Bookworm Transcripts

00:00:00

Hey thanks for having me on your analog jot thing the other day that was a lot of fun that was a lot of fun.

00:00:06

That was i really enjoyed that i wasn't sure how so we had mike on the very first.

00:00:13

Interview show on analog jot com and it went really well and what so well that we ended up doing a pen tour for about 40 minutes afterwards.

00:00:22

It was it was fun it was only a small diversion into room research yep.

00:00:30

I was i have been very particular about not diving into room research on any of the analog jot webinars but mike made sure we broke that fast.

00:00:40

It's true i also got you a bell when you give a ding there we go so got it somebody was joking around in the chat couple of couple of episodes ago that there should be a ding every time that i mentioned room research so.

00:00:57

There is i got joe bell nailed it i got i got like to my ears to catch it now.

00:01:04

I usually like all he said it again he said it in but now i can try and not stop now not go there.

00:01:11

But yeah that was a lot of fun to do and i hope the people people found it entertaining and useful.

00:01:19

I'm always skeptical that what i'm actually doing is interesting to anybody but.

00:01:26

All right i thought i was interesting i was super helpful based on the emails i got about it i think other people did too so awesome well done sir so we'll put a link to that in the.

00:01:36

The show notes and if you are interested in the analog stuff go check out analog jot com.

00:01:42

It's fun yeah it's a cool site but i'm biased side note analog joe you can correct me from wrong here but.

00:01:49

I believe that was a byproduct of bookworm where i kept calling you analog joe yes and then sent you the domain that was available and said you better buy this yep before you had an idea for what you're going to turn into correct i own analog joe dot com for about six months before i did anything with it.

00:02:06

So i did is my fault i should own this but i don't know what to do with it actually have a couple other domains that are similar in that.

00:02:14

Vayne that i've learned are like this joe dot com and i know i'm not so thanks for that you cost me more than one domain.

00:02:24

No haha alright let's jump into follow up here we each have a couple of action items you want to go first.

00:02:33

Sure so i had to the first of which is no phones at the dinner table i've been pretty successful at that mostly because i told my wife about it.

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So telling her about it meant that she now holds me accountable to it and our youngest daughter likes to hold me accountable to it as well so.

00:02:51

Works so that one's been successful so far that was the first one the second one is starting to basically label the type of communication that i'm doing.

00:03:01

Very pointedly as opposed to just saying i talked to steve about x y and z like well no i texted steve about that or i.

00:03:12

Called steve about that or i saw steve the other day and we talked about.

00:03:16

I'm trying to be particular and intentional with the way that i use those.

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Terms because in the past i've just said hey i talked to mike about room research.

00:03:27

And i need to do it if i do it is that works you do it never you want.

00:03:34

The one at the bell so i i don't want to just say i talked all the time i want to be more intentional with the way that i use those terms i feel like i've been pretty good at those i have slipped up a few times but i feel like that's going to take time.

00:03:48

So make a progress so earlier today when we were texting we were not talking this is the first time we have talked today.

00:03:58

True texting earlier i already say that i say talked we talked earlier i know i know i just i just use that as an example because i think that's a cool distinction and i support you in the section item.

00:04:10

Hopefully i nail it i'm mike shmitz i approve this action item for joe.

00:04:14

Alright those are my two what do you got.

00:04:18

Alright i also had no phones at meals which surprisingly like after i put this on there.

00:04:24

I always thought that i never really did this and then i caught myself like what is my deal.

00:04:30

But this has been successful we've eliminated it now and also we had discussion about it because for my kids it wasn't the phones though obviously would turn into that at some point.

00:04:40

Joshua specifically he's been going through all these like snoopy comic books and he likes reading him and he'll read for hours so he'll bring the book to the table and just like not look up from the book the entire time that we're eating so we kind of.

00:04:54

We've kind of said you know phones are going away everything else is going away dinner time is when we eat together and we talk together.

00:05:03

That's the whole point is having the space for that conversation so i think this has been successful.

00:05:10

And this is the perfect kind of action item in my opinion from bookworm because it's the kind of thing where just the awareness brings the the desired result.

00:05:17

There was no whole lot of effort required to do something with this but sure it's a win.

00:05:23

And then no internet searches and conversations this was totally on me letting my kids trap me into this but hey you should look this up and i'm proud to say that this has not happened.

00:05:35

Basically soon as i put this on the list i kind of resolved in my head like okay i said i was gonna do this now i have to do this.

00:05:41

And so couple times like hey why don't you know no not doing that.

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I'm bad at this but i feel like i should probably do this one as well there are so many times hey what's the.

00:05:55

What's the weather gonna be tomorrow sure yeah pull out the phone and go check it quick yep.

00:06:02

Does happen alright so that is follow up i think we are ready for today's book it's time it is time this is the crossroads of should and must by.

00:06:15

L. Luna.

00:06:16

And this is a very different type of book for bookworm it is significantly shorter than many of the books that we have read.

00:06:25

I'm looking at you principles paid to think yep reclaiming conversation etc.

00:06:32

It's got a really cool visual style so little bit of background here a little is a designer slash artist.

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Who when she wrote this anyways was living in San Francisco and part of her story was she bought this apartment she had this dream basically of this this apartment.

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And then she's like i'm gonna go see if i can find this apartment from my dream and found this thing bought it and now like based on some of the pictures and they looks like it's this.

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Got really tall ceilings and she uses it to paint and she's got a very distinct style it's not like purely abstract like a public house so she references public house so in here regarding the work.

00:07:19

But i don't know i thought it was i really like her style to be honest like it's very colorful and so there's a lot of the design of the book is.

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Obviously her art to support the points that she's.

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She's making it's not like the graphs in the four square grid that you'll find in every other productivity book.

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But there are a lot of things in here that she's got a visual that really helps solidify things.

00:07:44

What was your take on the i don't want to say the stop to get into the style and reading at the end but you pick this up it's very different it's got like it's a hard cover.

00:07:53

Quote unquote but it's got like a cardboard cover at the top yeah and you open it up and you're like right away you're like whoa this looks kind of cool that that was my impression so what did you think.

00:08:06

So for those who can see us in video this is like one of the pages i mean there's a lot of this i mean you can kind of see that but the thing with this is that it's.

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I had two reactions to this one was hey that's really cool and to was that seems kind of cheap like the way that they bound it and such like it would be a very cheap way to do it.

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But sometimes that doesn't mean it's less impactful sometimes that means it's a lot better because they just did something that wasn't normal.

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And i wondered if that was to follow her.

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Thinking behind should and must like i just i must do it this way i wondered if it was down that road versus.

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You should go through a design process and get the designer and have the dust cover and all that stuff like.

00:09:00

This is just completely different than that i can't say there are a lot of those that i have had that reaction to like the bullet journal was similar.

00:09:07

Like it had a traditional but it had a very specific style to it so this one's similar to that i prefer the bullet journal like.

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Touch and feel to this one but it is interesting nonetheless for sure it makes it very fast read.

00:09:23

I read it in two settings and they were not long settings so yeah it's quick it's quick.

00:09:30

So regarding the the binding i agree with you that the cardboard maybe makes it feel a little bit cheap.

00:09:36

I'm i was curious you know what you're gonna think of that though because the paper is another story in my opinion yeah yeah and i don't think you maybe have gone quite as far down the.

00:09:49

Paper rabbit all as i have when it comes to the analog pens and things yeah but i will tell you that the paper that i chose for my crazy journal that we unpacked in the analog recording.

00:10:03

Is that it feels very much like this paper where it is thicker and it's not just thicker it has a little bit different texture it feels like a little bit.

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Shiny are almost and that i think really makes the colors pop so one of the things i noticed when i started using the paper which.

00:10:20

I just bought it because it was available but after the fact that daddy told me like this is really really great paper and jiff ab it's like this is.

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Like top of the line paper for what you're going to be doing it's a clear fontane triumph or yeah try and the.

00:10:36

When i first started using it i recognize that the ink didn't dries fast as i'm like a rodeo web pad and it didn't quite feel as smooth as the rodeo web pad.

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And it took a little bit longer to dry but once it dried i noticed that my colors really popped.

00:10:53

And so there are certain paper types that you can just automatically associate them with a specific type of book almost like a bible for example typically has like really thin pages turning pages in a bible has a very.

00:11:06

Distinct sound yeah likewise a lot of the books that that we read even the bullet journal those types of pages feel.

00:11:15

A little bit more like the rodeo web pad sort of thing in my opinion and then when i picked up this yeah the cardboard covers like what's going on here.

00:11:22

But the pages themselves i was like this feels and looks really great and i don't know specifically what kind of paper she used for this but because there's a lot of art in this book.

00:11:35

That was something i noticed is that a lot of it look like it really popped in maybe that was because of the type of paper that they chose for this.

00:11:42

Yeah i noticed that it was smoother as i was flipping pages and they're thicker.

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They have a little bit heavier weight to them so i did notice those things but.

00:11:53

It wasn't so far into the forefront of my mind that i would call them out as i was talking about the blood so.

00:12:00

And it sounds kind of weird even talking about this at the beginning for getting to the content but once you read the book you kind of get it because it is so visual.

00:12:08

It's what 130 something pages but it's probably more like 30 if it was just the written text maybe yeah i don't know that it would be that long almost five okay.

00:12:19

It's almost an essay.

00:12:23

What started as a medium post yeah i noticed that after i got it you know i picked this book simply because i have heard people who i look up to.

00:12:33

Really rave about this book one specifically right before we record a bookworm last time is Sean block he had a whole.

00:12:44

News letter about this phrase from the book and i remember specifically what the book was but it's like oh yeah there's that book again.

00:12:50

I should probably look into that and i can bring you along for the ride thanks for that one.

00:12:56

I just got thrown in the mix i see how it is yeah that does happen but it happens both ways.

00:13:04

Yes i definitely throw in the art of the cycle maintenance.

00:13:08

So true apologies that's alright so there's there's four parts to this book and this discussion is probably gonna be a little bit different.

00:13:20

Because we're not going to be rehashing the points of the book really the value of this book i think is in the questions that it makes you answer.

00:13:30

It's not a book of answers which is what a lot of productivity books try to be.

00:13:35

You know three simple steps to reclaiming five hours per day for the rest of your life it's definitely not that at all it's part her story part some exercises that she gives you to go through and maybe will.

00:13:50

Depending on how this goes maybe will go through one of those on the on the air here cuz i think those are kind of interesting.

00:13:55

But real briefly here before we jump into the content there's four parts to this part one is titled the crossroads.

00:14:01

Part two is the origin of should.

00:14:05

Part three is must and part four is the return.

00:14:12

So let's start here with part one crossroads and the first thing i want to unpack here is this job versus career versus calling that she talks about.

00:14:29

Now.

00:14:30

What was your opinion on how she define these as she defined them i don't know what i had a reaction to the like this kind of lays the framework for the rest.

00:14:42

Rest of the book so when she is talking about this is a job is something typically done from nine to five for pay.

00:14:47

A career is a system of advancements and promotions over time where rewards are used to optimize behavior calling is something we feel compelled to do regardless of a more fortune the work is the reward.

00:14:57

Right so you you kind of read those and.

00:14:59

When i read it i kind of like okay i kind of think i know where you're gonna go with this.

00:15:04

And that i think could cause a couple different reactions and people so i'm curious what was yours yeah.

00:15:11

So this is the part so at one point my text me.

00:15:14

And said hey how far you into the book if you started it and he had an action and you wanted to give me it's like this list that we might go through here.

00:15:24

Just kind of depends on how we go here and at that particular point i was.

00:15:29

Thirty is pages into it where she's defining this job career calling and explaining.

00:15:38

Maybe the differences between shouldn't must like she's getting into that at the very beginning sometimes whenever i have a book like this i'll read it out loud to my wife like she'll be working on dinner and i need to start the book so i'll grab it sit in the kitchen and read it to her.

00:15:53

And whenever i did that.

00:15:56

I got to about page thirty and she said you need to stop this thing is.

00:16:03

Is bad i have to finish reading this well yeah i kind of need to finish reading this for bookworm is like i kind of had similar reactions to it in that.

00:16:14

When you look at job career calling.

00:16:17

She explains it in such a way as if this is supposed to be some revolutionary.

00:16:23

Concept and maybe it was just my upbringing and my wife's upbringing but those are terms and delineations that.

00:16:32

I've heard since i was ten like this is not a new thing at all and i wondered if maybe that's the christian religious circles because like we talk about calling verses a job all the time that is not a new thing.

00:16:47

Yeah i don't know that.

00:16:50

Like me personally i felt like she was saying you need to decide which of these systems you're going to fall into but i think that's false.

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Because i think you can have all three and they can all three be different.

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So coming from that background i now have this kind of flawed crumbling foundation behind the whole book.

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Which is difficult for me to come to grips with.

00:17:15

There's also.

00:17:18

I'll say this i'll quit on my rent but there's there's a section towards the very beginning where she's talking about.

00:17:26

Are she has some quotes and reference to references bill moyer and joseph Campbell in the book the power of myth.

00:17:32

I've read the power of myth as a christian i have very strong opinions against that book and i'm grateful for having read it but i will not recommend that to anyone who's not.

00:17:44

On solid standing so all of that said.

00:17:49

She started off on very rocky footing with me and she had a very long ways to go to win me back over all right i didn't know who those people were.

00:17:59

Okay i'm glad i didn't.

00:18:02

It's kind of interesting to me that the beginning of this book.

00:18:08

Caused maybe you had the same reaction when you read the art of asking by a man to palmer but i mean like that's exactly what happened with me when i started reading that but i didn't get that reaction when i.

00:18:20

I read this regarding the job career calling thing i think this maybe was.

00:18:25

Relatory to her but i don't think she tried to take ownership of that idea she mentions that she heard about it from a ten talk by stephen sagmeister.

00:18:34

Sure i did not watch that that ten talk by neither yeah probably should have but i didn't.

00:18:40

Yeah i didn't either but the job career calling thing i think this has a lot to do with the perspective of the work that you're doing not the actual work that you are doing.

00:18:54

So one of my favorite.

00:18:56

Stories fables whatever is about these three brick layers and i don't remember exactly where i heard this first.

00:19:06

But the story goes that there's these three guys who are laying bricks and there's a tourist that walks up to the first one.

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He's like excuse me sir what are you doing and he's like what does it look like i'm doing i'm laying bricks he's like not wanting to be there at all he's just there to collect the paycheck.

00:19:25

And that would be in her definition a job.

00:19:31

Okay and then he goes up to the second guy is like excuse me sir what are you doing he's like.

00:19:35

I am building a wall so he's got a little bit bigger vision he's not just laying the bricks it's part of a part of building something bigger but he still doesn't understand.

00:19:46

The totality of what he's doing and what purpose it has for him it's still just this is a bigger project.

00:19:54

But it's simply that and my identity value is not derived from the work that i'm doing but.

00:20:01

I've done this all my life i'm good at it so i am a brick layer i have a career yes and then the third person excuse me sir what are you doing is i am building a great cathedral to my god.

00:20:13

And he's all excited about the work that he's doing because he sees this as his life's work.

00:20:18

All three guys doing the exact same thing but their perspective on their work is different and that one is the one that i would argue you know it's it's a calling.

00:20:26

Now this is i i went into this knowing that like i was going to disagree with some of this stuff regarding passion.

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Because in my book i i wrote that the the word for passion is the latin word petit literally means to suffer so when most people say.

00:20:44

Follow your passion man like right away i've got a knee jerk reaction like no absolutely do not do that.

00:20:51

Because it doesn't mean what you think it means it's not right i really like doing this so i'm just gonna do it over and over again and people are gonna give me money because the universe owes me.

00:21:00

Right and what's it mike ro the dirty jobs guy.

00:21:06

He spoke at some school graduation one time and he said essentially follow your passion is terrible advice don't follow it but always bring it with you.

00:21:16

And i never really got into that show i watched it occasionally but i remember being struck by how he could go do all this stuff that i absolutely did not want to do.

00:21:28

Ever and he's like getting all into it how does he do that.

00:21:34

And i think a lot of this is simply he learned to engage his passion that way and it's all based on his his perspective so i didn't get a chance to talk to elle luna.

00:21:44

I don't know if she thinks that this is perspective based or if there really is like a specific thing out there that.

00:21:50

You're gonna find it in the stars are gonna align new age style points you in the right direction i have no idea.

00:21:57

But i kind of think maybe it doesn't really matter either i don't know that could be me though just because i've got some additional context with this specific subject and i care deeply about it so yeah but the see here's the other thing to.

00:22:11

Should and must she goes in she goes into the definitions and how one is different than the other but.

00:22:20

Depending on how you look at it i feel like your perspective could switch one to the other that's that's the problem with the explanation like what you're talking about and this is why i struggled with the book i'm not saying that.

00:22:31

I just want to be clear here like the book can cause you to ask some good questions i think it's very valid in that.

00:22:38

And there are some questions that she poses like that's one of the things she mentions at the beginning like i'm simply going to ask the questions that i worked through to help me come up with.

00:22:48

My own answers and i think those questions are solid.

00:22:53

How she got there like her purpose of what she's trying to get you to do like the differences between these two sides.

00:23:01

I didn't start off on very good footing with it.

00:23:03

And i felt like like some of the should that we wrote down like.

00:23:08

I could easily say those are musts as well yeah and depending on how you were to should like it is a must.

00:23:16

Or vice versa it just kind of depends on how you see it so it could be very easy for me to say yeah i should.

00:23:25

Go do my job every day.

00:23:28

But that's actually a must as well so like it depends on how you see it so that's that's what i struggled with again i don't think the book itself has a complete.

00:23:39

Flaw to it i just struggled to understand some of the definitions and how she got there sure let me ask you.

00:23:46

At this point put you on the spot go for it i'm usually pretty good those how would you define your current work and work being.

00:23:57

All the things that you do do you do it as a job a career or a calling and i know those can change but like primarily what's your attitude.

00:24:09

Torts those it's kind of a mix between career and calling.

00:24:14

So i say that because i feel like i need to so for those who don't know i'm an i t director to church.

00:24:21

But i also have bookworm also have my own personal brand which is youtube twitch and things.

00:24:27

And there are a couple other small things like side gigs freelance things i do for like web development such.

00:24:34

All of those have one thing in common which is i help other people with technology in some form which i would say is my calling.

00:24:43

But everything i'm doing collectively is something i would call a career and like my day to day is technically i t director which kind of fits into both of those.

00:24:55

Do you get my problem i do i also have a personal story with this like timing is everything i think with a book like this.

00:25:04

I was the other day editing intentional family on my iPad so if you were to ask me what do i do for a living i would say that i am a creator and i.

00:25:21

Write and speak about productivity and technology and intentionality i think falls into that for me so i consider that part of my work even though it's not a large part of my.

00:25:34

Income but in my opinion there's a common thread between that stuff i do for the sweet setup bookworm focused everything.

00:25:43

And i was editing the podcast and i was in career mode where i'm editing this thing it's really rachels show she creates all of the outlines she she basically plans all the episodes i show up i talk and then i edit and publish it.

00:26:01

So i was like i gotta get this thing out the door because it's gonna release the next morning and i'm sitting at the kitchen table i'm editing the editing it in fair i don't my i pat which is the way i prefer to edit podcast.

00:26:13

And i'm in work mode toby walks by my twelve year old.

00:26:17

And he just is like passing through the kitchen i don't know he just like got something to eat was like leaving and then he makes this passing comment he's like.

00:26:26

You know you have the coolest job in the world he's like more people should do what you do.

00:26:31

And he doesn't really understand everything that's that's involved with this right but it was one of those things that i just arrested my attention i'm like.

00:26:41

You know what you're right i do have a pretty awesome job.

00:26:45

So even that one moment that adjusted my perspective from career.

00:26:56

To calling i feel and this is something i feel like i've been sensitive with in the past and kind of this book was a reminder to get back to that like.

00:27:05

Go back to the basics go back to the original core motivations you had when you were doing these things do you still want to do those.

00:27:14

The other thing that i want to call it here is the should versus must you mention this.

00:27:22

So she defines these i'm page twenty eight she says there are two thousand life should must we arrive at these crossroads over again and every day we get to choose.

00:27:29

And she defines should as how other people want us to live our life and must as who we are what we believe and what we do when we are alone with our truest most authentic self.

00:27:40

Those aren't necessarily different things and that's where the exercise comes in which is actually part of the next part so.

00:27:51

Put a pin in that temporarily because i just want to call out basically that you may have been you may have.

00:27:58

Live your life according to other people's should that doesn't mean that those are the wrong should but it doesn't necessarily mean that they are the right ones either.

00:28:07

And i can see this in my own life my parents like traditional parents i think they are concerned about their kids and they want to see them do well.

00:28:18

Okay but sometimes that manifests as worry and you're like you know what i'm good i'll figure this out everything's going to be okay.

00:28:26

I will probably do the same thing when my kids grow up i recognize that but that's part of the deal here.

00:28:34

But i also reflecting on my life i recognize that they kind of coached me or encourage me to go certain directions because they knew that financially i would be better off my family would be.

00:28:46

Would be more secure things like that and i don't necessarily think that all those decisions that i have made based on their guidance were necessarily the right.

00:28:58

Decisions now it is what it is it's in the past i'm not going to worry about missed opportunities or things like that but i do want to recognize that going forward sometimes the right path is not the easiest path.

00:29:10

And i've got a balance that because i also have responsibilities i gotta put food on the table also interesting to me like i'm going through this book and.

00:29:19

Kind of the question makes you wrestle with is what if everything you knew disappeared what if you lost your job tomorrow what would you do.

00:29:26

I had to go through that.

00:29:28

So at this point it's like bring it on a live through it once what's the worst i could have.

00:29:35

Right yeah i get it i mean it it's it's difficult this is why i struggle with this somewhat because i should.

00:29:44

Keep my head down do a job at my job job.

00:29:49

So i can find an income from my family and give them stability.

00:29:53

Those are the should there.

00:29:57

You can probably argue that the there's a must in there is like i must provide for my family and put food on the table like those are probably the two musts in there and going to the nine to five which in my case is like an eight to four.

00:30:10

Going to that and working hard at that is maybe a should but in my head it's a must because that's what provides for the other two.

00:30:23

So i struggle the whole time i was going through the ladder half of like the last seventy five percent of the book.

00:30:31

I struggled to like okay so what qualifies is one of the other because i feel like just depending on how i look at it.

00:30:38

It would change from one side of the other that is the uncomfortable question that it makes you answer sure maybe that's the point yeah she says in the section what if who we are and what we do become one in the same.

00:30:52

And i think that's where a lot of the people who are frustrated with their current job that's at the root of it is that they know that this isn't what i should be doing i've got something more to offer the world.

00:31:04

But this is the safe thing this is the secure thing so i've just stayed here and never really tested to see what i'm really capable of.

00:31:13

And that's going to be different for every single person who reads this some people i could see like if you're later on in life and you have regret about a missed opportunity early on.

00:31:25

It's could be really emotional this could just wreck you yeah but i don't think that's a great.

00:31:31

Place to stay either like it really shouldn't be the kind of thing that.

00:31:36

Makes you feel bad for for the water that's going under the bridge but it should inspire you to make the most of the opportunity in the time that's in front of you in my opinion.

00:31:45

Yeah i think that's fair i think if i was in a spot where i wasn't sure what i should be doing and was looking for a job this would be very very different.

00:31:53

The fact that i'm in a stable job and.

00:31:59

In the middle of side ventures and have a lot going on and i feel like those are good things like i don't feel like i'm in a complete hole.

00:32:08

Sometimes i do not like what i do day to day but that's the way it the weather things go like you can't have a job that has zero down sides i never even people have their dream job has down side so.

00:32:19

Funny you bring up the dream job so i had another have another story here.

00:32:26

On a roll today shortly after to be provided unintended enlightenment we had a toastmasters meeting a virtual toastmasters meeting.

00:32:36

And i was in attendance they're usually sparsely attended in the summer specifically specially when they're the virtual so.

00:32:46

Like the roles were filled a part of a toastmasters meeting is table topics where you get an opportunity to speak for two to three minutes extemporaneously so you don't know what you're gonna have to speak on until.

00:32:59

Right before they give you your topic go.

00:33:02

And because i didn't have any other roles i kind of went into this meeting thinking i was going to be selected for table topics and i was.

00:33:13

So the question that i was asked was if you could have your dream job what would it be.

00:33:23

And my answer was what i am doing right now and it's interesting because not too long ago.

00:33:32

James clear put out a call for a podcast editor if you would have asked me a couple of years ago everything about that job description.

00:33:44

That was my dream job yeah but i am working with block media it's not just being a being grateful for what i have the more i sit and think about.

00:33:59

What i really have here in compare it to the other options i'm able to say no that's that's not for me.

00:34:06

Like i did not apply for the the james clear thing even though all the people that i respect online like charmer kev for example is tweet about his like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity this is an incredible job like.

00:34:18

Yeah this for somebody out there this has your name on it and you know you are and at the time i was like is that me should i know what no no i finally resolve like no not not gonna do it.

00:34:32

And it was interesting to me that i did that i didn't even put in an application because i could have done that and then just like well see how things shake out you know.

00:34:41

I probably would have taken that approach in the past just like hedged my bets you know let's see what happens here but sure i don't know i just.

00:34:48

Felt at i hesitate to say this because i think a lot of people who use this like feeling sort of stuff.

00:34:56

End up being a little bit flaky at least for me yes but i just i just felt that peace about where i was and it's gone really well like every week i get off awesome is that i get to.

00:35:08

Get to work from home and create stuff that i love talking about like this is.

00:35:12

I don't know it's easy to to view the grass as greener somewhere else it's also easy to just get locked into what you currently do.

00:35:20

And this book for me the result of having gone through this was to crystallize like i really did make the right choice that this is the right spot for me at least right now i know that like i'm gonna grow and i'm gonna change.

00:35:33

And maybe it's not the right spot for me five years from now i have no idea i kind of think it will be what will see how it goes though.

00:35:40

Yeah i feel like you don't know that when you first start a new job if you like there's no way to know.

00:35:46

There's just not i mean you can make some good guess you can tell if it's wrong correct yeah some jobs you know immediately when it's wrong.

00:35:53

But i feel like it's hard to know.

00:35:57

If it's truly gonna be a long term success.

00:36:01

For me a year more i feel like it takes time.

00:36:06

I mean sometimes it probably isn't going to require that i feel like that's probably gonna be.

00:36:12

It could be dependent on the onboarding process for the company i think about base camp i mean everybody likes to use base camp as an example they're onboarding process takes.

00:36:25

Multiple months before you are fully into.

00:36:30

The the before you're fully entrenched in the company.

00:36:34

So that's a thing that they do and they're very particular about that not every company does that.

00:36:41

And i know there have been positions that i've jumped into in the past where day one i was asked to kick out reports and i didn't even have a computer yet.

00:36:51

Come on people those are scenarios where you know this is not gonna be pleasant.

00:36:57

But it seems like that's pretty common to.

00:37:01

Yeah not to pick on you too much but i would argue that probably the reason that that wasn't a great fit is because you are looking at it through the job of the career lens.

00:37:11

Yeah and not the the calling lens if you had had a different perspective and i've done the same thing so.

00:37:18

But since you brought it up you know if you had the view to the calling ones you maybe would have decided a lot sooner that you know what i just don't want to be here.

00:37:27

There's something else i'd be there before i started like i knew that exactly i gotta put food on the table job yes yes so something in the job column money.

00:37:37

Over road all of the other stuff correct this is jumping ahead to part three but there is a money part to this yeah and there's two different types of money like you have to have it.

00:37:50

Bear necessities money and then there's the extras that was an attempt for me to put the bare minimum on the table sort of job that's what that was what you gotta do right so it only lasted a handful of months it's all needed a last but.

00:38:06

It did the job yeah and everybody who is gonna give you well intentioned advice.

00:38:14

Will tend to view it i think from that perspective is like all this is a great job because you're gonna be provided for and you're not gonna have to worry about where your next meal is gonna come from.

00:38:24

For some people worrying about where the next meal is gonna come from is way better than worrying about what you're walking into get to the office.

00:38:32

Alright let's move on here i feel like it just jumped all over on you sorry.

00:38:37

We did part two is the origin of should and this has a couple of things here page forty one she says that should are put on you from the moment that you are born.

00:38:51

I agree with that statement now they're not always bad things though sometimes should put on you they become must but the important thing is to filter them through your own.

00:39:05

To your own lens and not somebody else even if you really respect them really care for them you need to make these decisions for yourself so one of the exercises that she gives you in this book is to make a list of the should that you hold on to.

00:39:21

Now i made a list of should's it could probably be like five times longer if i spent more time thinking about this yes but this is the thing i asked you about you be comfortable sharing some of the stuff on the on the air.

00:39:35

So you got your list of should's i do i don't know if it's what you're after but i'm also not well i don't think it's what elina was after the things that i read down but yeah why don't you share some years so.

00:39:48

Some of some of this is small i've got three i'll share and.

00:39:52

The starts with she has a thing where there's some blanks like you should never blank you should always blank i think those were helpful at all by the way you didn't see that's what you're doing.

00:40:04

See that's what actually helped me figure out what she was trying to get me to do mine every single one of them is you should and then fill in the blank.

00:40:12

So i tried to fill in the blanks with the prompts that she gave me and i realized i couldn't come up with anything when i framed it that way okay.

00:40:19

Interesting because i couldn't come up with anything until i got those okay okay okay two so so different that's awesome.

00:40:26

This one small i i was just writing down the first thing that came to my mind whenever i went through these you know again ad race car brain here with bicycle breaks.

00:40:36

And i the first one was you should never.

00:40:41

And the very first thing it went through my head was use emails a task list.

00:40:45

I was the first thing with my head and i i had that thought and i think it's because i use emails a task list and people tell me i'm not supposed to.

00:40:56

You're not i do so i maybe that doesn't qualify because i break that one i don't know that's.

00:41:04

Well i think that's an interesting example so let's stop there for a second because i also have some productivity related ones like you should get up earlier.

00:41:13

Yeah why yeah right because somebody else said so and so that's really the value of this thing is like i've heard this before over and over and over again.

00:41:24

Just because somebody that i respect and who gets a lot done has said that i should get up earlier.

00:41:28

Doesn't necessarily mean that i should get up earlier that i must as part of who i am get up earlier maybe i'm just wired different and.

00:41:36

Seven am is fine you know.

00:41:39

Maybe i don't need to be part of the five a.m club and it won't it won't impact me at all the thing that really like makes me question that one specifically is my gap book.

00:41:49

Which is recommended from one of these live chats daily rituals how artists work by mason curry.

00:41:57

And it's basically like a page two pages on all these creative people and their daily routines how they went about their day they are so different some people say five hours.

00:42:07

And then they were going going going some people slept like ten hours some people were up before dawn some people started their day at noon.

00:42:15

They all created a lot of really cool stuff and this is kind of challenge me to figure out my own.

00:42:21

My own creative rhythm i feel like that would be a good one for bookworm maybe something ritual based like we've done a lot of habits but not a whole lot with like.

00:42:30

Full on rituals right i could i could be interested in here let me give you my second one because i feel like this one's gonna prompt the conversation of where does this fit.

00:42:40

And it was you should always notify my wife of my whereabouts and that one okay.

00:42:49

Must i do that or should i do that well first of all where did that should come from it's from her and me i would say.

00:43:01

It's kind of a packed between the two of us to make sure we're always aware of what's going on so we can plan on and know what's going on but we should.

00:43:10

Then that was probably a must like that's that's the thing but that's what it like i should do this must i that's the question every time that you say no i'm gonna push back against one of these things that i have embraced.

00:43:24

Is there's gonna be fall back from it and you have to decide if the amount of fall back that you are going to get.

00:43:31

Is worth the additional benefit that you're gaining by cutting loose that obligation that you've just taken on to yourself.

00:43:39

So is the difference between a should and a must simply the amount of fall back that you're willing to deal with well this should have been put on you and you've assumed them as i must do these things and for me this exercise is identifying the must that you want to let go.

00:43:54

Not every must should be let go.

00:43:57

You could say you know what i'm not gonna tell you where i'm going and you're just gonna have to deal with it yeah probably won't go well i'm my own person you don't need to know where i'm at.

00:44:07

Yeah you can see this being a very bad difficult conversation yeah so is that a conversation you want to have is it worth it.

00:44:15

But when it comes to things like.

00:44:18

A job that you don't like and you just assumed that i need to keep doing the things i gotta keep putting bread on the table.

00:44:24

Sometimes it's it's worth envisioning an alternate reality not saying you want to be an alternate reality for marriage.

00:44:34

This is just not you get what i'm you get what i'm saying like this is different because it's.

00:44:40

And again maybe this is her point i didn't catch that this is her point if it is but it seems like.

00:44:47

The core difference between shouldn't must.

00:44:50

Is the amount of pain you have to deal with the let go.

00:44:54

And some work you're just trying to feel where that line is and if it's above that and it's.

00:45:01

More painful let it go and it's a must and if it's not as painful to should.

00:45:06

Do you get do you know what i'm saying like it just it seems like it's all the same thing just a matter of sure how much.

00:45:14

Difficulty there is well i guess i guess in my opinion i've got my shirts and some of them were from points in my past where people told me things and so some of them have kind of push back against already but a lot of them as they are.

00:45:27

Applied to my life right now i viewed them as these are things that i have involuntarily assumed as i must do these things and so i took it as an opportunity question every single one of those things sure for each and everything there is both a pain and discomfort.

00:45:44

That comes from pushing against the status quo that is offset by the amount of gain or enjoyment or joy or happiness whatever you get from the freedom.

00:45:54

No longer having to live up to that expectation k.

00:45:57

Can you my last one my opinion yep go for you my last one you should never quit your job without a plan or knowing what's next i feel like that's really painful.

00:46:09

To quit not knowing what comes next and the only reason that was on my mind cuz that is exactly what she did.

00:46:16

I just had to rent this apartment and i checked my bank account i knew i could go three months without a paycheck so i quit my job like.

00:46:26

What you did what yeah and i felt like the and again this is what got me off on the wrong foot.

00:46:33

It made me think that she's a bit flaky and i don't want to be taking advice from somebody who does that so.

00:46:43

Like i again i was like if she's going to have that mentality and take that high level of risk.

00:46:51

No i'm not i'm not gonna follow your opinions here now some of that i need to back off of that a little bit because.

00:47:01

She's a single person didn't have a family and kids i don't know she does now i don't i don't know.

00:47:08

Side note she was working for mailbox at the time i think it was okay she's really good so.

00:47:13

Let's go back in time mailboxes one that brought us swiping for emails.

00:47:17

And she was one of the designers for mailbox so many higher.

00:47:23

She she careful she'll quit on you.

00:47:26

She'll quit and go start painting but i feel like that was the last major innovation emails ever gotten wall up until hey yeah right right until hey yeah for sure.

00:47:38

I.

00:47:39

That whole concept was just on my mind as i was reading this and i couldn't get it out of my head so whenever she said you should never.

00:47:49

That was the first thing that jumped in my head because she had been talking about it so.

00:47:53

Again should you quit your job if you don't have the next thing lined up or have a solid plan for your income that can be quickly realized.

00:48:03

I would tell you that is one of the worst decisions you could make.

00:48:07

So you should never do that but again that's a should.

00:48:10

In my mind there's a lot of pain involved that but i felt like she was encouraging that to some degree well.

00:48:16

I am up to mine's here.

00:48:19

Because i am a logical rational planner who wants to have everything figured out.

00:48:26

So i have taken the exact same approach that you just took like that is terrible vice never ever ever do that right.

00:48:35

Then i got laid off and had to go through it anyways even though i wasn't in control of it.

00:48:42

Right and it was the most terrifying most stressful period of my entire life.

00:48:48

And i would argue that everybody should go through that some point.

00:48:51

I have so i would say it's better to be in in charge of that then to be not in charge of that process.

00:49:02

I also don't think you go through that for the fun of it but i also but i think.

00:49:08

That there are there's a possibility that you can tell this is a tipping point for me and you go one of two ways you can.

00:49:17

Make the leap so to speak which interesting we should tell you not to make the leap later on we get to that part and kind of the nuance there.

00:49:24

Or you can take the the safe route and just you know for somebody else.

00:49:31

For a single person for someone who is not a family for someone who doesn't have all these obligations already like they could do that but i could never do that.

00:49:41

I guess i'm a little emboldened because the worst case scenario became my reality for a while and i made it through and i'm.

00:49:50

I'm not gonna say i'm glad that i had to go go through that.

00:49:54

But i also don't think i would have got where i am now had i not gone through it.

00:50:00

So.

00:50:01

I don't know i've been there where it's like why would you put yourself in that sort of situation and then having gone through it i realize that.

00:50:10

Putting yourself in that sort of situation is where all the growth happens so that's exactly why you would you would do that sort of thing.

00:50:18

Those can be a catalyst catalyst moments for helping you reach your full potential.

00:50:25

And full potential is not just a better job that pays more has more benefits whatever it really is like the thing that you are.

00:50:33

Put here on earth to do now i've got a whole course.

00:50:37

Faith based productivity where i teach the concept of a life theme and that's super important to me so take this with a green assault i guess if you don't agree with that sort of thing you're just trying to accumulate as much as you can so you can retire as early as you can so you can take it easy for as long as you can.

00:50:54

That's fine like that's if that is your goal more power to you but that's not what i want to do so.

00:51:01

Maybe that disqualifies me as a voice of reason in your head that's fine that's where i'm coming from.

00:51:07

Sure well you should know i've been in that boat to.

00:51:11

And you know i was asked to submit my resignation from a company and made the decision to go my own.

00:51:21

Because we had an emergency fund whenever that happens so.

00:51:25

In a sense we made that decision to do it voluntarily and it led to the worst two and a half years and struggle i've ever dealt with yep and i don't wish that on anybody.

00:51:37

And i would highly recommend you avoid it all cost so.

00:51:42

As i have the opposite on that one sure sure chose to go down that path and have regretted it almost ever since.

00:51:52

So it has led to a ton of learning i picked up a lot of skills in the process i felt like it's helped my character a lot of ways that there are positives to it.

00:52:00

But i would much rather go on through a different in job position doing that.

00:52:06

Not at a desperation in an attempt to find dollars like that that's not.

00:52:12

What i wish on any yeah desperation is is not that's not a great place to be and.

00:52:20

I get it like i was there one of the hardest things for me to cope with was we had never had credit card debt.

00:52:28

And then the month that we could not pay off the credit card balance.

00:52:32

I went into a depression yeah and then every month just saw that balance to pick up to pick up nothing you can do about it.

00:52:42

That was.

00:52:44

Gut wrenching but we made it through that so.

00:52:49

I guess i'm looking back on it with a different different set of eyes now.

00:52:54

And i'm you know when i think back to that period.

00:52:59

I question whether it needed to be as bad as it was like.

00:53:05

The way my brain works i feel like maybe i missed something maybe i was offered a lifeline and i just completely didn't even see it.

00:53:14

And i made it worse than it than it needed to be.

00:53:19

I don't know i i definitely get where you're coming from where i like you don't want to be there if you can avoid that situation.

00:53:26

You want to avoid that that situation.

00:53:29

I guess my argument is just that you don't know that it's going to end up there when you decide like hey i'm going to go see what this alternate path leads to.

00:53:40

And yes it might get to that point that's kind of like the whole time fairs fear setting thing.

00:53:45

Worst case scenario that i don't have enough to pay my bills every month and we are racking up credit card debt if you ask me i would have said yes that is absolutely the worst case scenario i'm absolutely not going to go there well i went there.

00:53:58

Right and i made it i made it didn't kill me like i thought it went.

00:54:02

Sure so i just want to i guess encourage people not to ditch the lifeline and go do something crazy.

00:54:14

But to weigh these things and maybe.

00:54:18

Bed on yourself a little bit more you know if i think back to my career path i feel like i could have done a better job with that.

00:54:26

And maybe i would have arrived at where i'm at a little bit sooner sure.

00:54:30

Yeah i still want to encourage people to do it.

00:54:34

Not like if you want to go your own you want to do your own thing i'll tell you do it nights and weekends until it's successful and then cut over yep i'll do it every time.

00:54:44

I think that's what she would say to quit and go like.

00:54:48

No i ran across someone who was recommending to a friend that they should quit their job and start a youtube channel because they're really good on camera.

00:55:01

How many youtubers you know that have made it like a full time income off of it within two months right i can't even like the huge names i can't even think of anyone who did that.

00:55:13

Yep so don't mark is brown lee mk b hd matt regland posted about this recently which brought it to my attention.

00:55:23

And he shared his one hundredth video that he made so the great mk b hd who has however many millions of subscribers after making a hundred videos had seventy six subscribers yes.

00:55:37

At that point you can't justify that as a career switch but he also like put in the work and you continue to.

00:55:44

To push and you got it to where it is now and that's that's the thing is like the consistency like you don't know.

00:55:50

Where things are going to lead but it's not good i can tell you it's not going to happen as quickly as you think it will.

00:55:56

No regardless of how much you plan how much you research i have a friend.

00:56:01

I say a friend but he was a kid in the youth group when we started helping out with it so i'm quite a bit older than he is but he was.

00:56:08

He was going to college he was doing some internet marketing he was pursuing the path is his parents basically saying like this is the this is the way that you go to get a good job.

00:56:18

And he discovered twitch streaming and he had always had like he had done like the super smash brothers tournaments like you've been really good at those you like go compete different places.

00:56:32

I didn't even know that was the thing but he was doing that you know when he was in in high school.

00:56:36

So twitch streaming speed running all that sort of stuff he's like maybe i can make a career out of this and he had to talk with his parents.

00:56:44

And they're like well you can try this if you really want to but you've got one month.

00:56:49

And then you got to start making money otherwise you got to go back to buss and tables at some place right right and he put in the work and after month one he's like you know what i don't have anything yet but.

00:57:01

I think there's something here give me two more months are fine fine you can have three months total and then you either get a real job or you move out.

00:57:09

And he did and now he's like got sponsors and he goes to these conferences and like he's he's in the celebrity line for like the meet and greets.

00:57:19

Sure he's actually a kid that i i discipled for a while so i would encourage him to like hey just keep pushing like see where this goes put in the work.

00:57:26

But be willing to walk away from it if it doesn't work sure i look back at that now and i'm like how many people have i convinced to walk away from the thing that was really their thing.

00:57:36

I don't want to be responsible for that i also don't want to be the one who's like hey just make the leap it all be fine like you do have to get to balance that and kind of like my take away from all this is don't give any advice.

00:57:48

Share your story and don't tell anybody what to do.

00:57:52

Sure sure i think this okay so this background of mine in dealing with job stuff and it not going very well i think might have tainted.

00:58:06

And this might be why struggle with should versus must because i've been stuck in this.

00:58:11

I need to put food on the table state for long enough that.

00:58:17

To try to think about do i really love what i'm doing frankly it doesn't matter like i don't care if it's something you love doing or not you still have to do.

00:58:28

These things and it's primarily a like.

00:58:32

You can have these calling conversations and start to make adjustments to what you love to do.

00:58:39

When you have the surplus time finances space to do that.

00:58:46

I have zero qualms with going down that road your bare minimums need taking care of first i think you're allowed to do that when you get to that point but until you've got.

00:58:56

The mortgage paid and food on the table like i don't care if you don't like driving pizzas to people's houses it puts.

00:59:03

It takes care of your base minimums like so don't worry about that so i think it's important to point out like this has to come from the surplus.

00:59:12

Yeah i have to come from that like if i say i didn't like the whole world of things that i'm doing right now i'm gonna bust my tail nights and weekends to build something.

00:59:24

That gives me the opportunity to step away from it or i'm gonna start looking for other things a different job to apply to like that's what the route i would go.

00:59:33

I'm not gonna go and say hey i don't like working here i quit.

00:59:37

Yep and then go start applying like that's totally backwards.

00:59:41

Yeah the side hustle can become the main hustle at some point but you have to have it start as a side hustle yeah yeah so you're delivering pizzas.

00:59:51

The trick is don't just deliver pizzas and complain about how bad things are yes do something on the side that will maybe lead to where you want to end up even if you don't know exactly what that looks like yet.

01:00:03

Which i think she would agree with what she talks about that another section which will get there i'll just share some of my real quick so we can hear sure yeah we've been going for over an hour here now so.

01:00:14

Which is not how i thought this episode would go to be honest that's cool i like it.

01:00:19

Throw a video and i get talking apparently sorry about that.

01:00:23

So here's some of my sheds you should go to college.

01:00:27

I would say absolutely not in fact like that's.

01:00:32

I should clarify that for some people you do have to go to college but it's not going to be the default advice that i give my kids i'm not going to say go sign up for a bunch of student debt.

01:00:42

At the beginning because you don't know what you're going to do yet i mentioned you should get up earlier you should get a real job you should be realistic and this is the thing i feel like i've used as an excuse so many times throughout my life.

01:00:56

Is well that's great that they were able to do that i get inspired by the people who had this dream and it became a reality now they're doing something awesome but i was like.

01:01:06

You know you just gotta be realistic they can do that maybe but you can't.

01:01:11

There's a lot of stuff related to my routines that i listed and this is why i think that this exercise was valuable.

01:01:20

Is that you automatically kind of assume these is must but maybe they're not must.

01:01:25

What the what this did for me is it kind of confirmed a lot of these in in my opinion so personally for me the expectation is the church that we go to you should go to church three times a week twice on sunday once midweek.

01:01:39

That's not going to be for everybody i'm not going to project that on you or anybody else but as i ask myself is this an expectation that people place dummy and i don't really want to be there.

01:01:49

Or is it something that yeah i'm in a voluntarily sign up for i must go to church three times a week and for me i see the growth that comes from.

01:01:57

Being there consistently so yes 100% i'm on board with that one you should read your bible you should pray every day again 100% on board with those you should exercise every day you should read more you should brush your teeth twice a day you should floss every day.

01:02:11

All of these things are things that i do already and i'm not gonna like rebel against the dentist orders because that dictator dentist i don't want to tell me what to do i brush my teeth when i feel like it like i know that there is good that comes from that and it's not just he's trying to.

01:02:29

Crap my style you should have a weekly date night and this is this is starting to get into the territory was like well.

01:02:37

This is something that i've heard people say but do we really need to do this and for me absolutely we need to do this it doesn't happen all the time that's the thing that gets me thinking about it is like was it really necessary because sometimes it doesn't work out and seems like things are fine but i know in my heart of hearts when i take it on it's like at the stuff that.

01:02:57

Yes this is providing immense benefit to my relationship with my wife it is worth the investment.

01:03:04

Let's see you should take the safe job you should have insurance you should put the kids in music lessons you should put the kids in sports those two specifically.

01:03:13

We've been kind of rethinking those based on the pandemic and the quarantine and how we gonna do this yeah because in march when they were in music lessons when they were playing sports like all that just shut down.

01:03:25

And so now this is kind of cool because is this a should that someone has a scribe to us or is this a must where we feel like this is what we have to do right and kind of it's in the middle.

01:03:35

So we want to do these things but not the way that we have been doing them right and so rather than take the kids to the music store.

01:03:46

Where they have less enough to less enough to less enough to less than one right after the other on monday nights our whole monday night is is gone.

01:03:53

We're starting to do virtual lessons with one of the missionaries that we support actually the missionaries that Rachel and I went on a coast to reke on our mission strip that we worked with.

01:04:01

They're really really good musically and they a lot of the stuff that they do is worship related to different churches down there they're looking for ways to increase their funds while all of the economics fall out is happening from all this so.

01:04:16

We're doing private video zoom lessons with people who ultimately like this is going to get us where we want our kids to be with with music far better than the classical teacher at the local music store.

01:04:29

Sure so it's it's a win.

01:04:32

And it's just took a pandemic for us to reconsider like why are we doing things this way.

01:04:40

But I thought that was an interesting example recently you should go to bed earlier you should be responsible you should provide for your family you should grow up already.

01:04:48

I don't do that so some of these things these are like I said stuff that I've heard in the past.

01:04:56

And if I were to really unpack these there's more things associated with that than just what's on the surface level.

01:05:05

But I recognize from doing this exercise that when someone tells me that I should do something my initial reaction is not to do it even if it's going to be good for me.

01:05:17

And sometimes you can wear me out and I'll give in and then I'll just do it consistently and it becomes a habit routine and every once in a while I've got to go through and.

01:05:28

Clean out that craft but I also think that the personal treats that I do have helped with this because I force myself to pick something to stop doing every time.

01:05:36

So I didn't end up with a big list of of must that I've assumed that I needed to cut loose.

01:05:41

Whereas if I hadn't done that I can easily see how I would have ended up there sure sure.

01:05:47

I don't know where to jump in on that but I know you've got an interesting list of should's.

01:05:51

I I didn't go quite that far with it I think it makes sense to do that.

01:05:57

Maybe I should spend some more time with it I don't know I think I'm you should give the book another chance to see I don't have to.

01:06:08

There you learn your lesson see.

01:06:11

I'm just I'm just not there I think I'm in a wrong season or came out of a wrong season for it sure that's totally fine.

01:06:22

I just want to share some of my stuff I think it's helpful I could be good for other people to hear that for sure cool.

01:06:29

All right let's move on to actually one other thing with this other point I had in the outline which I'll just call out here.

01:06:38

A prison isn't always a physical place she mentions that on page 45 our prison is constructed from a lifetime of should's the world's of choices we've unwittingly agreed to the walls that alien it is from our truest most authentic selves.

01:06:52

Just because you've assumed some should's doesn't mean that they're wrong but I do think that it's worth questioning things so the prison analogy maybe makes it seem like this is something that you automatically should you should rebel against the man you know you should push back against everything that you've you've known and do the opposite.

01:07:13

I don't think that's necessarily the right approach but it is worth considering those things that's really what the exercise in my opinion helped me to to do so okay all right that being said part three must.

01:07:26

There are four big concerns about must and so must in this sense is kind of like.

01:07:36

For her it would be I must create art for me I'm not sure I must podcast I must.

01:07:44

I don't know I've kind of gone through this a little bit I think where I was I was doing.

01:07:49

I was doing something very different than a lot of the stuff that I'm doing now and I kind of went through that like I don't want to be doing this in 10 years so.

01:07:58

I kind of feel like I found my must my life theme so to speak but when you're going through this transition you're considering this transition there are four big concerns that people have the money the time the space and the vulnerability.

01:08:13

Now with time specifically you mentioned the style this book and you showed it on on the video where she's got like this sometimes the words he's painting in like big.

01:08:26

Broad brush strokes right in this section for time she she wrote but I have five kids in a mortgage.

01:08:35

And I was like yes I do have five kids on the mortgage how did you know Ellie.

01:08:45

And also like I said you know I've kind of gone through this unexpectedly with being laid off in the previous gig so.

01:08:54

In the past this would have been the thing like I can't do that I can't try to envision something different like this is safe.

01:09:02

This is this is good like I'll just find the good in what I've got here and let's not look for anything different let's not rock the boat because.

01:09:12

I have responsibilities and so that one like not only is that true to me but it is also the exact same excuse that I used.

01:09:22

However many months ago okay.

01:09:24

Go for it I mean it's you should podcast Mike I must podcast you like podcasting you like talking you enjoy jumping on a microphone and I'm hoping I get you into streaming now.

01:09:39

And this is a thing that you should do because you love doing it and you're good at it so.

01:09:48

You should do it you could make the argument though.

01:09:53

That you've got five kids in a mortgage and podcasting paying the bills so you should just let this go and do something else.

01:10:01

But anyways that's me so these four big concerns you mentioned the money before you want to talk about this this piece yeah.

01:10:10

So like there's four concerns here and it essentially these are arguments against her and these are I guess excuses to not follow your must if you will.

01:10:21

One of those is the money thing we talked about that earlier the necessary money versus the extra money time you will make time for the things that are important to you that you must do.

01:10:31

Space kind of.

01:10:34

Do you have the physical space I guess for it would be the the way to do it to say that I would also potentially translate that into do you have the emotional space to do it.

01:10:44

As well yeah she talks and that's part about must loving play and needing solitude right right.

01:10:51

And then vulnerability.

01:10:52

You don't want to put yourself out there.

01:10:55

And that's honestly that's been some of my own concern with doing things like a YouTube channel or twitch streaming and stuff like I've had the skills and the ability to do this sort of thing for a while.

01:11:06

I just didn't want to put myself out there like that and I think I've kind of gotten comfortable enough with this that I can.

01:11:12

Jump on these and have fun.

01:11:14

Who knows if I'm any good at it but it's fun for me so there you go.

01:11:19

So like these four things money time space and vulnerability like these are some of the things that people say they like these these are excuses for not following through on your must.

01:11:28

And in this case it would be like not following through on your calling I guess would be the the other way to say this I like the next section after this is don't make the leap.

01:11:38

Again it's a that's part of part of this section actually so you can you can go there if you want sure like it's this is what I was saying earlier is like making the jump without having.

01:11:50

Unknown what you're going to that to me that is just a horrible thing to do and this is where she's saying don't do that.

01:11:58

But again this breaks down her foundation because it's exactly what she did it is so I really really struggled to trust and follow her advice when.

01:12:10

She doesn't follow her advice maybe and maybe this is where it's like you know do what I say don't what it not what I do like maybe it's one of those scenarios.

01:12:20

Come on be consistent like it's been a while since I've run across a book where I was like these are such competing.

01:12:27

Thoughts in the same book like sure that okay I'll quit apparently I'm fired up about this one.

01:12:34

I don't necessarily think they are competing to be fair I think we don't get all of the details of her story at the beginning.

01:12:45

So we don't know how often she got home from her designer job and was like I just need an outlet I'm going to paint.

01:12:53

And maybe she did that for 10 years before she had the dream and she's like you know what I really need to paint more.

01:13:03

And she admits those details so I'm just like filling in blanks that aren't even necessarily there.

01:13:07

But I have the story about how she had to go buy supplies so I know that wasn't true okay.

01:13:14

I remember the smell and she's like oh I took her back to her college days and.

01:13:18

Sure to go buy supplies she wasn't painting.

01:13:21

I don't know how old she is I'm not sure how big a gap there was between having the dream and her college days.

01:13:27

Yeah that's a good question that's a that's a very valid question.

01:13:31

But the point she makes at the beginning of this is that.

01:13:36

You in fact she has an exercise here where you write two versions of your obituary.

01:13:42

This is I think valuable for anybody who hasn't considered this before but it is something that we've heard over and over and over again in different books that that we've read.

01:13:50

Where one version of the obituary is the one that you want to have and the other one is where you are headed right now.

01:13:59

And I feel like if you have gone through any sort of thought exercise along those lines.

01:14:08

It's easy to see how you know I'm climbing a corporate ladder but this isn't really what I want to be doing.

01:14:14

And so I should drop everything and find something else.

01:14:20

And again you know we're getting into like details and semantics here like how long ago was it that she was painting.

01:14:27

You don't you don't want to just.

01:14:32

Pick something that you have no idea that you're going to be any good at. You go into college for art you're probably pretty good at it.

01:14:39

So you feel like at least on some level I can be successful with this.

01:14:43

Maybe I can't make a living but I can at least sell art.

01:14:47

Yeah if no one's buying my paintings I'll tell you that right now.

01:14:50

If I had this dream like absolutely not chasing that one and I think that's a little bit different than her having it so.

01:15:00

Again I'm kind of filling in details here that she doesn't really get into.

01:15:04

But she does say in the time section that you have to find your must 10 minutes at a time.

01:15:08

And the point under the don't make the leap is not to put yourself or others at risk.

01:15:13

Must is too important to be chosen on a whim.

01:15:16

So that kind of makes me think that if she really is believing that a must is too important to be chosen on a whim.

01:15:22

There must have been some additional things that were going through her head before she made that leap.

01:15:28

It was not a single vivid dream that caused her to just drop everything and go somewhere.

01:15:34

That's almost like you hear stories about missionaries or whatever like

01:15:39

got appeared to them in a dream and so they they immediately changed everything about their lives.

01:15:46

Maybe that is what happened with her but that's not the impression that I got from going through this.

01:15:51

I don't know obviously you read it a little bit a little bit differently than I did.

01:15:56

I was looking for those details because if she had done that it would have fit her narrative perfectly and she should have told us.

01:16:04

Like it would have been the exact things she needed to tell us at that time.

01:16:09

I didn't do this. This is how I did it. It would have been perfect but she didn't do that.

01:16:14

She did not do that. You're right.

01:16:16

She does say eventually everything connects but we are left wondering where those dots are.

01:16:21

Yes.

01:16:22

Yes.

01:16:23

Do you get the disconnect? I don't trust her because she had a dream about an apartment and her friend told her maybe you should try to find it.

01:16:35

She starts looking at ads and finds a white apartment so she rents it out.

01:16:40

Who does that?

01:16:41

Then she decides that because she has the apartment now her heart is empty and has to quit her job and start painting.

01:16:51

How did we get here? It was so fast and so on a whim that I struggle when she says don't just follow a whim.

01:16:59

Well, I won't but you certainly did.

01:17:02

I'm going to defend her a little bit here.

01:17:06

She's a designer during the mailbox day as you said.

01:17:10

I don't remember exactly when that was but it occurs to me that that was a little while ago and she's in San Francisco.

01:17:21

She probably could have at any point decided, "Art's not working and walk into basically what she had left because of the demand for it."

01:17:32

Maybe that was going through her head when she's like, "I got to try this but you're right that she didn't explain that way."

01:17:38

Yes.

01:17:39

Yeah. Again, that would have made perfect sense because you're absolutely right.

01:17:44

If she's a designer at mailbox because of the way that they revolutionized email apps on iOS devices because of that,

01:17:53

all she would have to do is say, "I helped design that and she could get in pretty much anywhere she wants."

01:18:00

Doesn't even matter how big her part was.

01:18:02

Right. It doesn't. Just I was on that team is all it would take and that would fit perfect.

01:18:10

I feel like that is one detail that would help solidify the whole thing that was left out.

01:18:15

Sure.

01:18:16

Now, granted, to defend her here, I think that some of that is left out because she

01:18:24

is trying to keep it anonymous. The only reason I know the mailbox thing,

01:18:30

one, I was trying to figure out when it was. I was looking at when was this written and when did all of this happen.

01:18:36

There's a thing at the back that's about her. Where is this? Yeah. She paints designs and writes and then it goes through all of this.

01:18:45

She worked as a designer at IDO startups like mailbox, medium, and Uber. That's on her resume.

01:18:52

If you know that, she could go pretty much anywhere she wants.

01:18:59

She's amassed a lot of career capital in Cal Newport's world.

01:19:03

Right. But at the same time, at the very beginning, she's saying she only had three months worth of

01:19:08

an emergency fund. She could live for three months without any income.

01:19:12

Which in San Francisco is like $300,000?

01:19:14

It would be. Yeah. It's not a small number.

01:19:18

Do you understand my qualm here? I feel like these are details.

01:19:24

She has a fallback plan, I think. That is why she feels compelled to say,

01:19:32

don't make this leap. Don't just jump out there without putting yourself or your family or anyone

01:19:38

at risk. She says that even though at the beginning, she used that risk concept in order to hook you

01:19:44

at the beginning. This is my qualm with it. Gotcha. Okay. I guess I completely overlooked

01:19:50

the marketing aspect of the story at the beginning because I agree with the message.

01:19:58

Again, this is because I started off on a very bad foot with this book.

01:20:01

That led me to critiquing everything, which is abnormal for me.

01:20:07

That's interesting because at the beginning, I also did not like the first 30 pages or so.

01:20:14

But once we got into the origin of should, my impression of the book significantly changed.

01:20:21

As I went along, again, I didn't know who Joseph Campbell was. That's probably a good thing.

01:20:28

But there's a lot of quotes in here that I did like. She shared one by Mark Twain,

01:20:31

the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you figure out why.

01:20:34

I've used that one myself, but it was a good reminder to me, I guess, as I was reading this.

01:20:41

And again, maybe it's right thing, right time for me for a lot of this stuff.

01:20:44

But I feel like she did a pretty good job of tying the message together. I'm slipping into

01:20:50

silent reading. We should move on to part four, the return. This is anything else you want to say

01:20:55

about not making the leap? No, I need to stop rancing. So let's go part four.

01:20:59

Okay. Actually, one other thing, just to clarify why her, the message she's telling in this part of

01:21:06

the book is the right one. She says, "What is one action that you can take to honor your calling today?"

01:21:12

So she's basically coaching people at this point. Do not make the leap. Don't follow the dream

01:21:17

that you had about the white apartment like I did at your point. Part four, though, is the return.

01:21:25

This is where she talks about how you can find your must and it can change on you.

01:21:33

She says that the must changes basically as you change, so does the work.

01:21:40

So if you're viewing the work as part of your calling, that isn't necessarily going to look the same

01:21:46

five years from now as it does today. Yes. I think this is where, like, I start to agree with

01:21:52

her a lot on this part. And that's because with some in my scenarios, like I've been in

01:21:58

that mode where it's like, I just need dollars to pay the mortgage. I've been in that mode and

01:22:05

now in a spot where that is taken care of, that base is taken care of, and then I have these side

01:22:11

things that I work on that are kind of the extra that surplus. So I've shifted out of that

01:22:18

and have now shifted into a less risky state. And I can see how my intent and the things that I

01:22:25

like to do and the things that I feel like I need to go do in order to help other people that has

01:22:30

been changing, especially in the mediums through which I do that. So that is something that I think

01:22:36

I'm in the middle of a transition for that right now. And I can see how that definitely changes over

01:22:42

time, especially, like, I mean, if you think about it, LeBron James, when he's 80, is not going to

01:22:47

have a must of playing in the NBA. Yep. I mean, you have to change in some form.

01:22:52

Yep. Otherwise, you're stuck at four years old all your life.

01:22:55

So at the beginning of this crazy year, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash.

01:23:02

And that was a pretty big deal because he's a pretty big celebrity. And after that happened,

01:23:08

obviously, a bunch of retrospective stuff on like the life of Kobe came out. And so,

01:23:15

when that happened, I started to dig into and realize like what he had been doing

01:23:22

after he had retired from basketball, which was only a couple of years ago at this point.

01:23:28

But he was basically leaning into his role as a mentor. And he was taking it upon himself to

01:23:39

encourage other people reaching out, even simple stuff, just like texting him, calling him,

01:23:43

whatever, working out with people who have looked up to him since they were really little,

01:23:47

you know, that kind of thing. And I feel like that's really where the majority of the good that he

01:23:55

could have done in his life was going to come from. So it's really a tragedy that it got cut short.

01:24:01

And I feel like for basketball players, maybe your athletes, where what you were able to do

01:24:07

physically at a certain point, you can't do at an early point in your total lifespan for most people,

01:24:12

like early thirties, is usually when basketball specifically, you can't jump as high or not as

01:24:18

quick. And as soon as you lose a step, you're on your way out. And it's kind of sad to watch the

01:24:24

people who try to try to hang on based on their athletic ability over the years, in my opinion.

01:24:29

So sports specifically kind of forces you to make that adjustment. But I feel like this is

01:24:35

something that's worthwhile considering for everybody is that switch from, how can I make

01:24:42

the most of what I have for me to how can I help the greatest number of people. And it doesn't need

01:24:51

to take something big like a retirement from your career profession to figure out what's going to

01:24:57

be next. You can constantly be looking out on the horizon for stuff like that. I kind of had a

01:25:03

miniature version of this just this week. As we record this, I was part of the, the sweet setup.

01:25:10

We did a writing webinar, Sean and I, and at the end of the webinar, there was somebody in the chat

01:25:18

who was saying that they wanted to get into a writing habit. They felt like they had something

01:25:25

to share, but they were discouraged because, you know, who am I to write about this when

01:25:31

people have been doing it for a long time and are a lot better than than me.

01:25:34

Sure.

01:25:35

And I was able to basically the webinar was over. We've been going for an hour and a half,

01:25:39

and this question comes in right at the end. And I'm like, "Hey, Sean, you mind if we just

01:25:44

hang out here for a couple more minutes? I got to speak to Daniel."

01:25:46

Yeah.

01:25:47

And that was the person's name.

01:25:48

Right.

01:25:49

And I shared my story and I'm like, "Just keep going. Just keep doing the thing. Don't worry

01:25:54

about comparing yourself to somebody else." And they reached out afterwards on Twitter and they're

01:25:58

like, "Hey, that was, that was me, by the way. And that was really cool to hear you share that.

01:26:02

You know, I really appreciate your work." And it was a little bit of a moment for me where I realized

01:26:09

that like, that took a couple of minutes, but it really had an impact in somebody's life.

01:26:14

And so my final bit of advice to them was just remember to pay it forward because you don't know

01:26:19

who's going to be looking up to you in the future.

01:26:21

Right.

01:26:22

And I feel like if that's the approach that we had when it came to pursuing our must,

01:26:27

especially as creative people, we could do a lot more good than we do. And that's kind of the

01:26:35

point she's making with these redwoods. She obviously, California, redwoods.

01:26:41

These trees go up hundreds of feet, but I did not know this. The roots only go down about 10 feet

01:26:47

and then they spread outwards and they grab onto the roots of other redwood trees.

01:26:52

And the result of this is that a single redwood really can't stand on its own, but when you get a

01:26:58

bunch of them, they hold each other up. And I thought that was a really cool picture.

01:27:04

Inspires me to try to do that more with people that I don't even know online.

01:27:11

If I can encourage somebody to go make their blog, then that's great because you don't know

01:27:16

where that's going to end up. I've had a couple examples of that. People who have reached out to me

01:27:21

when they were going through a rough time and I always try to be encouraging. And some of them

01:27:26

I look at it now and it's like, whoa, you've come a long way. Like, what happened?

01:27:32

Yeah. Not that I'm looking for them to come back and say, hey, it's all due to Mike Schmitz and his

01:27:37

encouraging words, whatever. But if I have a small part in that, that's ultimately what I do

01:27:41

this for. I get joy out of seeing other people succeed. Yeah, I'm with you there. That's kind of

01:27:47

part of my shift. In the last probably year and a half, maybe two years of my online creation,

01:27:55

it's been geared to pretty high level and the folks that I would associate with and call close

01:28:00

friends and want to have conversations with online were other creators. And it's a shift that probably

01:28:07

in the last maybe three months or so, like I'm trying to get myself to the point. I'm like, okay,

01:28:11

if you follow me, I want to get to know you personally on some level. Like, am I able to do

01:28:17

that with absolutely everybody? No. But I would love to try. You know, thus, this is partially why

01:28:24

I've been shifting more towards video and like webinars and doing the streaming things. Because

01:28:30

those are all connecting points where we can see and work with each other, kind of converse with

01:28:35

each other back and forth in real time, as opposed to, you send me an email and I might get back to

01:28:40

you in a week or two weeks. Like, it takes forever to do that via email or even Twitter in some cases.

01:28:46

So like, that's partially why I'm trying to make that shift because some of the big creators that

01:28:50

I like to follow do that. That's that's a lot of what they do. And at the same time, like,

01:28:56

I love helping people solve problems. And my brain is really well geared for that.

01:29:02

So I want to use that and I want I love doing that. So if I have a must to use that term, like,

01:29:10

that's that's probably where it fits. But I feel like that's also a thing I should do too. So,

01:29:15

I don't know. I'm going to get down that road again. Okay, I need to be done with all this. I

01:29:21

totally get the redwoods thing. I thought I thought you were going to stop whenever you said, I really

01:29:24

want to be like that. I think you're going to grow hundreds of feet tall.

01:29:27

No, I'm not like you're going to be stuck. It may be a little less than six.

01:29:32

Yeah. Yep. That is true. So anyway, that I don't have any other thing I'll rant about on this

01:29:40

particular book. So whenever you're ready to do action, I'm just telling you to tell me.

01:29:43

All right. Last thing I'll add here, it's a quote I wrote down not from her, but from Howard Thurman.

01:29:48

Says, don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it because what

01:29:53

the world needs is people who come alive. I think I agree with that statement. And that is why

01:29:59

I am not so firmly in the play it safe camp for lack of a better term where I would,

01:30:08

if I had to give people counsel, shift a little bit more towards like, Hey, go try the thing

01:30:14

because you don't know what it's going to end up as because I've seen people and I've been there

01:30:22

myself, I think, where you're just going through the motions. And it is just a job. And it is miserable.

01:30:29

And you're not going to help anybody while you are miserable. So do something that makes you

01:30:36

come alive. She would define that as your must. Find something that brings you life that brings

01:30:42

you joy that you can use to help pull other people up. That for me is the big key there.

01:30:50

I'm not going to inspire anybody until I view the work that I'm doing as a calling. And at that

01:30:56

point, I don't have to look for them. They're going to come to me because it's like, what's

01:31:00

different about that guy? Oh, he looks like he's having fun. Let's go get to know him. He's having

01:31:08

fun. Right. Well, the other thing here is that the must feels inherently selfish, but choosing it

01:31:12

inspires others to do so to 100%. That's kind of like what we've been talking about here. I could

01:31:19

view everything that I do as this is just something I have to do. And when you frame it that way,

01:31:26

there's a temptation to frame it that way as you talk about your must. And it's like, well,

01:31:31

aren't you, Mr. Fancy Pants, where you have to podcast and you have to create videos? Like,

01:31:39

it's almost like an elitist sort of thing. You're really privileged that that's something that

01:31:46

you have to do. Because meanwhile, I'm trying to put bread on the table for my family working three

01:31:52

jobs. You know, so you can feel bad about that sometimes, but feeling bad about things doesn't

01:32:00

do anybody any good. So I'm still wrestling with how to reconcile us a little bit. I recognize that

01:32:08

I do have a bit of a privileged situation. But the challenge for me is to use whatever

01:32:15

privilege I have to help benefit other people, not to apologize for what I have, but to use it

01:32:25

not in a selfish way. Well said, sir. All right. You have action items.

01:32:31

I do have action items. Do you have action items? You don't have anything on the list.

01:32:34

Okay. I was too frustrated by this one. Well, I made you make a list of shits.

01:32:39

So you have at least one action item that we did. Yeah, that was one of mine. I had one and it's done.

01:32:44

It's done. Yep. She also talks about kind of knowing yourself at one point and the

01:32:49

anyagram. Is that how you say that? Anneagram? That's how I would say it.

01:32:55

I don't know. I've heard a lot of people talk about this and I took the assessment at one point,

01:32:59

but I forgot the results. So I want to take it again. In my opinion, this could easily have

01:33:03

been like take the Colby, take the Strengths Finder, whatever we've done, that sort of thing too.

01:33:07

Get to know yourself how you're wired. But the anneagram is the one that she mentioned in this book

01:33:13

that I want to revisit. So I will take that and share my results next time. Cool.

01:33:19

All right. Now, style and rating. I know I'm supposed to go first, but I want you to go first.

01:33:23

No, you have to go first. I don't want to influence your feelings. I feel like we need the Joe rating.

01:33:32

You won't. And then I already have my rating. Okay. I even wrote it down if you wanted.

01:33:38

Pull it out and prove it. This one, I told my wife, I need to read this one and sit on it,

01:33:46

because I started off so poorly with it that I was like, I need to make sure I understand

01:33:51

what I think about this one. And I'm going to put together my rating before I talk to

01:33:55

with Mike. So I have what I think. Fair enough. So you're not going to influence it,

01:34:02

but it's your book. So I want you to. I'll go first then. I really like this book. Like I said,

01:34:06

it's very different than a lot of the stuff that we read. It is not a prescriptive type book,

01:34:12

the value in this book. Like I mentioned at the beginning, is in the questions that it makes you

01:34:15

ask. Having done some of these exercises, I think that there's a lot of value in them. Not every

01:34:22

single one, like the empty chair exercise. I'm not doing that one. Some of this stuff, it's like,

01:34:26

no, I'm not going to do that. But even if you did a couple of these things, I feel like you're

01:34:32

going to get a lot more clarity about your situation and the difference between the

01:34:38

should and the must. It sounds like going through this, I have a little bit different

01:34:42

interpretation of those two terms than than you did, which was a little bit interesting to me as we

01:34:47

record this. But I feel like after I went through it, it brought a lot of clarity. And basically,

01:34:53

the big takeaway for me was you've assumed a lot of things. Some of them people have put on you,

01:35:00

or you've just given in to some of these things that people have said that you should do. So

01:35:04

reconsider them. And like I said, I kind of do that with the personal retreat. So the big takeaway

01:35:10

for me not was a bunch of less things that I have ascribed to as must, but almost like a greater

01:35:16

conviction to keep doing the ones that I have listed. And I think that's even that is beneficial.

01:35:25

So I probably got not at all what Elelino would envision for people who go through this book out

01:35:32

of it. But I think it is a very worthwhile read. I think it is not a lot of effort to go through

01:35:39

it. And it is a very unique, interesting visual style where, you know, maybe you get this one from

01:35:46

the library, if you can find it instead of buying it yourself, because maybe it isn't your jam.

01:35:52

But it is kind of cool to go through it. It reminds me kind of like an Austin

01:35:56

Cleon type book where there's a lot of visual stuff in here, though this is full color and not

01:36:00

not black and white, like a lot of the Austin Cleon stuff. I don't think that there is anything

01:36:06

in here that I had not heard before. That was like transformational. Oh my gosh, I never thought

01:36:12

of it this way. Although everything that she shared in here, I feel like was a unique perspective. So

01:36:16

it was stuff that I had heard presented a different way, which to me was very refreshing.

01:36:22

And so if you want a productivity book that is not a productivity book, if you want something that

01:36:29

that tackles the big picture clarity, vision, purpose stuff in an entertaining, engaging way,

01:36:37

I would recommend this book. If you are solid where, nope, I have my life theme and I don't even

01:36:44

want to think about this stuff anymore, because I've already answered it in my head, like,

01:36:48

you're not going to get anything out of it, though. So I do think a big part of this is

01:36:52

the right thing at the right time. That being said, if you're looking for something in this vein,

01:36:58

this is a good one, in my opinion. So I'm going to write this at four stars. I really don't have

01:37:04

anything negative to say about it. I didn't have the reaction to the story at the beginning

01:37:12

like you did. I understand that reaction, I think, but it also doesn't really diminish the message,

01:37:20

in my opinion. I can see an argument for that, though, like, if you can't trust the messenger,

01:37:26

can you really trust the message? But that being said, she's not telling me anything that I've

01:37:32

not heard before. So the value in me is just being reminded of some of these things,

01:37:36

thinking about these things a little bit different way, and having a fun time reading a very visual

01:37:41

book in the process. Well done, sir. So when I finished the first 30 pages,

01:37:48

that part that I was reading to my wife, and she made me stop, I set the book down. I said,

01:37:54

this might be our first 1.0 rating on a bookworm. And I wrote that down in a journal. It's like,

01:38:03

I think I just started the first 1.0 book for bookworm. And as I continue reading it,

01:38:11

I do not follow her. This has been very clear as we've been recording this. I don't follow her

01:38:19

on this. And I have a hard time trusting a lot of what she's saying because of the

01:38:23

incongruencies with what she's saying. From the beginning and the end, they tend to conflict in my

01:38:30

head. Maybe they don't. I could see where there's some value in it. I think that there's

01:38:38

like the questions and the process that she takes you through. I think there's value in that. And

01:38:43

asking those questions can be helpful. You know, it prompted me to stop and think it through

01:38:50

in more detail. Obviously, it made me want to finish the book so that I could process my

01:38:55

thoughts on it. I haven't had a book actually prompt me to do that in a long time. It's been

01:39:01

a while since I want to finish this because I just need to think through this one because

01:39:06

there's so many times we finish a book. It's like, yep, I know exactly what I think about it

01:39:11

immediately. This was not that way. I had gut reactions to it, of course, which you've heard a

01:39:17

lot of here today. I've tried to reiterate those. But I don't think that this is one I will recommend

01:39:24

at all unless you're in a spot where you have that surplus we were talking about.

01:39:31

If I can get a read on you and I think that you are in that spot and you are struggling as far as

01:39:36

what you should be doing as far as like where is you're calling them? What is that must if you're

01:39:42

used the word should I shouldn't have? See, this is a problem, Mike. What is it that you must do

01:39:49

to use her terminology? If you're trying to figure out what that is, I feel like this is a book that

01:39:54

could really help you in doing that simply because it has those questions. But if I recommend it to

01:39:59

you, I'm going to throw the caveat on it saying that when you go through this, pay attention to

01:40:05

the questions and use that as an exercise to go through this. If you're just reading this because

01:40:11

you think it would be an interesting read, I'm probably not going to send this to you.

01:40:14

I'm going to send you something else. I don't know what it would be, but I would send you something

01:40:18

else. The infinite game maybe. This is definitely not one I think I am going to put on people.

01:40:27

And some of that's because I don't follow her should versus must concept. You've heard me

01:40:33

argue on that one. I don't know how many times that could just be because I'm in absolutely the

01:40:38

wrong place for this book right now. If we come back to this in two years, maybe I'm in a completely

01:40:44

different spot and I love this thing. That's very possible. I could see how if you had made that leap,

01:40:50

like what you were talking about, Mike, with your job situation with being let go. And it worked out

01:40:56

great and you ended up putting you in a spot where you learned everything you needed to and it put

01:41:02

you into a position where you were golden and you loved what you're doing now. I could see how you

01:41:07

would like this could definitely be right up your alley. If you've gone through things the way I have

01:41:12

where you made that leap and it didn't work out, you're going to be a lot more of a skeptic on this,

01:41:19

I think. So I think having that experience tainted my view of this, it's interesting to me that

01:41:25

Sean Blanc is recommending this one. But again, that's probably because of my background. See,

01:41:31

this is how you know I'm not going to just let what other people tell me. I should think on this,

01:41:36

dictate what I actually think on this. So there you go. I'm going to put this at 2.0.

01:41:41

This might be the lowest I've ever rated one. I don't think I've gone down that far in the past

01:41:48

and it's primarily because I don't follow her on this and I feel like there's not enough clarity

01:41:55

and she didn't sell me at the beginning, which meant I was a skeptic the whole time.

01:41:58

-Sure. -And to me that discounted the entire book. So I struggled with it a lot, but we've

01:42:05

obviously covered that today. -Yeah. So I'll be done now.

01:42:12

-It's interesting to me because you mentioned you were reading it out loud to your wife.

01:42:17

-Yeah. -And I would make the argument here in terms of style and rating that this book is not

01:42:25

a message in a bottle. It's definitely not something you should listen to.

01:42:29

It is a work of art by an artist. And if you miss the pictures and the visual style,

01:42:36

you are missing the real message that she's communicating. And I guess the visual style was

01:42:44

enough to hook me at the beginning and get me past the first part, which I didn't really care

01:42:51

for either. But then after I got past that, I really, really enjoyed it.

01:42:54

-It's curious to see. I needed a look to see how much visual. Yeah, there's quite a bit of visual

01:43:01

in the very beginning. I couldn't remember if there was or not. -Almost every page.

01:43:05

She has something visual. There's not very many back-to-back pages of just text.

01:43:10

-Sure. -So. -All right.

01:43:13

-All right. We'll put that one on the shelf. What is next?

01:43:19

-Up next is my pick The Motive by Patrick Lincione. This is Lincione's latest book. Came out not

01:43:26

that many months ago. I'm excited to go through this one. We've always liked Patrick's books.

01:43:30

Yes, The Motive by Patrick Lincione. -All right.

01:43:35

-What's after that, Mike? -Not sure. The one after that is episode 100.

01:43:39

So maybe something a little bit different. -That's right. We'll have to skip and then go over to you.

01:43:46

That's the thing. We're going to do something different for episode 100. We won't actually

01:43:50

cover a book, but we haven't fully nailed it down yet. We have thoughts. -We've got a couple ideas,

01:43:54

which will be fun, I think. -That's right. Yeah, because this one's 98. I hadn't fully connected

01:44:00

how close we are to that. Anyway. -I do have another one picked out for after that. I guess

01:44:05

that people want to get a jump off of it. This is a recommendation from the club.

01:44:08

Never split the difference by Chris Voss. This is a book about negotiation by a former FBI agent.

01:44:16

Nice. -This one will be interesting.

01:44:19

I think you mentioned this already, but Gatbooks, I have none. Of course, life is crazy.

01:44:25

Yes, I do have one. This was a recommendation from one of these live chats as we record these

01:44:30

with the, well, I guess previously we did them with the bookworm club members, but now it's

01:44:34

public. Anybody can join them. We'll put the link in the show notes. But

01:44:37

daily rituals, how artists work, it's got this red cover with these white circles. If you search

01:44:43

on Amazon for daily rituals, you'll get a whole bunch of stuff just to help you find the right one.

01:44:47

This is a whole bunch of one or two page descriptions of creative people and their daily routines.

01:44:54

There's a picture in here of a typed note from Benjamin Franklin. Did you know Benjamin Franklin

01:45:00

was a time blocker? -It did know that. Yeah.

01:45:02

-Yes. They have a picture in here. I think it's from his autobiography originally.

01:45:06

There's little things like that that help make some of this stuff come alive, but it's really

01:45:12

interesting to me to see how different some of these people were, even if they were very similar

01:45:18

in what they produced. -Sure. Cool, cool. All right. So thank you to all of the bookworm club

01:45:26

premium members who are willing to pay a couple bucks a month to support us really means a lot,

01:45:31

especially right now. When things are uncertain, we know that there's a lot of

01:45:39

needs that are competing for any discretionary income that people have, and it kind of blows me

01:45:43

away that so many people continue to want to support us in the work that we do. So thank you so much.

01:45:49

If you want to join the club, you can do so at club.bookworm.fm. There is a bunch of stuff,

01:45:56

discussion on the episodes that we release that you can take part in for free, but there's another

01:46:01

section just for the premium club members that have the links to the book notes that the mine

01:46:06

note files that I take, the bookworm FM wallpaper and little things like that. So

01:46:13

you can also tap on the icon if you're listening in overcast as a button at the bottom of the bar,

01:46:18

where you can tap on that and it'll take you straight to the sign up page. -Cool, cool. All right,

01:46:23

well, let's put the crossroads on the shelf if you're following along with us. Pick up the motive

01:46:27

by Patrick Lencioni and we'll go through it next time.