Bookworm Transcripts

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Really excited about today's book, Mike.

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Are you this one's been on the list for a long time.

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It has been.

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I feel like this episode is going to be one that we're going to look back on for a long time.

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Hopefully because it's good and not just because I have a bunch of variance.

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All right.

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Well, that teaser done before we get there.

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I do want to call out one thing before we jump into today's wonderful selection.

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I did record the first gap book episode and.

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Nice job on that, by the way, I listened to it.

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You like that?

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Yep.

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Did a good job.

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I don't think it's something that I could do very easily.

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So I'm not going to promise to do that, but you keep.

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It's very different to hop on a microphone and talk for 15 minutes and have

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structure to it that it needs, at least in this case.

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So yeah, it takes a little bit of planning.

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I think once I get the hang of it, it'll go a lot smoother, but yes.

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So anyway, the first gap book episode, it was one of Seth Godin's books that I did a

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blur bond, just a 15 minute thing for premium members.

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I have another one sketched out and ready to record on essential manners for men.

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And then I have the same setup for high performance habits.

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So those two books, I'm in the middle of getting recorded and released.

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Plan is to have those released sometime mid next week or early next week,

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right after we get back from Mackstock, which we're going to leave on for.

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So yes, gap book episodes for premium club members.

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These are all the gap books that I read.

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So I guess we don't talk about what gap books are.

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I tend to assume that people understand what these are.

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So I guess if you're new to bookworm, obviously, Mike and I read a book every two

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weeks and then we hop on a microphone and record it.

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The gap book episodes are the books we read in between those because we're over

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achievers and read books in between those sometimes, not always, but we do do that.

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Okay.

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Well, let me just share my perspective of how this went down.

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So we agreed to do bookworm, right?

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And we're agreed to read a book every two weeks.

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And then out of the blue, Joe's like, Hey, we should read another book in between.

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Yeah, totally.

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So hence, gap books were born.

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And most of the time we get through them, not always.

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Like you said, I do not have a gap book for this time because as you mentioned,

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we're heading to Mackstock and a bunch of things in the universe have

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conspired against me.

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So I don't have time to crank through another book.

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I'm not even going to pretend that I will.

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But yeah, Mackstock being the big one, I'm focused on that presentation.

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So sure, you know, it kind of stinks because we're promoting this thing that

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you're doing for the gap books.

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And right after that, I'm not able to follow through and do one.

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So sorry for that.

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Well, you're not the one recording them.

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So sure.

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It's totally fine.

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So yes, if you are a premium club member and you want even more books,

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all the great books,

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all the great books, I'm doing some more episodes for you.

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So those go there.

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And I will say that going forward, I'm looking at recommendations and votes

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on the club for those.

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So if you have one you want covered, but you don't feel like it quite fits

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the bookworm format, still go ahead and recommend it because I may still

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grab it for a gap book.

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So occasionally our gap books do become full fledged bookworm books.

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Like, yeah, that does happen.

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Make time.

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That was one that I read as a gap book.

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And then eventually it was like, we just got to talk about this one.

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So right.

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If you want to be sneaky and get something on our radar, you could

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recommend it as a gap book first.

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And with the hope that eventually it will gain enough steam.

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Yeah.

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That's true.

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That's true.

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Maybe that's what all these authors sending us requests should do.

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Yeah.

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Give us your clan of the cave bear as a gap book instead of a totally

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normal bookworm book.

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Yeah.

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I reserve the right to delete those posts.

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All right.

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Action item follow up, Mike.

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All right.

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So I've got a couple of them here and I mentioned when recorded the last

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episode that some of these I had already done.

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So I kind of cheated, but I've got blackout curtains in my room, which has

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been amazing.

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I combine that with the weighted blanket and it's kind of like

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instant sleep as soon as I get into bed.

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I also have condensed my home screen.

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I will put a screenshot of my home screen in the show notes this time.

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It is not as pretty as Joe's.

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I don't have North Carolina mountains in the background.

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Love those pictures.

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But I do have just four apps on my home screen, which there's a new one here.

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So I've got the Bible app, the Echo prayer app.

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I've got shortcuts and then I've got calm.

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So we're dabbling in this world again.

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All right.

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Maybe, you know, interestingly, I've been under a lot of stress lately.

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So maybe that's related.

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I don't know.

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And then in the, the doc, I've got kind of the creation stuff, which is the

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mind node, day one and drafts.

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So it's not just a single icon like yours, but it is stuff that I all

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considered like net wins.

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If I go to my iPhone and I use these specific apps, everything else that

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isn't a net win is on the other pages.

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And I do have to go through and clean some of that stuff up.

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It's a little bit messy because I've been trying a lot of new stuff lately for

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stuff that I've been writing about over at the sweet setup.

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So yeah, got a got a little ways to go yet, but the home screen at least is, is

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looking good.

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So I download the 10% app.

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Yeah, I did.

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You like it?

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I don't know why I'm doing this again.

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Just what's the is 10% happier?

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Is that the book on meditation that we're supposed to read at some point?

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Dan Harris, that was a get book also for me.

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All right.

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One of these days, I'm going to pick it for book.

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Today is not that.

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All right.

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We'll get there.

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So I have a few action.

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I am here as well.

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I have completed all of these, I believe.

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I'm in the middle of a bullet journal experiment.

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At some point, I will write about that in more detail on my blog since I'm writing

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again and publishing things again, JoeBielick.com promotion end.

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So I am working on the bullet journal, doing some experimenting there at some

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point, I'll have an article about how that's going, but it's probably going to be

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a little while because I want to, you know, do that experiment well and not just

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haphazardly.

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That's one to a blank dot my home screen.

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And I'll share a screenshot of that on the club as well.

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Definitely love the picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

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Love in that.

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I converted my phone to a distraction free iPhone.

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There's some details about how to do that in the book.

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I'll try to detail out what I've done on the club as well, but I have completed

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that as well.

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I have shifted over to doing email once a day at the end of the day, though,

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after reading today's book, I'm not sure it's going to stick to once a day.

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It may go longer than that because I can do that.

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I'm in a place where I can potentially get to that level.

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So I am on the once a day email train right now.

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And the last one is waiting in the morning to get into coffee.

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I'm usually up at somewhere between 53545, lately.

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I don't set an alarm.

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Whenever I wake up, I don't do coffee and breakfast right away anymore.

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I still have a small snack, but it doesn't qualify as a full breakfast.

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So I'm slowly losing my hobbit tendencies of first and second breakfasts.

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But I do mid morning snacks and lunch and afternoon snacks and dinner.

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So maybe I'm still there.

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I don't know.

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Still close to five meals.

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So we'll see.

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So anyway, I think I've completed all of those.

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So I think I'm in good shape this time around, Mike.

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I just realized I forgot to mention one of them, which I also have finished.

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And that is adding a highlight section to my daily planning template, which I will

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show you when I see you at max stock.

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I redesigned it using Omni-Graphill, which was definitely the right decision.

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Sure.

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Omni-Graphill makes it very easy to lay stuff out, unlike Illustrator.

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And yeah, very easy to export it as a PDF.

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And I feel like I can go back and tweak it a lot easier now.

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Sure. So I'm going to be looking at what are the types of templates that I might

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want to be making and tweaking with this.

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But I like the highlight section.

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I like being able to just pick one thing.

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I feel like that brings a lot of clarity and momentum when it comes to actually

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engaging with the work that I'm trying to do in a given day.

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So great, right.

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I do that in my bullet journal.

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I'd star the one thing that needs to be done that day.

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Yep.

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The high concept, right?

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Yep.

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That's the thing, like you can implement this a lot of different ways, but it's

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basically the same idea.

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Right.

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Pick one thing and work on it.

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Don't get distracted by all the other stuff that you could be doing.

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Definitely adopt the principle for sure, which brings us to today's book, which I

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have had on my list for a very long time.

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Like I've been a little nervous to read it and have wanted to read it for quite

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some time, but the four hour work week by Tim Ferris, escape the nine to five,

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live anywhere and join the new rich.

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We'll unpack that as we get into this, but I have had kind of a love hate

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relationship with Tim Ferris over the last several years.

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And one thing I noticed right away when I finished reading this is that it seems

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like a lot of what Tim Ferris does today makes a lot more sense.

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And I dislike him less after having read this, which is kind of weird.

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I still for glowing endorsement.

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I know, right?

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I don't like some of his stuff, like the principles, but I understand them.

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And I don't have like a what do I, how does that go?

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Like I don't have an unknowing observation of how he's doing things now.

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So I understand it a little bit more, which means I can appreciate his intent at least.

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So no idea.

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Well, I have ideas on whether or not I'm going to adopt his stuff or not.

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We'll get there.

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Anyway, the four hour work week with Tim Ferris, I'm very fascinated to see your

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thoughts or hear your thoughts on this.

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And I think it'll be a fun conversation.

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Yeah.

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Well, let me just give you a little bit of a general observation as I read through this.

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I found myself multiple times being like, dang it.

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I want to fight with him, but he's right.

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Yeah, that's true.

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He, uh, he reminds me a lot while reading this book specifically, but I think I know

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enough about Tim Ferris.

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I've read enough of his other stuff.

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I've got both of his, um, the big ones that he wrote, the tools, the titans and the

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tribamentals on my bookshelf haven't gone through everything.

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But he reminds me, especially this book, though, a lot of a guy that I knew in college,

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who always seemed to have all of the answers.

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And he'd come up and tell you these crazy ideas and all of these stories behind

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like why as a business owner, for example, you don't have to.

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You don't have to pay your taxes.

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And in the back of your head, you're just like, yes, you do.

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Like you can't do it that way.

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But he always had a slick sounding response for any argument that you would

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throw against him.

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Like he knew enough to be dangerous, basically.

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And in the back of my head, I was always like, I don't think it quite works that way,

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but I don't know enough to argue with you.

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And that's kind of what I felt like creating through this book.

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Because Tim Ferris is basically saying, and it's not as simple as just like work

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four hours a week and have fun the rest of the time.

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Like it's, it's more than that.

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The title is definitely a clickbaity title, but there's a lot more to it than

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just decreasing number of hours that you're, you're working.

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Right.

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But kind of the picture that he paints in the back of your, back of your head,

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you're kind of like, well, that doesn't sound quite right.

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But everything that you're saying makes sense.

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So I don't know how to argue with you.

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And I do have some specific things that I think kind of encapsulate this.

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I want to get into the content of the book first, though, because I feel like

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that'll come up as we go and then kind of encapsulate it at the, at the end.

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I think I did finally though, land on the thing that made me understand his

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perspective and why my perspective doesn't really jive with his, like how

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our approaches are different.

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Sure.

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But I don't want to get there quite yet.

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That's okay.

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I think I have a fatal flaw with the whole thing.

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So I'll hold on to that one.

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So, but I do have a lot in this that I really, really like.

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So this is, this is going to be a tough one to rate, I think, because there's a

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lot in here I love.

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And there's some pieces of it.

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I'm like, I kind of hate that and think you're way off base.

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So this will be interesting for sure.

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So anyway, it kicks off first and foremost in that section and he has, is it five

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sections total here, Mike?

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Well, I basically there's four steps to the thing that he out.

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Right.

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Right.

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They, he's got an acronym deal D for definition, E for elimination, A for

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automation, L for liberation.

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And we'll get into each one of those.

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But yeah, first and foremost, it kind of shares a little bit of his story and

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some key concepts that kind of reappear throughout the remaining 400 pages in this

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book.

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Right.

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At least in my expanded and updated edition.

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Right.

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Right.

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Uh, so the first section out of the five is like the precursor to those four

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steps, uh, titled first and foremost.

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And basically it's going through some of his history, like how he came to,

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the principles that he's going to share, um, debunking some questions, like, do

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you need to be an Ivy league graduate?

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Nope.

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So just some of that he goes through why you should be reading the book or why

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you should be heading down this path.

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So I can't say there's a whole lot there to go through, though.

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He does define a couple points in this.

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I think it's in this section where he defines the new rich.

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And, um, I'm drawing a blank.

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What was the other actor lifestyle?

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This L D lifestyle design.

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I don't know why I can think of that.

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So he's defining the new rich and what they, what they do for life, like who are

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they, how do they operate?

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And that's what he'll get into in some more detail on the definition, uh, piece.

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But then he goes into this lifestyle design piece, which is deciding what you

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want your life to look like ahead of time and then shooting for that.

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And the core intent, I think behind the whole thing is to reject the idea of saving

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money and time and effort for retirement, doing all of it for that one period when

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we're, quote, unquote, done working, huh?

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Quote, unquote.

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And whenever he comes at it, he rejects that fact of how we come at things and

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wants you to adopt like a bunch of smaller, like these many retirements when

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you're still in your prime years.

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If you follow me there.

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Yeah.

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And I think there's nothing wrong with that idea.

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I actually listened to an audio book that was recommended to me recently by a friend

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of the show and it is Life and Air by what's the guy's name?

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Steve Cook and Sean McCloskey.

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And this is kind of a Patrick Lencioni style fable with the general principle

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being to challenge the traditional ways that people live their lives with the

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goal of getting enough money so someday they can retire and have the type of life

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that they want.

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So both the people who wrote Life and Air and Tim Ferriss with the For Our Work

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Week are basically saying, why can't you live the type of life that you want now?

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He says in this first section of For Our Work Week, Tim Ferriss says, people don't

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want to be millionaires.

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They want to have experiences.

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They believe only millionaires can buy, which that part I agree with.

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And then you want to apply the principle of lifestyle design.

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That's the ability to design the life that you want and to live using time and mobility.

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That's maybe the first place that I kind of differ from a lot of the stuff he's

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talking about because he's talking about going all these different countries,

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living all these different places, traveling, living life.

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And I'm just like, I'm good in Appleton, Wisconsin.

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But that's a minor point.

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You know, that's you can pick that, but everybody's got their own goals.

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But right right there, like we're not seeing eye to eye.

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And then, yeah, the new rich he talks about those are the people who abandon the

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deferred life plan and create luxury lifestyle using time and mobility, which

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is the currency of the new rich.

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But right at the beginning, the very first thing he says in this book, he tells the

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story about how he responds when people ask him, what do you do?

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And he says, I'm a drug dealer because that just ends the conversation.

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Right.

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Right.

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And right when you read that, you're like, man, you're kind of a jerk.

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Like, you really just don't give a rip.

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You're you want what you want and you don't care who gets in your way.

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And that's probably not completely fair, but that's definitely the tone that I

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got going through the rest of this book is like he's very good at getting what

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he wants out of life.

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Unfortunately, what he wants is what he wants and you better not be the type of

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person who's going to try to get in his way.

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Yeah, I could see that.

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And I also like, I get the, you're a jerk for having said that.

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But at the same time, I kind of chuckled when I read it, knowing that he was selling

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sports supplements, like, well, he does deal drugs, just not that kind of

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driving.

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Yeah.

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I definitely had to laugh whenever I read it.

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But at the same time, it really depends on how he delivers that, I think.

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And I'm guessing it was not super well.

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Well, kind of the point that he, the reason he does it is because he wants to get

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out of that conversation.

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He wants it to end.

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He doesn't want to make small talk.

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It's like kind of the view I get, he doesn't say this explicitly is like that

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chitchat is a waste of his time.

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It's getting in the way of him living his millionaire lifestyle without the millions.

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You know, and the rest of the book, he's talking about how you can get there.

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And some of the stuff I really agree with, some of the stuff I've heard before, some

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of the stuff, I'm like, there is no way I would do that.

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Even if you are right, even if that is the quickest way to get a product out the

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door, like if it's just something that you're using to make some money, like, I don't

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really want to be involved in that business.

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I want to be able to sink my teeth and believe in what I'm doing, not just use it

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as a means to an end.

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You know, so that, that part is definitely missing.

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We're going to get into that probably in the next book.

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Right.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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I, I will say, and I want to just kind of jump into the first step of this whole process.

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The D is for definition, because I think it'll help a little bit with some of this

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to define the new rich side of it a little bit more, which he does spell out

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quite a bit in the first step here.

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And he has a series of like what some people, like the general population

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things versus how the new rich think.

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And it has a lot to do with earning money in a way that is either fully

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automated or, you know, it supports a lifestyle that you want, but it,

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it doesn't require a lot of your energy and you're getting other people to work

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for you in ways that are extremely cost effective.

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So it ends up being more about developing a life of experiences as opposed to trying

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to buy things.

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That seems to be a lot of what he's after.

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So the new rich are not necessarily rich in dollars, though dollars, of course,

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fund the lifestyle, but doing a lifestyle that allows you to develop those experiences

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with minimal dollars involved.

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Is that a fair assessment of that, Mike?

00:21:44

Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment of like the general overview type stuff.

00:21:48

The first step specifically were D is for definition.

00:21:51

It's really about defining what exactly you want before you start manipulating

00:21:58

people to get it.

00:21:59

Well, we know how you feel about it for sure.

00:22:03

Well, again, like that it's not super explicit, but that's kind of the tone

00:22:11

throughout this, like just jumping ahead a little bit.

00:22:14

There's two different tracks that you could read this and we'll get into this in a

00:22:19

little bit, basically the four different sections, the deal.

00:22:21

There's different ways to apply that, whether you are a business owner or an employee.

00:22:27

And he basically lays out like a step-by-step plan for, I'm going to say manipulating again,

00:22:32

but I mean, I kind of get it if you're in that position, you really want to work remote

00:22:37

and your boss just doesn't get it.

00:22:38

Like you may want to follow his step-by-step plan to get what you want, but I don't know.

00:22:43

I feel like there's got to be more ethical ways to do it.

00:22:46

Anyways, like let's get into the definition piece here.

00:22:52

Because this is actually there's actually some really cool ideas in here.

00:22:55

Yeah, there.

00:22:56

So the first one is this idea of fear setting.

00:23:00

Now I was familiar with this already and I'm going to send to you in the chat here.

00:23:08

A link to guess what a TED talk.

00:23:11

Then the Tim Ferriss gave on fear setting.

00:23:15

And this process, I think is, is, is really cool.

00:23:19

Now, if you watch this, you might have the same reaction I did and feel like, you know,

00:23:25

Tim Ferriss doesn't feel like he's at the same level of the other TED speakers, which again,

00:23:30

maybe is fine.

00:23:32

You know, maybe that maybe it's just he's figured out a way to manipulate a system

00:23:35

to get that goal that he wants.

00:23:37

He talks about becoming a Chinese kickboxing champion in the first couple chapters here.

00:23:42

And then later on, he explains how he exploited a couple of rules in order to make that happen.

00:23:46

You know, so I don't know that the just because you did something doesn't mean that you did it

00:23:51

the right way or that it I would feel fulfilled by doing it that way.

00:23:55

But anyways, the fear setting video outlines his his process and he shows like the different

00:24:02

templates that he uses for this sort of thing.

00:24:04

The basic idea here, though, is to define your worst case scenario.

00:24:09

Define your nightmare.

00:24:11

What is the absolute worst thing that could happen if you did what you are considering doing?

00:24:16

And it's the big takeaway from this is that often it's not

00:24:21

the fear of the negative outcome that keeps us from taking action.

00:24:25

It's the fear of the unknown.

00:24:26

And as soon as we put a label on it and say, this is the absolute worst thing that can happen.

00:24:31

And if that did happen, what could I do to recover from that?

00:24:34

Oh, I guess it's really not that big a deal.

00:24:35

I got to find a new job.

00:24:36

I got to move no big deal.

00:24:38

I can I can do that.

00:24:39

You know, that's kind of the outcome when you apply this fear setting process to whatever it is

00:24:44

that you think you're you're considering doing.

00:24:46

And then that gets you to stop putting it off and to start taking action on it because it does have a very real cost financially,

00:24:55

emotionally, physically by postponing it.

00:24:58

And so as you work through worst and best case scenarios and what's what actually might happen when you do this,

00:25:04

you know, eventually get to the point where you're like, yeah, why am I dragging my feet?

00:25:07

I'm just going to do this thing.

00:25:08

Right.

00:25:09

I think one of the pieces of this that was the most interesting to me is whenever he gave

00:25:15

the examples from his own business where if he doesn't reply to emails or he doesn't answer phone calls for a month,

00:25:24

what's the worst thing that could happen?

00:25:26

Like, well, the business could go under, which means he has to find new income.

00:25:32

He may lose some core clients.

00:25:35

Well, he could potentially get them back, but he may have to find new clients, which is not insurmountable.

00:25:41

And he just he kind of ran through these different scenarios of if the worst case scenario happens, what would be the response?

00:25:49

And for some reason, if you spell out that worst case scenario, it seems like it's very easy to then put together like some action plans,

00:25:59

even just mentally of what you would do in those scenarios, knowing that this is worst case.

00:26:06

So it's not likely like this is not a thing that's going to happen in most scenarios.

00:26:12

So that means in the vast majority of cases, you're going to be fine.

00:26:18

It doesn't.

00:26:19

It shouldn't be that big a deal.

00:26:21

And yet we make it a big deal a lot of times.

00:26:23

So I think that's a lot of what he's trying to do.

00:26:25

I found that very valuable.

00:26:26

I haven't done this per se.

00:26:29

I don't really have an action item around it, but it is a principle, I think, that I'll end up adopting it.

00:26:34

Different points in the future of when I want to go do something or there's something big or something large, I want to try pulling this out and using that could be extremely valuable.

00:26:45

So I could see that for sure.

00:26:46

Yep, I agree.

00:26:48

We should probably also back up just for a second because one of the chapters that happens even before fear setting is chapter two rules that change the rules.

00:26:57

This is really the chapter where he.

00:27:01

He challenges every norm that we have for how work is supposed to go.

00:27:10

And this is also where he shares the story of how he won the Chinese kickboxing national championship.

00:27:16

But since I referenced that earlier, I should call out right here the two things that he exploited in order to do that.

00:27:24

OK, so he knew that weigh ins happened the day before.

00:27:29

And he was able to through dehydration and hydrating again, he lost 28 pounds in 18 hours and then he hydrated back.

00:27:39

So he went from 193 pounds down to 165 for the weigh in and then back up to 193 for when he actually fought.

00:27:49

And then the other rule was that if a combatant fell off the platform three times, their opponent won by default.

00:27:54

So in his words, he just pushed them off a bunch of times because he's so much bigger.

00:27:59

Right. So yes, you did win the Chinese kickboxing national championship because of that.

00:28:05

And I don't know any specifics.

00:28:08

But if you look at all the other books that he's written and all the other people that he's interviewed, like you can't argue with his results.

00:28:16

But in the back of my head, something just doesn't feel right.

00:28:19

And it's like, I'm not sure I would want it if I had to get it that way.

00:28:26

Again, he's way more successful than I am.

00:28:29

So I don't know.

00:28:32

Maybe there's a little bit of justification in that.

00:28:37

I don't know.

00:28:38

I'm trying to just call that out because I feel like if I don't, it's easy to dismiss me as like a cranky old guy, you know, justifying not trying for something big.

00:28:53

I mean, that's really the next big idea he talks about here is like there's less competition for for big goals than there are for realistic goals.

00:29:05

He says it's easier to raise a million dollars than a hundred thousand dollars because there's fierce competition for people who are trying to raise a hundred thousand dollars.

00:29:15

And that kind of gets into the whole next section on Dreamlining, which is kind of the opposite of fear setting.

00:29:21

So well, before you get there, like one of the things that I because I understand some of the qualms that someone may have with his championship and kickboxing.

00:29:33

Like I get it.

00:29:35

I understand why people would be upset about that.

00:29:38

But I tend to be one that if you have a loophole in the rules or in your business practices, you shouldn't be upset if people go through those loopholes.

00:29:50

Like I I I'm fine with it.

00:29:53

I guess like I'm cool with that.

00:29:56

I have a tendency to like if someone has loopholes in the way that they have their business run, like if you have it to where I can purchase something and use it fully and return it in two weeks, like I would have a tendency to buy it, use it for a trip and then return it because I don't need it anymore.

00:30:16

Like I I don't have a problem doing that.

00:30:17

I don't know why.

00:30:19

Maybe I should.

00:30:20

Maybe I should have a conscience in that scenario, but I don't have an issue doing that.

00:30:23

So whenever he's talking about exploiting rules, I don't I have a hard time exploiting saying it's exploitation just because he's following the rules.

00:30:34

It's just the way that they have it set up.

00:30:36

So maybe they should change the rule book.

00:30:38

Like that's my that's just me being crazy.

00:30:41

But that's my perspective on it.

00:30:43

I think that's a fair perspective, but I also think it's completely fair to say I don't want to associate with people who are constantly looking for what they can get away with or where the loopholes are.

00:30:58

Sure.

00:30:58

That just feels scummy to me.

00:31:02

You know, I agree if the rules are a certain way and everybody's aware that these are the rules that we're applying by then engaging by those rules.

00:31:12

That's completely fair.

00:31:14

But setting aside the Chinese kickboxing thing, because I feel like with that, I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that right after he won that they were pretty ticked and they changed the rule because that was never the spirit of the rule.

00:31:28

That was the technicality of the rule.

00:31:30

So he actually did spell it out.

00:31:32

Maybe it's just me and the expanded version.

00:31:34

Did you have the expanded version?

00:31:36

I did.

00:31:36

So maybe I just missed that part.

00:31:38

Yeah, he did say that his methods became the norm.

00:31:42

So it changed the way that people participated in the sport and it actually has become better as a result of that.

00:31:50

Sure.

00:31:51

Well, depends what you define as better, I guess, but that could be that could be more popular.

00:31:55

Yeah.

00:31:56

I think is what I mean.

00:31:56

So I think I think maybe you're right there, but going back to like the person that I knew in college, for example, one of the things I remember and I don't remember any specifics.

00:32:04

So I'm going to totally mess up this story.

00:32:06

But I remember one of the things that he was trying to convince me was that you didn't have to pay taxes and that you could own your own land and as long as you were able to live off of that land and you didn't need to rely on any of the government systems like that was nothing the government could do.

00:32:21

Right.

00:32:21

So he was doing all this crazy stuff and I would say not even borderline, but illegal stuff.

00:32:28

And I haven't heard from him in a long time.

00:32:31

I'm sure he got in trouble for it because he was trying to bend those rules.

00:32:35

And sometimes rules that look like they can't be bent.

00:32:38

Maybe you find out the hard way that you weren't supposed to that one.

00:32:42

Right.

00:32:42

You know, you have to recognize that there's a potential that this is going to come back and invite you because we do exist in a society that abides by a certain set of rules.

00:32:54

And if I feel like it's dangerous to constantly be looking for what you can get away with.

00:33:01

And specifically as it comes to business, I feel like business ethics is kind of a gray area.

00:33:12

There's a lot of people who are motivated because they want to make as much money as possible.

00:33:18

And I think it's fair to say that that is Tim's goal with his businesses as well.

00:33:23

Maybe not his life goal, but with his businesses.

00:33:26

He wants to make as much money as he can work as little as he can.

00:33:29

And that can cause you to make some decisions.

00:33:33

If that's the lens that you're looking at things through that I don't consider ethical and maybe they're legal, maybe they're not legal, even according to not my Judeo Christian belief system, but just like the rules of society.

00:33:47

And I don't know that feels to me like that's not an approach I want to take.

00:33:55

No matter how successful it may make me.

00:33:58

I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the person that I wronged.

00:34:03

I don't want to have to be constantly worried about all these Chinese people who are ticked off that have ruined their sport forever.

00:34:11

Or to get me as a totally ridiculous example.

00:34:16

But if you think about that in a business perspective, you can burn a bunch of bridges and that will come back to bite you because your industry is only so big, whatever it happens to be.

00:34:25

Like you can't treat people that way.

00:34:28

And kind of the tone and maybe this is just me reading between the lines is like, well, it's OK.

00:34:37

People will get over it and this is legal.

00:34:39

So just do it because the thing that really matters is that you're able to live the millionaire lifestyle, even if you don't have the millions of dollars.

00:34:46

You don't want to put it off till someday.

00:34:48

Like you should be able to do this now.

00:34:50

It's kind of your right, you know.

00:34:52

And I don't know. I think there are other things that are more important and are more worth fighting for than a millionaire lifestyle.

00:35:00

But that's just me.

00:35:03

That's fair. It's very fair.

00:35:05

I think.

00:35:07

Well, let's go on to dreamlining.

00:35:10

I have lots of thoughts, some of which are not helpful.

00:35:13

I think that was one of the dreamlining.

00:35:16

I think this is a really cool concept and it's one that I want to do and likely to do at some point.

00:35:26

I don't think I'm going to use his model for it because of this fatal flaw that I think I've found in some, some of the system, not all of it in some of it.

00:35:36

And essentially what this process looks like is you spell out what are some of the things you would like to have.

00:35:47

So material things.

00:35:49

What are some things you would like to be like fluent in Greek or an excellent cook?

00:35:55

What are some things you would like to be doing visiting the Mediterranean or

00:36:02

Oh, learning tango.

00:36:06

Like what are some things you want to be doing?

00:36:08

And then you go through a process of figuring out how much it would cost in the cheapest way possible

00:36:16

to do all of that.

00:36:17

And he has a formula you go through that then tells you how much your monthly income should be in order to finance that dream.

00:36:27

So if I break all this down, essentially what it means is figure out the lifestyle you want.

00:36:34

Welcome back to lifestyle design.

00:36:36

You figure out the lifestyle you want, figure out how much it costs and then determine how to like how much you would have to spend per month to get there.

00:36:46

Did I do that, Justice Mike?

00:36:48

Yeah, I think that's a good overview of it.

00:36:50

He's got a bunch of different steps to it, but that's the basic idea.

00:36:54

What are the things that you want to have be and do six months from now, 12 months from now, whatever.

00:36:59

And really the key question that stands out to me from this whole process that he has is what would you do if there was no way that you could fail?

00:37:05

I really like that.

00:37:06

I feel like that's I think that's the first time I've heard that either.

00:37:11

I don't remember where else I've heard that.

00:37:12

But I've definitely applied that concept even inside of faith-based productivity because I feel like a lot of times we do think too small.

00:37:21

And we aren't, we don't really know what we're capable of until we try.

00:37:30

So if it takes the process of dreamlining to get excited enough to try something big, then that's a worthwhile process.

00:37:40

Again, this part of the book I really liked.

00:37:43

There's a key concept here also, which I think is kind of driving the whole idea of dreamlining.

00:37:49

And that is this whole idea of like, what do I love?

00:37:53

And he calls out, don't ask, what do I want or what are my goals?

00:37:57

But what are the things that would excite me?

00:38:00

And he also mentions, and this is a really important point, I think, that the opposite of love isn't hate.

00:38:06

The opposite of love is actually indifference.

00:38:09

And the opposite of happiness isn't sadness, the opposite of happiness is boredom.

00:38:13

So he's kind of saying that there's a lot of people who are bored and hate their current situations

00:38:19

because they've never taken the time to identify what would be the thing that you love or would produce the most happiness.

00:38:25

And so that's kind of where dreamlining comes in.

00:38:28

And this is also where he talks about how realistic goals are harder to achieve than unrealistic ones.

00:38:35

So I don't necessarily agree with that point 100%, but I think it's a, I understand what he's trying to say.

00:38:41

And I think, you know, people need as much motivation as they can get to think bigger.

00:38:47

And hopefully, you know, you do think big enough at some point, you go for something, maybe you don't achieve

00:38:54

the full thing that you had, but just by trying something, you're going to get further than maybe you ever thought you could have if you just would have left things the way that they were.

00:39:04

Sure. Well, I like the whole section around definition because it is, the goal is to determine what you want to shoot for.

00:39:14

Like, what's the end game? What kind of life are you wanting to live?

00:39:19

Which most people don't ask themselves that question.

00:39:23

Yep. And it's not one that's simple to answer.

00:39:26

I don't think so. Exactly.

00:39:28

Yep. I do appreciate his approach to helping you define that.

00:39:32

But then he leads into the next section.

00:39:34

So E, so that was D for definition.

00:39:37

E is for elimination.

00:39:38

And this is basically his section on productivity.

00:39:43

Yep. Again, I don't really have problems with this section.

00:39:46

I feel like there's some good stuff in here.

00:39:48

I don't either.

00:39:49

Yeah. And I, I did get a lot of motivation, a couple tips out of this particular section, but, you know, he goes through the end of time management.

00:40:02

Which, you know, focus on actions versus how much time it takes to do it.

00:40:07

How do you deal with interruptions, the Pareto principle, outsource, well, outsourcing is later.

00:40:13

We'll have thoughts on that one.

00:40:16

Yeah. I don't know. Where do you want to jump in on this section, Mike?

00:40:19

Well, there's a couple of things I think we should talk about.

00:40:24

Trying to decide where to go first.

00:40:27

I think maybe the thing I got the most out of in this section is the chapter on the low

00:40:32

information diet where he talks about being selectively ignorant and just cutting out as

00:40:39

much information as you can because most information is time consuming, negative, irrelevant to

00:40:45

your goals and outside of your influence.

00:40:46

So he talks about going on a one week media fast.

00:40:50

And that really is very much in line with the action items from last time, like the

00:40:56

minimal iPhone and all of that other stuff, just cutting out all of the noise and only

00:41:01

having the stuff that is really important come before you and what's the best way to get that

00:41:07

information.

00:41:07

You know, that's something that I want to think about.

00:41:09

Don't necessarily have an action.

00:41:10

I'm associated with that, but I want to continue that train of thought.

00:41:13

The other thing is the purpose for increased productivity.

00:41:18

And this is where he gets into the two different tracks for the entrepreneur.

00:41:23

The purpose of increased productivity is to decrease the amount of work that you do

00:41:27

while increasing your revenue.

00:41:29

And this is where he recommends that you follow the process exactly like he outlined it in

00:41:33

the book, D E A L. So definition, elimination, automation, liberation.

00:41:38

But then it also branches hearing you talks about the purpose of increased productivity

00:41:42

for the employee, which is to increase negotiating leverage for pay raises and remote

00:41:47

working arrangement.

00:41:49

And the process for this is a little bit different.

00:41:53

It's D E L A. So definition, elimination, liberation, and then automation.

00:41:57

This is the one that felt a little bit weird to me.

00:42:01

I again, hard to argue with this.

00:42:03

Like I agree with it in principle.

00:42:06

Like everybody wants to have automation over their their own days and how they do their work.

00:42:11

But the way he describes this, where once you get the remote position, then you

00:42:19

automate the work that you do so that your boss doesn't know that you're only working

00:42:22

four hours a week instead of 40.

00:42:24

That's the part that's going to like, well, right.

00:42:26

That feels a little, I don't know.

00:42:29

I'm not sure I feel real good about that.

00:42:33

But a lot of the strictly productivity stuff that he shares in this section.

00:42:40

Again, I agree with.

00:42:42

So he talks about being effective versus being efficient.

00:42:45

He talks about Pareto's law, which is the Italian economist, Fulfredo Pareto, 80% of the

00:42:50

outputs result from 20% of the inputs.

00:42:53

He talks about Parkinson's law where a task is going to swell or in perceived

00:42:57

importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.

00:43:00

Basically works going to take as much time as you give it.

00:43:03

That's, that's all spot on.

00:43:07

But the motivation for all of this productivity stuff, that's the thing I have the issue with.

00:43:15

You know, I keep dancing around this.

00:43:16

I should just, I should just go there.

00:43:18

I just get it out.

00:43:18

Okay.

00:43:19

So everything he talks about in this book is focused on me.

00:43:24

I want to create the life that I want to live.

00:43:28

And everybody else that I interact with, my boss, my employees, if I am a boss, they

00:43:35

are all people who are helping me to get what I want.

00:43:38

So what is the purpose of the productivity?

00:43:41

What is the purpose of the business?

00:43:43

It is so that I can live the millionaire lifestyle.

00:43:45

That's kind of the message.

00:43:47

Okay.

00:43:47

Now there's anything necessarily inherently wrong with that, but feel like it's in

00:43:53

stark contrast to how I would approach productivity, how Chris Bailey approaches

00:44:00

productivity.

00:44:00

Do you remember at the end of the, I think it was the end of the productivity project.

00:44:03

He talks about the reason for productivity is people.

00:44:07

So Chris would say, be productive in all the things in the task that don't

00:44:13

deal with the people so that you can have quality interactions with the people.

00:44:16

And Tim would say minimize your interactions with the people so that you can do more, more

00:44:22

of the things.

00:44:23

And maybe that's an unfair characterization.

00:44:27

But that's kind of the message that I get from this.

00:44:32

And things maybe is the wrong term to use there, you know, because again, he's

00:44:37

focusing on experiences, not, not the things, but doing the types of things that

00:44:44

only millionaires can do without having a million dollars.

00:44:46

Right.

00:44:47

And casting that vision, you know, it makes it feel more approachable for the average

00:44:52

person who's like, Oh, I don't know if I'm ever even have a million dollars.

00:44:55

But then when he says, Oh, it's okay.

00:44:56

You don't need to have a million dollars.

00:44:57

Like, Oh, but I can live like you.

00:44:59

Sweet.

00:45:00

How do I do that?

00:45:01

Right.

00:45:02

You know, and again, there's nothing wrong with, with, with wanting that.

00:45:08

But people are the principal thing, at least in my world.

00:45:12

And again, like I don't, I'm not perfect at this.

00:45:15

There are times and I have to remind myself of that.

00:45:18

I'm sure that's something that I've shared previously on bookworm.

00:45:22

And if someone wants to search for the sound bites, they can find the spot where

00:45:25

I confess that I haven't interacted with people the right way because I haven't

00:45:29

kept the main thing, the main thing I've been so focused on the tasks and the

00:45:32

things that I need to do.

00:45:32

But I recognize that that's not the way to work.

00:45:35

That's not the way that this is sustainable.

00:45:37

And you know what?

00:45:38

If I never get to the point where I can live the millionaire lifestyle, but I'm

00:45:42

able to make a difference in people's lives, I'm okay with that.

00:45:46

I would rather have that.

00:45:48

That's more important to me than being able to live a certain lifestyle, get to

00:45:53

certain places, do certain things, become a tango champion, kickboxing champion,

00:45:58

whatever, like what, what is important to you?

00:46:03

For me, it's not the same stuff that is important to Tim.

00:46:05

I would agree with you on a lot of this, but he does spell out in the last section

00:46:11

of how service is a big part of why he goes places, but he doesn't like it's

00:46:21

almost, he mentions it almost in passing.

00:46:23

And I think it's because that doesn't sell as well.

00:46:29

Yeah, exactly.

00:46:31

Not that I don't want to fault him for this because it, it totally makes sense.

00:46:38

Cause we buy the books and this is the type of thing that people want to hear.

00:46:42

He just told them things they wanted to hear and it sells books and it has made

00:46:46

him famous for it.

00:46:47

And if he were to focus on like the service side of it and the people and the

00:46:53

relationships that he's built by doing this, like that would be, I think a lot

00:47:00

more resonant with you and I, but I think the general reader of a book like

00:47:06

the four hour week, work week doesn't want to hear that.

00:47:09

They want to hear how to get a Lamborghini and go drive as fast as they want,

00:47:12

wherever they want, whenever they land, that's what they want to hear.

00:47:15

Yep, exactly.

00:47:16

Although, but that's not going to sell books.

00:47:19

Yeah.

00:47:19

To go the service route.

00:47:20

I, I agree with you, but even if he was to say that the purpose of following

00:47:26

this deal system is so that you can serve more, give more, whatever.

00:47:34

I'm not sure I would still be completely on board with it because I feel like

00:47:40

that's the kind of thing that emanates from your identity or who you are.

00:47:45

And you can't just put a pause on that and achieve your own goals.

00:47:50

And then one day when you have enough, switch it back on and be like, okay,

00:47:53

this is actually who I am.

00:47:55

Like, right, right.

00:47:57

Dave Ramsey talks about that a lot with, because obviously his whole, his whole

00:48:02

system is to get people out of debt, but he talks about giving and how, if you're

00:48:06

not a, a giver in the small things, you're not going to be a giver when you got big

00:48:10

things.

00:48:10

So you have to, it's, it's a, it's a habit and it's a condition of your, your

00:48:17

heart and your perspective towards the world and towards, towards people.

00:48:22

And so, you know, I just don't get that perspective throughout at least the first

00:48:28

four sections of this, this book.

00:48:31

It's very me focused.

00:48:33

And again, like whatever, for some people, for a lot of people, like that's what

00:48:39

they want.

00:48:40

That's why it sells whatever.

00:48:41

But that's the thing that also makes me cringe whenever I would open this book up

00:48:48

to read it.

00:48:48

It's like, I know what I'm going to get here.

00:48:52

I get it.

00:48:53

Uh, and he does, I mean, he does mention like you may have different intentions for

00:48:58

this, which kind of disarms it.

00:49:01

Uh, it's, but it is hard to set aside his perspective, which obviously dominates the

00:49:07

book.

00:49:07

And to be honest, is popular opinion.

00:49:11

So yeah, which is fine.

00:49:13

And also, I want to just, I want to just clarify this maybe a little bit more.

00:49:17

Like he's very successful.

00:49:19

And it's up to you to define what you want out of your own life.

00:49:23

It's kind of the point in the life in her book that I, I've listened to as well.

00:49:27

And in fact, I've listened to it.

00:49:29

Now one and a half times I'm finishing up the second time in like a two week period

00:49:33

because it is a fable and I wanted to go back and catch the stuff that I didn't

00:49:37

hear that the first time.

00:49:38

Maybe I could make that my gap book, even though it's an audio book.

00:49:41

Anyways, uh, there, when you read a book, especially like this one, you have to

00:49:48

recognize that you are not just getting information.

00:49:52

You are getting the, the person that is teaching it to you.

00:49:59

Like they are sharing from there.

00:50:02

I don't know how to put this.

00:50:03

Like if you're going to submit to Tim Ferriss as a sensei, you have to recognize

00:50:08

that this is the type of thing that he is going to teach you.

00:50:11

You can't just say like, well, I like what you're saying, but I don't like you.

00:50:16

Like if you're, if you're going to be all in with this person,

00:50:19

teaching you something because they have something for you, like you have to,

00:50:22

you have to be all in with it.

00:50:24

You can't, you can't just pick and choose the individual pieces of it and say like,

00:50:31

well, I'm in a cobble together, my, my own thing.

00:50:34

That's, that's kind of what we do with, with bookworm, but also I think that for

00:50:39

the majority of the books that we read, the people who maybe write them are kind

00:50:43

of cut from the same cloth.

00:50:46

And so it's a lot easier to do that when you have more dots to connect.

00:50:50

But I guess I feel like the reason that this book is in my words, dangerous,

00:50:54

is like, if this was your first productivity book and you're going to pick it up and

00:50:58

you're like, okay, Tim Ferriss, I've heard about you.

00:51:01

Please teach me what is productivity.

00:51:03

You're getting a very one sided picture with this.

00:51:06

And for some people who want to achieve a specific outcome, maybe there's some

00:51:11

great stuff in here.

00:51:12

In fact, there is some good stuff in here.

00:51:13

I've got some action.

00:51:14

I'm just associated with it too.

00:51:15

But the general tone is going to be communicated kind of subconsciously, if that

00:51:21

makes sense.

00:51:22

And you have to recognize going back to like Jim Rohn, who are the people who are

00:51:26

speaking into your life, what effect is that having on you?

00:51:28

And is that okay?

00:51:29

All right.

00:51:30

I'm all right.

00:51:31

Reading a book like this once in a while.

00:51:34

I'm okay with going through the Amanda Palmer book, even though I don't agree with

00:51:38

a lot of the stuff in there.

00:51:39

But if I, but if I'm getting a steady diet of that stuff, it's going to change

00:51:44

me.

00:51:44

It's going to change my perspective and I'm going to get more cynical and I'm

00:51:48

going to get more for our work week minded.

00:51:51

And I don't want that for myself.

00:51:55

That's all really I'm saying.

00:51:56

It's like Tim Ferriss, like this is what he is preaching.

00:52:00

He's trying to make for our work week disciples, you know, and he's made millions

00:52:07

of them and he's good at it.

00:52:09

You got to recognize that as you read this and for me, you know,

00:52:14

I kind of knew that because I had started this book before, came into it again.

00:52:17

I'm trying to, okay, I want to go through a bookworm and I want to pick the things

00:52:20

that I can apply, but I don't want to buy into like the whole idea here because I

00:52:26

know kind of where he's going with this and hearing all the stories that he shares

00:52:31

and the expanded and updated version that I got this time, you know, I wasn't,

00:52:35

wasn't wrong there.

00:52:36

But like you have to, you have to go into it with both eyes open and then then

00:52:42

you'll be fine.

00:52:43

I guess it's kind of what I'm saying.

00:52:45

Yeah.

00:52:46

I have my own opinion on it, but I want to wait till after we're done with the last

00:52:52

section here to get into that.

00:52:54

So let's step into A is for automation.

00:52:57

So D is for definition, E is for elimination, A is for automation.

00:53:01

Basically, how do you put everything on autopilot?

00:53:04

How do you delegate things to other people?

00:53:07

How do you use robots to do stuff for you?

00:53:10

You should use a virtual assistant and how do you put your income on autopilot?

00:53:14

I'm definitely interested in your thoughts on the latter of all of those.

00:53:18

But the first one I think that you want to cover here is delegation and VAs.

00:53:24

Have you ever used a VA before, Mike?

00:53:26

I have tried to use a VA before.

00:53:28

It did not work well.

00:53:29

Now I need to defend Tim Ferriss here at this point because I feel like a lot of

00:53:35

people will say, well, VA, the only reason you would get a VA is because it's

00:53:40

much less expensive than getting somebody local and you're taking advantage of

00:53:45

people in third world countries who don't have a sustainable economy.

00:53:51

You know, like that is definitely one of the arguments that I've heard the most

00:53:57

when it comes to virtual assistants.

00:53:58

But I've also worked with people who worked in the Philippines, which is where

00:54:03

a lot of virtual assistants are located.

00:54:05

And I've talked to those people and they've shared stories about how the majority

00:54:10

of the people who live where they do, they go to the call center and they're

00:54:16

timed when they take a bathroom break.

00:54:18

And if they are gone more than a certain number of minutes in a day, they get

00:54:22

fired.

00:54:22

Like it's miserable.

00:54:24

And so I'm kind of torn here.

00:54:28

You know, if you can get a virtual assistant job and you don't have to work

00:54:33

in a call center like that, that is definitely a step up and maybe better

00:54:38

option than anything else that you might have where you are.

00:54:41

That being said, there is something about it that does feel a little bit like

00:54:46

you're devaluing the people and the work that they do.

00:54:50

But I'm not so set on like it's, it's necessarily a wrong thing.

00:54:57

I think you can do it.

00:54:59

You can do it.

00:54:59

So it's a it's a win-win for everybody.

00:55:02

I think that that is definitely a scenario that exists when it comes to to virtual

00:55:05

assistance.

00:55:06

Like I said, I've tried to use a virtual system myself and I just wasn't very good

00:55:10

at delegating.

00:55:11

So there was a lot of stuff for me in this section.

00:55:14

And one of my action items actually is to try a virtual assistant.

00:55:18

Again, it's not going to happen by the next time we record bookworm, but it's

00:55:22

something that's on my radar.

00:55:23

And it's actually kind of interesting because as we record this, I noticed

00:55:28

today that Michael Hyatt just announced like a success with an assistant course

00:55:38

or something or a new book that he's writing.

00:55:40

Oh, really?

00:55:41

Yeah.

00:55:41

So I don't know.

00:55:43

I feel like I need to, I need to give this another shot and I need to become

00:55:48

better at delegating.

00:55:49

Sure.

00:55:50

I don't have anything to outsource that I can think of right now.

00:55:56

Cause it would be kind of weird for me to outsource the stuff I'm being paid to do

00:55:59

a church.

00:56:00

Well, that's a lot.

00:56:02

Ferris would tell you, don't worry about that.

00:56:04

Just outsourced it anyways.

00:56:05

Yeah, that's true.

00:56:08

I went through a lot of the stuff that I do and I hadn't really figured out how I

00:56:14

would outsource things.

00:56:15

So to a VA, maybe that's something I could look at at some point, an admin of sorts.

00:56:23

I don't think I'm quite to that point.

00:56:26

Especially with some of the side business stuff that I do.

00:56:28

I would love for bookworm to get to the point where it needed a full time admin

00:56:33

around.

00:56:33

Yeah.

00:56:34

But we're not to that point.

00:56:37

So I think there's a lot that could be done with a VA.

00:56:43

I don't think I'm at a point where I am willing to work through what I would offload.

00:56:49

I don't really understand why I'm kind of against it right now, but I am.

00:56:55

Yeah, that's the hard thing.

00:56:57

He mentions in the each chapter has this like questions and actions section at the

00:57:03

end of it.

00:57:03

And in the outsourcing life section, he talks about identifying your top five time

00:57:10

consuming non work tasks and five personal tasks that you could assign for sheer fun.

00:57:15

I liked the way that he phrased that.

00:57:19

That kind of opened up my brain to more possibilities.

00:57:24

And again, this is still something that I need to work through and identify what

00:57:27

are actually the things that I could delegate.

00:57:29

But it's not just making a phone call, making sure the dry cleaning is ready,

00:57:35

stuff like that.

00:57:36

Like what are the crazy fun things that I could have a virtual assistant do?

00:57:41

Like research, a family vacation to to Disneyland or something.

00:57:47

You know, that's, that's the kind of stuff that is sort of exciting to me as I

00:57:51

think about outsourcing some of this stuff potentially.

00:57:54

But then again, like where would I outsource it to?

00:57:57

I'm not necessarily sure that a virtual assistant through like the types of places

00:58:04

that he mentions in the book is where I would go.

00:58:07

I've tried that sort of thing in the past.

00:58:10

I used this service previously called virtual staff finder, Chris

00:58:13

trucker is a person who kind of promotes that a lot.

00:58:17

And like I said, didn't have a great experience.

00:58:20

So I know there's other services out there.

00:58:22

I also know they're more expensive.

00:58:24

I'm guessing that they're also easier to to work with.

00:58:29

Maybe they're even local to the US, not that that's like a big sticking point for me,

00:58:34

but I'm not necessarily against working with someone who can just come along

00:58:40

beside me and help me accomplish a vision of, you know, making my family more

00:58:44

successful, not necessarily even like building a business.

00:58:46

So that's obviously a very big field to draw from for tasks when you want,

00:58:53

when you're considering things that you could delegate or automate.

00:58:55

But you don't have to be a business owner in order to make use of a virtual assistant.

00:59:00

You don't need to have somebody full time either.

00:59:01

I know like virtual does a handful of hours a week, that sort of thing.

00:59:06

So step one though is definitely making the list and finding things that are worthwhile

00:59:11

to be delegated.

00:59:12

I'll put it on hold.

00:59:14

A very big part of this section is about income autopilot.

00:59:24

How do you go about building a business and putting it on automatic?

00:59:30

What did you think about this section?

00:59:33

Well, you could probably tell by the emoji that I put in the outline.

00:59:39

Yeah.

00:59:41

I think I know how you feel about it.

00:59:42

He put a vomit emoji next to this in the outline.

00:59:45

Okay.

00:59:47

So again, I recognize that my perspective is very much the opposite end of the spectrum.

00:59:53

And most people are going to fall somewhere between Tim and myself.

00:59:56

But let's just real briefly talk about what he's trying to help you do.

01:00:04

And that is to create a business so that it can support your lifestyle.

01:00:12

Now, what's the goal of any business?

01:00:16

It's to make money.

01:00:17

And I feel great working at a business who has a vision that I believe in.

01:00:27

And I don't want to say is connected to like my life purpose necessarily.

01:00:33

I mean, sometimes you just got to get a job to get a job.

01:00:35

If you're delivering pizzas, you maybe don't think that your life's calling is to be a

01:00:40

dominoes delivery driver, but you do what you got to do.

01:00:42

Like, but when you're building a business, it feels different to me.

01:00:48

It's kind of like, why should I do this?

01:00:51

Why do we need another business?

01:00:54

And Tim would say because there is a very clear cut formula for how you can drop

01:01:00

ship stuff and make a bunch of money.

01:01:02

And that's not the only, obviously, not the only method that he uses here, but he

01:01:09

talks about like you can resell a product, you can license a product, you could create a

01:01:12

product.

01:01:12

And then really, you just got to run a bunch of tests and find a product for a market

01:01:19

and then rinse and repeat.

01:01:21

And again, for me, like, that's not good enough.

01:01:29

I want to do something that I can feel good about, work that I'm proud of, that I feel

01:01:36

makes a positive contribution to society and the world at large.

01:01:40

I've talked before about like my life theme and how I have that on my daily planning

01:01:45

template, so I see it every single day.

01:01:48

That doesn't matter if you follow Tim's formula because you're going to find like you

01:01:55

may, you may be completely against pharmaceuticals and vitamins and the whole drug

01:02:03

industry, stuff like that.

01:02:04

There's a lot of reasons to have a very negative view towards some of that stuff.

01:02:08

You know, we're not talking about that right now, but I'm just using that as an

01:02:11

example because that's how Tim made a bunch of his money.

01:02:13

He was making supplements, right?

01:02:15

Regar and never once do you hear about, you know, I'm doing this because I'm helping

01:02:23

people achieve their goals and I feel like this is how I'm leaving my dent in the

01:02:28

universe.

01:02:29

It's just this is a thing that I can mark up a certain percentage that I can use to

01:02:35

support my lifestyle.

01:02:36

And again, just not something that I feel great about.

01:02:39

So I come at this a little bit different because this is something I've been in the

01:02:46

process of doing for quite a while now with my business, not nearly to the extreme

01:02:52

that he's doing.

01:02:53

And a lot of what I'm in the middle of transitioning with my web business, it will

01:03:00

allow me to do a lot of what he talks about.

01:03:02

Now the kicker here is that I work in software.

01:03:07

So a lot of what his focus is, it revolves around physical products and software is

01:03:17

a new drugs.

01:03:18

Yeah, it kind of is and I have a couple friends who have built businesses around

01:03:24

products in the last four or five years.

01:03:27

And I've helped them with like some website stuff and watched their businesses

01:03:32

grow and they do a lot of what Tim talks about in here.

01:03:34

And to some degree, it's almost required to be successful in today's market.

01:03:41

And I think if you're with physical products, it makes perfect sense.

01:03:45

So I have a hard time faulting him.

01:03:47

I think the exact tools and websites that you should use have developed since he

01:03:53

wrote this or even since he expanded it and updated it.

01:03:56

So I struggle with that side of it.

01:03:59

But I come at it from the stance of trying to figure out what kind of software

01:04:05

websites do I enjoy and can I build niche markets around those?

01:04:10

So this is something I've been trying to develop to some degree mentally over

01:04:16

the last couple months.

01:04:17

And some of that has led me to pushing and marketing bookworm quite a bit more.

01:04:24

It's brought me to developing my own blog quite a bit more.

01:04:28

And then I have one or two other side project things, one of which Mike

01:04:34

infected my brain with.

01:04:35

And those are things that I want to use some of what he talks about in here for

01:04:42

that, but it doesn't involve the vast majority of what he talks about here.

01:04:48

Like it's you have to extract the principles out of how do I build a thing

01:04:53

and then put systems around it that I just need to babysit occasionally in order

01:04:59

for that income to continue to come in.

01:05:02

I have zero problems with that.

01:05:04

I think it just depends on what the product is.

01:05:07

And in my case, it's websites and software.

01:05:09

And that's something I can get behind.

01:05:11

And I know I can do that ethically, but I'm not finding myself looking for

01:05:17

loopholes in the way that I can extract money from other businesses or from other

01:05:23

people.

01:05:23

Like that's, that's not me.

01:05:25

Like that's not what I intend to do.

01:05:27

So again, I'm pulling the principle out of his intent there.

01:05:30

Exactly.

01:05:31

You have to, you have to translate it in order for it to work.

01:05:35

Like, why did you start building websites, building pro course, doing the stuff

01:05:40

that you are currently doing?

01:05:42

You kind of mentioned that it was stuff that you enjoyed and then you try to make,

01:05:48

you try to find the niche for the, for the thing.

01:05:51

That's a little bit different than what he's talking about here.

01:05:54

In fact, the first thing he talks about in income autopilot one, chapter nine,

01:05:58

is this idea of the muse, which is an automated vehicle for generating cash

01:06:03

without consuming time.

01:06:05

So his formula, you could, he might look at what you're doing with, with software.

01:06:12

And the fact that you found a pretty good niche, which has a certain level

01:06:16

return on your time, energy, attention, investment.

01:06:20

And look at that and say like, Joe, you got to get out of there because it doesn't

01:06:25

do XYZ.

01:06:26

You got to find something more lucrative and you might push back to, but I like doing

01:06:30

this.

01:06:31

No, it doesn't matter.

01:06:31

It's not the muse, not the muse.

01:06:34

Right.

01:06:35

Right.

01:06:35

Because like, like I said, I'm connecting dots here.

01:06:39

He's not explicitly stating this, but the priority here is the title of the book,

01:06:44

the far work week, the millionaire lifestyle.

01:06:46

Like that's the thing that he's assuming that you're chasing.

01:06:51

And yes, you should look to automate certain aspects of your business,

01:06:56

especially the things that you're not very good at or the things that you don't

01:07:02

like doing.

01:07:03

Chances are there's somebody who loves accounting and can do a better job than you.

01:07:08

So why should you try to balance your own books?

01:07:10

You know, that's the perfect type of thing to automate.

01:07:13

That's not what he's talking about in this book at all, though.

01:07:16

He's talking about, okay, so you've defined the lifestyle that you want to live.

01:07:21

You're only going to check email once a day.

01:07:23

You're only going to look at information every so often.

01:07:26

Now all you got to do is find a product and a business.

01:07:29

For most people, they'd be like, wait, wait, what?

01:07:32

Like that's the hard part.

01:07:33

He's like, no, no, you just got to find things that meet these criteria and then

01:07:37

just pump out a bunch of stuff, you know, find somebody offshore.

01:07:40

We can manufacture a bunch of them, mark them up 400 percent.

01:07:43

You're good.

01:07:44

And it's like, no, I don't want to do that.

01:07:48

Is this the section where.

01:07:52

No, I think that's in the next one.

01:07:55

So let's go out of the last section here because I've got a couple of things I

01:07:59

want to talk about.

01:08:00

Um, there, no, it is in the section for automation.

01:08:05

What I'll just say it now.

01:08:07

One of the things that he does go through is how to test an idea to know if it's

01:08:12

worthwhile.

01:08:13

And this is something that I, I have done this for clients in the way that he

01:08:18

spells out, which is using a lot of Google AdWords and, you know, collecting

01:08:22

emails if you want to purchase something in order to see how much interest there

01:08:27

is in it and see how many people will.

01:08:30

Uh, support it before you actually go through all the process of developing a

01:08:35

product.

01:08:35

And I have one idea right now that I'm playing around with that might grow into

01:08:44

that actually is probably two.

01:08:45

Um, one in particular though, that I'm planning to go through a process of testing

01:08:51

that idea.

01:08:51

I, I don't want to mention it here because it needs to stand on its own legs.

01:08:57

I don't think it should require me using existing platforms to get it to stand up.

01:09:04

So I don't want to talk about it as to what the idea is here, but I do want to

01:09:10

say like I'm, I'm planning to do a little bit of testing around this concept to

01:09:14

see if it's worthwhile trying that out.

01:09:16

So that is an action item I'm doing, but he does go through that.

01:09:19

And I think it's one that you definitely should do before you start dumping

01:09:22

thousands of dollars into an idea just to see if it'll work.

01:09:24

Not a good idea.

01:09:26

Don't do that.

01:09:27

And he doesn't advocate for that either.

01:09:29

One thing I greatly appreciate about it is he's trying to do this on the cheap.

01:09:33

So, yeah.

01:09:34

So that's the good side of that.

01:09:36

And that's the part of it that I wanted to call out there.

01:09:38

Okay.

01:09:39

That done.

01:09:40

Last section here, L is for liberation.

01:09:44

And I think the way I would summarize this mic is once you've come up with your

01:09:50

idea, once you've made the decision, what your lifestyle is supposed to look like,

01:09:54

or you want it to look like you get to go do and live that lifestyle.

01:09:58

Like you go for it.

01:10:00

And he has all kinds of steps that go into it and he spells out some specific

01:10:06

aspects like many retirements.

01:10:07

But I know that he goes through a section of talking about what do you do if you're

01:10:13

in a paid role, you are an employee.

01:10:16

How do you get yourself into a work from home scenario so that you can, you know,

01:10:24

do all the automation pieces in order to spend less time at work?

01:10:27

Yeah.

01:10:28

I'm sure you have issues with this.

01:10:30

Well, the main goal for this is so that you can travel and work from anywhere,

01:10:35

which he addresses in chapter 14, many retirements.

01:10:39

His basic point here is that you don't have to put off life-changing experiences

01:10:44

until you're retired.

01:10:45

He takes many vacations or many retirements, you know, all over the place.

01:10:49

In fact, I should rephrase that because he says, stop taking vacations, spread out

01:10:52

these many retirements.

01:10:53

Uh, most excuses not to travel are just that.

01:10:56

They're excuses.

01:10:57

So that's kind of the goal that he's portraying even for somebody who is

01:11:03

working in an office right now.

01:11:06

And then he's got, you know, steps, which we'll come back to in chapter 12 for the

01:11:10

disappearing act on how to get to the point where you are working fully remote

01:11:14

and you can disappear and your boss doesn't know.

01:11:16

Um, the next chapter after the many retirements though, filling the void, this

01:11:22

is where he gets into like, what are the things that you would do once you have

01:11:27

the free time to do whatever you want?

01:11:30

Uh, right.

01:11:31

So it's kind of interesting that he kind of ends on that.

01:11:36

Like, Hey, by the way, too much free time is fertilizer for self-doubt and mental

01:11:39

tail chasing.

01:11:40

So you got to be careful.

01:11:42

You may actually get what you want and then you're like, Oh boy, what do I do now?

01:11:46

That's kind of interesting.

01:11:48

But, uh, the one thing that I really wanted to discuss from this section was the,

01:11:54

how to get a remote position.

01:11:57

So he's got steps for achieving a remote position and he's got a couple different

01:12:06

case studies.

01:12:06

He gives you step by step scripts that you can use when talking to your, your boss.

01:12:12

And I agree with the steps that he kind of outlines.

01:12:17

Um, I feel like the, if you were to, if I were to rephrase what he's basically

01:12:23

telling people to do, it is to understand your boss's position.

01:12:32

In fact, even says, put your, put yourself in your boss's shoes based on your

01:12:36

history.

01:12:36

Would you trust yourself to work outside the office?

01:12:38

If you can't answer, yes.

01:12:39

Then don't expect your boss to.

01:12:41

Um, but then this, I would argue there's nothing wrong if that's really what you

01:12:46

want with pushing for that and doing like the little mini tests and the trials.

01:12:50

In fact, that kind of just happened at the family business where there was

01:12:53

somebody who wanted to work remote.

01:12:56

So my dad who runs the business set up the test and he worked remote over the

01:13:02

winter and his sales went up 30%.

01:13:04

So like win-win, right?

01:13:06

Like that's, that's a totally foreseeable scenario for a lot of people.

01:13:11

My issue with this is in the, the next steps, I guess, where like, what do you

01:13:17

do now that you are working remotely?

01:13:20

Because I think for a lot of businesses, you can't just look at basically

01:13:28

everything that you would measure in terms of production.

01:13:32

Isn't always going to show up in those systems.

01:13:36

I feel like for this to, to really work, you've constantly got to be having that

01:13:42

mindset where how can I prove that this is a win-win situation, not just until I

01:13:48

get what I want.

01:13:49

And then it's all about me chasing my millionaire lifestyle again.

01:13:52

Right.

01:13:52

Like it's got to be, you have to continue to have that perspective.

01:13:56

If it's going to be sustainable, maybe you would do work in a situation where

01:14:01

your boss would be totally oblivious.

01:14:03

Whether you only worked four hours a week or 40 hours a week, but I have trouble

01:14:08

envisioning a scenario where that would actually be the case.

01:14:10

If I put in that little effort, the people I work with, whether they're in

01:14:14

the same office with me or not, they would know.

01:14:17

And I feel like for a lot of positions, even remote positions, when you sign up

01:14:22

for them, the expectations are communicated, like you're agreeing, at least

01:14:28

in principle to a set of expectations.

01:14:31

And I feel like it's kind of dishonest and unethical to as soon as they don't

01:14:37

have their eye on you to be like, well, I'm going to just go do whatever the heck

01:14:40

I want.

01:14:40

And they won't know the difference.

01:14:42

And who cares as long as I'm bringing in the money?

01:14:44

Like, right.

01:14:45

I don't know.

01:14:46

It doesn't feel right.

01:14:46

Which brings me to one of my major issues.

01:14:51

And I've been calling it a fatal flaw with this whole system.

01:14:56

But in order for this whole thing to pan out, and this struck me when I was

01:15:02

going through the mini retirements chapter, which is right towards the end

01:15:06

of the book.

01:15:07

So this didn't actually hit me until I was almost done with it.

01:15:11

But my perception was that if you go through all of this, the definition piece,

01:15:20

you're setting your goals and what you want your life to look like in the future.

01:15:24

The way he spells that out to your point is very inward focused.

01:15:28

It's not.

01:15:29

It doesn't explicitly say you should be living to serve other people or be

01:15:36

helpful to other people.

01:15:37

It's what do you want to do?

01:15:38

You want to go sailing around the world?

01:15:39

Great.

01:15:40

Like that's kind of the perception you get with that.

01:15:42

The elimination section.

01:15:44

How do you shove other people out of your way and get them out of your way?

01:15:48

Like that's kind of the how that part comes apart.

01:15:52

Automation, you could argue some issues with ethics around how you are potentially

01:15:58

taking advantage of other systems.

01:16:02

And then you get to the mini retirement section, this liberation of when you're

01:16:05

supposed to take advantage of all of these amazing systems that you've put in place.

01:16:10

And the thing that he calls out are going on trips.

01:16:14

And that is the recurring theme through the whole book is leaving your home for three

01:16:21

months or more to go live it up somewhere.

01:16:25

Yeah.

01:16:25

Now you could twist everything he has said and alter your missions to something I

01:16:34

think you and I would both resonate with in serving and helping other people.

01:16:39

I think you could do that in every single one of these scenarios.

01:16:42

But the issue that I have with like his travel thing is that if I take three months

01:16:48

and you know, no matter how you come at this, you call it a mini retirement.

01:16:52

It's not a vacation, a mini retirement.

01:16:55

What do you think about?

01:16:57

You don't really think about being home.

01:16:59

No matter how you come at it, most people envision retirement as somewhere other

01:17:04

than home.

01:17:05

Like that's typically what you think of.

01:17:07

What happens if I have very deep strong relationships at home with friends?

01:17:16

If I'm gone for three months, am I creating a detriment to those friendships

01:17:23

and the lifestyle that I have at home by being gone for those three months?

01:17:26

Absolutely.

01:17:27

Absolutely.

01:17:29

I would argue that yes, and even if it's like for us, you know, it's perpetually

01:17:34

cold in the winter and frozen over, even if I do three months over the winter, like

01:17:39

that's still a long enough time that your friend groups will just like, well, I

01:17:42

don't think he's around.

01:17:43

So they don't even think of you anymore.

01:17:45

They eventually stop considering whether or not to have you over and such.

01:17:49

That's not what I want.

01:17:51

That is far from my intent.

01:17:55

And I think that I think that his entire book, yes, you have a good point of him

01:18:01

saying, you know, this is very inward focus.

01:18:03

It's about what I want and me getting what I need.

01:18:05

But it kind of comes with this reckless abandon for the people who are around

01:18:13

you in your life and kind of has this assumption that everyone is a loner and

01:18:19

that by doing these many retirements, you don't have to be alone anymore because

01:18:23

he does spell out in that section that you can go learn things, you can develop

01:18:28

yourself, you can meet new people, et cetera, et cetera.

01:18:31

But the perception that he gives there is that these retirements are when you get

01:18:36

to connect with other people.

01:18:37

But that's the opposite of the life that I am currently in.

01:18:42

Like, like,

01:18:43

I don't need to go to Spain to go meet people and have great experiences.

01:18:48

We do that with our friends right here at home.

01:18:49

And it seems like you have to not have that to really resonate with all the

01:18:56

details of what he has through this entire book.

01:18:58

Joe, the parties are so much better in Spain.

01:19:01

I maybe, maybe this is just me not having the experiences and just being a

01:19:08

downer, I don't know, but it seems like you have to get rid of the

01:19:16

intentionality that we have built in our life here in our home and in our

01:19:21

community.

01:19:21

Like, I have to let some of that go in order to go after the goals he's

01:19:26

putting in front of me here.

01:19:27

And that's not something I'm willing to give up.

01:19:30

Now, disclaimer, yes, I can twist everything that he has given me in this

01:19:35

book in order to support the lifestyle that I want.

01:19:39

And I can twist every single one of these sections to support what I just

01:19:42

said.

01:19:42

But that's just it.

01:19:45

I have to twist every single one of these sections to get there.

01:19:48

It's borderline the opposite in mission and intent from what he has in each

01:19:54

of these parts.

01:19:55

I feel like I shouldn't have to do that.

01:19:58

Exactly.

01:19:58

And that's kind of the point I was getting at trying to get at when I was

01:20:03

saying, like, consider the source is this is the Tim Ferriss system.

01:20:09

If you want to get the kind of life that Tim Ferriss has, then there is no

01:20:14

better person to listen to than Tim Ferriss himself on what you need to do

01:20:18

to get there.

01:20:19

But if you are coming into this to say, okay, what can you teach me generally

01:20:24

that I can apply to my own life?

01:20:26

He's not going to know because he's not achieved the outcomes that you and

01:20:32

I would argue consider important.

01:20:35

That doesn't mean that anything that he says is necessarily wrong.

01:20:39

That's why, you know, it's, it's maddening, like you can't argue with it.

01:20:43

Right.

01:20:45

He's right on a certain level.

01:20:46

But on another level, you're like, no, that's, that's not what I'm going for.

01:20:50

Like, so I'm not going to do it that way.

01:20:52

And you can try to translate it and figure it out yourself, but then you're

01:20:54

back to, back to square one and testing things.

01:20:58

So yeah, I completely agree with you on, on that.

01:21:03

Um, the other thing I want to touch on here and, uh, this, this whole section

01:21:11

on chapter 13, beyond repair, uh, the note I have in the outline is that you

01:21:16

have to be able to quit things.

01:21:18

This struck me.

01:21:20

I'm going to try and choose my words carefully.

01:21:25

During this section, but as I read this, I, are you quitting bookworm?

01:21:31

No, I'm not quitting bookworm, but I had a bunch of emotions as I was reading this.

01:21:36

Uh, one of the things that he said in this chapter is that getting fired can be a

01:21:44

godsend.

01:21:44

Now.

01:21:46

I haven't really shared this a whole lot publicly.

01:21:52

I don't know what people know or think of my leaving Asian deficiency, but it was

01:22:00

not my choice and I wasn't fired.

01:22:03

I didn't do anything wrong, but it was just a situation where it wasn't going to

01:22:10

work anymore, but it caught me completely by surprise.

01:22:14

Now prior to that, I did have some thoughts, but like, well,

01:22:22

maybe this is kind of run its course, but I couldn't bring myself to leave that

01:22:30

situation.

01:22:31

Now, it's not a one to one match with what he's talking about here.

01:22:34

I would argue that when I was at Asian deficiency, I was fully committed to the

01:22:40

work that I was doing and I'm proud of the work that I did while I was there.

01:22:43

And I feel like it was not a sinking ship as he describes it here, but he does

01:22:52

describe a couple of things, phobias that keep people on sinking ships.

01:22:56

That's how he phrased it.

01:22:57

And I have to admit that the first one, you know, quitting is permanent.

01:23:02

The second one, I won't be able to pay the bills.

01:23:05

Those are both thoughts that I had when I entertained even for a moment prior to

01:23:11

being like go by Asian efficiency, you know, should I leave on my own terms?

01:23:18

Uh, it was scary and I quickly dismissed it because of a lot of different reasons,

01:23:23

but primarily, you know, I was enjoying the work that I was doing there.

01:23:27

I didn't see myself anywhere else for a very long time, but then that decision

01:23:33

was made for me.

01:23:33

And then you got to deal with this stuff anyways.

01:23:36

And I feel like this chapter would have been very helpful to former me.

01:23:46

It maybe would have given me the confidence that I needed to look beyond the current

01:23:54

situation and see what else was out there.

01:23:58

Now, I don't want to get too much into specifics, but I think people who are

01:24:05

following me kind of know how this is played out.

01:24:07

You know, I went hard on faith based productivity.

01:24:11

I launched that and I'm doing a lot more work with the sweet setup.

01:24:17

If you're following that site, you've seen a lot more articles from me recently,

01:24:21

but did I have to sit and wait for things to line up?

01:24:26

That's kind of the question in the back of my head.

01:24:29

Could I have seen this coming if I was, I had the right perspective and I was a

01:24:33

little more honest with myself and how might have played out differently if I

01:24:39

had been the one steering the ship?

01:24:41

Because that's ultimately what he's talking about is steering your own ship

01:24:44

throughout this whole book and creating the future that that you want.

01:24:48

Now, my future doesn't look like Tim Ferriss's future, but there is a lot of

01:24:53

value in being the captain of your own ship, whether you are working for somebody

01:24:59

else or not, just being in control.

01:25:01

In fact, way back at the beginning, he talks about the multipliers for money.

01:25:06

I believe, let me see if I can find this section.

01:25:09

He says that money is multiplied by the number of Ws you control.

01:25:14

What you do when you do it, where you do it, with whom you do it.

01:25:17

I feel like chapter 13 right here where it's talking about leaving something and

01:25:26

the reasons why you would typically not want to leave something that reduced the

01:25:31

number of Ws that I controlled when I ended up leaving it anyways, not by my

01:25:37

volition.

01:25:38

Right.

01:25:39

Right.

01:25:39

And so lesson learned to me, I guess, and hopefully for listeners who maybe are

01:25:45

in the same sort of situation, you know, I would just say you don't need to make a

01:25:50

rash decision and be like, well, they're not doing this.

01:25:52

So I'm out of here.

01:25:53

Like, that's not the right approach.

01:25:55

I would argue you can be productive and fulfilled wherever you are, whatever

01:26:01

you're doing, micro dirty jobs, you know, don't follow your passion.

01:26:04

Always bring it with you completely agree with all of that.

01:26:07

But think about ways that you can control the outcomes and you don't place your

01:26:14

future, your family's future in somebody else's hands.

01:26:18

I think that's valuable advice.

01:26:20

Yeah, I know you've been on a journey lately, for sure.

01:26:24

Yeah.

01:26:25

It sounds like the season is changing, though, in a good way.

01:26:29

So yep.

01:26:31

Have you enjoyed Tim Ferriss?

01:26:35

I both love and hate Tim Ferriss.

01:26:38

Well, put it in that one.

01:26:41

Action items.

01:26:43

You ready for these?

01:26:44

Yes.

01:26:44

I can go first.

01:26:45

All right.

01:26:45

Um, I have two.

01:26:47

Uh, one I talked about.

01:26:48

I want to test a potential business idea.

01:26:50

Uh, the second is that I need to apply the Pareto principle, the 80, 20 rule to my work.

01:26:59

I speculate that I'm spending some time on things that don't provide a lot of value,

01:27:04

but I'm not 100% certain.

01:27:05

So I need to do a reevaluation of what it is that I do and make sure that I am

01:27:09

spending my time where it should be.

01:27:12

I don't know how else to say that, but yeah, that's, that's what I need to do.

01:27:15

I'm just, I need to make sure that I'm not spinning my wheels on things that are.

01:27:21

Take a lot of time, but don't provide near as much value.

01:27:25

That's what I need to do.

01:27:26

All right.

01:27:27

Those are my two Mike.

01:27:28

Cool.

01:27:29

So, uh, didn't actually put these in order of importance.

01:27:33

But I have the first one on the list here, looking to a virtual assistant.

01:27:37

Again, I don't want to do it the same way.

01:27:40

I did it.

01:27:40

I also want to go into it better prepared, but I really do like the idea of using

01:27:46

somebody else and paying them a fair wage to help me create what I consider to be

01:27:54

desirable outcomes.

01:27:55

And I use the example of like the family Disney vacation previously, but the more

01:28:00

I think about that, the more I think that would be pretty awesome to have

01:28:02

somebody look into that, find all the, you know, all the hotels, set it all up.

01:28:07

Here's how much it's going to cost.

01:28:08

Okay.

01:28:08

Yeah, we can do that.

01:28:09

You know, that that's really appealing to me.

01:28:11

That's kind of thing.

01:28:12

I want to figure out how to, how to get some help with.

01:28:14

For sure.

01:28:15

Uh, and then the next one, this was, I thought a brilliant tactic, but one that,

01:28:21

again, I feel like a jerk using, uh, he says, when you're talking to people,

01:28:25

use, how can I help you instead of how are you?

01:28:27

Because then you're forcing them to get to the point.

01:28:31

Why are they talking to you in the first place?

01:28:33

As opposed to showing that you care about them as an individual.

01:28:37

Uh, I personally think how are you as a much better phrase to use in general,

01:28:43

but also I feel like this is something that I may use occasionally.

01:28:48

If I'm a lot of stress and I don't have time for the big long conversations,

01:28:52

you know, I feel like this is something that you can do where the other person

01:28:57

isn't going to feel they're not going to feel, uh, like any less valuable to you

01:29:04

if you do this.

01:29:05

Uh, but if you did all the time, maybe that, that would be the case.

01:29:08

So I might use that sparingly.

01:29:10

I put in the notes.

01:29:11

I use a rendition of this a lot.

01:29:15

What can I do for you?

01:29:16

Yep.

01:29:16

Like I, I have been using that for a while now, especially now that I'm in IT

01:29:23

support.

01:29:23

Like that means people come over like, Joe, how are you?

01:29:28

Like I'm doing great.

01:29:29

What can I do for you?

01:29:30

That's the perfect example because, I mean, if you're talking about IT,

01:29:33

most of the time people are talking to you because something is broken and they're

01:29:36

upset and you don't need to hear that they're upset.

01:29:40

You just need to know what the problem is.

01:29:41

Correct.

01:29:42

Yes.

01:29:43

Quickly.

01:29:43

And most of the time it's them asking me, how are you?

01:29:47

And I know no one comes over to me when I'm there.

01:29:54

Without a request, like, I love them.

01:29:57

They have great hearts, but let's be serious.

01:30:00

Like you have something wrong and you need my help fixing.

01:30:04

Yeah.

01:30:04

Like I'm just aware of that.

01:30:05

That's just the scenario.

01:30:07

So it's, I always do that.

01:30:08

Jump right to the point.

01:30:09

Let's get it fixed, get you back on the road and we'll keep going.

01:30:12

Like, yeah.

01:30:13

The other one that I've got here is to start learning a second language.

01:30:18

And again, this is not necessarily something that will happen by the next

01:30:23

time that we record, but I hope to have at least a plan for this by the next time

01:30:27

that we record.

01:30:27

I've heard good things about Duolingo.

01:30:29

I may check that out.

01:30:30

I don't really know the best way to go about this.

01:30:35

I had a couple years of Spanish in high school was absolutely terrible at it.

01:30:39

Could never roll my ours, but Spanish seems like the place to start with this.

01:30:43

So yeah, I'll probably look into like Spanish by Duolingo and go from there.

01:30:50

There you go.

01:30:51

Oh, the other thing I want to say about this, what really got me inspired

01:30:54

with this action item is that I want my kids.

01:30:58

Obviously, like there's, they're going into a global economy and it's going to be

01:31:03

valuable for them to know a second language, but I also feel kind of weird

01:31:06

telling them to learn a second language when I'm not willing to do it myself.

01:31:10

That's fair.

01:31:10

So I want to lead by example.

01:31:13

That's noble way to go, Mike.

01:31:15

Thanks.

01:31:16

I should probably do that, but not right now.

01:31:21

So style and rating, I find that Tim Ferriss is very easy to read.

01:31:26

It he has some great stories and he tells them well.

01:31:30

And I, I don't know, I found myself wanting to pick it up.

01:31:36

There are definitely sections when he starts talking about resources and

01:31:39

specific websites and specific services that you should be using.

01:31:42

Kind of glazed over and skimmed a lot of those because I know they've changed

01:31:45

to some degree and like he's going through like website hosting, where to buy

01:31:51

domain names and like, no, I'm not using any of these.

01:31:53

These are not what I'm going to play, but that's me.

01:31:56

I work in that space.

01:31:57

So that's, that's how that normally works out.

01:32:00

I don't know how to rate this thing.

01:32:03

This is tough because in this, maybe the hardest thing to rate that I've run

01:32:07

across because the principles, if I extract what he says and get rid of his

01:32:15

undertones, I love the book.

01:32:17

I love the principles that he's getting at and the idea behind building

01:32:24

an automated income and how to do that to support a lifestyle and support

01:32:29

a mission totally on board with that.

01:32:32

All of the inward focused and travel, get away from my home scenario.

01:32:40

Like I really don't like that at all.

01:32:43

So I, I despise that part.

01:32:46

It's Tim Ferris, it sells, you know, it's awesome for a book to market.

01:32:51

Like it, there's a reason that it's been a runaway best seller hit.

01:32:55

Um, I'm going to put it at a 4.0.

01:32:59

That seems to be like my go to for whatever reason somebody made it chart on

01:33:04

the things like it's like my go to.

01:33:06

It seems like the principles I would put them at a five, but his inward focus.

01:33:12

I'd put it at like a 2.5 or so.

01:33:15

Like, so I'm going to land on a four with it.

01:33:19

I like it.

01:33:20

I'm definitely going to recommend this to people that I know can extract those

01:33:26

principles.

01:33:27

This would not be a book that I would blanket recommend.

01:33:30

I think the principles you can get elsewhere, though I off the top of my head.

01:33:36

I'm not thinking of anywhere.

01:33:37

So maybe that means you should read it.

01:33:38

I struggled with it as far as, you know, do I suggest it to people or not,

01:33:44

which means I'll probably just keep my mouth quiet when it comes to this one.

01:33:48

So anyway, I'm torn, but that's where I land.

01:33:51

Well, you're right at the average.

01:33:53

Goodreads says it's normally a 3.9 out of 5 based on all the three views they have.

01:33:58

There you go.

01:33:58

So I am whoppingly average.

01:34:01

Oh good.

01:34:02

Uh, by the way, I am curious.

01:34:05

I looked up the original published date for this.

01:34:08

It was April 24th, 2007.

01:34:12

So at this point, it is 12 years old.

01:34:16

And, you know, you mentioned the stuff that you're doing with websites and stuff

01:34:23

like that.

01:34:24

And, uh, I'm wondering how much Tim Ferriss's advice has changed over the last 12 years.

01:34:33

Cause that's actually a considerable amount of time.

01:34:38

I guess I'm saying that because I feel like some of the principles you're right are good.

01:34:43

It's definitely, definitely presented as a like, do these steps and you get this result.

01:34:50

But I kind of system it is, but my question is, especially with like the product stuff, for example,

01:34:56

if you were to follow that to the letter as he wrote it now, could you get the same results?

01:35:07

I imagine it's probably a little bit harder to do now that things have changed a little bit,

01:35:13

but I don't know that for sure.

01:35:16

So I'm not going to weigh that into the equation here.

01:35:19

I will say that Tim Ferriss and I would never be friends.

01:35:24

Uh, and I will also say that our outcomes or outlooks and perspectives on how we approach work are

01:35:36

very, very different.

01:35:38

And that being said, you know, I tried to disconnect from that as I read this, but I know that I can't.

01:35:47

And, uh, I will say that it didn't every time I would pick this up to read it.

01:35:56

I had kind of a feeling of uneasiness heading into it.

01:36:02

The last time I had that actually was the Amanda Palmer book.

01:36:05

[laughs]

01:36:08

That almost makes me happy.

01:36:10

I don't know why.

01:36:10

I'm sorry, am I?

01:36:11

And again, that's not necessarily a judgment on the quality of the book itself.

01:36:18

Just I'm calling out like that was the reaction that I had to it.

01:36:23

The vomit face emoji.

01:36:25

It's not too far off the mark.

01:36:28

Um, again, he's frustratingly good at laying out his arguments.

01:36:35

And if you were to put me in a room with Tim Ferriss, I'm sure he would disarm everything that I could throw at him.

01:36:42

But that still wouldn't be enough to make me think that he's right.

01:36:46

I also have trouble with where to, to rate this.

01:36:51

But I also think that the general underlying tone and the message of the book, I've got a fairly good grasp on.

01:36:59

And I, I feel like is, again, maybe dangerous isn't the, the right word.

01:37:05

But selfish general definitely is.

01:37:08

And I don't, I don't like that.

01:37:12

I don't think that's what we're going for with bookworm.

01:37:16

You know, we're not doing this just to make ourselves better and check off things on our list and say, look what we did.

01:37:23

One of the most rewarding things from this experience is hearing how other people are growing and how they're applying stuff.

01:37:29

So they're just fundamentally, we don't see eye to eye.

01:37:34

I think, yeah, there is some, some good stuff in here.

01:37:38

I feel like everything though has to be taken with a grain of salt.

01:37:43

And I don't like reading a book where you feel like they're trying to put one over on you all the time.

01:37:51

And you constantly have to be asking yourself like, is there some truth here?

01:37:54

I feel like the default should be what the author is saying is true.

01:38:00

And maybe I have to modify it a little bit as opposed to what I ended up doing was, I'm not sure if I believe anything this guy says, is there anything here for me?

01:38:08

Right.

01:38:10

So I'm going to, I'm going to rate it at 3.0.

01:38:13

Recognizing that Tim Vares is a very smart person and way more successful than me.

01:38:20

So you could definitely argue, make the argument that Mike, you're a fool.

01:38:25

You don't know what you're talking about.

01:38:27

But that's just my perspective on on this particular, particular book.

01:38:32

It's official.

01:38:33

We covered the four hour work week, Mike.

01:38:34

We did.

01:38:35

It's also official.

01:38:37

We had some rants.

01:38:37

All right.

01:38:41

Well, what's up next?

01:38:42

Yours is the next pick.

01:38:43

What we doing?

01:38:44

Yeah, the next book that we are doing is the anti-Tim Ferriss.

01:38:49

It is second mountain by David Brooks.

01:38:51

Actually, I shouldn't say that because I haven't started it yet.

01:38:53

But this whole book is on living a moral life.

01:38:56

So everything that Tim Ferriss told you about just making money and check it out the window.

01:39:00

Now you can learn how to live with morality, character and integrity instead.

01:39:06

Love it.

01:39:08

Love it.

01:39:08

All right.

01:39:09

Well, we are finished covering second mountain.

01:39:12

We're going to step into getting results the edge, I'll weigh by JD Meyer.

01:39:17

This is like a tag along book.

01:39:20

It seems like for GTD.

01:39:23

I tend to see this one come up quite a bit whenever getting things done is brought up.

01:39:28

So I've wanted to cover this one for a long time as well and needed to pick a book before we jumped on here.

01:39:34

So thus getting results the edge our way.

01:39:37

All right.

01:39:38

We we got for gap book, Mike.

01:39:40

Well, originally I said I didn't have anything.

01:39:43

Then I mentioned life and error and how I'm going through it twice.

01:39:46

So I guess I'll pick that as my my gap book with the disclaimer that I have just listened to this.

01:39:53

As an audio book, I have not read the book itself and it is an entertaining audio book, but my perspective on audio books is different.

01:40:00

I tend to listen to audio books as the type of books like biographies and things where I'm solely looking to be entertained, kind of like podcasts where I'm not trying to make sure that I grab the things that are in there that the author has for me.

01:40:15

That's why I talked about how I use my note to take my book notes and we do our books for bookworm and I use the actual books.

01:40:21

So this is a totally different perspective, but it is something that I have enjoyed enough to go through almost twice in the last couple of weeks.

01:40:30

Cool.

01:40:31

I started it this morning, the art of gathering by Priya Parker, Priya Priya.

01:40:37

I'm sure I say that.

01:40:38

It is about the process of having groups of people get together and what are the mechanics of that and how do you do it well?

01:40:51

My wife and I like entertaining, but I don't feel like we do it very well.

01:40:55

That's the art of gathering and I should note, I will record a gap book episode on this one.

01:41:01

So if that's a topic that interests you, be sure to join the bookworm club, which perfect segue, premium memberships, bookworm club.

01:41:09

Wait, where is that club.bookworm.fm/membership?

01:41:13

Go there, sign up.

01:41:15

It's five bucks a month or sixty bucks a year.

01:41:18

And it gives you access to premium high quality wallpaper.

01:41:23

It gets you access to the gap book episodes.

01:41:27

You can do the live show.

01:41:29

So hello, all of you premium members who are listening right now.

01:41:33

So you get a chance to do all of that.

01:41:35

And there's a few other things that come with it as well, but the big one right now is that we're pushing is the gap book episodes.

01:41:41

And the art of gathering will be on there.

01:41:43

And if you have a book that you want me to cover for a gap book or that you want to be on the bookworm show, you can do that on the club as well.

01:41:51

And again, club.bookworm.fm, if you catch the hint here, like everything happens on the club, like that's the easy place to go.

01:41:59

So go join the club.

01:42:00

That's where pretty much all this stuff happens.

01:42:03

But you can recommend a book there.

01:42:04

You can also go to bookworm.fm/list and that'll list all the books we've covered in the past and all the ones that are on the list coming up.

01:42:12

That's where all the cool kids hang out.

01:42:14

It is where the cool kids hang out.

01:42:16

If you want to support the show, there are a couple ways that you can do that.

01:42:20

You can, like Joe said, join the club.

01:42:23

You can also, oh, I should mention that in Overcast there's this handy little feature.

01:42:28

Marco Arment, who is also a podcaster and developer of Overcast made it so that if you have a link to join or support a particular show, by coding it a certain way, you can tap the little dollar sign icon on the bottom.

01:42:41

That'll take you to the page to support the show.

01:42:43

So all the relay shows, for example, they'll take you to the support page.

01:42:45

It also works for bookworm.

01:42:47

So if you want to join the club, you can do that.

01:42:49

You can also leave us a rating and review on iTunes.

01:42:52

If you'd be so kind, I definitely want to take down KCRW as a number one return for bookworm.

01:42:58

So join the revolution.

01:42:59

Share your action items on the club.

01:43:02

I need to get better at this myself.

01:43:04

Like I said, it's been a week for sure.

01:43:06

But for the most part, Joe and I, as after we record these episodes, we put our action items up there.

01:43:13

And it's fun to see people who are sharing their own tips about our own action items and also their action items as they apply the principles from the books that we're reading for themselves.

01:43:23

And I mentioned this kind of already, but if you are able to join the bookworm premium club, that is awesome.

01:43:31

And it means the world to both Joe and myself.

01:43:34

We actually had somebody the other day who wanted to buy ads and we haven't done anything with it yet because we want to make this work without ads.

01:43:40

And one of the reasons that it works without ads is because there's a bunch of you who are willing to pay five bucks a month to support the show.

01:43:46

So thank you so much for doing that.

01:43:48

Like I said, there's a link to do that in the show notes and also if you're listening to it and overcast the little button on the bottom of the bar.

01:43:54

But that'll do it for this episode.

01:43:57

So thanks everybody for listening.

01:43:59

If you're following along, pick up Second Mountain by David Brooks and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.