Bookworm Transcripts

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I'm still on bullet journal Mike.

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Nice.

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Are you?

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I am too, but it's not a bullet journal.

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So you're not on bullet journal.

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I'm on bullet journal light asterisk.

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[laughter]

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Bullet journal light asterisk.

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At some point the asterisk just should be rude.

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You know that.

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True.

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Well, okay.

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So I'm actually working on a pretty big article for this sweet setup.

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It'll be live by the time this goes out.

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So I'll put a link in the show notes.

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And it's so far over 3,500 words on my hybrid bullet journal productivity system.

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But I use an asterisk on the term bullet journal because I'm not doing it the way that

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writer Carol would endorse.

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But the elements of it that I am using are basically the daily log.

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Like everything starts and ends in the bullet journal at the beginning of my day.

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Everything like the whole plan is there, including the time blocking the tasks that

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I'm going to do in the day.

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And then I use it as my daily log to so everything gets captured there.

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And then after I capture everything there or actually the other place that I will capture

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things occasionally is drafts like I'll be out for a run.

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I have an idea.

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I'll use serial dictation to jot it down in drafts.

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But then ultimately all of that stuff ends up inside of room research along with mind maps

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from my node and sketch notes from good notes.

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And then Rome is the thing that I use to drive my tasks and to connect all of the ideas.

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I'll also pull in stuff from base camp and do my time blocking and stuff.

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I've actually got an image which is going to be in that article.

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I will share that here with the people who are joining us live.

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Give me just a second.

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When does this article go live?

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It will go live as we record this Tuesday, so a couple days before this.

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But this is my analog charting of my system.

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And I did this analog because it's more enjoyable.

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That's kind of the gist of the article is that I really enjoy using pen and paper.

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And I've incorporated the parts of the bullet journal that I liked with that and then basically

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offloaded all of the collections and the future logs, the monthly logs, all that kind

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of stuff.

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I'm still playing around with Rome.

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Had an article actually go out this week on the sweet set up about some of the ways that

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I'm using it with some videos and stuff.

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But I keep finding new and cool ways to connect things, which is kind of the point, the connected

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thoughts, not the filing cabinets, where you can go find something if you think about

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it, but just recognizing how things connect together.

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It takes a little bit more effort when you put stuff into it, but sure, I really like

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it.

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And I know you've been playing around with Obsidian.

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I think that does kind of the same sort of thing.

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There's a couple of reasons why I still like Rome.

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Big thing being linking to blocks, not headers or pages.

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I don't think you can do that currently with Obsidian.

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But Obsidian is a good app too, and it can totally do this sort of thing.

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So if you don't want to use Rome and you want to have control of your local text files,

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then Obsidian is a great recommendation that we picked up last time we recorded.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I had someone mention it.

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It was either the last time or the time before that I originally became aware of it.

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I'm now on the beta for it because it actually makes sense and I can actually use my existing

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plain text file notes in a local directory.

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And open multiple local directories with it.

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Depending on how you set up your note structure like Mike's talking about, you can't link

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to blocks.

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They don't really have a concept of blocks because you have to think of it as these

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are markdown files.

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Yeah.

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So if you're thinking about markdown files, you can link to other notes with wiki links

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and they do have it to where you can link to other headers.

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So if you put in a header, you could link to it from another note as well.

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So depending on how you want to set things up, it just kind of depends on how your brain

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works and what you're trying to put into it, I think.

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I still have not delved into Rome because the more I see and learn about it, the less

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I like about it.

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So I know you have it as a mission to get me to at least try it.

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Like, well, I at least filled out the form for the beta to find out.

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Should I go down this road?

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At the same time, I know pricing for obsidian and pricing for Rome is definitely a thing

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that people are considering, but at the end of the day, I spend more time writing in my

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paper notebook than I do typing notes into a digital thing.

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So here we are in the analog world, fun times.

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Yeah.

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So I don't think, honestly, Rome, based on how you currently use stuff, is probably the

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right tool for you, but it is, for me, there's specific things that obsidian just wouldn't

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work unless I completely changed some stuff, which is fine.

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You know, maybe I could change some stuff and that would be a better way to do it.

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I don't know.

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I'm willing to be wrong, but I'm really enjoying Rome at the moment.

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And basically what it's done is it's consolidated all of the buckets for me.

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So I am currently playing with managing all of my tasks, personal tasks anyways, inside

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of Rome.

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It doesn't have repeating tasks.

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It doesn't have like a forecast view, but it has queries, which allows me to build basically

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like a my tasks page inside of Asana, where you can automatically pull in all the things

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that haven't been scheduled and automatically pull in all the things that are due today

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and all of the things that are tagged for some day, maybe or whatever, you know, queries

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are pretty cool.

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And I don't know.

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I need to still put it through its paces, but so far I'm really digging this system and

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having basically like one central place where everything goes that allows me to connect

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things.

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So when I have a task to write an article, I have the page for that article.

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I've got a, you know, inside of a room as an example or article maybe is a bad idea because

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I do that a little bit differently.

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Actually, I've got a Kanban board inside of Rome that checks my articles link to my Ulysses

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sheets.

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Nice.

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Nice.

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Of course.

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Yeah.

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But like being able to connect all that stuff is way better than putting the link to like

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an Evernote document inside of an OmniFocus task, which is how I would have done that back

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in the day.

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Sure.

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I'm finding I don't need a whole lot of test management power.

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I just need a simple place to keep some lists.

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And Rome kind of reminds me a lot of task paper in terms of the, the task management

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and some of the other stuff that you can do in it.

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So we will see.

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Nice.

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Nice.

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Well, the thing I've been doing a lot and I've brought up bullet journaling last four episodes

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now.

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Was it four episodes ago we actually went through the bullet journal method?

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Yeah.

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Forget how long ago it was.

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Episode 92.

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Okay.

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So it's been a little while now, but the thing I've been doing a lot with it, like I've done

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a couple monthly migrations actually live streamed my last monthly migration on Twitch.

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So I can get you a link to that one.

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All right.

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It's like a two hour long video of the whole process of doing a migration and we do it

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live together.

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Great fun.

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And had a number of people join that and have watched it since the thing with that type

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of live stream is you should know it's not really a, it's not like a YouTube video.

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It's not a thing where you sit down and watch it.

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Like the whole thing is just turn it on, keep working on things and we'll talk, you know,

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while you're doing other things.

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It's kind of a way to hang out together.

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So if that's something of interest to you, I am thinking about doing a couple, three more

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of these in the upcoming weeks.

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So great fun there.

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But there is one thing I'm doing, Mike, that we need to talk about here because I feel

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like in light of all the bullet journaling and pen and paper stuff, I've been working

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on a revamp of the analog Joe site.

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You started calling me analog Joe.

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I don't know how long.

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This is totally my fault.

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I sent you the domain and said this is available.

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100% he sends me this text.

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He's like, by the way, analog Joe dot com does exist and it is available.

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You bought it like six months before you launched anything.

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Yeah, I bought it right away.

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I don't think you knew what you were going to do with it.

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You just like, I need that.

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Correct.

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I needed to own it.

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I knew that, but I didn't know what to do with it.

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And I don't know how long ago it's been now, but I opened up a community around that.

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And that has kind of stagnated because I haven't had good direction on what that should

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be, but with a lot of some life circumstances and what I've been doing online or not doing

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online and such, I've learned quite a bit about myself and how those things should run

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and actually have my wife involved in this round of things that I'm doing because she's

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a lot more focused on what should or shouldn't be done in scenario.

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So she has been helping me through the process of doing a full blown relaunch of analog

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Joe.

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And I think I sent you, Mike, the link to the site that I'm rebuilding it into.

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And actually right now for those listening live, you can go to analog Joe.com for those

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listening to the recording of this, the full relaunch and stuff will be out by the time

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you hear this episode.

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But it is morphing into, if you're familiar with Tim Stringer and learn OmniFocus, it's

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going to mimic that process.

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Doing some things, I think the first one we're going to do is how to get started with the

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bullet journal because I feel like it's a really good place to start with it.

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So it is a membership site.

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So it is transformed into that.

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It's less community-esque and more video-based setup.

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So analog Joe.com.

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And I do have a discount that I'll give to Bookworm listeners, which will take half

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off at setup.

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And that is a forever discount.

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So just saying.

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That's a thing.

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So it's not ready and it's not launched right now as you and I are recording.

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But by the time this episode releases, it will be.

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So here's a way to hold Joe accountable to actually getting it all done and out the door

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in time.

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So much stuff is going to be ready in a couple of days.

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It's true.

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It's true.

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That's the way things work with us.

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I've got one more follow-up item actually, which isn't on the list.

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But I remember we talked about last time I wanted to re-evaluate my habits and consider

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the factors that were leading to some of my habits not sticking in particular, like

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the journaling one.

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And I bring this up since it's relevant.

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You're talking about the analog Joe thing.

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One of the things that I want to try is journaling in my bullet journal pen and paper.

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But I've already done a couple of things which have made it more successful.

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So as follow up from the last episode, basically what I was doing is getting to the end of

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the day being drained when I got the notification to journal in day one and resisting it.

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And I was questioning why am I resisting it.

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Well it turns out I was trying to do a lot of things in my evening routine because I

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had the time to do them, but I definitely did not have the energy to do them.

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So I was actually trying to plan my day, do the journaling, and then also if I had forgotten

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to do it, squeeze in a Spanish lesson.

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Well the Spanish lesson kind of drifted to the end of the day because that used to be

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something that I would do whenever I had a few minutes when I was out and about.

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And that was like an intentional thing I could do on my phone instead of checking Twitter.

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Like a positive use of my technology.

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Well I don't leave the house anymore.

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So I drove my car the other day for like the first time in three weeks just to make sure

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that it would still start.

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Well done sir.

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I have friends who are going on road trips.

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They don't go anywhere.

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They drive an hour north and they grab a snack that they packed with them.

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Turn around, drive home.

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I've been tempted to do that.

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So basically all that stuff was piling up at the end of the day.

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Like I said, well I had the time to do all of those things.

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I definitely didn't have the energy to do them all.

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So I'm trying to move the Spanish stuff to earlier in the day.

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I have incorporated the planning my day as part of my shutdown routine at the end of

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the day, which is the thing that I kind of just like kicked off.

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I would push it off and I didn't really take it seriously a lot of times.

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Like I'm going to work until whatever time and then I'll go do something else and then

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just like forget to do it.

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But putting that at the end of my work day actually makes the shutdown routine more sticky

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and helps me to process my drafts inbox and make sure that that's clean and all that

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type of stuff.

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So basically the planning my day thing, that has been the thing that like was rock solid.

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I continued to do that but by doing it at the end of my work day, four or five o'clock,

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that actually makes both the evening routine and the rest of the stuff I'm supposed to

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be doing with my shutdown routine more successful.

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So I think that's a win based on what we learned in tiny habits.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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No, I think, you know, I haven't done a lot with tiny habits other than when we get to

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today's book.

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The number of things with that that I've been realizing have been amplified by what we went

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through in tiny habits, like how to implement some things.

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So sure.

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That's probably a good place there to jump into today's book, which is Stillness is the

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Key by Ryan Holiday.

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Now we've done one other book by Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way.

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That's way back.

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Yep.

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Like episode three or four, like it was it was single digits.

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It's been a while.

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So that one, I know we really enjoyed at the time and I think it's safe to say this is,

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I wouldn't say a repeat, but it's definitely a one.

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It's a book that I enjoyed reading for sure and have lots and lots and lots of thoughts

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about different aspects of it.

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But yeah, I mean, it's a book that I'm very likely to go through again at some point and

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I'm excited about going through here today.

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So anything you want to say about it before we jump into it?

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The Obstacle is the Way was episode four, by the way, real time follow up.

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But I think that the way that this book is laid out is interesting because I have a Bible

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college degree and one of the courses that I took was spirit, soul and body.

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And that's basically how he divides this book.

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This is not a religious text, but I thought it was interesting.

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Actually, he breaks it down into mind, spirit and body, but my Bible college curriculum

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would call the mind, the soul section.

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And I thought that was interesting how those things mapped.

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He actually does talk quite a bit about different religions in this book and how they support

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the points that he's making.

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So if you are turned off by religious talk, I apologize, but it's in this book.

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So it's going to come up.

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Yeah, it's kind of a whoops.

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Here we go.

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But he even mentions Christianity quite a bit, which I was not expecting.

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He mentions a lot of different religions, but one other thing about this, which I thought

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was really interesting, he mentions Christianity.

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Most people who mention Christianity who are not Christians, I don't really want to hear

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what you have to say.

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It's usually not very accurate, in my opinion.

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But I feel like he did a really good job.

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He knows his stuff.

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He does the research.

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He's talking about the Greek and Hebrew meanings of the words that they use and the sacred

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texts and things like that.

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So Ryan Holiday is, I've not met him, but he's got to be one of the smartest dudes that's

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alive.

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Just like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge.

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Right.

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Or at least super well read and still enough to actually have rational thoughts on things.

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So yeah.

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No, it's an interesting read.

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So yeah, I agree with you with the whole mind spirit body piece.

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It was interesting to me that that's laid out because that's a very, I don't want to

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say it's a Christian thing, but in religious circles that three part complex of sorts is

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one that is discussed and talked about and used as a framework very regularly.

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So it does not surprise me if you're going to step into something that's similar to stoicism

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or derives some of its basis from religion in any form.

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It's not surprising to see that breakout.

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So yeah, definitely of interest there.

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The first one that he he dives into here is the mind, which when he started there, I

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totally get it because you kind of have to start there in the realm of when you go through

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these three and there are, I guess I don't have it open right in front of me, but I can

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get it open.

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This is purely knowing your audience and knowing the people who are picking up a nonfiction

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book.

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What is probably dominant in their own lives.

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Right.

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Right.

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He totally played that.

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There are quite a few like these are fairly short chapters.

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There's a lot of chapters in this book.

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It is 257 pages long.

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It's a small book.

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So those are actually small pages.

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Yeah.

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So it's not super, super like it.

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It doesn't feel like a 250 page book, even though it is.

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And most of the chapters are a couple of pages, but they're all kind of formulated the

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same way.

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He's got a story.

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He's got his point.

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And then kind of at the end usually is like a rallying cry or a call to action.

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He's a very, very good writer.

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A lot of these chapters could have been a lot longer, but he does a great job of condensing

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things down to short phrases.

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And it's really easy and entertaining to read.

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Yeah.

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So the, and I don't want to cover all of these.

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I've just got a couple points, two, three points per each of these.

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So we've got, what is it?

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Seven talking points here.

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Yeah.

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So what we'll do is we'll talk about the sections and the chapter markers and the episode will

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be based off of the sections, but we'll pick out a couple things from the sections and

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not go through all the chapters because that would be impossible.

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Right.

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It's so true.

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So let me just read off what the chapters are under the part one for mind.

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Just because you can make a, I don't want to say assumptions, but you can get the gist

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of it just from the chapter titles.

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I can't say that you get the whole point until you read it, of course, but it'll at

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least get you the overarching on it.

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So here we go.

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The domain of the mind, which he does that in every part, he has like the first chapter

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is it's explaining what it is, what it is he's about to go through.

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And then he dives into become present, limit your inputs, empty the mind, slow down, think

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deeply, start journaling, cultivate silence, seek wisdom, find confidence, avoid ego, let

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go.

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And then at the end of every part, he has a onto what's next outside of the last one

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in which he just says onto the final act.

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So that's kind of the lay of the land for the first part.

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And the one that probably the first one that jumped out at me in the midst of all of this

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was the journaling piece.

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We were talking about this a little bit earlier.

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And I have had this on and off again relationship with journaling.

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I've never fully embraced it in a long term successful scenario.

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I think the longest I've ever journaled without breaks is about three weeks.

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I know it's not over a month.

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I'm aware of that, which is a confession in itself.

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So yes, I came away from that convicted for sure.

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There's so much in these little chapters.

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The mind node file for this basically has a couple of points from each of these.

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I didn't try to even keep up with all the stories that he was telling.

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But he mentions in the journaling section a couple of things which I thought were important.

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Number one, how you journal is much less important than why to get something off of your chest.

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And that kind of got me thinking about why mentioned in the follow up section to the

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tiny habits thing, how I want to start journaling in my bullet journal.

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And again, apologies to writer Carol for calling it that.

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I just don't have a term yet.

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It's a six-hacky hybrid journal system.

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Just call it journaling.

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But I do find myself wanting to use pen and paper as often as possible.

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So I set up everything the day before with the time blocking and the tasks.

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I use it for daily logging.

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I find that when I am attending meetings and taking notes, even though the meetings are

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probably on zoom on my computer and drafts is right there, I still take them pen and

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paper because I like to.

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And my notes throughout my day sometimes span several pages.

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When I want to just like make a quick list of things that happens in the journal, when

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I want to just kick around an idea, I'll do some sketching inside of the journal, the

00:22:57

bigger stuff like mind mapping for an article or whatever, that still happens inside of

00:23:01

my note and the sketch notes, like the sermon notes and stuff, that still happens in good

00:23:06

notes.

00:23:07

But basically everything else I'm trying to use the bullet journal for.

00:23:10

And every time I do, I really, really like it.

00:23:13

And I love the fact that I can rip out my pages because they're circuit punched and I

00:23:18

can put in some new ones.

00:23:20

Like I don't worry about running out of space.

00:23:22

I don't worry about do I want this to remain in the notebook and I don't want to have to

00:23:27

write it again.

00:23:28

You know, I understand why you shouldn't worry about that anyways, but I do.

00:23:36

And so this is the thing that's finally like released me mentally, not to worry about that.

00:23:40

And so I'm writing everything in here.

00:23:43

And I want to kind of change my journaling setup at the end of the day.

00:23:47

I've always used these prompts and I've always thought like these are the prompts that I

00:23:51

should use the prompt really makes the journaling practice.

00:23:54

Ryan Holiday is basically saying no.

00:23:56

You're wrong.

00:23:58

You just got to do it.

00:24:01

He also says that journaling isn't for the reader.

00:24:03

It's for the writer.

00:24:04

And I think there's some truth to that.

00:24:06

You know, just sorting through emotionally like what happened today, especially as we

00:24:10

record this the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.

00:24:14

And I've been wrestling with some stuff.

00:24:18

So like why not do that paper pen in my notebook?

00:24:24

I guess I'll report back next time if that really like sticks, but really what I want

00:24:29

to have happen here is just at the end of the day, right down even a couple of sentences

00:24:34

about what am I feeling right now?

00:24:38

And doesn't have to do with what time I got up this morning.

00:24:41

My biggest accomplishment was whether I went for a run, any of that stuff, like all the

00:24:45

daily logging or quantified self stuff.

00:24:48

I'm ready to just check it out the window.

00:24:51

And I just want to process through some thoughts before I go to bed.

00:24:56

That's the goal anyways.

00:24:58

Yeah, I would say like in the book, he explains how journaling is more about helping yourself

00:25:06

decipher what your thoughts and feelings are about events that happen throughout the day.

00:25:11

Like I feel like that's what he was really getting at.

00:25:16

And I think that's the part that I've missed.

00:25:19

Because I think I'm like you, I've always considered like the prompts and having a certain question

00:25:25

you answer every day.

00:25:26

Like I get that, but I'm ADD and can't focus on the same silly thing every single night

00:25:31

because it's boring after week three.

00:25:34

So I like the freedom of not having anything specific lockdown and just having a few thoughts

00:25:44

about what happened in that day.

00:25:47

Like usually there's something either pretty good or pretty bad that happened and I need

00:25:51

to process what I'm thinking about it.

00:25:53

This is also where like people often say like I don't know what I think until I've written

00:25:58

out an article on it or published a blog post or you know done a podcast about it.

00:26:04

The whole unpublished thought concept, which I get that, but at the same time I was like,

00:26:09

okay, I have so many of those that it's it would take me forever to just write what happened

00:26:15

in one day.

00:26:16

It would not work out.

00:26:19

So yeah, I think that was an appointment which I realized that for me journaling is something

00:26:25

I should be doing at night and I just need to process my thoughts.

00:26:30

If if something rough happened that day, you know, I'm I'm in Minnesota in the midst

00:26:36

of all the police and protests and riots and stuff that's happening right now.

00:26:41

It is not far from my house.

00:26:43

I'm not in the thick of it, but it's definitely, you know, I would not have to drive very far

00:26:48

to run into things and we've had protests and stuff here in our town.

00:26:51

So there is that to work through like that is not something that's simple to get your

00:26:59

thoughts around.

00:27:00

I mean, for some people it is because they've been thinking about it and working through

00:27:04

it for a long time.

00:27:06

I am not one of those people and I feel like I need to process that and you know, I am

00:27:14

with you as well in the world of this should live in my bullet journal.

00:27:18

So technically how I'm doing this, I have a specific pin to Twizzbee Diamond 580 with

00:27:27

a fine nib and Noodler's Black ink for those who care.

00:27:32

This is specific now.

00:27:34

And all I'm doing is at the end of my daily log, I just reserve three or four or ten lines,

00:27:39

whatever it needs to be.

00:27:40

And I just write out whatever it is it's bothering me.

00:27:43

I write pretty small so I can get a lot of words in that span.

00:27:48

And that is how I end my day is by going through that process and just putting my thoughts

00:27:54

down on paper so that I can get it out of my head and I can actually think clearly.

00:28:00

I sleep a lot better when I do this, Mike.

00:28:04

So which is a thing he points out for sure.

00:28:06

Yep, yeah, he does.

00:28:08

And this emphasis on not carrying around the mental baggage and putting the things on the

00:28:17

paper that reminds me a lot of the morning pages except not in the morning, but that's

00:28:27

stream of conscious.

00:28:29

Evening writings.

00:28:30

Yeah.

00:28:32

And I did have a thought to try that again, but I immediately suppressed it because it

00:28:37

takes so much time.

00:28:38

Yeah, I remember it was like 45 minutes in the morning for me.

00:28:42

I don't have that kind of time anymore.

00:28:44

Yeah.

00:28:46

But I do think that that would be a valuable practice.

00:28:49

I'm not sure if I want to codify that yet and say this is something that I'm going to

00:28:56

build into my system.

00:28:57

But I think that defaulting to expressing how I'm feeling in a notebook multiple times

00:29:08

per day would definitely have a positive effect on not just how I'm feeling emotionally,

00:29:17

but also mentally probably allowing me to engage with the work that I'm supposed to be

00:29:21

doing in the middle of the day a little bit more effectively.

00:29:24

This week has been rough specifically where you mentioned I've been wrestling through

00:29:29

some stuff.

00:29:30

One of the things that I've been thinking about not to completely go down this rabbit

00:29:35

hole, but I've been thinking about how to explain what's going on to my kids.

00:29:44

And I'm struggling with that, which means that I'm not really doing that.

00:29:52

And that in and of itself, I recognize is a bit of a privilege that if I don't bring

00:29:56

it up, they don't even know that this is happening because they're not living in the

00:30:00

middle of it every day.

00:30:01

But I have African American friends who live nearby and I've been thinking about them and

00:30:05

like, what kind of conversations are they having with their kids?

00:30:09

I hurts my heart to think about that stuff.

00:30:15

And I realize that instead of trying to just think about it in my head and feel bad about

00:30:21

it, that I should probably one of the more effective things that I could do.

00:30:26

Well, first of all, I mean, there's a whole there's a whole section in here about the

00:30:31

spirit.

00:30:32

So I do believe in the power of prayer.

00:30:33

I need to be praying about it more.

00:30:35

But also I think I could organize my thoughts a bit better if I took the time to write them

00:30:42

down.

00:30:43

It's very fair.

00:30:44

It's a thing I've been trying to do.

00:30:45

We can't really avoid.

00:30:46

Like we've had a lot of conversations with our kids about things because where we are,

00:30:52

you can't get away from it.

00:30:53

So there's not really that option, which I don't want that option, frankly.

00:30:59

We've just been in a place where like, I wouldn't say our town is really super diverse, but

00:31:05

it's not exclusive on one race or another.

00:31:10

So we've had a lot of conversations with our girls in the past.

00:31:14

So I don't want to make this all about current events, but it's a thing that we have had

00:31:18

to talk about.

00:31:20

And I know that for me, journaling out my own thoughts about it makes it possible for

00:31:26

me to have a better and more thought out conversation with them about it.

00:31:30

It also works the other way, Mike, because trying to explain it to a five year old forces

00:31:39

you to dumb things down at a level where you things don't always, they're not rational.

00:31:44

And you start to explain it to them, say, well, you see some people think this and they are

00:31:50

absolutely wrong.

00:31:51

So you have to explain it in a way that they can understand.

00:31:55

But anyway, all of this to say journaling, I've been doing it now at the end of my daily

00:32:02

log as part of my PM bullet journal.

00:32:06

For those who joined me on the live stream this past Monday, so that was the first June

00:32:13

first, you know that I'm bad at doing my PM bullet journal.

00:32:18

So I'm getting better now because whenever I do the journaling bit at night and just

00:32:22

process my thoughts at that time, it works out really well.

00:32:26

So that's a thing there.

00:32:28

Now there's another section in this part about the mind, Mike, that I feel like we must cover.

00:32:35

And there's not a specific chapter on it.

00:32:37

I don't think it's actually covered, I think, in two or three chapters within this.

00:32:41

But the world of meditation, again, here we go.

00:32:48

I would love to know how many times we've had this conversation about meditation.

00:32:54

It comes up a lot.

00:32:55

Yeah, I don't even know.

00:32:59

It is a lot.

00:33:00

We haven't actually done a book 100% on meditation, have we?

00:33:02

I don't think we have.

00:33:04

I don't think so.

00:33:06

It would have to be 10% happier, I think.

00:33:08

He's got a how-to book, 10% happier is his story.

00:33:12

But he's got a how-to book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics or something like that.

00:33:18

That's what it is.

00:33:19

That would be the one if we did cover it.

00:33:22

That would be it.

00:33:23

That's true.

00:33:24

I'm not going to pick that one for next.

00:33:26

I'm just going to say that.

00:33:30

I do know that for me and ADD people, they say that meditation is super helpful.

00:33:37

If you look at the non-medication routes of treating it that's towards the top of the

00:33:42

list almost every time.

00:33:47

Ryan Holiday talks a lot about emptying your mind and the benefits of being able to do

00:33:51

that so that when rough or high velocity conversations and events occur, it would help

00:33:59

you to slow down and make better rational decisions.

00:34:03

That's probably the way to explain it.

00:34:06

That means you have to meditate regularly, Mike.

00:34:10

I think meditation, because you're right, there isn't a specific section on this.

00:34:16

What he's talking about is stillness.

00:34:18

This is exactly what I view mindfulness meditation as.

00:34:23

I think a lot of people are turned off, a lot of spiritual people maybe are turned off

00:34:27

to the idea of meditation because they associate it with at least in my circles.

00:34:32

They associate it with an Eastern religion, but there really isn't a spiritual aspect

00:34:37

of it when you're just talking about mindfulness meditation.

00:34:40

There are different aspects of it.

00:34:43

Vipasana, I think, is another one.

00:34:46

There's some other flavors of this, which I don't like to get into.

00:34:51

I think that in terms of training your brain to let things go and to focus on just your

00:34:58

breath, that has got absolutely physical and mental benefits.

00:35:06

Like you, I think, maybe based on what I am hearing, I have struggled maintaining a

00:35:13

meditation habit.

00:35:15

When I read this section again, because this was a gap book for me originally, the thing

00:35:21

that stood out to me was that meditation could be an effective practice to create stillness,

00:35:28

but so could journaling and so could a bunch of other things.

00:35:32

So I don't know exactly yet where I land on.

00:35:37

Is this something that I feel like I should pick up again or not?

00:35:41

I think the next thing for me is to step up the journaling and to break away from the

00:35:49

prompts that I have relied on for so many years.

00:35:55

This might be a step after that, but I don't know that it's necessary.

00:36:03

For sure, if you're trying to achieve maximum stillness, then yes, I would say it probably

00:36:07

is necessary.

00:36:09

But if you're just trying to achieve more stillness, my interpretation of this section

00:36:13

is that there's a couple different tactics you can employ to help you get to that point.

00:36:20

And for me, journaling is the next step.

00:36:23

Sure.

00:36:24

Yeah, no, it makes sense.

00:36:25

I feel like we didn't actually explain stillness.

00:36:28

Have we done that?

00:36:30

My brain is bouncing and I can't recall.

00:36:33

I feel like that's probably the place we should start with this whole thing.

00:36:36

But here we are.

00:36:38

Well, we jumped into the first section and in the first, by the time you read the first

00:36:42

section, it kind of assumes that you understand what stillness is.

00:36:48

There is an introduction, which is fairly short.

00:36:50

I don't have a whole lot of notes on the introduction, but I do have this quote which

00:36:53

I'll share here because a lot of this is based in stoic philosophy.

00:37:00

He says to Seneca and to his fellow adherents of stoic philosophy, if a person could develop

00:37:04

peace within themselves, they could achieve a pathia, as they called it, then the whole

00:37:08

world could be at war and they could still think well, work well and be well.

00:37:13

So that's kind of what you're striving for is like an inner peace, regardless of what

00:37:20

is happening around you.

00:37:22

And he talks about the domain of the mind.

00:37:24

We need stillness to be present, to empty our mind of preconceptions, to take a time,

00:37:28

so quietly reflect, reject distraction, way advice, be deliberate, all of these types

00:37:34

of things without being paralyzed.

00:37:36

So I think most people anyways who are listening to this probably have an idea of what stillness

00:37:43

is because this is like every, this is what all the productivity people talk about in

00:37:48

terms of focus or flow, I would, I would argue.

00:37:52

But in this book, he's not talking about it as something to be achieved.

00:37:58

It's like a state of being that you fight for.

00:38:01

And then these three sections, this is like the three different arenas that it could play

00:38:04

out in.

00:38:05

And all the chapters are basically just things that you can do to cultivate it.

00:38:09

Yep.

00:38:10

I am trying meditation again though.

00:38:13

Because it's what we do when we read about meditation, at least it's what I do.

00:38:16

So my, I have my manual habit tracker in the back of my bullet journal and meditation

00:38:21

is on there.

00:38:22

Although last month I only did it a couple of times.

00:38:25

Okay.

00:38:26

I've done it a couple of times this week, which I feel like is an improvement for me.

00:38:32

I've been working through a lot of difficult things for Joe mentally, given like all the

00:38:43

scenarios and such that are hat like COVID-19 and rioting and protests and police brutality

00:38:50

and all that stuff aside before all of that I had some things I've been struggling with

00:38:56

that are just pure mental issues, maybe not issues, but dysfunctions of sorts that I'm

00:39:02

learning about from.

00:39:03

And this is partly why I've been talking about ADD more often lately just because I'm learning

00:39:10

that's like the crux of a lot of those issues.

00:39:13

But you know, as a result of all that I'm learning, like I have to slow down.

00:39:19

Like otherwise my mental game is going to collapse.

00:39:22

So I'm trying to work through that and world events have simply complicated the matter.

00:39:30

Again, there's nothing wrong with that per se.

00:39:33

It's just a thing that I have to to process.

00:39:36

So as a result of all that I've been having lots and lots of conversations about where

00:39:40

my time goes, what I'm working on, what should get my focus and such.

00:39:44

I've been having a lot of those conversations primarily with my wife who is now becoming

00:39:50

more involved in like what those decisions are because Joe has a tendency to just bounce

00:39:56

from thing to thing.

00:39:57

If you have been close to me for any length of time, you know this.

00:40:02

Like how many times do I get a hairbrained idea and run off with it and then you know

00:40:05

a month later it's completely off the radar.

00:40:07

I have no idea what's going on.

00:40:09

It's Joe.

00:40:10

I'm aware of that in trying to figure out how to keep it under control and the things

00:40:16

that I'm learning from specialists and people around me is that like I have to try to process

00:40:22

my thoughts, thus the journaling.

00:40:24

So I have that I guess as an action item to be doing that more often.

00:40:29

I continue to have people telling me about meditation and it's a thing I need to do.

00:40:34

So then reading this doesn't help the matter and has me exploring that concept yet again.

00:40:40

But I've had cases in the past where that has struck me and it's a thing I've wanted

00:40:46

to become more routine.

00:40:50

I might be reaching a point where it's almost vital.

00:40:54

So I need to I got to get this one under control I think.

00:40:58

So here we are.

00:41:01

We'll try it again.

00:41:04

I have a have a like a whole tick mark thing which now there's video of it for how I do

00:41:12

the habit tracking.

00:41:14

Are you doing it the same way I'm doing it in the boudgeau or do you have a different

00:41:17

way of doing that minus the pretty graphs.

00:41:20

But yeah, so you do the dot thing.

00:41:23

Yep.

00:41:24

Yeah, that's kind of a cool way to do it.

00:41:25

But that is a way I've found like because I'm checking in with those habits a few times

00:41:30

in a day.

00:41:31

So it does help me try to keep things updating.

00:41:36

That's a thing that I have found is helpful is seeing those dots and seeing them line up.

00:41:42

So analog for the win.

00:41:45

Yep, I agree.

00:41:49

One other thing from this section on limit your inputs.

00:41:53

He talked about how Napoleon wouldn't open his mail for three weeks and how he loved

00:41:57

to note how many important issues had resolved themselves.

00:42:01

I immediately thought of email and all of the pressure that's associated with responding

00:42:09

immediately.

00:42:10

And I get it that sometimes you're in a position where you can't do anything about that.

00:42:16

But I love that Napoleon did this and basically the call is to limit your inputs.

00:42:23

This is interesting and it's one of my action items to consider this because as we're recording

00:42:28

it, we are kind of going back to we're coming out of quarantine, I guess.

00:42:37

Things are opening up and returning to normal.

00:42:44

And my wife and I in the middle of this, we're talking and mentioning that like we don't

00:42:50

want to just go back to the way things were.

00:42:53

We want to reconsider the things that were committed to and look for alternative ways

00:43:01

to do things maybe than the way we had been doing them.

00:43:05

One example of that is like we used to be at the local music shop all night on Monday

00:43:11

nights for piano lessons, but we've been doing them virtually and kids have been doing great

00:43:16

with those.

00:43:17

So can we continue that?

00:43:18

And if those teachers don't want to do that because they prefer the way that they were

00:43:21

doing things, maybe we can find some other teachers that are.

00:43:24

Because then we don't have to travel, we don't have to sit there, we don't have to keep a

00:43:27

two year old busy.

00:43:29

It just simplifies everything and we have more stillness because we've limited the inputs

00:43:36

or at least rethought the inputs.

00:43:39

So it's not just the things like the email that's buying for your attention.

00:43:42

I feel like it's the commitments that you voluntarily sign up for.

00:43:47

And this has kind of been like a reset period.

00:43:48

So everybody has the opportunity to rethink things and to say, you know what, I'm not

00:43:53

going to do that anymore.

00:43:54

Or at least if you just need a little bit more time, I think there's a lot of understanding

00:43:59

for people who would say, you know what, I'm just not ready for that right now.

00:44:06

I'm not going to jump back into the way we were doing things quite yet.

00:44:10

You guys go ahead.

00:44:12

I'll catch up.

00:44:15

But if you need a little bit more time just to think things through, I think that's an

00:44:19

understandable and acceptable response right now.

00:44:23

Yeah.

00:44:24

It's easier to get away with it right now.

00:44:26

Yep.

00:44:27

So there's that.

00:44:28

Let's go on to the next part here.

00:44:30

So part two is spirit.

00:44:33

And I want to do what I did last time.

00:44:35

Let's just read through these chapters.

00:44:36

We've got two of them specifically that we'll dive into.

00:44:40

But he starts off with the domain of the soul.

00:44:42

You know, he starts them all off with the domain of.

00:44:45

So the domain of the soul, choose virtue, heal the inner child, beware, desire, enough,

00:44:54

bathe in beauty, accept a higher power, interrelationships, conquer your anger, all is one, and then again,

00:45:03

onto what's next.

00:45:04

And the first one of these that I think there's a lot of things we could go through like defining

00:45:10

what is virtue and what do each of these stand for.

00:45:12

But the one I think that embodies a lot of the other pieces to some degree or another

00:45:19

is enough.

00:45:21

And again, he tells all kinds of stories about some prominent leaders and sports figures,

00:45:29

both their successes and their failures.

00:45:31

And in a lot of cases, if he touts one particular individual, he'll tell a story later that

00:45:34

completely shows you they're human.

00:45:38

He talks about how great John F. Kennedy was in the Cuban Missile Crisis and then turns

00:45:44

around and shows how he had demons of his own that he was fighting and potentially ruined

00:45:51

a lot of relationships in the process.

00:45:52

So if he touts one person, he's very commonly showing the other side of the coin and one

00:46:00

of the ones.

00:46:01

Pick Tiger Woods apart.

00:46:02

Yeah, he completely tears Tiger Woods apart.

00:46:05

And I should say like this is an interesting thing in Ryan Holiday's style is that he's

00:46:10

basically psychoanalyzing these people and pointing out all of their flaws.

00:46:17

But you don't feel like he's a jerk for doing it because he has done so much research and

00:46:26

he writes so factually and so well that it's very easy to read.

00:46:32

I do think there is another version of this book somewhere where you read these stories

00:46:37

and you just feel depressed because there's some bad stuff that's going on here.

00:46:42

But that's not the feeling you get after reading this stuff.

00:46:47

It's more like he's pointing out the pitfalls like be careful to stay away from this because

00:46:51

even Tiger Woods, even John F. Kennedy, they struggled with this.

00:46:55

Yeah, kind of puts things in a light where I feel a little bit better about myself.

00:47:00

I was like, okay.

00:47:02

But the piece here, he talks about enough and he mentions this word elsewhere actually

00:47:08

in the story of Tiger Woods where his dad gave him a safe word.

00:47:13

His dad kind of would berate him and drag him down if you know his past on like whenever

00:47:19

he was actually practicing golf, he would try to throw him off his game and you know insult

00:47:25

him regularly as he's golfing.

00:47:28

Kind of improve his mental strength, but they had a safe word, enough.

00:47:35

And they called it the E word because they didn't want to say it.

00:47:37

It was almost an expletive to them.

00:47:39

And that was the stopping of negative in that case.

00:47:44

That's not what he's referring to here.

00:47:46

In this case, he's referring to enough in a very positive light in knowing when you have

00:47:53

reached the point where you have enough money, you don't need to keep pursuing more because

00:47:58

pursuing more is just going to make you a terrible person.

00:48:02

When that sort of line is crossed, you need to know when you've reached that point of

00:48:08

enough.

00:48:09

And I think this is important in a lot of arenas.

00:48:12

And it's one that we don't do well with in general.

00:48:15

At least I don't.

00:48:19

Here's an example.

00:48:20

And this is going to like might be upset for me saying this.

00:48:24

When is enough books?

00:48:26

Okay, he's, you know, so we've started doing video chat and Mike just took his headphones

00:48:31

off and pretended to walk away.

00:48:33

I'm sorry.

00:48:36

So you know, that's a question.

00:48:38

Like when have you reached that point where you have enough books?

00:48:42

Like, I don't know that I would say there's a point where I would say I've read enough

00:48:46

books, like read enough books.

00:48:49

There's probably a limit to ownership of books.

00:48:51

Like there's probably a point at which you shouldn't buy more.

00:48:55

I don't know where that line is.

00:48:57

Don't care to find that line.

00:48:59

But when is enough happen?

00:49:00

When has enough happened?

00:49:02

When has finances is the easy one?

00:49:04

When have you had enough?

00:49:06

When is your salary or your income enough for you to feel comfortable?

00:49:12

And when, when have you reached a point where you have enough friendships?

00:49:18

You know, where are those lines?

00:49:21

And can you recognize them whenever you hit those?

00:49:24

So many people are just, you know, once they achieve one thing, they're on to the next.

00:49:28

And the achievement of a thing that they've been striving for is bittersweet.

00:49:33

Like, yes, you've achieved it, but now you have nothing to live for and you, you're not

00:49:38

content.

00:49:39

You're not able to sit back and enjoy the fact that you have a life that's worth living

00:49:45

without needing the achievement or something to reach.

00:49:48

When have you reached that point?

00:49:49

Yeah.

00:49:50

Page 121, he says, we get to the finish line only to think.

00:49:54

This is it?

00:49:55

Now what?

00:49:57

And that hit me because I literally had that happen to me after I ran my first half marathon.

00:50:06

I was training for like a year and a half actually over-trained.

00:50:09

My patella tendons slipped off my kneecap on the side of my leg.

00:50:13

And I had been training for a long time.

00:50:15

I was going to run the thing anyway, so I did.

00:50:18

And immediately after I crossed the finish line, like they put the metal around your

00:50:21

neck, you're walking through your grab in the banana.

00:50:23

I got water there for you like 10 seconds later.

00:50:29

I had this go through my head like, okay, I ran my half marathon.

00:50:33

Now what?

00:50:35

I knew that I'd hurt my knee and I had physical therapy ahead of me.

00:50:38

So I knew I couldn't run.

00:50:39

The natural next thing is like find another race to run, but I couldn't do that.

00:50:43

And this is my big problem with goals because you can achieve a goal and then, does this

00:50:51

fit?

00:50:52

What do I do?

00:50:54

I guess I find another goal.

00:50:55

I guess I push a little bit harder.

00:50:57

And that's really at the heart of the scrum model that we read that book.

00:51:02

And I really like a lot about scrum, but in hearing in scrum is that that idea where

00:51:07

like once you've accomplished everything that you set out to do, then you push yourself

00:51:12

to do a little bit more.

00:51:14

And that's the thing that just drives me nuts.

00:51:16

So enough, I think from a physical standpoint for me, I had to learn to love the process.

00:51:23

I had to relearn how to run.

00:51:25

I had to take six weeks off, then I started running again, increased my distance too fast,

00:51:29

dealt with plantar fasciitis, had taken another six weeks off.

00:51:32

I mean, it was like three months before I could really run again.

00:51:36

And I had to like not worry about my time, not worry about the distance.

00:51:40

I had to just enjoy getting outside and going for a run, which is very appropriate right

00:51:44

now because the fact that we've been home for all this time, like people go a little stir

00:51:48

crazy.

00:51:49

I am in that camp as well.

00:51:52

But one of the things that has helped keep me sane during this time has been getting outside.

00:51:57

So I have been running or biking every single day during this since the quarantine started.

00:52:04

I will usually run like five miles, which isn't, I mean, that's a pretty decent length,

00:52:09

but it's not a half marathon.

00:52:11

Like I was training for.

00:52:13

You know, it was no big deal for me to go run 12, 13 miles on a Saturday.

00:52:19

But so less distance, more frequently, not worried about the time, just enjoying getting

00:52:24

out there.

00:52:25

That is the mindset that we have to have.

00:52:27

And I think it pertains to all the different areas of our lives, especially as it pertains

00:52:32

to work.

00:52:33

I think there is a tendency to focus on the outcomes and what you produce, especially

00:52:38

for creatives.

00:52:39

Like, what did I ship?

00:52:41

And I was encouraged as I read this section about enough that we have at Blanc Media this

00:52:47

whole concept of the sabbaticals where every eighth week the company shuts down and we

00:52:53

don't do any work.

00:52:55

And that has been really cool.

00:52:57

And I'm recognizing as I read this book again that that is like a forced systemic enough

00:53:05

perspective that could we work that extra week?

00:53:10

Yes, we probably could.

00:53:12

Could we get more stuff done?

00:53:13

Could we ship another product sooner?

00:53:14

Could we make more money?

00:53:16

Probably.

00:53:17

But that's not the lifestyle that we want to live.

00:53:23

We want to have a calm work culture.

00:53:27

And I really am appreciative of that.

00:53:30

Interestingly, we just interviewed for Focus.

00:53:33

This episode will be up, I believe, by the time this one goes up.

00:53:36

So I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

00:53:38

We interviewed Sean McCabe.

00:53:41

He's in the middle of a year long sabbatical and happens to be the year that everybody

00:53:48

is supposed to stay at home except he sold his house and doesn't have a home.

00:53:53

A little bit interesting for him.

00:53:55

He was supposed to travel the world.

00:53:56

He was supposed to run a marathon.

00:53:58

He's going to work.

00:54:00

Yeah.

00:54:01

Well, I won't do as good a job explaining it as he does.

00:54:05

So just go listen to the episode if you're interested in that sort of thing.

00:54:07

But he's kind of the champion, I think, of this whole sabbatical idea.

00:54:10

I know that he was influential in Sean Blanc embracing it with Bloc Media.

00:54:16

But I really think this is a really cool idea.

00:54:18

And I would encourage everybody to think about how you can systemically create this in your

00:54:23

own life, whether it's work personal, whatever.

00:54:25

And you're specifically talking about a sabbatical of sorts.

00:54:29

Well, the sabbatical, I think, is a cool idea because I recognize a sabbatical is tied

00:54:34

to this idea of enough.

00:54:37

They are basically the same thing.

00:54:39

The sabbatical is saying we could be working right now, but we choose not to because we've

00:54:44

got enough.

00:54:45

Sure.

00:54:46

You know, we can get enough done.

00:54:47

We don't need to squeeze out one more thing because it's going to make us feel frantic

00:54:53

and it's going to burn us out.

00:54:55

Yadda yadda yadda.

00:54:56

Sure.

00:54:57

And I think you can apply that a lot of different ways.

00:54:59

But the sabbatical is the example that came to mind for me as it pertains to the work

00:55:03

side.

00:55:04

Makes sense.

00:55:06

The next one I've got written down here is interrelationships.

00:55:10

And I say this because this is what I wanted to talk about because right now I feel like

00:55:14

this is really hard.

00:55:16

Hey, Wisconsin is probably not as bad as Minnesota, but right now we're still fairly

00:55:22

locked down and it makes it difficult to connect with other people.

00:55:28

It's actually starting to reach a point where a large part of the state is kind of just

00:55:34

breaking the rules, like breaking all of the suggestions and recommendations and stuff

00:55:41

because they're just tired and they're tired of being stuck at home on their own.

00:55:47

I get it.

00:55:48

I do.

00:55:49

Like it's hard to stay where you're told to stay.

00:55:55

But I think this is why because Ryan Holiday points out how relationships are super important

00:56:02

and how building relationships and fostering those is one of the key components to a fulfilling

00:56:12

life.

00:56:13

So I think that given the state that we're in right now and his comments and you and I

00:56:21

have talked about, if you don't know what your mission in life should be, make it a

00:56:25

mission to serve other people.

00:56:27

We've talked about this sort of thing frequently and in a lot of ways.

00:56:31

And I think there is a lot of value to this and it's brought out here by Ryan Holiday in

00:56:38

this concept of entering relationships, whether they're big or small or important or minor

00:56:44

doesn't matter.

00:56:46

But being willing to develop relationships with other people is super important.

00:56:51

So I was grateful that he pointed it out as part of this.

00:56:56

This is supposed to be my year of rest and relationships.

00:57:02

So I have been struggling with this as well because yeah, things are opening up a little

00:57:08

bit more here in Wisconsin.

00:57:10

We were at the point about a month ago where people were frustrated and just breaking all

00:57:13

of the rules.

00:57:15

So we are not, you know, having people over and all that yet.

00:57:20

But I will say that while we have been quarantined, we have been thinking because this was part

00:57:26

of my yearly theme on other ways that we can build these.

00:57:32

And this is something that I've been trying to do consistently.

00:57:36

It's not something I do consistently enough, but there have been many times during this

00:57:43

quarantine where I have like gone through my list of contacts and just picked somebody

00:57:48

that I FaceTimed and talked to.

00:57:52

And some of the people that I've talked to are people that I wouldn't have talked to.

00:57:57

Otherwise, it's not just people who are local, replacing, you know, seeing people at church

00:58:01

or anything like that.

00:58:02

There has been some of that too, just checking in and seeing how people are doing.

00:58:06

But I recognize that it took a global pandemic for me to reach out to people who I honestly

00:58:13

have wanted to reach out to for a very long time.

00:58:16

And why was it that way?

00:58:20

Why was that the case?

00:58:21

Why did I not even think about FaceTiming this person until now?

00:58:29

Because every time that I've connected with somebody that way, it has felt really good.

00:58:35

They have been very appreciative.

00:58:38

And it's something that we don't have to wait until things go back to normal in order

00:58:43

to do.

00:58:44

That's kind of the thing I want to communicate to everybody else who's thinking about, "Well,

00:58:48

I wish I could build my relationships, but I can't right now.

00:58:52

You can.

00:58:53

You just got to get a little creative with it."

00:58:55

Yeah, for sure.

00:58:56

You know, I'm not good at, especially given everything.

00:59:00

I haven't been good about texting or FaceTiming with people at all because I'm in the weird

00:59:05

spot where I am still seeing people and have been from day one.

00:59:09

So this was a case from the very beginning is that we're sacrificing Joe so that everybody

00:59:16

else can isolate.

00:59:20

Right now I keep thinking I'm coming out of it and then we add something more and they're

00:59:26

like, "Oh, let's do a big drive-in thing."

00:59:29

And then we start bringing the Minnesota is now letting churches open back up to 25%.

00:59:39

I still haven't quite been able to nail down my opinions on that, but as my job is for

00:59:44

a church, I now have the honor and duty of running essentially three different events

00:59:51

all at one time every Sunday, which takes a lot of work and stuff too.

00:59:57

So my job continues to change on a week-to-week basis.

01:00:01

When I think I'm coming up for air, I'm actually getting ready to be shoved back down under.

01:00:07

It's just kind of how it goes.

01:00:10

But it's a case where I am still seeing a lot of people and even now that churches are starting

01:00:18

to open up, I'm seeing a lot more people.

01:00:21

I do my best to keep my distance because I don't know where people have been.

01:00:27

And again, my role is one where it's kind of vital to the church at the moment.

01:00:34

So my health and safety is very important in that case.

01:00:38

So I have to watch handshakes that people try to give and ignore them, which is counter

01:00:45

to what I feel like I should be doing.

01:00:47

All this to say, I totally get Ryan Holidays' drive towards entering relationships and building

01:00:52

those relationships.

01:00:53

I see a ton of value in that and it's one that I would highly recommend for other people.

01:00:58

And it's just kind of slipped in here.

01:01:00

Like a lot of these, it's just another small point that he's making in the broader scheme

01:01:05

of what he's driving towards.

01:01:07

Yep.

01:01:08

So, which brings us to part three, which actually I feel like is the easiest one to get action

01:01:14

items from.

01:01:16

Which I don't know.

01:01:17

I've got three of them so far.

01:01:20

Yeah.

01:01:21

So the third part here is body.

01:01:26

Let's repeat the process here are the chapter titles for body.

01:01:32

The domain of the body, again, starts off that way.

01:01:35

Say no, take a walk, build a routine, get rid of your stuff.

01:01:40

It does not say books, Mike.

01:01:43

Seek solitude, be a human being, go to sleep, find a hobby, beware, escapism, act bravely

01:01:53

onto the final act and onto the final act, I think is kind of just his wrap up for the

01:01:57

whole book at that point.

01:02:00

So there's three specifics here.

01:02:03

I want to talk about a couple of these are pretty quick, I feel like, though I tend to

01:02:10

say that and then they're not life.

01:02:14

The first of which is take a walk.

01:02:16

This is something I feel has been discussed and has come up in a lot of different scenarios.

01:02:21

You hear it from a lot of biographers, people talking about the benefits of going for walks.

01:02:29

The one that stands out in my mind right now is the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson

01:02:34

where he discussed how Steve Jobs would, if you wanted to have a meeting with him, he

01:02:39

loved to do walking meetings.

01:02:40

It was like the thing that he did.

01:02:42

So like that was one that's jumped out to me though that story is not in here, which

01:02:47

there was no Apple reference in this book.

01:02:49

Did you notice that?

01:02:50

Like that?

01:02:51

Did not.

01:02:52

Shocked to me.

01:02:53

That's pretty awesome to be honest.

01:02:54

A book like this and Steve Jobs was not a part of it.

01:02:58

Interesting.

01:02:59

So real quickly on that topic, I think the reason that it wasn't in here is because Ryan

01:03:05

Holiday is so researched.

01:03:07

It would have been easy to just find stuff to back the points that he was making and

01:03:12

pull in a bunch of stuff from Apple, which it seems like that's what everybody else does

01:03:15

because maybe it's trendy.

01:03:17

But I also know Ryan Holiday, when he does his research, he does it paper pencil.

01:03:23

He does it on note cards and he has these boxes of note cards that he collects during

01:03:28

his research.

01:03:29

And I think like that gave him a larger data set to pull from and the stuff that he chose

01:03:35

is the right stuff to support his arguments.

01:03:38

It's very entertaining.

01:03:39

It's very engaging.

01:03:40

Didn't need an Apple reference to keep people hooked.

01:03:43

No.

01:03:44

I don't know this for certain, but I think at one point I ran across an article or a

01:03:49

comment of some sorts that mentioned that Ryan Holiday does use the Zettelkasten method,

01:03:54

the whole slip box concept.

01:03:56

It doesn't surprise me.

01:03:57

The original paper version of it.

01:03:59

Not the Rome research obsidian version that we've been like that's kind of taking over

01:04:03

the world right now, but the old school pen and paper version of that, which isn't

01:04:07

intriguing to me.

01:04:08

This might be okay.

01:04:12

This is the problem with these scenarios.

01:04:14

Now I have this thought of do I explore doing that as part of analog Joe?

01:04:19

Should I live stream the building on it?

01:04:21

This is the way my brain works.

01:04:22

That would be amazing.

01:04:23

Totally.

01:04:24

Sure it would, but it sounds incredibly complicated in my brain.

01:04:27

Before you get yourself in too much trouble committing to things.

01:04:30

Yeah, thanks Mike.

01:04:31

Appreciate that.

01:04:32

Dig me out of this hole that I just dug into.

01:04:35

Yeah.

01:04:36

Let's talk about the take a walk section here.

01:04:38

Yep, that's probably good.

01:04:40

I agree this is something that we've heard over and over again.

01:04:45

This is when I read this section, this is kind of the incentive behind my get outside

01:04:52

bike or run every day habit.

01:04:57

I initially started doing that because the weather was starting to change.

01:05:03

I just wanted to be outside, but I recognized the first couple of times that I did it.

01:05:07

It had a significant positive impact on my emotional state by the time I got back.

01:05:16

So I would be home and more often than I'd care to admit, I find myself just like scrolling

01:05:23

through the news, getting upset of what I'm seeing and then eventually I can't take it

01:05:29

anymore.

01:05:30

I'm like, I got to go for a run.

01:05:31

I got to get outside.

01:05:32

I got to work out yesterday was a three workout day for me.

01:05:37

I ran, I biked and I lifted it.

01:05:43

But whenever I did it by the time I got back, it was, I felt much more calm.

01:05:49

Ryan Holiday would use the word stillness.

01:05:51

I can totally relate to that.

01:05:53

This is in the body section, but this definitely affects the others as well.

01:06:01

I'm thinking of the Spaceship U video that CGP Grey put together.

01:06:06

Have you seen that video?

01:06:08

Put lockdown productivity?

01:06:09

I have not.

01:06:10

I've seen it circulated, but I haven't actually sat down and watched it.

01:06:13

Maybe I should do that when we get done here.

01:06:16

Phenomenal video, I think it's like 12 minutes long.

01:06:18

He uses the analogy of quarantine as being in your own spaceship.

01:06:23

And so kind of like Wally, where they send everybody to space, like we're going to clean

01:06:27

up the mess.

01:06:28

You guys come back a little bit when things have calmed down.

01:06:31

At the beginning, he talks about how your mission is to return better than you were before.

01:06:37

And he uses this analogy of like, you're in this little spaceship.

01:06:41

You need to set up these different spaces or these zones for the different areas that

01:06:46

you have to maintain.

01:06:47

He talks about the central core being this thing that you have to keep spinning.

01:06:51

And there's two sides to that.

01:06:52

There is the mental side and then there is the physical side.

01:06:56

And he makes the point in that video that the place to start is with the physical side.

01:07:00

Just get moving.

01:07:02

Just start exercising.

01:07:04

Do something and then that will get things moving and then your spaceship can maintain

01:07:08

itself assuming that you've set everything else up the way that it should be.

01:07:12

And I would differ a little bit, I think, in terms of some of the specifics of what he

01:07:17

shares in there.

01:07:19

But I really do think that's a great analogy.

01:07:22

It's really well animated.

01:07:23

It's a very well done video and 100% agree with that point about the physical being the

01:07:27

place to start.

01:07:29

It's the easy, easy thing.

01:07:31

It's easy to just get outside and go for a walk.

01:07:34

And then once you do that, you've got a little bit more margin, mental clarity, emotional

01:07:38

stability.

01:07:39

Like you come back and you can try to do the other stuff.

01:07:42

So it's no secret that my family and I love to go hiking.

01:07:48

And there's another one that we're going to talk about here in a bit is seeking solitude.

01:07:53

This does not qualify as that because three kids, period.

01:08:00

But what it does qualify as is taking a walk and taking a walk through the woods specifically.

01:08:06

We have a tendency to hunt mushrooms as part of that.

01:08:09

We love our mushrooms.

01:08:11

Had very little success hunting Morells this year in Minnesota, but found tons of them

01:08:17

in Iowa at one point.

01:08:19

And right now we're in the middle of like getting into summer mushrooms and stuff.

01:08:23

So we're out at least once every week, sometimes more than that out taking walks.

01:08:28

What I have found is that if I can, I try to get those times scheduled for either early

01:08:35

afternoon or in the morning.

01:08:37

Because what happens is when I get back from those, I'm ready to go to work and I want

01:08:43

to go write some things down and I want to go kick some things out.

01:08:46

Like that's what happens whenever I'm done with those times.

01:08:49

And if I wait until two o'clock, three o'clock to go hiking, by the time we're out the door

01:08:54

or go hiking and get back, it's like five o'clock.

01:08:57

And at that point, it's clean everything up, get dinner on the table, kids to bed and like

01:09:01

the whole evening is gone at that point.

01:09:02

So I'm not really going to get any work done when I get back from that.

01:09:06

So mornings, I guess are better because I just, I can go, go, go, go, go, whenever I'm

01:09:11

done with that, even though I just hiked six miles.

01:09:14

That's where I'm sitting.

01:09:17

There's all kinds of science and stuff behind all the physical and the body side of that.

01:09:22

Ryan Holiday talks a lot about the mental state of that and the benefits of your mind

01:09:29

and the way that things work as a result of exercising your body in that way.

01:09:34

All this to say, I'm going to continue hiking.

01:09:38

But the one thing that I'm debating because what that doesn't solve is there's one aspect

01:09:44

that he mentions in that being able to do things on your own and trying to like clear

01:09:51

your mind of things instead of being willing to just let your mind run and race wherever

01:09:57

it wants to go, which is what I do when we go hiking.

01:09:59

I can't really just clear my mind and not think about things and just enjoy the moment

01:10:04

whenever I'm out there because three kids.

01:10:07

So I'm constantly keeping an eye on them.

01:10:10

Did they just fall into a creek?

01:10:11

I don't know where one of them in particular.

01:10:14

I never know where she is.

01:10:16

Here we go.

01:10:17

So I want to start trying to find a way to take walks, maybe not daily, but a couple

01:10:23

times a week to just take 30 minutes, go outside, do a quick walk, even just around

01:10:28

the neighborhood just on my own.

01:10:29

That's the thing I want to try to do.

01:10:31

So I have that down as an action item because I feel like although I do get the exercise

01:10:36

side of it, I don't feel like I get the mental clarity that can come from it as well.

01:10:41

Sure.

01:10:42

Yeah.

01:10:43

When you add kids to anything, it changes the dynamic for sure.

01:10:47

Totally, totally does.

01:10:50

Next one here I want to talk about is get rid of your stuff.

01:10:55

And he primarily points out that stuff tends to require your attention and it requires

01:11:02

maintenance, it requires upkeep.

01:11:04

If it breaks, you must fix it.

01:11:07

The bigger the house you have, the more things there are to break and maintain.

01:11:12

So smaller is better in a lot of cases.

01:11:17

That's his point here.

01:11:19

I can honestly say that my wife and I have been very deliberate in getting rid of as

01:11:24

many things as we can.

01:11:25

We have like these two or three days a year where it seems like, and it's not scheduled,

01:11:29

it's not planned.

01:11:30

It's just like, this is really bothering me tomorrow.

01:11:33

I'm cleaning out this entire area and I'm donating it all.

01:11:38

Those times happen and they do happen seemingly regularly.

01:11:44

But it's a thing that I feel like is important to call out because in the world we live in,

01:11:50

it's very easy to land in the camp of collecting things and having a lot of stuff.

01:11:57

And that's not good for your mental state or your physical state or your pocketbook,

01:12:01

for that matter.

01:12:02

That makes a point that more stuff equals less freedom.

01:12:07

My wife probably would be more like you where she wants to get rid of things.

01:12:13

I am not a hoarder, but I'm just indifferent.

01:12:18

So I'm not going to take action on stuff until one day she does it.

01:12:22

And then I'm like, hey, where'd that go?

01:12:23

And she's like, oh, I gave it away.

01:12:25

Whoops, sorry.

01:12:26

Hope you don't want that anymore.

01:12:28

That does happen.

01:12:30

That's hilarious.

01:12:33

But I do think there's some truth to that.

01:12:36

And this is kind of an interesting time to be talking about this.

01:12:38

I remember when the quarantine started, I saw some internet cartoon of two people and

01:12:49

one of them was saying to the other one, like, don't look at me.

01:12:54

You're the one who got rid of everything that didn't spark joy.

01:12:58

So you go have fun with your five folded t-shirts or whatever.

01:13:04

Point being that now you are stuck at home and maybe you shouldn't have gotten rid of

01:13:10

everything because really what you were clinging to was some other semblance of your day to

01:13:15

day that you don't have access to anymore.

01:13:19

I think there's an element of truth to that.

01:13:21

So it isn't just the things that you can get attached to, it can be specifics in your

01:13:29

own way of life.

01:13:31

But I do think that the less complicated your life is, then the more stillness you have,

01:13:40

and like he says, the more freedom you have, the more joy you have because you're not constantly

01:13:45

worried about maintaining the things.

01:13:47

Like if you have a grill, like, yeah, it's nice to cook outside, but it requires you

01:13:51

cleaning it regularly in order to keep it from rusting and falling apart.

01:13:55

And you got to refill the bottle on occasion.

01:13:58

If you have more than two vehicles and there's only two of you driving in the house, that

01:14:02

means you've got extra maintenance for the oil changes and tires and, you know, coolant

01:14:07

levels and blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:14:09

Exactly.

01:14:10

Like there's a lot more to keep an eye on.

01:14:11

The bigger your house is, the more carpet that needs swept regularly.

01:14:14

Like there's a lot that can come with that.

01:14:19

You know, I'm referring to like motors and things, but people don't always realize like

01:14:22

tools need maintain too sometimes.

01:14:24

So, you know, I've got a fair number of power tools, but they require cleaning on a fairly

01:14:29

decent basis.

01:14:31

Otherwise they'll clog up and the motors will burn up.

01:14:33

We won't talk about how I know that, but that's a thing that happens.

01:14:38

Yeah.

01:14:39

Pets would be another example.

01:14:40

I mean, our previous dog passed away last summer and we knew we wanted to get another

01:14:47

dog, but we also knew at the time that life was complicated and we didn't want to deal

01:14:52

with that yet.

01:14:53

So we waited until I think it was December we got got our golden doodle.

01:15:00

But it was the right thing at the right time and it's not stressful.

01:15:03

Like she brings joy to our house.

01:15:05

But if we had gotten her earlier and we were traveling and we had to figure out where we're

01:15:11

going to have her stay when we get on an airplane, all that kind of stuff, like that

01:15:15

can weigh on you and that can totally change the perspective of the thing.

01:15:18

And instead of now bringing joy, it's bringing stress.

01:15:21

And there's so many things that you can, that can do that, that it's worth thinking

01:15:26

these through.

01:15:27

We're not, you know, because I feel stressed that we, that you have a dog that's not, you

01:15:31

know, I'm just going to give away the dog, especially can't do that with kids, like,

01:15:35

you got to make this work now.

01:15:36

We can only handle two kids.

01:15:38

So that third one, I love you, but, you know, but I think it's worth thinking about not

01:15:48

just is this the right thing, but is this the right time?

01:15:52

There isn't a simple formula for this, but always there on the side of margin, I guess

01:16:00

is what I'm trying to say.

01:16:02

So there's one last section here I want to go through and that is seek solitude.

01:16:06

And I'm curious, Mike, what your thoughts are on this given we both live in towns, in

01:16:12

neighborhoods, we're getting away from all of the motor noises and just the buzz of homes.

01:16:23

Do you see value in seeking solitude?

01:16:26

Is that a trick question?

01:16:31

I'm asking the person who does like these regular personal retreats.

01:16:34

So yeah, exactly.

01:16:38

So yeah, I, in this, this section, they talk about the twice per year Bill Gates taking

01:16:43

a think week at a cabin in the woods.

01:16:46

They say, Ryan says on page two, 18, it's hard to make that time.

01:16:49

It's hard and expensive to get away.

01:16:50

We have responsibilities, but they will be better for our temporary disappearance.

01:16:54

We will carry back with us to stillness from our solitude in the form of patients understanding

01:16:57

gratitude and insight.

01:16:59

This is 100% my experience with these personal retreats.

01:17:03

So we believe my family, the way we operate that I am the one who should be setting the

01:17:14

direction for the family, not just for myself work wise, but not saying my wife's not an

01:17:21

equal partner.

01:17:23

But we believe that that's my responsibility.

01:17:29

I've got to go spend the time, get the plan, and then come back and we get an agreement

01:17:35

on the specifics of it.

01:17:37

It'll change, you know, because I'll not see stuff that my wife will see.

01:17:42

But ultimately I can't abdicate that responsibility and be like, you just figure it out.

01:17:46

I'm going to work.

01:17:47

I'm going to bring home the bacon and you figure everything else out.

01:17:51

So I take this responsibility seriously.

01:17:53

I don't want to just dictate her, Mike, be like, this is what we are going to do.

01:17:57

I really want to make sure that I get this right.

01:17:59

So the personal retreat is the thing that allows me to do that.

01:18:02

And my wife would be the first to say that this is absolutely a very valuable routine

01:18:09

that we have.

01:18:10

It makes everything a lot easier when I take the time to try to figure this out and then

01:18:17

come back and communicate it to her.

01:18:20

And again, I'm not just saying like Moses coming down from the mount with the stone tablets.

01:18:24

This is what we are doing.

01:18:26

Like they are changing and evolving as we work through some things.

01:18:32

But I am the one who needs to initiate that.

01:18:38

If I don't initiate it, then we just kind of get stuck in the day to day.

01:18:42

That's when we end up not being in alignment.

01:18:44

That's when we end up pulling in opposite directions and things are way harder than they

01:18:48

have to be.

01:18:49

So yes, this is something that I do.

01:18:51

Yes, it is absolutely something.

01:18:53

I would argue that everybody should do.

01:18:55

He makes the case in that quote that even though it may be expensive, I'm pretty privileged

01:19:00

because my parents have a place up in Door County.

01:19:03

It's up on a hill when you're up there.

01:19:05

It doesn't feel like there's anybody near you.

01:19:08

It does feel like you are alone.

01:19:10

It's got a view down the hill.

01:19:12

It's not actually on the water, but you can see the water.

01:19:15

Trees all over the place.

01:19:16

It feels different.

01:19:17

It's chill.

01:19:18

There's just something about being up there that produces the stillness that he's talking

01:19:24

about in this whole book.

01:19:26

That's what I do.

01:19:27

But even if I had to go rent an Airbnb, this is something that I would do.

01:19:32

I do actually try to...

01:19:36

Maybe this isn't solitude.

01:19:37

Maybe this is the forest bathing, whatever.

01:19:40

We live in a suburb, but it's close enough to nature that when I go for a run, when I

01:19:46

go for a bike ride, I can get...

01:19:48

Out into a place where I'm just surrounded by nature.

01:19:55

That has a positive effect as well.

01:19:57

It's not the solitude where I'm getting the epiphanies because I'm spending a week out

01:20:02

there, but even just getting out there for a half an hour, that helps.

01:20:07

Yeah, I don't know that I would do...

01:20:09

I know you do these overnight deals.

01:20:12

I don't know that that's something I would put into this.

01:20:15

I'm sure there's some value in that.

01:20:16

But personally, I think the area that I need to focus on, because taking walks and doing

01:20:23

the hikes and such, the whole forest bathing concept we haven't discussed, that comes along

01:20:31

for the ride with that.

01:20:33

But seeking solitude, getting outdoors and being on my own or just a place on my own,

01:20:39

doesn't matter.

01:20:40

That is something I need to do.

01:20:42

I don't want to say every week, but something I should do regularly.

01:20:47

Because I haven't done that a long time.

01:20:48

Now, I say that knowing that we have a vacation planned coming up here in a couple weeks,

01:20:55

we'll see how lockdowns and such and what we choose to do at that time if we actually

01:21:00

follow through on things.

01:21:02

But that is the goal.

01:21:04

The location of that would put me in mountains with very little cell reception, which could

01:21:10

be amazing.

01:21:13

I don't think though that what he's talking about with solitude is necessarily the same

01:21:19

as a vacation.

01:21:20

He makes the point with Bill Gates takes his think week that that's actually really hard

01:21:26

work.

01:21:27

So most people think of vacation and they think of kicking their feet up, being able to relax.

01:21:32

The thing that I was getting to on that is because yes, we're going on vacation, but

01:21:36

it'll be up in mountains and in a secluded place, which would then give me the opportunity

01:21:40

to take one or two days or times to go out on my own and do solitude practice of sorts

01:21:50

at those times.

01:21:51

I don't think of the entire vacation as that.

01:21:54

I think there are definitely some elements of some other pieces here that will come into

01:21:59

it.

01:22:00

I want at least one piece of that to have an aspect of solitude that comes with it.

01:22:06

But I do need to figure that out locally at home too though.

01:22:09

I need to get that dialed in.

01:22:12

I think you could get a taste of solitude during your vacation, but unless you're camping by

01:22:17

yourself in the mountains for a day or two, I don't think you can really achieve what

01:22:21

he's talking about.

01:22:22

Probably not.

01:22:23

And I don't think it needs to be a week like Bill Gates does, but I do think that the

01:22:28

longer you give yourself to just think about things, that whole idea of thinking time,

01:22:34

that you will get to new levels in terms of solitude.

01:22:39

Yes, agreed.

01:22:41

100%.

01:22:42

What else do you want to say about this book, Mike?

01:22:45

Actually, there's one more thing on the Beware Escapism.

01:22:49

Page 246 says, "To build a life you don't need an escape from."

01:22:55

I think that's a really powerful statement.

01:22:58

I think it's something that isn't necessarily an action item for me, but it's something

01:23:03

I've been thinking about.

01:23:04

He shares a lot of stories in here about people and their daily routines, famous people, and

01:23:09

how they would go through these routines day in, day out, every day for years.

01:23:15

Which that's a whole section in here, by the way, about routines, and that's actually

01:23:18

an action item for me, is to make a routine out of everything that I can.

01:23:21

But I recognize in a cool position where I could do that sort of thing.

01:23:30

I think that's awesome.

01:23:32

I think that it's something people should strive for.

01:23:36

If you can't control every aspect of your life right now, then don't worry about that,

01:23:41

but control what you can control.

01:23:43

Think about how to not just live for the next vacation, but to create those routines throughout

01:23:51

your day to day, where if you were to describe your perfect day, what does that look like?

01:24:00

And then think about how could you pull aspects of that off?

01:24:05

As I'm thinking through this, I'm like, "You know what?

01:24:07

I've got a pretty sweet opportunity here to do that."

01:24:11

Nice.

01:24:12

Well, I think we should step into action items here, because I feel like there are a few,

01:24:17

at least that I have.

01:24:18

I've got five written down, which I don't know what the record is for the most action items

01:24:24

I've had for a show, or for a specific book.

01:24:28

I'd be curious to know that one as well.

01:24:29

I have all these questions about myself and about what all is going on.

01:24:36

But here are the five I have.

01:24:40

One is I want to limit the inputs that I'm taking in.

01:24:44

That one really jumped out at me as something that I don't do well with, because I have

01:24:48

a tendency to just want to absorb anything and everything.

01:24:52

It's okay to turn the stuff off.

01:24:55

We've talked about the digital issues with the addictions and such digital minimalism,

01:25:01

if I can get the word out.

01:25:04

I need to come back to that.

01:25:06

It's forever a cycle of you do really well, and then you slowly add things back in, and

01:25:10

then you have a problem again.

01:25:12

That's one.

01:25:13

I mentioned stepping back into journaling.

01:25:16

It's number two, stepping back into meditation, which would be number three.

01:25:21

The solitude piece that I need to work out as number four, and then trying to take regular

01:25:26

walks by myself.

01:25:28

That's an indicator that I need to add to that list.

01:25:34

By myself, writing right now.

01:25:37

There you go.

01:25:38

That's what I have.

01:25:39

Those are my five.

01:25:40

All right.

01:25:41

I do not have five, but I do have four, which are like you to limit my inputs.

01:25:48

That I've done a pretty decent job of already, but I think it's something worth considering

01:25:54

again as we transition back to a normal life post quarantine to not let things just creep

01:26:05

back to where they were and to maintain the margin that we've got.

01:26:10

I want to be in the moment, and this is something I need to wrestle through specifically what

01:26:15

this looks like, because the struggle I have is my kids are growing up, and it seems like

01:26:25

every single day they are bigger.

01:26:28

I want to preserve the memories, but I also want to enjoy the moments that we are making

01:26:34

together.

01:26:36

Specifically, where's the line between take out the phone and take a picture and just

01:26:44

be here and enjoy it?

01:26:47

I don't know exactly where that is yet.

01:26:50

I've got one to try journaling using pen and paper inside my bullet journal, which we talked

01:26:57

about, and then to make a routine out of everything that I can.

01:27:03

This is inspired by my time blocking practice and recognizing the patterns for specific

01:27:09

days and thinking about how I can tweak those a little bit to produce my ideal day.

01:27:22

Instead of, at the end of the day, as I'm planning the next day, thinking about what

01:27:26

are the things that I need to do and the blocks that are going to happen, how can I

01:27:30

standardize this stuff in a way that's awesome?

01:27:33

Sounds like a tall task.

01:27:35

It does.

01:27:36

Did you expect anything less from me?

01:27:39

A tall task that's hard to hold you to.

01:27:42

Sounds about right.

01:27:45

That's how we do things.

01:27:47

Style and rating, I suppose this is my choice, so I get the honors of going first here.

01:27:51

Ryan Holiday is very easy to read.

01:27:53

He's very good at putting a book together and putting together his thoughts and telling

01:27:57

stories that I don't know that there were many stories in this, and there's one and every

01:28:02

single one of those chapters, multiple in those chapters in a lot of cases.

01:28:06

Most of those I feel like were brand new to me, which is another testament to him.

01:28:12

There are definitely some, like you know the story behind it, but the detail that he brought

01:28:16

out into it and the specific points and the facts that he brought out in it were definitely

01:28:20

new.

01:28:22

I kudos to Mr. Holiday on that one.

01:28:25

That was a job well done.

01:28:28

As far as content goes, there is the whole stoicism undertone that follows the whole thing.

01:28:33

It's not even an undertone.

01:28:34

It's just right out in front in a lot of cases.

01:28:38

I can see how so much of this is core to stoicism.

01:28:44

I'm not going to say I'm a stoic or want to become a stoic.

01:28:48

Ryan Holiday runs a site daily stoic, and that is not something I find myself wanting

01:28:55

to gravitate towards, but there are a lot of aspects of it as are brought out in this

01:29:01

particular book that I definitely resonate with.

01:29:05

Thus, the large number of action items that I get out of this.

01:29:08

To me, this is an easy five-star book.

01:29:11

It's pretty simple for me to put it up there.

01:29:14

There's so much of this that is super valuable, no matter where you're at in whatever season

01:29:21

you're at, even if you just need the motivation.

01:29:22

If you're a full-blown stoic professional, this is still going to be one that you should

01:29:29

go through just for the motivation.

01:29:31

But if you're completely new to self-management and such, this is definitely one that you

01:29:39

need to pick up and go through.

01:29:41

This is an easy one to recommend.

01:29:43

You need this, especially in today's world with everything that's going on.

01:29:46

This is something you need to read.

01:29:48

I agree with you.

01:29:49

This is a great book.

01:29:51

It's easy to recommend.

01:29:53

Ryan Holiday's style I've always liked, but this book seems to take it to another level

01:30:00

in terms of how concise things are and how clear things are.

01:30:06

One of the things that he does really, really well is he varies the sentence structure and

01:30:15

length, which makes it much more interesting to read.

01:30:23

Not quite sure how to explain that.

01:30:26

This is something that I struggle with in my writing.

01:30:30

You form your complete sentence and then you form another complete sentence.

01:30:33

If they all are basically the same length, they all start to sound the same.

01:30:39

What that does is it makes the words that you are saying less impactful.

01:30:45

Ryan Holiday is the master at varying this stuff, and it makes the words that he writes

01:30:51

very impactful.

01:30:54

Even if you don't necessarily agree with everything that he says in here, it is very easy and

01:31:00

very entertaining, very educational to read.

01:31:03

I also think he is one of the best storytellers that I have ever read.

01:31:08

His stories are a little bit different because he doesn't tell, most of the time when we

01:31:15

think of good storytellers, we think of the emotions that they evoke and building up to

01:31:20

these climactic moments.

01:31:23

He's very factual, gets to the point very quickly, and then it's on to the next thing.

01:31:29

The effect that that has on you is it builds trust, I feel like, as a reader.

01:31:36

You feel like you can trust him.

01:31:38

He is very learned and he has really studied this stuff and he knows what he's talking

01:31:42

about.

01:31:44

I tend to question a lot of people when I read their books.

01:31:48

I didn't find myself doing that a whole lot with Ryan Holiday.

01:31:52

A lot of that is because it's not the stories that he tells anyways.

01:31:57

They're not his opinions.

01:32:00

They are research.

01:32:01

We mentioned this at the beginning, when he talks about the different religions, when

01:32:05

he talks about Christianity, he's referencing not his interpretation of a text, but what

01:32:11

the text actually says, looking at the Greek Hebrew words and what they mean, and then comparing

01:32:16

that side by side with something else from another arena and providing more context.

01:32:22

It's really, really easy to read.

01:32:26

I think there's not a whole lot you can nitpick in this book.

01:32:31

I guess you could make the argument that if one of these sections really struck you,

01:32:37

that they are shallow.

01:32:39

The journaling section, for example, is a couple of pages.

01:32:41

We spent a lot of time talking about it far longer than Ryan spent writing about it.

01:32:47

I think there is a possibility that you feel yourself wanting more in a specific section,

01:32:52

but I feel it's really well laid out.

01:32:54

I feel like it flows really well.

01:32:56

I feel like all this stuff ties together really well.

01:32:59

I don't feel like any of these chapters were not needed.

01:33:04

I don't know.

01:33:05

I just think it's really, really well done.

01:33:07

I agree that it is a five-star book.

01:33:10

I've read this previously as a gap book, so reading it again, I lost a little bit of the

01:33:19

impact I think that it had on me when I first read it.

01:33:22

I didn't get done thinking like, "Oh my gosh, this changed my life."

01:33:26

But it's really, really good.

01:33:30

I do think that it's easy to glean action items out of this to it.

01:33:33

I've got four.

01:33:34

You've got five.

01:33:36

It's not something that you have to take in the totality of it.

01:33:40

There are, because the chapters are formed the way that they are, little things that

01:33:45

can jump out at you and are easier to implement and can have a positive impact on your real

01:33:53

life.

01:33:54

I can't wait for the next Ryan Holiday book.

01:33:56

This is a good one.

01:33:57

Yeah, somebody in the chat mentioned we should do ego as the enemy, just because we like

01:34:02

his other two books, so why not?

01:34:05

I'm not going to pick it right now because we just did this one.

01:34:09

Yeah.

01:34:10

No, this is one where it may not be crazy groundbreaking when you read it.

01:34:18

You might have some action items out of it, but I feel like it's one of those that you

01:34:21

will continually come back to.

01:34:23

When we read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler, it was one of those things that when

01:34:27

we read it, we weren't super thrilled with it.

01:34:30

I still think through that thing and reference it.

01:34:32

Every time I pick up a new book, I'm considering how I'm reading it and what I need to review

01:34:36

before I start reading it.

01:34:38

It wasn't one that struck me at the time, but it still hits me every time I pick up a book.

01:34:43

I feel like this is going to be the same way.

01:34:46

It seems to have that sense.

01:34:50

There you have it.

01:34:52

We can put that one on the shelf.

01:34:54

What's next, Mike?

01:34:56

Next is Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith.

01:34:59

So returning to the topic of habits and routines.

01:35:05

This is one that I had heard discussed on Cortex a while back immediately bought and then

01:35:11

haven't gotten to it yet.

01:35:12

So I'm going to bring you along for the ride.

01:35:15

It works.

01:35:16

I'm game.

01:35:18

Following that one, I suppose I picked a book for this one, is Reclaiming Conversation by

01:35:24

Sherry Turkle.

01:35:27

This has to do with getting back to how do you hold a conversation in the world of digital

01:35:33

ness?

01:35:35

So I think that'll be interesting considering this whole show is a conversation.

01:35:39

So we'll see how that one goes.

01:35:41

We'll have a conversation about conversations.

01:35:42

I do not have a gap book this time around, Mike, but I'm guessing everybody and their

01:35:48

brothers dog knew that was coming.

01:35:51

I hesitantly have a gap book.

01:35:54

Not sure if I'm going to get to it.

01:35:55

I'm still trying to get through how to take smart notes and rethinking how I'm using Rome

01:36:01

with that.

01:36:02

So I'm going through it a little bit slower than last time.

01:36:05

But I also just got Michael Hyatt's new book, No Fail Communication.

01:36:10

It's on my coffee table head turn book.

01:36:12

See you with the title list.

01:36:14

These books I really like.

01:36:16

Another one is like No Fail meetings.

01:36:18

They're very short.

01:36:19

They're smaller.

01:36:21

They're an easy read, probably a couple of hours to get through the whole thing.

01:36:26

The plan is to get through that one for next time, but we will see.

01:36:30

All right.

01:36:33

Well, you've heard me mention this a couple times, but we do have a live chat going for

01:36:37

members.

01:36:39

There is a paid membership.

01:36:40

It's $5 a month.

01:36:41

You get a cool, awesome bookworm background, but the big part is you get access to the live

01:36:46

recordings.

01:36:47

You can join us as we're doing this.

01:36:50

And my goal is to get this to the point where we're doing video live.

01:36:54

So I'm still working through some of that.

01:36:56

My goal is I think next time we're going to get that live for members, if you want to

01:37:01

become a member, I've had a couple of people pointing out that this was hard to find, just

01:37:07

go to bookworm.fm and go to the menu.

01:37:09

It's on the top now, just membership.

01:37:12

Same thing if you're on the club, club.bookworm.fm.

01:37:14

You can join the club.

01:37:15

That's where we have the live chat and the live listening part of it.

01:37:21

It's up in the menu for that as well.

01:37:23

So I tried to make that easier to find.

01:37:26

So all that to say, you should become a member.

01:37:29

You can join us when we're doing these recordings.

01:37:31

A lot of times what happens is Mike gets a talking and then I type into the chat and

01:37:35

then when we're all done, Mike goes back and reads it all and says, you know, this is

01:37:38

what he noticed because Joe's brain can handle typing and talking at the same time, but Mike

01:37:43

doesn't seem to be able to do that.

01:37:45

Not so much.

01:37:46

Which is very entertaining for me.

01:37:48

But all that to say, you should become a member and you can do that at bookworm.fm/membership

01:37:53

or just click the link in the menu.

01:37:54

Or if you listen to an overcast, tap the little icon in the bottom, that'll take you to that

01:38:00

page too.

01:38:01

Cool.

01:38:02

Thanks everybody for listening.

01:38:04

If you're reading along with us, pick up Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith and we'll talk

01:38:09

to you in a couple of weeks.