Bookworm Transcripts

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So Joe, you got a new pen.

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Yes, and I actually have another one that's supposed to show up today.

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Really?

00:00:08

Okay.

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This is maybe Joe diving deeper than he intended at the beginning of all this.

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Welcome to my world.

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Yeah.

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So I know what pen you have received, but because I sent it to you.

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Do you want to tell everybody else what you got?

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I have a, so Mike sent me a Twisbee diamond 580 AL.

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It's blue, right?

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Prussian blue.

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Prussian blue.

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Yeah, I wasn't sure what the technical title is.

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I put it back in the box.

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You're going to do an unboxing?

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I'm totally doing an unboxing for a Twitch whenever I get back from vacation.

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All right.

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So I'm super excited about this.

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Thank you.

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I think this will be fun.

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I still have to come to grips with the potential of putting something other than black in it.

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Yeah, you can't put black in that pen.

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Yeah.

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So I have to come to grips with that.

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It looks too pretty to have black ink in it.

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Thanks.

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Thanks for that.

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I have a 580 that I have black in, so it would be fitting to have blue in this one,

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for sure.

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But that's one that you gave me.

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I have a friend of the show now, Nib Grinder is sending me a Twisbee Eco with a custom

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grind Nib on it that's supposed to arrive today.

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Yes.

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And actually might show up while we're here on the show.

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So between the two of them, I'm having a very hard time coming to grips with the fact

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that I can, like, I want to do the unboxing and stuff on Twitch because I think that would

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be super fun for all of us to do that together.

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It would.

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But that means I have to wait until after vacation.

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And that means I cannot take these pens with me on vacation when I'm expecting to do a

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lot of writing.

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Quite the quandary.

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This is a problem.

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I actually have debated doing, like, a Saturday afternoon Twitch livestream just so that I

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could get these pens out and have them with me on vacation.

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And I pitched this to my wife and she said, "No, you're going to be as deep as the all

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day Sunday, Saturday is our day to get ready for vacation."

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So here we are.

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That won't happen.

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Apologies.

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Oh, wow.

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Well, you have some fun stuff to look forward to when you get back.

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Yes, yes.

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I will have a lot of enjoyable experiences whenever I get back because I have been talking to

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a few folks and I've learned that a lot of people really enjoy these Twitch streams.

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So my goal is to do a lot more of them when I get back.

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Cool.

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So.

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Should be fun.

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Should be fun.

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And the first one will be unboxing these pens and I'm going to be setting that up as

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soon as I can when I get back.

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I also have a package from the NIB grinder, although I am on sabbatical this week, so

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I'm not home.

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It has been delivered.

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My mother-in-law is there.

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So it is not sitting on the front porch, which makes me happy.

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So no one comes and takes it, but I have not had a chance to open it yet.

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I am very excited to do so because it has a special grind on it.

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It's an architect grind when you hold it normal, but it's a hybrid grind.

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So when you flip it over and use the back of the NIB, it's like an extra fine.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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That's interesting.

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I've never even knew that was a thing, but so yeah, I'm excited to dig into this and

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I'm thankful to the NIB grinder for the services.

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I can't wait to unbox that and I'm already looking through my collection and thinking

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through what other pens can I send them to get pens?

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Yeah.

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What's the pen itself?

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It is a Twisbee 580, I believe.

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Okay.

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I forget exactly which one it was.

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That's a solid pen.

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Yeah.

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No, it was a Twisbee 580 because the original Twisbee 580 that I had, I then gave to somebody

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as a gift.

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Sure.

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So I've been gifting a lot of pens lately.

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Much to my wife's, what's the word?

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She's happy about it.

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In her words, she told me the other day when she found out that I got the Prussian blue

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Twisbee 580 for you, she's like, "You're using your addiction for good."

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Proud of you, Mike.

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Thank you.

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It sounds like Rachel is too.

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Yep.

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All right, enough about pens.

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Yes, we could go on for a long time.

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Let's do follow up.

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We've got lots of action items from the last episode.

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You want to go through yours first?

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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So I have four.

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The first of which is to attempt meditating once more.

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I think that has been working out well.

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I've been hitting it about four or five days a week.

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I would say that's decent.

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Not bad.

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I'd say that's at least a step better than it has been.

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It seems to be helping with my ADD stuff too.

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That fits into the category of things that will help improve ADD as meditation.

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My hope is that that is something that continues to be a positive and I will continue going

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down that endeavor at the moment.

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I hope it doesn't fizzle out at some point.

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That's one.

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Number two is journaling.

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I have been less successful with this and I don't know why because I was doing okay with

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it before reading our last book, Stillness is the key.

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That's a lot of a reason trying to focus on doing that made it harder.

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Don't know why.

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There you go.

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That's what I know on that one.

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Actually, I have a bit of a, when we get into today's book, that particular point will

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come up again.

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Number three is seeking solitude.

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I have attempted to try to find times when I could build solitude times into my week so

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that it's more frequent.

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The fourth one is taking walks.

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I've been very unsuccessful with these two.

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I think that's because I'm going on vacation one and two, this coming Sunday.

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In two days, we're putting on probably the large, well, I'm leading and putting on the

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largest production I have ever been a part of.

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It's requiring a ton of time and effort.

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I don't know that time this is all said and done.

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Right now, I'm not successful in those two.

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I know that.

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I don't want to take those off quite yet because I know that I've been under some really extreme

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circumstances in the last week to two weeks.

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I'm kind of chalking it up to that at the moment.

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That's what I know.

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Those are my four.

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Okay.

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You're turn two.

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I've also got four and I'll go and order that they are listed here.

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The first one was B in the moment.

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I think I've done a better job of this.

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The biggest way I've seen this play out and why I say I can successfully do this is that

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there have been times in this last sabbatical week where I have felt the urge to pull out

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my phone and take a picture and immediately put it back and just enjoyed being with my

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family.

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There's positives and negatives to that because we don't have as many pictures and what I've

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landed on as my distinction between those two.

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It's going to kind of stink when I look back and I'm not in a lot of the pictures.

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But if I'm not part of the moment, I'll go ahead and capture it.

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But if I'm involved in it, I'm not going to distract from it.

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With kids specifically, the moment you take out a phone to take a picture, immediately

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they're all like, "I want to see, I want to see," and the thing is over.

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So that helped me...

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That drives me nuts.

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Yeah.

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That helped me decide the right way to handle those situations because I recognize a fau-shine

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document and I would immediately break it by taking out my phone.

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So if I can do it discreetly and they're just doing something else, like I have a picture

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from this vacation where Rachel and Adelaide are painting their fingernails.

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I'll document that kind of stuff, but I'm not going to worry about, "We're all at the

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beach.

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I've got to get a picture here so I can remember this moment."

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No, just enjoy being there.

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Yeah, totally.

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The next one is to limit my inputs.

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And I really haven't had any inputs.

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I've been disconnected from just about everything.

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So this is the wrong week, I guess, to try and do this.

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But I'm not too worried about this as I transition back into the normal work next week.

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There are certain inboxes I know I need to check.

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Email people already know I am either very good at or very bad at, depending on your

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perspective.

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And I'm okay with whatever you think of that.

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So apologies if you expect a quick response and you don't get one.

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Whoops.

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Nothing personal.

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Take a back seat.

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You'll be alright.

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Yeah.

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I do think one of the things we've talked about as we come out of the COVID quarantine period

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is not wanting to jump back into things and trying to maintain the margin that was created

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for us when we had to stay at home.

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And we are thinking about and finding new ways of doing things like one of the boys

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specifically, we found out one of the missionaries we support actually is trying to raise money

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and they're very talented musically so they're doing virtual piano lessons.

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So we're going to try that instead of going to the local music shop, support the missionaries

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that we were supporting anyways, but more directly.

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And I think it's going to be a pretty good fit.

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I don't think it's right fit for all of our boys.

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So we're going to try it with one first.

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Sure.

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But that's one example to me of like the opportunities and other options are there if you look hard

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enough for them.

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It's just we default to like this is what everybody does.

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So we got to go to piano lessons.

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We got to go to basketball and soccer practice and all the other stuff.

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No.

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No, we can figure out a new way to do things.

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Let's see.

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The next one was bujo for journaling.

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I've succeeded at this, but not in the way that I thought I would.

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Okay.

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So when I thought about this and initially had it as an action item, I pictured myself

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writing freehand.

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This is what happened today at the end of the day.

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I didn't do that a single time, but I have started doing that at the beginning of my

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day with morning pages, except it's not pages plural.

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It's more like morning page.

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Okay.

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And I have a whole section devoted in my bullet journal for those morning pages.

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I started it this week.

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I've done it a couple of times.

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I really, really enjoy it.

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I like that a lot.

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And I think the end of the day journaling is going to appear a little bit different based

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on the book that we are reading today.

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I've got action items in there.

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So I'll just throw that out there as a teaser.

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We'll get to that in a little bit.

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So this is not done, but we'll continue to evolve, especially after we cover today's

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book.

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And then the last one, make a routine out of everything that I can.

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I did not make a routine out of everything that I can.

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And I can't give you one specific win though before we left on the sabbatical.

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I mentioned specifically in the tiny habits episode that I have trouble using the inversion

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table that is in my bedroom for crying out loud and getting a meditation practice to

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stick.

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So the last three days before we left, I did it every single day, both of those things.

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And the thing that made it work is combining them together.

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So I fire up the short five minute daily headspace.

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I go on the inversion table.

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I do the breathing exercises while I'm hanging upside down.

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And then when the meditation is over, it's like my timer.

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I get back up.

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I love that.

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That's awesome.

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Yeah.

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So I've been anxiously waiting to share that example because both of those things, I had

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such a hard time getting them to stick when they were separate, but when I combine them

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together, it's easy.

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Sure.

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Interesting.

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All right.

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Yeah.

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That's awesome.

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I don't know why.

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I'm going to hang upside down and breathe.

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I don't know why I never thought of that before.

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It is a little bit weird and some depending on the meditation, it could, it could, I could

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see it not working because some of them, they're like, now feel the breath from the

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top of your head going down through your body to the bottom of your feet and with me, it's

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backwards.

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But my experience with my experience with head space though, one of the reasons I like it

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is that it doesn't really get into that sort of stuff.

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It's more so just the training your brain and what are you focused on right now.

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It's not trying to tell you, think about this, then do this.

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It's more so recognize what you're thinking about.

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Okay.

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Now let that thing go.

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Breathe in, breathe out, you know, pretty, pretty basic.

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So it's a pretty good, pretty good fit for me.

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So yeah, I would say that is a big win.

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Awesome.

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Well done.

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Thank you.

00:14:00

You're a better shape than I am.

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Well, I'm coming off sabbatical.

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So that helps.

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There you go.

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So you're coming off sabbatical.

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I'm coming off a double workload.

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So yep.

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So next time it will probably be flipped.

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Sure.

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Sure.

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But that brings us to today's book, which is an extension of the whole habits thing

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that I have been obsessing about lately.

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Today's book is triggers by Marshall Goldsmith.

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This was one that I originally heard about from the, the Cortex book club that they do

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semi annually.

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Yep.

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The covered triggers a long time ago and heard Grand Mike talk about it and I was intrigued

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by it.

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So I bought the book and had been sitting on my shelf for a long time.

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And I just felt like this was the right time to, to go through this because we had just

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gone through tiny habits.

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And after reading this, I believe that it was, the timing was appropriate.

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I'm not sure how you feel about that.

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But I felt like this brought a lot more insight into the whole triggers or the cue aspect

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of the, the habits and the routines.

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And I feel like there's a lot that you can glean from this in terms of triggering those

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positive habits and setting up your environment for success.

00:15:22

Yes.

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I feel like this is, I'm just going to jump out here and say, I'm torn by this particular

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book.

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Okay.

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Let me just say that because we've, we've done enough of these style like habit behavioral

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change types of books that we're now, like, I feel like I'm starting to compare them.

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And I like this one.

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And I don't like that one.

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That one said this.

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And I, this one says that and they're kind of the same, but they're different.

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And I'm hoping that when we're done today, I know how to fit this one into the others

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because at this exact moment, I'm conflicted on what I think about this.

00:16:03

All right.

00:16:04

That's interesting.

00:16:05

I can see that.

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I guess I have a little bit different approach where every time we read one of these habits

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books, I feel like I understand the topic of habits a little bit better.

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But I've also been thinking a lot about how I think, if that makes any sense, one of my

00:16:22

get books was going back and rereading how to take smart notes.

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And this was specifically because I was starting to play with room research and wanted to figure

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out, is this the right tool for me or not?

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After reading that book, I am even more sold on the idea that yes, room research is the

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right thing for me.

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And I got a lot more out of the book the second time, to be honest.

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I think I was a little bit skeptical and cynical the first time I went through it because he

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was advocating for an application that I looked at before we recorded.

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And I was like, nah, this is garbage.

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And I still don't think that application specifically was going to work.

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But I feel like room really can.

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And I've been challenging myself to not just put stuff in there in a filing cabinet approach

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where like, okay, if I want to go back and look at my sermon notes from a specific date,

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I can find them, but putting them in there in a way where they connect together.

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And that's challenging.

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It's not my default way of doing things.

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And I recognize that as I've put in my book notes from books that I've read is like, okay,

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so I've got all these notes which look great in a mind map, but how do I connect these things?

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And that's not always easy.

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It kind of changes how you take notes sometimes.

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And so I feel like the way I've taken notes is kind of changing evolve lately.

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And I haven't created the, this is everything I know about Habits page, but I'm looking

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forward to doing that.

00:17:42

Sure.

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I'd be very curious to see like what your writing is around habit and behavioral change.

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Like right now, I'd be curious about that.

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Cause like I have recently gone on rants about room research and obsidian and all these

00:18:01

tools that are trying to mimic each other right now.

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Like that is something I've gone on.

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Not exactly pleasant rants on.

00:18:08

Yeah.

00:18:09

I'm, I'm kind of against some of that, but I understand it like it has its place.

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I get how it's helpful to certain people.

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I'm just not one of them.

00:18:19

Uh huh.

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You know, we're doing video for the members today.

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And so I've got these awesome cherry plywood boxes that I made for my note cards that I

00:18:32

am using to do a paper version of what room research intends.

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So that's been an interesting experiment.

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And if that works for you, more power to you.

00:18:44

Yes.

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Not going to work for me.

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And I think that's okay.

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I've actually in the last week, cause one of the rules of sabbatical is you can do whatever

00:18:54

you want, but you just can't have obligations.

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So you can't plan ahead, which by the way means that next time I have to be a little

00:19:00

bit smarter about scheduling podcast recordings.

00:19:04

Yeah, we talked about that.

00:19:06

Yeah.

00:19:07

I have this week hopped on a webinar that you hosted, hopped on a live stream that Brad

00:19:12

Dowdy was hosting just because I saw it come across and I'm like, oh, that sounds like

00:19:16

fun.

00:19:17

I'll do that.

00:19:18

You know, I've also walked Bodie Quirk through Rome and David Sparks.

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I'm also paying for it myself.

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I dropped down the large five year amount.

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I'm not going to say how much that is, but I am all in with commitment at this point.

00:19:35

Exactly.

00:19:36

So I feel like I've explored enough now.

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I just got to invest in it.

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I got to put stuff into it.

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That's not the reason I dropped down all the money.

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I really do think it's a cool application and the community around it being able to just

00:19:52

like come up and build stuff.

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And then the founders have been like, Hey, yeah, that's really cool.

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Go check out what this person's doing.

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I don't see that happening with any other application out there really.

00:20:01

Like if I'm the focus or ever node or whatever, two very different applications, they get

00:20:05

that but like a proprietary application was like, okay, this is how you use the app.

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And then the users were like, actually, we're going to use it this way.

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I don't think they would be like, well, yeah, we'll just change our business model so you

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can use it that way.

00:20:17

But that's kind of what's happening with the Rome community at the moment.

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So sure.

00:20:21

Yeah.

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It's interesting, but I digress.

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So one of the things that I discovered though from walking people through it is that it's

00:20:30

not the right tool for everybody.

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There are certain use cases where it's totally not going to be worth the cost that they are

00:20:37

asking specifically.

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It is not a cheap application.

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But for the right person, it totally makes sense.

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I feel like I am the right person given my hybrid bullet journal, not bullet journal system

00:20:52

that I'm trying to do.

00:20:54

So the pseudo bujo pseudo bujo.

00:20:56

I like that.

00:20:57

Yeah.

00:20:58

Totally what I'm going to start calling yours.

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So I'm going to do the pseudo.

00:21:02

Yeah.

00:21:03

I think mine is like borderline by the book.

00:21:06

Yep.

00:21:07

You know, there's some extensions to it, but no, I follow it quite closely, it seems.

00:21:11

Yeah, I wrote this up for the sweet setup, by the way.

00:21:14

Put the link in the show notes.

00:21:17

I've gotten so much feedback about that specific article.

00:21:22

It's probably 10 times the amount of feedback that I've ever gotten on any other article

00:21:27

that I have written.

00:21:29

And it's all been really positive.

00:21:31

So thank you everybody who's reaching out and encouraging me to keep going with this.

00:21:38

And it's cool to hear how other people have kind of morphed their own system.

00:21:43

But yeah, so we'll leave that for now.

00:21:48

Go back to the topic at hand.

00:21:50

Sure.

00:21:51

So habits and triggers.

00:21:53

This book is not specifically about habits.

00:21:57

He does reference the original habit loop from the power of habit.

00:22:00

And he's got his own version of this as well.

00:22:03

But like the name implies, this is primarily devoted to the triggers and the environments

00:22:07

that can kick things off.

00:22:10

And the book itself is broken down into four sections.

00:22:14

So part one, why don't we become the person we want to be?

00:22:17

Part two is try.

00:22:20

Part three is more structure, please.

00:22:23

And part four is no regrets.

00:22:26

The first two parts are definitely the biggest.

00:22:28

But I think for the bookworm format, it makes sense just to tackle these sections and not

00:22:35

try to talk about the chapters themselves.

00:22:38

Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:22:39

When I was trying to figure out what format this was going to take us grateful, this was

00:22:44

your book to make this decision on because I was thinking like there's a lot you could

00:22:48

cover here.

00:22:50

They didn't do three parts, which I was grateful for.

00:22:53

So they went to four.

00:22:56

I don't know if I enjoy three part books or if I just like making fun of them because

00:23:02

it's fun to make fun of it because they're all three part books for the most part.

00:23:06

So it was especially refreshing to see that it was a little bit different.

00:23:10

But yeah, I think you've got a good outline here to start with.

00:23:14

But yeah, I think it is interesting too that he's focused on one specific part of the habit

00:23:20

loop.

00:23:21

You know, when you take a step back from the entirety of what you read here, he's really

00:23:28

focusing on one specific piece of the broader habit loop, but he's also not focused on habits.

00:23:35

He's focused on behavioral change.

00:23:37

Like that's a lot of what the intent is in the book is this is about changing your behavior.

00:23:42

This is about deciding, making decisions to stop doing something or to start doing something

00:23:51

or keep doing something that's possible.

00:23:53

But he wants you to make you aware of those decisions.

00:23:57

I think that's the overarching view that I got from this is just stop and think.

00:24:04

And how do you do that?

00:24:05

Which I find refreshing to be honest, because I feel like talking about behavioral change

00:24:12

separates it from the negative stigma maybe that is typically associated with habits because

00:24:19

habits by this point, anybody in the productivity space probably feels like I know this stuff

00:24:24

already.

00:24:25

I just can't do it, which there's some truth to that.

00:24:29

But I feel like with behavioral change, it kind of feels like a fresh slate and thinking

00:24:36

about it a different way.

00:24:38

So it's kind of like, oh, I've never tried it this way before.

00:24:40

And there's that initial optimism that goes along with that.

00:24:44

And then also to help create a sense of I can trust this guy, he's got lots of lists, lots

00:24:53

of diagrams to explain things, although the majority of them are going to happen in the

00:25:01

beginning of this book.

00:25:02

And some of them I feel like are more powerful than others.

00:25:06

But all of them, I think are good.

00:25:07

They're all kind of based on the same format, which makes it maybe easier to understand what's

00:25:13

going on, but also harder to remember a specific one because they all kind of blend together.

00:25:19

They all tend to be like these four different quadrants, which that's what productivity

00:25:25

books do as they create graphs like that.

00:25:27

So it is what it is.

00:25:30

Let's jump in here to the first part, which is why don't we become the person we want

00:25:34

to be because our environment is working against us is the short version.

00:25:42

We're not smart enough.

00:25:44

Yes, exactly.

00:25:45

We don't recognize the triggers.

00:25:48

We fall prey to the initial responses.

00:25:51

But he then kind of talks about how it doesn't have to be that way, which when he said that

00:25:55

I was so glad because he kind of pointed out in the book the same issue that I had with

00:26:00

the power of habit where you've got the key routine reward and it's not just automatic.

00:26:04

You go from stage one to stage two to stage three.

00:26:07

There is an opportunity for you to change things and to take control of the situation

00:26:11

just because there's this thing in your environment that is trying to trigger you doesn't mean

00:26:16

that you have to give into it.

00:26:18

So maybe that's the place to start is what exactly is a trigger and he defines it as

00:26:23

any stimulus that impacts our behavior.

00:26:25

It can be direct or indirect.

00:26:26

It can be internal or external.

00:26:28

It can be conscious or unconscious.

00:26:29

It can be anticipated or unexpected.

00:26:32

It can be encouraging or discouraging and it can be productive or counterproductive.

00:26:38

That means that the trigger in any of those scenarios can be either positive or negative.

00:26:44

And it's maybe a little bit polarizing to classify things as either good or bad.

00:26:48

But the bottom line is there are either behaviors that you want to start, that you aren't doing

00:26:52

or behaviors that are you view as negative that you want to stop doing, that you're having

00:26:56

trouble stopping doing.

00:26:57

One of the stories regarding that is Nadim and Simon where Nadim is like this rising

00:27:02

star but every time he has to interact with Simon, Simon just pushes his buttons and causes

00:27:08

this interpersonal conflict and they're talking about how the conflict, yes, maybe Simon is

00:27:16

responsible for it but there's nothing Nadim can really do about it.

00:27:19

So take control of the situation, recognize the triggers are going to be there when you

00:27:23

walk into the environment and what are some of the things that you can do to take control

00:27:27

of the situation.

00:27:28

For sure.

00:27:29

Yeah, I think this particular section like going into what are triggers and how does that

00:27:35

work out.

00:27:36

That's one that I got bored with quickly.

00:27:44

It's a thing that I, my sense is like, what is a trigger?

00:27:49

We kind of just intuitively know that.

00:27:51

I get that he has to explain it and give examples and show us how important they are, how bad

00:27:58

we are at working with them, where they come from.

00:28:03

I get that he needs to do all that but in my head I'm thinking, oh, I hope he moves on

00:28:08

quickly.

00:28:09

So that part I really struggled with.

00:28:13

I think it was simply because it felt like we've talked about this a lot.

00:28:18

Maybe that's because we read the other books.

00:28:21

Maybe that's because of atomic habits, the power of habit, tiny habits, like maybe because

00:28:25

of those that made me think that way but I also don't know how else he should have started.

00:28:35

So it's probably the correct move.

00:28:38

It's very likely just me.

00:28:41

So follow up question then.

00:28:43

What was your impression of the inner belief triggers section as in like my core that triggers

00:28:49

things?

00:28:50

I'm not sure if you remember that list but that was one of the things that really stood

00:29:07

out to me right at the beginning was this list.

00:29:10

I thought this was pretty impactful.

00:29:12

Maybe it's just because I never really thought about these things.

00:29:16

Maybe like you have.

00:29:18

But I don't know.

00:29:20

There was tying the thing that it triggers, the negative behavior typically that we want

00:29:26

to change.

00:29:27

Like for example, number one is if I understand I will do and the thing that it triggers is

00:29:31

confusion.

00:29:32

Number two, I have willpower and I won't give in to temptation and that triggers overconfidence.

00:29:38

So as I read through this list, he basically is reading my mail and describing me to a

00:29:43

tea for all the things that I don't do when I say I want to do them like meditate and

00:29:49

use my inversion table for example.

00:29:52

And as I read this, I was like, well, maybe I didn't have to have that epiphany moment.

00:29:56

Maybe I just need to understand myself a little bit better and why I have trouble doing these

00:29:59

things.

00:30:00

Sure.

00:30:01

Yeah.

00:30:02

I mean, the lists and things.

00:30:06

I would say they clarify things somewhat.

00:30:11

I think for me, especially in recent months, I have been hyper focused on understanding

00:30:19

and becoming aware of what it is that causes me to do different things.

00:30:25

Like I have had to learn that because with my ADD getting significantly worse, it's become

00:30:31

a thing that I am forced to become aware of.

00:30:35

So maybe I've meditated on this concept without being fully aware of that.

00:30:41

That's very possible.

00:30:44

Maybe it's an unconscious thing.

00:30:45

Maybe it's a semi conscious discovery research sort of thing.

00:30:52

But I'm not going to say it's bad.

00:30:54

There were definitely some things that I think it clarified for me, but not hugely.

00:31:01

Okay.

00:31:03

I felt like this was pretty powerful and completely.

00:31:09

I'm not discounting that.

00:31:11

Yeah.

00:31:12

Well, like number 10, for example, says my change will be permanent and I will never

00:31:16

have to worry again.

00:31:17

It produces a false sense of permanence.

00:31:19

He talks about how the great Western disease is I'll be happy when dot, dot, dot, you fill

00:31:24

in the blank.

00:31:25

He says, "Fairy tales end what they lived happily ever after."

00:31:28

Not reality.

00:31:29

But that's the exact argument that the entire book of the antidote is based off of.

00:31:36

And he disarms it in two paragraphs.

00:31:38

When I read that, I was like, "Oh, there, Alvar Berkman, you obviously missed that memo."

00:31:44

Where is that?

00:31:45

Details.

00:31:46

Yeah.

00:31:47

So I guess the list to me was more than just a list.

00:31:50

It was a condensing of the research and the experience that this guy has, which again,

00:31:56

he's not really blowing his own horn like, "Hey, listen to me because X, Y, Z."

00:32:01

But I don't know.

00:32:03

I felt at this point in the book, like the right thing to set up the validity and like,

00:32:09

why you should listen to him for the rest of the book.

00:32:14

And again, that maybe wasn't even his intention.

00:32:17

But like as he went through that list, I'm like, "Okay, yep.

00:32:19

I can tell because we've read these other books on habits that you are presenting a

00:32:25

list of all of the arguments and all of the pitfalls that people are going, like me,

00:32:30

are going to fall into.

00:32:32

So I want to know how to avoid this stuff.

00:32:34

You now have my attention.

00:32:37

You have captured my curiosity and let's go.

00:32:41

Exactly.

00:32:42

Exactly.

00:32:43

Yeah.

00:32:44

I'm not going to say that there wasn't any of that for me.

00:32:47

I simply struggled to, it didn't hook me.

00:32:52

I think the way it hooked you.

00:32:53

Okay.

00:32:54

That's fair.

00:32:55

So I think the first book, you know, in the first chapter or two, sometimes the way that

00:32:58

they present the problem is one that can get you so interested in the rest of it.

00:33:04

Like stillness is the key was that way where it grabbed you right away and you wanted to,

00:33:10

like, here's the problem and then here's how you, like the rest of the book is how you

00:33:13

solve that problem.

00:33:14

Like that's how a lot of these are set up.

00:33:17

And he presents the problem here.

00:33:21

And I don't think it grabbed me right away.

00:33:25

Which I kind of expected it to and maybe that was it.

00:33:29

Maybe I had expectations of it that it didn't.

00:33:31

Sure.

00:33:32

You know, step up to.

00:33:35

But I think I'm, I don't think I'm nitpicking.

00:33:38

I think I'm just at a spot where I wanted him to get to the content of like, okay, I get

00:33:46

the problem.

00:33:47

Let's come on.

00:33:49

That was my thing there.

00:33:51

So maybe that was just me being impatient.

00:33:53

Could be.

00:33:54

It kind of, kind of leads us to the wheel of change.

00:33:56

So maybe it's a good spot to talk about this.

00:33:59

So segue totally planned that.

00:34:01

The other point we had in here, which we kind of talked about is the environment.

00:34:04

The environment is related to the triggers, basically just recognizing the environment

00:34:09

and recognizing what parts of it you can control, what parts of it you can't.

00:34:12

And just because you're in an environment like Nadim was Simon being in a meeting where

00:34:16

he knows Simon's going to be there.

00:34:17

He knows Simon's going to push his buttons, not being upset that there's, that that's

00:34:21

unfair that's happening to him, but what can he do to take control of the situation?

00:34:26

And that's a story that actually shows up multiple places throughout the book.

00:34:31

But the last chapter in this first section is the wheel of change.

00:34:35

And this is again, one of those like two by two grids kind of put on its axis.

00:34:39

It kind of reminds me of like the Michael Hyatt delegation circle.

00:34:46

So you have, I can't even use like an X and Y axis because it's this big X and you've

00:34:51

got basically on opposite ends, you've got positive and negative and then things that

00:34:57

you want to change and things that you want to keep.

00:35:00

So from that, you can create the four quadrants where they are creating, eliminating, accepting

00:35:06

and preserving.

00:35:08

Creating is the positive things that we want to change.

00:35:14

And if we're satisfied, we tend to yield to inertia.

00:35:18

If we're dissatisfied, we tend to fall for every new idea.

00:35:21

That description right there was challenging to me because I feel like I in the past have

00:35:28

been the person who would fall for the new ideas lately, been kind of stuck in the inertia.

00:35:34

And when someone says, Hey, there's this, this new thing, you should check it out.

00:35:39

I tend to resist that my default is to resist that.

00:35:42

Now I just said I completely checked my productivity system and I'm using room research.

00:35:45

So and you jumped on Rome with like a whim of the hat.

00:35:50

So I get that I'm a little bit of a hypocrite here.

00:35:56

But that's one example.

00:35:59

And I think when it comes to like the productivity stuff specifically in the past, I would have

00:36:05

been like, Oh, there's a new email app.

00:36:07

I should try that thing.

00:36:08

And there's this new efficient, this thing is going to be more efficient for me.

00:36:12

It's going to see me a little bit of time.

00:36:13

Therefore it is better.

00:36:14

And I should, I should change.

00:36:18

And I've kind of intentionally leaned into like the whole analog stuff.

00:36:21

That's the exact opposite of the inertia in my opinion when it comes to productivity.

00:36:26

Productivity most people think of as like efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.

00:36:31

And I'm kind of intentionally going, no, I want to be less efficient on purpose.

00:36:38

So I don't know.

00:36:41

That was one, I guess, observation based on like past Mike versus current Mike preserving.

00:36:47

This is the section where you want to keep positive things.

00:36:52

This requires soul searching and talks about in this section, we really get credit for not

00:36:57

messing up a good thing.

00:36:59

That really spoke to me because I am in the middle of rethinking a lot of different things.

00:37:05

There are a lot of things I've decided.

00:37:06

I'm just going to leave this the way it is.

00:37:08

It's good enough for now.

00:37:09

There's a whole chapter in this later about being good enough.

00:37:12

But I recognize when he said that, that there's a possibility when you switch something to

00:37:18

say, oh, this provided me a benefit in X way.

00:37:22

I can do this a little bit faster.

00:37:24

When it comes to quality, maybe not so much.

00:37:28

And there is a very real risk that when you decide to try something new, that what you

00:37:34

had was actually pretty awesome.

00:37:37

And now it's broken.

00:37:38

And now what are you going to do?

00:37:41

So I don't know.

00:37:42

I don't have any specific examples.

00:37:44

I think of something I've messed up lately.

00:37:47

And oh man, I should have left that alone.

00:37:50

Do you have anything that kind of falls into this category?

00:37:52

Technically, yeah, I've messed up a lot of things lately.

00:37:59

I'm not talking about one off stuff, I guess.

00:38:00

It's more like systemic changes.

00:38:02

And I'm going to change the way that I go about things because I think it's going to

00:38:06

be better and then discover a nope actually.

00:38:08

That was the wrong thing to do.

00:38:09

Yeah, I've done some experiments with like what time I get up in the morning that have

00:38:14

gone poorly.

00:38:15

It used to be a 5 AM person in recent months, like the last probably five.

00:38:23

I've been more of a 6, 6, 15 AM person that has more to do with health stuff than anything.

00:38:30

So which comes with its own challenges.

00:38:34

I'm still not 100% on my morning stuff because the kids get up at 7, which means that the

00:38:42

amount of time I have in the morning to get things accomplished like in those quiet morning

00:38:47

hours, like my focus and the time I have to get into focus in the morning is gone.

00:38:54

So I really only have time to get up, get myself ready, you know, read a few pages and

00:38:59

then I'm on to breakfast and the girls are down helping with breakfast and that's different.

00:39:07

So that's a, you know, it's very different for me having the chance to spend 30 minutes

00:39:11

writing in the morning and making sure I've got 20 minutes to read.

00:39:15

And, you know, I don't have time for those in the early morning anymore.

00:39:19

So it's forced me to change when I do those things.

00:39:23

And in some cases it doesn't happen.

00:39:25

That's why I don't write as much as I used to because I don't have the time because I'm

00:39:30

sleeping during the time that I would normally have been writing.

00:39:34

So it's different.

00:39:36

I don't know that I would say, you know, per his wheel of change, the four, which he loved

00:39:43

those, you know, cross charts with the four directional arrows.

00:39:49

Like he loved those and they all have blended together in my brain now.

00:39:54

So I'm not sure which ones, which this one I know because you described it.

00:39:58

But like I struggled with that particular piece, but yeah, with the four different sections

00:40:03

as far as like, what should you get rid of?

00:40:04

What are you going to keep?

00:40:06

That I think is difficult for me to say in respect to that morning routine because there

00:40:12

are things I want to add.

00:40:14

That's a place where I would love to have an additional behavior happen, but I don't

00:40:18

think that's realistic because it's going to force me to make some decisions that I don't

00:40:23

want to make.

00:40:24

I say that and like this coming Sunday, I'm going to be up and out the door by 4 15.

00:40:29

So that'll be a rough one.

00:40:33

Definitely going to come home, take a nap and then go to bed early that night.

00:40:36

So yes, it'll be a busy day for sure.

00:40:39

I don't know how I got there.

00:40:40

Morning routines.

00:40:41

I think this wheel shows the counterbalancing that has to take place with things like your

00:40:50

morning routine and getting the writing done.

00:40:53

If that's something that's really important to you, that's something you want to create,

00:40:56

that's fine, but then you've got to eliminate other things.

00:41:01

And that's the third quadrant here is the eliminating section.

00:41:05

This is where you want to make changes and you want to remove the negative things.

00:41:11

And this is where you start to drift into territory where maybe it's not all negative.

00:41:17

Maybe it's just not quite as positive and you have to make the hard choice that I'm going

00:41:22

to choose this thing because it's better than the other thing.

00:41:25

So in a perfect world, you are getting enough sleep and you are writing, but since you have

00:41:30

constraints and you can only pick one, you're going to get enough sleep instead.

00:41:34

Now you could feel bad about not getting the writing done or you could say, "Nope, I've

00:41:38

picked the most important thing and that is fine."

00:41:41

So I think these kind of balance each other out, although he didn't necessarily describe

00:41:48

it that way.

00:41:48

And then the, but he does say in this section, not to sacrifice the future on the altar of

00:41:54

today and at the real test is sacrificing something that we enjoy doing.

00:41:57

So he does kind of allude to the fact that you are going to have to say, "Notice some

00:42:00

things sometimes."

00:42:01

And then the last one is accepting this is when you have something negative and you decide

00:42:07

to keep it.

00:42:08

He said, "This is really hard for business people, but it's most valuable when you are

00:42:12

powerless to make a choice."

00:42:16

So if you cannot change the situation, learning to accept the situation may be the freeing thing

00:42:24

that you need to let it go mentally.

00:42:27

This one spoke to me because I tend to get frustrated about the way things are and wish

00:42:30

that I could change things and I really can't do anything about it.

00:42:33

So I sit there and I brew on it and I'm like, "Man, this isn't right.

00:42:38

How do I create a different environment?"

00:42:40

You know, sometimes you can't.

00:42:41

Sometimes you just got to roll with the punches, you know, control what you can control and

00:42:45

let the rest of it go.

00:42:46

Yup.

00:42:47

Sometimes you can't change things, Mike.

00:42:49

Sad day.

00:42:50

It's true.

00:42:51

It's worth a shot though.

00:42:54

Give it a shot.

00:42:55

Part two, try.

00:42:56

Yup.

00:42:57

Didn't intend that, but hey, there you go.

00:43:00

Nicely done.

00:43:01

This one I feel like is the section that we have a lot of our action items from.

00:43:06

Yup.

00:43:07

I completely agree.

00:43:08

So in this section he talks about passive versus active.

00:43:12

He's got the four levels of engagement, which again is a two by two grid.

00:43:18

This one goes straight up and down and left and right instead of being tilted on its axis

00:43:22

45 degrees.

00:43:23

Yeah.

00:43:24

So you've got proactively positive, which is committed.

00:43:27

You've got passively positive, which is professional, passively negative, which is cynical and actively

00:43:32

negative, which is hostile.

00:43:35

And he mentioned and here I've heard this statistic before, but in a 2011 Gallup research

00:43:41

study they showed that 71% of workers were disengaged or actively disengaged.

00:43:46

So cynical or hostile on this particular diagram with their work.

00:43:53

And that just is kind of shocking to me, but not if I sit and think about it.

00:43:59

It's sad, I guess, is the best way to put it.

00:44:02

The big takeaway from that section though is the difference between the active and the

00:44:06

passive for me.

00:44:08

It talks about how there are six engaging questions and passive questions tend to be

00:44:15

the ones that don't inspire any sort of change.

00:44:19

The six engaging questions that he mentions are, "Did I do my best to set clear goals

00:44:23

today?

00:44:24

Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?

00:44:26

Did I do my best to find meaning today?

00:44:28

Did I do my best to be happy today?

00:44:30

Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?

00:44:32

And did I do my best to be fully engaged today?"

00:44:35

I like those questions and the active questions, basically what it's doing is it's asking,

00:44:40

"Did you put forth the effort?

00:44:42

Not did you get the thing done?"

00:44:44

So without directly addressing the issue of goals, I feel like he's on my team and

00:44:50

not a big fan of them.

00:44:51

He is on our team in this sense.

00:44:53

He does talk about goals, but in this sense, the successful completion of the task, the

00:44:59

movement towards the goal is literally just, "Did you apply the effort?"

00:45:03

And that is very different than the prompts that I have as part of my journaling routine.

00:45:10

So he has these daily questions that he asks himself.

00:45:13

He shows an example of this.

00:45:14

He talks about tracking it in a spreadsheet on a scale from zero to 10 in terms of his

00:45:18

effort.

00:45:19

I don't want to go that far, but I do want to rethink my journaling prompts and change

00:45:26

those two daily questions.

00:45:28

So next time I will report back what my daily questions are.

00:45:32

All right.

00:45:33

Sounds good.

00:45:35

This is one that I want to do too, but I think I'm going to steal his questions straight

00:45:38

up.

00:45:39

All right.

00:45:40

Because I think, I don't know if I'm just using that as a cop out, but when I read

00:45:44

these questions, this is the part of the book that truly resonated with me, but I feel

00:45:48

like he keeps coming back to this very regularly throughout the rest of the book.

00:45:53

But these daily active questions are ones that are designed to really help you keep yourself

00:46:02

in check so that you're not just acting haphazardly or by default.

00:46:11

And that is something I think I could resonate with very deeply.

00:46:16

I'm not going to talk about how he alters this a little bit later.

00:46:19

We'll get to that.

00:46:20

But the concept of asking these questions daily, I feel like is a very good journal prompt.

00:46:28

In some sense, like if you take stillness as the key, that concept of journaling and

00:46:33

slowing down to settle yourself and become aware of how you acted that day, what went

00:46:39

well, what didn't, what do you want to change that sort of concept.

00:46:44

It really resonated with me.

00:46:46

And it's why I have it as an action item and we'll continue working on that.

00:46:49

And I'm hoping to do a lot of that actually over the next week while I'm gone, hopefully

00:46:54

they're relaxing, I am quite certain my phone is going to be in airplane mode almost the

00:46:59

entire time.

00:47:02

It's going to become a camera devotedly next week.

00:47:06

That's my intent.

00:47:08

And I think that these particular questions, did I handle myself well today?

00:47:16

Did I treat my wife well in that hour that I spent with her?

00:47:20

Those types of questions, he has his set here.

00:47:24

But I feel like those would do really well in the sense of a journal prompt.

00:47:28

So that's how I intend to use those.

00:47:31

But that would be at the end of the day for me.

00:47:34

I feel like if you use them as journal prompts, you'll be writing for a long time.

00:47:39

That's very possible.

00:47:40

Which will make it harder to stick.

00:47:45

But I guess we'll have to report back.

00:47:49

This is why I want to modify what he's doing because I don't think, I've done the prompts

00:47:57

and making it easy.

00:47:58

All you got to do is select an item from the list and still find myself resisting journaling

00:48:04

and breaking it down into the least number of questions possible.

00:48:07

And if you look at his spreadsheet, he's got like 20 different questions that he asks.

00:48:12

And there's no way I would go through all of those.

00:48:13

Let alone give myself a score from 0 to 10, a completely arbitrary score which I've done

00:48:19

this sort of thing in the past with like the star rating at the end of my day.

00:48:25

But I find myself pushing back against that because what does a four star day really look

00:48:29

like?

00:48:30

What is a two star day?

00:48:31

I have no idea.

00:48:32

So what's the difference between an eight, a nine, and a 10 when it comes to one of these

00:48:40

questions?

00:48:42

I want to make it as simple as I can, yes or no, and maybe use those as things to kick

00:48:51

off additional journaling like free form writing.

00:48:56

But if I do do that, then it's got to be just a couple of questions.

00:48:59

Even six is probably too many.

00:49:02

So I need to think this through on what exactly this is going to look like.

00:49:06

But I do like the idea of the daily questions, checking in on the different areas.

00:49:13

The theme system journal by the way does something like this where they've got the different

00:49:16

areas and they've got the circles and the idea is basically you can fill in the circle

00:49:20

if you did it, you leave a blank if you didn't, or you can fill it in halfway if you didn't

00:49:23

know a little bit.

00:49:25

Just those three different distinctions, not like a five point scale or a 10 point scale.

00:49:31

I feel like that makes it more attainable, but I also don't want to do it in day one anymore.

00:49:38

Gasp.

00:49:39

I know.

00:49:40

I've been finding myself.

00:49:41

Really?

00:49:42

Yeah.

00:49:43

So I use day one for a couple of specific things.

00:49:46

My journaling prompts, which I just have to like, I'm in a bit of shock at this moment.

00:49:53

To me, you and day one, we're in the womb together and everything is done together.

00:50:00

That's the way I see you.

00:50:03

Yeah, and full disclosure, my subscription just came up and I did resubscribe for another

00:50:07

year.

00:50:08

Okay.

00:50:09

But I know I want to move my journaling to my bullet journal.

00:50:15

I also know that I've got a notebook full of quotes inside of day one that I can't connect

00:50:22

to anything and that makes way more sense inside of room.

00:50:25

Ding.

00:50:26

Yeah, somebody was saying in the chat, we need a bell for every time room comes out.

00:50:33

So there's two different types of things that go in there.

00:50:37

They are the things that I want, just like a log of that I can go back and review at some

00:50:45

point.

00:50:46

And day one really isn't all that great for that.

00:50:50

That's no different than like if I were to snap a picture of my journaling and put it

00:50:54

inside of good notes, that would serve the same purpose.

00:50:57

I'm going to go through it once a year maybe.

00:50:59

That's no big deal.

00:51:00

And then the other stuff, it was easy to capture those things and put them in there, but then

00:51:04

they just sit there.

00:51:06

So what good are they doing at that point?

00:51:10

I've also got like a stories file where I was developing different stories that was based

00:51:15

on some feedback I got from a speech coach, Erin Beverly actually, who last year I believe

00:51:20

won the national, not national, the international Toastmasters competition, the world championship

00:51:26

of public speaking.

00:51:28

I worked with him not too long ago.

00:51:31

And he told me to just start jotting down different stories and breaking it down into

00:51:35

different points so that you can go back to those story files.

00:51:38

You can grab different pieces of those based on like how much time you have to tell those

00:51:42

stories, but have those stories basically at your disposal.

00:51:46

So I was collecting those inside of day one for a while.

00:51:48

And again, I can go into day one and get them out of the filing cabinet, but they're really

00:51:53

not.

00:51:54

That's not the way I want them to work anymore.

00:51:57

I want them to be interconnected.

00:51:58

And so I've been thinking about what role is there left for day one.

00:52:03

It's the templates, but I'm about to remove that.

00:52:05

So I don't know.

00:52:07

I see a day one list future for me, which makes me a little bit sad.

00:52:11

Hey, system struggling to come to grips with this.

00:52:15

It seems like every time we've had conversations that involved journaling, reflection, daily,

00:52:21

something, day one is always the de facto answer for you.

00:52:25

It is.

00:52:26

I do think at a loss, Mike.

00:52:29

I do think there is a possibility that analog journaling just doesn't work for me.

00:52:33

And I do go back to day one, but I do want to give it a legitimate shot.

00:52:39

And if it works, why would I put that stuff in day one?

00:52:42

They don't all CR anything.

00:52:43

So good notes is already a better place to store a digital archive or backup of that

00:52:49

sort of stuff.

00:52:50

Sure.

00:52:51

I don't know.

00:52:52

In fact, going back to that diagram in the article that I wrote about my hybrid bullet

00:52:58

journal system, if you notice in that picture, day one isn't in there.

00:53:03

And that wrestled with that for quite a while.

00:53:04

I'm like day one should be on there somewhere because I'm using it currently for journaling,

00:53:08

but I didn't really see the value of having that as a separate branch off its own.

00:53:14

So this is not something that I'm arriving at just because I read this particular book.

00:53:19

It's something that's been brewing in the back of my mind for at least a couple of months

00:53:23

now is like, where does this actually fit?

00:53:26

Can I justify the 25 bucks a year?

00:53:29

More and more.

00:53:30

I don't think I can.

00:53:31

I had to go.

00:53:32

I went and hunted down your picture for that because it did not occur to me.

00:53:37

You don't have day one on there, but you don't.

00:53:41

I don't.

00:53:42

Huh.

00:53:43

And I was very sad about that when I published that article.

00:53:45

I'm like, this doesn't feel right.

00:53:50

But I don't see a way that it really works.

00:53:54

It's a benefit for capturing.

00:53:55

But if that's not the thing that I'm going to use for, it doesn't make sense to have

00:53:59

a million different buckets to capture things into.

00:54:03

It makes sense to have one or two analog and digital.

00:54:05

So it's bullet journal or drafts and then ultimately, like, where's all that stuff going

00:54:09

to go into a big digital bucket where I can connect all of the different pieces, all the

00:54:13

different mental legos in whatever way, shape, or form I want.

00:54:18

That's what I'm trying to build towards.

00:54:20

And so having stuff that's not searchable inside a day one because there's pictures and

00:54:25

things doesn't really fit.

00:54:28

Hmm.

00:54:29

I just blew Joe's mind.

00:54:33

Yes, I think this has blown my mind.

00:54:37

I'm quite literally speechless here.

00:54:42

All right.

00:54:44

I'll come to grips with that one, but pen and paper for the win.

00:54:48

Exactly.

00:54:49

For now, yeah.

00:54:50

And that's really the heart of that article that I wrote is that things are different

00:54:54

now.

00:54:56

And the joy I get from pen and paper is really, really important because I don't know what

00:55:02

the world's going to look like in a couple of months.

00:55:04

Yeah.

00:55:05

And it's really stressful if I sit and think about it.

00:55:07

No kidding.

00:55:08

So yeah.

00:55:10

Hmm.

00:55:11

All right.

00:55:13

Daily questions journaling day one less.

00:55:17

Yep.

00:55:18

The chat thinks you've been together with day one since boom.

00:55:22

Day one.

00:55:23

Ah, good one.

00:55:25

[laughs]

00:55:26

Oh, fun times.

00:55:29

Can we talk about planning and doing?

00:55:31

Yes.

00:55:32

So this is something he actually introduces in the prior section, the planner versus the

00:55:39

doer.

00:55:41

But in this section, he introduces the role of a coach, which helps the planner become

00:55:45

the doer.

00:55:46

The planner and the doer, we've probably heard that describe before.

00:55:50

And basically we're really good at planning.

00:55:53

We're really bad at doing.

00:55:54

It's like two different people.

00:55:56

Why can't we follow through on the plan that we set?

00:55:58

Yadda yadda yadda.

00:55:59

Well, a coach can help you follow through because they provide a follow up mechanism.

00:56:03

They instill accountability and they are a source of mediation when the doer is just

00:56:06

like, I don't want to do it.

00:56:08

Like you're going to do it.

00:56:10

[laughs]

00:56:11

What's interesting to me about this whole role of the coach is that you don't have to

00:56:14

have an external person be a coach.

00:56:16

Although that's probably the most common way that this works, the accountability, having

00:56:22

somebody else to hold your feet to the fire for what you said you were going to do.

00:56:27

I think both of us had trouble reading books consistently before we started doing bookworm,

00:56:33

which is one of the biggest wins to come from this.

00:56:37

And I think it's inspired other people to try and do the same sort of thing.

00:56:40

I don't know that it works for everybody necessarily, but that is one of the things that has worked

00:56:46

for us is the fact that I have to get up every other week and speak into a microphone

00:56:52

and sound intelligent about these books that I said I was going to read.

00:56:55

So I better read them.

00:56:58

I don't know how many times I've gotten to the point where like Tuesday before we record,

00:57:04

so in this case like three, four days ago and like half way through the book or so.

00:57:12

Okay, like we're going to do 30, 40 pages a day.

00:57:18

We're going to get this done.

00:57:20

And I get through books that way.

00:57:22

Otherwise, I've seen some friends that get curious about reading more and going through

00:57:30

more books, but they don't have a deadline.

00:57:35

They don't have a thing that keeps them on pace.

00:57:38

They don't have a goal.

00:57:40

They don't have a goal.

00:57:42

And they end up sitting and waiting two, three months to finish one book, even though to

00:57:48

finish it in two weeks really it's only about 15, 20 minutes a day.

00:57:53

And you read a book in two weeks.

00:57:55

It's not, you know, if you take today's book, triggers, if you're going through and looking

00:58:03

at behavioral change, it's difficult to just say, I'm going to do that every day.

00:58:09

Habits don't work that way.

00:58:11

And I think that's a lot of what you can get from today's book in that becoming aware

00:58:15

of your environment, becoming aware of the planning and doing and how the coach can help

00:58:20

you go from planner to do or trying to actually get to the point where action becomes realistic.

00:58:28

Like that I think is the key here.

00:58:32

And in this case, you know, you have to do some things like set the book at your spot

00:58:37

at the table so that you see it when you come down for breakfast.

00:58:39

Like you have to do some things like that to make it more of a successful, like give

00:58:45

yourself more of a chance to pull it off.

00:58:48

I think that's important.

00:58:49

Juan, and that's a lot of what I think he's getting at here.

00:58:52

On that topic specifically, the previous chapter he talks about the daily questions in action

00:58:57

and he says that they highlight the difference between self-discipline and self-control.

00:59:00

He kind of makes the point that people are typically good at one of these.

00:59:04

And self-discipline is achieving desirable behavior.

00:59:08

Self-control is avoiding undesirable behavior.

00:59:12

I am definitely more towards the self-discipline side.

00:59:17

Which one do you, would you use to describe yourself?

00:59:20

I am not self-discipline.

00:59:22

So self-control, avoiding the undesirable behavior.

00:59:24

You can avoid the negative outcomes, but you have trouble starting something new.

00:59:29

It's a mix, that's the problem.

00:59:30

It is a mix, but he said that people typically have a strength in one of these.

00:59:34

So I thought it would be interesting to just talk about which one you think is your strength.

00:59:39

I can start new things on a whim very quickly, but in a lot of cases, it has a whole self-control

00:59:49

self-discipline thing.

00:59:51

I have to build an entire environment around me in order to make that happen.

00:59:55

Otherwise, it could be YouTube and goofing around with OBS all day long.

01:00:01

And that's not productive.

01:00:03

So you kind of know how to hack the self-control, but it's not the one you default towards.

01:00:08

Correct.

01:00:09

Okay.

01:00:10

Cool.

01:00:11

I thought that was fascinating when you describe those two sections and the counterbalance

01:00:15

between them like, "Oh, I never really thought of it that way, but that makes so much sense."

01:00:19

And also recognizing which one of those you tend towards, that can impact what goals

01:00:25

he is the term he would use.

01:00:26

Like what sort of targets your setting for yourself and what sort of accountability

01:00:32

you need to build in with the coach.

01:00:35

So if you do find yourself struggling with self-control instead of self-discipline, then

01:00:41

you need to really make yourself feel that pain of that undesirable behavior.

01:00:49

Yeah.

01:00:50

So I think this is where something like you schedule the embarrassing tweet to go out

01:00:53

at a certain time so that you feel compelled to wake up and turn it off before it publishes,

01:00:59

that sort of thing could be helpful.

01:01:01

Or in my case, I start an entire site that has scheduled webinars that force me into

01:01:08

a deadline, which works well for me.

01:01:11

There you go.

01:01:12

So it works.

01:01:14

There's also a chapter in this section about the last one, A-I-W-A-T-T, which is short for

01:01:22

"Am I willing at this time?"

01:01:24

The whole phrase is "Am I willing at this time to make the investment required to make

01:01:27

a positive difference on this particular topic?"

01:01:30

But I like this.

01:01:31

I feel like this is a mechanism you could use to pick your battles.

01:01:36

So he tells a parable in this section about this guy, a farmer who was rowing his boat

01:01:41

up a stream and sees another boat coming towards him and is yelling at the guy, "You

01:01:45

idiot, you're going to hit me," and then ends up hitting him and he's all upset.

01:01:47

He jumps out of his boat, he's going to yell at the guy, realizes that the other boat

01:01:50

doesn't have a driver.

01:01:53

So the moral here is that the other boat is always empty.

01:01:58

I don't know about you, but for me that was insightful because I tend to...

01:02:09

There's a couple as I read through this interpersonal situations where conflict tends to arise and

01:02:14

I find myself defaulting to, "Well, why don't they just do things this way?"

01:02:21

And then recognizing that they're never going to do things that way.

01:02:25

It's up to me to not get bent out of shape about it.

01:02:28

Actually helped me out a lot as I was thinking through those things.

01:02:31

Yeah.

01:02:32

I have a tendency to remember the phrase, "I can't change what they do.

01:02:37

I can only change the way I react to it."

01:02:40

Yep.

01:02:41

That's what I have a tendency to recall.

01:02:43

That helps me go through...

01:02:46

Get through a lot of things.

01:02:48

The empty boat thing reminded me of the story of the two ships that wanted one to move and

01:02:55

they both wanted each other to deviate so that they didn't have to change course.

01:03:01

They're back and forth arguing with each other.

01:03:02

I think one of them was in US warship of some sort.

01:03:07

Finally, towards the end of this banter back and forth, they said, "Where are the US army

01:03:11

or where are the US Navy?

01:03:13

You need to deviate."

01:03:14

They're like, "Name dropping."

01:03:15

Yeah.

01:03:16

Yeah.

01:03:17

We're a lighthouse.

01:03:18

So you should change your course.

01:03:21

You're welcome to keep coming.

01:03:23

That's what that reminded me of.

01:03:26

Yeah.

01:03:27

He mentions in here kind of to your point.

01:03:29

It's pointless for you to get mad at someone for being who they are.

01:03:33

That really jumped out at me when I read that.

01:03:36

He also said that the average American spends 15 hours per month complaining about their

01:03:40

supervisors.

01:03:41

This was interesting because I don't think this just applies to work supervisors.

01:03:45

I think this applies in just about any arena.

01:03:49

I don't want to fall into that category.

01:03:50

I don't think I fall into that category.

01:03:53

But it just shows the prevalence of that attitude and recognizing that I'm going to

01:04:01

have the opportunity to do what everybody else is doing and to pile on basically.

01:04:07

I don't want to do that.

01:04:10

I want to avoid that altogether.

01:04:12

Which is a very fair thing to do.

01:04:13

Because it's not simple to make the decision to react to something that's offensive with

01:04:21

a calm demeanor.

01:04:23

That's difficult to do.

01:04:25

That's essentially what you have to do in a lot of scenarios.

01:04:27

Thus our book last time, Stillness is the key.

01:04:31

Exactly.

01:04:32

Remember that, Mike.

01:04:33

All right.

01:04:35

Next part, part three, more structure please.

01:04:38

As soon as I read that title, I'm like, yes.

01:04:43

Absolutely.

01:04:44

I'm on board.

01:04:45

That tends to be me.

01:04:48

Can we just talk about what the plan is going to be?

01:04:51

No, because we don't know.

01:04:54

Oh, all right.

01:04:55

Well.

01:04:57

So this section, there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about.

01:05:03

Side note, I guess, at the very beginning, in chapter 14, he talks about Alan Mulally

01:05:06

and his weekly meetings with the Ford executives.

01:05:09

I actually saw Alan Mulally speak at the Entre Leadership Summit when I was in San Antonio.

01:05:17

This guy, he's impressive.

01:05:21

This is the guy who was the CEO of Boeing and then Ford brought him in because they were

01:05:24

losing 20-some billion dollars in a year and he was going to turn the company around.

01:05:31

Every story that we read about him in bookworm books has been tied back to this weekly meeting

01:05:36

where people attribute the green, yellow, red to how they're doing and how their department

01:05:41

is doing.

01:05:42

Then, if it's not a green talking about what other people can do to help them change it,

01:05:47

when he got up and he spoke at Entre Leadership, he had a single slide with 12 different points

01:05:52

on it.

01:05:53

At the very beginning, he's like, this is everything that I know about business.

01:05:59

Then he just proceeded to talk through the different points and share stories about how

01:06:02

he had implemented this and just seems like a really down to earth, a very humble guy,

01:06:08

even though he is very, very successful.

01:06:12

It was cool to see him brought up in the story at the beginning.

01:06:17

The big thing that I want to talk about in this section is ego depletion, which is not

01:06:23

a new topic.

01:06:24

This has come up in different books that we've covered based on research by Roy Baumeister

01:06:31

in the '90s.

01:06:32

Yes.

01:06:33

Okay.

01:06:34

We argued that we possess a limited amount of ego strength, which is depleted throughout

01:06:38

the day, and that it's not just related to self-control, but it also affects decision-making.

01:06:45

There is decision fatigue that plays into this.

01:06:49

A couple of things he said in this book that jumped out to me, unlike physical exhaustion,

01:06:57

we're usually not aware of ego depletion.

01:06:59

We can't measure it, but we can document what is or isn't depleting and take preventative

01:07:04

measures.

01:07:06

I have an action item to list my depleting events.

01:07:11

I've done this already with people, if you remember back to the class class.

01:07:16

Yeah, it was on that list, right?

01:07:19

Yeah, exactly.

01:07:20

I think that doing the same sort of thing with events can be helpful because in this

01:07:27

book he's talking about, if you know you're going to go into something that's going to

01:07:30

be ego depleting, then maybe there's nothing you can do about it.

01:07:33

You're walking into a meeting and you know it's going to be ego depleting.

01:07:35

That's fine.

01:07:36

Just recognize that that's ego depleting and don't try to do a whole bunch of those

01:07:39

ego depleting things in one day.

01:07:40

Otherwise, you're going to find yourself in that situation where that's all I can take

01:07:43

and I can't take no more.

01:07:45

I've been there frequently.

01:07:49

I want to recognize the contributing factors, and I feel like making that list will help

01:07:54

me with that.

01:07:55

Yeah, I didn't go down that route with us.

01:07:58

I think it is interesting to consider what it is that depletes you, what it is that

01:08:04

recharges you.

01:08:07

I think for me, I don't always notice that I'm depleted until it's way too late.

01:08:16

Yep.

01:08:17

Like that's kind of the concern, but maybe that's more common.

01:08:21

But trying to determine what it is that depletes me versus what can I cut.

01:08:29

There's a lot of things I have just in my daily and weekly routines.

01:08:34

That might be depleting, but I cannot cut that at all.

01:08:39

You know, on a weekly basis right now, running live streams in a whole massive, it's basically

01:08:47

a full-blown concert every week the way it's being run.

01:08:51

It's tiring and exhausting to do that.

01:08:56

It's fun to set up and prepare for that and put it together, but it is exhausting.

01:09:01

I couldn't cut that.

01:09:04

That's not a thing I could eliminate.

01:09:06

But I think maybe what we're getting at is there are also some minor small things that

01:09:13

happen throughout the week that specific interactions you run into because you go to

01:09:20

coffee at a certain place.

01:09:21

There's a certain person there every time.

01:09:23

I'm like, "Well, maybe just change the time you go and you don't have to deal with that."

01:09:27

I think maybe that's a little more of what maybe you're getting at.

01:09:32

But I can't say that I...

01:09:35

Yeah, I should do this.

01:09:37

I don't really want to do this.

01:09:39

I'm kind of talking myself around in a circle at the moment.

01:09:43

Oh, Mike.

01:09:44

Well, I think you're kind of...

01:09:47

You're half right in that.

01:09:48

That is kind of what I'm talking about.

01:09:50

But also, I do think that the big things he mentions at structure is how we overcome depletion.

01:09:58

So you can recognize that right now you've got to set up these crazy live streams and

01:10:02

there's nothing you can do about it and it's just going to deplete you.

01:10:05

But maybe you can make a checklist and maybe you can teach somebody else and offload little

01:10:09

pieces of it.

01:10:10

That would be just one example of how you could potentially make it less depleting.

01:10:16

That's what I want to consider.

01:10:17

Because on page 187 he says, "If we provide ourselves with enough structure, we don't

01:10:21

need discipline.

01:10:22

The structure provides it for us."

01:10:24

So part of it is eliminating the things that are depleting that I can control.

01:10:29

But also part of it is thinking through the things that are depleting and how can I make

01:10:34

them less so?

01:10:35

How can I implement some structure?

01:10:37

Even if I'm not the one who is setting up the meeting or calling all the shots, there

01:10:41

are things that I can do before then to go into that meeting more prepared.

01:10:48

Yeah, maybe the other person should have been the one to thinking of this thing.

01:10:52

But they're not going to do that and I can't change them as we already talked about.

01:10:55

So I can at least think about it and I can make the meeting go smoother instead of freaking

01:11:00

out about it before the meeting because they should probably be doing this and they're

01:11:03

probably not doing it.

01:11:04

And then getting there and like, "I knew that weren't going to do this.

01:11:06

What does that help?"

01:11:07

It just makes it harder from that point forward.

01:11:11

So that's kind of what I'm talking about.

01:11:14

Yeah, no, I think that makes sense.

01:11:15

There are ways I could probably apply that to bringing other people on board and such

01:11:21

with the live streams and such.

01:11:24

Maybe I should do this.

01:11:26

Well maybe you just don't have any awful meetings because that's the next thing on this list.

01:11:30

But he describes the awful meeting and the exercise here is to imagine that you're about

01:11:35

to go into a pointless meeting and that you're going to be asked at the end, you're going

01:11:42

to be presented with four questions.

01:11:44

"Did I do my best to be happy?

01:11:45

Did I do my best to find meaning?

01:11:47

Did I do my best to build positive relationships?

01:11:49

And did I do my best to be fully engaged?"

01:11:52

I don't know about you but I can think of meetings that fall into this category where

01:11:57

I, when I read those questions, I'm like, "Dang it, no."

01:12:04

I can't say that.

01:12:06

And if I would approach them that way, does that change the dynamics of the meeting?

01:12:11

Absolutely it does.

01:12:13

So number one, I don't need to get as frustrated about certain things that are outside of my

01:12:18

control.

01:12:20

But number two, maybe just me, and again, I'm not the one who is leading the meeting

01:12:28

per se, I'm not the one who is dictating where the discussion is going to go.

01:12:35

That's by the way, one of the things I think that frustrates me the most is that I think

01:12:40

I am pretty good at that.

01:12:42

And so when I have to relinquish control of the meeting, whether or not it is business

01:12:48

related and just go with the flow, I can see how inefficiently things are run sometimes

01:12:53

and I get frustrated because I see the inefficiency.

01:12:57

But these questions basically challenge me to respond appropriately because it really

01:13:03

doesn't matter how inefficient the meeting is.

01:13:05

If I do my best in these particular areas, again, passive versus active, then it's a

01:13:11

better meeting for everybody involved.

01:13:14

And at the very least, I don't leave it with the same feeling that I would have had previously

01:13:20

where it would have been upset by what had transpired.

01:13:24

Again, I'm not directly contributing to the outcome, but I feel like there is a direct

01:13:30

correlation between my attitude and how the meeting goes a lot of times because I'm an

01:13:33

active participant, whether I'm calling the shots or not.

01:13:36

Where it bit in the past, my tendency maybe is like, well, there's nothing I can do.

01:13:40

I'm just in the tendi.

01:13:42

I feel like selling myself short there and I can do a better job of bringing some positivity.

01:13:49

I have one meeting each week.

01:13:54

I didn't use to think of it as an awful meeting, but lately in the last two or three weeks,

01:14:00

it has most certainly become one.

01:14:04

I think it's because there is a lot of difficult stuff going on in the world.

01:14:14

Sure.

01:14:16

I think that's a lot of it.

01:14:18

It has led our one meeting in a week to catch everybody up and like, what's going on?

01:14:24

What are you doing?

01:14:25

What decisions are you making?

01:14:26

What are you struggling with?

01:14:27

Those are good questions to ask and decisions that need to be made, but it's messy when

01:14:35

you have one department that is trying to ask those questions and decide on those things

01:14:42

live in the meeting.

01:14:44

We have another department that will oftentimes make a lot of those decisions ahead of time

01:14:49

and just ask for comment on what they've already decided.

01:14:53

What used to be about an hour and a half long meeting is currently about a three-hour meeting

01:14:58

for me.

01:15:02

I don't have time for this.

01:15:05

I locked out on the last one because it's like, no, I cannot do this.

01:15:13

I appreciate his questions.

01:15:17

I think in my particular case, I'm more prone to want to leave said meeting as opposed to

01:15:24

be quizzed about it when it's all done.

01:15:29

I get his point.

01:15:31

If I'm going to be there, I need to try to find ways to build up the relationships with

01:15:36

the folks I'm with.

01:15:38

Can I be someone who's fully engaged in that as opposed to just waiting for a specific

01:15:43

group to finish with what they're doing?

01:15:45

Exactly.

01:15:46

Ultimately, the relationship aspect of it alone, if you view the meeting as mechanical and we

01:15:54

need to arrive at some decisions and then you leave, and that's the approach you take

01:15:58

every single time, you're going to find those meetings becoming more difficult and more

01:16:02

difficult, my personal belief.

01:16:05

First off of these questions, it got me thinking that the inverse is also probably true.

01:16:10

If I go into the meeting with that third one specifically of how can I build positive

01:16:14

relationships with the other people that are in this meeting, that makes the next meeting

01:16:18

easier and the next meeting easier and the next meeting easier.

01:16:22

That's the theory anyway.

01:16:25

It may be 100% true that you just have too much to do today and I need to leave this meeting

01:16:29

right now.

01:16:30

People are going to find out if I walk out, but that's too bad because the live stream's

01:16:34

got to go out tomorrow morning by a certain time and I got stuff to do.

01:16:38

But I personally found myself justifying that sort of action and I'm not really happy about

01:16:49

it.

01:16:51

So I want to change that for me and this is probably one of those aspirational goals

01:16:57

that I will fail at multiple times before I finally get it.

01:17:02

But I do see the value here in that I don't want to be the person who's hard to work

01:17:06

with.

01:17:07

I want to be the Nadim, not the sign.

01:17:09

Yeah, I get it.

01:17:10

I just don't want meetings to last three hours.

01:17:14

Yep, I get that too.

01:17:16

I think I need a start there at the moment.

01:17:18

How do I get this shortened?

01:17:21

Sure.

01:17:22

We've been going for a while.

01:17:23

Should we jump to the next section?

01:17:25

The last one, part four.

01:17:26

I'm game.

01:17:27

All right.

01:17:28

So there really isn't a whole lot to talk about in this section.

01:17:31

There's two chapters, part four is no regrets.

01:17:34

The thing that jumps out to me from this is the question that they share in chapter

01:17:38

21.

01:17:39

What is the most memorable behavioral change you've made in your adult life?

01:17:44

And they've phrased this question as something to ask yourself in the future.

01:17:49

So assuming that you have this behavioral change that you want to affect and you do so

01:17:55

successfully, what is the type of thing that you are able to look back and say, "I'm really

01:18:00

glad I did that particular thing?"

01:18:04

And this is a different way of thinking about the topic of habits and I think it's really

01:18:08

powerful.

01:18:09

Beginning with the end in mind, I guess, is how Stephen Covey would put it, but there's

01:18:15

something about that think forward to the end of your life and what's the most important

01:18:21

thing you want to have accomplished.

01:18:25

I don't know.

01:18:26

Most people don't think about things that way.

01:18:28

I don't find myself thinking about things that way very often.

01:18:31

I tend to think about, "Well, this is what I got to get done today."

01:18:34

And then I'll think about what's next.

01:18:37

But when it comes to behavioral change, I see a lot of value in this because if you can

01:18:42

jump ahead and look at the value of the journaling habit that you've created or the writing

01:18:47

habit that you've created or whatever other habit, you're either personal or professional

01:18:53

that you want to establish, you can amplify and magnify the result of that habit.

01:19:03

Whereas in the day to day, I'm too tired to practice my Spanish today.

01:19:08

I don't feel like writing in my journal today.

01:19:11

But if you view it as like, "I've got these journals which I can present to my kids," by

01:19:18

the way, that actually came from a conversation with Matt Ragland.

01:19:22

That's one of the reasons that he started journaling is he wanted to have these notebooks

01:19:27

that he could pass down to his kids.

01:19:29

It's a cool idea.

01:19:31

Gram and grandpa are gone, but we have these journals of what they were thinking when they

01:19:34

were going through the COVID-19 thing.

01:19:37

I think that's kind of cool.

01:19:39

So I think this is a valuable question to consider.

01:19:42

Yeah, for sure.

01:19:44

I think this is a question that, well, let me back up.

01:19:48

There's a story that he tells at one point of a specific CEO, and I'm going to completely

01:19:52

blink on the company or the CEO's name.

01:19:55

But he had a conversation with the CEO and this person was planning to retire in six

01:20:02

months.

01:20:03

Oh, yeah.

01:20:04

And he was having a conversation with him and he simply asked, "When you retire, what's

01:20:12

you going to do?"

01:20:13

It's like, "I don't know.

01:20:14

I haven't thought about it yet."

01:20:16

And Marshall asks him, "Well, if your company knew that it was going to have a completely

01:20:24

different lifestyle and a different product and a different endeavor that it was going

01:20:29

to take on in six months, do you think you'd plan for it?"

01:20:34

Well, yeah, absolutely.

01:20:37

What's more important, your work or your overall life?

01:20:40

Okay.

01:20:41

Well, that puts things in perspective.

01:20:45

And at least...

01:20:46

He's really good at doing that.

01:20:47

Yeah.

01:20:48

I mean, it's a thing that like, I don't think that way.

01:20:50

I don't know how many times I've heard people talk about how in Christian circles we talk

01:20:58

about how men are the leaders of their household and I'm not trying to stereo or be sexist

01:21:05

or anything.

01:21:06

It's just kind of the way those conversations go.

01:21:08

And that usually means like, "Okay, you do these things at work to plan for the future

01:21:16

and decide what you're going to do in six months, six years, 20 years.

01:21:22

How many times do you do that for your life or your family?"

01:21:25

Well, almost nobody ever raises their hands if they've been asked if they do that or not.

01:21:29

Myself included.

01:21:30

That is the whole heart behind the intentional family podcast.

01:21:34

I know, I know.

01:21:35

So you guys do a good job with that.

01:21:38

This question of what's the most memorable behavioral change, you know?

01:21:45

It's a great question and it's one that forces me to stop and think through what's my lifestyle

01:21:52

look like and do I need to consider it from a design stance.

01:21:58

A while back I read a book called "Lifestyle Design."

01:22:02

I don't see it above me at the moment.

01:22:05

I think it's lifestyle design.

01:22:07

And along those lines are a friend of the show, Josh, recommended it to me at one point.

01:22:13

This concept of thinking ahead and designing what your lifestyle should look like, it's

01:22:19

a fascinating concept and it's one that I haven't spent much time with.

01:22:23

I don't know that I'm going to sit down and make this very intentional, but I know that

01:22:29

I've got multiple hours in a vehicle coming up here in a few days with my wife and this

01:22:36

is some of the stuff I want to talk through with her.

01:22:38

It's just like, what does our lifestyle look like and what would you change about it?

01:22:43

And then let's take some of the learnings that we've talked about here on Bookworm with

01:22:48

tiny habits, atomic habits, triggers, all these things.

01:22:52

Let's take some of that and figure out how to actually implement those and start working

01:22:56

towards them.

01:22:57

So if I have an action item off of that, that would be it.

01:23:01

Simply some conversations and then to figure out what comes after that.

01:23:05

Nice.

01:23:06

If you want an audio book along the same sort of lines that Rachel and I went through,

01:23:19

check out Life and Air by Steve Cook and I forget the other person.

01:23:24

And I say audio book because it's a parable and it's a little far-fetched sometimes and

01:23:30

the audio book will just keep you going so you don't stop.

01:23:33

Sure.

01:23:34

And I think it's pretty good and it really just challenges the way that most people think

01:23:39

about designing their life where I want to achieve this much in terms of overall not

01:23:46

worth so that then I can retire.

01:23:50

And we've talked about this at different points, how Rachel and I have kind of gone through

01:23:53

that.

01:23:55

The main idea it challenges me with is like, how do you live aspects of that now?

01:24:01

That's where the phrase, and I've shared this on the podcast before we want to be able

01:24:04

to make people feel like a million bucks even if we don't have a million bucks.

01:24:09

We don't have to achieve a certain level of savings in order to start doing small things

01:24:15

like that.

01:24:16

Like paying for people when we go out to eat, if we ever go out to eat again.

01:24:22

Coffee, stuff like that.

01:24:23

Little things.

01:24:25

But it just changes your approach and in terms of interpersonal relationships, number

01:24:32

one, it will make the other people feel a lot better, but it does something inside of you

01:24:37

too when you know that like this is us living out our values and it's not like we're trying

01:24:42

to get to a certain point across a finish line.

01:24:44

Then we can start doing the things we want to do, but we're able to do aspects of that

01:24:47

now.

01:24:48

Maybe we can't do everything that we want to do right now.

01:24:51

That's okay.

01:24:52

There's like different aspects of that that we can if we find some creative ways to live

01:24:57

that out.

01:24:59

So I'm anxious to hear what you...

01:25:02

What sort of insight you get when you get back?

01:25:04

I'm terrified.

01:25:05

We'll see how that works.

01:25:07

I feel like major life decisions happen when this sort of conversation comes up.

01:25:15

So we'll see.

01:25:17

We'll see.

01:25:18

Yeah.

01:25:19

Well, in the last chapter he talks about how change is good.

01:25:20

So don't be scared of the change.

01:25:23

Oh, I thrive on change.

01:25:24

That's the problem.

01:25:25

Yeah.

01:25:26

Let's...

01:25:27

Okay, let's change absolutely everything.

01:25:31

Okay.

01:25:32

Done.

01:25:33

Gone.

01:25:34

Like, I've made the decision.

01:25:36

I am on board honor percent.

01:25:37

Oh, yeah.

01:25:39

I suppose there's a lot of ramifications to that decision now.

01:25:43

Yeah.

01:25:44

All right.

01:25:45

That's all I got to say about this book.

01:25:46

Anything else?

01:25:47

Likewise.

01:25:48

No, I'm good.

01:25:49

All right.

01:25:50

Action items.

01:25:51

Go for it.

01:25:52

Okay.

01:25:53

I've got three.

01:25:54

The first one is the Nadim and Simon exercise.

01:25:58

I can think of one relationship specifically where I want to work through this.

01:26:03

I know that every time I get in a certain situation, I get frustrated and I don't lash

01:26:11

out.

01:26:12

I don't do something that I feel afterwards like, "Oh, I can't believe that I did that,"

01:26:15

but I do get annoyed and I don't like getting annoyed.

01:26:20

So I want to think through that situation and think about the triggers and kind of what

01:26:25

he talks about in that situation in the book is you go 80% of the way and you'll see

01:26:31

that they'll come the final 20.

01:26:34

And that's kind of the approach that I want to want to take.

01:26:36

I want to identify the triggers, the things that typically set me off and then come pre-conditioned

01:26:42

with some alternate responses when those things happen because they will.

01:26:47

The next one.

01:26:48

I mentioned I want to create my own active daily questions.

01:26:53

I don't know exactly what these are going to be, but I will report back what I land

01:26:57

on next time.

01:26:59

And then the last one, pretend I'm going to be tested at the end of every meeting specifically,

01:27:05

pretty much every single meeting.

01:27:07

I mean, it kind of drives me nuts.

01:27:09

So I want to ask myself those four questions at the end of those meetings and hopefully

01:27:16

have a little better attitude and have build relationships through those meetings no matter

01:27:22

whether they happen at work church, wherever I want to have more positive outcomes from

01:27:28

those meetings based on my approach to them.

01:27:31

Those are all very valid action items.

01:27:33

Thank you.

01:27:34

I like it, Mike.

01:27:35

So do you have any?

01:27:36

I will join you.

01:27:37

I'm going to join you on this daily questions thing, but I think I'm going to try them as

01:27:39

journal prompts.

01:27:41

I think that's kind of the way that I think it'll work for me.

01:27:43

Maybe that means I'm writing too long.

01:27:45

But frankly, I kind of want that together with the action items and journal notes and

01:27:50

stuff, like the note capture stuff I have in my bullet journal.

01:27:55

I think that would be helpful to me to have that all in one place.

01:28:00

Think of it as Mike's old day one, but in paper form.

01:28:03

There you go.

01:28:05

But that's one major thing I want to work towards.

01:28:10

Then I'm going to have this conversation with my wife from what behavioral changes do I

01:28:16

feel like I need to make?

01:28:17

Like overarching lifestyle changes.

01:28:20

I feel like those are the two places that I need to start.

01:28:24

That's my thoughts.

01:28:25

All right.

01:28:26

So, style and rating, Mike.

01:28:29

The hard stuff.

01:28:30

This is hard.

01:28:32

I really enjoyed this book.

01:28:35

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

01:28:38

I felt like there was tons of new stuff in here.

01:28:42

I did not feel like it was a rehashing of everything that we had already learned about

01:28:46

when it came to habits.

01:28:48

I feel like the stories that he shares based on his personal experience as a corporate

01:28:54

coach kind of lend itself more towards a business application.

01:29:00

But it's very easy to transfer this stuff over to your personal life as well.

01:29:04

I feel like the models that he uses are very helpful.

01:29:08

If there's one negative thing I could say about all the different charts and things

01:29:13

that he has, it would be that they tend to look the same because they are all kind of

01:29:18

built off of these four quadrants.

01:29:21

So it's easy to mix those up.

01:29:24

But I feel like there's a ton of stuff in here.

01:29:27

And if all you got was like active versus passive questions and you started asking yourself

01:29:32

all these daily questions, that could alone revolutionize a lot of things for you.

01:29:38

That could completely change your life.

01:29:40

I'm not saying that the daily questions will automatically change your life.

01:29:44

But there's a lot of stuff in here that I feel like if you were to apply this is very,

01:29:49

very, very powerful and impactful.

01:29:53

So I am going to rate this at four and a half stars.

01:29:59

I did not think it was going to be a four and a half star book, honestly, when I started

01:30:02

it.

01:30:03

But I am very happy to have read this.

01:30:06

I feel like it is a very approachable read.

01:30:08

You don't have to be a business person in order to get a lot out of it.

01:30:13

He's a very good storyteller.

01:30:15

He's a very good writer, honestly.

01:30:17

I noticed a lot of like variety in his sentences and things.

01:30:21

And I don't know.

01:30:22

I just thought it was a very entertaining and easy read.

01:30:25

I think I read the whole thing in two or three days.

01:30:28

But I've also read a lot of books while on sabbatical.

01:30:32

So there's that.

01:30:35

Yeah, nice.

01:30:37

But I think this is a good book.

01:30:38

I would definitely recommend this to people.

01:30:40

I can't think of anybody any reason why I would hesitate to recommend this to someone.

01:30:48

I think the revelation on recognizing that there are triggers in your environment and

01:30:53

understanding the things that can kick off those default reactions is pretty powerful.

01:31:01

Even if you don't do anything with that, just recognizing like, oh, I'm going to walk into

01:31:03

this situation and it's going to be difficult.

01:31:06

So you kind of have your guard up.

01:31:07

I feel like that alone would be beneficial.

01:31:11

Yeah.

01:31:12

I think for me, I don't want to say he failed.

01:31:17

He struggled to hook me at the beginning.

01:31:20

So that part was something I had to overcome in this as far as how the style of the book

01:31:30

is put together.

01:31:32

He does use a lot of graphs and such at the beginning that felt the same to me and I struggled

01:31:39

to differentiate.

01:31:41

I don't know if that's just because he has a set style of graph that he just loves using

01:31:46

or if he just hasn't taken the time to figure out a better way to do it or if that's really

01:31:52

just what he continues to come back to.

01:31:56

It seems like he really wants to use the Eisenhower Matrix for things but wants to put

01:32:01

a twist on it.

01:32:03

I don't know.

01:32:05

So I did struggle with those two particular pieces.

01:32:08

I agree with you.

01:32:09

He's a good writer as far as like a sentence structure and how do you put paragraphs together

01:32:14

and how do you tell stories like he's good in that sense.

01:32:17

I just think he waited a little bit too long to get into some of the storytelling at the

01:32:21

very beginning.

01:32:23

He started to do a lot more storytelling in the middle section of the book.

01:32:28

So once you get to that point, I feel like it's a little bit better in that sense.

01:32:34

I feel like I'm downplaying the book but at the same time, there's a lot of great stuff

01:32:38

here.

01:32:39

This is super helpful in the sense that it enlightens you on what does your environment

01:32:47

have to do with things.

01:32:49

Even if there's someone else in the room, they still have a big impact on you whether

01:32:52

you realize it or not.

01:32:53

So that's something that just being aware of that and having that as a mental note,

01:33:01

if you will, that's helpful.

01:33:03

I like seeing that.

01:33:05

I don't think I would go all the way to 4.5.

01:33:07

I think I'll put it at a 4.0 mic and I think that's just purely because there was some

01:33:12

stuff I had to struggle to get over.

01:33:16

If you told me that you wanted to read this, I'd tell you absolutely.

01:33:20

If you told me you wanted to read a book that helped you do some behavioral change, I would

01:33:25

probably throw you atomic habits before I would this one.

01:33:30

That one I continue to go back to whenever I'm trying to think through changes like that.

01:33:37

I think this one definitely informs that, but I would point someone elsewhere, but that's

01:33:42

me.

01:33:43

Everybody's got their own opinions, right?

01:33:45

Yep.

01:33:46

I like it though.

01:33:47

It's a good one.

01:33:48

Cool.

01:33:49

So what's next?

01:33:50

Next time is reclaiming conversation by Sherry Turkle.

01:33:55

I'm looking forward to this one.

01:33:56

It's a little bit longer, Mike.

01:33:58

Apologies.

01:33:59

I didn't realize it was as long as it is.

01:34:02

Did you already read it?

01:34:03

You're looking at me.

01:34:04

I did not.

01:34:05

I think it's waiting for me to hold on.

01:34:08

Yeah, it's interesting.

01:34:11

It's about discourse in the world of digital stuff, which I feel like that's a recurring

01:34:18

theme I come back to.

01:34:20

Here's this behavioral change.

01:34:21

Mine is interacting with the real world in respects to the digital world.

01:34:27

Those are the categories we tend to hit.

01:34:30

That's true.

01:34:31

This one's going to maybe go down the St. Beth.

01:34:33

We'll see.

01:34:34

All right.

01:34:35

What's after that?

01:34:37

After that is a book that I originally picked to be a gap book, but I really want to drag

01:34:45

you through this.

01:34:47

Okay.

01:34:48

And that is the Crossroads of Should and Must Find and Follow Your Passion by Ellie Luna.

01:34:56

This is a book that I saw Sean Blanc mentioned in the newsletter that went out.

01:35:01

And I've heard him reference this book previously.

01:35:05

Looks like it's got a cool artistic style.

01:35:08

This one is also waiting for me at home.

01:35:11

But I feel like this is appropriate given your spirit quest you're about to embark on.

01:35:18

Ah, spirit quest.

01:35:19

Nice.

01:35:20

I don't know why I'd go that far.

01:35:25

Even in the title, the Find and Follow Your Passion, I have issues with that advice.

01:35:30

Follow your passion.

01:35:31

This might be a rant worthy book.

01:35:33

I don't know.

01:35:34

But yeah, I think this will be an interesting read.

01:35:40

And I think it's kind of a timely thing.

01:35:45

Not just not just for you, but as everybody's coming out of this like COVID-19 quarantine

01:35:50

thing mentioned, my wife and I've been thinking about this a lot.

01:35:52

What are the things that are essential?

01:35:55

And maybe it's not everything that we used to do.

01:35:58

So hopefully this book will shine some light on what are the right things to say yes to.

01:36:06

Sure.

01:36:07

Cool.

01:36:08

I'm game.

01:36:09

So you mentioned you've been reading a lot.

01:36:13

Gap books.

01:36:14

I don't think I have any here that I did not mention.

01:36:19

I finished how to take smart notes.

01:36:23

I also am reading at the moment the No Fill Communication by Michael Hyatt.

01:36:29

So I'm going to finish that one for next time.

01:36:31

And I don't have anything else specifically queued up, but I will report back.

01:36:37

I'm sure I will find something.

01:36:41

Unless I get your book and it's like 500 pages and then I'll just read that one.

01:36:45

It's not super short.

01:36:46

I think it's 350 somewhere around there.

01:36:50

Okay.

01:36:51

So I'm going to go to 50 I think is where it lands.

01:36:53

I'd have to go check.

01:36:54

I just know when I got it.

01:36:55

It was thick.

01:36:56

Yeah.

01:36:57

I don't have any gap books this time.

01:37:00

That's to be expected.

01:37:01

I barely got through this one.

01:37:03

Listen, I had to sit down 20 minutes before we started recording and finished the last

01:37:08

few pages of it.

01:37:09

So you got it done.

01:37:10

That's the way this week is gone for Joe.

01:37:13

It works.

01:37:14

All right.

01:37:16

Well, if you want to support the show, you can do so by tapping the button in overcast.

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You'll also get access to the live now video versions of the recordings and the MyNODE files

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01:38:00

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01:38:01

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01:38:30

Yeah.

01:38:31

I was having a bit of a chat conversation with the members who are listening live about us

01:38:35

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01:38:39

It seems like that might be okay.

01:38:41

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01:38:43

Pick up Reclaiming Conversations by Sherry Turkle.

01:38:45

And we'll go through it next time.