134: Self Control – It’s Kingship and Majesty by William George Jordan

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1. 00:00:00 If you ever read a productivity book from around the turn of the century, Mike, as in the 20th century, not the 21st.
2. 00:00:08 Actually, I have. So have you, I believe.
3. 00:00:12 Before the last two weeks, maybe I should do that.
4. 00:00:15 Yeah, it wasn't.
5. 00:00:16 I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I think in Grow Rich is pretty old.
6. 00:00:19 I don't remember exactly, but I know it's public domain now, which is why there's 20 different publications of it on Amazon.
7. 00:00:26 Got it. That makes sense.
8. 00:00:28 Yeah, I didn't realize that one was from that far back. However, our book for today is that, but we can't go there yet.
9. 00:00:33 Not quite.
10. 00:00:33 Because I'm jumping ahead. I'm apparently itching to get to this.
11. 00:00:37 But we have some follow-up to do first.
12. 00:00:40 And I've got a couple of them that I can talk about here, and then I think you've got a couple as well.
13. 00:00:46 One of those, these both come from reading Johnny Cuff's soundtracks.
14. 00:00:52 And the first of those was just starting to notice the wrong soundtracks that I have in my head that I need to flip.
15. 00:00:59 And I've started paying attention to those and just trying to be aware of when am I telling myself something repeatedly?
16. 00:01:06 That happens all the time.
17. 00:01:07 And it's obnoxious once you start paying attention to it.
18. 00:01:10 And I can't quite tell if I'm very happy to have read this Johnny Cuff book, or if I'm really angry with Johnny Cuff right now.
19. 00:01:17 I can't quite nail down where I'm sitting on this, because I don't think I wanted to know.
20. 00:01:22 Quite so much about how my brain thinks in bad ways.
21. 00:01:28 So it happens a lot.
22. 00:01:30 I'm not very good at flipping things yet, but it does happen a lot.
23. 00:01:34 That's the double-edged sword of productivity in general.
24. 00:01:40 Is you want to do better, but in order to do better, you got to realize how much you suck.
25. 00:01:45 Yes.
26. 00:01:46 Yes.
27. 00:01:47 So anyway, I will continue working on that one.
28. 00:01:51 I'm not one of those like how on earth do you hold me accountable to this?
29. 00:01:54 But it's fascinating.
30. 00:01:55 If you don't do this, just start paying attention to the repetitive thoughts you tell yourself.
31. 00:02:00 It's obnoxious.
32. 00:02:02 Welcome to my torture.
33. 00:02:04 On this topic, by the way, I think our next book is going to bring some interesting perspective to this.
34. 00:02:13 I'm not sure if you've started it yet, I have.
35. 00:02:16 This should be a fun conversation at the very least.
36. 00:02:19 Huh.
37. 00:02:20 All right.
38. 00:02:21 Well, that one I know I've been itching to get to it.
39. 00:02:24 My plan is to start it tonight.
40. 00:02:26 So I don't know.
41. 00:02:27 Now you've got me nervous about it.
42. 00:02:30 I thought I had some preconceived notions on it.
43. 00:02:33 Now I probably don't.
44. 00:02:34 It's going to be good.
45. 00:02:35 So get your popcorn ready, everybody.
46. 00:02:38 Join us next time for sure.
47. 00:02:40 All right.
48. 00:02:41 For maybe the most volatile conversation in bookworm history.
49. 00:02:44 Really?
50. 00:02:46 That's a bold claim.
51. 00:02:47 We're talking a man to Palmer level.
52. 00:02:49 I don't know.
53. 00:02:51 I don't know.
54. 00:02:52 Well, so the basic idea of the book challenges everything that we hold to be true in the productivity
55. 00:02:59 space I feel.
56. 00:03:00 There's going to be some real uncomfortable questions that we have to ask.
57. 00:03:05 And I'm really looking forward to the conversation that results.
58. 00:03:08 You know, if it runs counter to a lot of what we talk about in self-help and productivity,
59. 00:03:14 like you're saying, if it runs counter to that, I'm probably going to have one of those
60. 00:03:17 two reactions either, yes, or I don't like you, Mr. Berkman.
61. 00:03:22 Stop it.
62. 00:03:23 Or both.
63. 00:03:24 So yeah, I can see that or both.
64. 00:03:25 Yes.
65. 00:03:26 That would be even worse, I think.
66. 00:03:28 All right.
67. 00:03:29 So notice the bad soundtracks in your head.
68. 00:03:31 And it sounds like we may reconsider more of those soundtracks next time.
69. 00:03:35 But the other one was to consider some of the symbols that I have around me physically.
70. 00:03:42 And I've been gone in a way and we had to put off a recording this time because we had
71. 00:03:48 a whole COVID potential in our household.
72. 00:03:52 Turned out negative, but we had that potential and I had to put this off.
73. 00:03:56 Anyway, all that to say, I haven't really been around my office, like really at all
74. 00:04:01 since we last recorded.
75. 00:04:03 So there's that part at least.
76. 00:04:06 But I have at least thought through some of this and I've realized like I have a bank
77. 00:04:10 of symbols already here.
78. 00:04:13 I just haven't associated like a soundtrack with those to use the John A. Keff terms.
79. 00:04:18 Some of those are like, I've always got a pile of books on my desk.
80. 00:04:22 That can be a symbol in itself.
81. 00:04:24 I have a John Deere coffee mug here that I use for tea nowadays, which is primarily
82. 00:04:30 because a couple of my office mates are Case I H fans and they need to be reprimanded and
83. 00:04:38 shown the truth for all my farm friends out there.
84. 00:04:41 So anyway, I have some of these things that I'm starting to realize I already have in
85. 00:04:44 place.
86. 00:04:46 So I don't know what's going to come of this, but I think it's at least an interesting
87. 00:04:51 exercise to just pay attention to what those are.
88. 00:04:54 I know you have quite a bit on your desk actually that kind of fits this bill I'm guessing.
89. 00:04:59 But yeah, that's where I'm at with it.
90. 00:05:02 Just trying to be aware of what I currently have and then trying to associate what are
91. 00:05:07 the soundtracks that I'm wanting to promote.
92. 00:05:09 I don't even know what that would be that I would talk about here, but what are those
93. 00:05:13 soundtracks that I want to encourage in myself?
94. 00:05:16 And is there a symbol that could be associated with those?
95. 00:05:18 So I've been going through that process again.
96. 00:05:20 This is one I don't know how to say is done, but it's one that I'm at least aware of.
97. 00:05:25 So that's what I'm going through.
98. 00:05:26 Cool.
99. 00:05:27 Power to the symbols.
100. 00:05:28 Whoo.
101. 00:05:29 You.
102. 00:05:30 I have two action items here.
103. 00:05:32 One is to identify my turn down techniques, which this was an idea of when you have those
104. 00:05:40 negative soundtracks that are blaring, how do you turn them down with the dial because
105. 00:05:44 you can't just switch them off?
106. 00:05:46 And I did identify a bunch of these.
107. 00:05:50 Most of them have to do with some form of physical exercise, which makes it incredibly
108. 00:05:57 unfortunate timing that I just broke my hand and can't do any of those.
109. 00:06:00 So this action item kind of backfired.
110. 00:06:07 It made me frustrated that I couldn't use any of my turn down techniques.
111. 00:06:11 Okay.
112. 00:06:12 No, there was some other ones there too, but I was going to say, did you figure out like
113. 00:06:15 an alternative turn down to exercise?
114. 00:06:18 Yeah.
115. 00:06:19 Well, I made a big list of them actually.
116. 00:06:21 And it's not any one that I use every single time.
117. 00:06:24 It's just kind of a grab big I go to and then whichever one I feel like in the moment.
118. 00:06:29 It's one that I use.
119. 00:06:31 So included in there are go for a run, go for a bike ride and go to the gym.
120. 00:06:37 Those are the three exercise ones, which I can't do any of those at the moment.
121. 00:06:41 And then there's meditate, there's journal, there's play video games.
122. 00:06:48 And then the other one I thought of kind of leads itself into the next action item, which
123. 00:06:55 is to create for lack of a better term, an MOC inside of obsidian.
124. 00:07:01 I know you don't like that term.
125. 00:07:02 We talked about that last time.
126. 00:07:04 You really like the map idea instead of the content idea, but basically identifying the
127. 00:07:10 turn down technique here, this is of negative soundtrack I'm listening to over and over
128. 00:07:15 again.
129. 00:07:16 So instead of just accepting all the generalities of this negative soundtrack being true, let's
130. 00:07:21 just get it on paper and let's actually name this thing.
131. 00:07:24 It's kind of like a fear setting sort of exercise, except I'm not going that far with it.
132. 00:07:29 It's just getting it down.
133. 00:07:30 And then once you see it, you're like, oh, well, that's really not that bad.
134. 00:07:35 Plus you have all these other techniques for dealing with the information as it's in front
135. 00:07:41 of you where like I'm doing this as we record this, a workshop with Nick Milo shortly, it
136. 00:07:48 will have happened already by the time this goes live, but it's on sense making.
137. 00:07:52 And so it's essentially like when you ask the right questions, the answers become clear.
138. 00:07:57 So we want to help people give them some questions they can ask to help sort through
139. 00:08:01 what they're thinking about a specific thing.
140. 00:08:04 I like that term sense making.
141. 00:08:05 It's basically just defining something and bringing meaning to it.
142. 00:08:10 So I'm trying to do that more in obsidian.
143. 00:08:14 That's what's that quote that I heard from you first, thoughts to sintangle themselves
144. 00:08:18 through lips and pencil tips.
145. 00:08:20 Well, for me also through clicky keyboards, even if I have to use just a few fingers to
146. 00:08:26 do it.
147. 00:08:28 I don't remember the source of that quote, but I know that it was like it's old.
148. 00:08:33 So it's like pre-type writer that that comes from.
149. 00:08:37 So I'm I would guess wherever that came from, it would probably translate to clicky keyboards.
150. 00:08:42 Yeah, I think it's not membrane keyboards and thinking does not work on membrane keyboards
151. 00:08:48 at all.
152. 00:08:49 It's true.
153. 00:08:51 So yeah, the whole idea behind sense making is I have this problem helped me come up with
154. 00:08:57 some interesting solutions.
155. 00:09:00 And so my other action item is am I focusing on the problem or the solution?
156. 00:09:05 I tend to get stuck on the problem, but if I build the MOC in obsidian and I go through
157. 00:09:13 the process and I ask the questions, I start with the problem.
158. 00:09:17 But by the end of it, I'm forced to be thinking about the solution.
159. 00:09:21 So kind of the trick here for me is to catch myself being stuck on the problem.
160. 00:09:27 And at that point, okay, let's just dump it into obsidian and see where it goes.
161. 00:09:31 And the moment that I start that process, I've got enough momentum to actually get to
162. 00:09:36 some solutions, even if they're not great ones and they're not going to be implemented
163. 00:09:40 right away, it at least gets me moving in the right direction.
164. 00:09:43 Makes sense.
165. 00:09:44 So more obsidian time.
166. 00:09:45 Is that what I'm hearing?
167. 00:09:47 Absolutely.
168. 00:09:48 I suppose that's not bad.
169. 00:09:49 I've been doing more in it lately, which I wasn't expecting, but Joe always moves from
170. 00:09:54 thing to thing.
171. 00:09:56 So anyway, that's all our follow up.
172. 00:09:58 You're wearing the obsidian outfit today.
173. 00:10:02 Purple shirt and black mask.
174. 00:10:03 Didn't even know that.
175. 00:10:05 I think you see that it's fascinating you say that because of my head obsidian is blue,
176. 00:10:11 but it's because of the theme I use in obsidian.
177. 00:10:14 Ah, okay.
178. 00:10:15 Like in my head obsidian is blue and everything, like all on the stream deck and everything
179. 00:10:20 whenever I've got any form of icon or shortcut or something that goes into obsidian, it's
180. 00:10:25 always blue.
181. 00:10:26 So you must be using the minimal theme.
182. 00:10:27 So my head obsidian is blue.
183. 00:10:29 It's a custom theme.
184. 00:10:30 Oh, okay.
185. 00:10:31 I wrote it.
186. 00:10:32 So I don't think it exists anywhere, not that I'm aware of.
187. 00:10:35 I know that I started with some other theme and then rewrote most of it, so I don't even
188. 00:10:41 know what it would be similar to.
189. 00:10:44 But I don't know.
190. 00:10:45 I like blue, but I'm wearing purple today.
191. 00:10:48 That's why I liked your shirt earlier.
192. 00:10:50 All right.
193. 00:10:53 All that aside, let's step into today's book because I'm super excited about going through
194. 00:10:56 a really, really old self-help book and Blake helped us out in the chat.
195. 00:11:01 He said, "Think and Grow Rich" is from 1937.
196. 00:11:04 So not quite as old as this one.
197. 00:11:06 This one was originally published.
198. 00:11:08 So this is self-control.
199. 00:11:10 It's kingship and majesty.
200. 00:11:12 This is by William George Jordan.
201. 00:11:14 And this was originally published in 1907.
202. 00:11:19 And it's technically considered a religious book.
203. 00:11:23 And he classified it as a religious book.
204. 00:11:26 Having read it, I get how they say that, but at the same time, religion and Christianity
205. 00:11:33 is not talked about a ton in this.
206. 00:11:36 It's kind of an assumed thing.
207. 00:11:38 But I also realized that if you think about 1907 and culture and society at the time,
208. 00:11:46 it was mostly a Christian society at the time.
209. 00:11:50 At least that's the way people refer to it.
210. 00:11:52 I wouldn't know.
211. 00:11:53 I wasn't there.
212. 00:11:54 So I can't confirm nor deny that claim.
213. 00:11:58 But I know that around that time period, there was a lot.
214. 00:12:03 The assumption was everybody went to church.
215. 00:12:05 So a lot of what's talked about here would probably be seen through the lens of the Bible,
216. 00:12:11 whether or not it was written with that intent or not.
217. 00:12:13 It wouldn't have to be explicit.
218. 00:12:16 Which in this case, kind of is an interesting way for us to dive into this because I know
219. 00:12:22 that we can compare this to a lot of more modern books.
220. 00:12:27 Because this one, I was shocked at how dense it was.
221. 00:12:30 It's just over 100 pages.
222. 00:12:31 What is that?
223. 00:12:32 120?
224. 00:12:33 No.
225. 00:12:34 I've been 116 pages as the one I've got.
226. 00:12:36 I know there's a bunch of different renditions of it.
227. 00:12:39 But 116 pages, but I feel like this could have easily been a 250 page book for sure.
228. 00:12:46 But I also know that whenever I've read some of the reviews and intros and stuff, this
229. 00:12:51 is one that's considered one of the books that started off the whole self-help category.
230. 00:12:57 Because it didn't used to be a thing.
231. 00:12:59 And this is one that kind of set that off and made it into a category.
232. 00:13:03 Now I didn't do that single-handedly.
233. 00:13:05 It was just one of the books that did that or helped that process.
234. 00:13:09 So anyway, it's an interesting one to go through, I think.
235. 00:13:13 Agreed.
236. 00:13:14 And if you are put off by the religious text, I think just listen to the episode then instead
237. 00:13:20 of buying it yourself.
238. 00:13:22 But there really isn't a lot that's explicitly religious in here.
239. 00:13:26 There's a lot of really powerful ideas.
240. 00:13:29 Which is one of the cool things about reading these older books is you hear things that
241. 00:13:34 you've heard in other places, more contemporary, newer sources.
242. 00:13:40 But usually by the time you hear those things in those newer books, it's like the telephone
243. 00:13:45 game and it's a pretty watered down version of the original.
244. 00:13:48 And so these older books tend to be a little bit more powerful, in my opinion, when we read
245. 00:13:55 them, because this is fresh to this writer as opposed to somebody who's just heard it
246. 00:14:00 from somebody who's heard it from somebody who's putting it in their book because they
247. 00:14:04 need to have it and they need to speak to this thing.
248. 00:14:06 But this is kind of like the original and it's the better version of a lot of these
249. 00:14:11 ideas.
250. 00:14:12 There's also some stuff in here that I had not heard, at least in the way that it was
251. 00:14:17 presented, which I thought was pretty cool, which we'll get to when we go through this
252. 00:14:22 outline here.
253. 00:14:23 Yeah, for sure.
254. 00:14:25 This was an interesting read.
255. 00:14:26 Considering, we've talked about this whole interconnectedness of books before, right?
256. 00:14:32 And when you have a book like this that predates a lot of the other books that you've read,
257. 00:14:40 it gets to be a little, at least in my head, it's a little backwards trying to piece it
258. 00:14:45 together because it's like, okay, we read an entire book on grit.
259. 00:14:50 If he mentions grit in here, which he doesn't specifically call out grit, but if he mentions
260. 00:14:55 grit, it's like, well, I've read a whole book on it, but he predates the whole book I read
261. 00:14:59 on it.
262. 00:15:00 So this would be like one of the sources for Angela Duckworth.
263. 00:15:03 So like that's a whole different way of thinking about it versus I read the older book, and
264. 00:15:08 then here's a newer one that talks about it.
265. 00:15:10 So then you can reference the history of the one you're currently reading.
266. 00:15:14 It can be somewhat foundation shifting, I guess, when you do it the opposite direction,
267. 00:15:19 like what we're doing here, because you end up in a spot where this one could potentially
268. 00:15:23 have been the foundation for something you read later, but they may position it differently
269. 00:15:28 than what you read later.
270. 00:15:30 So then you like, okay, well, it may changes your whole perspective on when you've already
271. 00:15:34 completed.
272. 00:15:35 That's what I'm getting in.
273. 00:15:36 That's kind of a weird way to say it.
274. 00:15:37 I think I came round and round and round circles on that.
275. 00:15:39 Well, let's just say it.
276. 00:15:40 Let's start.
277. 00:15:41 The kingship of self control is where he starts.
278. 00:15:44 That's the first chapter, which makes sense.
279. 00:15:45 It's kind of the summary of his book title here.
280. 00:15:48 But the thing you need to know is that there are 16 chapters in this book.
281. 00:15:54 This is before the time of doing three part books.
282. 00:15:58 And it's 16 chapters, the first of which introduces the whole concept of self control
283. 00:16:03 as the overarching character trait, I guess, would be the term that the rest of this book
284. 00:16:10 sits on top of.
285. 00:16:12 And if you look at each of the chapters, and we're not going to cover all of them just
286. 00:16:16 because it would just be too long despite this being a short book.
287. 00:16:21 There are character traits that he covers and talks about in some fascinating ways I
288. 00:16:26 found throughout the rest of the book.
289. 00:16:28 But it's all based on top of this concept of the kingship of self control.
290. 00:16:33 Thus he starts there because the rest of them dictate that you have self control over them
291. 00:16:38 if you follow me there.
292. 00:16:40 So I found it a really interesting way to come at it.
293. 00:16:42 But he starts this by just talking about how controlling yourself is the ultimate.
294. 00:16:48 That is where you need to start because if you don't control yourself, you're just being
295. 00:16:51 haphazard, you're following along with the crowd.
296. 00:16:54 And if you're following along with the crowd or following along with what you want and
297. 00:16:59 not throwing caution to the wind, if you go down that path, obviously you end up in places
298. 00:17:03 you don't want to be and places that you shouldn't be.
299. 00:17:07 So that's kind of the core setup for the whole book.
300. 00:17:12 You feel like I'd summarize this well?
301. 00:17:13 I feel like I'm trying to summarize the whole book when I shouldn't be.
302. 00:17:17 Yeah.
303. 00:17:18 So I agree with you that at the beginning he's defining self control as the primary thing
304. 00:17:25 here, which right away is going to be really polarizing because I think in our culture
305. 00:17:32 today there is a large emphasis on things happening to you that aren't your fault.
306. 00:17:41 I want to be careful how I describe this because I understand their situations and bad things
307. 00:17:45 happen to good people and they did nothing to invite it.
308. 00:17:49 But the truth is regardless of where you find yourself, whether you created the situation
309. 00:17:57 or you just happen to find yourself in it, once it's over your left with a choice, which
310. 00:18:03 is continue to just respond to things that happen to you or take control, ownership,
311. 00:18:11 self-determination, decide for yourself that you are going to dictate the next move.
312. 00:18:19 And if I were to summarize self control, that's basically what it is.
313. 00:18:23 He talks in this chapter about at each moment in a man's life, he's either king or slave.
314. 00:18:29 So if you're king, you get to make all the rules, if you're slave, you just do what
315. 00:18:32 you're told.
316. 00:18:34 And that is a very depressing place to find yourself in.
317. 00:18:38 I feel like if you don't feel like you have any sort of influence on your future and all
318. 00:18:46 you can do is just try to hold on and survive.
319. 00:18:50 I've heard story after story of people who have been in those situations, I'm fortunate
320. 00:18:55 that I've never been there myself, where you can feel sorry for yourself or you can grab
321. 00:19:03 a shovel and dig yourself out.
322. 00:19:04 And I feel like that's the single most important decision that you can make in your life, is
323. 00:19:08 to decide that you may not be able to control everything, which the next book specifically
324. 00:19:13 speaks to.
325. 00:19:16 But you can control some things and control what you can control, do the best with what
326. 00:19:21 you've got.
327. 00:19:23 You don't put all of the onus on the outcome, all the pressure for it to be good on your
328. 00:19:28 own shoulders.
329. 00:19:29 I think people can get discouraged with that.
330. 00:19:32 But I guess if I were to give anybody any sort of advice or echo like one idea from this
331. 00:19:37 entire book, it's right here at the very beginning, recognize that you have at least
332. 00:19:41 some influence on your future and how you manage yourself is going to be the way that
333. 00:19:48 you either end up there or not.
334. 00:19:52 And if you decide to create your own future, do what you can to build your own future,
335. 00:19:59 you're going to do a better job of creating a good one than somebody else is going to
336. 00:20:04 do for you.
337. 00:20:06 Somebody once said, I forget the original source of the quote, but if you let others
338. 00:20:10 define your world, they'll always make it too small.
339. 00:20:14 So even if you have parents, loved ones who are on your side, they want to see you succeed,
340. 00:20:21 they are going to do everything in their power to help you be successful.
341. 00:20:25 They're still not able to help you reach your full potential.
342. 00:20:30 That's something that's only inside of you that you have to see and you have to tap into
343. 00:20:34 in order for it to really come to reality until you do that.
344. 00:20:38 You're always going to be living at a level lower than what you're truly capable of.
345. 00:20:44 Sometimes I feel like it's hard to know what limits to put on or whether to put them on
346. 00:20:49 at all.
347. 00:20:50 What you're saying, usually you have a lot more capabilities than what other people are
348. 00:20:55 going to assume of you.
349. 00:20:58 I definitely saw that in this big house project I've been in the midst of.
350. 00:21:02 I had multiple people tell me that they didn't know I was that handy at doing work on a house.
351. 00:21:08 Well, I was somewhat, but not at that level.
352. 00:21:12 There's this really, really cool tool called YouTube that solves lots and lots of problems.
353. 00:21:18 And you can learn lots.
354. 00:21:20 And you can do significantly more than what you originally thought you could.
355. 00:21:23 And it amazes me.
356. 00:21:25 I'm always shocked at the number of people who don't realize that you can go learn new
357. 00:21:29 things.
358. 00:21:30 We come right back to Carol Dweck mindset, growth mindset.
359. 00:21:34 I was just thinking that too.
360. 00:21:35 Yeah.
361. 00:21:36 Just shocked at the number of people who don't realize that they can improve.
362. 00:21:41 I'm regularly told by folks both in volunteer roles and leadership roles.
363. 00:21:46 You have to just accept me for who I am.
364. 00:21:48 This is just the way I am.
365. 00:21:50 No, that's how you're choosing to be.
366. 00:21:52 You don't have to stay the way you are.
367. 00:21:55 Yes.
368. 00:21:56 And it's so, I find it kind of painful to listen to.
369. 00:22:00 It's like, it doesn't have to be like that.
370. 00:22:03 You are choosing to make this hard for yourself.
371. 00:22:06 And it's hard to know how to help someone who's in that position because the foundation
372. 00:22:11 of their whole argument is flawed, but they don't feel like they can listen to an alternative
373. 00:22:18 to their foundation.
374. 00:22:19 Yeah.
375. 00:22:20 That's what I really struggle with.
376. 00:22:21 And again, I run into this more often than I expect to.
377. 00:22:25 But you're absolutely right.
378. 00:22:27 I had, as you were talking, I was thinking about some of the Ryan Holiday stuff with
379. 00:22:30 Stillness as the key.
380. 00:22:31 You can't change what other people do, but you can change the way you react to it and
381. 00:22:36 staying calm and reacting to things without hurry and immediacy.
382. 00:22:41 That's usually the better route, which we'll talk about here.
383. 00:22:45 But anyway, he starts us off with the kingship of self-control and then he steps right into
384. 00:22:48 the next chapter, which is the crimes of the tongue.
385. 00:22:52 And this is where you start the process of, he takes different character traits and he
386. 00:22:57 goes one way or the other.
387. 00:22:58 He either shows you the negative side of it or he shows you the positive side of it.
388. 00:23:02 And I didn't really notice any pattern here, but I know that like, he starts off with the
389. 00:23:07 crimes of the tongue, obviously the negative potential here.
390. 00:23:11 And he just talked about self-control.
391. 00:23:13 And I think he's absolutely spot on to start with your mouth and the way you talk and the
392. 00:23:18 words that you share with other people and how you can cause tons of damage with your
393. 00:23:23 words, way more damage with your words and what you can physically in any way, whether
394. 00:23:28 you realize that or not.
395. 00:23:30 And I think he nails that.
396. 00:23:31 That's absolutely true.
397. 00:23:32 I would definitely agree with that.
398. 00:23:35 But it also means there's a pretty big onus on us to have self-control over our tongue,
399. 00:23:41 to control what it is that we're saying.
400. 00:23:43 You and I probably do this more than we realize with podcasting for as many times as we share
401. 00:23:48 words and try to be intentional with what we're sharing.
402. 00:23:52 But I know a lot of people who don't pay attention at all, it's like, come on, come on.
403. 00:23:57 At least don't repeat yourself over and over again.
404. 00:23:59 I do that sometimes, but you don't have to do it at that level.
405. 00:24:02 Anyway, watch your mouth.
406. 00:24:04 Yeah, especially interesting coming off the heels of soundtracks.
407. 00:24:08 And for me, the gap book, which I will continue to reference, the power of positive thinking
408. 00:24:15 by Norman Vincent Peele, we're going to have to cover that one at some point.
409. 00:24:19 It's such a good book.
410. 00:24:21 You have to be in the right space in order to receive it.
411. 00:24:26 Not everybody can just pick up that one and think it's awesome like I do, but for the
412. 00:24:30 right person in the right place, it is a very transformational book.
413. 00:24:35 I actually went to half-price books and bought all four copies they had and intend to give
414. 00:24:42 them away as Christmas gifts.
415. 00:24:45 Nice.
416. 00:24:46 Nice.
417. 00:24:47 So that book, that's what this statement really triggered for me, this chapter.
418. 00:24:52 And I don't have a whole lot of notes in this one, but I do think it is very powerful to
419. 00:24:58 think of your tongue as a rudder it talks about in the book of James and the Bible and
420. 00:25:05 controlling this large ship.
421. 00:25:07 I believe he references that in this book.
422. 00:25:08 I didn't write down the notes because I've got it other places.
423. 00:25:12 But when you think about it that way, you're steering either towards the right destination
424. 00:25:18 or you're getting off course and there's a danger that you're going to crash and burn.
425. 00:25:22 And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the words that come out of your mouth will
426. 00:25:28 lead you to either the good place or the bad place.
427. 00:25:33 We don't think of it that way.
428. 00:25:34 We think that they don't really, our words don't really have that big of an impact, but
429. 00:25:41 the truth is that nothing is neutral.
430. 00:25:43 And so you're going one of two directions.
431. 00:25:45 And there's nothing idle.
432. 00:25:48 There shouldn't be anything wasted.
433. 00:25:51 I know it's kind of funny hearing that come from a podcaster.
434. 00:25:56 But I really try to take this part seriously and try to be constructive and intentional
435. 00:26:03 and positive with my words.
436. 00:26:05 And I feel like I'm getting better at this.
437. 00:26:07 I still got a long ways to go.
438. 00:26:10 But also recognizing that the minute that you're going to start confessing all this positive
439. 00:26:15 stuff, you're going to start constructing this good future that you're moving towards.
440. 00:26:21 Everybody who doesn't have a revelation of what you are doing and why is going to start
441. 00:26:29 trying to pull you down.
442. 00:26:31 And they're just going to start saying these things and planting these thoughts.
443. 00:26:35 That doesn't work.
444. 00:26:36 This is hokey.
445. 00:26:39 What are you doing?
446. 00:26:40 You're not going to get anywhere that way.
447. 00:26:42 And you have to be careful because if you listen to that stuff, you can sabotage yourself.
448. 00:26:48 It's like you plant seeds.
449. 00:26:49 And then before they really have a chance to grow into something and produce some fruit,
450. 00:26:55 people tell you, you don't see anything above the surface.
451. 00:26:58 Obviously that seed's not doing anything.
452. 00:26:59 That was a bad seed.
453. 00:27:02 That seed doesn't have any potential.
454. 00:27:04 It was dead before you put it in the ground.
455. 00:27:05 Well, I guess they're right.
456. 00:27:07 I may as well just dig it up now.
457. 00:27:09 And then you sabotage your future.
458. 00:27:12 On page 25, he says, "The man who stands above his fellows must expect to be the target
459. 00:27:16 for the envious arrows of their inferiority."
460. 00:27:18 I like that phrase.
461. 00:27:20 I feel it's going to be very divisive.
462. 00:27:22 Like the implicit in that statement is a ranking of people.
463. 00:27:29 And I think you can apply that idea without taking it to that extreme.
464. 00:27:34 Really the big idea here is just worry about yourself and don't care what other people
465. 00:27:39 think.
466. 00:27:40 But the real thing that this speaks to me is recognize that those challenges are going
467. 00:27:45 to happen.
468. 00:27:46 And they're going to come from maybe some unexpected sources.
469. 00:27:50 Like I was saying earlier, you have people who are close to you want to help you succeed.
470. 00:27:55 Sometimes they're the worst because they care so much that they're trying to feed you their
471. 00:28:00 philosophy, their theology.
472. 00:28:04 And it could be not the right thing for you.
473. 00:28:07 And as long as you continue to disagree with them, they're just going to get more behemoth
474. 00:28:13 and more galvanized.
475. 00:28:16 You're going to become their project.
476. 00:28:17 Every time they see you, they're going to try to convert you to their way of thinking.
477. 00:28:21 And the best thing that you can do is not be affected by that stuff.
478. 00:28:25 Easier said than done, I know.
479. 00:28:27 But I've also been through it myself where you just have to learn to, okay, I hear you,
480. 00:28:33 but then not hang on to those things.
481. 00:28:36 Be quick to dismiss them and just go do your thing.
482. 00:28:39 I want to go back to you talked about sharing books.
483. 00:28:43 You went and bought the four books.
484. 00:28:44 You were going to give away as Christmas presents.
485. 00:28:47 I've been starting to notice this.
486. 00:28:49 If you give a book to somebody, this is off topic.
487. 00:28:52 If you give a book to somebody and they know that we run bookworm, do you find that they
488. 00:28:57 tend to read it?
489. 00:28:58 A lot of times if you give a book to someone, they don't read it, right?
490. 00:29:02 But if you have a podcast about nonfiction books, I find that if I give a book, I usually
491. 00:29:09 within about a month to two months have them come back and tell me what they thought about
492. 00:29:13 it because they actually read it.
493. 00:29:15 And I'm not used to seeing that.
494. 00:29:17 So do you find that?
495. 00:29:18 I don't know.
496. 00:29:19 I don't know if there's some sort of clout that comes with having a podcast about nonfiction
497. 00:29:22 books.
498. 00:29:23 I don't know.
499. 00:29:24 I typically, the people that I know in real life, I don't ever talk about my internet
500. 00:29:31 life.
501. 00:29:32 Yes.
502. 00:29:33 I'm definitely like that.
503. 00:29:34 There's a few of them that I go to church with, for example, that do listen to bookworm
504. 00:29:39 and occasionally they'll say something.
505. 00:29:41 And every time they do, because of the context, real life context, I'm always caught off guard.
506. 00:29:46 I'm like, whoa, you actually listen?
507. 00:29:50 Because I just assume everybody that I know around here just is not interested and does
508. 00:29:58 not know anything about the podcasts or anything else that I do.
509. 00:30:03 So I don't go into it anticipating we're going to have a conversation.
510. 00:30:07 Usually when I give these books, it is because I've had a conversation with somebody about
511. 00:30:13 the book and I can tell they're interested in it.
512. 00:30:16 So it's almost like if I leave that conversation believing that they have a possibility of buying
513. 00:30:23 it for themselves, most people won't.
514. 00:30:25 But if they are even hinting at that, I'll just buy it for them and give it to them.
515. 00:30:30 Yes.
516. 00:30:31 That's definitely the way to go if you're able, financially, because I know that they'll
517. 00:30:36 have a tent.
518. 00:30:37 They almost feel guilty if they don't read it, if you gift it to them.
519. 00:30:40 Like that in that scenario.
520. 00:30:42 Yes.
521. 00:30:43 Anyway, that was off topic.
522. 00:30:45 Another chapter here I want to cover, at least Mike wants to cover.
523. 00:30:48 I didn't have it on the outline, but Mike wanted to add it.
524. 00:30:51 The red tape of duty.
525. 00:30:53 I didn't include this because there's a lot of different ways that I feel like I could
526. 00:30:56 have taken this and all of which are going to take a really long time to talk about.
527. 00:31:00 But the gist of it is we have a tendency to do things because we feel like we are supposed
528. 00:31:08 to do them.
529. 00:31:09 We have the concept of duty and how sometimes that duty is actually nonsensical and not
530. 00:31:19 required and actually does more harm than it should.
531. 00:31:24 But where did you want to take this, Mike?
532. 00:31:26 You specifically called this one out and quickly too.
533. 00:31:29 I was surprised.
534. 00:31:30 Yeah.
535. 00:31:31 Well, this chapter influenced me the most, I think, out of this entire book.
536. 00:31:35 I was brewing on this before we read it, to be honest.
537. 00:31:41 So this topic kind of helped me solidify my thoughts on these two concepts, duty versus
538. 00:31:48 love.
539. 00:31:49 And really this started when I was putting together the newsletter, I have one called
540. 00:31:55 Quiet Strength and I have a public link.
541. 00:31:57 So I'll put that in the show notes for people who want to read this.
542. 00:32:01 We talked a little bit about this.
543. 00:32:02 When we went through, Courage is Calling, we came upon the story of August Landmesser.
544. 00:32:08 You remember him?
545. 00:32:09 Yes.
546. 00:32:10 Yeah, I do remember that.
547. 00:32:11 Okay.
548. 00:32:12 So that's the guy with his arms crossed and everyone around him is doing the Nazi salute.
549. 00:32:18 I dug into his story and turns out he was a car carrying Nazi because he thought it would
550. 00:32:23 be an inform somewhere.
551. 00:32:25 But then he fell in love with a Jewish woman.
552. 00:32:27 So the reason that he is standing there defiantly is not because he's going to stick it to
553. 00:32:31 Hitler, but because he's motivated by love.
554. 00:32:35 And so right away this dichotomy of duty versus love, I really liked.
555. 00:32:41 And he defines duty here as looking at life as a debt to be paid.
556. 00:32:48 It's forced like a pump and it's prescribed and formal.
557. 00:32:51 But love looks at life as a debt to be collected and it's spontaneous like a fountain.
558. 00:32:58 And I was thinking on this and obviously the big action item from this, if you wanted to
559. 00:33:05 have one, is let your life be one that's motivated by love, not by duty.
560. 00:33:12 Because duty is only going to take you so far.
561. 00:33:15 Duty is like all of the rules and the regulations, which even for a systems person like me is
562. 00:33:21 great when it's convenient, but the minute that I don't want to do those things, then
563. 00:33:26 it falls down, whereas love goes beyond the rules.
564. 00:33:31 And there are so many areas of your life that this can apply to.
565. 00:33:36 The one he talks about specifically here, I think is spiritual.
566. 00:33:40 He even says here, Christianity is the one religion that's based on love, not duty.
567. 00:33:44 So his words, not mine, but I feel like that's a very important concept to apply regardless
568. 00:33:51 of your religious affiliation to any area of your life.
569. 00:33:54 If you really want to make a difference, then you have to have a mission that is bigger
570. 00:34:01 than yourself thinking back to like the second mountain by David Brooks.
571. 00:34:04 Right?
572. 00:34:05 You climb the first mountain, it's all about you, you get to the top and you're like, is
573. 00:34:08 this it?
574. 00:34:09 And then you see the second mountain, which is the one about other people and I should
575. 00:34:13 have been climbing that one the whole time.
576. 00:34:15 So I've really been thinking about this and kind of challenging myself in every area of
577. 00:34:22 my life to let myself not be led by this is something on my list or an agreement that
578. 00:34:30 I made a long time ago.
579. 00:34:31 So I just got to follow through and I got to do it.
580. 00:34:33 But why did I sign up to do this thing in the first place?
581. 00:34:37 It's because I want to help other people.
582. 00:34:40 And that looks different when I'm leading a discipleship group or showing up to record
583. 00:34:44 a podcast or writing an article for the sweet setup or serving as an elder in my church.
584. 00:34:49 Like there's all sorts of different manifestations of this, but when you can boil it down to
585. 00:34:55 a love inspired motivation, it makes everything way more fun.
586. 00:35:01 And you don't feel the pressure of, well, we didn't complete these three items on the
587. 00:35:07 checklist.
588. 00:35:08 You just do the best that you can with what you've got.
589. 00:35:11 You try to help as many people as you can.
590. 00:35:14 And then you walk away from it thinking, you know what, that was pretty awesome.
591. 00:35:18 You've got to be in frustrated because you got 70% of your tasks done or whatever.
592. 00:35:23 That whole get all your tasks done thing.
593. 00:35:27 I feel like it's dangerous.
594. 00:35:30 You and I have both talked about task management for a long time.
595. 00:35:35 And when you feel like you have to finish your list, but then you make your list as, say
596. 00:35:42 you're making your list today for, I'm making it today for tomorrow's Joe.
597. 00:35:46 But today Joe doesn't know what tomorrow Joe is going to feel like.
598. 00:35:51 And I always have like this perfect ideal that I feel like tomorrow Joe can accomplish.
599. 00:35:57 And it never goes that way, but I feel like I have to complete that list.
600. 00:36:00 Even though I didn't really consider what that list really contained.
601. 00:36:04 Yes, I may have a hundred things on it.
602. 00:36:06 And even if I got a hundred of them done, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's all
603. 00:36:09 the correct thing to get done.
604. 00:36:11 So that's a good way to put it, I think, like the whole duty of trying to get that done
605. 00:36:16 check off the rules, check off the things.
606. 00:36:19 Like that's just not, it's not the way to do it.
607. 00:36:22 It all comes down to the question of why.
608. 00:36:25 And if there's something on your to do list that you're hesitating to complete and you
609. 00:36:29 ask yourself why, and it's not in the service inspired love motivated realm, it's almost
610. 00:36:38 like, well, what's the point?
611. 00:36:39 And that is very difficult for past me to accept, because in the past, I was very task oriented.
612. 00:36:49 And I'm just going to get the thing done.
613. 00:36:51 It doesn't matter what the circumstances are.
614. 00:36:54 And I recognize that that approach, I could end up hurting people along the way.
615. 00:36:59 But Chris Bailey, right?
616. 00:37:01 The people are the reason for the productivity.
617. 00:37:04 And so if I'm in the service of other people, if I'm trying to do as much good as I can
618. 00:37:10 before I leave this earth, then I got to be willing to just chuck my plan entirely.
619. 00:37:16 If the person that I'm trying to serve really needs something that's not on the plan, I
620. 00:37:21 got to be willing to provide that and not the five things that I wanted to get done in
621. 00:37:26 the next couple of hours.
622. 00:37:28 I mean, any parent knows this.
623. 00:37:30 If your kid is hurt.
624. 00:37:32 You got to take them to the emergency room to get a cask, it's sitches, whatever.
625. 00:37:38 It doesn't matter what you had planned to do that day.
626. 00:37:42 That's more important.
627. 00:37:43 And so I'm trying to recognize the moments that are more important without having the
628. 00:37:48 disaster scenarios like that manifest.
629. 00:37:52 Anybody who has a brain cell in their head can identify the right action to do when your
630. 00:37:58 kid is bleeding, right?
631. 00:38:00 Take care of them.
632. 00:38:01 A lot of the times people are hurting and it's not so obvious.
633. 00:38:04 So how do you recognize some of those things if they do a real good job of hiding them?
634. 00:38:09 You got to spend the time.
635. 00:38:10 You got to have the conversations.
636. 00:38:12 You got to dig a little bit deeper.
637. 00:38:14 It's not convenient, but it's the most important thing.
638. 00:38:18 What's going on in the next one here, which is worry, the great American disease.
639. 00:38:24 And again, I find this fact this was written in 1907.
640. 00:38:26 This could have been written today, right?
641. 00:38:30 There's a lot of this and I'm like, really?
642. 00:38:33 This is over 100 years old.
643. 00:38:35 Really?
644. 00:38:36 This is like modern.
645. 00:38:38 This is weird.
646. 00:38:39 But yes, worry the great American disease.
647. 00:38:43 One of the quotes he has towards the very beginning of this is worry is the most popular
648. 00:38:47 form of suicide.
649. 00:38:49 And that one kind of took me back a little bit.
650. 00:38:52 I had to kind of process that one a little bit, Mike, just trying to figure out what
651. 00:38:56 does he mean by that.
652. 00:38:57 And thankfully he spells it out a little bit.
653. 00:38:59 You start thinking about this, how many things do you not do?
654. 00:39:03 You're just talking about duty and deciding what you should do and how do you help other
655. 00:39:07 people and such.
656. 00:39:09 What happens if you worry about how other people are going to react or what other people
657. 00:39:14 think about what would happen if you did do that thing?
658. 00:39:18 It might be a weird way to try to get your head around that.
659. 00:39:20 But if you can process that, if we worry about what other people are thinking of us,
660. 00:39:25 if we worry about the results of our actions.
661. 00:39:29 We have a tendency to not do them at all.
662. 00:39:31 That's my tendency.
663. 00:39:33 And I will eventually just not do those things no matter what the potential result would be.
664. 00:39:40 And thus, I've done a disservice to those around me because I'm not following through
665. 00:39:45 on things that would be extremely helpful to them.
666. 00:39:48 So it's absolutely true.
667. 00:39:51 Worry is a huge problem.
668. 00:39:53 And I love that he calls it the great American disease because I know that that's a very
669. 00:39:57 prominent thing in America even today.
670. 00:40:00 So don't worry, Mike.
671. 00:40:02 You'll be okay.
672. 00:40:03 You know, it's kind of interesting because he says this is the great American disease.
673. 00:40:09 Americans, we tend to have this emphasis on our rugged individualism and we're a self-made
674. 00:40:17 man or woman and our success is completely attributed to ourselves as we'll find in the
675. 00:40:23 next book.
676. 00:40:24 Maybe that's not entirely true.
677. 00:40:27 But it also, I think, is very much linked to the previous chapter, which we didn't cover,
678. 00:40:33 chapter four, the Supreme Charity of the World, because he makes the point in that chapter
679. 00:40:38 that you can never see the target a man aims at, just the target that they hit.
680. 00:40:43 In other words, we judge people by their actions, not their intentions.
681. 00:40:48 But we want everyone to know our heart.
682. 00:40:50 No, that's not what we meant.
683. 00:40:52 But no one's going to take that time to do that.
684. 00:40:54 They're just going to look at the results and what's in it for me.
685. 00:40:58 So I can't help but think that maybe the solution to all of this worry is focusing on yourself
686. 00:41:08 so much.
687. 00:41:10 Just try to help other people and let the chips fall where they may.
688. 00:41:15 That's the big takeaway for me from this.
689. 00:41:19 And I think if you were to take an action item from this, that would kind of be the
690. 00:41:23 approach.
691. 00:41:24 He says, "Take action because action cures worry."
692. 00:41:27 The cure is to recognize the absolute uselessness of worry.
693. 00:41:31 But in addition to that, I think anytime you're focused on yourself, you're kind of naturally
694. 00:41:36 going to worry and you're going to view other things that are happening as threats to your
695. 00:41:42 happiness because it's a zero sum game.
696. 00:41:45 And if you don't get the success, then it's because somebody else got it first and there's
697. 00:41:50 less to go around.
698. 00:41:51 But I think that is not true at all.
699. 00:41:55 Worry is a big problem and it's everywhere.
700. 00:41:57 I mean, we talk about the American way but it's definitely international.
701. 00:42:02 It's all over the place anymore.
702. 00:42:03 But don't do it.
703. 00:42:06 Let's keep moving because we got a decent amount to cover here yet.
704. 00:42:08 The next one I want to go over is actually the next chapter, The Greatness of Simplicity.
705. 00:42:14 And this is where I started to find myself realizing that there are a lot of books in
706. 00:42:20 mainstream concepts and ideals today that this predates.
707. 00:42:29 This is what I was talking about early on.
708. 00:42:30 The foundational change that you can see when you start realizing that some modern day pieces
709. 00:42:36 have some older roots.
710. 00:42:38 And this is one of those.
711. 00:42:40 The greatness of simplicity and the one particular concept I found myself, this is hitting me
712. 00:42:47 in the face.
713. 00:42:48 It's totally minimalism.
714. 00:42:50 100%.
715. 00:42:51 And this is in 1907.
716. 00:42:53 And I don't think of folks in 1907 needing a concept like minimalism.
717. 00:42:59 Like I see that as like coming from our consumerist mindset from our, we got to have all the latest
718. 00:43:04 and greatest, we got to have all the things and we got to have more toys in our neighbors
719. 00:43:08 and our grasses got to be green.
720. 00:43:10 Like I see that mentality being the one that then leads to the exact push to the opposite
721. 00:43:17 of minimalism.
722. 00:43:19 You don't need all of that.
723. 00:43:20 You need this simplicity.
724. 00:43:22 But here we are hearing about it from 1907.
725. 00:43:25 So obviously there's a couple things going on, I would think.
726. 00:43:30 One is this problem has been going on longer than we thought it was.
727. 00:43:35 Or our sense of what simple is has changed drastically.
728. 00:43:42 Because I would bet that even in an extreme minimalist home today, that's probably quite
729. 00:43:50 extravagant and has tons of extras over what that would mean in 1907.
730. 00:43:56 Like you know what I mean?
731. 00:43:57 Like that baseline is probably significantly different.
732. 00:44:01 You know, Becky and I joke about this a lot.
733. 00:44:03 People were just built tougher back then.
734. 00:44:07 We can go out in five degree weather, but I'm not going to go out there for multiple
735. 00:44:11 days in that.
736. 00:44:12 And people did that.
737. 00:44:13 Joshua Becker would not be a minimalist in 1907.
738. 00:44:16 No, I don't think so.
739. 00:44:18 Probably not.
740. 00:44:19 But I agree with you.
741. 00:44:22 Again, the next book is going to speak to some of this.
742. 00:44:27 But also I think it's interesting how the framing of minimalism and simplicity has changed.
743. 00:44:35 Because remember, this is all through the perspective of self control.
744. 00:44:39 So don't go chase everything you want.
745. 00:44:43 Don't get everything you want.
746. 00:44:46 Keep things simple.
747. 00:44:47 As opposed to minimalism today is almost an aesthetic or a fad.
748. 00:44:57 That's the wrong term for it.
749. 00:44:58 And I know some people who embrace this philosophy and they don't just have 66 items of clothing
750. 00:45:08 or whatever.
751. 00:45:09 But I feel like there is, it's hot right now.
752. 00:45:13 The whole idea.
753. 00:45:14 Almost a badge of honor.
754. 00:45:15 Exactly.
755. 00:45:16 People kind of have this picture in their head of what a minimalist home looks like.
756. 00:45:24 Very neutral tones, lots of white, a couple of plants, nothing else in the living room.
757. 00:45:32 And that's not necessarily true.
758. 00:45:34 And even the minimalist would say that's not necessarily true.
759. 00:45:39 But I think nowadays there is this kind of inherent pressure to conform to something like
760. 00:45:46 that because everyone feels the pressure of being so busy and having so much to maintain.
761. 00:45:55 Almost everyone is familiar at least with that feeling.
762. 00:45:59 Even if they don't take the time to identify the source of it and move towards the simplicity.
763. 00:46:04 But I think the default move towards simplicity can be get rid of all the things that don't
764. 00:46:10 spark joy, sell all the books.
765. 00:46:16 And I think that is a very American approach to it.
766. 00:46:21 Instead of assuming responsibility, oh, I've collected too much things, it's well, no,
767. 00:46:26 I just need to try this system.
768. 00:46:29 And that's going to produce the happiness that I'm after.
769. 00:46:32 Not sure I'm doing a great job of explaining this, but do you get what I'm trying to say
770. 00:46:36 here?
771. 00:46:37 Yeah, it's essentially more than cutting back on things.
772. 00:46:41 It's cutting back on like some of the mindset side too.
773. 00:46:44 Like that's kind of what I'm hearing.
774. 00:46:46 It's not a self control me issue to be dealt with because I don't want to dig too deep.
775. 00:46:51 That's going to be scary.
776. 00:46:53 It's just I haven't found the right methodology, the right aesthetic.
777. 00:46:58 And once I do that, then it's going to provide the piece that I'm after.
778. 00:47:02 It's an external source of peace that we're trying to get instead of looking internally
779. 00:47:07 and resolving the conflict there.
780. 00:47:09 This might go back to Johnny Cuffs' soundtracks with the switches versus the dials.
781. 00:47:15 You have this concept of minimalism or in this case, simplicity, but like you're saying,
782. 00:47:20 people are searching for that thing that they can flip the switch and that's what's going
783. 00:47:25 to make me happy.
784. 00:47:26 And that's what's going to solve my productivity problems.
785. 00:47:29 And that's going to keep me focused.
786. 00:47:31 And that's the thing that's going to keep me motivated to where I don't have to actually
787. 00:47:34 work every day.
788. 00:47:36 And it'll just be fun.
789. 00:47:38 That's what we're searching for.
790. 00:47:40 But that's not a switch.
791. 00:47:42 Like you got to find the different dials to tune as opposed to just go turn that one
792. 00:47:47 thing on or off.
793. 00:47:48 And I guess I'm thinking specifically of like Joshua Becker with the minimalist home,
794. 00:47:52 because at the end of each one of those chapters that we covered, there's very specific action
795. 00:47:57 items as you take it room by room.
796. 00:48:00 And the end result is you've gone through your entire dwelling and you've gotten rid
797. 00:48:07 of a lot of clutter and you feel a lot better about your situation.
798. 00:48:12 But it's a lot easier to package.
799. 00:48:14 Just follow along with me as we go through every closet and we deal with the things in
800. 00:48:20 there as opposed to looking to your soul and see what's really there.
801. 00:48:25 Because it's a desire for more stuff and to keep up with the Joneses.
802. 00:48:29 Yes, but we like things.
803. 00:48:32 Things are fun.
804. 00:48:33 It's true.
805. 00:48:34 Just see how many things your kids want for Christmas.
806. 00:48:36 I don't answer that question.
807. 00:48:37 Alright, the next chapter here.
808. 00:48:40 I put this in because I work at a church.
809. 00:48:43 So I hear this stuff a lot.
810. 00:48:45 But syndicating our sorrows, I'm skipping over one chapter called living life over again,
811. 00:48:51 but syndicating our sorrows.
812. 00:48:53 If I had to summarize this in one sentence, it would be sharing our woes with others.
813. 00:48:59 This is one of those negative chapters.
814. 00:49:01 Don't do this scenario.
815. 00:49:02 The sentence I wrote down is the most selfish man is the one who is unselfish with his sorrows.
816. 00:49:10 Yes.
817. 00:49:13 And it's so true.
818. 00:49:15 It's very common for me at a church to hear people, for lack of better terms, whine and
819. 00:49:22 complain about things.
820. 00:49:23 It happens a lot.
821. 00:49:25 Sometimes we need to hear those sorrows.
822. 00:49:29 We need to hear those woes because I've got a family member that's being cruel to me and
823. 00:49:36 we could potentially help in that.
824. 00:49:39 That's one side of it.
825. 00:49:40 I don't feel like that's what he's talking about here.
826. 00:49:43 He's talking about, "Oh, I really don't like the way that Jane did that."
827. 00:49:48 That service was just way too long.
828. 00:49:50 That sort of thing.
829. 00:49:51 Sure, maybe you have qualms with it.
830. 00:49:54 Go talk to Jane about it.
831. 00:49:55 You don't need to tell me about it.
832. 00:49:56 I probably have my own opinions, but I'm probably not going to share them with you.
833. 00:50:00 That's just the way it is.
834. 00:50:03 That's what he's getting at here.
835. 00:50:04 You don't have to syndicate those, which I found it interesting he used that term.
836. 00:50:08 It's interesting where that's come over the decades and century now.
837. 00:50:14 But yes, don't share those.
838. 00:50:15 You don't need to do that.
839. 00:50:17 I think of an RSS feed that's just my gripes and opinions about all the things that are
840. 00:50:24 going wrong.
841. 00:50:26 I'm not exactly sure that's what he is saying here, by the way.
842. 00:50:30 You got to be careful with this because you really can't apply this to other people.
843. 00:50:36 You just got to do it yourself.
844. 00:50:39 I feel if you're going to apply anything from this because there are situations where people
845. 00:50:45 just need to share stuff.
846. 00:50:48 They haven't told anybody.
847. 00:50:50 The very best thing you can do for those people is just shut up and listen.
848. 00:50:55 But there are other times when people are just used to sharing everything that's going
849. 00:51:01 wrong in their life and they want someone to empathize with them and be like, "Oh, you
850. 00:51:06 poor thing.
851. 00:51:07 It's okay."
852. 00:51:08 Depending on where they happen to be at, that could be the right message or it could
853. 00:51:13 be the wrong message.
854. 00:51:15 Sometimes people need a kick in the butt.
855. 00:51:18 You know what?
856. 00:51:20 Maybe if you actually started doing the right things, you'd get right results.
857. 00:51:26 Maybe you should quit whining about all these bad things that are happening to you because
858. 00:51:31 you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and just look at the people that
859. 00:51:35 you're hanging out with.
860. 00:51:37 That's an extreme example maybe.
861. 00:51:40 I think there's two sides to approach this from.
862. 00:51:45 The big takeaway for me from this chapter is this phrase, "We should seek to make life
863. 00:51:51 brighter for others."
864. 00:51:53 In terms of me and how am I going to apply anything from this chapter, I don't think
865. 00:52:01 I have any action items from this book by the way, but this spurs in me a general approach
866. 00:52:08 of the things that I am going to be sharing, are they going to help other people or are
867. 00:52:17 they going to, I guess the opposite of that in terms of syndicating your sorrow would be
868. 00:52:21 the belief that by me venting this, I will feel better.
869. 00:52:25 It will help me.
870. 00:52:26 But I don't even think that's entirely true.
871. 00:52:28 I don't think that is helpful when you just vent negative on whatever platform you happen
872. 00:52:34 to have, whether it's calling up your friend so you can gossip about something or writing
873. 00:52:39 a negative post about somebody on Facebook.
874. 00:52:44 I want to put off the type of energy that I would like to attract.
875. 00:52:51 I do think that there is some reciprocity there.
876. 00:52:54 If you are consistently positive, you will attract other people who are consistently positive.
877. 00:53:02 If you are consistently negative, you will find yourself around people who are consistently
878. 00:53:06 negative and then going back to chapter two or whatever it was, what is the effect of
879. 00:53:12 all this positivity or all of this negativity?
880. 00:53:14 Is it taking you where you want to go or is it not helping you in any way, shape or form?
881. 00:53:19 If it's not helping you in any way, shape or form, then get rid of that.
882. 00:53:22 Do the other thing.
883. 00:53:26 We have no right to syndicate our sorrows, he says, and I think for the majority of situations
884. 00:53:31 that is absolutely true.
885. 00:53:33 Yes, but like you're saying, there are times when someone is going through something difficult
886. 00:53:38 and they need to talk through it.
887. 00:53:40 I don't think that's necessarily what we're talking about here.
888. 00:53:42 No, that's almost like a confiding in somebody.
889. 00:53:47 I got to tell someone as opposed to syndicating, I got to tell everyone.
890. 00:53:52 Correct.
891. 00:53:53 Yes.
892. 00:53:54 That one to one versus one to many scenario I think is important.
893. 00:53:58 The next chapter here is Revelations of Reserve Powers, which we're going to skip over, but
894. 00:54:03 think of a Reserve Powers Unemergency Fund.
895. 00:54:05 You got to read the book.
896. 00:54:07 And then following that is the Majesty of Comnes.
897. 00:54:11 There's only one thing I wanted to just kind of ask here.
898. 00:54:14 Did you feel like this was the meditation mindfulness world from 1907?
899. 00:54:19 I mean, obviously meditation's been around forever and this had very strong errors of
900. 00:54:26 that to me, but I was curious your perspective on it because it seems like every time we
901. 00:54:31 come across something that says something along the lines of meditation, you want to
902. 00:54:34 try it again?
903. 00:54:35 So I just wanted to know if this did that for you.
904. 00:54:40 There's definitely some overlap.
905. 00:54:41 I don't know if it was this chapter specifically, but yeah, meditation is not a new idea.
906. 00:54:48 This happens to be a pretty popular genre of app store apps.
907. 00:54:57 I like the definition of calmness that he has here, which is singleness of purpose, absolute
908. 00:55:02 confidence and conscious power.
909. 00:55:04 I don't think those necessarily line up with the whole idea of meditation.
910. 00:55:07 They don't necessarily work against it either, but I think calmness goes beyond meditation.
911. 00:55:16 So I can right now, as I record this podcast, have singleness of purpose, absolute confidence
912. 00:55:22 and conscious power, or I can be stressed out because I wasn't able to disconnect from
913. 00:55:28 the craziness of the day that was before we hit the record button.
914. 00:55:33 So again, I think you can apply this to a lot of different areas in your life, but meditation
915. 00:55:38 would be one of those and it would be a good practice and is a good practice that I'm trying
916. 00:55:43 to make consistent.
917. 00:55:45 It works and it comes and it goes.
918. 00:55:48 Eventually one of these days, I do believe it's going to stick.
919. 00:55:51 I'm not giving up on it, but I haven't made it a habit yet.
920. 00:55:56 Sure.
921. 00:55:57 Sure.
922. 00:55:58 No, I was just curious if you did because the way I took it was the whole being calm.
923. 00:56:05 There's two ways I took it.
924. 00:56:06 One is going back to the Ryan Holiday Stillness's key, reacting to things with sound judgment,
925. 00:56:13 like that concept is one that it struck me with, the calm way of reacting to things.
926. 00:56:19 The other was putting yourself in a calm scenario, which I try to make sure I do somewhere around
927. 00:56:25 twice a day by going out in the woods and such.
928. 00:56:28 I have that luxury.
929. 00:56:30 So I'm thrilled to be able to do that.
930. 00:56:32 This morning I did not.
931. 00:56:33 It was five degrees when I got her to the spring.
932. 00:56:35 The wind was whipping and it was negative 15 wind chill.
933. 00:56:38 I was like, "Nope, I'll let the dog out and watch from the window as far as I got."
934. 00:56:44 So I need to get some warmer clothes for something like that if I'm going to do that.
935. 00:56:48 Multiple clothes.
936. 00:56:49 So if I could jump in here real quick, I'm kind of curious.
937. 00:56:53 You're talking about two different kinds of calm here.
938. 00:56:57 Yes.
939. 00:56:58 One, which is internal and then one, which is external.
940. 00:57:01 And I 100% agree you should seek to create an external environment that is as calm as
941. 00:57:07 possible.
942. 00:57:09 Different people have different degrees to which that is possible.
943. 00:57:13 But one of the things I wrote down in my mind node file in this chapter is that calmness
944. 00:57:17 as he's talking about it comes from within.
945. 00:57:20 So where do you draw the line there?
946. 00:57:25 I guess.
947. 00:57:26 Because you're talking about getting out for your walk, creating some external circumstances.
948. 00:57:30 But are there ways that you apply this in the middle of all the craziness when stuff
949. 00:57:36 is just bouncing off the walls that you just find a moment and this is what I do to re-center?
950. 00:57:42 Yeah, it's both.
951. 00:57:45 And so the former of those two seeking it internally, to me that's where the potential
952. 00:57:51 overlap from meditation comes in.
953. 00:57:55 The external of going out in the woods, to me, induces the former.
954. 00:58:00 So going out to the external circumstances, the nature, the walks outside, unless I bring
955. 00:58:06 all of the kids and they're just super excited and talking about all of the different things
956. 00:58:10 they see out there, it's very, very calm whenever I'm able to make those journeys.
957. 00:58:16 And it helps induce the internal.
958. 00:58:18 So I think you're right.
959. 00:58:19 I think he does specifically call out like this is an internal thing.
960. 00:58:22 But I'm referring to the external because at least in my case, it helps bring about that
961. 00:58:27 internal.
962. 00:58:28 Because I think in terms of painting a picture for what calmness is and what you're trying
963. 00:58:32 to achieve though, my pastor has this saying be a thermostat, not a thermometer.
964. 00:58:39 And I like that because the thermometer simply takes the temperature, but the thermostat
965. 00:58:44 controls the temperature.
966. 00:58:46 So you can either be affected by your surroundings or you can affect your surroundings.
967. 00:58:53 And when you have true calmness, it overrides the external circumstances.
968. 00:59:00 Yes, I like that.
969. 00:59:02 The whole thermostat thermometer thing.
970. 00:59:05 Because you can take that, my brain immediately went to all sorts of places when you sit like,
971. 00:59:09 okay, well, yeah, the thermostat does control the temperature, but indirectly and only if
972. 00:59:15 it has fuel in it.
973. 00:59:16 That's true.
974. 00:59:17 That's true.
975. 00:59:18 If you don't have a gas line or electric or something, that thermostat doesn't do anything.
976. 00:59:24 So if you have no fuel in the system, it's worthless.
977. 00:59:28 Yep.
978. 00:59:29 So, but yes, and most thermostats have a clock on them too.
979. 00:59:32 There's that.
980. 00:59:33 All sorts of stuff you.
981. 00:59:34 My brain went all sorts of places there.
982. 00:59:36 All right, so the majesty of calmness, let's go into another problem with America, shall
983. 00:59:41 we?
984. 00:59:42 Hurry.
985. 00:59:43 The scourge of America, he says this time.
986. 00:59:45 So we have worry the great American disease.
987. 00:59:47 And now we have hurry, the scourge of America.
988. 00:59:49 There's a couple quotes I wrote down from this one, Mike.
989. 00:59:53 One is nature never hurries.
990. 00:59:55 Yep, I figured you'd write that one down.
991. 00:59:58 Yep, which I kind of had qualms with because I'm like, squirrels run around all the time
992. 01:00:04 trying to collect as many nuts as they put like they definitely hurry.
993. 01:00:08 Right?
994. 01:00:09 But anyway, there was that.
995. 01:00:11 And then the other one was let us not be impatient, which was towards the end of that
996. 01:00:14 chapter.
997. 01:00:15 And there's so many things, so many places you could take this.
998. 01:00:21 We buy toys that then take upkeep and it means that we have to do things to keep us
999. 01:00:26 busy constantly.
1000. 01:00:27 The whole busy, I'm in a rush.
1001. 01:00:30 There's too much going on.
1002. 01:00:32 These are all self-inflicted.
1003. 01:00:33 I just had a conversation with a service provider of ours here at the church.
1004. 01:00:37 I don't know, 30 minutes before we got on the podcast here about there's a lot going
1005. 01:00:43 on.
1006. 01:00:44 I'm pretty busy as times of the year at the church.
1007. 01:00:48 He said something about don't you wish you had more time in the day?
1008. 01:00:51 I was like, well, if I had 48 hours in a day, I would just fill it up the same way I've
1009. 01:00:55 got my 24 fill up.
1010. 01:00:57 So it would be the same feeling regardless.
1011. 01:01:00 It's just the way it would be.
1012. 01:01:01 So it's self-inflicted.
1013. 01:01:03 We definitely do this to ourselves.
1014. 01:01:06 But at the same time, I'm also aware that if you go the opposite side where you cut so
1015. 01:01:10 much stuff out that you don't have a lot going on, you get to boredom, which then I feel
1016. 01:01:15 like as Brett McKay has recently said on the art of maliness, that can kind of come to
1017. 01:01:21 burnout.
1018. 01:01:23 We tend to think of burnout as I've got too much going on for too long, but really that
1019. 01:01:27 has more to do with boredom and motivation than anything.
1020. 01:01:31 I feel like we're kind of floating around that whole concept in this chapter with William
1021. 01:01:36 here.
1022. 01:01:37 I think it's definitely true.
1023. 01:01:39 We definitely as Americans hurry constantly.
1024. 01:01:42 But this is also 1907.
1025. 01:01:44 Yep.
1026. 01:01:45 I feel like things are way more high paced now than they were in 1907.
1027. 01:01:49 Oh, for sure.
1028. 01:01:50 For sure.
1029. 01:01:51 If they were considered fast and people were talking about hurrying all the time in 1907,
1030. 01:01:56 they would think we're a crazy group today if they saw what we do.
1031. 01:02:00 Well, what would you say is the motivation for hurrying?
1032. 01:02:06 Being left behind or some of the fear of missing out is probably there, the FOMO.
1033. 01:02:11 If you feel like you need to hurry in your day, why is that?
1034. 01:02:19 Probably because you've got more things you need to do and you recognize you're not going
1035. 01:02:23 to get them done in the time that you have available.
1036. 01:02:25 Or you haven't paired back the list of things you feel you should do or want to do or haven't
1037. 01:02:31 narrowed it down to the things you feel called to do.
1038. 01:02:34 So it's outcome driven though, right?
1039. 01:02:37 It's based on these things that I feel like I should do, have to do, whatever, right?
1040. 01:02:44 Which is a theme to be continued in our next book.
1041. 01:02:48 I didn't realize this was a precursor at all.
1042. 01:02:53 Yeah.
1043. 01:02:54 But you probably didn't realize you were picking a secret.
1044. 01:02:56 I did not.
1045. 01:02:57 I did not.
1046. 01:02:59 But I see the overlap here.
1047. 01:03:02 A couple other quotes I'll add from this section.
1048. 01:03:05 I just want to plant that seed because I have a feeling as you're reading the next book
1049. 01:03:09 that this is going to come up again.
1050. 01:03:12 But hurry seeks to make energy a substitute for a clearly defined plan.
1051. 01:03:18 That gets at some of the things that you were talking about.
1052. 01:03:20 If you have a clearly defined plan, a realistic plan, you know enough information not to pick
1053. 01:03:26 more things for your to do list than you can actually do, then you won't feel like you
1054. 01:03:31 need to hurry.
1055. 01:03:32 However, that's not the only source of hurry.
1056. 01:03:34 So I think that's a fairly limited definition.
1057. 01:03:39 The other thing here is that every he says everything that is great in life is the product
1058. 01:03:43 of slow growth.
1059. 01:03:44 I tend to agree with that.
1060. 01:03:46 I don't think that's what America wants.
1061. 01:03:50 We're a microwave society.
1062. 01:03:51 We want instant gratification.
1063. 01:03:54 But I don't agree with that.
1064. 01:03:56 I very much more align with that particular statement, which again 1907.
1065. 01:04:02 So our culture is very different than it was back then.
1066. 01:04:06 Although the source of the frustration it sounds like is not all that much different.
1067. 01:04:13 It's just the ways that we try to medicate.
1068. 01:04:18 The way we try to manage our time and check off the things that we want to do has evolved.
1069. 01:04:25 But the desire to constantly do more has not.
1070. 01:04:30 Yeah, there's so many places we could take this.
1071. 01:04:33 So many places we have taken this in the past.
1072. 01:04:37 We're a whole book on busy.
1073. 01:04:38 So I mean there's just learning to pair things back and focus.
1074. 01:04:43 That's so hard.
1075. 01:04:45 And being willing to do things the slow way like you're saying, my kids always want things
1076. 01:04:49 immediately.
1077. 01:04:50 I want to snack now.
1078. 01:04:52 Well, do you have the chore list done?
1079. 01:04:56 No.
1080. 01:04:57 Do you have cats fed?
1081. 01:04:59 No.
1082. 01:05:00 Do you have your room cleaned up?
1083. 01:05:02 No.
1084. 01:05:03 So you've done none of the work that's required for snack time?
1085. 01:05:07 No.
1086. 01:05:08 So then why would you think you get snack?
1087. 01:05:09 I don't understand you're four, so I get that.
1088. 01:05:14 But this is the process, right?
1089. 01:05:17 Because I don't want my kids to grow up thinking they get what they want right now all the
1090. 01:05:21 time.
1091. 01:05:22 Because that's a dangerous place to sit.
1092. 01:05:24 We see it all over the place, right?
1093. 01:05:26 Yeah.
1094. 01:05:27 And so I think that's one part of this is the self-control aspect of, well, I need to
1095. 01:05:32 take responsibility and do my things first before I can have my treat or my snack.
1096. 01:05:39 But the next book kind of also speaks to the fact that maybe you don't have as much control
1097. 01:05:46 over the things that happen as you think you do and learning to be okay with results
1098. 01:05:52 that are not entirely within your control.
1099. 01:05:56 And I think the combination of those factors helps alleviate some of the pressure we feel
1100. 01:06:03 to hurry and some of the symptoms of busyness.
1101. 01:06:07 The next chapter here is called failure as a success.
1102. 01:06:11 The only reason I wrote this down is because it seems like in the world of startups and
1103. 01:06:15 tech companies, they talk about this a lot.
1104. 01:06:18 It's like fail fast.
1105. 01:06:20 You hear that quite a bit.
1106. 01:06:22 And again, this is one of those, this was definitely a thing even over a hundred years
1107. 01:06:28 ago that was being talked about.
1108. 01:06:30 And it's told with the story of a group that decided to float logs down a river for the
1109. 01:06:38 first time.
1110. 01:06:39 Apparently, that was a new thing.
1111. 01:06:41 I don't know how long ago that had happened though.
1112. 01:06:43 But I told the story here.
1113. 01:06:46 And it fell apart.
1114. 01:06:48 They had a storm in the whole system fell apart, but the logs went downstream and they
1115. 01:06:54 weren't able to capture all of them.
1116. 01:06:56 And what they ended up doing is they asked for people to notice them and log where they
1117. 01:07:03 were and when they saw these logs on the rivers and oceans and all the different places.
1118. 01:07:08 So they did that.
1119. 01:07:09 And although it was a failure to float the logs to where they wanted them, it was a positive
1120. 01:07:14 because they learned about all the currents and such that made up the ocean and river
1121. 01:07:19 ways and everything.
1122. 01:07:20 So like how water flows, they learned a lot because of that.
1123. 01:07:25 But it was an unintended experiment, of course.
1124. 01:07:28 So that's what he starts this off with.
1125. 01:07:30 Even though you have a failure, if you're willing to process that failure, if you're
1126. 01:07:35 willing to examine it, which I'm not always willing to do, and I know you're not either
1127. 01:07:39 my wife has told me stories.
1128. 01:07:42 But if we're willing to evaluate these failures, it can often lead to you realizing either
1129. 01:07:49 something you've learned or it led you to a place that you didn't expect to get to.
1130. 01:07:55 I've had failures with previous jobs that have taught me something that I now use daily
1131. 01:08:01 in my current job.
1132. 01:08:02 These things happen and at the time it's painful and it's not fun and you don't like
1133. 01:08:08 dealing with a difficult thing.
1134. 01:08:09 But again, if you're willing to process it, you're better off because you can usually
1135. 01:08:14 see at some point, whether it's immediate or not, I can't answer for you, but you can
1136. 01:08:20 usually see the positive in it if you're willing to look for it.
1137. 01:08:23 Yeah, I agree with everything that you said, which is why I think the story that he uses
1138. 01:08:28 of Columbus is not very effective.
1139. 01:08:31 He says, "In discovering America, Columbus failed in his original mission," which is
1140. 01:08:37 true, but I don't think it's all that practical an example even in 1907.
1141. 01:08:46 Maybe there was a limited pool of shared knowledge to draw from for that kind of thing.
1142. 01:08:52 We tend to hear the same stories over and over and over again in a lot of the books that
1143. 01:08:57 we read.
1144. 01:08:58 So if I say the Poldre sisters, you right away are thinking of the sisters who got really
1145. 01:09:03 good at chess because their dad was running an experiment on them.
1146. 01:09:08 Yeah, experiment on his kids and convinced a gal to marry them with that premise.
1147. 01:09:15 Exactly.
1148. 01:09:16 Or the Pomodoro method, exactly what that is, 80/20.
1149. 01:09:20 There's all these...
1150. 01:09:21 Jobs and Steve was.
1151. 01:09:22 Yep.
1152. 01:09:23 So there's all these principles that are kind of the foundation of our shared knowledge
1153. 01:09:28 when it comes to this productivity stuff.
1154. 01:09:31 But in 1907, I can imagine that there's a much smaller pool to draw from.
1155. 01:09:38 So maybe that's the reason there.
1156. 01:09:42 But also the log example that you were sharing earlier, I don't know.
1157. 01:09:47 That was kind of a cool story, but it didn't really work for me with what he's really saying
1158. 01:09:53 here.
1159. 01:09:54 I mean, it's right in the title of the chapter, "Failure as Success, Failure."
1160. 01:09:57 And one thing often opens the door to success somewhere else.
1161. 01:10:00 I feel like that's a very effective lesson to learn.
1162. 01:10:03 But I don't think he did a real great job in this particular chapter of explaining how
1163. 01:10:08 you would practically go about that.
1164. 01:10:11 Other than I guess, when you are trying to find nautical shortcuts and you find yourself
1165. 01:10:17 on new lands, don't consider it to be a failure and go explore instead.
1166. 01:10:22 I don't know.
1167. 01:10:24 I don't often do that.
1168. 01:10:25 So not a boatmaster.
1169. 01:10:29 I have trouble thinking through any sort of practical takeaway from this, because anytime
1170. 01:10:34 there is failure, I think you can use it as a springboard.
1171. 01:10:37 You can look for those ancillary things that weren't directly in front of you.
1172. 01:10:42 Failure as I ran into an obstacle, and now I have to kind of course correct figure out
1173. 01:10:46 a way around this.
1174. 01:10:48 But it's also quite possible that you just failed because you were stupid and you made
1175. 01:10:52 a dumb mistake.
1176. 01:10:53 And I think the important thing is to ask why.
1177. 01:10:56 But I don't think there is always a new and better path from every single failure.
1178. 01:11:01 But if you're willing, to go back to what I was saying earlier, but again, if you're
1179. 01:11:04 willing, I think if you're able and open to processing that failure, you can at least
1180. 01:11:10 learn something from it.
1181. 01:11:12 Like, no matter what it was, I would say that there's something there.
1182. 01:11:15 But you're absolutely right.
1183. 01:11:16 Like, sometimes you're just dumb.
1184. 01:11:17 Don't be dumb.
1185. 01:11:18 Yeah.
1186. 01:11:19 So I guess kind of as I read this, and maybe I missed his main point, but it kind of felt
1187. 01:11:23 like whenever you have a failure, it's not really a failure.
1188. 01:11:27 It's a form of a success.
1189. 01:11:28 You just got to find the way that it is a success.
1190. 01:11:31 And I think that's very different than figuring out why something was a failure and learning
1191. 01:11:36 from it for next time.
1192. 01:11:37 Sure.
1193. 01:11:38 Yeah.
1194. 01:11:39 No, that's a valid point.
1195. 01:11:40 Yeah.
1196. 01:11:41 I definitely took it as if you look, you can find the success.
1197. 01:11:45 But this might be a case of me taking previous books and then putting them on top of this
1198. 01:11:52 and just translating it that way.
1199. 01:11:54 I tend to do that.
1200. 01:11:55 I tend to summarize very quickly and just assume when I read these things.
1201. 01:11:59 So it happens.
1202. 01:12:00 So failure is a success.
1203. 01:12:02 And the last chapter I wanted to cover here is the last chapter of the book, because I
1204. 01:12:06 feel like you have to at least cover the beginning and the end.
1205. 01:12:08 The Royal Road to Happiness.
1206. 01:12:11 I struggled with this one, which I was not expecting to.
1207. 01:12:14 And it seemed like what he was saying is you can take self-control and apply it to all
1208. 01:12:20 these areas we've talked about and then find happiness if you do that.
1209. 01:12:24 I feel like that's what he was trying to say.
1210. 01:12:27 But I had a really hard time connecting it all together.
1211. 01:12:30 I felt like I wanted him to wrap it up with a bow and hand it off.
1212. 01:12:34 But I don't feel like he did that.
1213. 01:12:36 And I had a really hard time nailing down what he was getting at in this chapter.
1214. 01:12:39 I'm hoping you figured it out because maybe you've got a better perspective on it.
1215. 01:12:43 But I felt like what he was trying to tell us was the ways that don't work to be happy.
1216. 01:12:47 Don't search for contentedness.
1217. 01:12:51 Because that's just not going to be the answer.
1218. 01:12:53 But I didn't feel like I got a clean answer on what he was trying to do there.
1219. 01:12:56 Did you figure this out?
1220. 01:12:58 Please tell me you did.
1221. 01:12:59 I'm not going to profess to have figured it all out.
1222. 01:13:02 But I feel like my takeaway from this chapter maybe is a little bit different than yours.
1223. 01:13:08 Okay.
1224. 01:13:09 I'll just share some of the stuff that I jotted down.
1225. 01:13:11 But I definitely see the thread here with this stuff.
1226. 01:13:15 So he mentions in this chapter, for example, that happiness defies our environment.
1227. 01:13:21 It can grow in any soul and it can live under any conditions.
1228. 01:13:24 He also says that what a man has depends on others.
1229. 01:13:28 What he is depends on himself.
1230. 01:13:30 So I feel like this is tying together a lot of the threads for me that in the open loops
1231. 01:13:37 that he's created in these other chapters.
1232. 01:13:40 He kind of speaks specifically to being content with a situation.
1233. 01:13:45 He says be content with what you have, but never with who you are.
1234. 01:13:49 Content with who you are is a form of diluted despair, which I think is a very powerful
1235. 01:13:55 and I like the way that he described that.
1236. 01:13:57 If you think that who you are right now is all you will ever be, then why the heck do
1237. 01:14:03 we read all these books?
1238. 01:14:04 What's the point?
1239. 01:14:05 Yeah.
1240. 01:14:06 Because we believe that we can grow and improve and do a better job stewarding the resources
1241. 01:14:14 and the time that we have available to us.
1242. 01:14:17 He also says the basis of happiness is love of something outside of self, which is why
1243. 01:14:22 chapter three spoke so much to me about the duty versus love.
1244. 01:14:26 If you are just doing your duty, then you're never going to be happy.
1245. 01:14:31 You're just going to avoid conflict maybe checking off the boxes, but it's not going
1246. 01:14:38 to provide any sort of motivation or purpose for your life, which is where I think this
1247. 01:14:43 happiness really comes from.
1248. 01:14:46 The road to happiness specifically, he has four points, consecration, concentration,
1249. 01:14:50 conquest and conscience.
1250. 01:14:52 So four C's, nice alliteration there, but I don't have anything else written down for
1251. 01:14:59 those.
1252. 01:15:00 That whole idea is all that, that great.
1253. 01:15:04 It kind of feels like if he was going to write this book today, this is the one, the part
1254. 01:15:09 where his editor would explode this into three different parts.
1255. 01:15:12 This is your framework for the entire book.
1256. 01:15:15 He's trying to like wrap it all up, but I didn't think that was all that practical,
1257. 01:15:19 to be honest.
1258. 01:15:20 But it doesn't mean that there isn't a very powerful theme here, which is essentially,
1259. 01:15:25 no matter where you are, no matter what you have, you have the ability right now to connect
1260. 01:15:31 to a purpose that is bigger than yourself and to be happy.
1261. 01:15:35 And right at the last thing I wrote down from here is that unhappiness is the hunger
1262. 01:15:39 to get, happiness is the hunger to give, which I think comes back to duty versus love, or
1263. 01:15:46 even more strongly, love versus lust.
1264. 01:15:49 Ed Cole has defined this.
1265. 01:15:52 He's the guy who wrote the men's curriculum that we go through at our church.
1266. 01:15:55 Love is the desire to benefit others at the expense of self, but lust is the desire to
1267. 01:16:01 benefit self at the expense of others.
1268. 01:16:04 So lust is, I got to climb the ladder.
1269. 01:16:06 I don't care who I'm stepping on on the way up because I'm not coming back down, but love
1270. 01:16:10 is second mountain and I'm looking to do all the good that I can.
1271. 01:16:15 And that's the one that is more closer to the truth because success is not a zero sum
1272. 01:16:20 game and there's not this limited quantity of it to go around.
1273. 01:16:23 The fact that I'm successful doesn't mean that you can't be successful.
1274. 01:16:26 In fact, if we both embrace this, it means that we're both more likely to be successful
1275. 01:16:31 because we're going to work with each other and we're going to learn from each other.
1276. 01:16:35 So he didn't explicitly say this, but this is how I heard it is, you know, if you're
1277. 01:16:40 going to be motivated by love, you're going to be successful.
1278. 01:16:44 You're going to be happy.
1279. 01:16:45 You're going to be motivated by lust and try to get as much as you can for you and yourself
1280. 01:16:50 then you're going to be miserable.
1281. 01:16:52 And I think that's actually a really great way to end the book.
1282. 01:16:57 That's way better than way I took it.
1283. 01:16:59 Maybe I just missed some of the key points in that because what you just explained makes
1284. 01:17:04 perfect sense and wraps it up very nicely.
1285. 01:17:08 Somehow I didn't catch that.
1286. 01:17:09 I don't know why or how.
1287. 01:17:12 Maybe I did not read it.
1288. 01:17:13 I felt like I read it, but I don't know.
1289. 01:17:16 Sometimes I do that.
1290. 01:17:17 It's a topical reading going back to how to read a book.
1291. 01:17:19 I have a bunch of other books that have spoken to the same thing, so I'm connecting these
1292. 01:17:23 dots in a different way than you are.
1293. 01:17:25 That's all.
1294. 01:17:26 It does happen.
1295. 01:17:28 So yeah, I don't know.
1296. 01:17:29 I didn't catch most of what you just explained.
1297. 01:17:33 To me, I was seeing in the back of my mind, I was seeing some of the books that we've read
1298. 01:17:39 that talk about happiness and how it's more about succeeding in the struggle than it is
1299. 01:17:44 with not having struggle, which is opposite of what we would normally consider.
1300. 01:17:51 It's why I tend to refer to the simple phrase "momento mori" every morning.
1301. 01:17:57 You know, remember death, which is, of course, morbid, but whenever I recognize how bad something
1302. 01:18:05 could be, you appreciate what you have now much more.
1303. 01:18:10 And that's something I feel like is very vital to this whole happiness conversation, but
1304. 01:18:16 it wasn't brought up here.
1305. 01:18:17 So I think maybe I've just got this preconceived notion that that's what needs to be in there,
1306. 01:18:23 but it wasn't.
1307. 01:18:24 So then how does this work?
1308. 01:18:25 Yeah, I probably got there somehow.
1309. 01:18:27 Trying to justify this to myself right now.
1310. 01:18:30 So anyway, that's the book in a nutshell.
1311. 01:18:35 We're basically talking about how to control yourself and looking at that through a lot
1312. 01:18:40 of these different lenses of different character traits and scenarios also through the lens
1313. 01:18:45 of 1907, which I think I've been kind of hung up on this whole time, but I think it's
1314. 01:18:51 fascinating stuff on it for sure.
1315. 01:18:53 Anyway, action items, unless there's something else you want to talk about here, Mike.
1316. 01:18:57 Nope, let's do it.
1317. 01:18:58 Nope, okay.
1318. 01:18:59 So action items, I have one, and it's not really from any specific part of the book.
1319. 01:19:05 It's from my own perspective of reading this, and that is I don't think I have ever done
1320. 01:19:13 true research in trying to figure out how does self-control and ADHD go together, because
1321. 01:19:21 one of the things, at least that I always struggle with is ADHD, in my case, has to do
1322. 01:19:28 with getting hung up between tasks and the motivation to move on to that next one, and
1323. 01:19:33 struggling to control myself to move on to that next one whether I want to or not.
1324. 01:19:38 That little tiny time frame between tasks can quickly become six hours of not doing the
1325. 01:19:43 thing, and I feel like I don't have any control over that, but I feel like that's not true.
1326. 01:19:49 I just haven't figured out what the scenarios are and how to work through that.
1327. 01:19:53 So I don't know how to term that as an action item, but I wrote it down as just self-control
1328. 01:19:57 and ADHD, but I feel like it's a little bit bigger than that and a little more involved
1329. 01:20:01 than that, but I feel like I need to do a little research because I know there's some
1330. 01:20:06 stuff out there around this.
1331. 01:20:08 I've just not found it and read it yet.
1332. 01:20:10 If folks online know about this stuff, please send it to me.
1333. 01:20:14 I will definitely go through it, but I feel like I need to do some research on this because
1334. 01:20:17 although I love a lot of what's in here, I'm not sure how to apply it in some cases
1335. 01:20:23 for me, and I'm not trying to just pass it off and say, "Oh, I can't do that."
1336. 01:20:27 It's a legit struggle, at least on my side.
1337. 01:20:30 Maybe it's not for you, Mike, but I definitely struggle with it.
1338. 01:20:33 So I got that as an action item.
1339. 01:20:34 All right.
1340. 01:20:35 I think that is a very valid action item because I think the truth is probably somewhere in
1341. 01:20:41 between.
1342. 01:20:42 If you were to talk to the author, he would say, "No, just suck it up and do it."
1343. 01:20:47 I definitely feel like that's what he would do.
1344. 01:20:50 I've talked to enough people recently, like Jesse Anderson, he was on a recent episode of
1345. 01:20:55 Focused and shared a lot about ADHD versus neurotypical brains.
1346. 01:21:02 I don't understand all of it, but I have a better understanding after talking to him
1347. 01:21:06 and the dopamine-driven motivation for a lot of the different things that get done.
1348. 01:21:12 I don't have a simple answer.
1349. 01:21:15 I think that's the natural next step for this is to figure out not just how do I apply what
1350. 01:21:21 this person is saying, but what does this actually mean to me?
1351. 01:21:24 It is sense making in a nutshell.
1352. 01:21:27 All right.
1353. 01:21:28 There you go.
1354. 01:21:30 It sounds like I need to go listen to your other podcast.
1355. 01:21:33 I support your action item.
1356. 01:21:35 All right.
1357. 01:21:36 Thanks, Mike.
1358. 01:21:37 What do you have?
1359. 01:21:38 I got nothing.
1360. 01:21:39 Good job.
1361. 01:21:41 No action items, some cool.
1362. 01:21:43 You had great self-control in that.
1363. 01:21:46 I guess.
1364. 01:21:47 I don't know.
1365. 01:21:49 I feel like there's some opportunity here for action items, but also the biggest takeaways
1366. 01:21:58 for me from this book were not something new, but it was kind of filling in some blanks
1367. 01:22:06 for stuff that I've already known.
1368. 01:22:10 That sounds kind of pompous to say it that way, but we've read other books on these topics.
1369. 01:22:14 I have this picture where I can tell what it is, like a jigsaw puzzle that's missing
1370. 01:22:20 a bunch of pieces.
1371. 01:22:21 I feel like I got some more pieces by reading this, but I don't have anything that's groundbreaking
1372. 01:22:28 or new.
1373. 01:22:29 I never thought about that before.
1374. 01:22:30 I should try this.
1375. 01:22:32 Right.
1376. 01:22:33 All right.
1377. 01:22:34 Well, styling rating, I guess I get to go first this time.
1378. 01:22:36 I have to say that this is a very dense book.
1379. 01:22:39 I think I mentioned that early on.
1380. 01:22:40 I wasn't expecting that.
1381. 01:22:43 If you do some research on William George Jordan, he's mostly an essayist.
1382. 01:22:50 He wrote a lot of essays, and this is probably what that is.
1383. 01:22:55 This is likely what it would be called.
1384. 01:22:58 It's short enough that it could be that.
1385. 01:23:00 Somebody in the chat said their version was 70 pages long.
1386. 01:23:03 I think it depends on font size and page size and stuff, but I can't say that I've run
1387. 01:23:07 across something quite as cornerstone as something like this because so much of what we talk
1388. 01:23:15 about in self-help, in productivity, can come back to self-control.
1389. 01:23:21 If you don't have that, then it doesn't matter what you put on your calendar.
1390. 01:23:25 It doesn't matter what you put in your task manager.
1391. 01:23:27 You're not going to follow it anyway.
1392. 01:23:30 What's the point?
1393. 01:23:31 So much of it comes back to this.
1394. 01:23:33 Like you were saying, there are a lot of books that we have covered in the past that talk
1395. 01:23:38 and speak to these particular topics in more depth.
1396. 01:23:42 At the same time, like you said early on, older books like this tend to just have a very
1397. 01:23:48 different take on it because it is almost just a brand new idea in some cases, in a
1398. 01:23:54 lot of cases, because it hasn't been widely written about.
1399. 01:24:00 If you want to read a book on habit making, how many have we covered for bookworm?
1400. 01:24:07 And that's just one topic.
1401. 01:24:09 But if you had a book from the early 1900s on habits, I'm all over that because it wasn't
1402. 01:24:17 a popular topic at the time and it would be kind of a fresh view on it.
1403. 01:24:23 I feel like this is the same way.
1404. 01:24:25 We've talked about a lot of this, but it's still very fresh.
1405. 01:24:28 I guess I should say just refreshing to read it because of that different take on it.
1406. 01:24:33 I did struggle with the very end of it.
1407. 01:24:36 I wish I hadn't because I was so ready to give this a five star rating, but then I struggled
1408. 01:24:42 right at the end and maybe I'll reread it and maybe we do a book rereading thing at some
1409. 01:24:48 point and I'll change my opinion.
1410. 01:24:49 But I think I'm going to put it at a 4.5 just because I felt like it didn't get wrapped
1411. 01:24:55 up well enough for me.
1412. 01:24:56 Like I really struggled on that last piece, which is kind of an important one I felt like.
1413. 01:25:02 But so much of it I love that I really wanted it to get there and maybe it should be, but
1414. 01:25:09 I just felt like it didn't quite make it because of that ending piece.
1415. 01:25:13 All that said, definitely going to recommend this one.
1416. 01:25:16 Even in my circles in real life as we're calling it, I feel like this is the one I'll
1417. 01:25:23 probably mention quite a few times for sure.
1418. 01:25:26 All right.
1419. 01:25:27 Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
1420. 01:25:31 I really enjoyed the style.
1421. 01:25:33 I'm not sure what that says about me.
1422. 01:25:38 I felt like he was just very direct in how he was communicating and also I feel a lot
1423. 01:25:47 of times when I read these older books that people were smarter back then.
1424. 01:25:51 Do you ever feel that way?
1425. 01:25:53 I always feel like folks from that time period are, I don't want to say more intelligent,
1426. 01:25:59 but more-
1427. 01:26:00 They sound more intelligent.
1428. 01:26:01 Definitely more intentional.
1429. 01:26:02 Yeah.
1430. 01:26:03 Like definitely more intentional and they tended to think about things differently.
1431. 01:26:06 But I think that's, I have so many reasons for explaining why that is.
1432. 01:26:10 But there's something about it, yes, I'm with you.
1433. 01:26:13 There's something very different about it.
1434. 01:26:15 The language, well, it's not too, it doesn't feel like a textbook.
1435. 01:26:20 It's not something where I have trouble grasping what they're saying, but just the cadence
1436. 01:26:26 and the word choice and everything just feels much more intentional is a good word.
1437. 01:26:33 There's nothing wasted here.
1438. 01:26:37 The traditional advice it seems for a lot of people who are writing books today is start
1439. 01:26:44 with a really dramatic story from your life and then talk about how you discovered a
1440. 01:26:49 solution and spend the next 50,000 words expounding on that solution.
1441. 01:26:53 And especially that first part where they're describing their own situation, it feels a
1442. 01:26:58 lot of times they manufacture a bunch of words in order to create a stronger effect
1443. 01:27:04 of which doesn't always work.
1444. 01:27:06 And this is very short.
1445. 01:27:09 I don't even know how many words this is, but it would probably not even be considered
1446. 01:27:13 a book now, like it would be way too short to traditionally publish.
1447. 01:27:20 But I think that lends itself well to the content.
1448. 01:27:25 I don't think it's one of the best books I've ever read.
1449. 01:27:31 And I hesitate to say that I'll recommend this one to a bunch of people.
1450. 01:27:36 I do think it's very appropriate for the right people, but I feel just in the title, you have
1451. 01:27:44 to have someone who's on board with the idea of taking responsibility for their life already.
1452. 01:27:51 There is no sugar coating this.
1453. 01:27:53 It's right from the beginning where you are is your own being fault.
1454. 01:27:57 And so if you're uncomfortable with that, you're not going to connect to anything that
1455. 01:28:02 he's saying here.
1456. 01:28:04 I also think some of this stuff, I agree with the core principle that he's driving at, but
1457. 01:28:11 some of the way that he worded some of these things, I wasn't a huge fan of.
1458. 01:28:18 We talked about a couple of them, like calmness, being two different definitions there.
1459. 01:28:26 It could be something that comes from within or it could be your environment.
1460. 01:28:30 And I feel like it's a lot more complicated than how simply he articulates it in these
1461. 01:28:37 very short chapters, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
1462. 01:28:43 But if you're really trying to dig into some of these issues and get to the truth of them,
1463. 01:28:49 simplicity would be another one, worry, hurry, all that kind of stuff.
1464. 01:28:53 There's a lot more to be said in this conversation.
1465. 01:28:56 I feel like if this is the only thing you read and this is your starting point towards
1466. 01:29:01 these things, you've got different ends of the spectrum.
1467. 01:29:04 He is definitely skewed way towards one end of the spectrum.
1468. 01:29:08 And so one of the things that Nick Milo talks about is triangulation.
1469. 01:29:13 So I've got this data point over here.
1470. 01:29:15 I can collect a whole bunch of other data points from other voices in the echo chamber,
1471. 01:29:19 which are all going to support that.
1472. 01:29:20 Or I could go the other way and listen to the opposite end and realize that the truth is
1473. 01:29:25 probably somewhere in the middle.
1474. 01:29:26 I feel like that's necessary when you read this book.
1475. 01:29:30 Yeah.
1476. 01:29:31 So I'm going to rate it 4.0.
1477. 01:29:35 And I do think it's a good book.
1478. 01:29:37 And I really enjoyed specifically the chapter on the red tape of duty.
1479. 01:29:40 If that was the only chapter I read, it was still a worthwhile read.
1480. 01:29:46 But I think in order to get to the real meat of some of the issues and the questions that
1481. 01:29:51 he's raising in this book, you need something outside of this book in order to really get
1482. 01:29:56 a benefit from it.
1483. 01:29:58 Maybe that's a little bit of the issue you experienced with that last chapter is it's
1484. 01:30:03 not an all encompassing.
1485. 01:30:06 This is everything on the topic, which we both know from how to read a book.
1486. 01:30:11 That's impossible anyways, but it feels like a lot of books try to be that.
1487. 01:30:17 This one does not at all.
1488. 01:30:19 And so if you go into it thinking, this is going to be like a lot of the other books
1489. 01:30:23 that I read, you might be very disappointed.
1490. 01:30:26 Do you think that's maybe some of the difference between now and then you're talking about
1491. 01:30:33 like older writers, right?
1492. 01:30:36 From 100 years ago or more and how they seem more intelligent.
1493. 01:30:40 I wonder if it's because in today's books, we have a tendency to have books that will
1494. 01:30:47 try to be the one book you're going to read.
1495. 01:30:51 People don't read as much as they used to, right?
1496. 01:30:53 So I wonder if there's a different writing style that is people are going to read one
1497. 01:30:59 book a year.
1498. 01:31:00 So this book has to cover a whole set of topic in order to be read by that person for that
1499. 01:31:09 one year.
1500. 01:31:11 Whereas it used to be people shared books and they read every book they could get a
1501. 01:31:15 hold of because they were so valuable.
1502. 01:31:18 So people were actually more well read, I would say, than they are now.
1503. 01:31:24 Might be wrong.
1504. 01:31:25 I don't know.
1505. 01:31:26 That's my perception.
1506. 01:31:27 But if people are more well read, something like this would by nature have less need to
1507. 01:31:33 be all encompassing because the assumption is you've read a lot of other things.
1508. 01:31:37 In this case, he's assuming you've read the Bible many times.
1509. 01:31:41 You can tell that.
1510. 01:31:42 But I wonder if that's some of the difference.
1511. 01:31:44 I don't know that that's true.
1512. 01:31:45 It's just a speculation.
1513. 01:31:46 I think that's a factor for sure.
1514. 01:31:49 I also remember that he is an essayist, right?
1515. 01:31:52 So when I hear essay, I'm thinking short essay, not long novel.
1516. 01:32:02 So if you combine those two things that he's writing probably these individual chapters
1517. 01:32:09 as essays to spur conversation amongst the other things that are being circulated, people
1518. 01:32:16 are talking about, that makes a ton of sense.
1519. 01:32:21 I do think that you're right.
1520. 01:32:23 Most people are not going to just pick up and read a book for the collection of ideas.
1521. 01:32:29 I will, which is why I like nonfiction books because even if I completely disagree with
1522. 01:32:36 it, more data points.
1523. 01:32:38 But most people aren't going to do that.
1524. 01:32:40 They're going to wait until something is so frustrating that they want a solution to
1525. 01:32:45 a specific problem, which then makes sense that people are writing books as systems and
1526. 01:32:51 just do these three things and all your problems will go away.
1527. 01:32:55 Yep.
1528. 01:32:56 All right.
1529. 01:32:57 So we got a 4.5 and a 4.0.
1530. 01:32:59 I'm ready to shelf it, Mike.
1531. 01:33:01 You keep talking about this book that follows up to this one.
1532. 01:33:04 What is it?
1533. 01:33:05 It is 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman.
1534. 01:33:09 The subtitle is, I don't have it in front of me, but it's something like Time Management
1535. 01:33:13 from Mir Mortals.
1536. 01:33:14 If you remember the previous Oliver Berkman book that we did, he brought up the idea of
1537. 01:33:21 the Momento Morrie.
1538. 01:33:22 I think that's the first time we encountered that idea of someday you are going to die.
1539. 01:33:29 If someday you are going to die and the number of projects that you complete by then is worthless,
1540. 01:33:36 how does that affect your productivity?
1541. 01:33:39 That's what we will be talking about next time.
1542. 01:33:41 Yep.
1543. 01:33:42 And I'm shocked that you picked this.
1544. 01:33:44 This was one that I was on the edge of picking.
1545. 01:33:47 And then you did this.
1546. 01:33:48 Like, really?
1547. 01:33:49 Okay.
1548. 01:33:50 All right.
1549. 01:33:51 Let's see how that...
1550. 01:33:52 So I'm very...
1551. 01:33:53 You got me...
1552. 01:33:54 I'm starting this tonight.
1553. 01:33:55 I might be kicking the bit.
1554. 01:33:57 I'm going to go ahead and get my head to bed early tonight.
1555. 01:33:59 Following 4,000 Weeks, since we're into this whole systems thing at the moment, I felt
1556. 01:34:08 like I needed to choose this.
1557. 01:34:09 I've had this in the back of my head for a while and then I was glancing through the
1558. 01:34:14 Bookworm Club recommendations list and I saw where Alex had recommended this back in May.
1559. 01:34:22 But thinking in systems.
1560. 01:34:24 This is a primer by Danella Meadows.
1561. 01:34:27 I think that's how you say it.
1562. 01:34:29 And this one is...
1563. 01:34:31 It's kind of an introduction to systems thinking.
1564. 01:34:35 But the reading I've done, it is that this is definitely considered one that is the go
1565. 01:34:40 to one of the go-tos for learning about systems thinking.
1566. 01:34:45 And you and I both tend to think in systems.
1567. 01:34:47 Thus, I felt like this one is probably a good one to get some conversation going.
1568. 01:34:53 So we're either going to love this one or hate it.
1569. 01:34:55 I'm pretty sure it's going to be one of those two categories.
1570. 01:34:57 I don't think there's going to be a middle ground on this one, Mike.
1571. 01:35:00 All right.
1572. 01:35:01 So there's that.
1573. 01:35:02 Gap books.
1574. 01:35:03 What do you got, Mike?
1575. 01:35:04 I have Simple Numbers 2.0 by Greg Crabtree, which is basically about business numbers from
1576. 01:35:13 the perspective of startups, I guess.
1577. 01:35:17 And it's interesting because in the startup world, it seems to be the primary reason that
1578. 01:35:21 you run a business is that you are building it in order to sell it.
1579. 01:35:26 And so right at the beginning of this book talks about that as one of the options, but
1580. 01:35:29 not the only option to building a valuable business with the possibility of maybe you
1581. 01:35:35 just enjoy working in this business.
1582. 01:35:37 And so that's perfectly fine.
1583. 01:35:40 Here's how you do it regularly and systematically.
1584. 01:35:45 So this is one of the areas that I want to grow in over the next year is just kind of
1585. 01:35:49 understanding business financials and accounting.
1586. 01:35:53 I feel like there's a lot of very, once you understand them, logical reasons for why things
1587. 01:36:01 grow or why they don't.
1588. 01:36:04 And until you really dig into it, you kind of feel like I do at the moment, which is
1589. 01:36:09 things just kind of magically align or they don't.
1590. 01:36:13 Yep.
1591. 01:36:14 So this is Mike's attempt to grow up business-wise.
1592. 01:36:19 That's an interesting book.
1593. 01:36:20 I may have to grab that one.
1594. 01:36:22 That sounds fascinating to me.
1595. 01:36:24 Anyway, as far as gap books, I'm still in the middle of "Take Back Your Family."
1596. 01:36:28 I mentioned that one last time.
1597. 01:36:29 It's by Jefferson Bethke.
1598. 01:36:31 It's a Christian's take on the whole busy world.
1599. 01:36:37 And I can see why a number of my local friends have said, "You got to read this."
1600. 01:36:42 So yes, I'm still in the middle of it.
1601. 01:36:45 I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do once I'm done with it.
1602. 01:36:47 I haven't done a gap book in so long that I need to do something, like throw party and
1603. 01:36:51 some kind.
1604. 01:36:52 So anyway, "Take Back Your Family" by Jefferson Bethke.
1605. 01:36:55 I mentioned earlier that thinking and systems was one that was on the recommendations list.
1606. 01:37:01 If you have a recommendation that you would like us to cover, go to club.bookworm.fm and
1607. 01:37:08 you'll see a list of recommendations that are set up in account and you can post a new
1608. 01:37:12 book in that category and we'll see it.
1609. 01:37:15 And it self-ranks.
1610. 01:37:16 You can vote on them.
1611. 01:37:17 You definitely do look at that.
1612. 01:37:18 I should probably update the ones that we've already read.
1613. 01:37:20 Not I'm saying that.
1614. 01:37:22 But the other thing that you can do when you get to that club is join it and get a membership
1615. 01:37:28 there.
1616. 01:37:29 It's a paid membership.
1617. 01:37:30 It's $5 a month or 60 a year if you'd rather do it that way.
1618. 01:37:36 And when you do that, you not only get our undying gratitude because you help us keep
1619. 01:37:41 this show going, you get a desktop background that Mike put together, which is pretty slick,
1620. 01:37:46 to be honest.
1621. 01:37:47 You get some old gap book episodes that I did.
1622. 01:37:49 There are some short form podcasts that are exclusive to bookworm members.
1623. 01:37:56 But especially there's all of Mike's mine node files and all of the notes that he takes
1624. 01:38:02 there as well.
1625. 01:38:03 I've never figured out how to share mine.
1626. 01:38:04 Mine are just weird.
1627. 01:38:05 So at some point, I'll try to figure that out, but not now.
1628. 01:38:09 So anyway, you get all of Mike's mine node files.
1629. 01:38:11 All of this to say, the membership to me is well worth that $5.
1630. 01:38:16 Not only for all the things, but because you get to be an awesome person if you do that.
1631. 01:38:20 So thank you for those of you who do that.
1632. 01:38:23 And we would love to have you on board if you're not.
1633. 01:38:25 Yes, thank you to all the awesome persons.
1634. 01:38:28 All right.
1635. 01:38:30 If you are reading along with us, then pick up 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman.
1636. 01:38:35 And we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.