Bookworm Transcripts

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So big question of the day Mike

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Who won the draft? I haven't looked oh good question last time I looked I was I was ahead of you, but barely show results

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Oh, you beat me by one vote did I that's not even fair?

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One vote. I don't believe I voted by the way. You didn't know I abstained. Oh, so you're gonna beat me by two votes

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Well, I didn't I didn't know what the official rules were to vote for yourself. Well, I suppose you could vote for me

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You know that would that would make it a tie I

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Don't have it so where you can see who voted maybe if the minus the end of absence maybe

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I'll just take my my crown as the 2018 bookworm literary champion and

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Leave the margin of victory to your imagination. Well, thanks everybody for voting. That was a fun episode

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We got some pretty good feedback on that and I was really happy with the way it turned out

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I was nervous about doing it because it was a different format than what we normally do and I was concerned by condensing the books down into such a

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short synopsis we were gonna

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lose some of the

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magic of bookworm but

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Based on what people have told me anyways, it sounds like that's wasn't the case that they still got a lot out of it

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Which is awesome. Yeah, I have a few friends that

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they are loyal bookworm listeners and

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We're pretty excited about it just because they felt like they could get a quick overview of a whole bunch of books all at once so

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Hopefully I mean that was our goal. So hopefully it worked out that way. That's that's the intent anyway

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How are we doing on the bookworm?

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Shirts they are officially going to print I think as of yesterday. They were 20 of them sold the goal was 12

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Which is pretty good. I was looking at Austin Clean the author of steal like an artist. You feel like at his profile

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It's like New York Times best-selling author of three different books

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He had a campaign that was going and it ended as we're recording this a couple days ago

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So it overlapped a thar is a little bit and if you scroll down to the bottom you would see because of the tag books that

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His was one of the suggested other shirts that you could support. Yeah, and he ended up getting like

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36 total shirts that he sold and it's not the only time he's released this shirt

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So when you go to it now you'll see the total number that he's ever sold

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But when I saw that I was like we got to be at Austin Clean

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36

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And I think we'll get there

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I mean we've got almost two weeks left as we're recording this right on the campaign we gave out a free shirt to

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a club member and

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When we hit 25 we'll get another free code. So

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Help us help us reach that that milestone also at 25 we get paid

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A percentage of the proceeds. So it's not gonna be a lot

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I know but that's really not the point. I just wanted a bookworm shirt, which is kind of why I did it

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But the link will be in the show notes. It's a bookworm dot FM slash shirt, right? That's the re-rekt. Yes

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So bookworm dot FM slash shirt. Yep. Cool. Yep. So you can go there and you can get your shirts prior to July 26th

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I believe and

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Yeah, you'll be supporting bookworm. You'll be building your nerd cred and you'll be the coolest cat in your local library

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Paul was the winner of the raffle congratulations Paul. What else we got here you so okay?

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So we didn't talk about this last time. I don't remember if

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This had actually happened yet or not as of the recording date

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So we didn't talk about it

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but for bookworm listeners, you know, we now have a celebrity on this show and

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Depending on how you look at it, but Mike is now on he's a part of the relay FM family

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He is now the co-host of free agents. I was I was pretty excited whenever I found out you were gonna be doing this

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It seems like it'd be a great fit for you Mike. So

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Mike is now on relay. That's still amazing to me. I am a quote-unquote professional podcaster. I guess

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Yeah, so

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Kind of a long story, but I got hooked up with David Sparks and I obviously knew who David was

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He kind of discovered me through bookworm, which is kind of cool. I was on Mac power users a couple months ago and

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Yeah, he Jason Snell the former co-host of free agents

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Basically said everything he wanted to say on the topic David and I were going back and forth about

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Working on some some project and some form in the future and then he said that you know

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There's an opening on free agents. I think you might be a good fit you interested and I said yes

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But I'm not technically a quote-unquote free agent. I mean I work for a company

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I got some different side stuff that I do, but I'm not your traditional

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freelancer type person who's

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Completely in control of everything that they do. I mean there's there's people that I report to and stuff like that

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but

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It's actually been really interesting because I love I love the show I've been listening to it forever

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I'm excited to contribute to it and I was talking to you before we hop on the call here

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there's a

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Discourse form which is part of the Mac power users form that you put together

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and there's a whole section and they're devoted to the free agents podcast and somebody who listened to the show put together a poll and the

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options were I'm a free agent I want to be a free agent or I'm completely happy working for the man and

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as it was just they put it up yesterday I think as we're recording this and

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When I last checked it like 50% of the responses where I'm completely happy working for the man

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And a lot of people were chiming in with stuff like you know the things that you talk about on free agents

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I can apply to my situation even though I'm not looking to quote unquote become a a free agent

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Necessarily which I think is really cool. I think that's really the whole idea behind the show is

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Designing your life the way that you want it so that you have control over the things that you want to control

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And so if you find yourself in a situation where you're working for a boss that you don't like

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Maybe that maybe that manifests as I need to make that leap

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I need to become a quote-unquote free agent just so I can I can bet on myself now it was the title of the first episode

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I did

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But also

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I mean you could be in a situation where things are going pretty good

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And there's just a few things that you want to tweak and I think that there's definitely a lot in that show that

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It could apply to that person as well

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So it's been cool to see the the feedback that I've gotten people seem to be happy with me as the the new co-host

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I try to ignore the people who are unhappy that I'm not Jason Snell or Casey West who everybody

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I guess thought was gonna be the the logical choice for the co-host

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But yeah, it's it's a lot of fun and it's a it's a thrill to be on relay

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It's a thrill to work with with David who's long been you know, I've called him my inner one of my internet heroes

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So it's a lot of fun. Yeah, I've I've been a longtime listener of free agents

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I remember when it first came out and David was sharing it on all of his respective, you know media outlets and

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tuned in right away and have been listening, I don't think I've caught every episode, but I've caught a lot of them and

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That has a lot to do with

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You know it coming out at about the time that I was becoming a free agent or

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you know, it was was neck deep in it at that point and

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It's been a pretty inspiring show. It's taught me a lot and I'm excited to see you

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Join that. I know you don't really think of yourself as a a free agent, but you definitely set your own

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I marched to the beat of my own drum. That's for sure. Yeah, like you can set your own schedule

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You can set your own blah blah blah, but there is a company that you work for but at the same time like you can if you think it through

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Treat that as you know the quote unquote free agent concept. Yep, and I think you do a pretty good job of that

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Thank you. Yeah, that's that's what I'm what I'm learning and what I'm kind of figuring out

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You know, we've only recorded a couple of episodes

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But I do feel that the more I get entrenched in this the more comfortable

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I'll become and really like from the very beginning

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I felt like I had something to contribute or I wouldn't have said yes

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And I think that there's a lot of people who can benefit from my experience, you know, you can learn from my mistakes

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That's really the goal behind pretty much everything that I do, you know

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I've mentioned before on this podcast that like my life theme help people

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Answer the question. Why am I here by inspiring or encouraging and teaching them how to

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Discover their destiny connect to their calling and live the life they were created for now your definition is going to be a little bit different than mine

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but the process is still going to be the same and

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I guess what I'm discovering and free agents is helping me to realize is that nothing is so cut and dry as like you fit into

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One of these boxes. I've learned anything over the last several years. It said I don't fit in any boxes

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And so free agency is no different. I mean technically, you know

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I'm not quote-unquote a free agent

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But I recognize that in a lot of ways I am free agent and there's a lot of things that I've experienced and that I've learned from that

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A lot of people can benefit from even if their situation isn't exactly the same as mine

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Well, I'm super happy for you and I'm definitely listening for sure you can count on that and I may scream

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Once in a while say Mike no, we got to talk about that

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I may yell at you through the the earbuds once in a while just because I can help myself

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I do that with almost every podcast. It seems like I'm yelling at somebody in my head every time I listen

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No one even when I listen to my own so count on that for sure one interesting thing

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I noticed by the way an effect that bookworm has had in

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Episode 51 of free agents which as a record this was just published I put together the the links for that episode. I

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referenced so many books

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It was ridiculous. I went back and I looked through like how do they do the links for the previous episodes?

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There really aren't that many links right and then all of a sudden the episode that we're talking about content

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I've got like 10 different books that I've referenced yeah

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So thank you bookworm for giving me a bigger perspective

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Yeah, and I'll have another point about that when we get into

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Today's book but before I do that well first off congratulations

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Glad to see that you're on relay and I hope free agents continues to go well. So best of luck to you there

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Thank you. So if you're listening to this and you don't tune into free agents. We talk about a lot of concepts

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Through the books obviously like the connection that Mike just made there. So I would recommend tuning in

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It's it's a shorter

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Each show is a little bit shorter than was it half of how long bookworm is aren't they like 45 minutes or so 45 50 minutes?

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Yeah, definitely shorter than than your average bookworm episode

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So tune in for sure, but outside of podcasting as we're recording this next week next weekend

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Mike and I are gonna be in Illinois and we will be at max stock with

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Stickers right or do you have bookworm you better have bookmarks? I know how many bookmarks you ordered so we have to have

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Bookmark, I've got stickers too. So I think I got 200 stickers

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So I'll give you a hundred all of a hundred and we'll give some out

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I'm not sure how many people at max stock are gonna be bookworm listeners

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But if you are definitely come up and say hi to join myself. I'll be presenting

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I'm presenting on the Apple users guide to personal productivity

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I mean be talking about five different pieces of a personal productivity system and why I think Apple technology really is better

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Designed than anything else out there for helping you be more productive

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As I've been working on this presentation

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I realized that like when I submitted the idea it sounded great and I'm like oh yeah

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I know exactly what I'm gonna do and now that's gonna closer and I'm working on the slide deck and what I'm gonna say and all that

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I recognize that like there is so much that I could cover here

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And it's gonna be hard to bring it down to 20 minutes now fortunately. I have a deep dive also

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So I have a feeling that 20 minute presentation is gonna be kind of like the the advantages that Apple hardware and software give you

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And some specific workflows use cases on like how you can do this to be more effective

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Why this will make you more productive and then the deep dive is just gonna be like

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rapid fire one right after the other all of these different tools

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services workflows that I've used on Apple devices to be more productive because a lot of these things like you can use them in a

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Lot of different situations and I think the my thought at the moment anyways is that the best way to

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To help people see the value of these things is to show examples of me using it

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Not saying like this is the way you have to do it sort of a thing

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but just a whole bunch of examples of things like

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Popclip for example or moon stuff like that the reflection workflow that I do for journaling things like that just to give people some ideas

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So I'm pretty excited about my stock partially because you and I get to see each other again

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It's like the one time of the year that we can count on seeing each other. It's true. So I'm excited about that. There's a few friends

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Making the trip down with me as well. We'll be carpooling together and then there's a few like to use mics term internet heroes and

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Folks that we love who will be be there that we get to connect with so it's always a good time

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So if you haven't picked up tickets or haven't decided to go

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Go, you know hit us up come join us there, but didn't they do?

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I feel like I just saw something new come through in my email about this some there's yep

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They got something else so two things if you're listening to this

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You still probably have a couple of days to get your butt down to wood psycho annoy for max stack

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And if you do you can use the code productivity show

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Which is the one that they assign me as a speaker and you can save $70 off of the

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$250 weekend pass so it's a pretty big savings on the conference itself

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But if you can't get down there, there's also I saw a digital pass that they just announced so

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I believe that you're gonna be able to get all of the talks from the conference without physically being there if you can't make it

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But if you can make it it's awesome. It's a smaller conference

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It's a lot of fun a lot of really really smart people are there people much smarter than me

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Like Brett Terpster is gonna be presenting Adam Christensen

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Gene McDonald max bark. He's gonna be there David Sparks

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Don McAllister is gonna be there from screencast online

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Allison Sheridan

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Lots of people up in the in the Mac community and when I first went down there

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I was not quote-unquote a part of the Mac community yet. I had never gone to Mac world

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I really had done nothing in the online space. I just was three hours from my house and

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It was announced the year that they canceled Mac world in California

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And I was getting ready to go to that so I'm like all drive down and see what it's like

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But from the moment I got there

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I mean the Apple community is amazing. It doesn't matter if you don't know anybody

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You will know many people by the time that you leave everybody is opening and welcoming and it's just it's really cool

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I remember going down there and sitting with a group of guys that I've never met one of them is Dave Ginsburg from the

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suburban Chicago area Apple users group

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First time I went down there, you know, and I didn't know any of these guys

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I sat down a bunch of them and we left his friends

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So don't let the fact that you don't know anybody keep you from from coming to Mac stack

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It'll be a good time

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So for sure if you are listening to this and you're gonna be there come find us

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We we have goodies and we can hang out and talk because like Mike said you get to meet lots of new friends meet new people

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In some cases meet people you followed online for a long time

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So, you know, it's it's a fun time. So I I'm really looking forward to it. I suppose I should give the URL for this

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It's max.conference and Expo. So we'll we'll make sure that that gets in the show. Yeah, it's long to type

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Every time I try to hunt for it thankfully I picked that in at once so I can just type in like Mac S and it

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Autofills for me. No, so super super anyway. Yes link in the show notes to make that easier

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So all of that out of the way Mike you really jump into today's book. Let's do it your pick

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Yeah, today's book is great at work by Morton Hanson and I picked this one specifically because it was a

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listener recommendation, so I know we'll talk about this at the end but

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Go to club that bookworm.fm and vote for the books that you want us to cover

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We really do look at those sometimes, you know

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I'll pick something that isn't voted for just because I really want to talk to you about it

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Yeah, but our community is pretty awesome and I was looking at it today

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I've got another one picked here, which is based off of listener votes

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But this was a listener recommendation. It was the most requested book when I picked it for episode 50 and

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I can say that I'm glad that I did. This is a really cool book if you like

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Research-based information. He's got tons of studies

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He's got specific examples and percentages behind every claim that he makes

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It's really interesting like in the even in the introduction he talks about how 66% of

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Individual performance is determined by seven individual work smart practices

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Which he then talks about in the rest of rest of the book

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But like right there. He's not saying like this these are the things that are going to determine your personal professional success

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Which is what most people would say something along those lines like do these things and you'll be successful

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I just know it, you know trust me

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He says no 66%

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exactly

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Is determined by these practices so get good at these things and it's you know

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this is one thing that I really appreciated in his book because

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so many times

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You you read especially with and I'll just make a confession here. I was super nervous about reading this

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the reason being

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That whenever I read the bio for Morton Hanson that he's a management professor at University of California Berkeley

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He's a faculty member of Apple University Apple, you know

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he's he's going through these credentials of like PhDs and he's a scholar and he's all this stuff like okay

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most of the time, you know stereotypically when we go through these books they're ones that I don't always enjoy just because

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it seems like they want to just talk about the research over and over and over again and it gets kind of boring and

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mundane to me however

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Mr. Hanson does a wonderful job of

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Taking you through like here's the research we did

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but that's like

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Three or four pages that he takes you through like what they did in order to get the data for the rest of the book

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And the rest of the book is talking about each principle

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But he doesn't say this will make you more successfully says this will increase your success by 15%

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Yep, very exact if you're if you're the 97th percentile on part one

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Then you are 60% more successful. Okay, so you have some pretty detailed numbers here and

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He's not just saying, you know, this is the way this all works like he has measurements for how much

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More successful you are based on the data that people collected on he's got the pedigree to make these claims to I mean true

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He initially his claim to fame was that he co-authored good to great, right? That's the one with Jim Collins

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It's on my bookshelf over here. I had to look at it. Yes

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Yeah, so good to great is a and and all of the other books in that series like built to last and great by choice

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I think is another one like those kind of focus on what makes organizations or companies successful and great at work

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He says this in the first section. This is really about what you can do as an individual

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So it doesn't matter if you run your own company

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Like these are things that you can apply to your personal life

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And he has a lot of different stories of people who were not quote-unquote decision-makers in their organizations

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And how they apply this which are really cool. So he has these

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seven

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Points and I guess we could just go through each one. It's in two different parts first part being taking care of yourself essentially

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Yep

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working with yourself how to handle working yourself and then part two just what you would expect working with other people and

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I I will admit that I appreciated that there were four of the seven on working on yourself and two or three on working for

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Working with others. So I for whatever reason I was I was happy that that was the breakdown

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Yeah, so part one mastering your own work. That's where four of them

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Like you mentioned are located part two mastering work with others three of them there

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Then there's a part three which I may or may not have a rant on mastering your work life

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And there's one really section underneath that and then an epilogue. So by the time you get to that point

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He's basically said everything that he's going to say right although

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Work life, you know, we'll put a pin in that for now

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So part one mastering your own work and the first habit here is do less than obsess. I love this idea

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I mean it sounds very simple, but he breaks it down that there are four different types or groups of people

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There's the accept more and then coast group

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which is the worst and then

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Level up from that I guess if you were to create a pyramid or a hierarchy do less no stress

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Okay, and I think that this is interesting this book because this is the one if you're not careful about how you read

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A lot of the books that are in the productivity space right now

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Essentialism the power of less things like that

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The joshua becker one that we covered for bookworm

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like

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You can think that less is ideal and and it makes sense

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You know if you have less to do then you're not going to stress about things and that's

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That's good

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But it's not the the highest level that more than more than handsome describes here and I tend to agree with him

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I think all right. So that's that's level two level three do more than stress

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This is where a lot of people get stuck and then from here obviously you've got two directions

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You can go you can you can do less

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With no stress you can you can go down a level or you can figure out how to do better

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And that's really what the last level is is do less than obsess so it's not the fact that

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You're doing less in terms of work. It's that you're focusing on less

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Priorities and then you are obsessing about these things doing them to the very best of your ability

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and creating excellent

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Products excellent work

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And maybe that we're creating like that's the wrong word to use there because I think when you hear creating you can think of like well

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Writers or artists or things like that, you know, you don't have to be a podcast

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You don't have to be a blogger

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You don't have to be a content creator in order to understand this idea

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So I just want to make that point clear

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But that's really the gold standard and that's what we should be shooting for according to morton hanson

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And I think I agree. What about you? I would agree and I I would say that this particular

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Section I I read it. I don't know 15 20 minutes. I read this whole section and I set it down

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Stared out the window because this was

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I think I finished reading it maybe like 6 15 in the morning. So no one was up yet and I'm looking out the window watching

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uh, the sun coming up and

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had a bit of a crisis moment mic

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and

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Realized that you know one of the things I talk about

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Frequently is all the different arenas that I work in and the things that I do

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between podcasting and running communities and

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Trying to do some writing online

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Managing clients doing development work, you know doing it work. I have a lot and

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This section kind of led me to the point where I was trying to determine

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Can I pick three?

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That to work on because I could easily see how I could plan out my weeks and days such that I could handle three

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decent endeavors, but

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Then I start looking at things like well my pro course business the web development side of things like it

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It kind of falls into two camps by itself

00:23:39

Okay, well maybe getting down to three doesn't work because if I try to get down to three then I have to do things like cut bookworm

00:23:47

And I don't want to do that. So

00:23:49

Okay, this isn't gonna work out so well. So

00:23:52

what I what I've been doing is instead of

00:23:55

And I I don't really have a good action item on this because I didn't really know what to do with it other than just keep it as a mindset

00:24:03

and I

00:24:06

It's a thing where

00:24:07

I've been looking at what is it that we do like how do I go about building

00:24:12

A bookworm episode to get it released like how does that process work?

00:24:16

and

00:24:18

We have some changes that we're gonna probably make tool to make that process simpler and easily easier at least on my end

00:24:24

and

00:24:25

There's also things with what I do in

00:24:28

My pro course business from a client management stance that I can do to

00:24:34

help with the process of getting projects up and moving quicker and

00:24:39

Closing them out quicker too. So between those two

00:24:42

like

00:24:45

I think what I need to be focusing more on is doing less within those sectors

00:24:49

Because I feel like I'm doing a lot of work that I shouldn't be and if I narrow down

00:24:55

The specifics for each of those and then obsess over those particular pieces

00:25:00

I think that's where I would have the biggest bang for my buck on this

00:25:03

but I will say yes, so

00:25:05

Section one right out of the gate. I was left on our back deck steering at the sunrise in a bit of a moment. So

00:25:13

All right, I had a similar situation because I read this

00:25:19

I was I was in the

00:25:21

In the process of reading this when I did my call my personal retreats my once a quarter thinking day

00:25:28

and

00:25:30

I always ask myself three questions. What should I start doing?

00:25:33

What should I stop doing? What should I keep doing?

00:25:35

One of the things that I've implemented the last couple

00:25:38

Last couple personal retreats is to pick at least one thing that I'm going to stop doing

00:25:45

And so as I'm going through this

00:25:48

I kind of had the same initial reaction you did is like well, I've got too much going on

00:25:52

I need to just cut everything

00:25:54

But I don't think that that's the right approach either

00:25:57

I think that three is an arbitrary number. I don't know if he came up with that or if he came up with that

00:26:01

I don't remember I think it's dangerous

00:26:03

Okay, I think more important is to identify the things that are in alignment with

00:26:10

Like I've mentioned my life theme and I said it even at the beginning of this episode

00:26:14

So what are the things that are in complete alignment with your your life theme and then look at the way things are right now

00:26:20

And figure out what changes you need to make

00:26:23

That's one of my action items, which is something that I'm doing

00:26:27

But it's something that I want to continue to think about doing as it pertains to everything that I'm involved in

00:26:32

Is the next section he talks about redesigning your work

00:26:35

So what are the things that I can do to redesign my work and really my life to the specifications that I want?

00:26:43

How can I create the life that I want to live that I'm excited about living every single day when I wake up in the morning

00:26:50

And regardless of your situation we talked about the free agency thing like you can apply that whether you are I quote unquote free agent

00:26:56

whether you are

00:26:57

Completely happy working for the man whether you are leading a team of discourse experts

00:27:01

Like whatever it is

00:27:04

But the I think the things that you select the number doesn't really matter

00:27:07

But they have to be well, obviously you need to make sure that you have enough

00:27:10

You have enough time you have enough energy willpower or whatever

00:27:13

Motivation to do the things that you're committing yourself to and then also I would say or add to that that they should be

00:27:19

In line with your unique ability

00:27:21

So what is the thing that really makes you you that really brings you energy that brings you life

00:27:26

If you're doing a bunch of things that aren't in line with your unique ability

00:27:28

Those are the things that you should stop doing. That's where is it?

00:27:32

Ocam or a cam's razor comes in

00:27:35

Occam's razor. Occam's razor. Yeah, the simple solution is the best solution

00:27:38

And taking that and applying it to the different things that you're committed to

00:27:43

I mean if you view it that way

00:27:45

And when you look at things

00:27:47

Usually you'll you'll find one or two things that you're like, yeah, that's really not the right thing anymore

00:27:52

That's not a great fit. That's something that should go on the quote-unquote chopping block

00:27:55

You know, maybe you don't decommit from it right away

00:27:58

But it's not something that at least right now you can tell like this is kind of run its course

00:28:03

But you have to achieve some distance in order to to view those things the right way

00:28:07

And it doesn't matter if you take a whole day for a personal retreat like I did or you have that moment of clarity at

00:28:12

The morning when you finish the book like you do need to have that aha moment though

00:28:17

And I think if you're looking for it, it's it's not that rare. Yeah, I think that's there's some valid points in there. I think

00:28:23

So much of what we do is building these new adventures or at least I do

00:28:29

Like I build a lot of this new stuff

00:28:30

But I'm not always the best at building it efficiently at first

00:28:34

Which you know, I would almost argue that when you first get something launched you just get it out the door and then not worry about

00:28:41

efficiency right away and then over time you can start to refine it and and make it better like that to me seems like the point here that I'm trying to

00:28:49

To take on but regardless I think

00:28:53

You know, and this is something we talk about on bookworm a lot like so many of these books

00:28:57

My wife tends to call them just a repeat with a different author. Yep. Like it's it's a lot of the same just in a different voice

00:29:04

And I think that's okay to a point because this concept of do less than obsess

00:29:10

We have talked about this before like the whole minimalism. We read a whole book on that and

00:29:15

Even with like essentialism it like it's almost an entire book on this one point

00:29:20

we've talked about this before mic and

00:29:23

Yet here we are reading another book talking about this concept. He throws some numbers at it has some data behind it

00:29:29

Maybe that's different, but at the same time, okay. Well

00:29:32

This this struck me different for some whatever reason. I'm in a different season at this point

00:29:38

Hearing it from somebody else with a different take on it. I don't know

00:29:41

It does have that ability so as much as for some folks like to rail on these things being

00:29:47

You know rinse and repeat

00:29:50

There's something to be said for the time between them and building across them. I think when it comes to

00:29:56

Things like reading a book bookworm

00:30:00

Specifically like because we read so many books

00:30:04

We tend to think that if we've heard something once we should instantly absorb it and get it

00:30:11

But that's not the case. Maybe it's just me. Maybe i'm just dense

00:30:14

Totally that's totally it right there

00:30:17

But I mean like I have to hear this stuff over and over and over again and my kids do too by the way

00:30:21

But I think that's kind of human nature that you have to hear these things over and over and over again in a different book that I was reading

00:30:28

Somebody had said it this way that like when you are communicating your vision

00:30:33

To your team

00:30:35

You have to say it over and over and over again

00:30:38

Until the point where the people who hear you say it over and over and over again

00:30:43

They're getting sick of hearing you say it like they're actively complaining about it because it's only when they are actively complaining about it

00:30:50

That they've finally started to get it

00:30:52

And I think that that definitely applies in my own life as well. So yeah, you know, I read a book and it talks about minimalism

00:31:00

It talks about essentialism it talks about quit doing so much stuff and just focus on the things that you really want to do well

00:31:06

I think that's the principle here. You know choose a few priorities and dedicate your efforts towards excelling at them

00:31:10

But if you look at what you're committed to what you're currently doing, that's where you can tell whether you are really

00:31:17

Hearing it, you know, whether you're

00:31:20

Listening to understand or it's just going in one year and out the other like what change does it affect in your life?

00:31:27

And even if you've totally mastered this this this is one of the seven points. So this is a great reminder

00:31:32

Yeah, it was well worth it. I think you could probably tell this particular section struck us both

00:31:36

So it was it was one of my favorite parts of the book

00:31:41

but alas we need to to move on here part two

00:31:44

redesigning your work. Yeah, and

00:31:47

There was some interesting stories on this one. I think this was a section where I I kind of had a hard time

00:31:55

grasping how I would apply this one

00:31:58

but at the same time I totally get that

00:32:02

The concept is one that I should keep in mind. So that's philosophy being one that

00:32:08

If you're not having success in the way that you're doing things right now

00:32:13

Maybe consider changing that and altering it and what was the the story? It was the about the principle, right?

00:32:21

Yep, the story goes that his particular school was

00:32:24

Slowly losing ranking which meant that you know the education side of things that means they start to lose funding

00:32:31

And he had this idea to flip the whole school system to have teachers record video of their lectures

00:32:39

Have the students watch those videos at home and then spend the entire time at school doing the homework

00:32:46

as opposed to you know having the teachers give the lectures in school and then doing the homework at home

00:32:51

And lots of reasons as to why the students weren't getting the homework done, but it was causing a lot of issues. Well

00:32:58

Long story short it worked and they flipped the entire school over to the new method and had a lot of success in it

00:33:06

And that is the concept of redesigning the work and that's exactly what this principle did in this case

00:33:12

Yeah, I mean basically he was forced to look at

00:33:15

The process they were using to get their results because he was about to lose his job because of the the results that they were getting

00:33:22

What you know the metrics that they were being measured against which were the failure rates and the graduation rates

00:33:26

And so he recognized that the way they were working wasn't working

00:33:31

So he proposed this new format based on something that he noticed

00:33:34

As a baseball coach where he would create these videos for his

00:33:38

His his team and then it would help them when they came to practice because they could watch these videos

00:33:43

And by the way, we've talked a little bit of gone on rants before about video modeling and mental rehearsal visualization

00:33:48

That's a whole not a topic, but that's really what made that part successful

00:33:52

So he comes back and he flips the instruction like you said and the failure rates plummeted from 35% to 10%

00:33:57

Graduation rates rose from 80% to 94% just because he had a different way

00:34:02

Of doing things now. What's interesting here is that you don't have to wait until

00:34:07

Your back is against the wall to embrace this principle of redesigning your work

00:34:13

Uh, we can all apply this in different ways in different situations

00:34:16

I really like this section the one part that really stood out to me

00:34:19

Was this concept of squeezing the orange?

00:34:22

You know trying to squeeze out more productivity after working many hours

00:34:25

This is how most people think of productivity is how much did I produce?

00:34:31

How much work did I actually do but he's got a different definition here which I like better

00:34:36

So he's talking about how typically people

00:34:39

evaluate work from

00:34:43

Uh inside out where you measure your work by whether you have completed your tasks

00:34:47

But really what we should be doing is evaluating our work from the outside in approach

00:34:51

Which is based on how much others benefit from it

00:34:54

So it's the value of work

00:34:57

Productivity versus traditional productivity where traditional productivity could be defined as like output of work divided by hours of input

00:35:04

And i've even got something along those lines in my my maxdoc presentation

00:35:09

But when it comes to your specific

00:35:11

Vocation or your job the value of work is different because it equals the benefit to others times the quality times the efficiency

00:35:21

This is the thing that really will move the needle for your personal or your professional life

00:35:26

Figuring out the things that are the important things now this goes back to like the bookworm draft my number one book

00:35:32

The one thing we're gonna have to do that at some point because that's what this is all this is all about

00:35:35

All right

00:35:37

Fair enough

00:35:38

No, I think this is uh, it's a valuable section. You've got a lot of good points here, but the

00:35:43

the part of this that I feel

00:35:46

And one of the things that I know that he does really well in the book is he does show

00:35:50

Here's the way that we usually think about these things

00:35:53

And then here is how you should think about them per

00:35:57

Research and data

00:36:00

And I guess maybe we should have started this whole thing with

00:36:02

Uh, the story that he tells at the very beginning because he wasn't always a researcher. He wasn't always

00:36:08

a professor

00:36:10

and he

00:36:11

He joined what was it?

00:36:13

Boston consulting group bcs or I forget what the name of the group was it was a consulting firm and

00:36:19

He was going about it the way you would think a lot of new people refresh out of college would

00:36:24

You know, he was gonna work super long hours to be one of the best in his his workspace

00:36:29

So he could you know climb the ladder quickly

00:36:31

I forgot how long he was there

00:36:33

But there was one point when he ran across a report by one of his colleagues that was way better than his

00:36:39

And he went to find her to go talk to her about

00:36:43

You know, how did you come about doing this and you know

00:36:46

Basically, please give me tips like that's the way I took it

00:36:50

But she wasn't there. She was at home

00:36:52

And this was I forget what time at night it was but he figured out that she was working like normal business hours

00:36:59

and yet she was excelling beyond him and

00:37:03

That was one of the instigators to him going down the path of trying to determine what these

00:37:09

Seven principles are and coming to them and at all so it was part of what sparked his whole research

00:37:15

And I feel like this redesigning your work piece

00:37:18

Like that's that's an aspect that I think you have to think abstractly about

00:37:22

And and you really have to think outside the box like the the typical getaway find some some free space go for a walk in the woods

00:37:31

Sort of thing he doesn't really talk about how to come up with the ideas real well

00:37:34

But I don't think that's the point like it's the the concept that this is a thing that you should be doing

00:37:39

And if you figure out how to do it, you can really change the way that you do things

00:37:43

Yeah, I mean go take your personal retreat

00:37:45

That's uh my my version of this and like I said, it doesn't have to be a whole bit it could be a couple of hours

00:37:52

It could be anywhere where you've got some time to think about these things asking the right right questions

00:37:56

But those questions can completely change your perspective in this case

00:38:01

His question was how are you able to do this?

00:38:04

When you're not playing the game according to the rules that everybody else is

00:38:08

And that's the thing I think that can apply to everybody's situation like there is so much stuff

00:38:13

That we settle for because it is the status quo

00:38:17

This is the way that things are this is the way that you do things if you want to be successful

00:38:21

You've got to do it this way. We never stopped a question

00:38:24

Why that's the case and if you do stop the question why that's the case you can identify those things that will allow you

00:38:31

To get the results without killing yourself and a lot of times

00:38:34

We don't look for those things because we're so caught up in the day-to-day

00:38:39

Moment-to-moment emergency scam modality a day by now and we'll call it, you know

00:38:43

Putting out the fires that we never even think about what's causing the fires in the first place

00:38:48

He's got a quote in this section where he says it's easier to sell aspirin than vitamins

00:38:52

But vitamins are the thing that are really gonna make the difference

00:38:55

So you do have to get yourself outside the situation and the urgency of the moment

00:39:01

So that you can think about these things and see things the right way

00:39:03

And then also i'm again. This is a book on your personal productivity

00:39:07

I guess as opposed to what makes you successful as a business. So page 62

00:39:12

There's a quote that I really liked he says

00:39:14

Don't you see yourself as an employee see yourself as an innovator of work

00:39:18

Hunt and cure pain points ask stupid questions and zoom in on how you can redesign and create value for others

00:39:25

I think there's a whole lot of value in that one phrase if you were to apply

00:39:31

Just the stuff that he listed in that little section

00:39:33

This book is going to have a profound impact on on your life and your career

00:39:37

And it interesting how many times we say that

00:39:39

The section is the part you need out of this book

00:39:41

Yeah

00:39:43

True, I mean, but there's a lot of those sections in this particular book

00:39:46

Uh, there's also some sections where he condenses it down like that and I don't agree with it. We'll get there

00:39:52

Fair point. All right section three don't just learn loop and

00:39:59

This is peak peak junior. Yeah, I know I know I was really thinking that and this is a section where he brought up the book peak

00:40:07

Yep, which was funny to me since we just went over that

00:40:09

Uh, but he also brought up carol de werck's mindset

00:40:12

Uh, which again, I thought was interesting, but I know there were and those were just the two that I wrote down

00:40:17

There was a handful of these

00:40:19

Books that were brought up and this is what I was referring to earlier on in the show about how so many of these books become

00:40:26

intertwined or they become the go-to resource about a specific area and instead of him

00:40:32

Like writing an entire book about this one piece he tends to reference these others that you know, we have gone over

00:40:39

You know, you go through this enough and you start to pick up on all the the big names that everybody refers to so

00:40:44

It's funny to me that you know, these are books that we just went through but they've inspired a section or helped explain

00:40:51

a piece of his broader

00:40:54

Uh research here. So I don't know. I really enjoyed that. I made it kind of interesting. It's funny to see how so many of these

00:41:01

Reference materials of ours end up incorporating themselves into others. So they're very intertwined is it was kind of fun for me

00:41:09

This one in particular. I didn't really like this section

00:41:13

Just because like you said it is a rehash of a peak which we had just read so that's not right morton hansons fault

00:41:20

But we literally just went through this on a much deeper scale

00:41:23

And then even the story that he used at the beginning of this chapter because he has a story at the beginning of every chapter in the book

00:41:28

Was dan mclaughlin the pga guy from peak?

00:41:31

So it was the exact same story the exact same principles and then in the end he tried to apply his own looping tactics section on this

00:41:37

Which is okay, but it's not the strongest part of the book in my my opinion

00:41:41

So just to recap, you know without redoing peak

00:41:45

There's this learning loop which you can use to really get better at things and peak would call it deliberate practice

00:41:51

The learning loop according to morton hanson is do measure get feedback modify and then redo

00:41:58

And then he's got these looping tactics that you can use there's five different steps

00:42:02

Number one carve out the 15 so carve out 15 minutes and pick only one specific skill that you want to improve

00:42:10

Number two chunk it which means that you're supposed to focus on the micro behaviors take less than 15 minutes to perform and review

00:42:16

They have a clear impact on your skill development

00:42:19

But they're these these little things that you want to to focus on not the the big thing

00:42:24

Measure the soft which if I remember right this is talking about soft skills

00:42:28

So it's not just the academic of the the hard technical skills that we we think of a lot of times

00:42:32

Which that's a whole another topic too and I definitely agree with that in principle

00:42:36

But I thought that the way he described this was kind of weak

00:42:39

Number four get nimble feedback fast. So speed of implementation

00:42:44

You know you want to do something you want to get feedback and then you want to

00:42:46

You want to redesign it you want to redo it you want to make modifications and and try it again

00:42:52

And then the fifth one dig the dip. I think that I write that down right dig the dip to be honest

00:42:57

I don't remember what this one was all about

00:42:59

I think that this one he was talking about how when there is going to be a dip like in piki talks about how you'll improve

00:43:09

To a certain point and then you'll plateau

00:43:12

At this point

00:43:14

This is when you really want to dig in deep because that dip is going to come at some point

00:43:17

And that's when you need to kind of like if this is really something you want to improve

00:43:20

You've got to got to double down on it. I could be wrong on that someone could correct me

00:43:25

I guess if if that's not the general idea

00:43:27

But the whole idea with looping is that you this is a cycle that just keeps going

00:43:31

and so

00:43:33

You're never going to quote-unquote escape the learning loop

00:43:37

But you're going to plug in different tactics and different pieces into the learning loop

00:43:41

To create the long-term results that you want and that's the mindset that you need

00:43:46

You know he mentions in this section that top performers want to get better

00:43:49

74% of top performers study themselves to make improvements

00:43:52

Well under performers don't only 17% study themselves

00:43:56

So a lot of people think like well, I'm just going to do this thing. I'm going to get better at it

00:44:00

maybe

00:44:02

But if you study what you're doing well what you're not doing well

00:44:05

And then figure out how to improve one of those small things at a time like that's going to produce the results that you're looking for

00:44:10

This section I think sparked peak in me for some reason

00:44:14

Having read the book peak. I I was applying it. I think mostly to my work

00:44:20

At the time, but for whatever reason when I read this section

00:44:23

I couldn't help but think about mixing sound

00:44:26

Like running a sound board

00:44:29

Which I have no idea why I made that connection

00:44:33

But whenever I did

00:44:35

It occurred to me that this is something that I try to do when I run sound at our church

00:44:40

Specifically, it's a pretty sophisticated board a sound board that that we have there in a

00:44:45

intense system just in general and

00:44:49

Whenever I run sound which you know, I'm running sound this sunday. So I was at a rehearsal last night and

00:44:56

You know, it's it's pretty intense. You know, we've got I'm trying to think of how many different channels we've run at one time

00:45:03

We've got eight channels on a drum, you know, and then amongst other things. I think I had another 12

00:45:08

so call it 20 channels you're working with at one time

00:45:13

And it gets intense doing that but I bring that up because I have been trying to get better at running sound

00:45:20

Over the last year or so and haven't really had a good way to do that

00:45:26

Like I I've done some things like

00:45:28

Trying to pay attention to the music that I'm listening to and then how do they have it mixed?

00:45:33

You know, it was obviously good enough to make it mainstream

00:45:36

You know on the radio and through a lot of apple music and stuff like they're they're popular songs

00:45:43

So it's obviously going to be mixed really well or should be in theory. It's done better than what I would do

00:45:50

I'll put it that way and

00:45:53

Paying attention to that and trying to notice the little details and you know, how do they have that equalizer setup on that person?

00:45:59

like those things

00:46:01

I I can slowly pick up but I haven't been as effective at becoming a better sound person like that. I want to be so

00:46:08

When I finished this I realized that this is an area that I enjoy and I want to get better at it

00:46:15

But in order for that to happen I have to nail down what this feedback loop

00:46:21

Is going to be because I can't just keep going with what I hear on on a radio or such because it you know

00:46:27

I'm I don't have somebody explaining to me what I'm doing different than what they are doing

00:46:32

Like you can slowly pick it up, but not the way that I would like so I haven't figured out what I'm doing with that mic

00:46:37

Other than it's it's an interesting thing to be aware of

00:46:40

So I've played around with trying to find some people who I know are better at running sound than I am

00:46:45

And try to just shadow them to some extent

00:46:49

But at the same time like I feel like

00:46:52

You know doing live gigs and such is something that I really enjoy doing I run sound for

00:46:56

A local band which is actually surprisingly good to me

00:47:00

Not no diss to you guys because I know a couple of you listen. Hi, but you know, this is

00:47:05

This is a thing that I know

00:47:08

I want to continue to improve on that. So this is a

00:47:12

A place that I want to apply this feedback loop mechanism

00:47:17

But I I don't know that this particular section of the book was one that

00:47:20

That explained it well enough and was

00:47:23

applicable enough to say that I would all of that concept and that mentality comes from reading this section in the book

00:47:30

I think it just sparked

00:47:32

That thinking on that particular area, but it's it's an area that I want to improve

00:47:37

Yeah for a majority of this section

00:47:40

Like I said, I felt like I got a better version of this when I read peak

00:47:44

But there was an interesting point on page 84

00:47:47

Which at least in my mind phrased the question

00:47:51

How do you avoid becoming obsolete and he tied the learning loop to this?

00:47:56

Which I thought was really interesting if you go back to

00:47:58

The innovators dilemma that we covered with uh clinton christianson

00:48:02

I didn't really enjoy reading that book, but I got a lot out of it

00:48:06

I'm recognizing that now as i'm talking about it, you know

00:48:09

Probably year year or two after we we read it

00:48:13

Uh that and that that whole book was about why do some companies

00:48:16

Make these changes and survive and some of them go the way of the dodo like codac

00:48:22

invented the digital camera

00:48:24

But they were so happy with the results they were getting from their film business that somebody else had to take that technology

00:48:30

And run with it

00:48:32

And what could have been the thing that took codac to the next level going forward

00:48:37

You know that they they basically gave it away

00:48:41

And I think that the learning loop is the key to recognizing those things

00:48:44

The best performers adapt successfully to disruptions by combining

00:48:49

redesign of their their current business their current work whatever

00:48:54

And the learning loop so they don't ignore reality and they don't write off new technology

00:49:00

But they've if you keep plugging these things in and keep asking the right questions

00:49:04

To keep focusing on these little things that you can control

00:49:07

That can lead you to a successful transition from in codac's case, you know

00:49:13

A film business to a digital technology business or digital photography business

00:49:17

And again, that's just my hypothesis. I don't have specific data to support that

00:49:21

But that's kind of what I was thinking when I was reading this section

00:49:25

And he talks about in page 86

00:49:27

He says of course that kind of intense sustained effort to redesign work and learn requires a terrific degree

00:49:33

Of motivation which again goes back to peak and why will power alone is is not going to work

00:49:39

But as long as you maintain the motivation the why behind the things that you're doing and you implement this learning loop

00:49:44

I think that that can be a

00:49:47

Had your protection against those threats in the future

00:49:50

If you're thinking about it from your your business perspective

00:49:53

I'm not talked about this on I'm free agents with uh with david sparks

00:49:58

He mentioned like what's the the thing that scares you and it's like my job as it exists could not exist tomorrow

00:50:05

Something could come in and just completely wipe out blogs and podcasts and screencasts and everything that I'm doing

00:50:10

There could be some new technology that just replaces all of it

00:50:12

And my skills that I've developed over this last several years are now worthless

00:50:17

Okay, so that can apply to whatever your business is

00:50:21

And I think that if you are so focused on what you are doing now

00:50:25

And which is the tendency right is a business owner to milk all the profit that you can get out of the way that things are right now

00:50:32

Take advantage of the opportunity that is staring you in the face. Okay

00:50:35

But I think that if you if you get stuck there, which is what we learned in the innovators the lemma that you that could have potentially

00:50:44

Uh very serious ramifications and could even kill your business in the future

00:50:48

But I think embracing this learning loop

00:50:52

And this is the key to becoming not obsolete

00:50:55

Uh if I were to you know examine the codex situation retroactively, which is easy to do

00:51:02

Now that it's happened, you know

00:51:05

But I kind of think that if they had this mindset that morton hanson outlines here

00:51:10

They would look at the new technology that they develop with with the digital photography

00:51:14

differently

00:51:16

And if they kept and kept employing the learning loop with the new technology pieces that they were discovering

00:51:24

As they they figured that stuff out

00:51:26

That would have pointed them to yes, this is the future and they wouldn't have given that away

00:51:31

They wouldn't have mortgaged the the future for the present if that makes sense

00:51:35

I think the benefit that I have is that i'm

00:51:38

Bolder line edd and can't help new and shiny stuff from coming into my brain

00:51:43

uh, so

00:51:46

whenever

00:51:47

You know when I when I master a specific area or feel like i've mastered it well enough a specific area of

00:51:53

Something I I have a tendency to want to go find something different to work on and uh

00:51:59

A good example of this is and I did one this morning. I've been jumping into the concept of live streaming lately

00:52:06

Which is interesting because you know, i'm essentially doing live screencasts

00:52:11

So people can ask questions as we go. So it's been a an interesting process, but part of the reason for that is because

00:52:17

Live streaming has fascinated me from a from a

00:52:20

Hardware and software stance like how do you actually do this and how do you do it? Well

00:52:25

So that's that's the thing that i'm doing, but the part that's interesting about that is that

00:52:30

Once you figure out how to do that it it opens up a whole new realm of

00:52:38

uh areas that you can start to

00:52:40

Apply to different sectors like for example like I run the productivity guild

00:52:44

uh community and that's where i've been doing some of this live streaming which has been a fun process, but

00:52:50

It has taught me that doing that live streaming there could apply to my pro course web development business

00:52:56

And although we do primarily web development and do discourse stuff with that business

00:53:02

Like I could be doing some live streams on how do you set up discourse and teaching people how to do different aspects of that?

00:53:08

And doing it live so it's a q&a type thing

00:53:10

So there's different aspects of that because you learn how a new technology works. So I I feel like this is an area where

00:53:18

I can't help myself

00:53:21

Okay, like I can go right online. I can do the podcasting thing. I've been doing screencasts and such now

00:53:26

I'm getting into the live bit

00:53:29

and like those all are great, but

00:53:31

I also do web development and I do client management and

00:53:35

I've got all these different areas that I do things in so if one thing goes down that takes it all out

00:53:39

It would have to be the entire internet going down like the internet itself would have to die

00:53:44

before

00:53:46

My entire income is gone like that's what it would take to to bring it all down. So

00:53:52

but but you know if

00:53:54

Discourse went under tomorrow. Well, that's fine. I'll just focus more on the word press side of things that we've been doing

00:54:01

If for whatever reason word press goes under well, that's fine discourse. We'll pick up on that if web development in general is gone

00:54:08

well

00:54:10

That means all the other blogging and everything else is gone too. So

00:54:13

Then I'm going to focus on the it work that I'm doing with internal infrastructures like okay

00:54:18

We'll just we'll just start doing that now. So

00:54:20

I try to diversify because I'm a bit gun shy on

00:54:26

Focusing on one area, but I think some of that just has to do with I get bored if I'm just stuck on one

00:54:32

Area

00:54:34

Which is where this whole learning loop thing I think comes in because for me personally

00:54:38

This is almost habitual like it's just a process that I love doing so I can't help that particular piece

00:54:44

I think where I would apply it more is how do I continually get better in a specific area?

00:54:49

So with the live streaming bit like that's fun

00:54:52

But every time I hit the go live button

00:54:55

Like there are different things that I want to do to make it just that much better

00:55:00

So trying to say okay. Well, this is a thing that I see

00:55:03

Professionals doing that's what I need to work on like those are the things that I I find myself applying this to right

00:55:09

But diversity is in direct contrast to the focus that he's talking about I know section one

00:55:14

Obsessed so focus equals choosing a few

00:55:17

You don't have to bring that up. No

00:55:19

At some point you do have to focus and maybe your focus is a little bit more macro

00:55:25

So maybe it's information technology, but what if information technology as it exists today like gets wiped out tomorrow with some alien technology

00:55:32

Right, it's gonna happen, but I mean like what if everything you know is wrong tomorrow

00:55:37

Yes, like what do you do? How do you successfully navigate to that next thing?

00:55:41

That's where I think this learning loop applied intentionally can help you avoid becoming

00:55:49

Obsolete and again, I'm just retroactively applying it to a couple of companies

00:55:52

That I remember from when I read the innovators dilemma, but I think this is a really interesting idea

00:55:57

Like this is something that everybody struggles with if we view our situation correctly like we all have some

00:56:06

Uncertainty about our future no matter how secure your job is it may not be there tomorrow. I've got a

00:56:13

relative who was high up at a

00:56:17

Pretty big company here locally and was forced to take early retirement

00:56:22

Because the the companies going through a whole bunch of rounds of layoffs like

00:56:27

You can think well this company's not going anywhere that may be true, but your job

00:56:31

No matter how well you've performed individually like that may not be there tomorrow

00:56:35

And so like that's what it's interesting about free agents is the whole idea of control and mastering your your own your own ship

00:56:43

Taking control for and responsibility for your future, but I think that like

00:56:48

There's got to be some middle ground between just trying a whole bunch of things all the time and figuring out what works

00:56:54

Which is it is an approach. It's probably a valid approach, but not in the context

00:56:59

I think of of this particular book. So that's what I'm wrestling with in my head is like

00:57:03

How do you do that? And I think that the learning loop here

00:57:07

This is the key because I think that there's going to be small things

00:57:12

That you can test using the learning loop. So let's just say like the the screen casting thing that you you brought up

00:57:18

All right

00:57:19

So let's say you're you're doing this screen casting right now

00:57:23

And this is the thing that leads to something else that leads to something else that leads to something else

00:57:28

Which is eventually like that's the thing Joe does for a living in five years and he's super successful at it

00:57:33

That's kind of what happened with me when I started writing like I started writing but

00:57:38

And I still write almost every day, but it's not

00:57:41

the thing that you see the most like my form of writing now is taking notes when I read books or putting together podcast outlines or

00:57:48

Writing scripts for for videos that I'm producing stuff like that

00:57:52

But none of that stuff was on the radar initially and that's the stuff that could be gone tomorrow

00:57:57

And I think there's a couple principles here that we should take away and everybody listening

00:58:03

From this particular section and and really like that they all tie together and I think mornin hansen is a great job of tying these together

00:58:09

So we want to figure out what are the things that we should be focusing on that section one

00:58:13

We want to apply those intentionally in redesigning our work

00:58:17

And then as we're redesigning it we want to practice these things deliberately we want to loop them

00:58:22

And pay attention to the results, you know, do measure feedback modify redo as long as we

00:58:28

Follow that formula that he lays out here

00:58:32

I think that that could help you successfully transition from one career to another like like I did

00:58:37

But I also think it could help you successfully transition a business

00:58:42

From one thing to another so you don't have to be one of the

00:58:45

The the sad stories that we read about in the version two of the innovators dilemma

00:58:50

All right, I want to talk about passion

00:58:53

And purpose p squared section four. Let's do it. This is probably the one that I got the most lost on

00:59:01

the whole book

00:59:03

There's one that was a little frustrated by but this one was the one that I I

00:59:08

Found myself a bit confused on so

00:59:10

He calls the section p squared

00:59:13

And he makes the distinction between purpose

00:59:16

and passion

00:59:18

and how if you want to

00:59:20

Master your work

00:59:23

You need to take those and multiply them by each other so you can't just have purpose and you can't just have passion

00:59:29

In both cases you're going to burn out. You have to have both

00:59:32

One thing he did call out later on is that if you effectively do this

00:59:36

It actually leads to worse work-life balance or tension between those two. It actually makes you

00:59:43

Not have much of a personal life

00:59:45

Because you're so passionate about or so excited about the stuff you're doing so

00:59:49

I'll see correct me if i'm wrong here mike on

00:59:52

The definitions between passion and purpose

00:59:56

But he essentially says that passion is the excitement you have for the work that you do

01:00:00

and purpose is

01:00:03

the

01:00:05

Basically that your work

01:00:07

Has a significant contribution to the people that you are serving with that

01:00:11

Work so the excitement you have to be doing the work itself

01:00:15

Times the contribution that that makes to society equals p squared. Did I get that right?

01:00:23

Yeah, the way that I wrote it down was passion equals do what you love purpose equals do what contributes there you go and

01:00:29

Right there. I hate this section

01:00:32

All right, tell me why so

01:00:37

Okay, well first let me start with what I like about this action. So the story here was really cool

01:00:42

He talks about jenniville who's a concierge and he's got a quote from her. She says I care about my guess caring comes from energy

01:00:49

I completely agree with that. My issue is with the definition of passion

01:00:54

I think do what you love and this is why the passion mindset that kel newport talks about is so dangerous

01:01:00

This is the traditional view of passion. This is an incorrect view of passion in my opinion

01:01:04

Passion is not do what you love the root word for passion is the latin word pati literally means to suffer

01:01:11

So doing what you love is going to cause you to suffer that doesn't make a lot of sense

01:01:17

Okay, but if you combine these do what you love plus do what contributes and then you factor in what you just said the data that he has shows

01:01:23

That this leads to worse

01:01:25

Worklife balance. That's a lot more accurate

01:01:28

Passion to me is

01:01:31

Being willing to suffer to see what you believe in come to pass to see your vision materialize

01:01:37

And so if you've got a vision for something

01:01:40

Whether it's to start a new business to create a new product whatever you have a vision for where you want your life to be in five years

01:01:47

And you're employing all these principles in order to build it that way

01:01:50

Really what this section is saying is that it's not going to just come to you. It's not going to be

01:01:56

Easy you're going to have to push through some things in order to realize

01:02:01

That future that ideal future that you have in your head

01:02:04

That I completely agree with but I think the way that he defines it here and then he's got like the uh the purpose pyramid

01:02:12

Yeah, like I think this whole section is pretty weak and if you look at this you

01:02:16

I'll just I have a picture of it here in my notes. So

01:02:19

Um, it's got at the at the bottom level the base level

01:02:23

Create value do no harm and I think that that makes sense if you view this from the situation of like i'm in this job that I don't like

01:02:29

And I want to get out of it. Okay, so

01:02:32

Create value don't hurt the people that you're working with but this isn't going to be the the thing eventually

01:02:38

You're going to go to the next level craft personal meaning and then at the very top seek social mission. So it's like don't hurt other people

01:02:45

Like do the thing that that really hits the mark for you and then do the thing that hits the mark for for other people

01:02:51

The social mission like you got a mission that's bigger than yourself

01:02:54

Yeah, I guess but I mean like the stronger sense of purpose. I don't know. I think that it's kind of

01:03:00

Kind of backwards. I think you need to start with the uh the vision

01:03:05

What's the difference that you want to make and then from there that can drive?

01:03:08

It's kind of like instead of going up with like the arrows pointing it should be down

01:03:12

And so like you start with what is the contribution I want to make to the world

01:03:17

Uh, and then that's going to drive what you do on a daily basis and ultimately that's going to result in you benefiting

01:03:24

Other people not not hurting them if that makes sense

01:03:27

so

01:03:29

I don't know. This is kind of a long winded rant on on the incorrect definition of of passion and mind

01:03:35

My opinion, um, mike rove the guy from dirty jobs said it this way

01:03:39

He says don't follow your passion but always bring it with you

01:03:42

I think passion is purpose and I think that you don't have to differentiate between the two of them

01:03:47

But if you have the complete picture of passion as opposed to just do what you love that is the key

01:03:51

to being successful

01:03:54

Uh, and you don't have to quit your job to find that you know

01:03:57

He mentions that in here. It doesn't matter where your situation is

01:03:59

You know jennivive could have been upset because she's just a concierge quote-unquote, but she didn't she decided that

01:04:05

I'm going to care about everybody that I come in contact with and I can apply that that same

01:04:10

perspective as I

01:04:13

Record this podcast as I write a blog post everything that I do is I get my presentation that at max sock like that's the thing that

01:04:20

Translates across a bunch of different domains

01:04:22

That's really the the root of this and a lot of people view passion as the situation

01:04:28

You know that which is based on the definition that he gives do what you love

01:04:32

So jennivive could say, you know, I don't love being a concierge. I don't love having to look up all this information

01:04:38

I don't love having to run all these errands for my guests, but she doesn't view it that way

01:04:42

She views the people, you know chris bailey talked about people are the reason for the productivity

01:04:47

I care about my guests like as soon as you get your eyes off of your own situation

01:04:52

And recognize what impact you are having in the world the passion will come in my opinion

01:04:58

And then you can make small changes as you really narrow that down

01:05:03

Sometimes you do you just have to start, you know macro level big picture

01:05:06

How can I contribute where I am right now? How can I deliver value which is kind of what he's saying here

01:05:12

But then learning loop keep drilling down keep figuring out what is the thing?

01:05:16

What is my unique ability land on your own life theme and then do things that are in alignment with that

01:05:20

Which is a little bit different than the message that he's giving here

01:05:23

I felt like his purpose pyramid was just three things you should have

01:05:27

Like, you know, you were talking about flipping it

01:05:31

Yeah, it really doesn't make sense as a mental constrict

01:05:33

Like you got to have the broader world view of it. You got to have a personal view of it and you have to be giving

01:05:39

Value to someone else like those aren't

01:05:42

Like I don't see them as tears that you work towards. I think those are just three things that you have to have

01:05:47

Like those are three aspects of that. So I'm with you. I don't think this was a section that was

01:05:53

like super inspiring as much as just

01:05:59

Okay, I think I follow what you're saying, but I don't really know what to do with it

01:06:03

So I don't know that I have a lot to say about this one anymore

01:06:07

Fair enough. Yeah, I've rented long enough on that one. Let's go to the next one

01:06:12

Which is the first one in section two part two mastering work with others?

01:06:16

So the first part was mastering your own work

01:06:18

Do less than obsess redesigning your work. Don't just learn loop

01:06:23

P squared and then we're on to part two mastering work with others and the first of these is

01:06:28

forceful champions, which I would almost

01:06:32

qualify by saying these are the bullies

01:06:37

To to some extent. Yep. I don't know. I I kind of had an issue with some of this because he talks a lot about how

01:06:45

When you're trying to do something meaningful

01:06:49

Or trying to be great at what you do you sometimes have to just power through

01:06:55

and force your way in not true. Yeah, I've got issues with this section too. Yeah, I just didn't care for

01:07:01

like I I couldn't help but reflect on

01:07:04

how to win friends and influence people like I couldn't help but have that in my mind and and think of

01:07:10

so many of the ways that

01:07:13

are called out in how to win friends that are

01:07:15

so much more subtle and more effective than

01:07:20

Set your purpose and go until you hit it like that

01:07:24

Yeah, okay, like he told a story about

01:07:27

a guy who manufactured a fake ad

01:07:31

In order to get a point across

01:07:34

And in order to get support for his project like I would never do that like then people can't trust anything

01:07:41

You do because they don't know if it's a ruse or not

01:07:43

Anyway, I didn't like this section. Yeah, your quote-unquote purpose cannot be greater than your integrity

01:07:50

In in my opinion. Yeah, I actually wrote down in this section feels like a jerk led repurposing of how to win friends and

01:07:56

There you go

01:07:59

It's a good way to play. Yeah, he talks about forceful forceful champions have mastered two skills

01:08:04

They inspire others by evoking emotions and they circumvent resistance by developing smart grit

01:08:09

So again, he talks about grit if you were to assign like a book that we've read for each of these sections grit would be the book here

01:08:16

right, but he makes a

01:08:18

An important distinction I think when he talks about smart grit because he says that grit can scare people away

01:08:23

So you have to employ it in the right scenario and he he used an example. I think it was this section

01:08:27

about the the guy who

01:08:30

had the purpose to like develop the the pads and like it completely ostracized him from everybody that he ever

01:08:37

And everybody thought he was the crazy guy

01:08:39

Years years later like he finally landed on it

01:08:42

But the moral of the story as he told it told it was that there was better ways to to do this

01:08:47

which which I agree with but you don't need to

01:08:51

Succeed at the expense of others, which is really what was the tone of this chapter in in my opinion

01:08:59

It really felt a lot like a scarcity mindset as opposed to an abundance mindset

01:09:04

Where it's okay if we all win

01:09:07

It's it's fine if somebody else is successful because they're not stealing the limited amount of success that I would have been able to achieve

01:09:14

I guess maybe if you are working in and you're climbing a corporate ladder

01:09:17

Maybe you view that a little bit differently because there's only a certain number of

01:09:21

Higher level positions available and there's so many people who have an MBA and they're they're all vying for that that same position

01:09:29

That I guess what I'm saying is I can see how his story that he told at the beginning

01:09:33

Would have influenced the way that he taught this section

01:09:37

But it's kind of not what I've seen from my experience

01:09:42

Yeah, I don't know that I want to dive into this one much more to be honest with you

01:09:46

just because like

01:09:48

You can be a champion for a specific cause or your particular project

01:09:52

but

01:09:54

You know even even the title of this forceful champions like it just feels kind of dirty to me

01:09:59

And I didn't care for it. I get the idea like

01:10:03

Don't back down like I get that and that's fine

01:10:07

but it felt like he was advocating for

01:10:12

you know some shady methods

01:10:14

And

01:10:15

That I'm not behind like I wasn't okay with that. Yeah

01:10:18

I do want to call out really nothing to take action on for me from this

01:10:23

But I thought it was an interesting anecdote and really kind of shows where we're at as a culture

01:10:29

Page 121

01:10:32

He said that studies show that women in the workplace can be perceived as either competent or liked but not both

01:10:39

And I thought that was kind of sad. I definitely can see situations where that has played out

01:10:44

You know based on again his research. I'm not saying this. I don't agree

01:10:47

With this in principle, but I it's the way things are in the the business world

01:10:52

Or at least it's the way things are in certain situations in the business world

01:10:55

I'm sure you know women who are in the business world can chime in as to whether that's accurate or not

01:10:59

but I kind of think that it is and it's

01:11:01

It's sad, you know, it shouldn't have to have to be that way

01:11:06

But really like that really gets back to the whole idea behind this forceful champions chapter is

01:11:10

Do we have to do things this way like isn't there a better way?

01:11:14

Can't we make people upset at the present and excited about the future without being jerks without putting down people or without

01:11:22

forcing women who happen to be in the business world to embrace

01:11:25

One of these like can't they be both competent and liked without appearing weak like that's that's sad and uh

01:11:33

Like I said not really an action item associated with it

01:11:36

But it does get me thinking like even like the stuff that we do for the podcast and things like that

01:11:40

To be careful about how I say or phrase things

01:11:45

So that i'm not contributing to this problem that i'm actually helping create a solution

01:11:50

Yeah, it's a fair point and this is a having come from a corporate america. I could see a play out

01:11:55

I can't say that I was aware of it at the time

01:11:59

but whenever I think back to a lot of the

01:12:02

meetings and different interactions that I had

01:12:05

I mean I could see it. I mean obviously i'm not female so I can't speak to it directly but

01:12:11

Just knowing some of the interactions and I was never like a leader of any

01:12:17

meetings in those senses

01:12:20

So I I don't think it was really a thing that I I hope I didn't participate in

01:12:25

But it's a thing that I I think I did

01:12:29

You know looking back on it and I could see that being a thing that happens. So again, it sucks

01:12:34

Yeah, and and I think that

01:12:37

For for us in our current situation where we're not encountering it every day

01:12:41

Like the thing to take away from this is the awareness that stuff like that happens

01:12:45

And if you do find yourself in a situation where that is the case

01:12:48

Do everything in your power to fight against it

01:12:50

Don't view women in your workplace as either competent or or nice like figure out

01:12:56

A way that we can work together where they can be both and really gets into the next section here the the fight and unite

01:13:02

Um, this I I thought a lot of you know the five dysfunctions of a team

01:13:07

Which interestingly in that story the lead character the ceo

01:13:11

Is female and there are definitely people in that narrative that Patrick lincy only tell talk

01:13:17

That he tells in that book that don't like her

01:13:21

But there are a lot of other people who look past that in the organization as a whole can be successful

01:13:26

So I think that that book in particular is

01:13:29

After reading the forceful champion section

01:13:32

That's a breath of a fresh air and a reminder that you know again, even though it's a fictional story

01:13:37

That doesn't have to be that way. So yes, the next section, you know

01:13:41

You kind of alluded to it and spoke to it a little bit fight and unite

01:13:44

And I hear this quite a bit

01:13:48

And I'm trying to think of a good example of where I've seen this play out and honestly the best one that I've seen

01:13:53

At a large scale was actually at our church where

01:13:57

You know, we we had a big building project that we were debating. It was not a go-forward

01:14:04

There were folks that were for it and folks that were

01:14:06

Um, or I shouldn't say that everyone was for the building project. It was just the financing methods that people were split on

01:14:14

And you know, that's pretty typical

01:14:17

But one thing I really appreciated about our church was that we were

01:14:21

Both sides were very vocal and were very involved in the debate on you know, what is the right way to go

01:14:29

And when it was all said and done vote was done building project moved forward

01:14:34

And the financing methods were nailed down and it was like the whole thing was like it was done and everybody's on board

01:14:43

Like, okay, this is the way that we're going to do this and everyone's in

01:14:47

Uh, they're all on the bus. They're all ready to go. Let's let's get this thing done

01:14:51

So it was a good example to me that you can be on opposite sides of a situation or on a of a decision

01:14:59

but once that decision is made if you're truly bought into

01:15:02

the organization or

01:15:05

the the decision itself that's being made

01:15:08

Get on board like don't don't just sit back and you know, soul go over it

01:15:14

Jump in you get together unite to use his word and get things done

01:15:19

So I don't know I appreciated this section because it's one that I feel like is not

01:15:23

It's not taught in a lot of places

01:15:26

I feel like a lot of us know in the back of our heads that this is the thing you should do

01:15:30

That you should fight until a decision is made and then jump on board

01:15:33

And I did appreciate his his view on this for sure

01:15:37

Yeah, the story he mentions at the beginning. I think it's recut ben kaiser

01:15:41

They asked him why why are you successful?

01:15:43

And he says we succeed because of number one fighting in meetings and number two fostering unity

01:15:48

And that does seem contradictory on the surface unless you've read the five dis functions of a team

01:15:53

Another place that i've seen this seen this articulated and I don't have the link in front of me

01:15:58

But jeff bezos. I believe amazon has this idea of disagree but commit

01:16:02

You know on page 147 he says and teams that unite team members commit to decisions even if they disagree and they all work hard to implement the decision without second guessing or undermining it

01:16:11

And this really just illustrates that people don't necessarily want to get their way

01:16:16

But they do want to be heard they want to know that the concerns that they have and the feedback that they have to give

01:16:22

It's not just going in one year and out the other

01:16:24

I think that that's

01:16:27

I definitely have felt that way in

01:16:29

Like asian efficiency for example one of the things I I respect about it is that like a lot of our meetings

01:16:35

I'm the guy who's always complaining about things quote-unquote complaining

01:16:38

You know, I point out all the all the ways that that things might not work

01:16:41

but uh, it's

01:16:44

It's a positive environment still a big piece of that is the gratitude that we do at the end of all of our growth hacking meetings

01:16:50

Um, but it's just thinking of the the things that other people don't think of the more perspectives that you get the better off

01:16:57

You're going to be as an organization the better the end product is going to be

01:17:00

The more likely you are to succeed

01:17:03

He says that the chance for great ideas is much higher when you have people with different backgrounds

01:17:08

Doesn't have to necessarily be cultural backgrounds. It can just be

01:17:11

Uh, your your personal background, uh, it can be the the unique perspective that you bring to a specific situation

01:17:18

Your team can't fight well though unless you have those diverse viewpoints. I think a lot of the organizations that I

01:17:24

I have been involved within the past where this hasn't worked

01:17:28

That's been the thing that's caused it to fail

01:17:31

Is you've got a team which is all looking at it from the same way it's that classic group think and this is the right way to do things

01:17:37

And then whenever anybody usually i'm that guy, you know who says, you know, maybe this isn't the right way to do it

01:17:42

Everybody kind of gangs up on that one person. He's like, well, what are you talking about? You know

01:17:47

Uh, and

01:17:49

I think like the biggest thing I got from the fight dysfunctions of a team is that just because you're not fighting about things as a team

01:17:56

Doesn't mean that there's real unity in the the team or the organization

01:17:59

I think that fighting is good as long as it's done in the right way

01:18:04

I mean, obviously you're not

01:18:06

belittling other people and making fun of their viewpoints and trying to put them down

01:18:10

I mean they have some stories of that and the five dysfunctions of a team as well, but

01:18:13

if you follow the if you treat other people respectfully if you

01:18:19

walk with integrity and

01:18:22

Which is kind of getting back to the forceful champions chapter

01:18:25

Like it doesn't have to be a negative thing every time that you have these meetings and you quote

01:18:30

Unquote have these these fights

01:18:31

one of the things I really loved about this section

01:18:34

Was the heineken meeting cards that he talked about on page 151. I tried to find a place where I could order these

01:18:40

But I couldn't find them online

01:18:43

But basically they have these three different cards

01:18:46

um

01:18:48

The green one I think is says all in ask me why

01:18:52

The red one says challenge or I have another question

01:18:55

Or no, maybe that's a yellow one and then the red one is shiny object alert and basically like get back on track

01:19:01

And so people in the meetings will just hold these up as the meetings going on and then

01:19:05

You know if you do have other questions like you're going to overcome those challenges just by talking through those things

01:19:11

And no one is going to hide what they really feel and then in six months say oh, I knew this was a bad idea

01:19:16

Like you're going to get it all out in the open and they talk about how that being a big key to their success

01:19:21

Hey, I think this can play in pretty well to the next section here, but before we get to that. I think there's

01:19:28

There's something to be said for

01:19:31

voicing opinions before a decision is made

01:19:34

And I don't think this is something that people do regularly when they should like that's that's at least my view on it

01:19:41

and it has a lot to do with

01:19:43

so much of

01:19:45

I guess a lot of meetings that are just run poorly

01:19:49

We've talked about meetings before, you know the five dysfunctions we go through

01:19:53

you know ways of running meetings that work and ways that they don't and

01:19:57

I as somebody who works with clients

01:20:00

It's kind of a double-edged sword. I love doing that

01:20:04

Because I get to see so many different teams and see how they work with each other

01:20:09

again, there's a lead-in for the next section, but

01:20:12

Which is on collaboration just so ease people's minds, but you know working with so many different teams

01:20:19

You get a chance to see

01:20:21

You know, how do they work together? What doesn't doesn't work?

01:20:23

And how do you lead a meeting such that you can accomplish something successful without

01:20:29

causing a lot of angst or

01:20:32

And you know because I'm on so many different calls like that you get it you start to get a sense for

01:20:37

if someone has a

01:20:40

An opinion and they're not sharing it like you can start to get that feeling but

01:20:46

There's something that should be said now by this person, but they're not saying it even when it's just a phone call and there's no video involved or in person involved

01:20:53

Like even then it's still helpful for sure. Yeah for sure and in person even more

01:20:58

but you can start to get a feeling for that and

01:21:01

So many times I'm not the one that's leading the meeting or leading the call

01:21:06

But I want to jump in and just say okay sam

01:21:09

Why are you not like what's up? Like something's going on you got you know start talking

01:21:16

You know something along those lines, but

01:21:18

It's not my place to do that and I can't do that because you know

01:21:22

I'm the contractor in that case

01:21:24

So I need to keep my mouth shut and just do what I'm told in a lot of cases

01:21:27

If I want to maintain the contract, but there are cases where you you jump on a call and the team is one that

01:21:34

They really welcome constructive feedback or criticism and you know in those cases

01:21:40

Yeah, absolutely if I see something that's off with the way the business is operating

01:21:44

I'll jump in and say it and

01:21:46

They're open to that

01:21:47

But to be honest with you most teams aren't and I wish they were and if if these aspects this fight and unite concept was one that was more

01:21:56

Common place. I mean

01:21:59

Everybody's a pin like more opinions would be out there, but I can't help but think that so many companies would be running a lot better ways

01:22:06

And people would feel heard in a lot of cases. So I don't know. I wish it was more common for sure

01:22:13

Yeah, I've seen tan do this in meetings at Asian efficiency where

01:22:17

Somebody or a couple people, you know will be

01:22:20

Leading the the conversation and contributing just to draw stuff out of other people. You know, I'll be like so and so you you haven't said anything yet

01:22:27

What do you think? Yeah, which is a classic move even without the video to your point, you know

01:22:32

So yeah, meeting

01:22:37

Management or meeting leadership, I guess like if you were to in a corporate environment pick one skill to develop that would

01:22:45

Exponentially increase your effectiveness and your productivity. That would be the thing that going back to my gapbook from from last time

01:22:52

I think it was no fail meetings by Michael Hyatt. That's an interesting little read with several practical things that you can do whether you happen to

01:22:59

Be the person in charge of the meeting or not

01:23:02

But there's so much time that's that's spent in meetings and it's it's really kind of depressing when you think about ineffective most of them are

01:23:09

Because people are too scared to say stuff or they're too scared to say what they they really think I've never really had that problem

01:23:16

Which has gotten me

01:23:18

But in the midst of a lot of these meetings like I alluded to it a couple times

01:23:24

brings us to the last of the seven

01:23:26

principles here and that is the two sins of collaboration and

01:23:31

the first is under collaboration and as you would expect the second one is over collaboration and

01:23:38

I think under collaboration is probably more common. I would think yep, you know, that's that's my take on it

01:23:45

It seems like it's more common that people feel like well, you just need to assume this if I don't

01:23:50

XYZ that's frustrating like okay. Well now I'm assuming this every single time

01:23:56

It's just a matter of you know days and weeks before that falls through

01:24:01

So I wish that was not a case, but it is

01:24:05

I don't know if I'm one of those. I might be in some arenas. I feel like this is a thing that

01:24:10

You know some areas of life. I'm bad at under collaborating and others. I'm probably over collaborating

01:24:17

Uh where I'm sharing too much in too many different places at too many different times. So I could see where these are our

01:24:24

Areas that you need to be aware of I wasn't real sure what to do with them

01:24:29

once I finished this section like okay, well, this is cool, but

01:24:32

I feel like I wasn't really given any guidelines or any like

01:24:36

Anything concrete to help me nail down if I'm committing one of the other than other than just these are some

01:24:43

Things that can happen right and you kind of have to interpret that to your on your own

01:24:48

Which I think is fine. I just wanted something a little more concrete from it. Maybe this is me being picky

01:24:52

Well, I think that based on our situation where we aren't well

01:24:57

Maybe yours is a little bit different because you're working with all the other developers, but

01:25:01

I kind of think that for most people in

01:25:05

an online work environment

01:25:08

You will err on one of these and you will know right away which side you happen to be on

01:25:12

Because when you have people in different locations and you do nothing

01:25:17

You're going to naturally under collaborate

01:25:19

And I think that a lot of places

01:25:22

Will try to avoid that scenario and the result of that is going to be the over collaboration

01:25:27

He's got five rules for disciplined collaboration in here

01:25:30

Which I think are cool and you could you could apply these to just about anywhere number one establish a compelling why do it case for every proposed

01:25:37

Collaboration if it's not compelling don't do it. Just say no so ask why collaborate in the first place

01:25:42

Number two craft a unifying goal that excites people so much that they subordinate their own selfish agendas

01:25:49

Number three reward people for collaboration results not activities

01:25:52

Number four devote full resources time skills money to a collaboration if you can't give it everything that it needs and scale it back or scrap it

01:25:59

And then number five if you lack confidence in your partners

01:26:02

Taylor trust boosters to solve specific trust problems quickly

01:26:05

I think that one's really interesting especially when you think about like online projects and you're working with people that maybe you've not worked with before

01:26:11

The the tendency can be to view that as well. They're they're gonna they're gonna hurt me

01:26:17

They're gonna screw me over that

01:26:19

This is gonna fail like you can view it as like it's gonna fail unless I unless I fix it or you can on the other side

01:26:25

Just air that oh they're gonna do everything that they say that they're gonna do

01:26:27

And I don't have to worry about it

01:26:29

And I think that either of those scenarios when you are approaching it blindly are dangerous

01:26:34

I really like this idea of putting trust boosters into your collaboration

01:26:38

And maybe the way to do this is just through different project milestones or sprints

01:26:43

I know that's another book that's been recommended several times

01:26:46

It's scrum by Jeff Sutherland. Maybe we we cover that one at some point in the future

01:26:49

But I do think that there's some good rules and things to consider when you are collaborating here

01:26:56

But I agree that you know unless you're in a situation like the over collaboration that the picture I got was like the Facebook office an open office environment

01:27:04

Where it's designed to foster collaboration like that's everybody who I've who I know has worked in that environment has said that it's horrible

01:27:11

Because you have to fight against it in order to get anything done

01:27:15

And so I think that like if you're in that situation, there's probably stuff in here that you could apply

01:27:19

Right away and you're like yeah, I recognize that over collaboration is just completely zapping my effectiveness

01:27:25

And it's making me not great at work

01:27:28

And so what can I do to what can I control to to change that but for me where I'm not

01:27:34

Embarking on a new collaboration ventures all the time. This is more just like nice to know. I'll use this someday

01:27:41

Yeah, I collaborate with a lot of different teams including my own

01:27:45

On a daily basis. So like this was this is an area where I feel like I appreciated his thoughts on this

01:27:53

But it's this this might be why I wanted something more concrete from him just because I do a lot of this

01:28:00

And I know that with the team that I'm leading

01:28:04

I try to

01:28:07

Share as much as I possibly can it's out of line for me to be sharing things like finances

01:28:12

Or you know the legal agreements and the contracts and stuff like those things are out of line for me to be sharing

01:28:17

So that would be over collaborating in my mind

01:28:19

But sharing is much about the development process and how things should be done and what the end goal is

01:28:25

The more of that that I can share with them the better I think they're able to serve that client

01:28:30

So I don't know that

01:28:33

like even

01:28:34

In that realm I feel like there's always areas like I could probably do a little bit more to help them understand a little bit better

01:28:40

So I'm always fine tuning that

01:28:42

If anything, this is where that feedback loop like the looping mechanism comes in for me

01:28:47

Just because I can see the way projects happen on a regular basis and they and how fast they move

01:28:53

because of that

01:28:56

I get the chance to see the results of how I've collaborated on a specific project very quickly

01:29:01

So I can constantly be iterating on that and how to do it better. So I

01:29:06

I do a lot of this

01:29:08

So I appreciate it his thoughts. I just wish he gave a little bit more detail on what to do about it

01:29:13

Or versus just here are the two things you need to be aware of so there you go

01:29:18

Part three Mike. Yeah, again. This is this is the the personal part though

01:29:23

I mean maybe in good to great, which I haven't read you know, maybe there's

01:29:25

Professional collaboration in there and there's this the point-by-point plan for you to you to implement this so

01:29:31

Maybe maybe that's see maybe I need to go do that one

01:29:35

Part three mastering your work life. There is no work life. What the heck seriously people

01:29:41

There is just life you have to balance this

01:29:43

Okay, everything that you have to do is in your jurisdiction and there is no clear cut boundary between work and life and technology makes it gray

01:29:52

Or every single day

01:29:54

But I do like the page on page 194 where he talks about top performance in any field seems to demand personal sacrifice

01:30:00

We presume that rising to the top requires crazy hard work fortitude endless practice long hours

01:30:05

That it entails doing without vacations neglecting your kids or your spouse and spending weekends and holidays glued to your computer screen

01:30:11

Because we think this way we tend to let our job responsibilities balloon out of control

01:30:15

Then to achieve some semblance of a personal life we go back into erect a protective shield around our lives to prevent work from crushing them

01:30:22

See right there right there. He's saying this is an artificial distinction

01:30:26

We switch off the smartphone at home or refrain from checking email when watching our kids baseball games

01:30:31

Or leave work early on certain days all to prevent work from burying our private lives such measures only serve to treat the symptom

01:30:38

The result of working too much and not the root cause the work itself. So when I read this

01:30:43

I don't think this is from the book. I think this was this was me. I was thinking about like, okay

01:30:48

So how does this play out for most people number one?

01:30:52

We end up doing way too much. We're busy. We do not do less than obsess like he talks about in chapter one

01:30:57

Which leads to number two we get overwhelmed and then like he says we try to

01:31:02

We try to figure out how we can separate work from life and achieve a little bit more life and a little bit less work

01:31:08

But it doesn't work that way. All right, so number three we try to create work life balance

01:31:11

Doesn't work everything at work is fighting against that work life balance

01:31:16

Which is by design the way we've set it up when we separate those two

01:31:20

If we take something from one, we're going to give it to the other and vice versa

01:31:23

So number four we resent our work and then how does that typically play out number five? We change our job

01:31:29

We change our career. We think that if I can just change the externals of my situation, it's going to get better

01:31:34

And that's not the case

01:31:37

You've got to figure this out for yourself

01:31:40

And you have to apply intentional imbalance from the 12 week year

01:31:45

You know you have to pick the things that you want to prioritize put your big rocks in the jar first steven covet seven habits

01:31:51

You know and when you do that the things that aren't important

01:31:53

They'll fall to the wayside and it's not really going to matter

01:31:56

And if you're so concerned about what everybody at work is thinking about you and you're living your life out of your inbox

01:32:02

Which is a to-do list that other people can write on you're never going to get there

01:32:06

But I think there's a lot of stuff in this book, which is good

01:32:09

It will get you on the path to work on how you work

01:32:12

You don't have to protect yourself from the work because you're working smarter

01:32:17

And there's a whole bunch of benefits that he talks about in here of working smarter

01:32:21

I did have an action item from this section, which was to make a list of things that I I shouldn't be doing

01:32:25

but again the whole

01:32:28

Section mastering your work life like this is an artificial distinction. It does not exist. Okay

01:32:34

I don't think I would disagree with you at all

01:32:37

I

01:32:40

I will be honest in when I read this whole section

01:32:44

I finished it and was just confused. I I couldn't quite figure out what he was getting at like, okay work life

01:32:52

What are we talking about like sure I have work and I have life, but I do work within my life

01:32:59

Huh? Exactly. See if you understand purpose and passion the right way. Yes. You don't have to make this distinction

01:33:08

He has three tactics to mitigate the negative impacts of the seven practices

01:33:12

Number one spend your time divided so do do a lot of different things don't always be working all the time

01:33:16

I get that number two keep your passion in check what

01:33:19

Don't do the thing that you were created to do like this makes no sense to me

01:33:25

But it makes sense if you view it as your passion is going to cause you

01:33:28

To just work on the work side of your life and it's not going to contribute anything to the life side of your life

01:33:33

Which again is what you get when you define work life balance

01:33:36

You're either on the left or you're either on the right you cannot be both

01:33:40

So that makes sense if you view it that way, but I don't think it has to be that way your passion should

01:33:45

Should propel everything that you do but the things that you do should be hitting the mark

01:33:51

And if you're living your life in alignment, I don't think you have to I don't think you have to do this

01:33:57

I don't think you have to say well, is it what i'm created to do but i'm only going to do so much of it because

01:34:01

Otherwise everything else that is really more important sometimes is going to be

01:34:05

Doesn't make any sense

01:34:07

Keep the main thing the main thing and then just don't worry about it

01:34:10

Yep, number three. Don't take it personally. Don't fight nasty

01:34:14

Uh, this is a really good point and this kind of goes back to the the last couple sections that we covered

01:34:19

But at the same time I felt like that contradicted his forceful champions chapter

01:34:23

It does it does it definitely does

01:34:26

So

01:34:28

When I was thinking through this last bit this piece here and trying to determine, you know

01:34:33

What does this mean for my work life?

01:34:37

Whatever that is

01:34:39

I I essentially landed on the the concept that this last chapter is a summary

01:34:44

He intended it to be a separate section and I think he intended to explain

01:34:50

You know some of the potential downfalls of this

01:34:54

But it was a summary with a warning that you know, if you follow all of this truly

01:35:02

It actually doesn't lead to a very happy life

01:35:05

So so you got to put in checks and balances

01:35:07

Which you do have to put in checks and balances

01:35:10

You do have to make sure that you're meeting all of the responsibilities that you have

01:35:14

But I think you can do that without creating this artificial distinction

01:35:20

Of this is me at work and this is me at home

01:35:24

I think that that's a recipe for hypocrisy to be honest

01:35:28

I mean

01:35:29

And i've gone back to my comment about your integrity needs to be greater than your purpose

01:35:33

Like you are who you are

01:35:35

And I see a lot of people who maybe would try to become a forceful champion at work

01:35:41

They'll try to be something that they're not

01:35:43

In their professional life and that just ends up hurting them

01:35:46

like

01:35:47

All I know to be is who I am and that's one of the things that i've heard over and over again from people is they appreciate my authenticity

01:35:54

I'm just like

01:35:55

Well

01:35:56

Yeah, but of course like I can't be anything else

01:36:00

Right every time i've tried to do it somebody else's way

01:36:03

I haven't been able to do it as well as that other person

01:36:06

So like why even go there just let me be me you be you okay

01:36:11

And then we'll decide whether there's alignment here and we can work together or not

01:36:14

If you hate me because of my stances on this this and this then the fine

01:36:18

You know good good luck to you

01:36:19

Yep

01:36:20

And i'll figure out somebody whose unique ability complements my unique ability and we'll do something awesome together

01:36:26

I think he got pigeonholed with the title of his book a little bit because it's great at work

01:36:31

well

01:36:33

Just by the nature of how we define things like that would mean that

01:36:37

There's a certain piece of my life that I do quote unquote work during

01:36:42

And he's now stuck on this personal life versus work life

01:36:47

Like he now has to have that yeah should have been great at life

01:36:51

Yeah, instead of saying this is all great at life

01:36:54

It's it's great at this one piece of life and I think

01:36:56

He got into the book and it's like okay

01:37:00

This is how you be really good at your work

01:37:02

And but he wants it to apply outside of work as well and he tried and I don't care for it

01:37:08

So action items I have three down

01:37:12

Okay, these

01:37:14

Are primarily about work because you know great at work

01:37:18

Uh, number one is never be the bottleneck because of the fact that I have people that do work for me

01:37:25

I am easily the one who can hold things up. I never want to be that person

01:37:29

So I always want to be waiting on either the developers or the client instead of being the one who's

01:37:35

Tying things down. I'm not the best at that right now

01:37:38

So I need to resolve that and part of that comes from action item two

01:37:42

I need to start measuring the

01:37:45

Time it takes to kick off a project

01:37:47

To the time we finish a project. I haven't have people working for me now that we should be able to do

01:37:53

All of our projects in a certain amount of time like I I think the time I was setting down is three weeks

01:37:59

We should be able to do just about any size project in three weeks

01:38:02

And

01:38:04

And it's just a matter of the bigger the project. I just put more people on it. That's the way things work

01:38:08

So I haven't been good at that, you know, I've got some projects like one right now

01:38:13

I know who's been going on for seven months

01:38:15

It's like

01:38:17

Okay, I've been going back through that. It's like, you know what if we had really been on it

01:38:21

We probably could have done that in three weeks

01:38:23

Uh, but you know, that's the way things go right now

01:38:27

So I want to get better about that

01:38:29

But I need to be putting some numbers on it so that I can see those and know if we're actually hitting that or not

01:38:33

Uh, which comes from my last action item here of building better segmentation into my day

01:38:41

There are a lot of things I do with the it work that I do for the church or a local contractor

01:38:46

I do a lot of this media creation

01:38:48

Making media of sorts whether it's writing or doing video work or podcasting or such like I do a lot of that media work

01:38:55

But then at the same time I do

01:38:58

Obviously client management and development work

01:39:01

And I know what times of the day i'm best at each of those

01:39:04

So i'm trying to get myself building in better habits of when I do things

01:39:10

At those different times of the day. So

01:39:12

Hopefully that will help me become better at the other two as well, but that's what I got. Nice

01:39:19

All right, so I've got consider how I can redesign my work again. This is something that I mentioned

01:39:25

I've been doing this. I want to continue to do this. It's a good reminder to constantly be looking at the way that I do things

01:39:31

It's not really a specific thing. I'm gonna have results from next time, which is par for the course

01:39:38

Number two make a list of things I shouldn't be doing this one

01:39:41

You can't hold me accountable too

01:39:42

There are definitely things that I just do because it's part of the routine

01:39:45

And I haven't really thought about how can I work work smarter?

01:39:49

And I think this will be a an exercise that is going to be very illuminating

01:39:54

And then number three ask open-ended questions

01:39:58

This is something I want to apply specifically to meetings that I have to combat that group think where everybody just thinks like this

01:40:03

One idea that we have happens to be the best one

01:40:06

Right kind of playing devil's advocate or asking something like well, what do you think?

01:40:09

You know, not saying like do you agree disagree?

01:40:11

But asking those open-ended questions where they have to create something

01:40:15

On the spot. I see a lot of value in that in a lot of different arenas. Nice. So

01:40:21

Your choice, how did you write it? All right, so there's parts of this book

01:40:26

I would rate six stars if I could I absolutely loved it

01:40:29

There are also parts of this book, which you've heard me rant about here, which I didn't really like

01:40:34

Balancing those out though. I think I'm still going to give it. Ah, I'm torn between a four and a four point five

01:40:40

I'm going to go with a four

01:40:42

Just because I probably spent half of the time on this podcast reeling about some some of the things

01:40:46

But there's some really really cool ideas here

01:40:49

And if you were to look for one book to get a lot of the ideas across if like one book to recommend to somebody

01:40:56

Instead of like four or five different books from the last episode that we did

01:40:59

This would be the one that I would recommend to people

01:41:01

So it's a great book. I'm really glad that I I read it

01:41:04

There's a couple things that keep me from from rating it higher publicly

01:41:08

I think but definitely one that I'm going to go back and refer to over and over again. Nice

01:41:12

I will join you at the four point oh

01:41:15

And there are some sections like okay, what I disagree with you here

01:41:20

and

01:41:21

There are areas where I just got confused

01:41:24

But to your point there are also areas where like okay, you had me on

01:41:30

You had me outside

01:41:32

royally confused about what it is that I need to be doing

01:41:35

And got me to ask these really you know raw and honest questions that I haven't been asking myself so

01:41:42

kudos to

01:41:45

Hanson on that one, but yes, I'm with you. There are sections. I would rates definitely a five there are sections

01:41:51

I would give a two so time I average all that stuff out. I think it's probably somewhere around four

01:41:56

So that's where i'm gonna put it. I also think that

01:41:59

Morton Hanson is way smarter than I am and if I were to get a cup of coffee with him

01:42:03

He could explain to me the things that I have disagreements with and he would probably put me in my place

01:42:08

But as I stand here right now

01:42:11

I'm gonna give it four stars and also like I said in the last episode

01:42:15

It's interesting how like we rate a book based on its entirety. We just read it right but then a year or two years from now

01:42:21

What do you recall from this book? I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those books that stuff sticks with me

01:42:26

So in the future, you know, maybe this is four stars is too low for this book as I sit here right now though

01:42:32

I'm gonna give it four stars. All right put that one on the shelf

01:42:36

the next book coming up

01:42:39

The power of habit by Charles Duhigg

01:42:42

I have mentioned a few times in the last few episodes about wanting to build better habits and I bet theme continues to come up

01:42:49

So I think it's about time we talk about habits mike and what better book to do that with

01:42:56

Than the power of habit, which is kind of a classic in that realm

01:42:59

So I'm excited to go through this one with you. Nice. Yeah, this is definitely

01:43:04

One of those classic productivity books, which I've never read the whole thing. So be interesting

01:43:09

All right, mine is boundaries by Henry cloud, which has been

01:43:13

voted for by several people

01:43:15

Including my wife, which sorry guys her vote counts more than yours, but still I think it's uh got three or four votes in the

01:43:22

Bookworm club. So it's it's uh, I think the top vote getter

01:43:26

She read it. She absolutely loved it. I know Curtis mikael's talked about how great this book is

01:43:31

So I have high expectations for this one. Yeah as I look at the recommendations list right now

01:43:35

The number one voted book is great at work, which we just covered so as soon as this episode releases

01:43:42

I will close the recommendations voting and then this will become its placeholder

01:43:46

Uh, number two at the list i'm looking at right now is boundaries by Henry cloud. So yep, you know

01:43:52

Just picking them off one at a time. There you go

01:43:55

So it works for a gap book

01:43:57

I am picking up the pleasures of reading in an age of distraction go figure kind of my forever beating the drum thing of

01:44:07

Being fascinated with how technology screws with our heads. So can't help myself

01:44:12

Joe continues his list of analog books from the book. Yeah, no shame

01:44:18

All right, my gap book is a book that is not out yet

01:44:22

It is a galley copy that was sent to me by Chris bailey called hyper focus

01:44:26

Which is going to be available in august i believe so the productivity project is one of those books that we covered and i find myself

01:44:33

Going back to it over and over and over again

01:44:35

Uh, and so i'm excited about the topic of hyper focus. It kind of seems like his approach to

01:44:40

Deep work and and all those other types of books, but

01:44:43

I like chris bailey style and I think it's going to be a little bit different. So i'm excited to dive into this one

01:44:49

well, we've mentioned our

01:44:51

uh

01:44:53

recommendations list a few times now

01:44:55

uh, the way to get your book on or your your

01:44:58

Recommendation on that list go to club.bookworm.fm

01:45:03

Create a new topic there assign it to the recommendations list. It's that simple

01:45:06

And there's even a button in the menu that just hit recommend

01:45:10

And it'll fill out all the stuff for you. So join the club hit the recommend button get your book on the list

01:45:16

And then from there you can see all of the recommendations that have already been out there

01:45:21

If you do make a recommendation, make sure you hit the vote button

01:45:24

Because you can vote for books that have already been recommended, but you can vote for your own unlike me

01:45:29

Yeah vote for your own dude like come on

01:45:31

Mike won't vote for himself, but you can vote for yourself like that's that's the way you should do this

01:45:36

So yes club.bookworm.fm and that will get you all the stuff you need to do that

01:45:41

All right

01:45:41

And if you want to support bookworm you can do so in the next couple weeks by going to bookworm.fm/shirt

01:45:48

picking yourself up an awesome shirt or sweatshirt. We've got both

01:45:51

Or going to iTunes and leaving us a rating in review. I still have my personal vendetta against kcrw

01:45:58

I want to be the number one return for bookworm

01:46:00

But thanks to everybody who listens and supports the show. Thanks for making the t-shirt campaign successful

01:46:06

Really appreciate all of the feedback that we're getting in the club really appreciate everybody doing this with us

01:46:11

It's a lot more fun for sure. It's it's fun to have the whole community jump in on in a collected space

01:46:16

So it's a fun time

01:46:18

Yeah, I've really been enjoying that so hopefully you're making a bookworm a habit

01:46:22

If you're not you should join us next time and we will talk about habits with charles dohig in the power of habit