42

What what's achievable and Sean you kind of touched on this when you're talking about the

00:33:45

Your eight-week planning sessions and I'm not saying that you're doing this specific thing

00:33:49

But I think this is the natural tendency for people is to say well, what can we do? What can we accomplish?

00:33:55

comfortably, I mean even with Asian efficiency we

00:33:57

Consistently try to push what we are capable of in a any given sprint

00:34:03

We try to to see what the the new normal can be we don't just say well the most we've ever done is 80 story points

00:34:11

So we're gonna do 75 this time because we feel that that's that's attainable in our experience regardless of whether we set the bar

00:34:18

You know at at eight or at ten

00:34:21

We're going to to usually come up just a little bit short

00:34:26

We'll do we'll do enough to make it look like we can we can accomplish it

00:34:30

but then a lot of times something will happen at the end and something it's not something that you plan on and and

00:34:36

You know you've kind of coasted at the beginning

00:34:38

Which is really what he's getting at is like don't take that mentality don't take that approach to it

00:34:42

You don't have the ability to take it easy you have to have pedal to the metal

00:34:47

You have to have the foot down on the accelerator

00:34:49

And I think that if you were to take that approach with a lot of different things

00:34:53

You would be a lot more successful and I'm talking to myself too

00:34:56

I'm not just people who are listening to this but if if one in the general sense took that approach you would get a lot more

00:35:04

Success then if you just continue to do you know what what has been been comfortable?

00:35:12

And he says from a from a creative standpoint

00:35:14

You know you want to constantly be pushing forward. You don't want to

00:35:19

Be looking at what other people are doing. He doesn't he says you don't want to compete

00:35:24

This is competition isn't healthy because it limits your creativity. That's that's very true

00:35:28

You want to be setting the pace you want to be setting the tone for your team your organization

00:35:33

Even your family, you know, we've talked on this podcast before how my wife and I will do family

00:35:39

We'll have our family meetings once a week and we'll define what we're gonna be working on and it's it's

00:35:44

Very tempting to just say well, you know, let's let's take it easy this week

00:35:48

Let's just do this this and this and there is a little bit of that

00:35:51

Obviously you do need to make sure that you're maintaining maintaining that margin, but the whole idea here is that

00:35:57

You have to be obsessed with this idea

00:36:01

You have to

00:36:02

10x your thinking first and you have to be obsessed with this idea of success

00:36:06

You have to be able to see it you have to be able to to taste it

00:36:10

You have to be able to touch it like it has to be tangible before so you so you can not just compete and

00:36:16

Run at the same pace that everybody else is doing but you have to be able to and willing to go

00:36:22

Above and beyond that you have to operate based not on what you need that will result and you just getting by but you have to be

00:36:29

Completely obsessed with this thing and that's another one of the action items that I wrote down is he uses the example

00:36:35

Little kids how they can get obsessed with stuff and a lot of times from a parenting perspective

00:36:39

You think of that in a negative sense

00:36:41

Where you think of the kid who's just like screaming in the grocery store because they want the candy and their parents not giving it to them?

00:36:47

That's obviously an unhealthy expression of obsession

00:36:51

But if you can train your kids, this is what I want to do

00:36:54

I want to train my kids to not suppress that obsession but to channel it

00:36:57

Constructively then really like we tell people we tell our children all the time that you can do anything anything is possible

00:37:04

It really is if you can channel that obsession in the correct way

00:37:10

Mm-hmm. I think what I what coming back Mike to something that you were talking about

00:37:14

With you know not reducing your goals and you know not setting realistic goals

00:37:19

But being unrealistic with your goals going crazy

00:37:22

You know 10xing them and then just taking as much action as you can to try to push that and then if you come short of your goal

00:37:29

That's better like it's better to come you know Grant Cardone talks about it's better to set a goal at you know

00:37:35

Whatever level 100 and then you accomplish it at you know 80%

00:37:39

Then it would be to set a goal at level 50 and accomplish it 100%

00:37:44

Because then you only end up with level 50 instead of level 80 and so his you know

00:37:50

That's kind of his point is I mean it's like whatever like what isn't there like a cheesy

00:37:53

There's a cheesy poster out there somewhere that says something about like shooting for the moon

00:37:58

And even if you miss you land among the stars

00:38:01

But that's kind of what he said that's kind of what he's trying to say and

00:38:04

There's there's a couple of points in here where he talks about

00:38:07

When you set your goal like taking action immediately and like you know like getting started and focusing on the now

00:38:14

And this is from page 188 in the book. I'm just gonna read through he he says

00:38:18

She goes now means now not a minute from now start with the first things first

00:38:23

Make your initial list of goals and then a list of actions that will propel you in that direction

00:38:29

It goes then and this is this is huge goes without overthinking it start taking those actions

00:38:35

Then he has these five bullet points or six bullet points where he goes first of all do not reduce your goals as you write them down

00:38:41

So keep them unrealistic keep them big don't reduce them

00:38:44

This is and then don't get lost in the details of how to accomplish them ask yourself what action can I take today?

00:38:51

That's going to move me toward these goals

00:38:54

And then he says take whatever action you come up with regardless of what it is regardless of how you feel

00:38:59

Take that action just do something get moving and don't prematurely value the outcome of those initial actions yet

00:39:05

And then continually go back and review your list of what you're doing what actions you can take

00:39:09

And so basically he's like don't don't overthink it just give your 10x rule your your 10x goal

00:39:16

Write down a whole bunch of actions and then just start going for it like just move move move move move as opposed to

00:39:22

Thinking it which is something else that Josh Kaufman writes about in the personal NBA about just the importance of making the best decision

00:39:30

You can with the information that's available to you and then just going and not overthinking it

00:39:34

Not waiting not analyzing but just moving forward in that direction

00:39:39

Which is huge and so that's something that we're trying to do with our eight week work cycles is going

00:39:43

What can we do in those six weeks and you know and setting a goal that?

00:39:47

You know obviously like we're we're going we think that we can do this in six weeks

00:39:51

We're not we're not building something out that we know is just not going to be doable

00:39:55

But we're also saying okay

00:39:57

We only can focus on like the most important actions to make sure that we're gonna accomplish this because we don't have time for anything

00:40:03

Else right now

00:40:04

So that's that's kind of been helpful for us

00:40:06

Shall run are you a are you a getting things done guy?

00:40:10

No, no, okay

00:40:13

I mean, I'm a I like keeping track of my tasks, but I'm not okay

00:40:18

methodology got it person it just it sounded a lot like that which is why I asked that question because the the process that he talks about with

00:40:26

spelling out the actions and then get to work like that process of

00:40:31

Defining what comes next towards your goal and then getting to work

00:40:36

But the thing that I don't like with GTD in that you know

00:40:40

If you think about here are my goals and here are the actions that go towards those goals

00:40:43

What I don't like about GTD is that it's sometimes

00:40:48

Can the way if you follow it to the letter it sometimes has this implication that it doesn't move very fast

00:40:54

That here are my projects. Here's the next action for each one of them

00:40:57

I'm gonna go through check them all off and then I review everything and define the next actions again like that process

00:41:03

And I'm dumbing it down a lot in that sense, but you know that process doesn't move very quick

00:41:09

At least in my use of it in that process, maybe I'm doing it weird

00:41:14

I don't know but it's but the idea of taking a goal and then here are all the things I could do for it and

00:41:19

Let's knock as many of those out today as I can

00:41:23

But I think the trick there is that you've got one or two

00:41:27

maybe three big goals that you're shooting for and

00:41:31

Then you're just busting those out as fast and with as much action as you possibly can as opposed to

00:41:37

What's the what's the general rule of thumb with David Allen's thing like 40 projects going on at a time or more?

00:41:44

Whatever that yeah, it's quite a bit. Holy cow. That's a lot, but you know, I have a lot but I

00:41:50

Only chip away at three-fourths of them bit by bit every week and you know

00:41:56

There's maybe six or seven those are the core of what I'm working on. I'm looking at this book thinking

00:42:01

Okay, I've got way too many of these that I'm working on I need to narrow down

00:42:05

The projects that I'm working on and then the ones that do get the chance that stay alive

00:42:11

Let's go to crazy on them like let's just take tons and tons of action towards those and get them

00:42:17

Until I hit that massive 80% goal. No, I think that's huge

00:42:22

And I think that like Joe what you're hitting on there is a huge distinction is saying okay

00:42:28

I'm not gonna take 10x massive action on all of my 40

00:42:32

current projects and areas of interest and areas of responsibility like that you would just die and

00:42:39

And so for us like what we're doing with the these eight week work cycles is

00:42:43

You know, we just have six weeks actually that we're focusing on on a

00:42:47

specific project and

00:42:50

Right now we actually only have one

00:42:52

Primary project that we're working on and it has to do with like creating some new products for one of our websites on the sweet setup and

00:42:59

So like we we definitely bit off a lot, but it's just one project

00:43:04

And so there's one thing one outcome that we're trying to get we got six weeks to do it

00:43:08

And what's cool when you have that and you kind of focus in and this is like no this is it

00:43:13

There's only one flag that's raised right now

00:43:15

And so everything we're doing is marching toward that flag

00:43:18

And so it's easier to take massive action because you're eating breathing sleeping this one project the one outcome all

00:43:25

Everything is fodder for that and so it's it's easier to really just go for it because you don't have to do context shifting

00:43:32

You don't have to manage multiple things

00:43:35

And so your energy gets behind that project like it's just at least for me

00:43:38

I found like I just do way better work

00:43:40

And then in six weeks will be done and that project will ship and we'll call it good

00:43:45

And then we'll move on to the next one and we'll raise a new flag and we'll march toward that single flag instead of raising

00:43:51

Ten flags and trying to take one step in the direction of all ten every single day

00:43:56

It's like not just rather take ten steps in the direction of one flag each day

00:44:00

Yeah, I like that a lot and and I think that that's the big benefit of the whole scrum or agile

00:44:08

Project management philosophy as opposed to the getting things done methodology is the sprints whether they are two weeks

00:44:16

Four weeks six weeks you've got a firm deadline that we're gonna work really hard on this thing and by this date

00:44:23

It is going to be done

00:44:25

And I think that's a good application of one of the things that I wrote down in the book

00:44:29

He says if you're not creating new problems for yourself, you're not taking enough action

00:44:32

The way I interpret that is you put yourself out there you say that I'm going to finish this by a certain time

00:44:39

And that's why we do the action items that we were talking about before we started recording

00:44:43

Why Joe and I throw it out there is because we know that

00:44:47

If we don't put it out there if we don't have a deadline for taking action on this thing

00:44:51

There's a good chance I guess I'm speaking for myself Joe you correct me if I'm wrong good

00:44:56

But if you don't put it out there if you don't if there's not some pain associated with failing to meet this thing

00:45:03

Then there's a good chance that you'll just take it easy

00:45:07

You'll coast and and whether or not somebody holds you accountable to that

00:45:11

You know if no one does that then tendency can be not to do anything

00:45:15

But like he says in here success demands continuous attention

00:45:19

So I really like the idea of creating these problems for yourself because then that forces your hand

00:45:26

to be more creative and to

00:45:29

Exercise the muscle like you were talking about earlier and and you had mentioned a little bit about

00:45:34

Taking action right away and Joe. I know this is one of the things that you wrote down

00:45:38

So I'm curious to get your perspective on this

00:45:40

but the whole idea of

00:45:42

Fear not being necessarily something bad or something to avoid but he says on page 115

00:45:48

It's actually something you want to seek and embrace. It's a sign that you are doing what's needed to move in

00:45:53

The right direction, but the key there is not to just sit and think about it for a while and try to muster up the courage to do it

00:45:58

Because the more you sit and think about it the more you feed that fear

00:46:02

The harder it is to actually overcome the procrastination and take that massive action. Yeah, I love that

00:46:08

Yeah, I think fear as a mile marker is huge that you're on the right track

00:46:12

You know, oh crap this might not work. That means you're probably doing something awesome

00:46:17

If you if you if you say that to yourself then you're doing you're on the right track

00:46:23

Yeah, I was coupling it with

00:46:25

the last book we read the personal MBA he had a whole list of

00:46:29

You know judge your business idea and vet that business idea with this criteria and

00:46:35

I'm not gonna go through that right now. We just went through that but the

00:46:39

The process of deciding what you're gonna work on you couple that with

00:46:43

Acting before fear sets in and I put that down because I'm I'm pretty bad about

00:46:50

It's coming up with something that I think is a great idea

00:46:53

Maybe even having tons of data and and subjective information that says yes

00:47:00

This is a great thing to work on I may have all of that

00:47:03

But if I sit and think about it for too long I

00:47:06

Can come up with an awful lot of reasons as to why that thing's gonna fail

00:47:10

I can come up with a bunch of

00:47:12

excuses and a bunch of

00:47:15

I guess develop the angst around it to where I just I'm not sure I actually want to take action on it

00:47:21

And I'm pretty bad at that. So that's why I put this down like is I I need to stop

00:47:26

I need to start paying attention to if I've got an idea and I and know it's gonna be a good idea

00:47:32

Stop thinking it through and then just get get my tail to work and 10x the amount of actions

00:47:37

I'm gonna do for it and don't don't sit on my haunches

00:47:42

Right, let's get let's get to it. Yeah page one 18 and one 19

00:47:46

He says fear is one of the most disabling emotions a human being can experience it immobilizes people and often it ultimately prevents them from going for their goals and dreams

00:47:55

Everyone fears something in life. However, it's what we each do with that fear that distinguishes us from others when you allow fear to set you back

00:48:02

You lose energy

00:48:04

Momentum and confidence and your fears will only grow and this might be a real good segue into this point here

00:48:10

I think Sean maybe you wrote this down about the minimum of effective dose

00:48:13

I think this is the antidote to the fear is not take this entire project and say oh

00:48:20

I got to do this thing right now because the bigger that task is

00:48:24

The harder it is to create the momentum to actually start on it

00:48:29

But the way you define this minimum effective dose

00:48:32

This is kind of like the 80/20 the one thing that you can do right now that will get you moving in the right direction and provide some traction

00:48:39

Mm-hmm. And we'll actually what the the whole mindset behind the minimum effective dose, right? It's if you take

00:48:45

80/20 right which is the

00:48:48

Patero principle I think right. Mm-hmm. I forget you this 80/20 rule

00:48:53

But then if you take that 80 percent and then if you 80/20 that and then 80/20 it again you end up with

00:49:02

You know 1% energy to get you to that initial of 50% results

00:49:09

Right and so that's kind of the idea of what can I do that's literally you know

00:49:14

Not even just a 20% energy that's gonna get me the 80% results

00:49:17

but even just the 1% of energy that's gonna give me the 50% results and

00:49:22

You know that comes back to like where we're talking about earlier like that action priority matrix of what is gonna be as far over on

00:49:29

You know to the least amount of complexity the least amount of energy and the highest amount of return

00:49:36

On that energy spent and when you focus on that and just do those tasks as

00:49:41

Often as possible as much as you can just the quick wins over and over and over

00:49:46

It like you know like you're saying Mike it does help kind of move things forward

00:49:50

Without a focus on the big picture as much and the fear of failure and all that stuff

00:49:55

Yeah, but the the thing that you have to keep in mind with this is that can't be

00:50:02

optional it has these have to be things that you feel like if you don't do these

00:50:08

It's gonna it's gonna hurt you almost like you just cannot keep this thing inside

00:50:13

You really have to connect to the vision behind this this 10x goal this 10x vision that you have

00:50:20

any any talks in the book about how the higher your purpose the more fuel it's gonna provide for your 10x actions on page 151 and

00:50:29

Talks about how nothing happens to you it happens because of you can't fly under the radar and still expect to make it to the top

00:50:36

And so I think that there's a really important points to be made with these things because

00:50:41

The moment that you start doing these things

00:50:44

Regardless of how big or small these actions are the 80 20 of the 80 20 of the 80 20 and I think that's a really great place to start

00:50:52

Is you're gonna start taking action on these goals when you start taking action?

00:50:55

It's not going to be long before you are judged by people who are not taking any action

00:51:01

You and at that point one of two things is gonna happen. They are either going to say that

00:51:07

You're not taking enough action. You're never gonna accomplish this thing. It's way too big for you or

00:51:12

They're they're gonna be they're gonna be saying well. Why why are you expending all of that time all of that effort for this thing?

00:51:19

That's never going to

00:51:21

to happen anyways and

00:51:24

They're going to assume that you are now judging them and you think that they're lazy exactly

00:51:29

Yeah, and that kind of gets into the whole excuses

00:51:33

He says on page one fifty five excuses are never the reason for why you did or didn't do something

00:51:38

They're just revision of the facts that you make up in order to help yourself feel better about what happened or what didn't happen

00:51:44

And the note that I wrote down is like this was the original

00:51:47

Definition of alternative facts, which is kind of been in the news lately, but it's it's interpreting

00:51:53

We talked about this when we did the episode on the personal MBA Joe like the the data

00:51:57

How you can make the data say anything that you want it can always give you a justification for your you want to

00:52:03

Relax their up

00:52:05

Pull me back on my soap box. Okay, so for Sean. All right, so yes

00:52:10

so we recorded the personal MBA yesterday and I

00:52:13

so I used to be a data analyst for a corporation where I ran tons and tons of data and

00:52:19

I'm very sensitive to

00:52:22

charts the display data and

00:52:24

People being honest with those and being able to tweak how you feel about it or what you think it says even though

00:52:30

It doesn't actually say that hyper sensitive to that. So that's what Mike's referring to good to know

00:52:35

I think what I love about the approach toward excuses. Sorry completely just cage you if you're so that's okay

00:52:42

It's probably better that way

00:52:44

But what I love about Grant Cardone's

00:52:47

You know campaign against excuses is that he doesn't justify this the victim mindset of

00:52:54

You know like oh that doesn't work for me. I can't do that

00:52:58

Or you know, that's you know, that's fine for those guys whatever and I was actually I was recently in Chicago

00:53:05

like maybe six or seven weeks ago and we were out there for this workshop that was hosted by Jason Freed and the base camp guys and

00:53:15

Incredible incredible workshop and Jason's is sharing all this stuff about the the the approach toward work that they have at the base camp company and

00:53:24

their mindsets and how everyone on their team all 55 employees pretty much have

00:53:30

100% autonomy of their time they have all 40 hours of their week, you know

00:53:36

I'm freely available for them to work on the projects that that they're working on and

00:53:40

He shared a lot about just their mindset toward work debt

00:53:45

Which is you know not creating?

00:53:47

You know work debt for yourself like not shipping a project that you know is half complete with the expectation that you'll come back to it later

00:53:54

And things like that and they just had a lot of stuff that they were talking about and I just kept feeling

00:53:59

Like you know gee like lucky them

00:54:02

The rest of us live in the real world where you know

00:54:05

We have to do this or do this or we can't work like that or you know, not even there yet, you know

00:54:10

that's nice for you and

00:54:12

I just caught myself like thinking that and I was like no like stop

00:54:16

Why not why can't I?

00:54:18

Do this in my workplace? Why can't I incorporate this into my culture?

00:54:23

Why can't I adjust the way we spend our time to better match?

00:54:27

That you know what they're saying that sounds really really great sounds really helpful

00:54:32

You know sounds amazing. Why can't we why can't we go in that direction and it just you know caught myself?

00:54:38

From like, you know, oh, I can't do that, you know, whatever

00:54:41

I'm a victim. I'll never be able to be you know, I'll never be able to you know

00:54:46

Flesh that out or I'll never be able to incorporate that and it says going no like why not?

00:54:50

Why can't I go for it?

00:54:51

And I think that you know Grant Carter talks about that with the excuses is like no those are you have to take

00:54:57

Ownership of the situation you're in and the results that you're getting and and things like that and it's like you don't like your job

00:55:04

Well, you're the one that you know applied, you know, and so it's like it's not your boss's fault

00:55:08

I mean, maybe it is a little bit

00:55:10

But if you put the blame on your boss then you've now put yourself in the position of being a victim

00:55:16

Which means you're not gonna take ownership and you're not gonna take action and do anything about it

00:55:19

And so sure, maybe it is your boss's fault, but don't think that it's your fault. What are you gonna do about it?

00:55:25

What's your next step to move in the right direction?

00:55:28

And I just love that mindset because it's so liberating

00:55:32

But it's hard it's hard to get away from the victim mindset because we like to complain. Yeah, it's it's hard and it's it's scary

00:55:39

you know, it's it's to know that your future is in your own hands is

00:55:45

Depending on your personality either a breath of fresh air or it's completely terrifying and immobilizing

00:55:52

And one of the things that I wrote down which really made me think was on page 157

00:55:59

He says if you make success an option then it won't be an option for you and

00:56:03

It really just ties back to the whole victim mentality mindset that you're talking about Sean and we've talked a lot about

00:56:09

That whole idea of accountability and responsibility and how it's not

00:56:14

Necessarily you got to change the other person, but what can you do right now this moment? How can you?

00:56:20

Fix things. How can you put things right? How can you make sure that things are moving in the right direction?

00:56:25

Not look back and try to figure out whose fault it is

00:56:28

but what can you do right now to change your course and

00:56:32

That's really the whole gist of this book is that anybody at any given point no matter whether you are

00:56:39

35 or 75

00:56:42

Regardless of your financial situation

00:56:44

you have the ability to make the choice to change your future but

00:56:50

You have to do it and if you don't do it, it's completely on you

00:56:54

It has nothing to do with your circumstances

00:56:56

It has nothing to do with the hand that you were dealt if you make it an option if you say well

00:57:00

This has to go right and this has to go right and this has to go right

00:57:03

then by building in that

00:57:06

By building in the ability to justify your

00:57:11

lack of success

00:57:13

He's basically saying that just the fact that you've built that in

00:57:16

You're not going to be successful. You're not going to hit your targets

00:57:21

But if you completely own the vision and you say I'm gonna do this thing

00:57:25

It's gonna happen

00:57:26

It's just a matter of when and I'm gonna do whatever I can

00:57:29

Consistently at a 10x level to make sure that this does happen as quickly as possible

00:57:33

That's where this the results take care of themselves

00:57:37

Mm-hmm

00:57:40

Yeah, I like yeah, I think it's great so you want to pivot into action items

00:57:46

Yeah speaking of 10x action

00:57:50

Let's get to work

00:57:52

Right, so I wrote down two of them on number one log homa spending my time

00:57:56

I'm starting to do that right now using an app called time TY ME

00:58:00

for the Mac and my iPhone and I like the iPhone version because you can 3D touch and you can start and stop

00:58:07

different different timers

00:58:10

and it's not a

00:58:12

subscription like toggle or harvest or any of those other ones that I found so

00:58:19

You pay for it once it's a couple bucks. I think

00:58:21

And so far, you know, I'm still gathering data

00:58:25

But I want to I want to know for sure how I am spending my time because I want to make sure that I'm using it to the

00:58:33

very best potential that it can be

00:58:36

Other action item I wrote down I mentioned this earlier is do not suppress the obsession that is in my kids

00:58:43

Got four boys who are nine seven five and three. So I see this on display every single day. They are

00:58:50

They are stereotypical boys. They are a hundred miles an hour. They are loud. They are crazy

00:58:55

They are a lot of fun and I want to make sure that I don't kill their spirits. So to speak

00:59:02

I don't want to force them to conform to a

00:59:06

Mold necessarily about this is how you're supposed to to act in different social situations

00:59:12

I want that passion to be there, but I want them to be able to

00:59:16

Channel it appropriately so that they can accomplish their goals

00:59:20

Tall tasks man. I love that. I got three boys myself and

00:59:28

Yeah, that that that passion is there

00:59:34

They right now their passion is for taking all of their toys out of their room and into the living room

00:59:39

And then going back into that room to just play with something else instead

00:59:44

Isn't it isn't it interesting though to recognize that that is there in every single one of your kids at an early age and

00:59:52

over the course of time if you're not careful that gets suppressed and that that

00:59:57

Essentially gets killed and you just fall into the the status quo, you know, you're gonna go to high school

01:00:04

You're gonna go to college

01:00:05

You're gonna get this degree because this is what everybody is telling you that you need to do you need to get a good job, etc

01:00:09

And it just makes me it makes me sad to think that

01:00:15

that is

01:00:18

What they are naturally conditioned to do by our culture and so we've talked about core values

01:00:24

On this podcast and we've got several of them that we have printed out and actually hanging on our living room wall

01:00:29

We one of our core values is we don't we want to be different we want to determine to be different

01:00:33

We don't want to settle for average. We want our kids to chart their own course and

01:00:37

It's really interesting to me to see that they all have that potential. They all have that ability

01:00:43

We just have to not mess it up

01:00:45

Yeah, it's really true. We talk about I mean

01:00:48

As long as talking about kids

01:00:51

We you know we try to tell our kids, you know, it's okay to be angry. It's okay to be frustrated. It's okay to be sad

01:00:56

It's not okay to hit somebody in the face when you're angry or it's not okay to you know

01:01:02

yell at your mom when you're frustrated

01:01:04

And it's not okay to throw fit in the middle of the the grocery store because you're sad or whatever and

01:01:10

Saying it's okay to feel these things. It's not okay to act in a way that dishonors other people

01:01:17

So that's kind of what we're trying to I feel like we might do I think we talked about this at one point

01:01:22

So I I'm the outlier here. I have three girls boys and I just really have the drama in a few years from now

01:01:28

Yeah, yeah, I'm be wearing like pink suits and stuff here before long

01:01:32

But yeah, my girls there are four or two and almost three months

01:01:37

So they're a little but yeah

01:01:39

They do a lot of the the same with the toys things a dragon amount of their rooms are playing with them on the

01:01:45

They like to put them on the steps and then just load the steps full of toys like really really you're gonna do that

01:01:51

You can't even go up and down this you can't even get to your room right now like you can't even I

01:01:56

It's funny. It's funny. Anyway

01:01:58

The the action item that I have down we talked about it a little bit act quickly before fear sets in because I want to make sure that

01:02:06

whenever I take something on

01:02:09

One I do massive action towards it, which you know as as you were talking earlier Sean with the process of narrowing down to

01:02:17

Very few goals even one if you can I

01:02:20

Want to do that narrowing process and then whenever I do that

01:02:25

Work on that particular goal or project quickly

01:02:29

Before I let my head get ahead of me because I I feel like there's some instances where I'm holding myself back without

01:02:36

Realizing it and I would like to overcome that. That's the goal

01:02:39

Nice Sean you got any action steps you want to you want to throw out there?

01:02:44

Otherwise, I know this is a kind of last minute and you probably not prepared for this we can jump over to the the ratings

01:02:51

Like

01:02:54

Me I got all sorts of stuff. I'm working on

01:02:56

My let's see let me look at my little my little notebook

01:03:01

Yeah, I got we're we're working on

01:03:05

Going we're actually going to conference next week in San Diego

01:03:09

So I don't know I guess some of my action items are getting things prepped ahead of time

01:03:13

But I don't that's like dorky stuff we're in the middle of our current work cycle like I guess I mentioned earlier is

01:03:18

We're building some new products for the specifically for the sweet setup

01:03:23

And so kind of focusing on that and so I'm kind of spearheading that project

01:03:27

So a lot of my action items are related to

01:03:32

You know, we've kind of identified what some of the core

01:03:35

Areas that people are interested in related to using their computer like based on some of our most popular articles and a lot of search engine ranking and things like that

01:03:43

So we kind of broke it down in different categories related to you know email management related to

01:03:49

paperless office and things like that and then we're trying to create you know

01:03:55

Just some some free stuff and some some stuff that we're going to sell that you know fits in line with those different categories

01:04:01

So I guess my my action item is is working on the email one right now

01:04:08

Cool, and then like I'll be done with it. You know, I'll do that and then I'll be done

01:04:12

You guys's action items are like, you know, they're like lead measures for your life

01:04:17

Not suppressing the obsession of my kids acting quickly before fear sets in

01:04:22

I'm like, I'm gonna write an article about

01:04:25

Well to be fair, they're not all like that

01:04:28

I'd say that the good books that we read though they do

01:04:31

Challenge us to make those big broad changes which are sometimes hard to hold each other accountable to

01:04:38

You know basically next time all you joke and really do is say hey

01:04:42

Did you suppress obsession in your kids and it's just kind of a reminder for myself, but

01:04:46

Yeah, there's no there's no necessarily necessarily data to go along with that where I've got a definition of done

01:04:57

All right, so let's jump into ratings

01:04:59

I've my name is on the list here first. So I guess I'll go first. I

01:05:04

Really really enjoyed this book. There were parts of it that

01:05:08

Really kind of bugged me but in a good way where I know that the guy's goal was to

01:05:15

Challenge your definition of what's possible and like we talked about the beginning kind of reset your reference levels

01:05:23

And up in that context. I think that this book was very very effective

01:05:28

I'm not sure I would necessarily like Grant Cardone if I met him in person

01:05:32

This makes them pretty outrageous claims in this book, but it I completely it completely resonated with me from a

01:05:41

goal-setting perspective and I believe that it really challenged me to just think bigger and

01:05:48

So other than the one thing that I nitpicked at the at the beginning about how you have to have some sort of margin because you do not

01:05:56

actually have an unlimited

01:05:58

supply of creativity and energy I

01:06:02

Absolutely love this book one of my favorite books that we've read I'm gonna give it five stars

01:06:07

well

01:06:09

Putting it up there big spender. So I

01:06:14

Love this book. There's a lot in it and there's a lot to take away from it

01:06:17

The one thing the one thing I want to point out here is I wish he had more examples

01:06:23

Like I wish he told more stories about some of it just to put a little more teeth to it to

01:06:29

Help people see a little bit more of how that could be applied. I

01:06:34

Understand it's more of a head game that he's getting at it's it's more about your mentality

01:06:39

So it's probably difficult to come up with those but if I was going to criticize it

01:06:45

that's where I would put it and

01:06:47

Purely based on that and some of my own experiences and preferences in a book

01:06:51

I'm gonna put it a 4-0 so I'm gonna counter your five Mike and put it at that for mark

01:06:56

I think it's a great book. I think there's a great it's a great motivator. It's a great

01:07:01

It really it can be inspiring to

01:07:05

Tell yourself not to think too low to to really up your up your

01:07:11

mentality on what you can accomplish. So that's where I'd put it put it at a 4

01:07:14

Nice Shawn

01:07:17

You know I a huge fan of the book read it last fall

01:07:21

We actually picked it for our book club as part of the focus course in November

01:07:25

So we read through it in November now is after reading

01:07:29

You know we read margin we read essentialism and then we read

01:07:34

You know we come in and we read the 10x rule and it was you're reading these books that are about you need breathing room

01:07:40

You need to focus on what's important you need to do this and then you come in and you read grant card out

01:07:44

And he's like go go go and I just love it before that. It's like just it's that it's the same idea but completely different

01:07:52

viewpoint and completely different language and I love it

01:07:57

But the whole idea is yeah, you want to be successful

01:08:00

You want to like do the things that are important and that's his point like he's not saying 10x your action towards retarded

01:08:06

Things he's like no focus on what matters and they go hard after that

01:08:11

So I really like it for that

01:08:13

It hasn't drastically like it's not one of my life changing books

01:08:18

Which I feel like a five star book is kind of saved for that, but it's pretty close

01:08:21

I've recommended it to a lot of friends personally. I bought it for 50 folks

01:08:26

And we picked it for our book club. So I'm gonna say four and a half. So, you know right in the middle there split us one half

01:08:31

Create the average

01:08:35

Yeah, I mean I guess time will tell whether my five star rating is deserved

01:08:40

But I believe that there are a handful of books that I've read that have really shaped my life

01:08:45

And I believe that this one has the potential to do that

01:08:48

I mean obviously we'll see in a couple months if I'm still talking about the 10x rule

01:08:52

But at the moment it feels that impactful to me. So

01:08:56

It's my justification for it

01:09:00

Upcoming books. So Joe you've got the next one. Oh, right?

01:09:04

I remember for book one. Right. So the 10x rule was Mike's pick and since we alternate

01:09:09

Mine is up next which is rhinoceros success by Scott Alexander

01:09:16

This is this is one of those Dave Ramsey books

01:09:18

So Dave Ramsey has a list of books that he recommends or maybe he requires his new hires to read I forget now

01:09:24

But I managed to get a hold of that list at one point and this is on that list

01:09:28

So it'll be fun to go through another book on success now that we've read the 10x rule

01:09:34

Nice and the one after that is my pick and that is step by Chris Capehart and

01:09:40

Chris Capehart is actually a guy that I met at a Christian men's network conference and

01:09:46

I really like his story. We're gonna try and get him on the podcast at some point to talk about his process with writing the book

01:09:53

very similar to my story how I wrote my book he basically just

01:09:58

Hustled in the margins and his book step is kind of talking about that. I've started this book. It's pretty good

01:10:05

So far anyways where he talks about you've got this big project

01:10:09

You've got this mile that you want to run but really in order to go a mile

01:10:13

You have to first take that step and so this book is kind of about

01:10:16

overcoming the fear to take that initial step in the right direction and then

01:10:22

Translating that into the energy to see it through to completion and actually accomplish some of those goals

01:10:28

so interesting guy and

01:10:30

Excited about about this book

01:10:33

Sean what are what are you reading?

01:10:36

Right in the same vein. I'm reading a book called predictable success. It's by Les McEwen

01:10:43

And he kind of talks about the seven stages of a business

01:10:46

from kind of like the early struggle to having fun some whitewater and then this this you know kind of

01:10:53

then you know you're growing and then arches back down and you know like the treadmill and

01:10:58

You know the death rattle and things like that and not every business goes through all seven stages

01:11:03

But right in the middle is he calls it predictable success where your organization is is internally

01:11:10

Running efficiently with you know high morale people enjoy it. You have low turnover. It's a fun company to work in and you're maintaining

01:11:18

Profits, you know, you're acquiring customers or whatever it is predictably and profitably and things like that

01:11:24

So I'm reading through that and it's really really great. I just feel like he's just completely reading my mail

01:11:31

Business owner

01:11:33

So it's really really cool just to kind of feel like oh like what I'm experiencing is actually not new and there is a clear

01:11:40

You know things to look out for things to focus on what to move forward with

01:11:44

It's been really really great and actually it ties in a lot with the 10x rule because something that Les McEwen talks about in the book

01:11:51

Is is you know at the different stages of business?

01:11:54

What you should be focusing on

01:11:56

You know what your primary objective is that you want to focus on to get you to the next level of

01:12:02

Success for your business and then what to focus on to keep you from from losing that so it's really great

01:12:07

nice

01:12:09

We've got a couple gap books here, too

01:12:11

So Joe you want to go first? Oh, yeah, yeah

01:12:15

So as we've been doing you know, we Mike and I read a book every two weeks for

01:12:20

Bookworm, but we're bookworms

01:12:22

So we also read a book in between those books books books books

01:12:26

The one I'm in right now is the medium is the message massage

01:12:32

M. A, which is weird to me, but it's the medium is a message anyway

01:12:36

Marshall McLuhan

01:12:38

Wrote this and it's kind of an odd book. There's a ton of pictures in it. It's kind of a heady book, but it's it's

01:12:45

premise is that

01:12:47

The medium by which you convey the information or the words that you're wanting to share whether that be via pictures or

01:12:55

Words on a page audio, you know through the television whatever those that whatever that medium is

01:13:01

it carries with it and

01:13:04

An impact on the message itself and it can impact how you

01:13:08

comprehend the words that you're consuming so it's

01:13:13

One that I just picked up this morning, so I can't give you much on it other than that, but it seems interesting though

01:13:20

Nice my gap book is actually a book that I picked up this morning as well, and that is unshakable by Tony Robbins

01:13:27

And I'm guessing that this one is going to be very similar in tone to the 10x role since Tony Robbins is a motivation

01:13:35

It's something we're all stuck on success

01:13:37

massive action and

01:13:40

Yeah, well this is kind of a follow-up to his money book which I

01:13:46

Listen to the audible version and kind of funny story Tony Robbins has been speaking for so long

01:13:51

And if you go to any of his events, he's so high energy and he's yelling all the time that his voice is basically completely gone at this point

01:13:58

So he only read in the audible version like the first chapter and then I've got somebody else who?

01:14:03

Who does the rest of it?

01:14:06

But yeah, I really enjoyed that book learned a lot from it and so this is the follow-up to that

01:14:15

All right, I started reading the Harry Potter series

01:14:17

Nice I've actually never read those

01:14:21

And I try not to do business and like you know motivational books in the evening because I just get you know

01:14:28

Kind of wired up so I started reading Harry Potter and it's actually really fantastic really

01:14:34

Heard a lot of good things about it. My brother used to be really into those

01:14:38

Well, I think that's all we've got for today

01:14:42

So Sean, where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing online?

01:14:47

Yeah, a lot of stuff we're doing is over at the focus course calm

01:14:51

We have a book club over there if you want to sign up for it

01:14:54

It's the focus course calm slash book club and this is an email. We send out once a month with a book

01:15:01

Recommendation pretty cool and I'm on Twitter is at Sean Blanc

01:15:10

Great to have you on today Sean for the listeners if you have a book that you want to recommend to us that

01:15:17

You want to hear us go through you can do that out on our website bookworm.fm slash recommend or if you just go to home page

01:15:24

There's a big button there. It says recommend that'll get you there right away

01:15:27

And if you want to see what else has been recommended you can do that there as well

01:15:31

Slash list on bookworm.fm. We'll get you the full list of every book we've read for the show

01:15:38

Those that we have planned coming up as well as every one of them that's been recommended so far

01:15:43

And if you enjoy the show we would really appreciate it

01:15:46

If you would go over to iTunes and leave us a review that helps other people find out about the podcast

01:15:53

And it's a great way to give us some feedback about what you like what you don't like

01:15:56

We take all of the feedback

01:15:58

Seriously, and we want to make bookworm even better

01:16:02

So please let us know what you think and don't forget that if you want Joe to create us a script so that we can automatically

01:16:09

That you could do that bookworm.fm as well

01:16:14

You had to bring that up of course you did of course

01:16:18

All right, I'm gonna get there

01:16:20

So thank you all for listening today and a big thanks to Sean for joining us on our first

01:16:25

little guest appearance here today so big thanks to you Sean and

01:16:30

If you're reading along with us the next book for you to pick up is rhinoceros success

01:16:35

- Yes.