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About
71: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
00:00:00
So listeners, Mike has been gone for a little while.
00:00:04
He just got back a few days ago and he left me in control of our social media accounts while he was gone.
00:00:11
So I did stuff.
00:00:14
Yes, you did.
00:00:16
I did a lot of stuff.
00:00:18
Before I even got back, I had requests for a whole bunch of things.
00:00:22
Yes, yes.
00:00:24
I got a bunch of ideas in my head.
00:00:28
And I kind of just wanted to experiment with a few things.
00:00:33
So I've been posting quite a bit on the Bookworm Twitter account.
00:00:38
So follow that if you're not following it.
00:00:41
I created...
00:00:42
At Bookworm FM for people who are wondering.
00:00:45
I created an Instagram account for Bookworm.
00:00:50
Books are surprisingly easy to take pictures of.
00:00:53
And I don't know why we haven't done this before, Mike.
00:00:55
Just simply taking pictures of the books that we're going through and posting them on Instagram.
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That seems very logical to me.
00:01:03
The one that really surprised me was that you have a YouTube channel.
00:01:07
Yes, yes.
00:01:08
I'll get to that in a second.
00:01:09
So the Instagram account, Bookworm.fm, on Instagram.
00:01:15
I'm starting to post some pictures of the books we're going through.
00:01:19
I've been creating some of these audio grams for the episodes.
00:01:23
And I have some more of that I want to do in the future.
00:01:27
But in the process of building the audio grams for Instagram and for Twitter.
00:01:32
I realize, well, I'll just create one for the entire episode.
00:01:35
Well, if that's the case, I might as well post it to YouTube.
00:01:37
So now Bookworm has a YouTube channel.
00:01:41
It's not a simple URL because I just had the idea and created it not too long ago.
00:01:45
So I can't put a custom URL in that.
00:01:47
YouTube never makes anything simple.
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No, it's a pain.
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Link in the show notes to that channel.
00:01:53
If YouTube is where you want to listen to things, you can do that there.
00:01:57
It's actually kind of cool.
00:01:58
It's an audiogram of the entire episode.
00:02:02
So all the ones I've created so far are for the free to focus by Michael Hyatt Book.
00:02:08
So those are all outs.
00:02:10
They're all live.
00:02:11
I had a lot of fun while Mike was gone.
00:02:13
And then I started asking him for pictures of things and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:02:18
Joe had fun while Mike was gone.
00:02:20
So to add a little bit more detail to this story, I pretty much right after we recorded the
00:02:27
last one left for a missions trip to Costa Rica.
00:02:32
I scheduled the blog posts so I had to edit it the episode and it was ready to go.
00:02:36
But basically said, can you make sure Joe, because I'll be out of the country, that
00:02:41
things go off without a hitch on that Friday.
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And you said, yeah, sure.
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No problem.
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I'll also tweet about it.
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And I went into airplane mode and had no cell signal, no Wi-Fi and was down in Costa Rica
00:02:56
for eight days.
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Was working basically from seven in the morning till after 10 p.m. every single day, except
00:03:04
for one day we got to go to the beach right before we came back.
00:03:07
I got up at 3.30 to take the international flight back home.
00:03:11
And once I got back into the states and in Dallas where my connecting flight was, turned
00:03:16
my phone back on and saw all of this stuff.
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And I was like, oh, Joe, what did you do?
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I have to admit that my first thought was, this sounds like it's a whole lot more work
00:03:29
for me.
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But as long as you're happy to run with it, I'm thrilled with it.
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I think it all looks great.
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I just looks looks like a lot of a lot of effort.
00:03:39
The audiogram in particular of the YouTube stuff, I really like those.
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I think that's that's super cool.
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So great job.
00:03:46
But don't expect a whole lot of help from me.
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No, I just need you to edit the podcast and give me the file.
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That's all I need.
00:03:52
All right, we'll do the rest of it.
00:03:54
I was smart and how I did it because, you know, we're taught to batch things.
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So whenever I built all of those, I built them as templates so that I can swap things
00:04:03
out very easily.
00:04:04
So yes, but it's fun.
00:04:06
It's kind of cool to do anyway.
00:04:08
Joe had fun.
00:04:09
Joe is back on social media with a vengeance.
00:04:13
Making up for lost time.
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I guess, I don't know, I kind of got some stuff in my head and I got to where I was batching
00:04:20
a bunch of stuff using buffer quite a bit.
00:04:22
So that way I'm not spending all my time on social media, but I can get things posted
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there.
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That's the idea.
00:04:28
There you go.
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Anyway, I'm having fun.
00:04:30
One thing I do want to point out, one of the ideas that I want to try and dear listener
00:04:36
hear me out on this, but I think it would be fun.
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The Instagram account, I put a tweet out about this.
00:04:42
Because one of the things I want to start showing on the Instagram account is pictures
00:04:47
of listener libraries.
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I think it's really cool when people have libraries.
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I don't care if it's two books or 2,000 books on your library, bookshelf, whole wall,
00:04:57
entire room dedicated.
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I don't care.
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I want to see these pictures because I think it would be cool just to see how people store
00:05:04
and organize their books.
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So I created an email address, libraries@bookworm.fm.
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Shoot me an email with a picture of your library.
00:05:20
And let me know what your Instagram username is.
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And I will post that on our account.
00:05:25
Obviously I'll have to filter some of them.
00:05:27
I'm sure.
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But send those to me and I'll get them tagged whenever those go live.
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I think it would be fun.
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I think it'd just be kind of cool to see what listener libraries will play.
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So send me your picture, libraries@bookworm.fm.
00:05:39
Which I still need to send you my picture of my library.
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Yes.
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I told Mike I want pictures of his stuff.
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I need to get pictures of mine taken.
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One of them is complete nightmare.
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But I'm going to take a picture of it as it is.
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But I think it would be fun.
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And Mike has to owe-- he owes me some pictures now.
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I do.
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You added to my to-do list.
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I did.
00:06:01
Because I can do that.
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Apparently.
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Which is the opposite of my first action item.
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[LAUGHTER]
00:06:07
All right.
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I'm done with all the social media stuff.
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Let's go through follow up stuff.
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OK.
00:06:12
And actually, before we get there, I do want to just point out one more time.
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Because I've had a couple people ask me directly, hey, don't you have a coupon code
00:06:21
for a max stock?
00:06:22
Yes, I do have a coupon code.
00:06:23
So as much as I've thought we beat this horse to death, there are still some people
00:06:27
who don't know that there is a coupon code to get $70 off for max stock.
00:06:31
So I'll throw it out there one more time, because this will probably be once this episode
00:06:35
is published the last one before-- maybe there'll be one more-- before max stock in
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July.
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So max.conference.xpo.com.
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And if you use the coupon code Focused at checkout, you will save $70 off of the weekend
00:06:52
pass, which is normally $249.
00:06:54
So it's $179.
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It's the same thing as the early bird pricing.
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So it saves you a good chunk of change.
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But if you don't have a ticket yet for max stock and you're thinking about coming, we'd
00:07:03
love to see you there, and that code will save you some dough.
00:07:06
And if you come, make sure you wear your bookworm shirt.
00:07:08
Ooh, that'd be awesome.
00:07:09
That'd be so cool.
00:07:11
All right, now we can get into follow up.
00:07:14
Hit me.
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You got three things here.
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I do.
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I've got a-- the first one is create a not to do list.
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And I did this.
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There's a handful of things that I just don't ever want to do again.
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Some of them are bigger emails on this list.
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I've recognized having been in Costa Rica not touching email for eight days that really
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I just-- I dislike email.
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I used to say I have a love/hate relationship with email because I kind of was proud of
00:07:40
the fact that I could crank through it in 30 minutes a day or less even though I got hundreds
00:07:43
of emails.
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Now I just realized that like if I had never had to touch this again, I'd be okay with
00:07:47
that.
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So that's on the list, a couple of other things.
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And it's really things that I'm going to have to long-term figure out a way to delegate
00:07:57
that type of stuff.
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But none of it is things that I can immediately stop doing, which was kind of surprising in
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doing this.
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I kind of thought there'd be some things that I was like, okay, I should just stop doing
00:08:07
this right now.
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There'd be no negative ramifications from it.
00:08:10
Turned out as I went through this, that really wasn't the case.
00:08:13
There were things that had to be done just not by me.
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So figuring out a way to offload those things.
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And I don't have all that part figured out yet, but I do have the list.
00:08:25
I've also did the social audit.
00:08:27
This was really interesting.
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So the way I did this, I created a note in drafts and I just started listening, like
00:08:34
all of the people I've talked to recently, then I went through my messages and all the
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people that I've texted recently went through my contacts listed all the people that I interact
00:08:42
with frequently.
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Maybe they're in person.
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I don't have a record of it digitally, you know.
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And to the right of that, I started putting a plus if when I interacted with that person,
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I felt like they added life or energy to me or a minus if I felt like they took it away
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from me.
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It didn't take very long before I realized that that system wasn't going to be robust
00:09:03
enough to really give me a clear picture of what I wanted to capture here.
00:09:06
Is that because every time I talk to you, you put a minus next to my name?
00:09:11
Nope.
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You are actually, your line says Joe plus plus.
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I like that.
00:09:16
Joe plus plus.
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Yeah.
00:09:18
There are a couple of people on here who are plus plus plus.
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There are a significant number of people who are just a single plus.
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So like I have, for example, my wife and my pastor as the only two people on here who
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I consider plus plus plus or three plus.
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And then the other, so everything underneath that kind of is like talking about the bell
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curve, you know, like the Joe plus plus is kind of at the top of the available spectrum
00:09:47
for you.
00:09:48
Right.
00:09:49
Because you're not my significant know that you're not my spiritual leader.
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That's fair.
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But there are a lot of other people on this list that I interact with frequently who I
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would even say our friends.
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So this list, I was interested in a couple of takeaways from doing this exercise.
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They are, and this is not a reflection of the person's character.
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This is not a judgment on them as a person.
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Like they are a bad person.
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If they have a minus next to their name, what it is, is it is a warning sign for me that
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when I interact with this person, do I need to be on my guard?
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So for example, if I'm talking to Joe plus plus and Joe says, Hey, Mike, can you help
00:10:28
me out?
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I'm like, yeah, sure.
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No problem.
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Joe, whatever it is, I'm there for you.
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Right.
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Somebody who is a minus, Hey, I need you to help me with something.
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Maybe.
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What do you need?
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Right.
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Right.
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So that's setting the expectations because right or wrong, I feel like they take more
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than they give.
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So I would need to be where I am right now on the lookout for people who are just taking
00:10:57
from me, not to say that I can't give to them, but another one of my action items is
00:11:03
stopping other people's problem solvers.
00:11:06
Right.
00:11:07
So just because there's a problem doesn't mean I'm the right person to solve it, just
00:11:10
because you asked me to do something doesn't mean I have the capacity to do that.
00:11:14
So I went through this listing and kind of identified the people in my life interactions
00:11:19
that I have with them.
00:11:20
And then when I'm done interacting with them, do I feel like they've added to me or do I
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feel like they've taken from me?
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A couple of people here are either plus minus or minus plus, the first one being the, the
00:11:31
one that is kind of the default, but in certain contexts, you know, for example, then maybe
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it changes from a plus to a minus or vice versa.
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Very interesting exercise and has provided some fruit already even today when I recognize
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that someone is making a request of me and right away, soon as I see the name pop up,
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then I kind of know like, okay, be ready because they're going to want something from
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you.
00:12:05
Right.
00:12:06
Right.
00:12:07
Doesn't mean that I'm not going to give it, but it is going to mean that I'm going to
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go into the conversation with my eyes open.
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I'm not going to get blindsided by like, Hey, I'm really in this bind and I need you to
00:12:15
do this for me.
00:12:16
Right.
00:12:17
So I'm just going to be able to do this for you.
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I'm going to be able to do this for you.
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I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:23
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:25
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:26
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:27
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:28
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:29
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:30
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:31
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:32
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:33
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:34
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:35
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:36
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:43
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:51
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:54
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:55
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:56
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:57
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:58
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:12:59
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:00
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:01
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:02
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:03
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:04
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:05
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:06
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:07
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:08
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:09
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:10
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:11
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:12
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:13
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:14
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:15
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:16
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:17
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:18
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:19
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:20
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:27
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:34
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:41
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:48
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:13:55
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:02
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:09
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:16
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:23
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:30
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:37
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:44
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:51
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:14:58
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:15:05
I'm going to be able to do this for you.
00:15:12
I couldn't even tell you their name right now.
00:15:19
You were insensitive sound guy.
00:15:26
I didn't get to it today, of course, but most days I've been pretty good with that one.
00:15:31
I'll keep working on them, keep chipping away at them.
00:15:35
Those have been pretty good so far.
00:15:41
I have a fancy new 11-inch iPad Pro that I needed for a video project that I'm working on.
00:15:51
I did need it because my 10.5 has a different screen aspect ratio for a screencast course
00:16:01
that I am building, which is completely iPad.
00:16:06
Where am I going to get an iPad Pro?
00:16:13
I bit the bullet and got one.
00:16:16
I love this thing.
00:16:17
It's awesome.
00:16:19
I want to use it for just about everything.
00:16:23
The problem is that there is not a single good iOS email client out there.
00:16:29
The best one I found is Spark.
00:16:31
I wrote about it over at the Suite Setup.
00:16:33
It's a pretty decent one.
00:16:38
The one thing I don't like about it because I'm so in with Milmate on my Mac is that the
00:16:43
URL schemes when you send something to a task manager are all Spark URL schemes.
00:16:48
They're completely useless for me inside of my task manager.
00:16:53
That just feels not great to me.
00:16:56
I've been looking for alternatives.
00:16:59
I just raised, I think, $30 million in startup money and is supposed to be this crazy powerful,
00:17:07
really fast, crank through your email client for desktop and iOS.
00:17:14
Looks really cool.
00:17:15
You have to request access to it.
00:17:17
Once you get access to it, guess how much it is?
00:17:20
$50?
00:17:21
I don't know.
00:17:22
Well, it's not a one-time cost.
00:17:24
It's a subscription.
00:17:25
Okay, so guess how much the subscription is?
00:17:30
A dollar a month?
00:17:31
A couple dollars a month?
00:17:33
$30 a month.
00:17:35
Whoa!
00:17:36
Yes.
00:17:37
Huh, so what I am seeing, and this is where the rant comes in, please, just somebody.
00:17:43
Make a decent pay for it once.
00:17:46
Third-party email client that allows me to send tasks to my task manager with the message
00:17:51
colon slash slash URL scheme.
00:17:53
That's all I want.
00:17:55
But that does not exist.
00:17:57
It doesn't exist anywhere.
00:17:59
The only place I can find it is in like MailMate on the Mac and they had to do like an indie
00:18:03
go-go in order to raise enough funding for that to be supported for a couple of years.
00:18:08
I am really worried about this because I feel like we're getting to this point where you
00:18:13
have to just use the crappy built-in tools that come with your operating system or you're
00:18:19
going to have to pay through the nose for something like super human or a subscription
00:18:23
to Outlook or something like that.
00:18:26
And I don't like that.
00:18:28
I feel like I'm okay for now because I've got MailMate on my Mac at least.
00:18:32
But I kind of see this picture of the future where if you want a third-party email client,
00:18:38
it's really, really, really expensive.
00:18:42
You know what the answer to this is, right?
00:18:44
No email.
00:18:45
No email.
00:18:46
At least not on mobile devices.
00:18:48
That's the only option.
00:18:49
Right.
00:18:50
Well, that's the thing with this new iPad.
00:18:52
This is perfect.
00:18:54
I want to use this for my email.
00:18:55
I can use the Apple Pencil or even my finger in order to like the swipe gestures.
00:18:59
Like Air Mail, for example, is kind of the same deal.
00:19:02
But again, proprietary URL scheme.
00:19:05
So an Air Mail has its own issues with you sending emails and you think the people are
00:19:09
getting them and they're not.
00:19:12
But this just really paints a really bleak picture of the email future for me.
00:19:17
Right now it's here on iOS devices.
00:19:20
But long term, I think even on the Mac that were a little...
00:19:23
Do you really need those message URLs though?
00:19:26
I don't use them at all.
00:19:27
Well, that's the thing.
00:19:28
I could work around them.
00:19:30
You know, I could just use like the default mail app and just flag stuff, I guess.
00:19:34
I don't know.
00:19:35
I feel like sometimes they're useful, but I'm going to have to figure out something else
00:19:38
because nobody offers it.
00:19:41
Except for Dispatch, which hasn't been updated since I don't know, three years or something.
00:19:45
A little ways back.
00:19:47
I don't know.
00:19:48
I don't do email on my mobile devices.
00:19:51
So mobile device, I shouldn't make it sound like I have more than one.
00:19:57
I'm an iPhone Mac only type.
00:19:59
Weirdo.
00:20:00
Yeah, that's fine.
00:20:02
That's kind of where I was going, but this iPad is very nice.
00:20:06
All right.
00:20:07
Well, on that note, should we get into today's book?
00:20:12
Yes.
00:20:13
Let's talk about writing.
00:20:14
Which by the way is one of the great things about the iPad Pro is it's phenomenal tool
00:20:19
for writing.
00:20:20
So I'm definitely going to be using this based on what we talked about or what we talked
00:20:24
about in today's episode from this book.
00:20:26
So go ahead and introduce this book.
00:20:29
There's your bad-said way of the month.
00:20:31
Today's book is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
00:20:36
Taglines some instructions on writing and life.
00:20:40
And I was trying to think, Mike, of when I first heard about this book, I read what's
00:20:48
the other one, Stephen King's book on writing.
00:20:51
I read that book way, way, way back whenever I first started writing for my blog.
00:20:57
And I've been recently looking at getting back into writing on a bigger scale, which
00:21:02
is why I wanted to go through this.
00:21:04
But I'm pretty sure Stephen King mentioned this book in his.
00:21:08
I think that's where I first heard about it.
00:21:10
I have heard Bird by Bird brought up in a number of scenarios.
00:21:15
I know Tim Ferriss has referenced it.
00:21:18
Maria Popova of Brain Pickings has mentioned it in a number of scenarios.
00:21:23
And I just felt like if I'm going to step back into writing and do that on a larger
00:21:27
scale that this would be an awesome book to go through.
00:21:31
Also, we review books.
00:21:34
We go through books.
00:21:35
We do like SparkNote versions of books.
00:21:38
It would be helpful to understand what the author goes through to create these things.
00:21:43
So I don't know.
00:21:44
I felt like it was a really good fit for Bookworm.
00:21:47
Yes, I agree.
00:21:50
Potentially.
00:21:52
I feel like a lot of the stuff that she writes, well, I'll just say it this way.
00:21:59
A lot of the advice that she gives can be applied to any context.
00:22:02
But she is definitely approaching this through the lens of you're writing a fiction book.
00:22:07
Correct.
00:22:08
Which that part isn't of a 100% match for like the Bookworm audience because I don't think
00:22:14
we've ever done a fiction book.
00:22:15
Sorry, Clannanda Cave Bear.
00:22:16
We're never going to do a fiction book.
00:22:18
It was a we just got another one of those.
00:22:22
What was the?
00:22:23
Ah, I got to I have to pull it up now because I we just got another one of these things.
00:22:29
I just ignore them.
00:22:30
Sorry.
00:22:31
This is one of those things where like you got to build up the goodwill in order to earn
00:22:37
a response or you got to you got to approach it the right way.
00:22:40
You can't just throw it out there, barf it out there be like, Hey, give me this.
00:22:44
You know, like that's kind of the lens.
00:22:46
I look at this stuff through.
00:22:47
It's like, Hey, you got a podcast.
00:22:48
I want to be on your podcast.
00:22:49
Great.
00:22:50
Here's my my I don't know pedigree.
00:22:53
Like I don't care.
00:22:55
Yeah.
00:22:56
Oh, I found it.
00:22:57
I'm not going to mention it though because then I'm quoting them.
00:23:00
I don't want to do that.
00:23:01
Anyway, don't send us fiction books, but this and does go through like it is about
00:23:07
writing a fiction book, but here and I knew that going in.
00:23:12
I should preface this whole conversation with that that I knew she was going to be talking
00:23:16
about writing fiction.
00:23:18
Granted, Stephen King does as well.
00:23:21
And his book was spot on in that regard as well.
00:23:25
I will say that and Lamont's take on, you know, kind of how should you become a writer
00:23:32
that she has some things like like, how do you build dialogue between characters and
00:23:36
how do you set the scene?
00:23:38
And like she has some pieces like that that I don't think necessarily apply to nonfiction,
00:23:44
except here's the caveat.
00:23:48
That is simply based on experience of the books that we have previously read and how
00:23:55
many times have we read books that have like a story in them.
00:23:58
Patrick Lindsay, only is a excellent example.
00:24:02
Like that concept, we always tend to gravitate towards the books that tell stories extremely
00:24:06
well.
00:24:08
And that concept taken from how you do that in the world of fiction and applying it to
00:24:16
real stories is highly valuable.
00:24:19
And I think that's if you come at this from that lens of how do you tell good stories
00:24:26
in written form, this is something you most definitely need to read for sure.
00:24:34
That's my take.
00:24:35
Yeah, I completely agree that becoming good at storytelling has benefits that extend far
00:24:42
beyond writing a good fiction book.
00:24:46
So I'm glad you called that out.
00:24:49
Yeah, how do you want to do this?
00:24:51
So it's broken down into five different sections.
00:24:55
Half of the book is in the first section.
00:24:58
Yes.
00:24:59
Well, let's just go through the sections here and then maybe we'll jump into part one and
00:25:04
I'll let you kick it off wherever you want to start.
00:25:06
So part one is writing.
00:25:08
Part two is the writing frame of mind.
00:25:10
Part three is help along the way.
00:25:13
Part four publication and other reasons to write part five, the last class.
00:25:18
All right.
00:25:19
So let's talk about the first part here.
00:25:21
Part one writing.
00:25:23
Now, I'm going to read off the chapters that are in here because there are what was
00:25:31
it 15?
00:25:32
14.
00:25:33
Something like that.
00:25:34
I'm going to read these off because I think just seeing the titles can kick a few things
00:25:39
off here.
00:25:40
Yeah.
00:25:41
And I'm going to.
00:25:42
Yeah.
00:25:43
And I'll do this each time, but I'm going to censor a couple times here because Anne
00:25:49
has a mouth honor and I'm sure Mark Manson would be buddies.
00:25:54
Yeah, along with Amanda Palmer, like they would they would get on great.
00:25:59
So anyway, here you go.
00:26:00
Writing started short assignments, censored, terrible first drafts, perfectionism, school
00:26:07
lunches, Polaroids, character plot, dialogue, set design, false starts, plot treatment.
00:26:14
How do you know when you're done?
00:26:16
And this whole part is specifically geared towards how do you build a story or how do
00:26:24
you start the process of coming up with what your story will be.
00:26:29
And if I had to summarize this entire section, I think it would just be a matter of sit your
00:26:35
butt in the chair and let your thoughts run wild and put it on paper.
00:26:40
Like if I had to just summarize the whole thing, I think that's what it would be.
00:26:45
Now, granted, there's a lot of extras and such that go with that.
00:26:50
But I think that's the overarching theme.
00:26:54
And the big one being like how you come up with ideas and you're not going to write
00:27:00
it perfect the first time.
00:27:01
Like there's a lot of those little details I think we could get into.
00:27:05
But again, the overarching here is just let your imagination run wild, but put it down
00:27:11
on paper.
00:27:12
It's had a fair take on that, Mike.
00:27:15
Yeah.
00:27:16
Well, so that is fair.
00:27:19
And I think it extends even beyond this first section.
00:27:23
Really, the big takeaway after reading this whole book is show up and do the work.
00:27:31
Done.
00:27:32
Yeah.
00:27:33
Right?
00:27:34
Like if you want to write show up and write, that's really the thing here.
00:27:38
And there's lots of little tactics that she explains on how to do specific things in
00:27:44
terms of character development, stuff like that.
00:27:47
But yeah, like the big thing here is that you just need to do it consistently.
00:27:54
And at the beginning, as you are writing, but I think this even extends beyond the writing
00:27:59
process.
00:28:00
Like you could apply this model to just about anything.
00:28:04
She's obviously applying it specifically to writing a fiction book.
00:28:07
But the first three pages, she says on page nine, those are going to be garbage.
00:28:14
You're going to throw those out.
00:28:15
But you needed to write those that you get to the fourth page, which has got that one
00:28:19
long paragraph, which is really what you had in mind when you started only.
00:28:22
You didn't know that.
00:28:23
You couldn't get to it until you slog through the three pages before that.
00:28:28
Really another way to state that would be that the result is like whatever you create,
00:28:36
you're not going to be 100% happy with everything that you create.
00:28:39
But that's okay because really the value is in the process, not in the work that you
00:28:46
create.
00:28:47
So don't view it as wasted time for writing those first three pages.
00:28:53
Those were necessary in order to get to the fourth page.
00:28:55
And I think for a lot of people, they don't necessarily get that connection, which is also
00:29:02
kind of sobering.
00:29:03
If you think that you're going to sit down and okay, I'm going to crank out my best seller
00:29:08
in a couple of months, probably not going to happen because the majority of what you're
00:29:12
going to write is going to be garbage and you're going to have to throw it out.
00:29:15
And she tells some stories and she goes through this of how that actually happened to her.
00:29:20
Right.
00:29:21
Right.
00:29:22
And she does go into, and I think this makes perfect sense, like for example, a trend that
00:29:28
I've been noticing is, and this is again a reason that I want to get back into writing,
00:29:32
and I have a lot more reasons.
00:29:34
I'm not sure I'm going to get into all of them today, but there are a lot of people starting
00:29:39
to write much longer articles.
00:29:41
Brett McKay over Art of Manliness has been doing this for a long time.
00:29:44
He writes these really, really long articles and they do extremely well.
00:29:48
Mark Manson, who I think you just mentioned, he wrote an article, I think it was yesterday
00:29:55
about how we need to be writing long form articles again.
00:29:59
It seems like people are getting back into reading longer texts as opposed to these short
00:30:05
500 word articles.
00:30:07
And like for example, the Mark Manson article, the math, they've got one of those calculations
00:30:13
that tells you how long it would take to read it.
00:30:15
The time on it was 26 minutes.
00:30:17
That's a pretty long article.
00:30:20
Yeah.
00:30:21
Writing on long form essay, and when you get to writing things at that length, it gets
00:30:30
difficult to sit down and write it all on one time, briefly go over it and then release
00:30:36
it.
00:30:37
You and I have written blog posts in the past.
00:30:39
They're five, 600 words.
00:30:41
You can sit down, crank them out in one sitting, turn around, edit it in 10, 15 minutes, and
00:30:46
then you can release it.
00:30:47
But I think that's probably not what she would want you to do because you're not going to
00:30:54
have the in depth.
00:30:55
Like you're just trying to get something out the door.
00:30:57
You're probably not putting your heart and soul into it.
00:31:00
You're just trying to get text released.
00:31:02
Well that was the question in the back of my mind as I went through this because she's
00:31:06
obviously talking about this through the lens of getting a book published, which by the
00:31:10
way, it's worth calling out in the first section, getting started.
00:31:13
She has this phrase, which I really like.
00:31:15
She said, "Most people kind of want to write, but they really want to be published."
00:31:19
Yeah.
00:31:20
I think that's totally true.
00:31:21
When really you have to fall in love with the process and you have to want to write because
00:31:26
it's just got to come out of you.
00:31:28
That's the point that you have to get to if you're really going to be consistent with
00:31:30
it and it's really going to work for you.
00:31:32
But the other question in the back of my head was, "How does this apply to blogging?"
00:31:37
So I'm glad that you called that out and that's your perspective as you're going through this
00:31:41
is that's what you want to do, it sounds like, is you want to write more for the web, which
00:31:48
isn't going to be as refined.
00:31:50
But still there's a lot of value in understanding the process, sitting down and doing it every
00:31:54
day and implementing some of the other tactics that she talks about in here.
00:31:58
I can totally see where that has a benefit to somebody who wants to blog consistently
00:32:03
too.
00:32:04
Right.
00:32:05
Just these quick thousand word things or 500 word things, I have a lot of thoughts that
00:32:12
I feel like I want to share.
00:32:15
Again, why I wanted to go through this.
00:32:18
Just to kind of refresh my brain in the tactics and methods of writing long form.
00:32:25
Anyway, there's that.
00:32:26
I also have to call out because we haven't really had a chance to talk or record really,
00:32:34
I think we recorded since I got back from Craft and Commerce, but we really didn't talk
00:32:37
about it a whole lot.
00:32:39
I actually saw Mark Manson speak and I think I dislike him as much in person as I do in
00:32:45
the bookstore.
00:32:46
All right.
00:32:48
It was interesting because he's kind of like the big keynote speaker, right?
00:32:56
And they scheduled it so that the very end of the second day, so right before the conference
00:33:03
there's an afternoon session where he speaks and then this blind girl who ended up being
00:33:09
Miss Teen Canada speaks.
00:33:13
And his whole message was basically screw hope.
00:33:18
I'm just going to sit around in my boxers and play Zelda all day.
00:33:22
And then they get this blind girl that comes up there totally inspirational and she's like,
00:33:26
hope is the thing that got me through like total opposite ends of this spectrum.
00:33:30
And that kind of came across is like, well, he's super successful, right?
00:33:33
So he's doing something right.
00:33:35
He's speaking to somebody, but you kind of get the message from him is like everything's
00:33:41
kind of pointless.
00:33:42
And then she gets up and like there's not a dry eye in the audience.
00:33:46
And it's, I don't know, it could not be more juxtaposed in terms of the message and it
00:33:51
happened to be him and then her and then the conference is over.
00:33:54
Yeah.
00:33:55
Wow.
00:33:56
So very interesting.
00:33:58
For sure.
00:34:00
But anyway, I know that Ann has, you know, the first draft thing is important because she
00:34:06
continually calls out even throughout the book, like you have to get it done and you're
00:34:12
going to have to come back and to use the cliche term, kill your darlings.
00:34:19
You have to come back and edit ruthlessly.
00:34:22
And that is a piece that she's calling out here is like, just get it on the paper.
00:34:26
Now, other parts of this first section, you know, involve like, how do you develop characters?
00:34:35
How do you develop a plot, a dialogue, building the scene, building out what is known as a
00:34:41
plot treatment?
00:34:42
Like she does go into each of those.
00:34:44
Those are interesting, but I don't think those translate as cleanly as some of the other
00:34:49
sections on, you know, whenever you're getting into like nonfiction writing or telling stories
00:34:53
about real things.
00:34:54
Right.
00:34:55
And then you can translate these translate real well.
00:34:58
But I think it's still interesting to learn about.
00:35:00
Yeah.
00:35:01
One section that I liked was the section on perfectionism because she introduces the idea
00:35:07
because we all want to be organized in tidy, right?
00:35:10
It was a Marie Kondo.
00:35:12
It's like the, what's the name of that book?
00:35:15
It's sold like a gazillion copies.
00:35:17
You see it everywhere.
00:35:18
The life changing magic of tidying up or something like that.
00:35:20
Okay.
00:35:21
You know what I'm talking about, right?
00:35:22
I do.
00:35:23
Yes.
00:35:24
So there's that whole kind of current in, I guess, maybe the productivity space, but maybe
00:35:32
it's wider than that of this organization and in place for everything, everything in
00:35:37
its place, right?
00:35:38
And then in the section on perfectionism, she talks about how tidiness suggests that
00:35:43
something is as good as it's going to get, whereas clutter allows you to discover new
00:35:47
treasures under all your piles.
00:35:50
I thought this was an interesting idea.
00:35:53
I'm not sure I agree with that analogy 100%, but I think there is something to the fact that
00:35:58
if everything is just completely tidy all the time there, you never make a mess that
00:36:03
is maybe as good as things are going to get and it's all downhill from there.
00:36:09
So, you know, a big takeaway from me from reading this section is kind of like you don't
00:36:15
have to, everything doesn't have to be perfect, basically.
00:36:20
And that messes up part of the process.
00:36:22
And if something breaks, just don't freak out about it, just figure it out, fix it,
00:36:27
move on, and it's all adding up to the net result of the finished product, whatever that
00:36:37
happens to be.
00:36:38
Fiction book, blog post, whatever.
00:36:40
The thing.
00:36:41
Yeah.
00:36:42
Anything else you want to go through here?
00:36:44
I like the section on Polaroids.
00:36:47
So I should call out like all of these chapters, there's basically a story that goes along
00:36:54
with it and then a main point.
00:36:56
I did not like having just one little note off of the chapter from my mind note files.
00:37:01
So I tried to get at least two every time, which is difficult sometimes.
00:37:05
But this one only has a couple.
00:37:07
But one of the big idea here is that like a Polaroid picture, you take it and you flap
00:37:12
it for a while and then the picture starts to materialize.
00:37:15
And as the picture comes in, you start to see more of the detail.
00:37:21
And you notice little things that you didn't see at first.
00:37:25
Kind of another idea associated with that is like you never know what it's really going
00:37:29
to look like until it's finished developing.
00:37:32
When I was on my mission trip, somebody had actually brought a Polaroid camera.
00:37:36
And it was a really cheap thing.
00:37:38
And they're like, oh, this is so cool.
00:37:39
You know, they take the picture and they're flapping it and then they see it and they're
00:37:42
like, oh, this doesn't look good at all.
00:37:45
You know, they were arguing about like, well, maybe you should position the people over
00:37:51
here because some of them are in the sun, some of them are not.
00:37:54
It's not going to look very good.
00:37:55
I'm just like, doesn't matter.
00:37:56
Just take the picture, you know.
00:37:57
And the Polaroid comes out and you're like, look, you can't even tell who's the sun is
00:38:01
not.
00:38:02
But I thought that was kind of interesting because, you know, I was reading this on the
00:38:05
plane on the way down there and then they've got the Polaroid camera.
00:38:08
And I recognize that like as they're waving, they're like, oh, look, you can see that thing
00:38:12
behind me behind me now.
00:38:14
And a little bit later, you can see additional details.
00:38:17
And I think that that's kind of a cool analogy for the creative process, whatever you happen
00:38:22
to be creating.
00:38:23
I think kind of Bookworm or even a podcast kind of falls into this category too.
00:38:28
If you were to go back to episode one and listen to it and interview Joe and Mike about
00:38:36
what is this thing going to be?
00:38:39
We probably would not have accurately described the place it is right now where we've got a
00:38:46
forum associated with it.
00:38:48
We've got a premium membership as people listening live.
00:38:51
Like there's no way we would have known those details when we started this thing.
00:38:55
And that's okay.
00:38:56
You don't need to know all those details when you're just starting.
00:38:58
You just got to know the next step.
00:39:00
We even had, and I know we'd had it completely wrong because we had a different intent for
00:39:05
it when we started too.
00:39:07
We were expecting people to listen in and then read along with us the whole time.
00:39:13
And that is far from what we hear.
00:39:16
Yeah, it turns out most of you just listen because you don't want to read the books.
00:39:20
Yeah, so we cover it for you.
00:39:24
We are the first one.
00:39:25
Which is fine.
00:39:26
Totally fine.
00:39:27
I don't want to knock that at all.
00:39:28
But I'm glad you called that out because it is a very good example of how like we thought
00:39:33
it was going to serve this role, somebody else recognizing, "No, actually, the benefit
00:39:38
I get from it is this."
00:39:39
Right.
00:39:40
Oh, okay.
00:39:41
We'll try to do more of that.
00:39:42
Right.
00:39:43
And that's exactly, I mean, if you go back and look at the way that things change, it's
00:39:46
totally a creative process like what Anlamad is talking about here because the way that
00:39:50
we built our outlines to begin with, like from the talking point section, like we originally
00:39:55
just put down the high points that we wanted to discuss.
00:39:58
Yep.
00:39:59
And it was kind of just like, let's discuss the book and what we got out of it.
00:40:03
Which we still do.
00:40:04
But if you notice, we changed our outline to follow the outline of the book and we discuss
00:40:10
each section of the book instead of just hitting the high points we want to cover.
00:40:14
Which is, by the way, why we will never cover a fiction book.
00:40:18
There is no value in us providing you a synopsis of the Lord of the Rings.
00:40:23
You already know the story.
00:40:24
The joy is in the journey if you're going to sit down and read all that, getting all
00:40:27
the details for the nonfiction books.
00:40:30
Yeah.
00:40:31
And you want to apply a couple things to your life.
00:40:33
So that's what Bookworm is.
00:40:35
So sorry to everybody who doesn't like that, but that's the nature of the beast.
00:40:41
On that note, sign up for membership.
00:40:43
So you don't have to read all the books and you can look at my Mind Node files instead.
00:40:48
And you can go through those.
00:40:49
See, then you don't even have to listen to it.
00:40:51
You can just read Mike's Mind Node file.
00:40:53
Yep.
00:40:54
And search them, Thoreau C.R.
00:40:58
2, the writing frame of mind.
00:41:01
Here are the chapters inside of this part.
00:41:05
Looking around the moral point of view, broccoli, radio station, KFKD, I'll let you associate
00:41:13
the word there.
00:41:14
And then jealousy.
00:41:16
And summarizing this basically is saying sometimes writing sucks.
00:41:24
Get over it.
00:41:25
Like that's...
00:41:26
Yep.
00:41:27
Pretty much what I got out of that one.
00:41:29
I will say the stories and the point of view are fascinating coming from her.
00:41:34
And I can definitely see a lot of the issues, like just historically when I've been writing,
00:41:38
even recently when I've been writing, seeing some of these things come up in my own mind.
00:41:44
Like I have definitely seen those.
00:41:46
So it was refreshing to see, oh, she deals with this too.
00:41:50
Like I'm okay.
00:41:51
I'm not by myself.
00:41:54
Yeah.
00:41:55
So a couple takeaways from this section.
00:41:58
And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my goodness, they are
00:42:02
like 45 minutes in and they're just through section one, these are going to go a lot faster.
00:42:06
Like I said, part one is half the book.
00:42:10
But there's a couple of things that stood out to me here.
00:42:14
The first one is the first chapter looking around page 97.
00:42:19
She says, "Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what's going on."
00:42:24
This is something I want to do a better job of.
00:42:28
And this is one of the things, actually the only thing that I wrote down as an action
00:42:32
item.
00:42:33
I think I mentioned it on this podcast before, but I was working with a speech coach who was
00:42:39
the runner up for the, was it the World Championship of a public speaking, the big Toastmasters
00:42:45
competition in like 2016.
00:42:49
And he was having me build out a story file, which I kind of walked away from for a while.
00:42:57
The idea behind the story file is that you capture all of these things into a journal
00:43:03
or some digital place, analog, I guess you could, you could do too.
00:43:07
But the idea is that you have this, these collections of stories with all of these bullet points,
00:43:11
all of these details.
00:43:12
And then whenever you need one of those stories, you can select it and you can tell either
00:43:17
like the long version, you can condense it, whatever, but like these are kind of always
00:43:20
in your back pocket, which is a really cool idea, especially for somebody who wants to
00:43:26
get into speaking because those stories, as we are recognizing from this book, those
00:43:30
are the things that really resonate with your listeners.
00:43:33
So unless you are talking to people who have heard it a million times before, that can
00:43:37
be really a tool that you can use to really build engagement with your audience, whether
00:43:42
it's a couple of people, a couple hundred people, a couple thousand people, whatever.
00:43:46
So learning to pay attention to communicate what's going on, that's directly tied for
00:43:51
me, I think, to this story file.
00:43:54
Because if I take the time to recognize what's going on around me and I capture these things
00:44:00
into my story file, and then I can always flush them out later, but just capturing these
00:44:03
things that are happening into that story file in the first place, that's the thing that
00:44:09
I want to take away from this.
00:44:11
Because I feel like there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens all the time that I'm
00:44:15
just so busy that I don't even recognize that it's happening, or I don't appreciate
00:44:19
that it's happening.
00:44:22
So this is really illustrated for me in this mission strip going down to Costa Rica because
00:44:27
culture is so different, people that are so different, there's a thousand different stories
00:44:33
that I could add to my story file from my time down there.
00:44:37
But if I don't intentionally put them in there, then they're just going to get lost.
00:44:41
And if you come and talk to me at max.doc and say, "Hey, tell me about your mission
00:44:44
ships at Costa Rica."
00:44:45
If I never documented those things, I might have that during the headlights look like,
00:44:49
"Oh, I'm trying to recreate the memories from scratch."
00:44:54
The story file makes it so you don't have to do that sort of thing.
00:44:57
And I feel like if you have that sort of thing, then it makes whatever you want, whenever
00:45:03
you sit down to write, you've got those as kind of like starters for whatever you would
00:45:07
write about.
00:45:09
That's a big idea from the first section.
00:45:11
We didn't spend a whole lot of time on, but like really when you write even for fiction,
00:45:14
you want to tell the truth.
00:45:16
You want to tell it in an interesting way, but you want to talk about the things that
00:45:18
are authentic.
00:45:20
And so if you talk about things that have happened to you, that's kind of an easy way
00:45:23
to do that.
00:45:24
Right.
00:45:25
Use your own experience and your own thoughts to get there.
00:45:27
Yep.
00:45:28
So yeah, the writing frame of mind, a big piece of it is pay attention to what's going on
00:45:32
around you.
00:45:34
And be okay with knowing that things are going to go bad sometimes.
00:45:40
If you fall into a rut, you don't know what to write, you feel like you're a terrible
00:45:44
writer, like you still got to write.
00:45:47
You still have to get it out.
00:45:49
That's kind of my takeaway.
00:45:50
The other thing that kind of smacked me in the face was the moral point of view.
00:45:55
So I just launched a product called faith-based productivity, right?
00:46:01
And I feel like I unintentionally kind of fell into this.
00:46:05
Okay.
00:46:07
What she says in here is a moral position is not a message.
00:46:13
And I feel like I do have a message with the product.
00:46:16
So don't get me wrong there.
00:46:18
But I also, this is a good reminder that like just because I have a unique take or unique
00:46:25
position and a unique perspective on this idea of faith-based productivity doesn't mean
00:46:31
that anybody else is going to care.
00:46:35
The rest of it still needs to be good.
00:46:38
So you don't inherit a platform because of your moral stance on something.
00:46:46
And I feel like maybe a lot of people from our religious perspective think that they
00:46:54
have some sort of moral high ground because of their religious belief system.
00:46:59
And that's not really the case.
00:47:01
We're all on the same level playing field and you got to earn the right for people to
00:47:06
listen to you.
00:47:07
Agreed.
00:47:08
All right.
00:47:09
Part three, help along the way.
00:47:12
I think you were kind of getting into this just now.
00:47:16
The chapters within this part, index cards, maybe one of my favorites, calling around
00:47:23
it, writing groups, someone to read your drafts, letters, writers block.
00:47:30
My sense is that this is the practical section, like the, I shouldn't say practical, the tactical
00:47:36
side of the book, you know, index cards, like what you were talking about, Mike, building
00:47:42
out, like writing down stories or writing out exchanges, dialogue, points that you want
00:47:47
to put into your writing, whether it's the writing you're working on right now or one
00:47:51
for the future.
00:47:53
So pay attention to what's going on around you and write things down.
00:47:58
That was my takeaway from that.
00:47:59
And actually this is where my action item is listed in the mine node file, but it really
00:48:05
started in that looking around section because before you can capture it, you need to notice
00:48:09
it.
00:48:10
Right.
00:48:11
For sure.
00:48:12
The next chapter in that section was my book just closed, calling around.
00:48:18
This one, it kind of struck me as a throwback to digital minimalism, to some degree.
00:48:23
But obviously she wrote this way before digital minimalism and Cal Newport had the idea for
00:48:29
it.
00:48:30
But the premise is talk to other people, ask people for advice whenever you have a technical
00:48:36
thing you're trying to figure out looking for expertise in a certain area, etc, etc.
00:48:41
Talk to other people about your idea and getting the details around it.
00:48:46
That was my sense of it.
00:48:47
And I think it makes perfect sense.
00:48:49
If you're supposed to be paying attention and looking around and writing things down
00:48:52
about the exchanges, it would make perfect sense to create those exchanges so that you
00:48:57
have something to write down.
00:49:00
Yeah.
00:49:02
When I was going through that section here, so basically everything except the first chapter
00:49:08
in the section index cards and the last section, writer's block, all kind of has to do with
00:49:15
getting help from other people, even the letters section, I think kind of evokes that, although
00:49:21
it doesn't assume that you have somebody on call who can help you out with stuff.
00:49:26
And I kind of thought that you could bundle all of this together under a chapter called
00:49:33
Masterminds.
00:49:34
Sure.
00:49:35
And I know Masterminds is not a super common idea.
00:49:42
I actually have a blog post on my site that I wrote because we were talking about it a
00:49:46
lot on the Focus podcast and people were like, "Well, how do I do this?"
00:49:52
And so I've been a part of one locally for a while and I kind of wrote up a process for
00:49:57
people to follow if they want something like that.
00:50:00
But I'll link to that in the show notes for this.
00:50:04
But the basic idea here is that you need someone, you need a group of people really
00:50:08
who are going to hold you accountable for what you're, you say you're going to do and who
00:50:13
are going to see your blind spots, who are going to see the things that you don't see,
00:50:18
who are going to tell you the truth but not be a jerk, or at least like you're not going
00:50:23
to receive it hurtfully because you've given them the platform to speak into your life.
00:50:30
And you obviously don't want to open yourself up like that to just anybody.
00:50:34
And so I think the way she presents it is fine.
00:50:39
Everything that she says here is true, but I feel like it's more complicated than it needs
00:50:43
to be when you're talking about, "Okay, who are the people?"
00:50:47
And I'm going to identify them who I can call around and get answers from.
00:50:52
Different group of people, who are the ones that I want to invite into my writing group
00:50:57
who are going to give me feedback, who are going to speak the truth but gently she puts
00:51:02
it, as how she puts it.
00:51:05
And then who is the person that I'm going to allow to read my drafts and give feedback
00:51:10
on what works, what doesn't.
00:51:11
Like those could all be the same people in a mastermind group.
00:51:15
If you get everybody in that group with the same perspective of we want to write and we
00:51:20
want to help each other produce better writing, then you can kind of check all of these boxes
00:51:25
at once I think.
00:51:26
Yeah.
00:51:27
Makes sense.
00:51:28
A couple of pieces here we didn't cover there.
00:51:32
The letters piece and writer's block.
00:51:35
Writer's block, she had an interesting point here.
00:51:37
Like block implies that you're stopped and you're not able to proceed forward.
00:51:43
And she argues that writer's block is actually writer's emptiness.
00:51:47
I don't think she coined that to it.
00:51:48
Yes.
00:51:49
I made it up.
00:51:50
But you're just empty.
00:51:51
You don't have something to write about.
00:51:52
Like you haven't had that spark.
00:51:55
Just calling your friends, starting to write the chapter before that, writing letters,
00:52:02
which is where my action item comes in.
00:52:05
I have for a long time wanted to write letters to my kids for the future.
00:52:10
And this is something that she talks about specifically in there.
00:52:13
And something about the way she posed it finally motivated me to the point where I actually
00:52:18
want to proceed with this.
00:52:20
So I did start doing this this morning.
00:52:22
So I'm planning to continue to write letters to my kids, which I think should be a fascinating
00:52:29
view into my own brain, I think.
00:52:31
Nice.
00:52:32
Maybe a slightly terrifying view into my own brain, but we'll see.
00:52:35
Yeah.
00:52:36
And again, the idea behind the letters section is that you're really stuck and you want to
00:52:41
look through, she calls it like a one inch frame.
00:52:44
So you don't want to try and get the whole picture.
00:52:46
You just want to focus on this one little detail.
00:52:48
And by writing a letter, you're able to kickstart that process.
00:52:51
And pretty soon you've got pages and pages of stuff that you can use for something else.
00:52:57
And the letter emerges kind of like a Polaroid picture, right?
00:53:01
But you could get the same thing from a mastermind group.
00:53:08
I think even the writer's block, like she says, don't think of it as a block.
00:53:12
Think of it as looking at a problem from the wrong angle.
00:53:15
So when you are stuck, when you need somebody to help you get going, that's really the end
00:53:22
result of what we're trying to get through in all of these different things as she's breaking
00:53:27
down this different section is like, when you are not moving, how do you get moving again?
00:53:31
I think that that idea is very key.
00:53:35
When you are stuck, when you have encountered a block, whatever it looks like, whether you
00:53:40
define it as writer's block or not, it is simply you are facing an obstacle or a problem and
00:53:45
you're looking at it from the wrong angle.
00:53:47
Well, if you have other people who can look at it from different angles, it's a lot easier
00:53:52
to say, oh, yeah, you're right.
00:53:54
Like that is the way that I should be looking at this.
00:53:56
And I should try that other thing when you're all you see is the thing in front of you then
00:54:00
though it can be really intimidating.
00:54:02
Yes.
00:54:04
For publication and other reasons to write, there are four chapters within this part.
00:54:13
The first one, writing a present.
00:54:14
So writing in order to give it to someone else.
00:54:17
That's kind of what the letters piece is.
00:54:20
Maybe the letters chapter doesn't necessarily refer to giving that to someone, but in this
00:54:25
section it is like you're writing something that could be then a gift to someone else.
00:54:30
The second one, finding your voice.
00:54:31
I'm going to come back to that one because I actually had an exception to take without
00:54:34
one giving, giving things to other people of time and efforts.
00:54:39
And then publication because everyone always asks her how to be publicized.
00:54:45
Like, how do I get this out in the world?
00:54:48
That's the main reason people want to write.
00:54:49
Like I really like having written, but I don't like writing like that concept.
00:54:54
Yeah, exactly.
00:54:55
So she does go through like, it's difficult.
00:54:58
It's not all it's cracked out to be, but it's really rewarding if you do it.
00:55:02
Like that was kind of the take.
00:55:03
So anyway, coming back to finding your voice, I felt like I was misled by that one, which
00:55:12
I think this was the first time I really felt this way when reading this particular book
00:55:16
because my sense from reading that chapter was she would give you some tips on how to
00:55:22
find your voice.
00:55:23
And maybe she did.
00:55:24
I just missed it.
00:55:25
But I rather got don't take someone else's voice.
00:55:29
Like that was kind of my overarching view of that particular chapter.
00:55:34
Like, come on.
00:55:35
Yes.
00:55:36
I was looking for you to like say, go do this, this, this and this and then it will help
00:55:39
you develop your voice.
00:55:42
Really what she's saying is just write a lot and don't steal other people's voice.
00:55:46
Like be real yourself.
00:55:47
Okay.
00:55:48
And I feel like the tactics that she does give you in terms of finding your own voice
00:55:54
are completely negative and pessimistic.
00:55:57
Like the things that I wrote down are shine light on the monster within and talk about
00:56:02
the cold things below the surface.
00:56:04
Like that's really what she's saying in this chapter other than don't copy this one lady.
00:56:09
I didn't look up that person, but she mentions an author specifically where whenever she
00:56:14
comes out with a new book, she hates it because she knows that two thirds of her class is
00:56:18
going to try to copy it.
00:56:20
And I get that.
00:56:22
I mean, all you have to do is walk through an airport bookstore and see all of the censored
00:56:27
book titles to see evidence of that.
00:56:30
You know, everybody's trying to copy Mark Manson because he's edgy and it doesn't work
00:56:36
for everybody else.
00:56:37
And I'd argue it doesn't even work for me anyways with Mark Manson.
00:56:40
So you'll probably never cover a Mark Manson book.
00:56:43
You can go ahead and vote for that one if you want, but I may use my veto power on that
00:56:47
one.
00:56:48
Um, anyways, like it's really, you don't feel great about about reading this, this chapter.
00:56:56
You feel, um, you feel kind of hopeless.
00:57:00
Like, okay, so I'm going to have to just talk about all the bad stuff that's going on in
00:57:04
my life or otherwise I'm probably copying somebody else.
00:57:08
And I don't think that's completely true.
00:57:10
I think that you can definitely talk in your own voice.
00:57:14
And yeah, you want to like, you want to share the difficult things, but it doesn't all have
00:57:21
to be the difficulties.
00:57:23
Like if everything is, is hopeless, I don't know.
00:57:27
I don't want to read that book.
00:57:29
Yeah.
00:57:30
Uh, even if everything is hopeless, which by the way, it's not.
00:57:34
So, uh, I don't know.
00:57:36
I mean, a lot of the books, if you look back at, I'm looking at my books shelf right now,
00:57:43
the ones that have sold like the 20 million copies, the, uh, the seven habits of highly
00:57:49
successful people, how, how to win friends and influence people.
00:57:52
Like they promise a solution to a problem that people have.
00:57:59
And it's successful because it resonates with people and they think, oh, I can do that.
00:58:05
So I think finding your voice from a nonfiction perspective anyways, and maybe this is one
00:58:12
of those things that just doesn't translate well from speaking to fiction writers to speaking
00:58:15
to nonfiction writers, but no one wants to hear about all your troubles unless you made
00:58:21
it through and you've got some takeaways for people.
00:58:24
Kind of, kind of my perspective.
00:58:26
Okay.
00:58:27
Not only is wrong, I just think there's, I came at this one kind of colored, I think
00:58:35
to some degree because I know that I have done a lot of reading, just general research
00:58:42
and such on some of the ways to find your writing voice.
00:58:48
Generally you hear people just say, write a lot and write short form and medium form
00:58:55
until you can figure out what your voice is and then go on to long form.
00:58:59
Like I've heard that.
00:59:01
And I was kind of curious as to what Anne Lamont's take on that was, but she's definitely a tried
00:59:08
and true artist and a creative and has, I don't want to say has to, but likes to color things
00:59:17
with a different perspective.
00:59:19
And she's very funny in that, but it's sometimes hard to translate into, now what do I do with
00:59:25
that?
00:59:26
Like, what does that actually mean?
00:59:28
Like, figure out your monster is great.
00:59:30
What do I do to do that?
00:59:35
That was some of my struggle.
00:59:37
But again, it's Anne Lamont and I think she's a great writer.
00:59:40
I just didn't know what to do with it.
00:59:42
Yeah, I guess, you know, my follow up to that would be, okay, so I've shown light on the
00:59:50
monsters within, how does that help me with the writing that I do?
00:59:54
Yeah.
00:59:56
I don't know.
00:59:58
It makes sense on one level, like you want to talk about the things that you've gone through
01:00:02
and how you've overcome them.
01:00:04
But it doesn't make sense for someone who does writing like I do to just completely
01:00:10
dwell on those things forever.
01:00:13
That's not the goal of the writing that I'm doing.
01:00:16
I'm not trying to evoke and emotion and get you to feel sorry for me.
01:00:22
I'm trying to help other people, which kind of gets into the giving section, you know?
01:00:27
But also, I agree, there's not a whole lot of specific details on how to do that.
01:00:33
So I'm kind of curious, like, have I found my writing voice?
01:00:39
I have no idea.
01:00:40
Maybe you could tell me having read some of my stuff.
01:00:43
Like, I don't think you have.
01:00:45
Okay.
01:00:46
That's just my perspective.
01:00:47
That could be, that could 100% be true.
01:00:52
So then the next question being the perfectionist that I am then, it's like, it's a good thing
01:00:58
I didn't know that or I never would have self-published my book and never would have
01:01:01
written anything, right?
01:01:03
Because I don't know what I'm doing.
01:01:04
I'm just faking it.
01:01:06
There we are.
01:01:07
But the truth is we're all faking it to some degree.
01:01:09
So I don't know.
01:01:12
Maybe it's not necessary that you find your voice before you start writing.
01:01:17
Maybe it's a process and as soon as you start, you find your voice, but you continue to refine
01:01:23
that voice over the years that you are writing and producing and creating.
01:01:29
Because I think not just like the writing of the book or the creation of a course, but
01:01:35
even podcasting like this.
01:01:38
How I talk about things on Bookworm in Episode 71 is very different than how I talked about
01:01:44
things in Episode 1.
01:01:47
So maybe that's part of the journey of finding my voice, but I agree that I have no idea what
01:01:53
the process is in order to do that.
01:01:56
I think you have to write a lot of short form articles and such before you can try out minor
01:02:04
points in voice and then you have to step into some medium and longer form and then
01:02:10
expand on it.
01:02:11
And you kind of have to do that a couple times I feel before you get to where you really
01:02:14
have it locked in.
01:02:16
There are exceptions to that rule.
01:02:18
Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, I mentioned earlier, she has a very specific voice in
01:02:25
her writing and she spends quite a bit of time on her articles for brain pickings, but
01:02:30
she's been doing that for a very long time.
01:02:35
And that's kind of how she's developed that.
01:02:37
I think if you want to do it quicker, you kind of have to float between short, medium,
01:02:41
long form writing and be very specific about trying to figure out how you want to write
01:02:47
and be true to yourself.
01:02:49
But I don't think that's going to just happen in the span of a couple months.
01:02:55
Writing every day, doing it for a couple months, you maybe have a hint of what your
01:02:59
voice is.
01:03:00
I think that takes quite a bit of time to really get it locked in.
01:03:05
Just my perspective.
01:03:06
I agree with that.
01:03:07
I also want to call out the under-courage people that if you don't think you found it
01:03:12
yet, don't let that keep you from starting.
01:03:14
No, if anything, let that be encouraged.
01:03:16
If I had known what I didn't know, maybe I wouldn't have done anything that I did.
01:03:24
But I don't know.
01:03:25
I think there's value in it.
01:03:26
I think there's...
01:03:27
I mean, I get messages from people all the time who really appreciate the fact that you
01:03:32
created this thing or wrote that thing or this podcast, you don't have to have it all
01:03:39
figured out.
01:03:40
You just have to teach what you do know.
01:03:43
And as you progress, you recognize that you weren't everything that you thought you were.
01:03:48
You don't know as much as you thought you did.
01:03:50
But that's not necessarily a bad thing either.
01:03:54
Just keep going forward.
01:03:56
Don't necessarily look back and judge the past.
01:03:58
Now, I feel kind of bad because I don't think we've called this out quite yet, but this
01:04:02
book is written as a print form of a creative writing class that Enlomat teaches.
01:04:11
Yes.
01:04:12
And I feel like we've kind of alluded to that a few times, but we haven't pointed it out
01:04:16
specifically.
01:04:17
So this book was written as a print form of her class.
01:04:23
And I say that because the last part here is called the last class and during the last
01:04:29
session of her teaching to her students, she feels like she's given quite a bit to them,
01:04:36
but she has just a couple more things she wants to point out.
01:04:40
And this is a pretty...
01:04:42
I mean, a lot of these chapters are pretty quick, but there's a piece in the second paragraph
01:04:46
right at the beginning of it in this chapter that I just want to read this real quick because
01:04:51
I feel like this is a culmination of so much that she has pointed out and rest the book.
01:04:56
All right.
01:04:57
There we go.
01:04:58
So becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.
01:05:01
When you're conscious and you're in writing from a place of insight and simplicity and
01:05:06
real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw on the lights for your reader.
01:05:11
And to me, that's really important because so much of what she's talked about is paying
01:05:18
attention to what's going on, being true to yourself, be authentic, show up and do the
01:05:23
work and share it with the world in some form or another.
01:05:27
But a lot of that comes back to being aware of what's happening and then figuring out
01:05:33
how to articulate that to other people.
01:05:36
So I did really appreciate this particular quote and was definitely one ahead highlighted
01:05:41
here.
01:05:42
Yeah.
01:05:43
Becoming conscious is just the note that I had, but yeah.
01:05:46
It's a powerful idea for sure.
01:05:48
I also want to, I would say, reframe maybe this last section.
01:05:53
I feel like this was restating a lot of the stuff that was in the book, but that's not
01:05:58
necessarily a bad thing.
01:06:00
And when you understand it as a class context, like you mentioned, then you understand, there's
01:06:08
a lot more value in doing it this way.
01:06:10
In a book form, it's kind of weird because you're reading a lot of the same things again.
01:06:15
But I could totally see this being valuable in a in person setting where you want to make
01:06:20
sure this is this really sticks before you never see these people again.
01:06:24
Right.
01:06:25
Right.
01:06:26
So some of this could be you and I go through books pretty quick.
01:06:31
Yep.
01:06:32
Sometimes I feel like we get to the last chapter and authors like to summarize because they
01:06:36
feel like it's taken them people a long time to get there.
01:06:40
I sometimes wonder about that.
01:06:42
Like we read this, like Michael Hyatt did it to some degree and summarizing at the end
01:06:46
of his book, but I read it in two days.
01:06:48
So that meant that I was reading the summary when I felt like I had just finished reading
01:06:53
the stuff.
01:06:54
Sure.
01:06:55
Wait, hold up.
01:06:57
I wonder if, you know, with books like this, you know, authors feel the need to summarize
01:07:03
as a way of closure.
01:07:04
Yeah.
01:07:05
But because we're going through it so quick, it doesn't feel like that was necessary.
01:07:08
I don't know.
01:07:09
That's speculation.
01:07:10
I haven't thought that through.
01:07:11
It could be.
01:07:12
You know, if you go through it a lot slower than we do, then there probably is value in
01:07:17
reviewing everything.
01:07:20
Also the way that I take notes kind of diminishes the value of saying these things again.
01:07:26
But again, that's just me being weird with my big mind known files.
01:07:31
Yeah.
01:07:32
So I don't know.
01:07:33
I think in a classroom context though, it makes perfect sense.
01:07:36
So that's kind of the way I viewed this last chapter and didn't hold it against her.
01:07:40
Yeah.
01:07:41
Fair enough.
01:07:41
There is a cool section in here about or an analogy.
01:07:47
She makes the point basically that you can either set a brick as a laborer or an artist.
01:07:53
And this is a really cool idea.
01:07:56
And it reminds me of this story that I know I heard in one of the other books that we've
01:08:00
covered.
01:08:01
I don't know if we've talked about it, but like one of my favorite stories, it's probably
01:08:05
not even like a true story, but it's kind of one of those ones that you to illustrate
01:08:09
a point is about the three brick layers.
01:08:11
Have you heard this one before?
01:08:14
I'm vaguely placing it, but I could not tell it to you right now.
01:08:18
Okay.
01:08:19
Well, that's basically what she's saying.
01:08:20
And the story goes something like there's these three guys who are all working on this
01:08:26
masonry wall.
01:08:27
And there's this tourist who walks up to the first guy and he says, what are you doing?
01:08:31
He's like, what does it look like I'm doing?
01:08:33
I'm laying bricks.
01:08:35
And then he walks up to the second guy and he's like, what are you doing?
01:08:38
And he's like, I'm building a wall.
01:08:40
He walks up to the third guy and he's like, what are you doing?
01:08:42
And he's like, I am building a great cathedral.
01:08:45
You know, and it's the perspective that they have towards the work that they're doing.
01:08:48
That's kind of the difference.
01:08:49
Whereas the first guy is just looking at the tacit that he's doing right now.
01:08:53
He doesn't have a very big vision.
01:08:55
He doesn't see how it fits into the larger picture.
01:08:58
And kind of the moral of the story is that because he can't see that, like there's no
01:09:01
meaning behind anything that he's doing.
01:09:04
The second guy who's building the wall, he understands a little bit of how this is tying
01:09:09
together, but still doesn't have the motivation behind the big picture.
01:09:13
This is what it's going to look like when we're done.
01:09:16
And the last guy who's building the cathedral, he's got the vision.
01:09:19
So he's able to bring everything that he has towards this thing because it really has meaning
01:09:24
to him.
01:09:25
And I feel like that's what she's getting at here when she says you can either set a
01:09:27
brick as a labor or as an artist.
01:09:29
If you're setting a brick as a labor, oh, I just got to crank out some words.
01:09:33
That's a lot different than I get to craft this story.
01:09:37
Does that make sense?
01:09:38
Yeah, absolutely.
01:09:39
It's all on your mindset.
01:09:41
Yep.
01:09:42
Yep.
01:09:43
And I feel like that is one of the most important things you can do is to cross that bridge
01:09:49
from viewing it as it's just a task to viewing it as this work has meaning.
01:09:57
Whether it is a part of your big life theme, vision for your life, whatever, or not, I
01:10:07
think that's kind of a thing that has to be there in order for this to stick.
01:10:13
If all you see is the task in front of you for a while, you can show up every day and
01:10:19
you can check the box and you can say, "Ooh, I wrote my thousand words this morning."
01:10:24
But after a while, that's not going to be enough to carry you through.
01:10:28
You're going to encounter that morning when you didn't sleep well and you just don't
01:10:33
have any energy and at that point you've got to dig a little bit deeper.
01:10:36
And if you don't have a reservoir to draw from of meaning behind the work that you're
01:10:40
doing, then it's going to-- that's the point where you're going to give up.
01:10:44
Right.
01:10:45
I think that's a good place to end this.
01:10:47
Unless you have more you want to cover.
01:10:49
No.
01:10:50
I will mention the title is interesting and that comes from a story that she tells way
01:10:57
back in the first section, which we should call out, I feel, because she had a brother
01:11:03
who was procrastinating on like a science project or something and it was due the next
01:11:07
day and he had to classify like all these different types of birds.
01:11:12
Right.
01:11:13
So he's got his head down on the table, totally dejected, can't figure out how he's going to
01:11:17
get all of this done by tomorrow and his father's advice to her brother was bird by
01:11:23
bird buddy.
01:11:24
Just take a bird by bird.
01:11:26
It's a good story.
01:11:28
It's even on the back of the book.
01:11:30
It's a good one.
01:11:31
Yeah.
01:11:32
Action items.
01:11:33
I have one.
01:11:35
You have one.
01:11:36
I might have two.
01:11:37
I don't know.
01:11:38
I'm going to write letters to my kids.
01:11:41
They might be long.
01:11:43
And I'm hoping to write more for all of you, but I'm not ready to release any of that yet.
01:11:49
I have been writing for it though.
01:11:51
Sweet.
01:11:52
That's that's where I land on action items.
01:11:54
I'm probably just going to put the letters on the club.
01:11:57
But is the Zettel castan helping with that?
01:12:00
Somewhat.
01:12:01
Yeah.
01:12:02
That's kind of an odd.
01:12:04
It's been kind of an odd timing of these things.
01:12:06
Like, yes, the Zettel castan for those who didn't catch it, how to take smart notes that
01:12:10
book.
01:12:12
So with the Zettel castan, that's been helping me develop the habit of writing every morning.
01:12:18
And then that has kind of grown into, I write in my Zettel castan, but then I turn and
01:12:22
write work and write on articles and potentially even an email newsletter as well.
01:12:28
So I've been working on those to some degree, but it's kind of grown out of that, yes.
01:12:33
Gotcha.
01:12:34
All right.
01:12:35
Is that it for your action items then?
01:12:36
Yeah, I bet it's for now.
01:12:38
Okay.
01:12:40
My action item is to build out my story file inside of day one specifically.
01:12:45
Day one is an absolutely incredible application, which I should call out.
01:12:50
The suite setup has an updated day one course, which I did the screencast for.
01:12:56
So if you want to learn how to use it, you should go check it out.
01:12:59
I saw you tweet about that too.
01:13:00
So thanks.
01:13:01
Yeah, not a day one user, but I know it's a good deal.
01:13:05
Yeah.
01:13:06
Day one's awesome.
01:13:07
I have been a premium subscriber for a while.
01:13:10
It's one of those subscription apps.
01:13:11
I think it's like 25 bucks a year.
01:13:14
And I just happily pay it, even though I was invited to the beta and I can get free access
01:13:18
to it, if I want to, I just continue to pay for it because I want to support the development
01:13:22
of it.
01:13:23
And it's just a phenomenal application.
01:13:25
Yeah.
01:13:26
So I've got a journal in there specifically for stories and I am going to start building
01:13:29
that stuff out more.
01:13:31
That's my action item from this one.
01:13:33
Sure.
01:13:34
Nice.
01:13:35
Uh, styling rating and Le Mans is very, very easy to read.
01:13:41
And this book is chock full of stories as you would expect.
01:13:46
And I really enjoyed going through this, Mike.
01:13:48
Uh, I know I had a couple of qualms here and there.
01:13:52
Her use of language isn't overwhelming to me.
01:13:56
I felt like Amanda Palmer was right on the limit for me.
01:13:59
I'm sure it was a bit much for you.
01:14:01
I'm pretty sure I won't put words in your mouth though.
01:14:05
So this isn't even close to Amanda Palmer.
01:14:07
That's fair.
01:14:08
That's fair.
01:14:09
Those two should hang out though.
01:14:11
I really enjoyed this and would recommend it.
01:14:12
If you have any hint of wanting to write or understand writing, uh, this one and Stephen
01:14:19
King's on writing book, like those two are awesome.
01:14:22
I would pick up this one first though.
01:14:25
That's, that's my take on it.
01:14:26
Uh, for a rating, it's kind of a different book than what we normally cover.
01:14:31
I feel like we kind of even alluded to like it.
01:14:34
We weren't real sure how to cover this.
01:14:36
I'm going to put it at a 4.5.
01:14:38
I don't think it's five territory, but four doesn't seem to do it justice.
01:14:45
Like this is a really well known book and, and does a phenomenal job of writing and has
01:14:50
thoroughly motivated me to get into some things I've wanted to do for a long time and has
01:14:54
given me some of the tools to do.
01:14:56
So that said, I'm going to put it at a 4.5.
01:15:00
Really enjoyed the book.
01:15:01
I recommend you read it.
01:15:03
All right.
01:15:04
Uh, I feel like I need to defend myself just briefly because, you know, I, I went to crafting
01:15:13
commerce, heard Mark Manson speak, they even had like a disclaimer before this talk.
01:15:18
Like if you're offended by this stuff, you should probably leave the room.
01:15:20
Like I stayed and listened to it.
01:15:22
It is fine.
01:15:23
I, it doesn't bother me.
01:15:25
I just feel like there are other ways to communicate what you want to say.
01:15:32
And I feel like with her stuff specifically, there was definitely other ways to say some
01:15:38
of the things that she wanted to say with Amanda Palmer, it just felt like to me anyways,
01:15:42
the vocabulary wasn't there to use other words.
01:15:45
Yeah.
01:15:46
Uh, that's probably totally unfair to Amanda Palmer.
01:15:48
I recognize that, but that's the impression that I got from growing through it.
01:15:52
Sort of the impression that I got going through this again, not nearly the same level, but
01:15:56
the whole section on like the, the voices in your head, like that's a great idea there.
01:16:02
But she's totally doing it for shock value.
01:16:04
And I don't know.
01:16:05
I feel like that, that detracts from what she is sharing there.
01:16:12
That being said, there's a lot of good stuff in this book.
01:16:14
Like you said, national bestseller.
01:16:16
I'm not even sure how many millions of copies this is.
01:16:19
This is sold.
01:16:20
I think there's a lot of great stuff in here.
01:16:22
I think there's more great stuff in here for fiction writers than there are for anybody
01:16:25
else who's not writing fiction.
01:16:27
Like I said, I felt like there's a lot of stuff that translated over to blogging, but there
01:16:31
wasn't a real clear connection there for me until we started talking through stuff.
01:16:36
So I'm kind of on the fence of where to rate this.
01:16:41
I'm like, I'm going to put it at 3.5 because I think there are some great ideas in here.
01:16:47
I don't think there was anything super revolutionary.
01:16:50
I mentioned at the beginning kind of half jokingly that you could summarize the entire
01:16:53
book and just show up and write.
01:16:56
I think that's kind of true.
01:17:00
And I also think that for someone who wants to write a fiction book, this is just absolutely
01:17:08
cool.
01:17:09
I feel like if you're going to apply this to anything else, you got to do some translation.
01:17:14
Some of it is easy.
01:17:15
Some of it not so much.
01:17:17
And yeah, so I'm rating it from that perspective, but I do definitely think it is a good book.
01:17:25
I did feel weird reading this out a filter sensor on the way to a missions trip from
01:17:33
my church.
01:17:34
I felt a little bit dirty getting off the plane.
01:17:37
But yeah, it's a good book.
01:17:41
All right, we can put it on the shelf then.
01:17:43
What's next, Mike?
01:17:44
Next is a gap book that I read and a bunch of you voted for called Make Time by Jake Knapp
01:17:50
and John Zorotsky.
01:17:52
This is the anti-freetive focus, so this will be interesting as a follow up to our conversation
01:17:58
from episode 70.
01:18:01
Lots of little tactics instead of just a big system.
01:18:04
Yeah, I don't know.
01:18:06
Part of it's kind of crazy.
01:18:07
We're over 70 books at this point.
01:18:11
That's kind of nuts to me.
01:18:13
Anyway, so after Make Time, one that I have never read, I've actually never even held
01:18:20
this in my hand.
01:18:22
And I'm kind, somewhat embarrassed, kind of proud of that at the same time.
01:18:26
The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.
01:18:29
This is up there on the votes.
01:18:32
I feel like we need to cover this, Mike.
01:18:34
I feel like it's one of those that we just must cover.
01:18:38
I have a love/hate relationship with Tim Ferris.
01:18:40
Me too.
01:18:41
So I'm not sure how this is going to go.
01:18:44
Sometimes I think he has some phenomenal things he does.
01:18:47
And sometimes I'm like, what are you thinking?
01:18:49
You just don't.
01:18:51
Anyway, I think it'll be a good book.
01:18:53
It'll be a good one to talk about for sure.
01:18:55
I feel like this one is going to have some pretty good rants in it.
01:18:58
So if you want the complete raw, uncensored, rant-worthy experience, you definitely want
01:19:04
to attend the live recording of this.
01:19:06
Oh, that's true.
01:19:07
Because I typically, when I edit them, I'm like, ah, I came across a little too strong
01:19:11
there.
01:19:12
You know, and I'll edit it pretty heavily.
01:19:15
That's definitely going to happen with this book.
01:19:17
Yep.
01:19:18
Yep.
01:19:19
I could see that.
01:19:20
Got a gap book this time?
01:19:21
I do.
01:19:22
My gap book is Lynchpin by Seth Godin, kind of inspired by your gap book.
01:19:28
Was it last time you had a gap book by Seth Godin?
01:19:32
I haven't read anything by Seth in quite a while, but he's a phenomenal writer.
01:19:36
And Lynchpin is a book that I actually got when I was at Anshar Leadership.
01:19:41
They gave books to everybody who attended for all of the people who spoke who had books.
01:19:45
So I ended up carrying home like eight books inside of my bag that I didn't have when I
01:19:49
got there.
01:19:50
Yeah.
01:19:51
This is one of those books.
01:19:52
And I hear from a lot of people, this is kind of a really good one.
01:19:55
So.
01:19:56
Yeah.
01:19:57
I'm in the process of starting one at the moment.
01:20:01
So I guess I'm getting ready to go on a trip as well.
01:20:05
My wife and I are going on a trip to North Carolina to celebrate our 10th anniversary.
01:20:10
And I needed to pick up a book.
01:20:11
We were talking about this right before we jumped on.
01:20:13
So I picked one up and I've wanted to read this one for a while.
01:20:16
I've had it in my hands for quite some time, but essential manners for men.
01:20:21
What to do when to do it and why this is by Peter post of the Emily post Institute.
01:20:26
And I picked this up at some random bookstore for $1.99.
01:20:35
I feel like I need to go through this because I'm not always the greatest with manners.
01:20:39
That's my sense.
01:20:40
Nice.
01:20:41
So reading it while I'm on vacation with my wife would probably be a little late, but
01:20:48
you know, you'll, what's that term?
01:20:52
Speed of implementation.
01:20:53
So you can be stuff and then applying it as as you go.
01:20:57
Yep.
01:20:58
Yep.
01:20:59
I'll read it that morning.
01:21:00
Apply it that night and call it good.
01:21:01
Cool.
01:21:02
There we go.
01:21:03
One note, by the way, regarding the gap books, because I was thinking about this the other
01:21:05
day, you've had like some fiction books in here and stuff like that.
01:21:08
And people always ask me like, what sort of fiction books do you like to read?
01:21:11
And I don't read fiction books.
01:21:12
Is there something wrong with me?
01:21:14
Yes.
01:21:15
And I kind of had this moment of clarity.
01:21:17
So this is my definition for this.
01:21:21
Okay.
01:21:22
And you can totally take this apart if you want to.
01:21:25
But I kind of view the nonfiction books going back to like the reason why we started a book
01:21:31
where we wanted to read more books and we wanted someone to hold it, hold us accountable
01:21:35
and apply the stuff that we learned.
01:21:37
Right?
01:21:38
And we thought that this was going to have a positive or we thought that anyways, that
01:21:40
this was going to have a positive impact in our lives.
01:21:43
So the nonfiction books, the types of books that we cover for bookworm, those are kind
01:21:47
of like the vegetables, right?
01:21:50
Whereas the fiction books, that's maybe not like dessert is the isn't, you know, maybe
01:21:57
that's taking it too far.
01:21:58
But that's like the less nutritious stuff.
01:22:01
It's the stuff that tastes good.
01:22:02
Okay.
01:22:03
Which is completely fine.
01:22:05
If you like eating that stuff every once in a while, go ahead and do it.
01:22:08
But I recognize that because I am weird, I have developed the taste for the vegetables
01:22:13
to the point where like I'm not even tempted by the raspberry cheesecake.
01:22:18
Does that make sense?
01:22:20
I think so, but you should read fiction.
01:22:24
Probably.
01:22:26
Anyways, I've been reading Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens lately.
01:22:30
It's very good.
01:22:31
All right.
01:22:32
All right.
01:22:33
If you want to recommend a book, you can do so at the club.
01:22:38
You can go to club.bookworm.fm and you can log in, go to the recommended book section,
01:22:45
make sure that you add the book that you want and then also vote for it because we look at
01:22:50
the number of votes when determining what books we're going to cover next.
01:22:55
And you can also find a list of all of the books that we have covered by going to bookworm.fm/list
01:23:01
as well as all of the books that are planned or upcoming.
01:23:05
Now there's a few ways you can get involved with the show now because Mike was gone and
01:23:09
I got over as Alice.
01:23:11
And the classics right now are Levis and iTunes review.
01:23:15
Join the club, club.bookworm.fm.
01:23:18
That's definitely where we hang out the most, I think.
01:23:21
Share your action items on the club.
01:23:22
That's something we've been doing lately of posting the action items on the club.
01:23:26
So you can ask us questions about them, follow up with them, etc.
01:23:29
What else here?
01:23:31
Club.bookworm.fm/membership.
01:23:35
We've mentioned a few times the live show.
01:23:37
There's some folks in the live section right now.
01:23:41
You can chat with us while we record.
01:23:43
You can hear the raw unedited.
01:23:47
We even do a little bit of a thing before we start recording as well.
01:23:50
So there's some behind the scenes things that happen there.
01:23:53
And I have a few other things I'm thinking about for the premium section.
01:23:57
So definitely support the show that way.
01:23:58
It's five bucks a month.
01:24:00
Super easy to get into.
01:24:02
Follow us on Instagram.
01:24:04
Check out the YouTube channel.
01:24:06
Follow us on Twitter because I have all kinds of cool stuff I'm having fun with.
01:24:12
Follow all the great things.
01:24:13
All the great things.
01:24:14
And come see us at MacStuck.
01:24:16
Yes.
01:24:17
And if you're reading along with us, then pick up Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zorotsky.
01:24:22
And we'll go through that one in a couple of weeks.