Bookworm Transcripts

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Do you get the private messages that come through on the club?

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I do. In fact, there's a bunch of them from admin type messages saying,

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"You should look at this in the dashboard. I never look at those."

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Yeah, you shouldn't because I ignore those too.

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But there are several that come through from real people, and I always look at those.

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Probably 90% of them have something in common.

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It might be more than that because there's quite a few that I know that you see that I also see,

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but I delete a bunch when they come through as well.

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I need to call this out.

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We run a podcast called Bookworm.

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Whenever there are authors trying to promote a book, guess where a lot of them go.

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Podcasts. We tend to show up in a lot of those results

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whenever people are searching for book-related podcasts to be a part of.

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We get a lot of those requests.

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We're not a huge show, but we get a lot of those requests.

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The part that is hilarious to me is that you can instantly,

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within like a first couple sentences,

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you can tell if they've actually listened to the show or not.

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They haven't. Spoiler alert.

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Yeah. If I can tell that you have actually listened to the show

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and you understand our format,

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I will at least read through the whole thing and send a reply.

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Or sometimes I've noticed you do that as well, Mike.

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If you don't hear from us at all, guess what?

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We know you haven't listened to the show.

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The most obvious ones are because the bulk of the requests we get are,

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"Can you talk about our book?"

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But it's a fiction book.

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Yeah. Show of hands.

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This is a podcast. This is Google Well.

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Show of hands. How many of the listeners out there

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have ever heard us review a fiction book?

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We have never done a fiction book,

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and we probably never will do a fiction book.

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I'm not going to make a blanket statement that we will absolutely never do that

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because I do think that there's some value from reading fiction books.

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But it's really not the type of thing that Bookworm is.

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We've talked about before that there's always different types of books

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and there's not one that's better than the other.

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But we tend to review the books on Bookworm that we like to read.

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These are the books that we like to read.

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I am not interested in the next clan of the cave bear.

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So stop sending me messages.

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I don't have more questions.

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I don't need more information.

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This is not a good fit.

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Just stop emailing because you obviously never listened to the show.

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Yeah, but see, here's the problem.

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Like they're not going to hear us say this.

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So I know. I know.

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Well, for the other 900 people who are writing the next great fiction novel,

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I'm sure your book is great, but we're not interested in having you on Bookworm

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to promote your fiction book.

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We've had authors on the show before that have written books that I've thought

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and you've thought, Joe, are valuable to the audience

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because we approach books a certain way and we want to learn something from them.

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We want to leave changed when we're done with the book

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and we want to understand different ideas that we can apply to our own life.

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Fiction books just aren't a real great fit for that.

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So sorry to all you fiction writers, but please stop sending us messages.

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And even worse is like when it's not the author,

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when it's somebody else who you've paid to promote your book

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because they're going to send five follow-up messages

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because this is what they're paid to do.

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Yes.

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So I'm anticipating a bunch more emails from Victoria, but...

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I'm sure.

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Here's... Well, here might... This might be a catch.

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The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant. We did that.

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Would that qualify as fiction?

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That's true.

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It's a fable.

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So that's kind of borderline.

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And that's why I say like, I don't say we'll never do a straight fiction book

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because there are those books that are kind of the middle ground

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and you can learn stuff from them.

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Yeah, like the Patrick Lincey Oni books always have a fable at the beginning,

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which is fiction technically.

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Yeah, the other one I really liked back in the day was something about vampires.

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Like, no.

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Not here.

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That's the type of stuff I'm drawing the line.

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No, we're never going to talk about vampires on Bookworld.

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All right, well...

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Take your Twilight somewhere else.

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There you go.

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So we've got our rant out of the way.

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So there you go.

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Yep, we do get lots of messages like that.

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So if you don't hear from us, it's because we're not going to do it.

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That's why.

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Yep.

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I did get a good message, though, from a Bookworm Premium Club member the other day.

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Michael, who had asked how I read books.

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And this got my wheels turning.

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We've talked about it quite a bit, but I recorded a video from Michael and just kind

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of walked through my process from deciding on the book to read to downloading the image,

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putting it in the MyNote file, all the different types of things that I used to denote, like

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talking points or action items or stuff like that.

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And going through that process made me realize that this is probably something I should have

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explained a long time ago.

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So Michael got an answer right away because I got the message via the private direct messages

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in the Bookworm Club because he's a premium member.

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I saw him come in and I wanted to give him something back right away.

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So I recorded a quick screencast and sent it to him.

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But I am working on a blog post for this as well.

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And I'm going to commit on air here by the time this episode publishes that this will

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be live on my blog.

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So there will be a link to this in the show notes.

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But I feel like this is something that people need to know if they're really going to get

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anything out of my maps that I put together, which are all available in the Bookworm Club

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to the premium members.

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You can go download any of those MyNote files that I've uploaded, not just the books for

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Bookworm, but also a lot of my gapbooks, basically anything that has a significant amount of

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information I throw up there as a PDF file.

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But just looking at it, you know, it's I've got a lot of things that I use different emoticons,

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emoji, whatever, that denote different things.

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And I wanted to create like a legend for this sort of thing.

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So people understand, I guess, how my brain works before they try to try to decipher those

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files.

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Okay, cool.

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I think it'd be fun.

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Yep.

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So no video probably on the blog post, but I have started this and it's going to be up

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by the time we publish a couple other quick things here.

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We mentioned the shirts before.

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I'll mention it again just because this is T-shirt season.

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There's a ton of them on Cotton Bureau right now.

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People are doing all the tech ones because they want to get them before they go to WWDC.

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Well, you and I are both going to be at MaxTalks.

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Right.

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So if you want to get your shirt before MaxTalk and wear it, there's show everybody what a

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Bookworm you are, then you want to get those now.

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We're going to stop mentioning this pretty soon.

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But because they're always going to be available and you can get the link in the show notes,

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but there's T-shirts and then there's also the sweatshirt, which you and I are both

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fans of pretty soon.

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It's going to be too warm to wear the sweatshirt, which is going to be a sad day.

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Yeah, but evenings and mornings definitely warrant sweatshirts yet.

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All right.

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Then MaxTalk, which I mentioned, that's happening at the end of July.

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And as we're recording this, there's still time to get the early bird.

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By the time this goes live, the early bird price is going to be gone, which is unfortunate.

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But if you use the code focused, because I'm going to be speaking at MaxTalk, you can still

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get the early bird price.

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So even if you missed the early bird price and it went up significantly, you can use

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that code and you still get the early bird price.

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If you would have used this code prior to, when the early bird went away, you would have

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saved an extra $10.

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But if you've been on the fence or you weren't sure you're going to be able to go, now you

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are able to go.

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I'd love to see you at MaxTalk and code focused, we'll save you some money.

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Yeah, for sure.

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It's going to be a pretty big event this year too, because I know David Sparks is going

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to be there and so will Stephen Hackett and their recording episode 500 for MacPower

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users there.

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So I'm pretty stoked.

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I think it's going to be a good time.

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I mean, it seems like every year it continues getting bigger.

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It does.

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It keeps getting bigger, which I'm really excited about.

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I want to see this thing keep growing.

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And I've told Mike over and over again over the years that I've been there, like, I'll

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do anything that I can to help promote this thing, because it's such a cool environment.

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If you've never been physically in the presence of a bunch of other Mac nerds, there's nothing

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like the Apple community.

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It's kind of hard to describe, but they're just some of the nicest people you'll find

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on the internet or in the world, especially on the internet.

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Oh, internet.

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So yes, MaxTalk, I want to see you there.

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Come find us.

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We'll have bookmarks and stickers.

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And pins.

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And pins.

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I need a pin.

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I don't have pins.

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See, this isn't fair.

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I don't even have pins.

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And then the only other real action item that we have to follow up on is I had one for simplifying

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my systems and habits.

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Looking back on this, I probably should have clarified this a lot more.

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What the status of done is for this.

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Details.

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Yeah.

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Well, I've started working on it, but I haven't really made a whole lot of progress on it.

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So I think this is still carrying over.

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I don't really think there's been anything I've noticed so far that I was like, this

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is way more complicated than it needs to be.

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I've kind of been in the mode of recognizing which systems are broken.

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So specifically with my family, I've been kind of like taking some notes like, okay, we

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were in this situation and this could have been avoided.

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But I'll just not jot this down.

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And then I'll have a thought about this later, kind of deconstruct why this happened and

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how we got here.

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The solutions have not surfaced yet.

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Certainly because I've been running like crazy, trying to get a couple of projects done as

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we're recording this, I just ran my half marathon on Saturday.

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Ooh.

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How'd I go?

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It went well.

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I was fighting a cold, which is not great when you were running half marathon.

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It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do because I couldn't breathe.

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Yeah.

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But I did beat my target time.

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I was hoping for a time of one hour or 50 minutes.

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I came in at 148.48, which is like an eight minute, 18 second pace.

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So I was happy with how I did.

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I did not hurt myself, which was an improvement over last year.

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Last year I overtrained the patella tendon in my knee, slipped off my kneecap.

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And so rather than have surgery, I elected for physical therapy, then started running

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again, increased my distance too fast, had to deal with plantar, fasciitis.

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And so it's been a struggle over the last year.

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And this was kind of like my line in the sand.

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Like by this time, next year, I'm going to run this thing again.

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I'm not going to hurt myself.

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I'm going to do it the right way.

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So from that perspective, mission accomplished.

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Woohoo.

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Well, congratulations.

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Well done, Mike.

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Thank you.

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So that said, since you've been running around literally, have you had time to read this book?

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I have.

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This is a good book.

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I am excited to talk about this one.

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This will be a fun one.

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So this is a reread for me and my choice.

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So maybe that'll be an indicator of my preference towards the book.

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But this one is Quiet by Susan Kane.

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Tagline is the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking.

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And this was originally written in 2012.

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I originally came across Susan Kane through her TED talk, which is one of those like top

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10 TED talks out there.

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If you ever watch it, it definitely has this feel of your rooting for her because she's

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talking about fear of public speaking and how it terrifies her.

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And yet she's there speaking to you.

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And it's like you're rooting for her the whole time.

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It's really kind of a cool talk, but that's what introduced me to Susan Kane.

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And then I picked up this book.

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I think it was a, no, it would have been, yeah, it was right after it came out.

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So it had been about seven years ago.

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So I read it then.

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I'm in a very different place today.

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I didn't have any kids at the time.

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Now I have three.

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So like things are very, very different.

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And there's a lot of this that as I was reading it, I came away thinking, holy cow, this is

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a very different book than what I read seven years ago.

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So it had a huge impact on me again.

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And there's a lot of pieces that I didn't recall, but I do really enjoy this book.

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So what's the, if you were to encapsulate it in like a single sentence, what's the big

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takeaway?

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Like how is it different this time than last time?

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I remember the first time when I came away from it thinking that it's okay to be an introvert.

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This time I came away from it with the perspective of more of a learning of how to interact with

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both myself and other people as a result of being an introvert.

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Okay.

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So like in one case, I was, it was more of an acceptance of myself.

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And in the second case, it's like, okay, well, now it'll be like, how do I take advantage

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of that?

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Gotcha.

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So yeah.

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Yeah.

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I think that depending on the season of your life, you can get very different messages from

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reading this book.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Now we've all probably heard these terms, introverts and extroverts.

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And there is a third ambiverts, which I don't think we're going to cover in too much detail

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here because she doesn't really, you know, spend any time on that, on that term in this

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book.

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She doesn't call it out.

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And that it's about, it's basically overlooked.

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But introverts versus extroverts, these terms come from a book published by Carl Jung, psychological

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types.

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It was in 1921 that this came out and his way of differentiating between these two.

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And I'll just read this straight from the book.

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This is on page 10.

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Introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling extroverts to the external

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life of people and activities.

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Now the rest of the book is spent kind of comparing and contrasting those two and going

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into a lot more detail around the qualities of each that have been learned since 1921,

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which is quite old at this point.

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So there's a lot of research been done and the whole book is spent going through a lot

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of that.

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So it's a very fascinating read.

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I really enjoyed this one, Mike.

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Yeah, I definitely did too.

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One of the things that I picked up at the beginning here is that the US is one of the

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most extroverted nations in the world.

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So as an introvert, great system working against me.

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But also that many people pretend to be extroverts.

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And this is interesting to me because it made me question all of those people that I thought

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were extroverts.

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Are they really extroverts or are they really introverted like me, which doesn't mean that

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you're a hermit or even necessarily that you're shy, but you tend to be a thinker is kind

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of how she described it.

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She has a quiz in this introduction section with 20 questions and it's a totally informal

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quiz, but I took it and if you answered true more than 10 times, basically you were introverted

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and if you answered true less than 10 times, you were essentially extroverted.

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I had 18 true answers.

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So that was a clue to me that I was indeed an introvert.

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I took it a step further though because it was a very informal survey.

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So I downloaded one of these free Myers Briggs apps and took not the full thing because you

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have to pay like 50 bucks for that.

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And I wasn't that curious.

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But I was kind of curious how introverted I was based off of the results of that informal

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survey.

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And then also as I was reading this book, we interviewed for Focus, Jocelyn K.Gly, who

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a big section in that episode ended up being like, how do you be assertive as an introvert

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sort of a thing?

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Right.

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Because she worked in a pretty crazy startup environment and she identified as introverted.

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So she took some pretty, you might say, drastic measures in order to create the space for her

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to breathe and to think.

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But I thought it was kind of cool how she handled the situation.

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So she mentioned the Myers Briggs thing and I got me curious, like, what am I?

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Because I don't think I've ever taken it.

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So I took this simplified version on this app and it came back as INTJ, which is the

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mastermind.

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It's 77% introvert, 77% intuition, 66% thinking, 88% judging.

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Which anybody who knows me is not surprised.

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You took it too.

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So what did you get?

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I took it five times and the reason being I took it twice in the same app that you did

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Mike.

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One time I got, what was it, ISFJ?

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The second time I took it, I got INTJ, which is identical to yours.

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Yeah.

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I took it in three other different places online.

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I'll explain why in a second.

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In a couple of cases I got INTP and in another case I got an ISFJ again.

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Part of the reason for that is because on the intuition and thinking part, I tend to

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float at like 52, 51%.

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Yeah, it's your borderline.

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Yeah.

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So I float those lines.

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The introvert side, I'm always, what is this?

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I'm at 88% on the introvert piece.

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Which is really the one that matters for this book.

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Yeah.

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That's the one that's like concrete.

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This one does not change.

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But the other three, yeah, I float between like 51 and 56% on the other three.

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I tend to flex between those.

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So depending on which questions from the master Myers-Briggs they pull in, it will have me

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float across those.

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So I was hoping I would find some form of like consistency across all these, but it

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was completely different like every time.

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So yeah.

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Yeah.

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So yeah.

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Well, the one consistent is that you are definitely introverted.

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Which I am to and that's obviously going to color our perspective as we read through

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this book.

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I don't know really why an extrovert would read this book other than an introvert gave

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it to them and said, "Here, you need to understand me."

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Sure.

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Yeah, so should we jump into the first section?

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Yeah, sure.

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By the way, regarding the sections, so we tease a lot that every book in the self-help

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space has three different sections.

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This one actually has four sections, but one of them only has one chapter.

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So I'm not really sure why it's a section.

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Yeah.

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There's more sections, but less chapters than the previous book we covered, which was extreme

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ownership.

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Yeah.

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I feel like that it's part three that it just has the one.

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I felt like it was an aside.

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Yep.

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It's like, "I need to call this out."

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Good points in that section, which we'll get to in a little bit.

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But this first section is the extrovert ideal.

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And here she kind of unpacks this mythos, I guess, like this character that we picture

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in our heads of, "This is the ideal person."

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And one of the traits that they have is extroversion.

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The first chapter is called "The Rise of the Mighty Likeable Fellow," which is interesting.

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She has a lot of awesome stories that she tells in here.

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I really like her style as a storyteller.

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And she starts this off with the story of Dale Carnegie, who people are probably familiar

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with because he wrote how to win friends and influence people and a lot of other really

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popular books in the self-help space.

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But I found myself filling in a lot of blanks that I did not know as she told the story

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about Dale Carnegie.

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Yeah, because we covered how to win friends and influence people, which is kind of a

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divisive book.

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And yeah, people will fight over that one to some degree, even you and I did to some degree

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as well.

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But it is interesting because when you look at a lot of self-help books, and I didn't

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really connect this until we were reading this.

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But a lot of them have this undertone of how to be popular almost, which in the American

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culture is outgoing, outspoken.

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You vocalize your opinions.

00:20:51

The mighty likeable fellow, like that phrase, like, "Everything seems to have that undertone

00:20:57

to it."

00:20:58

Unless we're talking about things like grit by Angela Duckworth or things like the sleep

00:21:03

revolution.

00:21:04

Unless we're talking about things like that, almost everything has this undertone of extra

00:21:10

version is the place you should be.

00:21:13

Yep.

00:21:14

Which I don't think I really connected until Susan called it out here.

00:21:19

Yeah, and that's why the story that she tells at the beginning is so interesting because

00:21:23

Dale Carnegie really wasn't the extroverted ideal when he started.

00:21:30

She talks about how he was the son of some poor pig farmers and he went to hear this

00:21:34

speaker at a church.

00:21:36

He was inspired by this speaker who also kind of came from being a lowly farm boy.

00:21:42

And so he decides to develop his public speaking skills in college when he notices that the

00:21:47

people who can speak well are the ones who are viewed as leaders.

00:21:50

And over time he becomes a speaking champion, teaches other people how to speak.

00:21:55

He hosts a class at the Y which at the time refused to pay him the $2 per session fee

00:22:00

that most night school teachers got because they didn't think there'd be much demand.

00:22:03

And then basically overnight it becomes a sensation.

00:22:06

Dale Carnegie Institute is born and he dedicates his life to helping businessmen root out the

00:22:10

very insecurities that held him back as a young man.

00:22:13

So it sounds like a very noble story, you know?

00:22:16

And really what she's saying with this story is not like, here's somebody who achieves

00:22:21

some success.

00:22:22

Now you can go do the same thing which is a lot of what you hear in this space.

00:22:25

But it's like, why do we put so much emphasis on this stuff?

00:22:30

You know, this is an example of the emphasis of this extrovert ideal.

00:22:35

And she's basically saying, I don't think she says it explicitly, but this is kind of

00:22:40

the tone that you get is like, why are we doing this?

00:22:43

Maybe this isn't such a good thing.

00:22:45

And one of the things that she uses to support that which I totally agree with this.

00:22:49

And this kind of comes back to the point you mentioned about like the self-help books and

00:22:54

the divisive nature of something like how to win friends and influence people.

00:22:58

Susan Keene says that we went from a culture of character to a culture of personality.

00:23:04

And I think that's a great description.

00:23:06

She describes a culture of character as a serious, disciplined, and honorable.

00:23:09

The culture of personality is bold and entertaining.

00:23:12

The big thing missing there, I would say, would be integrity.

00:23:16

Like that's a central pillar of the culture of character.

00:23:20

And when you focus so much on the personality, it's easy to lose that.

00:23:24

So fast forward a little bit.

00:23:26

You know, we're in 2018, 2019, whenever we covered how to win friends and influence people,

00:23:33

we're viewing that through the lens of today.

00:23:36

And we're comparing it against this culture of personality that we've just come to accept.

00:23:42

And there's so many people in the productivity self-help space which feel like used car salesman.

00:23:48

Okay.

00:23:49

You just can't trust anything that they say.

00:23:51

And so when you pick up a book titled How to Win Friends and Influence People, even though

00:23:55

it was written in what like 1920 something, when you view it through the lens of what

00:24:00

you understand about the space today, you instantly can attach a negative stigma to that.

00:24:08

But it's kind of interesting to me to understand that that wasn't the way it was when it was

00:24:13

originally written because there was a totally different culture that existed there.

00:24:19

And as self-help books began to shift from inter-virtue to outer charm, I can totally

00:24:23

see why people have a negative reaction to them.

00:24:25

Right.

00:24:26

So one of the pieces of this section that I, because you mentioned like the United States

00:24:31

is one of the most extroverted countries and she does, you know, give us a potential reason

00:24:39

for why that is.

00:24:42

And that rationale was that, or is, that the United States is based on immigration.

00:24:50

And like the colonies, everything was started from folks immigrating from other countries

00:24:58

across the pond, as we say.

00:25:00

And if you think about the type of people who would normally go on a world trip like

00:25:08

that, the people who would be more comfortable doing that would be extroverts.

00:25:11

Introverts would rather stay at home and read about it as opposed to hopping on a ship and

00:25:16

sailing across the ocean.

00:25:18

Like that's not something that's going to appeal to most introverts.

00:25:22

So typically you're going to have more extroverts and introverts make that journey, which means

00:25:27

that the foundation of the country was started with an abnormally high amount of extroverts.

00:25:35

Fast forward a few hundred years and here we are.

00:25:39

So I don't know, I had never really heard anything along those lines, but it was kind

00:25:42

of interesting to me.

00:25:43

Yeah, another thing that kind of comes up in this section because she references a video

00:25:49

from the Toastmasters website.

00:25:51

I went and looked and tried to find that video, but I couldn't.

00:25:54

I must have taken it down.

00:25:56

I mean, it's not surprising because it kind of sounded like a 1980s, 1990s cheesy video.

00:26:03

But the video essentially was portraying a situation where two coworkers were talking

00:26:11

and one of them was having a negative reaction to having to give a presentation.

00:26:16

The other one is basically saying, "I used to struggle with that, but then I joined Toastmasters

00:26:19

and everything changed."

00:26:21

So that I didn't really like being a member of a Toastmasters group because I've gotten

00:26:26

a lot of value from being a part of Toastmasters.

00:26:29

But I went to the website to see if I could find it and the very first thing I saw on

00:26:32

the website is build a better you.

00:26:36

So the messaging is still kind of there.

00:26:40

The goal of Toastmasters, I think, is a good one to improve your communication and leadership

00:26:44

skills.

00:26:45

And kind of the point that she makes in this chapter is that you shouldn't feel like you

00:26:52

have to develop these skills, I think.

00:26:56

And I think I agree with that as well.

00:26:58

As I was processing this in my head and trying to figure out, so where's the balance between

00:27:05

holding up the extraverted ideal and developing yourself when some of these skills do tend

00:27:12

to line themselves up with being extroverted?

00:27:16

I do...

00:27:17

Kind of this is kind of where I landed and I haven't probably thought this all the way

00:27:20

through yet.

00:27:21

So maybe this is right.

00:27:22

Okay.

00:27:23

So don't ask too many questions.

00:27:24

Is that what you're telling me?

00:27:25

No, I'll go ahead and ask questions.

00:27:26

But this is kind of what I've landed on.

00:27:28

I believe personally as an introvert who's a part of Toastmasters that it is good to develop

00:27:34

your skills, but your value is not derived from them.

00:27:40

So if you decide, Joe, that you're not going to go to Toastmasters, I am not a better person

00:27:46

than you simply because I went, just because I've chosen to try to improve my communication

00:27:51

and leadership skills.

00:27:52

We've talked...

00:27:53

I've mentioned on this podcast before that I'm fascinated by the topic of leadership.

00:27:58

So I'm going to try and develop those skills.

00:27:59

But even if I develop myself to my maximum potential as a leader, you can't really get

00:28:06

to the point where you're like, "Okay, I've fully arrived."

00:28:09

And now my value is X compared to it was only Y six months ago or five years ago, whatever.

00:28:17

I do think the point that she's making is you have to understand yourself, introverted

00:28:22

versus extroverted, and we'll get an impact on some of the further chapters.

00:28:26

But it's not like you're going to be this one thing all of the time.

00:28:30

You're going to have to go in and out of these different modes depending on the situation.

00:28:36

She talks about your core projects and stuff like that, those things that push you outside

00:28:39

of your comfort zone.

00:28:41

But really I think the point at the beginning here is that don't look at yourself as an

00:28:46

introvert reading this book and say, "Well, I'm not a very good communicator.

00:28:49

Maybe I don't view myself as a good leader."

00:28:52

Think of yourself any less because of that.

00:28:56

That whole term build a better you.

00:28:59

I don't know.

00:29:00

On one level, I get it.

00:29:02

There's certain areas I do want to develop myself.

00:29:06

Public speaking has been one of those, but just because I develop those skills doesn't,

00:29:10

in my opinion, mean that I'm better than I was if that makes sense.

00:29:14

Yeah, I could see that.

00:29:16

I think there's differences between you're an introvert that can flex outside of your

00:29:25

tendencies.

00:29:26

But what you're talking about with Toastmasters and build a better you and improving communication

00:29:32

and leadership styles, a lot of that can come down to taking advantage of your introvert

00:29:39

strengths in the process of doing that.

00:29:43

Because you can, this is something I have actively tried to develop is becoming better

00:29:50

in social situations.

00:29:51

I used to be crazy awkward in social settings.

00:29:57

I can tell you I have a long ways to go in that journey, but I also know that that is

00:30:03

me trying to develop a skill that is not natural to me.

00:30:10

I'm totally cool with that.

00:30:12

It's simply a matter of knowing that I want to be able to socialize better and connect

00:30:19

with people in those settings better.

00:30:20

But I also know that my tendency is always going to be to connect one on one or one on

00:30:24

two with people in a corner.

00:30:26

Like that's always my tendency.

00:30:29

Which is the totally valid expression of communication skill, in my opinion.

00:30:34

So improving communication skills and even leadership skills, we throw those terms around

00:30:40

and I think a lot of people think of that as being able to lead or communicate to a

00:30:44

large group.

00:30:45

That's not necessarily the truth there.

00:30:48

So I guess really the thing I'm kind of pushing back against is the term better.

00:30:53

Because I think that ascribes value to you as a person right now compared to you as a

00:31:00

person at some other point in your life.

00:31:04

And your value as a person, I would argue, does not change based on what skills you have

00:31:11

or how, where you feel comfortable.

00:31:13

Right.

00:31:14

And some of this comes out in the second chapter here because the next one is the myth of charismatic

00:31:18

leadership.

00:31:19

And I think what we're talking about here has to do with how you lead groups of people

00:31:24

or how you can be someone that motivates other people through your actions.

00:31:30

And especially in the United States, that whole extroverted ideal concept is exacerbated

00:31:40

in leadership roles.

00:31:42

And that's exactly what she gets into here is that good leaders need to be charismatic.

00:31:48

And she tells the story of a Tony Robbins conference, which made me 100% certain I don't

00:31:57

ever want to go to one of these conferences.

00:32:00

So I actually had the opportunity to go to a Tony Robbins.

00:32:05

Did you go?

00:32:06

Did you go?

00:32:07

No, I could have gone for free.

00:32:08

Tan wanted to send me to unleash the power within when I was a part of the Asian efficiency

00:32:13

team.

00:32:14

But there was just something about Tony Robbins that just rubbed me the wrong way.

00:32:17

Yeah.

00:32:18

I couldn't really articulate it well.

00:32:20

But I went to the website, you know, so I'm jumping up and down on the stage.

00:32:24

And I was just like, this guy seems not my style.

00:32:30

So I said no.

00:32:32

And then Zach at the time had gone and he really enjoyed it.

00:32:36

Zach is extroverted though.

00:32:37

So I mean, that makes sense.

00:32:40

But he said, he gave me a lot of the details.

00:32:43

He did the fire walk and all that stuff.

00:32:46

Susan Cain defines it as like extra version on steroids, which is kind of the impression

00:32:50

that I got, but I didn't really recognize enough to articulate it that way.

00:32:55

But here in her described it, I was like, Oh yeah, definitely.

00:32:58

That's exactly it.

00:32:59

100% not me.

00:33:00

Yeah.

00:33:01

Right.

00:33:02

So Tony is a freak though.

00:33:05

He speaks from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. with only one short bathroom break.

00:33:11

That's nuts.

00:33:13

You know, and Zach was telling me these stories like it's no surprise that his voice is gone.

00:33:20

But you have to be wired.

00:33:23

Like, I can't even wrap my head around that.

00:33:25

You have to pretty much be the exact opposite of who I am in order for that to even be possible.

00:33:33

And then couple that with the fact that like, there's all of these upsells that go with

00:33:39

attending this conference.

00:33:41

I'm not sure.

00:33:42

I don't think she mentioned this, but I was aware of this because Zach told me about it.

00:33:45

So it's like $895 just to go to the event, right?

00:33:48

And then you sit way in the back in the top of the balcony and you can hardly even see

00:33:54

Tony Robbins because there's 100,000 other people there.

00:33:58

And then you can upgrade from there.

00:34:01

One of the things is like date with Destiny.

00:34:03

I think that's like $5,000.

00:34:06

Another one is called Master University.

00:34:07

That's $10,000.

00:34:09

There's a platinum partnership they push, which is $45,000 where you can sit right in

00:34:13

front, you know, and you can look Tony in the eye.

00:34:17

And all of this stuff contributes to this negative reaction that I had.

00:34:23

So I kind of get it, you know, but on one level, I totally get it.

00:34:26

On the other level, I do feel kind of bad about it too because she describes in this

00:34:31

book the Tony state of mind.

00:34:33

Okay.

00:34:34

And she mentions that he peers at least to have like this good heartedness.

00:34:38

And he talks about like a superior mind, stuff like that, you know, I do think there's

00:34:43

some truth to that and I do believe because I know a little bit of Tony Robbins story

00:34:47

that he probably does authentically believe that he is making the most significant positive

00:34:55

impact in the world that he can by doing it this way.

00:34:59

But it still doesn't make me any more comfortable being.

00:35:03

Right.

00:35:04

Right.

00:35:05

Yeah.

00:35:06

I mean, I don't obviously I'm not a Tony Robbins fan, but I'm also not going to say

00:35:09

it's not helpful either.

00:35:12

Because I know there are a lot of people who go to his conferences and absolutely love

00:35:16

it.

00:35:17

Like yeah, more power to you if that's you go for it.

00:35:19

Yeah.

00:35:20

I don't think there's anything wrong with him as a person.

00:35:23

There was a story that he told at the beginning of his money book.

00:35:25

I'm not sure if you've read that one or not.

00:35:27

But basically when he was growing up, he was poor and something that impacted him was one

00:35:33

day somebody showed up, rang their doorbell and gave his family a Thanksgiving meal like

00:35:37

right in the middle of his mom and dad arguing about where the food was going to come from.

00:35:42

And that impacted him.

00:35:43

So he said like the first however long I forget what the time period was for the money book

00:35:49

though, he was going to donate a certain percentage of it to giving out Thanksgiving dinners.

00:35:52

He gave away like 500,000 Thanksgiving dinners.

00:35:54

Like he wants to pay it forward.

00:35:56

So I do think that like he probably is a very sincere authentic guy, but just you see

00:36:01

all the hoopla.

00:36:02

And if you're not worried that way, you're just like, get me out of here.

00:36:05

Right.

00:36:06

Right.

00:36:07

No, I think there's a lot of value in what he does.

00:36:09

I'm just the wrong person for it.

00:36:11

So I'm not the target market.

00:36:13

Yeah, I'm aware of that.

00:36:14

Totally cool that.

00:36:15

But anyway, Tony Robbins is the example that she gives for this charismatic leadership

00:36:21

concept, which when you start learning about CEOs and board of directors and you know that

00:36:29

sort of level of corporate leadership and such, there's a lot of folks that are extreme

00:36:36

extroverts and almost have to be given the climate that they have to operate within.

00:36:42

So you know, it's definitely prominent within the business world for sure.

00:36:48

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:36:49

It's also prominent.

00:36:51

She makes the case in evangelical Christianity, which I took a little bit of issue with this.

00:36:57

I don't really like the comparison of Tony Robbins to Rick Warren.

00:37:00

I get it on some level.

00:37:03

Especially with some of those mega churches, we do not go to a mega church.

00:37:08

Our church is like 150 people.

00:37:10

Yeah.

00:37:11

So perfect place for introverts like me, small, quiet.

00:37:15

Well, if you come to one of our services, but not quiet, but sure.

00:37:19

Anyways, so I didn't really like that, but I understand what she's saying.

00:37:23

Like, there is with the whole Christian culture, there is a lot of emphasis on this extra

00:37:31

version, and this kind of got me asking the question, you know, well, where is the line

00:37:36

with being extroverted because this is held up as the extroverted ideal and this is something

00:37:43

that I should be doing, not even necessarily with just like your religious belief system

00:37:51

because there are certain things that you have to do depending on your certain, you know,

00:37:58

however you choose to align those beliefs.

00:38:01

Like there's rules and guidelines that you're expected to follow, but just in how you interact

00:38:07

with other people, like the unwritten stuff, the kind of the expectations that aren't necessarily

00:38:15

communicated explicitly.

00:38:18

That really got me thinking is like, well, where can I say, oh, it's okay to be introverted

00:38:23

versus where do I need to push myself a little bit because this is something that's valuable

00:38:27

and I need to push myself outside my comfort zone.

00:38:30

That makes sense.

00:38:31

Yeah.

00:38:32

No, it does.

00:38:33

And I don't know.

00:38:34

Well, she does have a whole chapter on that, but I think we'll get there.

00:38:39

So put a pin in that one.

00:38:41

Let's step into chapter three here when collaboration kills creativity.

00:38:48

And this, this is, I remember reading this the first time through and thinking that group

00:38:55

brainstorming was a horrendous idea.

00:39:00

And I remember coming out of that and trying to find ways to get away from some of the group

00:39:04

brainstorming things I was in, because at the time I was working in corporate America.

00:39:09

So I actually managed to get some teams away from that, but it's been so long since I read

00:39:14

it that I actually kind of slowly stepped back into some group brainstorming scenarios

00:39:20

and even initiated a couple of them.

00:39:22

And then I read this and thought, huh, why did I do that again?

00:39:25

I knew better.

00:39:27

Well, this is interesting.

00:39:29

Okay.

00:39:30

So before I share what I got out of this section, I'm curious, where did you end up on this?

00:39:37

Like, what is your current belief regarding group brainstorming?

00:39:41

Can it be done effectively or is it just always a bad idea?

00:39:47

I kind of cut and I've done this, you know, about halfway through my readings here, where

00:39:58

I kind of have this somewhat hybrid approach whenever I'm trying to come up with creativity

00:40:04

in group settings where I try to have people come up with ideas individually and then we

00:40:09

get together and talk about each of them and try to figure out are there others that we

00:40:12

go through, which ones are good, which ones are bad, but trying to take advantage of both

00:40:16

the quiet introspective side of it and then also the group setting of it.

00:40:23

That's kind of what I try to do.

00:40:24

And I feel like that's a pretty good balance on all of this, but I also know that a lot

00:40:30

of my best ideas come when I'm mowing the lawn.

00:40:33

Okay.

00:40:34

Maybe that's because I'm an introvert.

00:40:36

Maybe that's just the way it should work for me.

00:40:39

I don't know, but I think it gets a little bit messy when you start mixing both types.

00:40:43

Sure.

00:40:44

Well, I'll just reference my initial results from the introversion quiz.

00:40:50

I am solidly an introvert.

00:40:54

But I also think that some of the best ideas that I slash we ever came up with, and I say

00:41:03

we meaning like the groups that I was involved in, not you and I Joe, although maybe I'm

00:41:07

not sure.

00:41:08

Yeah.

00:41:09

Came from this group brainstorming.

00:41:12

So this chapter really forced me to think through this and question not only what she

00:41:22

shares here, but also my past experiences and try to dissect it.

00:41:27

Why did I have such positive results before?

00:41:32

One of the things I enjoyed the most about working with the Asian efficiency team was

00:41:38

when we would do the quarterly planning sessions and everything about that traveling to Texas

00:41:46

to do them, I hated except for the group brainstorming.

00:41:51

Like whether it was tan myself and Zach or later tan myself in Brooks, you know, we lock

00:41:56

ourselves in a room and okay, what are we going to do this quarter?

00:41:58

We're kicking around ideas.

00:42:00

That was always the thing that I absolutely loved to do.

00:42:06

Something else, I'm like, just let me go back to my room and sleep.

00:42:08

Like I'm completely drained by being around other people all day every day.

00:42:13

But when we started brainstorming, I got energy.

00:42:18

In fact, at one point, I was staying with Zach, one of those trips and it extended beyond

00:42:27

the session.

00:42:29

You know, we talked about stuff through dinner and then Zach and I went back to his place

00:42:32

and we were still talking about stuff.

00:42:34

And Zach, the extroverted person, is like, you know what, Mike, I just, I don't have

00:42:39

any, I can't think about this anymore.

00:42:40

I'm so drained.

00:42:42

Like, I just got to go to bed, you know, and I'm, I'm so there.

00:42:45

The introvert, right?

00:42:46

Who doesn't like being around people who like their brain can't stop, can't stop running

00:42:51

now.

00:42:52

And I've noticed through those, those experiences that the first idea was never the good one.

00:42:59

But it was the iterations off of that that ended up being the thing that was really hitting

00:43:05

the mark.

00:43:06

And so I kind of think that my vision for group brainstorming here is a little bit different

00:43:12

than what she highlights in like Alex Osborne's four rules of brainstorming.

00:43:16

Number one, don't judge or criticize ideas.

00:43:19

Number two, be freewheeling the wilder the idea the better.

00:43:22

Number three, go for quantity.

00:43:23

The more ideas you have, the better number four, build on the ideas of fellow group members.

00:43:27

I agree with all that stuff, but I kind of think like what made it work for us was that

00:43:30

we spent a lot of time on number four.

00:43:32

So we, we spend a little bit of time getting a whole bunch of random ideas.

00:43:35

And then once we decided like, this is kind of the direction that we want to go, that's

00:43:39

what we really just focused on iterating on that stuff.

00:43:43

And that's where a lot of the connection of the dots came in my opinion.

00:43:47

And I could be totally wrong, but I think that's totally different than kind of the group brainstorming

00:43:53

she's describing here, because this is a derivative of what she calls the new group think and

00:43:58

the whole discussion of like, uh, uh, introversion and creativity, like the, the, uh, open office

00:44:04

plans, like all that type of stuff, like it, I agree with her points on there, but that

00:44:08

term group brainstorming, I guess I've got a little bit different definition of, of what

00:44:12

that looks like.

00:44:13

Maybe how many people were in that group?

00:44:15

Not a lot.

00:44:16

Three or four.

00:44:17

Cause I, like whenever I think a group brainstorming, I'm thinking 10 to 12.

00:44:21

Yeah.

00:44:22

That's, that's a very good point.

00:44:23

I, I didn't get that when I read the book.

00:44:25

Maybe I just missed that description, but yeah, that would totally change the, the situation.

00:44:29

Yeah.

00:44:30

Cause that's, that's where I run into it.

00:44:32

Like if you're talking three people, like, I, I think that's definitely true, especially

00:44:37

if they're all trusted friends.

00:44:38

You know, that's, that's a scenario where I could sit down and have a good, you know,

00:44:43

thought process, cause I tend to ideate on the fly, you know, people who talk to me,

00:44:49

you and I've done this mic where we're talking about a, a potential project and I just run

00:44:55

with ideas all the time.

00:44:56

I, I, I, a lot of people who are super close to me tend to say, you gotta pick something

00:45:02

Joe, like quick, quick coming up with new ideas.

00:45:05

Like that's, that's my thing.

00:45:07

But if I'm in big groups, like you get five people in that room or more, that's not really

00:45:13

a big group even you get five people or more in that group.

00:45:16

And I tend to not do that.

00:45:18

It doesn't happen as well.

00:45:21

I'm better off coming up with those ideas on my own and then sharing them in the group.

00:45:25

Sure.

00:45:26

Then I am coming up with them on the fly.

00:45:27

But yeah, if it's three and four people, yeah, I can do that in the moment and love doing

00:45:33

it.

00:45:34

But I don't think that's big enough to qualify what she's calling group brainstorming.

00:45:37

Gotcha.

00:45:38

Yeah.

00:45:39

That makes, that makes total sense.

00:45:41

I do think it's an important distinction though, like where you draw that line because maybe

00:45:48

it's three, maybe it's five.

00:45:50

I don't know where it is.

00:45:51

Maybe it's different for every person, but kind of a main idea she talks about here,

00:45:57

which I do think there's truth to this is the whole section on introversion and creativity

00:46:02

where introverts prefer to work independently.

00:46:04

Solitude can be a catalyst of innovation.

00:46:07

It's an important key to creativity.

00:46:09

Like I totally believe in all of that.

00:46:12

That's kind of the central tenet of my personal retreat course.

00:46:14

Yeah.

00:46:15

You got to get away by yourself.

00:46:17

But from a perspective of getting ideas in terms of brainstorming, maybe that's the thing

00:46:23

is like, well, what does brainstorming even mean?

00:46:26

Right.

00:46:27

Is it like we're just going to get a bunch of random spaghetti and chuck it against the

00:46:31

wall?

00:46:32

Yeah.

00:46:33

Or are we going to develop that further?

00:46:35

So I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of definition missing from this particular

00:46:39

chapter, but totally agree with what she talks about with the group think and how this

00:46:43

is kind of like what's expected in schools and even outside of school.

00:46:48

The goal of group learning is to get kids to take ownership of their learning, help

00:46:52

them develop the skills that need in corporate America.

00:46:54

My big question regarding that is where are the soft skills?

00:46:59

Extroversion isn't necessarily a soft skill.

00:47:01

Assertion is, but we'll talk about emotional intelligence a little bit later too, but I

00:47:06

don't know.

00:47:07

I feel like the whole goal of group learning with this new group think is obviously missing

00:47:13

a very key piece.

00:47:16

And I don't know.

00:47:18

There's a lot of gray area with this though, which is kind of what makes this whole topic

00:47:21

so fascinating.

00:47:22

It's like even me, a total introvert, a lot of what I do is extroverted.

00:47:25

I'm talking in a microphone right now.

00:47:28

This is something that terrified me a couple years ago.

00:47:30

This was extroverted for me.

00:47:32

So I don't know.

00:47:34

And now it's normal.

00:47:35

That's normal.

00:47:36

Yep, I've made it normal.

00:47:39

So this takes us into part two.

00:47:42

So the first part is about the extrovert ideal.

00:47:45

Second part is your biology yourself.

00:47:48

So this gets into some of the science of what actually makes an introvert versus an

00:47:55

extrovert.

00:47:56

Mm-hmm.

00:47:57

And how does that express itself?

00:48:00

Is that a fair assessment, Mike?

00:48:01

Yeah.

00:48:02

Is temperament your destiny?

00:48:04

Chapter four really is talking about the temperament versus personality, whereas she

00:48:12

defines temperament as "emborn biologically based behavioral and emotional patterns that

00:48:16

are observable in infancy and early childhood."

00:48:19

Personality though is the complex brew that emerges after cultural influence and personal

00:48:23

experience are thrown into the mix.

00:48:25

So it's nature versus nurture.

00:48:27

Yeah.

00:48:28

It's a combination of both of them really, which is why this stuff is so tricky and why

00:48:35

there's no formula you can use.

00:48:38

I'll just talk about parenting.

00:48:39

You know, there's no formula you can use like this is the right thing to do with this

00:48:43

kid because every single one of them is going to be different.

00:48:47

And the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.

00:48:50

A big section in here though, which is really interesting to me is this whole discussion

00:48:55

of the amygdala, I may be saying that word wrong.

00:48:59

No, you got it.

00:49:00

Okay.

00:49:01

This is the emotional brain and it controls your appetite, your sex drive fear, and it's

00:49:06

what triggers the fight versus flight response.

00:49:09

Okay.

00:49:10

So fight versus flight, you look at that and you could say, well, that's extrovert versus

00:49:14

introvert.

00:49:15

The problem is this whole idea of emotional intelligence, which when you develop this,

00:49:21

eliminates or at least curbs the fight versus flight response because it enables you to

00:49:27

respond in a way that's appropriate for the situation.

00:49:30

So this is kind of the point in the book where I was starting to get that.

00:49:33

Okay.

00:49:34

So it's not just as simple as it's okay to be introverted.

00:49:37

You got to learn to balance these things and activate it when you need to, but there's

00:49:41

obviously a whole lot more to this, which we're going to unpack in some of the other

00:49:44

chapters.

00:49:45

Like you have to recognize that when you are an introvert and you have to extrovert,

00:49:49

you're very, very likely that that's going to be more draining.

00:49:51

So you got to give yourself time to recharge and all that type of stuff.

00:49:53

But at all bottom line here, page 107, she says, every behavior has more than one cause.

00:49:59

That's a quote from Jerome Kagan.

00:50:02

And this is a really important idea for anyone who likes to read these books like we do.

00:50:09

There's so much going on here that you have to recognize that this isn't just blanket,

00:50:16

why this stuff to your own life, you've got to kind of deconstruct this and tinker with

00:50:20

it and figure out this thing right here may work for me.

00:50:23

And that thing over there may not.

00:50:26

And then if you can figure out what levers you can pull, ultimately, that's what we're

00:50:31

trying to do with the podcast like this is man, I painted myself in a corner by coming

00:50:37

against that build a better use statement.

00:50:39

Like, cause that on one level, that is what we want to do.

00:50:44

But ultimately, like I said, your value as a person isn't determined by what skills you

00:50:49

possess.

00:50:50

Maybe your market value is, you know, Cal Newport would make that argument.

00:50:54

But we want to make what we consider positive changes and every situation is going to be

00:51:01

different, which is why like we read these books and we pick and choose the individual

00:51:06

things from them.

00:51:08

My personal goal whenever I read a book is to grab at least one thing that I can apply.

00:51:13

You know, I may recognize right at the beginning that this author and I have nothing in common.

00:51:18

Case in point Amanda Palmer.

00:51:20

Okay.

00:51:21

But I'm going to grab one thing out of here that I'm going to apply and I'm going to

00:51:25

be different and I'm going to, in it, what I consider to be a positive way.

00:51:29

I know that one of these big things that Susan Caine points out in this chapter is the emotional

00:51:34

intelligence piece.

00:51:36

Um, you kind of have to just be aware that you have certain tendencies, but you can step

00:51:45

outside of them.

00:51:46

Yep.

00:51:47

Like I have had tell, I've had people tell me that they think I'm extroverted, which

00:51:52

is weird to me.

00:51:54

Like that's so far from the truth.

00:51:57

My idea of a relaxing weekend is like sitting in the mountains with a book for the whole

00:52:03

weekend.

00:52:04

Like, no.

00:52:05

I am not extroverted, not even close.

00:52:07

Yeah.

00:52:08

But in some certain, like in certain scenarios, like I can get excited and energized by groups

00:52:15

of people.

00:52:16

It does happen.

00:52:18

So it can come out in different areas.

00:52:20

That's why this is muddy waters.

00:52:21

Like it's not yes or no universal.

00:52:25

There are times when things flex to and from both of these, even though like a lot of it

00:52:31

comes down to is which is your under like the overarching tendency across all this.

00:52:38

That's where a lot of it comes in.

00:52:40

Yeah.

00:52:41

Well, we'll get into emotional intelligence more in a little bit.

00:52:45

Spoiler alert for upcoming books.

00:52:49

But one of the things from that is interpersonal awareness.

00:52:52

So that's kind of like awareness of what's going on in a social situation between you

00:52:56

and somebody else and in truck personal awareness, which is recognizing what's going

00:53:01

on inside of your brain.

00:53:03

And I think any social situation you have to develop both of those skills in order to

00:53:09

get an accurate read on the competing forces and then introverted or extroverted, it doesn't

00:53:15

really matter.

00:53:16

You're constantly trying to balance those things, but what you want and what other people want.

00:53:22

And so that's kind of, if I were to put this in a nutshell, you know, that's really

00:53:26

what this whole book is about is figuring out where is the line there.

00:53:32

So chapter five, we're going to kind of skip over here, but it's about beyond temperament.

00:53:37

Basically what you're getting into there is kind of what we're talking about is how do

00:53:42

you step outside of things that you may have been born with.

00:53:46

Yep.

00:53:47

And again, she's going into a lot of science on a lot of this.

00:53:49

So it's more around, you know, what can you do even if you have certain tendencies?

00:53:55

That's a lot of what it's about.

00:53:56

Yeah.

00:53:57

In this section, she talks about the prefrontal cortex, which is part of the brain that interacts

00:54:04

with the amygdala.

00:54:06

And I actually did some research on this and presented a section in my goal setting workshop

00:54:13

presentation that I did at the beginning of the year, which kind of talked about this

00:54:18

because the amygdala is the emotional brain.

00:54:22

The prefrontal cortex is the intellectual brain, I guess.

00:54:26

It helps you overcome those emotional responses.

00:54:29

So those responses are still there in the amygdala, but when you develop your prefrontal

00:54:34

cortex, it allows you to suppress those instincts and fight back against the fight versus flight.

00:54:40

The problem is that part of the message is always going to go straight to the amygdala

00:54:44

and not get filtered through the prefrontal cortex.

00:54:46

So when that happens, it results in something called emotional hijacking.

00:54:50

So again, emotional intelligence has a big role in how introverts and extroverts respond

00:54:56

to this different stuff.

00:54:57

But I found this part pretty fascinating.

00:55:00

Another section, real briefly, I want to talk about here, what she talked about, her

00:55:03

experience with the speaking social anxiety center in New York.

00:55:07

And to me, that sounded a lot like my Toastmasters group because a lot of people that are there

00:55:13

because they recognize that they are terrified of speaking in front of people.

00:55:17

And so they're just going to do it in front of a supportive group and they're going to

00:55:20

do that enough.

00:55:21

They're going to normalize it so that it's not scary eventually.

00:55:24

In fact, in Toastmasters, the first assignment they give you is something that's designed

00:55:29

to be super, super easy.

00:55:30

It's called the icebreaker.

00:55:32

You just get up and you talk about yourself and your story.

00:55:34

It's the easiest, supposedly the easiest thing you can talk about is yourself.

00:55:39

But this got me thinking because we mentioned podcasting before and how this was something

00:55:44

that was scary for me.

00:55:46

Do you think podcasting is a version of this speaking social anxiety center where we try

00:55:52

to normalize and become extroverted for introverts like you myself because people can't see us?

00:55:59

Maybe because she did talk about how introverts will have a tendency to write blogs online.

00:56:06

Yeah.

00:56:07

But they would never talk about the things that they write about to a group of people.

00:56:12

Never.

00:56:13

But they'll publish it on their blog where millions of people read it.

00:56:15

Right.

00:56:16

So I think podcasting maybe is the next level of that word.

00:56:20

Well, it's a little bit more out there, but it's still pretty safe.

00:56:23

Yeah.

00:56:24

Because I mean, especially in this case, it's just you and me.

00:56:27

So the number of times that I forget that, oh yeah, this is being recorded.

00:56:31

Okay.

00:56:32

So maybe I should watch my words a little more.

00:56:34

I don't know.

00:56:35

That may change if we decide to do live recordings for the book or premium club members.

00:56:42

No promises.

00:56:43

So yes, I think there's maybe an element of that.

00:56:46

I don't know how much of an element of that because it does still feel like just we're

00:56:50

having a chat.

00:56:52

But I do think it is it's more than writing.

00:56:57

So maybe it's a step between you.

00:56:59

Yeah.

00:57:00

I kind of think it is just based on a lot of the folks that I know that have gotten into

00:57:06

podcasting.

00:57:07

Not everybody, obviously, who is a podcast host is introverted.

00:57:10

And I would argue probably the people who've been doing it the longest are naturally extroverted.

00:57:15

But I do think there is some truth to introverts like myself who kind of sit back and watch

00:57:19

things happen.

00:57:21

And then they're like, hmm, I think maybe I could do that.

00:57:25

Yeah.

00:57:26

So you dip your toe in the water and you're like, hey, that was actually kind of fun.

00:57:30

Yeah.

00:57:31

For sure.

00:57:32

Like I do see a lot of people who maybe have kind of been dragon there, their heels with

00:57:37

starting a podcast.

00:57:39

And maybe it's because they're introverts like we are.

00:57:43

Could be.

00:57:44

Could be.

00:57:45

Stepping into chapter six, Franklin was a politician, but Eleanor spoke out of conscience.

00:57:51

Now we're talking about Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.

00:57:56

And this is the point of the book where I start to not like the chapter title.

00:58:00

Sure.

00:58:02

The difference.

00:58:03

So here's a classic example.

00:58:05

Franklin was an extrovert.

00:58:06

And or was an introvert and Franklin was good about getting parties put together and, you

00:58:13

know, doing the political thing, communicating with people, talking to big groups, getting

00:58:18

people fired up, et cetera, et cetera.

00:58:21

Eleanor had a tendency to do things on her own, but she also would go do things out of

00:58:26

conviction, like helping poor people or going into rough areas and volunteering.

00:58:31

And she did a lot of that and then she would speak to Franklin and tell him the things

00:58:37

that she saw and the things that were convicting to her and then he would act on them.

00:58:43

So the two ended up creating a really great pair as a result.

00:58:47

And there's all kinds of backstory that goes with all of that, of course.

00:58:51

But it was fascinating that, you know, Eleanor is going through this process of understanding

00:58:55

the detail because that's the strengths that she has as an introvert.

00:58:59

And then Franklin acted on it and had the power to do things about that later on.

00:59:05

So I don't know.

00:59:06

I thought that pairing was really cool.

00:59:07

I'd never really heard those stories about them.

00:59:09

So I did appreciate that.

00:59:11

Yeah, until she found the love letters to the secretary in his suitcase.

00:59:14

Yeah, there's that too.

00:59:17

Yeah.

00:59:18

No, it, I think that that part in particular was really interesting to me because it shows

00:59:24

how opposites can attract, but then essentially what had happened was Franklin wanted somebody

00:59:31

more extroverted in the long run is kind of what it came down to.

00:59:35

And then at that point, Eleanor decided to stay with him just because in all the other

00:59:41

arenas where they were active, they were a powerful pairing, which I'm not sure I would

00:59:48

be able to stick with that, but she did.

00:59:52

And you're right, they were kind of polar opposites from each other and they did work

00:59:57

really well together in like these political arenas.

01:00:01

One of the things that I really liked about Eleanor was the, the story they told about

01:00:07

how she essentially got at the beginning, the story about how she got the person to get

01:00:13

up and speak at the monument and how she had this empathy towards all of these people.

01:00:21

And she saw the struggle that people were going through and she could identify with it.

01:00:28

That really spoke to me.

01:00:29

I think that that's something that I strive to have in my, my own life is to kind of see

01:00:36

the people who are to the rest of the world invisible and make an impact in their life.

01:00:45

It's tricky.

01:00:48

Number one, when you, it's easy to look past people on the periphery, especially if you're

01:00:54

in a certain situation, social circle, whatever, like going outside of that can be uncomfortable,

01:01:00

especially for an introvert.

01:01:01

Maybe that's why, you know, I kind of ascribed to this is because that's something that I

01:01:06

believe that I should be doing, but it's kind of against my natural wiring.

01:01:11

But I do take a lot of, I don't want to say pride.

01:01:15

I'm not sure what the word is I'm looking for here.

01:01:18

I take a, I take a lot of pleasure maybe from being able to help other people, even if it's

01:01:26

something super small.

01:01:29

Like that really makes me feel good.

01:01:30

And I'm reading this chapter.

01:01:32

I recognize that, that sensitivity that is coupled a lot of times with introversion.

01:01:40

Also based on the research that Dr. Elaine Aron did, they found 27 different attributes

01:01:47

that they share in the book.

01:01:48

But one of the things that really jumped out to me was that introverts don't like talking

01:01:52

about superficial things.

01:01:54

This is me to a T to the point where if I am now in a social situation, like there's

01:02:01

a whole bunch of us who are going out to dinner and there's 20 different people there, I

01:02:05

will get angry if everybody is just talking about stupid superficial stuff like the weather.

01:02:11

I'll, I'll talk to the person next to me and be like, okay, so what did you think of

01:02:15

that speaker's point?

01:02:16

Kind of what we do on bookworm.

01:02:18

Like I do that in real life because the superficial stuff.

01:02:22

Just superficial stuff.

01:02:23

The next time we get together, totally going to do it.

01:02:25

Yeah, probably everybody who's using a next stock is going to do that.

01:02:28

But I never identified that as an introverted trait.

01:02:33

But you know, as, as she was describing that, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's definitely something

01:02:37

that I do.

01:02:39

One of those attributes was being highly sensitive.

01:02:43

And sensitivity in the sense of noticing a lot of detail, not necessarily sensitive to

01:02:49

emotions and stuff, which is definitely a piece of that.

01:02:52

But also just being hyper aware of what's going on.

01:02:56

Yeah.

01:02:57

And I don't know if you're aware of this mic, but I actually had a client with my web business

01:03:03

around this HSP world as they call it, highly sensitive people.

01:03:08

Apparently that's all thing and there are all kinds of quizzes and stuff you can take

01:03:11

on it.

01:03:12

I took it, but I took that quiz as part of that project and I ranked in like the top 1%,

01:03:19

one, what is it?

01:03:20

What do they call it?

01:03:21

The 99th percentile of falling into this HSP category.

01:03:26

Wow.

01:03:27

It was ridiculously high and that, that taught me a lot because I like, for example, I run

01:03:33

sound at our church.

01:03:36

It's a pretty intense system.

01:03:38

It's, yeah, it's elaborate.

01:03:40

In order to run that really well, you have to pay attention to a lot, a lot of detail

01:03:44

and kind of predict what's getting ready to happen before it happens.

01:03:49

And it's something I'm pretty good at because I have a tendency to notice, like I notice

01:03:54

out of the corner of my eye when someone's moving in such a way that they might be getting

01:03:59

up to go to the stage.

01:04:00

So then I know which microphones need to be ready for them.

01:04:02

Just by the way, they shifted in their chair.

01:04:05

Interesting.

01:04:06

I notice these things.

01:04:07

I don't always act on what I see and what I notice because to some people it's kind of

01:04:13

strange and a little bit creepy sometimes.

01:04:16

So a lot of times I just keep it to myself and I don't let on, but I notice way more than

01:04:22

I ever should.

01:04:23

And I never really connected, you know, kind of like what you're saying.

01:04:26

I hadn't really connected that to introversion, but she does call out that people who have

01:04:32

this sensitivity trait vastly fall into the introvert category as well.

01:04:38

Like those two are very closely correlated.

01:04:40

Not 100%.

01:04:41

There are extroverts that fall into that category, but the vast majority fall into the introvert

01:04:45

category.

01:04:46

Yeah.

01:04:47

Sorry if that creeps you out.

01:04:49

No, I think it's fascinating.

01:04:51

And I think that it's a strength in certain situations.

01:04:55

Like you said, there's a lot of people who like they would miss that stuff and then the

01:05:00

microphone's not ready and they're annoyed because the microphone's not ready.

01:05:04

You would never ascribe to a sound guy being good at his job to be introverted.

01:05:10

But that makes total sense to me.

01:05:12

That's kind of cool actually.

01:05:15

Another thing that's surprising from this section though is the authors who's in Cane

01:05:18

she took a lie detector test and the lie detector test it's basically a skin conductance test.

01:05:28

So it's measuring certain biological or physiological things that are happening in your body as they

01:05:38

ask you questions.

01:05:39

And she describes this situation perfectly.

01:05:42

This is totally what I've thought.

01:05:43

I never could back it up.

01:05:45

It's like if I was in that situation, there is no way I would be able to pass this thing.

01:05:51

Even if I was telling the truth.

01:05:53

She said she took this test and the person asked her if she had ever used cocaine.

01:05:58

And she never had used cocaine.

01:06:00

But he asked the question and then he's like staring right in her face.

01:06:03

She's like right in front of her.

01:06:06

That's causing the response in the lie detector test to say that she's lying.

01:06:11

So that was kind of interesting.

01:06:14

Yeah.

01:06:17

I had to take a lie detector test not too long ago.

01:06:20

I can't really say why, but I did.

01:06:23

And as part of that, I learned that I have been yelled at enough face to face that I

01:06:30

tend to not react.

01:06:32

Oh wow.

01:06:33

In these scenarios.

01:06:34

So they actually had a problem with it because they had me tell a deliberate lie and they

01:06:40

couldn't detect it.

01:06:42

And okay, this is kind of creepy.

01:06:46

This is like I don't know what to tell you like I'm just I don't know.

01:06:51

I don't know.

01:06:52

It's weird.

01:06:53

I don't know why that is.

01:06:54

But it was odd.

01:06:56

So I think it had what they asked me was do I get in?

01:07:00

How do they put it stressful situations?

01:07:03

Frequently and I told them no because in my mind, I don't.

01:07:08

I'm pretty picky about withholding those, but then they started asking me like what

01:07:11

goes like what is my job?

01:07:13

How does it operate?

01:07:14

And then I mentioned something about clients who are upset about things that they should

01:07:20

not be upset about.

01:07:21

And they're like, Oh, that's exactly what we mean.

01:07:23

You're like, okay.

01:07:24

So this test won't work for you.

01:07:26

Oh, okay.

01:07:28

So something about that, maybe if if someone's listening to this and they know how all that

01:07:32

stuff works in a lot of detail, I'd love to know why in that scenario, but they ended

01:07:36

up just dropping the test after all that.

01:07:39

But that's funny.

01:07:40

Anyway, chapter seven.

01:07:43

Why did Wall Street crash and Warren Buffett prosper?

01:07:46

Basically she goes through the scenario of talking about how extra version led people

01:07:53

who are risk takers.

01:07:56

Those two go hand in hand.

01:07:57

Risk taking is an attribute of extra version.

01:08:00

Risk taking in quite a few scenarios leading up to the 2008 Wall Street crash.

01:08:07

If you were an extrovert and you took big risks, you profited significantly because the bigger

01:08:11

the risk you took, the better off things paid.

01:08:14

Well, that flips on its head when there's massive numbers of risky loans out there and

01:08:23

banks can't cover them and things tend to fall apart.

01:08:28

Thus situations where you've got groups like Bridgewater or I think Berkshire didn't really

01:08:36

get into the 2008 crash itself.

01:08:38

But those particular certain groups profited in that scenario because they saw that there

01:08:42

was a problem because they didn't subscribe to the risk taking scenario and they had people

01:08:48

who would step away from that and sound warning bells.

01:08:53

Warren Buffett was one who did that with the dot com bust.

01:08:57

He saw that coming and predicted it and made quite a bit of money off of it.

01:09:02

That whole scenario does happen, but a lot of those happen in the stock markets as a

01:09:07

result of people being willing to sound the warning signals and disagree with the masses.

01:09:14

If you follow along with the masses, guess what happens in the stock markets?

01:09:18

Dollars disappear into thin air.

01:09:23

The root of this is a term called reward sensitivity.

01:09:27

Extroverts tend to seek the reward.

01:09:31

She mentions that their dopamine pathways appear to be more active than introverts, which

01:09:37

dopamine is the pleasure chemical.

01:09:40

That was interesting to me because of the whole idea of neuroplasticity and how your

01:09:45

brain can change.

01:09:47

Next question is then, do I have the ability to change from an introvert to an extrovert

01:09:54

or vice versa simply because of how my brain develops?

01:09:59

I'm not sure where I land on that yet, but the other interesting thing here is the whole

01:10:05

section on flow, which there's Mahali again.

01:10:09

Hi, Mahali.

01:10:11

It mentions that flow works when you pursue the activity for the sake of the activity,

01:10:14

not the reward.

01:10:16

Flow happens in what she describes as introverted autonomy.

01:10:20

Introverts can find flow by focusing on their gifts, problem solving, etc.

01:10:26

As an introvert makes me feel really good, but I think maybe there's a little bit more

01:10:33

to it than that.

01:10:34

If I add an advantage from a flow perspective simply because I'm an introvert, I don't

01:10:41

know.

01:10:42

I kind of think maybe not as much as this chapter would have me to believe, although

01:10:47

there are certain things that allowed warm buffet to be successful when everybody else

01:10:52

is like, "Oh, no, this is fine.

01:10:54

He's able to recognize a situation for what's really going on because of some you might define

01:11:01

them as introverted traits like intellectual persistence, prudent thinking, ability to

01:11:05

see an act on those different warning signs."

01:11:08

I don't know.

01:11:09

I think there's a lot of value in looking at this from a historical perspective where

01:11:13

this is what happened in the stock market and the extroverted ideal was the thing that

01:11:19

led to a lot of these people being really successful, but the people who are successful

01:11:22

in the long run were able to overcome that and act more along lines of an introvert.

01:11:27

But I'm not 100% sure that translates real cleanly to, "Okay, this is how you do this

01:11:32

going forward."

01:11:33

Right.

01:11:34

No, I think there's that whole scenario.

01:11:37

There's a lot of nuance with it, but I can't argue that it at least has...

01:11:43

It's one of the factors, I think, is what I would argue.

01:11:46

Yep.

01:11:47

Which is really the entire book.

01:11:50

Yeah.

01:11:51

It's one of the factors.

01:11:53

Yep.

01:11:54

Part three, do all cultures have an extrovert ideal?

01:12:00

The one chapter in here is soft power.

01:12:02

You want to talk about this one quick?

01:12:04

Sure.

01:12:05

Well, the story here is about a high school, Monte Vista High School in Cupertino, which

01:12:12

Cupertino, that's where Apple is located.

01:12:15

This high school is interesting because the jocks don't hold any of the power there because

01:12:20

the student body is so academically oriented.

01:12:25

They did a demographic of the school and found out the majority of the students, 77%,

01:12:31

are Asian American who typically study, they do well, and they don't create waves.

01:12:36

They are introverted, especially when compared against the European American extroverted

01:12:42

ideal.

01:12:43

They kind of break down the different attributes of Asian American versus European American,

01:12:47

whereas Asian American tend to be humble, altruistic, honest, have moral virtues, achievement,

01:12:52

they focus on the team.

01:12:54

European American tend to be cheerful, enthusiastic, sociable.

01:12:57

The emphasis there is on the individual.

01:13:02

This whole idea of soft power is kind of like, okay, so these people who are introverted,

01:13:09

who in this case, talking about different countries and different cultures and extroverted

01:13:17

ideal versus, I would argue, maybe an introverted ideal, how can you take advantage of that

01:13:23

introverted ideal and they give a couple historical examples of this.

01:13:28

One of the more popular ones was Gandhi.

01:13:31

Soft power is kind of the idea of embracing this thing, the introverted ideal.

01:13:38

That's a terrible term, but that's what I'm going to use for now because I don't have

01:13:42

anything else.

01:13:44

The cultures that emphasize that they are able to understand more quickly what they are capable

01:13:51

of and the kind of changes they are capable of influencing, not through being loud or

01:13:57

boisterous or what most people would think of as powerful because it's not aggressive.

01:14:04

But soft power, this is a different type of strength.

01:14:08

It can be very determined.

01:14:10

It also typically has to be very skillful, requires persistence, but Gandhi is kind of

01:14:18

the poster child for this where no one would argue that Gandhi was weak, but he definitely

01:14:25

wasn't an extrovert either.

01:14:26

He just kind of consistently held the line for what he believed and over time, people

01:14:31

ascribed great strength to his story, his situation.

01:14:36

I would say over time, the legend of Gandhi has grown, if that makes sense.

01:14:42

At the time when it was going on, maybe it wasn't that big a deal to everybody else around

01:14:46

him because they were too extroverted and loud to even recognize what was actually happening.

01:14:51

But the more distance that you get from the situation, the more you recognize the impact

01:14:55

of what he actually did.

01:14:56

Yes.

01:14:57

I think that's what she's getting at here is that because he was not necessarily passive,

01:15:05

because that was a key distinction that she called out.

01:15:08

Because he wasn't necessarily passive, he was simply continuing to push forward even

01:15:14

though everyone else was against him, but not directly contradicting decisions made by the

01:15:21

people opposing him.

01:15:24

I think that's what she's referring to, but there is a lot of power in that.

01:15:28

It takes a lot of patience.

01:15:30

That was my thinking when I ran through a lot of patience and a lot of guts.

01:15:33

Holy cow.

01:15:34

I would have done lost my marbles by this point, but sway goes.

01:15:41

Part four, how to love, how to work.

01:15:43

I have to admit that this was the section I was itching to get to whenever I was reading

01:15:47

this book the second time here.

01:15:49

Because like, okay, let's get through all this groundwork because I want to know what

01:15:52

you're suggesting for action ups, even though I've read this before, for whatever reason

01:15:56

I was excited to get to this piece.

01:15:57

Because chapter nine, the first of the three chapters in this is when should you act more

01:16:03

extroverted than you really are.

01:16:05

I don't know how many times we've mentioned or alluded to this in this episode already,

01:16:10

but there's a strong dissonance here with I'm an introvert living in an extroverted world.

01:16:18

And yet there are times when I can become extroverted and draw energy from being that

01:16:22

way.

01:16:24

Why is that?

01:16:26

And when does that happen?

01:16:27

And when should I allow myself to do that?

01:16:30

There are a lot of different scenarios that that can come out, but the one that she starts

01:16:35

with this whole section with is core projects.

01:16:39

The examples are with, for example, a professor who very, very animated and excitable in class,

01:16:48

but really just wants to go out to the mountains and read books.

01:16:51

Like that's that's his thing.

01:16:53

But yet he draws a lot of energy from being this hyper extroverted professor in the classroom

01:17:00

and people have no idea he's introverted.

01:17:03

And it's because his one of his core projects, one of the things he resonates with deeply

01:17:08

is teaching kids and teaching students in basically anyway.

01:17:14

Like that is a thing that he strongly ascribes to.

01:17:19

And because of that, it's easy for him to flex outside of his introversion.

01:17:23

And I think that's very true.

01:17:25

Like it, you know, how many times do you hear people talk about?

01:17:27

Like if I'm I can't sell like I'm not a salesperson, but I can sell things left and right.

01:17:35

Like I do client work right now.

01:17:36

Like I can sell left and right because I genuinely am excited about people's ideas and helping

01:17:42

them come to life.

01:17:43

Yeah.

01:17:44

That's that's easy for me to do.

01:17:45

So it's easy for me to act extroverted in those scenarios.

01:17:48

But those are part of my core projects.

01:17:50

Like those are important to me.

01:17:52

And that's that's the piece that she's referring to.

01:17:54

Yeah, I'm fascinated by this concept of core projects.

01:17:58

This kind of ties into what she describes as the free trait theory, where we're endowed

01:18:03

with certain personality traits like introversion, but we can and do act out of character in

01:18:08

the service of those core personal projects.

01:18:10

And you use the term flex outside of your, I forget exactly what you said, but I like

01:18:15

that term flex.

01:18:16

I think that kind of describes it very accurately where you can be stretched outside of your

01:18:22

normal shape, but you're always going to return to your natural state.

01:18:27

And that's that's describes what's going on here where introverts act like extroverts

01:18:32

for the sake of the work that they consider to be important.

01:18:36

So this got me thinking like, what are my core projects?

01:18:40

And I think bookworm applies to what would fit there.

01:18:44

So would the other podcast I do focused the stuff I do with max stock faith based productivity,

01:18:50

obviously.

01:18:51

But what's interesting about all these core projects is that they all require me to be

01:18:55

extroverted.

01:18:58

So I found that to be really interesting where like I'm wired this way, but everything that

01:19:02

I consider important, I have to act another way.

01:19:07

Yes.

01:19:08

But I also, I also think again, there's more to it than just introverted versus extroverted.

01:19:14

And I also think she's got three keys to identifying your own core personal projects.

01:19:19

I think this is, I don't know how to say this nicely, like I thought this was really shallow.

01:19:28

She mentions, think back to when you what you love to do when you were a child.

01:19:32

Number two, pay attention to what you gravitate to.

01:19:34

Number three, pay attention to what you envy.

01:19:37

I think there's so much more to it than this.

01:19:39

And I get it.

01:19:40

You know, my perspective is a little bit different because that's really what my course is all

01:19:43

about is identifying your core projects.

01:19:46

What are the things that really push all your buttons, connect to your calling, discover

01:19:50

your destiny, live the life you're created for, you know, do the things that really matter

01:19:53

to you.

01:19:54

We talked about Maslow's hierarchy and one of our previous episodes and how I kind of

01:19:58

view it as like backwards.

01:19:59

You got to start with the self actualization stuff.

01:20:03

So I get it, you know, for some people, maybe those three questions are helpful, but I feel

01:20:08

like this is so like not even the tip of the iceberg that it really didn't do anything

01:20:13

for me.

01:20:14

I could even put this in there sort of a thing.

01:20:16

It could be like if you're completely new to it.

01:20:18

Yep.

01:20:19

Yeah.

01:20:20

Right.

01:20:21

So I recognize that it's hard for me, you know, what is that?

01:20:23

The beginner's curse, you know, once you're in something for a while, it's hard for you

01:20:27

to picture yourself coming to this as someone who's not steeped in this stuff.

01:20:32

So I tried to do that.

01:20:33

I just couldn't do it.

01:20:35

Yeah.

01:20:36

It's hard to let go of experience when you have it.

01:20:39

Yep.

01:20:40

I get it.

01:20:41

The piece here that's I think important is the restorative niches.

01:20:45

Yeah.

01:20:46

Which is a piece that I don't do well.

01:20:49

This is one of my action items.

01:20:52

Making sure that I have time to step away from some of the core project pieces that have

01:21:00

me, you know, moving outside of my introversion and be intentional about playing into those

01:21:08

strengths.

01:21:09

I do really well if I'm trying to develop an idea, a strategic concept for a business.

01:21:16

Like, I do really well when I'm doing those scenarios, but I don't give myself that time.

01:21:21

And those are things that I need to build in more because I simply don't do it, Mike.

01:21:26

Yeah.

01:21:27

This is exactly what I was talking about with the interview with Jocelyn K. Goliath because

01:21:30

she's working in this startup and her boss is extroverted.

01:21:34

And the section in that episode, what did I do label it?

01:21:38

Because I did the editing for that episode.

01:21:40

I think I called it "stemming the extroverted tide" or something like that.

01:21:45

Because she had a boss who was like, "Okay, so let's do this."

01:21:48

And then her response was always, "Give me a day to think about it and I'll get back

01:21:52

to you."

01:21:53

Yeah.

01:21:54

And I thought that was brilliant because it recognized that, "Okay, I'm introverted.

01:21:59

I need the time to process this."

01:22:02

And she was willing to put a stake in the ground and be like, "Okay, we all want to do

01:22:06

the best work possible, right?"

01:22:07

So this is the best way for me to work.

01:22:10

And by having that conversation, she was able to get the space that she needed to survive

01:22:14

in that environment.

01:22:15

But how many introverts just don't even recognize that this is just the way that extroverts,

01:22:21

this is the way that they prefer to work.

01:22:23

And they don't even bother to say, "Well, could we do it a different way?"

01:22:27

Because they assume the expectations.

01:22:31

I've been that person where I'm just, "Okay, well, I guess I'll try to make you happy then."

01:22:36

But inside, I'm crying.

01:22:42

So the restorative niches, that's one of my action items too, is to identify what are

01:22:46

those things that can help me to restore, find my happy place on a regular basis.

01:22:52

Chapter 10, the communication gap.

01:22:54

What happens, especially in marriages, when one is an extrovert, the other is an introvert

01:23:03

or vice versa, or in Joe's case, what happens if you're an introvert and your spouse is

01:23:10

an ambivert?

01:23:11

We haven't really talked about ambivergent.

01:23:14

And she just mentioned it very, very briefly towards the beginning.

01:23:17

But there are people who are sometimes extroverts and sometimes introverts depending on the situation

01:23:26

or the topic.

01:23:28

So I just have to throw this out there because I'm sure you and your wife, a marriage relationship,

01:23:34

you're putting another person ahead of yourself anyways.

01:23:36

So there's totally a way for you to make it work.

01:23:39

And I get that.

01:23:40

But my natural reaction, when you're describing your introvert and your wife isn't an ambiverist,

01:23:45

like, "Oh my gosh, she would totally use that against me."

01:23:50

That would drive me nuts because I tend to be like you an introvert and a thinker.

01:23:54

I got to figure out how all this stuff works.

01:23:56

And then at a moment's notice, she's just a mess with me.

01:23:58

Like, "Oh, I'm actually going to do it the other way."

01:24:01

Yeah.

01:24:02

So we've been married almost 10 years.

01:24:07

And it's taken almost all of 10 years for me to understand which scenarios is she which

01:24:14

in?

01:24:16

And there are some social situations where she just doesn't want to go home because she

01:24:21

just loves the situation.

01:24:24

But there are other social situations that originally to me were identical.

01:24:29

But she's tired and wants to go home.

01:24:31

She's just like me like she can't handle tons and tons and tons of it.

01:24:36

That'll mess with your head.

01:24:37

But anyway, the communication gap, like, "What do you do if you're different?

01:24:42

You're not both extroverts.

01:24:44

You're not both introverts.

01:24:46

And how do you handle that?"

01:24:47

She tells the story of Greg and Emily.

01:24:50

And Greg is an extrovert.

01:24:51

Emily is an introvert.

01:24:53

Greg loves to have massive social get-togethers at their house every weekend, every Friday

01:24:58

night.

01:24:59

Emily can't stand it because she's in a job where she's basically in a round a lot of

01:25:05

people all day long.

01:25:06

So she feels like she has to come home and then entertain.

01:25:09

And those two fight and fight and fight and fight.

01:25:12

And their fighting style exacerbates the problem.

01:25:16

And then they don't know how to get through the whole thing.

01:25:18

And it's purely a factor of one pulling energy from the fighting mechanism, the other wanting

01:25:24

to just crawl in a hole because of the same fight.

01:25:28

And they continue to create this circular issue.

01:25:31

Yeah.

01:25:32

So mentioned earlier, I'm the introvert.

01:25:35

My wife took the Myers-Briggs thing as well.

01:25:37

She is definitely the extrovert, which there were no surprises when we took those assessments.

01:25:43

But this whole section was fascinating to me because on page 230 there's this excerpt

01:25:48

here, which I believe Emily and Greg are fictional characters, by the way.

01:25:52

Oh, I don't think I caught that.

01:25:55

I don't know that for sure.

01:25:56

But I put in the outline, Mike and Rachel, I mean Greg and Emily.

01:26:02

Yeah.

01:26:03

Because this describes us.

01:26:05

So page 230 says, "When Emily and Greg disagree, her voice gets quiet and flat, her

01:26:09

manners slightly distant.

01:26:10

What she's trying to do is minimize aggression.

01:26:12

Emily isn't comfortable with anger, but she appears to be receding emotionally.

01:26:16

Meanwhile Greg does just the opposite, raising his voice and sounding belligerent as he gets

01:26:20

even more engaged and working out their problem."

01:26:23

That's the key phrase there, I think, for me.

01:26:25

"The more Emily seems to withdraw, the more alone, then hurt, then enraged.

01:26:28

Greg becomes the anger he gets, the more hurt and distaste Emily feels and the deeper she

01:26:34

retreats."

01:26:35

Okay.

01:26:36

So this description defines pretty much every conflict my wife and I have ever had.

01:26:43

Okay.

01:26:44

But here's the interesting part though.

01:26:46

I recognize from reading this that when we have conflict in our marriage, our roles are

01:26:53

reversed here.

01:26:54

And I am now Greg, the extrovert, and she is now Emily, the introvert.

01:26:59

I have no idea why this happens, but this is exactly what happens.

01:27:04

I think, like I said, the key part here is that I tend to want to work out the problem,

01:27:11

figure out what is broken in the system that created these results and I'm not willing

01:27:17

to drop it until we figure it out.

01:27:20

But she's just kind of like, "Oh, I just want to get away from here and get some distance."

01:27:25

And obviously neither of those are the ideal here.

01:27:30

Right, right.

01:27:31

So the interesting observation to me anyway is that when we do have conflict, we basically

01:27:35

flip roles and I cannot for the life of me figure out why that is.

01:27:41

With us, it depends on the topic as to whether or not it's a heated animated conflict or

01:27:53

whether it's a calm and questioning process.

01:27:58

And you would think the severity of the conflict would dictate that, but it's not.

01:28:03

We could have a very heated conversation on the dog and have a really laid back questioning

01:28:08

conflict about how we're going to school our kids.

01:28:11

So it doesn't really apply to that.

01:28:14

So I usually have a tendency to be somewhat quiet and reserved, ask questions.

01:28:23

That's kind of my MO whenever I deal with conflict is get quiet and ask questions, which

01:28:30

sometimes is maddening to other people.

01:28:33

I get that, but I can't help it.

01:28:35

That's just my reaction.

01:28:38

Sometimes that goes over well with my wife and she can kind of help me through those scenarios.

01:28:43

Sometimes she just, I think sometimes she just wants to fight.

01:28:47

She's told me that before.

01:28:48

She's like, "Sometimes I just want you to fight with me."

01:28:51

Okay, I can do that occasionally, but I don't like to do that.

01:28:56

Right, right.

01:28:57

So it's just very, very different.

01:28:59

Yeah, that's the exact scenario I was picturing in my head that kind of terrified me.

01:29:04

Yeah.

01:29:05

Yeah.

01:29:06

So anyway, that's the communication gap.

01:29:10

You have to learn how each other operates.

01:29:12

I tell newlyweds you got to learn how to fight well.

01:29:16

That's a really important thing, at least in my mind.

01:29:20

So that's a lot of what this ends up being about, is how do extroverts and introverts

01:29:25

talk to each other and understand each other?

01:29:27

Yeah, this chapter is kind of weird to me because they tell the story at the beginning

01:29:32

and you're identifying with these people in my scenario.

01:29:37

We flipped them when we're engaged in conflict, but then just like a lot of other books that

01:29:42

we've read, this is the happy ending.

01:29:45

And the happy ending is just so simple and dumb and straightforward, it's like, you

01:29:50

figure out how to compromise.

01:29:52

You can't always get what you want.

01:29:54

Right.

01:29:55

And it just seems like, why is this so revolutionary?

01:29:58

Yes.

01:30:00

This is not a new idea.

01:30:01

But yeah, if you were to summarize this, that's the big takeaway.

01:30:05

You got to, as an extrovert, understand how draining social situations can be for introverts

01:30:10

and introverts, you have to understand how much your silence can be hurtful.

01:30:15

The other thing that I like the phrasing she had of this is, and she phrased it as like,

01:30:21

Emily was talking to somebody and this is the advice that they gave her was, it's not

01:30:25

okay to bite, but it is okay to his.

01:30:28

And as an introvert, I don't know, I like that idea because I feel like it gives you

01:30:33

a little bit of leash in terms of responding in a way that it becomes clear.

01:30:41

You don't like this sort of a thing.

01:30:43

But also as an introvert, I feel like this is the thing that maybe can get me into trouble

01:30:47

because when people don't recognize that I'm hissing, then I feel like I have to bite.

01:30:53

So my natural reaction is to not do that because then I kind of feel like I'm forced

01:31:02

to go from zero to 100 if people don't recognize it.

01:31:07

Sure.

01:31:08

Next chapter here on Cobblers and Generals.

01:31:12

Weirdest title ever for chapter about kids.

01:31:15

Well, yes, until you hear the story it starts with.

01:31:19

Once, so the story goes that there was a man trying to determine who was the greatest general

01:31:25

in all of history.

01:31:26

And someone tells him, oh, he's passed away.

01:31:31

So he goes to the Pearly Gates and runs across St. Peter and asks Peter, I would like to meet

01:31:37

the greatest general to ever live.

01:31:40

And he brings out a cobbler to him that the man knew.

01:31:46

And he's like, he's not the greatest general.

01:31:48

He's just a cobbler.

01:31:49

He's like, yes, but he would have been the greatest general if he had been a general.

01:31:54

Yeah.

01:31:55

That's the story.

01:31:56

So on cobblers and generals, that's where the title comes from.

01:32:00

Yeah, which as a parent kind of freaks you out because you're like, okay, who are the

01:32:07

people that I've been entrusted with?

01:32:10

Right.

01:32:11

And how do I not mess up their wife's calling?

01:32:15

She tells another story in here of Isabella and Isabella is an introverted kid where her

01:32:21

mom Joyce thinks that something's wrong with her.

01:32:23

It doesn't like sitting at the loud table at lunch.

01:32:26

She's freaked out when her mom schedules play dates without telling her.

01:32:31

And this story resonated with me because I have a son that's exactly like this.

01:32:36

And it's something that my wife and I have kind of talked about is like, well, sometimes

01:32:40

we do need to push him a little bit and say, no, you should go hang out with those kids,

01:32:44

whatever.

01:32:45

We're not going to just spring stuff on him though because we know how he's going to respond.

01:32:48

He's got to be, I don't want to say coached up, but kind of like you got to put him in

01:32:53

the position where he doesn't just trigger the fight versus flight and then run away.

01:33:00

You got to put him in a position where he can sort through things for himself and take

01:33:04

that step out there.

01:33:06

When he was younger, he was stereotypical extrovert, which is kind of what she talks

01:33:12

about with the babies and their responses.

01:33:16

I can definitely see that in one of my kids specifically.

01:33:21

But also the big thing here for me is just asking what is the right thing to do for

01:33:29

each one of these kids because they are so different.

01:33:33

Not just introverted versus extroverted, but each one of them is a combination of traits

01:33:40

for my wife and I that sometimes I don't even know how they got there.

01:33:45

And it's like trying to figure out a really, really complicated puzzle just to put them

01:33:50

in the right position.

01:33:52

But it's also a responsibility that I take very seriously.

01:33:55

And I don't want to be responsible for them not reaching their full potential.

01:34:05

Now I want to put them in the best possible position to succeed.

01:34:10

And that requires a lot more effort than just, okay, this is what we do.

01:34:17

A lot of the stuff that I talk about and even a lot of stuff that I create, it kind of comes

01:34:21

back to this idea of vision and values and this drives your decision making and all

01:34:25

that type of stuff.

01:34:27

And I really do believe in all of that.

01:34:29

But I also think that there's nuance in every single situation and there is no just car

01:34:32

plank.

01:34:33

This is the right thing to do every single time.

01:34:36

And that is very evident with kids in my opinion.

01:34:40

It's really hard to know what do they need right now.

01:34:43

And so one of my other action items here, I put ask more questions, but in my outline,

01:34:47

it's specifically asked more questions during my one on ones, which once a week I go with

01:34:53

one of my kids to a coffee shop and we play games, we talk whatever, just because I want

01:34:59

to have that platform in their life when they're older where this is just something that we've

01:35:03

normalized.

01:35:04

And so this is the place for deep conversations to happen.

01:35:07

And even outside of that, you know, we talk about stuff there.

01:35:09

So we talk about stuff at home and it's getting to the point now where I'm starting to see

01:35:13

the fruit from the effort that we've put in doing that the last several years.

01:35:20

But one of the things that I recognize is that I need to be asking more questions there.

01:35:26

It can't just be defaulting to the normal activity.

01:35:31

I need to be probing a little bit.

01:35:34

So I really understand what's all going on in their world.

01:35:38

Right.

01:35:39

Yeah, I think it's one of the hardest things to nail down the nuance of your kids tendencies

01:35:45

and personality and skills.

01:35:50

And then try to help them with all of that.

01:35:53

This seems like it should be simple, but holy buckets, this is extremely subtle and detailed.

01:36:01

And I need all the help I can get.

01:36:04

So yes, I'm with you 100%.

01:36:07

Trying to understand my kids is going to be a lifelong goal and will never, never, never,

01:36:15

never finish.

01:36:16

I also think that maybe that perspective and the gravity that we attribute to that responsibility

01:36:28

maybe influences our decision to homeschool our kids.

01:36:32

Oh, sure.

01:36:33

So the things they talk about in this section basically is like, don't worry about your

01:36:36

kids if they seem to be introverted.

01:36:39

And I took that a step further because we hear all the time from well-meaning extroverts

01:36:44

everywhere that they are worried about how social our kids will be because they are homeschooled,

01:36:51

which is completely ridiculous.

01:36:53

I mean, I'm going to get on a soapbox here just for a second, but I'm going to try to

01:36:57

keep it as brief as possible.

01:36:58

I mean, there's a lot of research that shows actually once you get outside of this is my

01:37:03

click and these are all the people who are exactly like me, the exact same age, when you

01:37:08

get outside that situation and they follow homeschoolers like through the rest of their

01:37:12

life, they actually end up being way more social because you're not in that situation.

01:37:15

You're around other people who are different ages, different backgrounds, you know, go figure.

01:37:20

But anyways, the main takeaway for me is that we want to put our kids in the best possible

01:37:25

position to succeed, right?

01:37:26

So putting them in an environment like a public school is maybe the worst thing you can do

01:37:34

for them because school doesn't prepare kids for learning and growing.

01:37:38

On page 253, she says, "The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of

01:37:42

their lives."

01:37:43

But too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself.

01:37:48

And I have limited experience in that because I was homeschooled for a portion of my foreman

01:37:56

of years, but not the entire time.

01:37:58

So I understand what that means.

01:38:03

And it really makes me question and the author says this, like, "Why do we accept this one-size-fits-all

01:38:08

situation as a given when we know perfectly well that adults don't organize themselves

01:38:12

this way?"

01:38:14

Like if you think about it, the whole model is we're going to prepare people and we're

01:38:20

going to train them the right way to act according to an extroverted ideal, going back to like

01:38:25

the groupthink, the new groupthink from one of the previous chapters and how like if you're

01:38:31

an introvert basically like that's a situation where it's designed for you to fail.

01:38:36

Okay.

01:38:37

And then we're going to use that system as a springboard for how we qualify success for

01:38:43

the rest of our lives.

01:38:45

That just makes no sense.

01:38:48

And I don't think it should be any surprise that people would look for an alternative method.

01:38:53

Right.

01:38:54

I think if homeschooling legitimately caused some of the social outcast stereotype that

01:39:04

lives on, it would be very obvious who the homeschool kids and adults are.

01:39:10

Well, let me just say like there is some truth to that.

01:39:14

There are people who do it wrong.

01:39:15

Yeah, it does exist.

01:39:16

Yep.

01:39:17

Okay.

01:39:18

But that doesn't mean it's a systems fault.

01:39:19

Like Toby, our oldest, he's 11.

01:39:22

He actually played on a homeschool basketball team this last year.

01:39:25

Like they traveled and played other schools.

01:39:27

And there are some kids on the team who like if you were to compare the stereotypical homeschooler

01:39:34

versus the stereotypical public school kid, like you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

01:39:40

And then there were some people that you're like, oh yeah, you're the reason people think

01:39:44

we're weird.

01:39:45

Yep.

01:39:46

But it's not the system.

01:39:47

It's ultimately the parents.

01:39:49

Right.

01:39:50

It's how you do that schooling.

01:39:51

For sure.

01:39:52

Refraction items?

01:39:53

Yeah.

01:39:54

So I've got two.

01:39:56

I put ask more questions.

01:39:57

As I mentioned in the last chapter, specifically that action item came because I want to ask

01:40:02