139: Personal Socrates by Marc Champagne

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1. 00:00:00 So something pretty cool happened last week Joe. I know and this is pretty cool
2. 00:00:06 I'm excited about it. Yeah Blake is on to us in the chat here Ali Abdall mentioned
3. 00:00:13 Bookworm in a YouTube video
4. 00:00:16 Which I will paste the link here in the the chat to the chapter where he starts talking about this
5. 00:00:23 the bummer about this is that I didn't know about this for a couple of days and
6. 00:00:29 By the time I found out about it
7. 00:00:31 I was at dinner with my wife and I got a text message from my friend saying dude
8. 00:00:35 Ali Abdall just named dropped bookworm. I immediately went to look and realized
9. 00:00:40 That is team I had had linked to the wrong bookworm
10. 00:00:43 So first couple of days when hundred thousand plus people were watching the video
11. 00:00:48 It was pointing to our old nemesis KCRW
12. 00:00:52 See we we let up too soon Joe we stop the fight too soon and
13. 00:00:59 Then we did it came back to bite us
14. 00:01:01 It's totally dead. Yep, then here we are but alas at least we were acknowledged
15. 00:01:08 So if you have found us through Ollie welcome welcome to bookworm. Glad to have you on board
16. 00:01:14 Yeah, welcome to the team. Thank you Ollie for the mention that was super cool to see and
17. 00:01:18 It got sorted out. It was very responsive
18. 00:01:21 Team fixed it right away. So and it's super cool to know that Ollie Abdall listens to bookworm
19. 00:01:28 I've been a fan of Ollie's for quite a while
20. 00:01:31 Heard him on different podcasts and followed some of his YouTube stuff
21. 00:01:34 I'm not big into YouTube, but he's one of the few people that I watch what he makes because I think it's really really good
22. 00:01:40 I remember him making the notion tracker video back in the day
23. 00:01:43 That was the thing that actually made notion click for me when I was using it for some editorial stuff and kind of influences
24. 00:01:49 A lot of the things that we do editorial wise with notion at the the sweet setup, but super super cool and
25. 00:01:55 Yeah, thank you for the for the mention. It's always kind of interesting to me because it's not a big
26. 00:02:02 We're not a big podcast
27. 00:02:04 I mean the other people on that list are like the Tim Ferris shows and things like that and everyone's in a while
28. 00:02:09 I'll
29. 00:02:10 Hear somebody share something or see somebody link something like Andre Chaperone actually was another one who had a post and
30. 00:02:19 He's the guy behind the tiny little business
31. 00:02:22 Website and had a list of his favorite podcast. I saw a bookworm on there one time like well that that's super cool
32. 00:02:28 I've been literally following you for a very long time. It's it's awesome to see that
33. 00:02:32 People who I appreciate, you know, they appreciate some of the stuff that we do always always warms the conchles of my heart
34. 00:02:39 The conchles of your heart nice nice
35. 00:02:42 Yeah, it is a little it's it's a strange feeling when you have people who you admire you look up to and consider a
36. 00:02:50 strong mentor of yours from a distance
37. 00:02:53 Invert it and start
38. 00:02:55 Paying attention to you like it's such a weird feeling
39. 00:02:58 Yeah, so I have a word for those people they are my internet heroes and I've used that term for quite a while and
40. 00:03:07 When I first started using it my wife would kind of roll her eyes at me
41. 00:03:11 but it's interesting because I have
42. 00:03:15 Since I started using that term been able to connect with and meet several of my internet heroes
43. 00:03:20 Yeah, and I want to pay that forward, you know when when I have the opportunity to
44. 00:03:29 Pull somebody else up. I want to take advantage of that that kind of sparked that because
45. 00:03:35 Blake was mentioning I guess I got to watch what I say now. Yeah
46. 00:03:43 Always watch what you say you never know it's true. It's true
47. 00:03:47 so
48. 00:03:49 That was cool. No, it also school follow up is cool. It is sometimes let's talk about some of these action items
49. 00:03:57 Did you make better use of your fresh starts? I think so
50. 00:04:01 maybe I
51. 00:04:03 Discovered something the last two weeks and that is that if you want to find fresh starts
52. 00:04:10 You can find them just about everywhere the problem with fresh starts is that you can find them just about everywhere
53. 00:04:17 That is true
54. 00:04:19 so
55. 00:04:21 It's both a positive and a negative to some degree. So I'm learning that I need to just be aware of that and try to
56. 00:04:28 Adjust my expectations for what comes out of those
57. 00:04:32 But at the same time trying not to overdo that at the same
58. 00:04:37 You know in the same interval there because it's easy to try to
59. 00:04:41 Make use of every single one of them and then the next thing you know
60. 00:04:45 You're always trying to change something and that's not helpful either
61. 00:04:48 True your other action item here was to be more intentional with your time-based reminders. How'd you do with that?
62. 00:04:55 Yeah, I have added a bank of
63. 00:04:58 time-based reminders and
64. 00:05:01 Realize that I have probably too many different systems in place for that
65. 00:05:07 and
66. 00:05:08 Namely like I've got some that come through Omni focus. I've got some that come through the do app
67. 00:05:14 Now anymore. I've got a few of them that are coming out of obsidian
68. 00:05:19 But I'm not a real big fan of the obsidian method with those because they don't seem to actually work at the exact time
69. 00:05:26 Maybe that's just the way I've got it set up
70. 00:05:28 I don't know but I've been unable to get them to actually trigger at the time I need them out of obsidian
71. 00:05:36 So I'm probably abandoning that particular process, but yes
72. 00:05:40 I gotta figure out what the right mechanism is for those all right, so maybe I
73. 00:05:45 Might be better with time-based reminders. I've set more of them than I have historically
74. 00:05:54 Which is I think is a good thing. That's but at the same time like that means that they end up in too many different places
75. 00:06:00 That's probably a win, but yeah, I don't know. It's uh, I feel that that tension too
76. 00:06:06 It's really task management that the reminders for me tend to get spread out and
77. 00:06:12 It's tempting to try to have like one system where you have everything
78. 00:06:17 But there's definitely limitations with that kind of stuff too
79. 00:06:20 I'm still experimenting with running everything out of obsidian and I think that's gonna work for me
80. 00:06:26 But there's advantages to things like do for example where you can have those nagging reminders
81. 00:06:31 And they just keep showing up until you actually do the thing so I get it
82. 00:06:36 I've got two action items here for finding more opportunities for fresh starts and creating a mulligan plan and
83. 00:06:43 the opportunities for fresh starts I did make a list of these and
84. 00:06:50 They are basically everywhere
85. 00:06:52 I don't know which of these I intend to really take advantage of
86. 00:06:58 But just the obvious ones are like start of the year
87. 00:07:02 I put start of a quarter because I've got the whole personal retreat framework that I follow
88. 00:07:07 So coming back from that starting a new quarter. That's obviously an opportunity for a fresh start
89. 00:07:12 But then things like
90. 00:07:14 anniversaries and birthdays
91. 00:07:16 After a vacation the start of the school year launching a product even something like Mondays
92. 00:07:23 I feel our yep
93. 00:07:25 Opportunity for a fresh start so I started making this list and quickly realized that this is gonna get
94. 00:07:30 Overwhelming with if I try to do something with all of these
95. 00:07:33 So I think I'm gonna mark this is done and just walk away from it saying I've made the list and
96. 00:07:38 Recognize that there are lots of these
97. 00:07:41 So next time I I'm looking to leverage one just grab the closest one
98. 00:07:46 Or if there's something that I feel is more
99. 00:07:51 Significant it's gonna take more effort then maybe I'll do something a little bit bigger
100. 00:07:55 like a
101. 00:07:57 Anniversary or a birthday or something like that, but that's done
102. 00:08:00 And then the creating the mulligan plan I did this as well
103. 00:08:05 And this was just simply listing out like the number of times per week. I wanted to do certain things and in the previous episode
104. 00:08:12 I had given some like exercise based ones
105. 00:08:15 Which I intended to use as like a springboard into thinking about some other areas
106. 00:08:19 I actually just kept it to that I
107. 00:08:21 Was thinking about like journaling or mindfulness meditation or stuff like that
108. 00:08:28 And I just thought like I don't really like the way that the mulligan plan is coming together for that kind of stuff
109. 00:08:33 So I'm just gonna keep it for the exercise because that's the thing where I've got to make sure I'd I do certain numbers of things
110. 00:08:40 in a in a given week, so mine is simply
111. 00:08:44 Exercise three times a week or really lift three times a week run twice a week and bike once a week
112. 00:08:50 Which is six days a week then and I'm working out
113. 00:08:53 But the last couple of years I'd actually been working out every single day and it felt great
114. 00:08:57 So I feel like that's very doable. I've slipped with that in the recent past because
115. 00:09:02 Broke my hand couldn't lift
116. 00:09:04 Everything got thrown kind of out of whack trying to get back into the swing of things and establish a normal routine again
117. 00:09:12 And it's still kind of fuzzy how it's gonna shake out because the lifting routine that I have the gym that is
118. 00:09:20 Right by our house that we used to go to is under new management, and I don't like it
119. 00:09:24 It's a very different meat headish crowd
120. 00:09:30 And it's just not my scene
121. 00:09:35 Yep
122. 00:09:37 So I got to find someplace new
123. 00:09:41 But everywhere that I've looked it's just kind of rubs me the wrong way
124. 00:09:46 So I don't know where I'm gonna go. I just know that I don't really want to go there
125. 00:09:51 Toying around we're creating a new routine with stuff at home
126. 00:09:55 I have some things at home. Thanks Blake for the rowing machine idea, which cost me a bunch of money
127. 00:10:00 But I've been doing it consistently and it feels great
128. 00:10:02 I've also got some adjustable dumbbells and a and a bike and stuff like that, so I could do like a simple version of things
129. 00:10:10 But my routine as it currently constructed requires a little bit more a little bit more in terms of the
130. 00:10:17 Facilities and stuff, so I got to sort through that I did find a church nearby which has a
131. 00:10:23 Sports program, so it actually has a like a weight room, but it's not a it's not a great weight room
132. 00:10:30 They do have a couple of basketball courts and they have like open gym
133. 00:10:34 Which that has got me thinking about maybe going back and playing basketball once a week
134. 00:10:40 Because it's been a long time since I actually played like I coached my son's team
135. 00:10:44 But not played with a bunch of guys in several years, and it's ridiculously cheap
136. 00:10:50 It's ten dollars for a family for a month. That is cheap. Yeah, so I like everything about that except
137. 00:10:58 The facilities in the weight room, so still don't know how that's gonna shake out, but I've got the mulligan plan at least
138. 00:11:05 Just got to hammer out the specifics of the routine yet. Highly recommend the basketball deal
139. 00:11:11 That's I played basketball with a group of guys every Thursday morning six a.m. Nice and
140. 00:11:16 I'm the one that makes everybody run more than normal
141. 00:11:19 Because that was the way my high school team played it was full speed four quarters. You never stop running like that was
142. 00:11:30 So we did and our goal was to wear everybody out by the fourth quarter and then get all your points in the fourth quarter
143. 00:11:36 That was how we played
144. 00:11:38 So I have not broken that old habit apparently
145. 00:11:42 Yeah, uh, it's funny because the last time I I played with a a group of guys
146. 00:11:47 I was playing early in the morning. They played at 5 30 at a local high school
147. 00:11:53 And
148. 00:11:55 They moved so I stopped going turns out the place that they moved is this church
149. 00:12:02 That was like oh several years ago
150. 00:12:04 And they used to play like Tuesdays and thursday mornings. I think I forget the cadence, but now they play every morning
151. 00:12:12 From five to eight at the church nice
152. 00:12:15 Five in the mornings will eight every day. That is intense. Wow. I don't think the sense agreement plays
153. 00:12:22 But it's probably grown a bit and they have people coming and going but yeah, it's on the schedule like five to eight
154. 00:12:28 Every day. So that's that's pretty cool
155. 00:12:30 Uh, I will join that at some point, but I also am a little bit hesitant. My finger's still healing. I don't want to
156. 00:12:36 Do anything stupid?
157. 00:12:39 Yeah, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. We should play basketball sometime. Let's do it
158. 00:12:44 We have the bookworm basketball club. Oh, dude. I love that idea
159. 00:12:50 That's a little bit of a commute for you and I to get together to do that though
160. 00:12:53 That is true. That is true. Well, should we talk about today's book? Yeah, this could be a long window for not careful
161. 00:13:01 That is a understatement of the year
162. 00:13:06 So today's book is personal Socrates
163. 00:13:11 by mark champagne and this is
164. 00:13:14 hard to describe as a book it's a bunch of
165. 00:13:20 Profiles, I believe that he calls them of
166. 00:13:23 Primarily famous people who he's kind of done some
167. 00:13:28 research and some studies on
168. 00:13:31 who these people are and what they've accomplished and kind of dissected
169. 00:13:37 their thought processes and condensed it down into some clarifying questions
170. 00:13:44 All right, so on the back of this book, which was printed in
171. 00:13:49 Conjunction with baren fig it says at any point we are one question away from a different life and I
172. 00:13:56 Love that premise. It reminds me a lot of the concept of
173. 00:14:02 Thinking time from I think it was the road less stupid
174. 00:14:06 by Keith Cunningham and
175. 00:14:09 In that book the big takeaway I remember was that when you learn to ask the right questions then the answers become clear
176. 00:14:16 so
177. 00:14:18 Combine that approach of finding the right questions with a book that is literally just a bunch of clarifying questions
178. 00:14:24 And you've got a recipe for mics kind of book when I first opened this
179. 00:14:31 I saw the quote that was on the back at any point
180. 00:14:34 We were one question away from a different life and I immediately thought did he write this for mike
181. 00:14:38 I'm pretty sure this book is a result of an interview with mike. It has to be
182. 00:14:43 That's
183. 00:14:45 That was my initial reaction
184. 00:14:48 On reading that quote, but before that
185. 00:14:50 I I have to just point out
186. 00:14:52 Like we've mentioned this about a handful of books
187. 00:14:56 Probably over the last maybe six months or so
188. 00:15:00 How the form factor?
189. 00:15:03 Starts to play a big role in your experience with the book
190. 00:15:06 Like they're starting to think about how it feels in your hands and not just
191. 00:15:13 Print a book and get it out the door and when mike mentioned that this is a in conjunction with baron fig
192. 00:15:19 Keep in mind that baron fig like one of their claims to fame is high quality notebooks
193. 00:15:24 Like for writing in them for taking notes and such like that's what they've done in the past
194. 00:15:31 So for them to take that same style and to put it into a nonfiction book format
195. 00:15:37 Like there's just so many things they did with this that are
196. 00:15:40 Fascinating to me like if you've noticed mike like you can open this book to pretty much any page and it will stay there
197. 00:15:46 Yes, you notice that very
198. 00:15:48 Esque
199. 00:15:50 Yeah, it definitely is but there's also some like they've of course got you know
200. 00:15:55 A couple variations. I think three or four different variations of fonts and colors, but there's one little tiny
201. 00:16:02 Thing that they did in the bottom right hand corner of the right hand page
202. 00:16:07 Of every single one of these chapters that when I saw it I thought huh
203. 00:16:11 Why don't more books do this? This is brilliant
204. 00:16:14 I love this because I do this all the time but in the bottom
205. 00:16:18 On the right hand side bottom right or the right hand page
206. 00:16:21 It will tell you how many pages are left in that chapter so the it's usually four sometimes three pages left in that particular
207. 00:16:28 Section and you don't have to skip ahead to see how many pages it is before you're done with it
208. 00:16:35 I feel like this is brilliant because I'm always doing this like I don't want to start the next section
209. 00:16:39 If I've only got a couple minutes, but if it's going to be two pages, I'll do that
210. 00:16:42 Or if I've got 15 minutes and I know
211. 00:16:45 How many like you know what I'm saying like you can look ahead. I do that all the time
212. 00:16:50 Glance ahead to see how much of a chapter I have left
213. 00:16:52 But I don't know how to do that with this. I don't know why that little thing like made my day when I figured out what was going on
214. 00:16:59 It's it's brilliant people should do this more often
215. 00:17:03 It is uh, I agree that's
216. 00:17:05 One of those things that just eliminates a little bit of friction when you're reading it because I do the same thing as you
217. 00:17:10 I'm reading another book right now
218. 00:17:13 And uh, I do that exact thing where you skip ahead to see how many pages are left in the chapter
219. 00:17:18 And I didn't even realize how much that annoyed me until I was done with this one
220. 00:17:23 And then I started doing it again and I had the same recollection like oh
221. 00:17:27 The personal Socrates book just told me
222. 00:17:31 Yes, yes, I started in on our next book and I was like, oh
223. 00:17:35 I have to glance ahead again
224. 00:17:38 Please bring it back. Please everybody. I don't know whose idea this was a baren fig
225. 00:17:43 But they need to like tell every publisher everywhere to do this
226. 00:17:47 Please do this if you're a publisher, please do this
227. 00:17:50 Yeah, and the paper in the book itself, it feels a little bit weird in my opinion for a book
228. 00:17:59 It's pretty thin. I mean, it's not
229. 00:18:01 Low quality but it feels a little bit. I mean the cover doesn't I was banging it on my desk before we started
230. 00:18:09 You're like are you pounding on your keyboard? No, that's the cover of the book hitting my desk
231. 00:18:12 Yes, totally sounded like he was hitting the keys on his keyboard
232. 00:18:16 It totally but the paper feels a little bit flimsy for me, but no big deal
233. 00:18:20 Yeah, I can't say I noticed that
234. 00:18:22 I do know like you can tell that they were intentional about how much space they left around the words like sometimes
235. 00:18:28 When you get a book they always they like to print the page really close to the edge of the words
236. 00:18:32 That's annoying because then you can't write in it
237. 00:18:35 This one they specifically left you like three quarters of an inch
238. 00:18:38 Around the outside so you could write in those margins
239. 00:18:42 And then they leave you two or three pages four pages in the back for notes as well
240. 00:18:47 Like this is a company that knows you need to use a book and not just
241. 00:18:52 You know put it on a shelf and make it look pretty
242. 00:18:54 So I did not actually write in my book
243. 00:18:57 Did you I always do yes because I'm an animal like that
244. 00:19:01 Did you uh write with a fountain pen per chance?
245. 00:19:05 Uh
246. 00:19:07 Tonight no, I don't think in this case I did sometimes I do but in this case I don't think that happened
247. 00:19:11 I don't want to mark up my book
248. 00:19:13 But I am curious because baren fig paper is like you said
249. 00:19:16 Usually pretty decent if that means that it would actually work with a fountain pen or not
250. 00:19:22 We're gonna find out generally you don't want to use a fountain pen when you mark up your books
251. 00:19:26 It's going to create a mess but right if there's one book where it might work
252. 00:19:31 This is probably the one I mean it bleeds a hair but not much okay
253. 00:19:35 Yeah, I would feel comfortable using a fountain pen in this so yeah, I would say so cool
254. 00:19:40 It also comes in a box and includes a very cool bookmark
255. 00:19:46 Yep, did you use it or do you use the bookworm bookmark?
256. 00:19:51 Good question. I'm pretty sure I used the bookworm bookmark
257. 00:19:56 But I also kept the original one in the book itself
258. 00:20:00 But I tend to grab the same bookworm bookmark at this point
259. 00:20:05 And when i'm done with a book bring it with me to my next book
260. 00:20:08 Pretty sure that's what I did with this one also, but this uh, this bookmark is
261. 00:20:14 Yeah, it's got like this reflective material on it for like the keyhole design and it's very clever
262. 00:20:20 It definitely fits with the whole aesthetic. It's like a whole package. It's not just a book
263. 00:20:25 And uh, it feels really well done. I really like the color scheme. It's like this blue gray black
264. 00:20:32 sort of a thing
265. 00:20:35 and every single page has like little hints of color in it
266. 00:20:40 It's not like color diagrams or anything like that
267. 00:20:43 but just very much in line with the
268. 00:20:46 design of the the cover and the the box itself and like I said, I absolutely love this premise for the book
269. 00:20:52 It's all these different profiles. I don't know how many there are all together. I didn't count them all up
270. 00:20:56 But they are broken into three different sections
271. 00:21:00 because
272. 00:21:02 hashtag productivity book
273. 00:21:04 Yep
274. 00:21:05 All great books three books part one is get clear part two is live intentionally
275. 00:21:11 And part three is expand possibility
276. 00:21:14 and each of these profiles is
277. 00:21:16 Probably somewhere between three and eight pages depending on who he's talking about and uh rather than try to go through all of them
278. 00:21:24 We picked some
279. 00:21:27 And I added a couple of them for each section
280. 00:21:30 I got mad at joe before we recorded because I said you didn't add anything
281. 00:21:33 I told you to put your the ones you wanted to discuss in the outline and we just agreed on the ones we wanted to talk about
282. 00:21:38 so
283. 00:21:40 because I think
284. 00:21:42 I just want to say that like in each of these parts. I was trying to get a quick count
285. 00:21:46 Because I think there's what is there 1215 in each
286. 00:21:51 I don't remember with the exact same number. So there's there's somewhere around 12 to 15 per
287. 00:21:56 Part 10 to 15 somewhere there, but we're gonna go through three
288. 00:22:01 per part here
289. 00:22:03 And I just want to point that out because there's so much more than what we're gonna cover today
290. 00:22:08 At least I think over the plan of what we're gonna cover today. There's a lot more
291. 00:22:13 We'll see if we cover the whole thing or not. Let's probably not do that
292. 00:22:16 This will be a four-hour episode if we do that, but there's a lot a lot a lot in here
293. 00:22:21 Like there's a lot of names in this book
294. 00:22:23 That are mentioned that we're not even gonna step into like jim's clear is here and we're skipping over him because we've already talked about him
295. 00:22:30 Right, but we're also skipping over pakaso so that's true. Well, I did give you an opportunity
296. 00:22:38 You did you did but I think we have the right nine. I think we're good
297. 00:22:41 and I guess before we get into the individual parts we should mention that
298. 00:22:47 Mark champagne is a
299. 00:22:49 Podcaster for a show called behind the human so he's talked to a lot of these people not everybody
300. 00:22:55 And he also was the person behind the ky o
301. 00:23:00 Journaling app which I tried to go back and find he tells his story at the beginning
302. 00:23:07 How it had?
303. 00:23:09 87 million downloads and he's sitting there ready to delete it from the store because he had
304. 00:23:15 Asked himself a question which made clear a different life path for him
305. 00:23:20 And I thought that was a really cool way to
306. 00:23:23 Introduce the the book. It did not feel like sometimes that kind of stuff is like
307. 00:23:28 Oh, look at all this stuff that I was able to accomplish and then look at me
308. 00:23:32 I made the ultimate sacrifice
309. 00:23:34 Mimi me. I I you know he was just setting up this
310. 00:23:38 Curiosity theme and I thought he did it really well. Yeah. Yeah, it was one of those
311. 00:23:45 Scenarios from like wait, you had this nailed you had the product you had it and you deleted it
312. 00:23:51 Yeah, okay now I have lots of questions. Thankfully you're gonna process a lot of questions here too
313. 00:23:57 So that that was a great hook to get you going and that was just in the introduction. So yes agreed
314. 00:24:05 All right, so let's go to
315. 00:24:07 Part one here, which is get clear and there are
316. 00:24:12 Lots of different
317. 00:24:14 Profiles that we could choose from I want to start here with the first one though on calfussman
318. 00:24:20 and each of these profiles is kind of set up the same way the title of the
319. 00:24:26 chapter or the profile is
320. 00:24:29 The question that you can apply yourself from the profiling question. So
321. 00:24:35 The question for this profile is how can I ask the most powerful questions?
322. 00:24:39 That is a great one to start with for the way this book is formatted
323. 00:24:44 and
324. 00:24:45 Calfussman is according to the bio in the book an iconic journalist author and storyteller
325. 00:24:50 and then there's a
326. 00:24:52 Little bullet point list of the things that they've done
327. 00:24:56 So a long time writer for Esquire magazine. I know you're at times best-selling author
328. 00:25:00 Interviewed icons like Muhammad Ali Serena Williams Jeff Bezos Robert De Niro
329. 00:25:05 a host of the big questions podcast
330. 00:25:08 Had breakfast with Larry king every morning, you know and these bullet points are interesting because some of them are just life accomplishments
331. 00:25:15 but then some of them are
332. 00:25:18 Insights into the way that they think like the very next one is philosophy to life
333. 00:25:23 If you change your questions, you can change your life one of the greatest interviewers and storytellers of all time
334. 00:25:28 So I really like these little bios and for the most part we're going to skip over these
335. 00:25:33 But I'd feel like this is a very effective approach rather than trying to tell a story about who the person is
336. 00:25:41 Having some quick bullet points where you can refresh yourself on their history if you need it before mark gets into
337. 00:25:48 his
338. 00:25:50 Profile of the person makes this actually a much shorter book than it could have been
339. 00:25:55 I mean if you don't crank through those bullet points and you're trying to set a stage for
340. 00:25:59 Why this person is important? This could be five times the length. Oh, yeah easily easily
341. 00:26:07 This is this is the point in the book where I realized that mark is asking questions about the book format
342. 00:26:14 As he goes through it like you realize that because what you're what you just said
343. 00:26:20 It would be very easy to make this book twice as long as it is and it's already 250 pages
344. 00:26:24 And going through it. It doesn't feel like that. It feels like it's very short
345. 00:26:28 Even though it is one of the like on the longer side of things like 200 is kind of what I tend to expect out of them
346. 00:26:35 and
347. 00:26:36 This point where he's got these bio points
348. 00:26:38 They even make it in a smaller font make it a slightly lighter color gray like they do all those things
349. 00:26:44 And like I would read these like because there's a lot of names in here. I don't know
350. 00:26:49 And I'm sure that's partly why he's
351. 00:26:51 Doing this because there are obviously going to be some
352. 00:26:54 That you know, but a lot of them you don't and even the ones you know
353. 00:26:59 Like one of them we're gonna cover later. Kobe Bryant like there's some points in that bio
354. 00:27:05 Like I feel like I know Kobe Bryant really well like basketball was my sport we talked about that earlier
355. 00:27:10 but Kobe was of course somebody that every basketball player would look up to
356. 00:27:14 And yet there's some things in that bio. They're like wait. I didn't know that like that
357. 00:27:19 That was completely new to me. So there's a lot of things in these that are super helpful
358. 00:27:23 But you're right it does speed up the process of getting you into the chapter
359. 00:27:27 So what these bios do and by attaching them to a
360. 00:27:31 famous or semi-famous person
361. 00:27:34 Is it wraps the question
362. 00:27:37 in a story
363. 00:27:39 Which makes it more entertaining to read
364. 00:27:42 but also
365. 00:27:44 Ultimately the big takeaway in each one of these is
366. 00:27:48 the question or questions
367. 00:27:50 That you are left with. I mean, I don't even know how many action items I have from this book
368. 00:27:57 Because I'm not going to write them all down for the podcast. There's probably more than 12. It's
369. 00:28:04 Every single section has multiple opportunities for you to brew on these questions and again any one of these can change your life
370. 00:28:12 So
371. 00:28:13 This one at the very beginning
372. 00:28:15 I just like this because how can I ask the most powerful questions? That's really the approach going into this
373. 00:28:20 Whole book this whole project and the the big thing I walk out of this profile thinking about is what are the questions that I'm not
374. 00:28:30 Asking it's great to have a clarifying question those clarifying questions are actually a keep
375. 00:28:36 Piece of the personal retreat stuff that I do. What should I start doing? Stop doing and keep doing
376. 00:28:41 Simple questions, but there's a lot of clarity that comes from those
377. 00:28:44 But I don't pretend that there aren't better questions to be asking especially in specific scenarios
378. 00:28:51 If you're trying to find clarity in a specific area of your life
379. 00:28:53 There are other questions that are probably better openers than those are
380. 00:28:59 And so I leave this first section
381. 00:29:02 Curious as to like what are all the questions that are possible that I haven't even
382. 00:29:09 Considered yet because it kind of ends with this
383. 00:29:12 Statement that you're never going to get an answer to a question that you don't ask
384. 00:29:18 100% true
385. 00:29:21 And then we get blocked from asking great questions
386. 00:29:23 Because we overthink situations and this is the part where mike raises his hand and says guilty because I do this all the time
387. 00:29:31 Trying to learn not to
388. 00:29:34 And I feel like questions are a systems or a process driven
389. 00:29:40 solution
390. 00:29:41 to
391. 00:29:42 Overthinking if you force yourself to just follow the question
392. 00:29:46 then you can
393. 00:29:48 Circumvent a lot of the the overthinking at least that's my personal philosophy with this
394. 00:29:54 Yeah, and just to show the opposite side of the coin you have been
395. 00:29:59 And correct me if I put words in your mouth here, but you have been somebody who has
396. 00:30:04 preached or taught the value of asking yourself good questions for quite some time and have been in the practice of
397. 00:30:12 asking reflective and
398. 00:30:15 challenging questions of yourself for a
399. 00:30:18 Decent period now probably years
400. 00:30:21 Easily at this point is that fair statement? Yep, so
401. 00:30:24 the opposite side of that coin is somebody like me who doesn't do this at all and
402. 00:30:29 I'm not someone who has
403. 00:30:32 a pat set of questions that I go through regularly up until just here recently
404. 00:30:37 Whenever we had a recent book that I'm drawing a blank on where we had three questions that came out of it
405. 00:30:43 And I don't remember what those were, but I know that it's a part of my monthly questioning
406. 00:30:47 Process right now. So like every month I'm answering these questions and
407. 00:30:52 That is something that I find
408. 00:30:55 Super helpful and want to expand on so like you said you could easily have tons of action items that come from this
409. 00:31:01 Book because of the format of the way he lays us out
410. 00:31:04 He gives you a story tells you the background of the person and how they came to that question
411. 00:31:08 They kind of flush it out with maybe one or two other examples and stories
412. 00:31:12 And then he gives you a section at the end where it's like here's a practical
413. 00:31:17 Task for you to take on and then he has a one-liner at the very end of a final thought
414. 00:31:23 And that last little one page of here's what you need to do with this
415. 00:31:29 Remember what I said there's 10 to 15 of these per part, which means there's I'd have to check somewhere between 30 and 45 of these things
416. 00:31:35 That means you can come out of here with at least 30 to 45
417. 00:31:39 Tasks
418. 00:31:41 Which gets to be intense which is partly why one of mine is to just walk through this thing once more
419. 00:31:46 Just from a high level overview and just figure out which of those are worth doing right now
420. 00:31:51 Because it could get unwieldy very quick
421. 00:31:54 So it's intense. It really is
422. 00:31:58 Yeah, it absolutely can can be the
423. 00:32:00 Episode or the book with the questions by the way, I dug it up while you were talking is 4,000 weeks
424. 00:32:08 There you go. Yeah, episode 135
425. 00:32:11 Blake in the chat said he was reading that right now. It's a good one. Yep. It definitely is
426. 00:32:15 So you have all these questions
427. 00:32:18 From this this book and I don't know what exactly to do with all these
428. 00:32:24 Other than to consider them as we go through it and then like you said probably go back and revisit them at at some point
429. 00:32:31 I'm twying around with the idea of just dumping all of these into a text file and obsidian and creating some sort of like
430. 00:32:40 macro thing and quick ad which just grabs a random question and drops it in whatever note I happen to be in
431. 00:32:48 I don't know
432. 00:32:49 I don't know how effective that would be on the one hand. I feel like maybe that's kind of cool because you never know what you're going to get
433. 00:32:56 And so you might go into it thinking I'm going to apply this lens this mental model
434. 00:33:02 You know, but being forced to answer a different question can kind of
435. 00:33:06 Jar you and give you a different perspective, which maybe would be beneficial, but maybe would just annoy me. I'm not sure yet
436. 00:33:12 So I feel like that would drive me nuts like one of the
437. 00:33:17 one of the methods that I've debated with this is
438. 00:33:20 putting your list together but
439. 00:33:23 Choosing what interval for each question because some of these you could ask yourself every day
440. 00:33:28 And that'd be okay
441. 00:33:30 Some of these I feel like you could only ask yourself about once a year
442. 00:33:33 So like having them randomly show up on a potentially daily
443. 00:33:36 Basis doesn't
444. 00:33:39 Feel like it would be the right route to me. Maybe it would be for you. I don't know
445. 00:33:43 but to me I feel like I need to work through the decisions for how
446. 00:33:48 Frequent should some of these be asked and in my case should some of these be asked because some of these don't
447. 00:33:53 Like I feel like there's a lot of cases where it doesn't apply
448. 00:33:56 Yep, but at the same time those are probably the ones you should ask more often too
449. 00:34:00 I think the big takeaway is just to ask more questions. I think if you do that then this book is a success
450. 00:34:06 But that's the the first one anything else with cal fussman
451. 00:34:11 No, let's keep moving. All right. So the next one that I want to talk about a little bit was robin williams
452. 00:34:17 And the question with this one is what does it mean to be?
453. 00:34:22 unapologetically
454. 00:34:25 me
455. 00:34:26 and
456. 00:34:27 I feel like
457. 00:34:29 That's the kind of question you just hear it and you're like, huh
458. 00:34:32 I don't even really know because I've never really thought about that
459. 00:34:35 and so
460. 00:34:39 I don't know I I have an action item here from this one
461. 00:34:43 To list out what I fear in a single sentence
462. 00:34:46 But I feel like the the profile
463. 00:34:49 Well, it talks about
464. 00:34:51 robin williams and most people are probably familiar with who robin williams is and it talks a little bit about how he was dealing with depression and
465. 00:34:59 committed suicide and
466. 00:35:02 Lost him before his time
467. 00:35:06 So we're kind of robbed of the total influence that he could have had
468. 00:35:09 but he also shares like the kind of person that he was and his approach to to life and
469. 00:35:17 I feel like that
470. 00:35:19 juxtaposition of here's somebody who is really well known for his comedic roles and
471. 00:35:26 the same time he's dealing with
472. 00:35:28 all of these
473. 00:35:30 personal demons
474. 00:35:32 That's an interesting
475. 00:35:34 juxtaposition
476. 00:35:35 I guess if you are on somebody and they're always joking and they're always laughing
477. 00:35:41 You're just like that person their life of the party
478. 00:35:44 They must just be a happy person like this is just who they are but the beneath that
479. 00:35:51 It could be a facade. I'm not saying it was a robin williams, but this is just my thought process going through this is like
480. 00:35:57 Maybe that's a cover for something. Maybe there's some
481. 00:36:01 insecurity beneath the surface and really the
482. 00:36:05 Single word label for that I think is is fear
483. 00:36:08 So maybe it's fear of what other people are going to think
484. 00:36:11 Maybe it's fear of letting somebody that you care a lot about down
485. 00:36:15 But if you don't confront the fear, I feel like that's when it can have the most damage
486. 00:36:21 When you name it, it doesn't seem as scary anymore
487. 00:36:26 It's kind of like the fear setting exercise by tim ferris. It's like well, let's think about the worst case scenario
488. 00:36:31 Oh, that's that's the worst thing that could happen. It's probably not going to be that bad
489. 00:36:35 So what are you afraid of sort of a thing? So
490. 00:36:38 I don't know what does it mean to be unapologetically me?
491. 00:36:41 That's the question that it leads with but it's interesting to me that my action item from that is actually
492. 00:36:47 significantly different
493. 00:36:49 Where it's list out what I'm afraid of
494. 00:36:53 But see that that's exactly where it should go because see here to answer the question
495. 00:36:59 What does it mean to be unapologetically me?
496. 00:37:02 It comes with the predicated question of what does it mean to be me
497. 00:37:07 Because you have to know that first
498. 00:37:09 I think
499. 00:37:11 And in a lot of cases
500. 00:37:13 At least I know in my case like to be completely honest with you when I read that question like wait hold up
501. 00:37:19 um
502. 00:37:21 Not sure. I'm 100 on what it means to be me let alone unapologetically me. Yep
503. 00:37:26 So
504. 00:37:28 What does that even mean and what do I do with that because
505. 00:37:32 I get very conflicted because I'm
506. 00:37:35 You know a farm kid, but I'm in the tech world and I love building things
507. 00:37:39 But I love writing and it like there's so many of these things like okay. Well, what does it mean to be me?
508. 00:37:44 Scattered like
509. 00:37:48 Undecisive like but how do you approach that unapologetically and like you're saying like how do you embrace like the fear
510. 00:37:56 Or let go of the fear that comes with that
511. 00:37:58 But you have to understand all those details and that's not a simple thing to do
512. 00:38:02 But at the same time none of these questions are that simple to answer and yet that's the point right?
513. 00:38:09 That is the point
514. 00:38:10 It's almost doing the book a disservice to cover it the way that we do for bookworm
515. 00:38:15 Because we have to get through it in two weeks
516. 00:38:17 We could literally spend the rest of your life right wrestling with these these questions
517. 00:38:21 And I think that's kind of the intention is maybe you don't do anything with some of these right now
518. 00:38:26 But you do it at some point and you're right like if you think about what does it mean to be me?
519. 00:38:32 You probably think of your mannerisms and the things that you do
520. 00:38:35 but you had to dig deeper and consider the motivations for why you do the things that you do and uh
521. 00:38:42 Maybe there's some insecurity or fear that's holding some of that stuff together which should be
522. 00:38:49 dealt with and is uncomfortable to think about but the question
523. 00:38:53 gives you a vehicle to deal with that stuff if you're just left on your own
524. 00:38:59 Search your your innermost parts your your soul and figure out, you know
525. 00:39:05 Where are the the dark things that need to get get fixed?
526. 00:39:10 That's really intimidating to think about and um
527. 00:39:13 answering a question your mind just kind of goes down that path blindly
528. 00:39:19 It's almost like you're tricked into it and then once you're there
529. 00:39:22 It's like oh, this is uncomfortable
530. 00:39:24 But you do it a handful of times it's like go into the gym and you know that there's going to be good on on the other side of it
531. 00:39:30 So you aren't intimidated by the the discomfort
532. 00:39:34 But it's a lot easier to just
533. 00:39:37 Engage with that stuff. I feel like when you have these these types of questions to help you
534. 00:39:42 Yeah, I just want to point out one thing at the beginning of this book
535. 00:39:45 He makes the recommendation to read one of these profiles a day and
536. 00:39:50 Not go beyond that. So for us to do this in two weeks
537. 00:39:54 Is totally breaking the rule that he recommends
538. 00:39:58 So I think if you were to follow his advice you would probably get even more out of it
539. 00:40:03 But it's bookworm. We have to fly through things, right? Agreed
540. 00:40:07 He mentions a couple times in this book how as part of his routine
541. 00:40:13 He goes through the daily stoic and that would be that would be the closest thing
542. 00:40:18 I could compare this to if we were to try to cover the daily stoic
543. 00:40:21 In a two week period. That's kind of what we're doing with this one
544. 00:40:26 Basically, it doesn't work too well, but here we are and it's fun
545. 00:40:31 Well, I wouldn't say it doesn't work, but it's not the way that they
546. 00:40:36 Intended you to engage with the material
547. 00:40:40 You will get more out of it if you do it at a slower pace for sure
548. 00:40:44 I meant trying to cover the book on bookworm like it just wouldn't work well
549. 00:40:47 Yeah, but yeah, I get what you're saying the third one from this section that I wanted to talk about was chip calmly
550. 00:40:53 And the question here is how can I be the most curious person in the room?
551. 00:41:01 and chip calmly was a
552. 00:41:04 CEO and
553. 00:41:07 consulted with
554. 00:41:09 airbnb and
555. 00:41:11 Basically, he's a is a serial entrepreneur who sold his company jdv
556. 00:41:17 and then wrote five books about psychology and business
557. 00:41:21 But then when he worked with airbnb the really the focus was this hospitality
558. 00:41:26 So how can you make people feel good? Right? And so the approach that he's taken to
559. 00:41:32 a lot of this stuff is just to be curious about
560. 00:41:37 What people think and why things are the way that they are the
561. 00:41:42 What if questions the the why questions?
562. 00:41:46 These are these are the ones he he tends to lean into in fact at the beginning of this section
563. 00:41:52 I like this because the very first part of this this chapter behind the question
564. 00:41:57 I asked chip the same question I asked each guest on the behind the human podcast
565. 00:42:01 Who are you and chip answered? I'm a curious white boy
566. 00:42:04 I immediately knew I was in for a fantastic interview
567. 00:42:08 And uh, I like that because it's not shining a spotlight on his
568. 00:42:14 accomplishments, but really just
569. 00:42:16 Highlights the fact that he wants to be present and figure out
570. 00:42:22 what other people
571. 00:42:24 Are thinking and why things are the way that they are?
572. 00:42:27 I'm not doing a very good job of describing this, but I think there's a very
573. 00:42:29 Important distinction here between like engaging with a question with a spotlight on yourself
574. 00:42:37 Versus engaging with a question and looking outward or at the people and the things and the systems and whatever around you
575. 00:42:46 You won't notice a lot of things if you're just looking
576. 00:42:52 In but you might notice some really cool stuff if you can flip that around and instead look out
577. 00:42:59 Does that make sense?
578. 00:43:01 Yeah, so let me let me try to pull some of this together because I think I understand what you're trying to piece together here, Mike
579. 00:43:07 But so the question how can I be the most curious person in the room?
580. 00:43:11 So process that for a second in order to be
581. 00:43:14 The most curious person in the room
582. 00:43:18 You have to have a handful of things you have to
583. 00:43:21 Have an awareness of who's in the room that you're talking to
584. 00:43:25 Which means that you need to be paying attention to their feelings and their thoughts and their processes of
585. 00:43:31 The processes of thinking mental models, I guess if you can put those pieces together
586. 00:43:36 You have to be aware of those things
587. 00:43:39 You have to pay attention to every word that they're saying and how they're saying it
588. 00:43:44 And you also have to have an awareness of how your stance your words and your
589. 00:43:49 physical appearance impacts what they're saying basically
590. 00:43:55 You have to be hyper aware of what's going on in that interchange
591. 00:44:00 The reason for that is because in order to be the most curious you have to notice
592. 00:44:04 A lot of little details and you have to then be
593. 00:44:08 in a spot where you wonder
594. 00:44:12 Why they're doing those things like if mike mentions something about obsidian
595. 00:44:16 He generally gets excited like you can tell that it's it's pretty obvious
596. 00:44:20 So obsidian is a big deal to mike
597. 00:44:22 Obviously if you're new to the show mike has an obsession right mike you'll admit this right?
598. 00:44:27 I do surely you will
599. 00:44:29 so
600. 00:44:30 mike gets excited when obsidian comes up on the other hand if you mention roam research
601. 00:44:35 Which mike used to be?
602. 00:44:38 Super excited about things are a little different anymore
603. 00:44:41 It doesn't have that same air that obsidian does
604. 00:44:44 Now those are all things that you can pick up on if you have a conversation with mike about note making
605. 00:44:50 and and trying to
606. 00:44:53 See if I can use some of your terms like sense making note making
607. 00:44:56 Map of content like I start throwing these terms out and you can just tell mike is itching to start a conversation
608. 00:45:02 Like I can tell this by looking at him. So it's true
609. 00:45:05 If you notice those things
610. 00:45:07 You can then find you're jumping off points for questions to like okay. Well, why is that?
611. 00:45:12 You know
612. 00:45:13 Based on what I just said if you ever run into mike you can ask him about
613. 00:45:16 Why obsidian over room research and you're in for a treat for a conversation like you can start the conversation that way, right?
614. 00:45:23 That's what it means like so in order to be the most curious person in the room
615. 00:45:27 You also have to be the most aware person in the room and the most present in the room
616. 00:45:33 So it's not just as simple as asking good questions. It's being
617. 00:45:38 In that moment with that other person at that time
618. 00:45:42 Yeah, that's a good way to put it and that was something that I had missed in my
619. 00:45:47 My description was that the the person who is the most curious
620. 00:45:51 Is also the most present if you were to summarize it in a single phrase. That's a
621. 00:45:58 a great way to describe it. Yeah, and so the
622. 00:46:03 the action item I have from this particular section, which I am going to add to my
623. 00:46:10 Journaling template is how was I curious today? And I feel like that is
624. 00:46:18 reinforcing a bunch of different
625. 00:46:22 Positive behaviors in a very simple
626. 00:46:25 By simply using the word curious because if you're going to be curious
627. 00:46:31 you're not going to try to
628. 00:46:34 explain
629. 00:46:36 in a way that this is the way things are or
630. 00:46:39 Like convince somebody of the way that they should think you're going to try to understand why they think the way that they do
631. 00:46:45 it's a very different approach
632. 00:46:48 and uh, I feel like there's a tendency for myself to
633. 00:46:54 Take the other approach where well, I get maybe this goes along with the systems thinking stuff is like
634. 00:47:00 Well, let's figure out why the this is the way it is, but then once I get to that point, it's like, okay
635. 00:47:06 Well, here's the solution
636. 00:47:08 Let's just do this and then we'll get this and then we'll move on and solve the next
637. 00:47:14 systems problem
638. 00:47:16 and uh, I
639. 00:47:18 Don't think it's that simple
640. 00:47:20 uh, I want to do a
641. 00:47:23 Better job of accepting things for the way that they are
642. 00:47:27 Content not complacent, you know, I'm not just there's nothing I can do about this
643. 00:47:31 And so this is my lot in life. I do think there's a fine line here with self-determination and personal responsibility
644. 00:47:38 Which is important taking control and ownership of of your life in your future
645. 00:47:43 But then also not like resenting the fact that you're in this
646. 00:47:48 Situation maybe there are some situations where you really just don't want to be there
647. 00:47:52 And I'm not saying like don't fight to make things different but for me personally like
648. 00:47:57 Don't engage with things through a negative mindset and being bitter because you got to do this this thing just
649. 00:48:04 Go into it being present and you'll enjoy it a whole lot more
650. 00:48:08 Yeah, I think that's that's a good way to put the whole thing together because if you are being curious on a daily basis
651. 00:48:14 And coming out of the way that we're explaining like it has so many ramifications behind it that are
652. 00:48:22 Tertiary or secondary to the original intent. So go for it. Be curious. Right. All right part two is live intentionally
653. 00:48:30 And the first profile here that I wanted to discuss is Kobe Bryant
654. 00:48:36 I didn't even make the connection that I like basketball you like basketball. So this was an obvious one to talk about
655. 00:48:42 Yep, right, but the question associated with this one is how do I get to the rim and uh,
656. 00:48:49 That has a very specific sports context
657. 00:48:53 if you don't play basketball then maybe the
658. 00:48:57 The value of that specific question
659. 00:48:59 Gets lost a little bit, but there's lots of other questions that go along with this inside the profile that help you kind of comprehend this
660. 00:49:06 So for example, the big thing from this profile is the thing about
661. 00:49:12 Kobe's mamba mentality, which is a constant quest to be better today
662. 00:49:19 Than you were yesterday. So there's lots of questions that can go along with that like what is your motivator?
663. 00:49:24 What is my self-talk sound like?
664. 00:49:27 Who do I need to study?
665. 00:49:29 How can I outwork myself
666. 00:49:31 in terms of becoming the best that that you can be and so my action item from this specific one
667. 00:49:37 Is to make a list of people who inspire me and start asking questions about why they inspire me
668. 00:49:46 And I feel like i've kind of done this for talking about internet heroes before like i've always kind of known
669. 00:49:51 These are the people that I look up to but i've never been specific about what can I learn?
670. 00:49:57 From them and what I like about this profile is that it doesn't require you to engage in dialogue with them
671. 00:50:05 You can study somebody's life without having a personal relationship with them
672. 00:50:11 and I think that's pretty cool and uh,
673. 00:50:15 I think that by being intentional about that you can
674. 00:50:19 probably grow
675. 00:50:21 Quite a bit from people who are doing something that you want to do or doing something that you currently do
676. 00:50:28 But do it better than you. Uh, I want to always be trying to get better. I want to get better as a
677. 00:50:35 Husband. I want to get better as a father. I want to get better as a creator. I want to get better as a podcaster
678. 00:50:43 I don't want to be complacent be like well, that's good enough and just I show up and do my thing
679. 00:50:48 I want to always be looking for those things that I can do better
680. 00:50:54 Which is why like I always listen back to every episode that i've ever published and
681. 00:51:00 I hate hearing my own voice, but I
682. 00:51:03 And I don't want to say I enjoy but I get value out of recognizing the mistakes that i've made
683. 00:51:10 It helps me not make them again. Uh, one of the big things for me with podcasting
684. 00:51:15 Toastmasters kind of reinforced this
685. 00:51:18 Was the use of filler words as soon as I started listening back to all the umbs and the likes
686. 00:51:23 It pretty much disappeared and that sounds ridiculous, but it really did like overnight
687. 00:51:28 I stopped the majority of I still do it every once in a while
688. 00:51:33 But it's 1/100th of what it was that first podcast episode that I recorded then I had to go back and edit it back
689. 00:51:40 Afterwards, I'm like man. This has got to get better because this is brutal. Yep
690. 00:51:44 Please help
691. 00:51:47 Yes, that's the thing about podcasting like I this is actually something I wrote down as a an action item
692. 00:51:52 That I want to do is start listening back to bookworm because I don't
693. 00:51:55 Right now and mike knows this because it's frustrating. I'm sure for you mike, but I
694. 00:52:01 I don't do that
695. 00:52:03 But at the same time i'm aware that that can be extremely helpful like if you come back to kobe brian
696. 00:52:08 in 2008 the Lakers
697. 00:52:11 Made it to the championship and lost
698. 00:52:15 And kobe then went through a whole process after that like where did we go wrong?
699. 00:52:20 Why do we lose how am I gonna lead this team differently like he started asking himself these questions
700. 00:52:25 And then they won the championship the next two years in a row
701. 00:52:27 So he totally changed things around
702. 00:52:30 But one of the ways that he did this
703. 00:52:33 was studying michael jordan and
704. 00:52:38 Just paying attention to the fundamentals like what is his footwork like how does he handle the ball?
705. 00:52:42 What is it that he does different?
706. 00:52:44 that makes him so
707. 00:52:47 Exceptional but one thing that
708. 00:52:49 They don't point out here that that mark didn't mention in this because
709. 00:52:54 I've had my obsession with kobe before and
710. 00:52:58 I know that he used to watch him his own tape back and he would critique every little move that he made wrong
711. 00:53:05 by watching himself in that process so he not only studied the people who
712. 00:53:11 He considered mentors
713. 00:53:14 Even though they wouldn't actually mentor him since you know competitors
714. 00:53:19 So like stuff like that wouldn't happen, but he would study himself as well
715. 00:53:23 to compare himself to
716. 00:53:26 The ideal that he has in his mind that he's working towards and I think that's something like I know I need to do
717. 00:53:32 So I need to be if I'm gonna, you know continue this thing called podcasting
718. 00:53:36 It's something I should you know work on because I know that I do some of the filler words occasionally. I have my phrases
719. 00:53:42 I do try to watch and make sure I'm not
720. 00:53:44 Repeating the same type of word
721. 00:53:47 Many times like I always try to make sure I use synonyms instead of repeating it
722. 00:53:51 And making it easier to understand that way or more interesting
723. 00:53:55 So like those are things I know I do but there are a lot of things I know I do that I should not do
724. 00:54:01 So thus paying attention to that would be helpful
725. 00:54:04 Don't worry. Toby makes you sound good
726. 00:54:07 Thanks, Toby
727. 00:54:09 You're the best me too
728. 00:54:10 And that's something that is when you first start paying attention to stuff
729. 00:54:14 There's a bunch of low hanging fruit
730. 00:54:15 But my takeaway from this is I don't ever want to lose that I want to constantly ask that question
731. 00:54:20 Because if you're Kobe Bryant, you make it to the NBA finals
732. 00:54:24 It's easy to just dismiss it as like well it didn't work out for us this time
733. 00:54:27 But no, he's so obsessed. He wants to figure out how can I get even better
734. 00:54:31 And that's the approach that I want to take to the stuff that I do
735. 00:54:35 Next one that I wanted to talk about I mean, there's a bunch of them we could talk about in this section James clear is in this section
736. 00:54:41 Uh, Ryan holiday is in this section
737. 00:54:44 But the one that I and we're skipping them. We are. Yep. Let's talk about Florence Nightingale
738. 00:54:50 Yep, go Florence. Yeah, so Florence Nightingale
739. 00:54:56 Was if I remember right
740. 00:54:58 Uh, the person who kind of started the the red cross correct. Oh, I don't know that I could confirm that
741. 00:55:05 Basically, correct, but I can't place it. She was uh in the 1800s. I believe
742. 00:55:12 Uh pressured to get married and have children
743. 00:55:16 And uh, she didn't want to do that and she wanted to help people and uh, I remember reading her story recently in a different book
744. 00:55:26 I forget which book it was
745. 00:55:28 and basically volunteering in one of the wars to
746. 00:55:32 Assist injured soldiers because they were just laying there dying
747. 00:55:36 And so nobody stopped her and then from there she just continued to
748. 00:55:41 Raise the bar like all these people were dying and it was because of unsanitary conditions and she was the one
749. 00:55:48 Saying basically this isn't good enough and uh, she's got her own
750. 00:55:54 Story that mark kind of talks about in this book here
751. 00:55:57 But the question with Florence is how can I raise the standard and because she was a woman living in the time in the society that she was in
752. 00:56:07 She was basically encountering roadblocks to whatever she really wanted to do at every single turn
753. 00:56:14 And so the the big takeaway from this for me is kind of a combination of what I had understood of Florence Nightingale
754. 00:56:22 Prior to reading this and then applying these questions on top of that of how can I raise the standard?
755. 00:56:29 What makes me unique and how do I navigate the roadblocks that are in my way?
756. 00:56:35 I feel like
757. 00:56:37 There are a lot of people and myself included in the past who
758. 00:56:41 Encounter some resistance and it's easy to be like oh well ryan holiday says the obstacle is the way
759. 00:56:47 So just figure it out right but it's very discouraging when you run into that stuff and
760. 00:56:54 There's a temptation to think that well, this isn't the right path and um, yeah, I think it was courage is calling
761. 00:57:03 Thanks Blake in the the chat for pointing that out. So I want to
762. 00:57:07 Spend some time thinking through these things
763. 00:57:11 And I feel like I've kind of already sort of done this
764. 00:57:15 I've got the whole concept of a life theme that I talk about my faith-based productivity course
765. 00:57:19 But this is a little bit different way of applying that same
766. 00:57:24 Concept and I feel like the questions that come out of this coupled with her story
767. 00:57:29 It's it gives people hope to think that like well, this is the thing that I really am passionate about that
768. 00:57:37 I'm really excited about the thing that gives me life
769. 00:57:41 So what are the ways that I can raise the standard in this particular area?
770. 00:57:45 And then if you continue to raise the standard and you continue to get more excellent
771. 00:57:49 That's when the attention comes and like we're talking about the the beginning with the the podcast
772. 00:57:56 Like I was talking to somebody this morning and I said, you know
773. 00:57:59 Because they were interested in starting a podcast. I said if you're gonna start a podcast make sure it's something that you're really excited about
774. 00:58:06 You're gonna talk about anyways
775. 00:58:08 You might do a hundred episodes and you might not get
776. 00:58:10 Very many downloads and if you're doing it for numbers or you want to make some money or whatever
777. 00:58:16 It's not going to happen
778. 00:58:18 You have to have a motivation that goes beyond that and you just have to continue to try to be more excellent with it
779. 00:58:23 If you do that long enough
780. 00:58:25 Then people will start to take notice
781. 00:58:27 And at that point you can have like the wide influence
782. 00:58:32 but until that point just
783. 00:58:35 Use whatever audience you have whatever platform you have and go deep
784. 00:58:39 So
785. 00:58:40 The people who have you know millions of people who follow them they can throw out a tweet and it can reach a whole bunch of people
786. 00:58:46 But it's not going to have like a profound impact
787. 00:58:49 And you can have you it's kind of a unique opportunity where as long as you have a smaller audience
788. 00:58:54 You can go deeper and you can have a greater impact in somebody's life and you don't really know who you're impacting
789. 00:58:59 Just that that one person
790. 00:59:02 They have the potential to reach a whole bunch of other people to reach a whole bunch of other people
791. 00:59:06 And I guess that kind of comes back to being present and making the greatest impact that you can
792. 00:59:11 I mean, that's kind of my takeaway from this Florence Nightingale story
793. 00:59:15 Is like I don't think she did it because she had this big dream that she was going to completely revolutionize health care
794. 00:59:22 She just saw like these people are dying they need some help and this person in front of me who
795. 00:59:26 Is getting these infections like this isn't right
796. 00:59:30 We should do something to change this and as long as you have that that mindset you can do a lot of good
797. 00:59:35 So Florence Nightingale did not start the Red Cross
798. 00:59:38 Sorry, but it was founded by Henry
799. 00:59:41 D'Nant I think is the way he say it
800. 00:59:44 And he was
801. 00:59:47 greatly inspired by her work
802. 00:59:49 So he credits her for the development of it of the international Red Cross society
803. 00:59:55 Gotcha
804. 00:59:55 And according to this article that I'm looking at until 1934 they celebrated world cross day on her birthday
805. 01:00:01 There you go. That's the connection. So there you go
806. 01:00:04 So coming back to
807. 01:00:07 The question here, how can I raise the standard? You know, you're talking about a whole bunch of stuff
808. 01:00:10 I feel like I could jump off of
809. 01:00:12 Mike, but this is one of those questions that
810. 01:00:15 You know, I was talking earlier about some of these have different intervals that you could ask these
811. 01:00:19 This is one that you could ask
812. 01:00:21 At least weekly if not daily like how do I raise the standard
813. 01:00:25 for myself?
814. 01:00:26 Specifically you can be looking at that from a different level like as far as organizations that you're a part of
815. 01:00:33 climate change like so many things you can think about and and endeavor to
816. 01:00:38 tackle
817. 01:00:40 But if you apply it personally like it's something you can ask very regularly
818. 01:00:45 and
819. 01:00:46 There's a lot here
820. 01:00:48 that you can
821. 01:00:50 That you can jump into like like you're saying with the podcasting piece like if you're going to do something make sure it's something that you love
822. 01:00:56 To do but then how do you raise the standard with that? You know, whenever you're starting out with something brand new
823. 01:01:02 It's usually a bit haphazard. It's not super clean
824. 01:01:06 Like if you think of podcasting like it's easy for the first ones that we record to be terrible. We don't like them
825. 01:01:10 I hate listening to myself back at episode one of bookworm, but whenever
826. 01:01:16 You start you're always going to have it
827. 01:01:20 Like that
828. 01:01:22 But that just gives you a platform to start
829. 01:01:24 Building on and you can always start to get a little bit better, but at the same time when you first start
830. 01:01:29 You can be extremely niche in a very small sector like what you're talking about
831. 01:01:34 You don't really branch out and go wide
832. 01:01:36 Until after you've got that initial build and I would say like in the case of bookworm
833. 01:01:41 I feel like we've just never
834. 01:01:43 We've never really started branching beyond
835. 01:01:46 our initial stance
836. 01:01:48 But I also feel like it's only
837. 01:01:51 In recent months that we would even get to the point where we could even consider that
838. 01:01:54 So anyway, that's a side point all this to say like how can you raise the standard?
839. 01:02:00 That's a question that can seem easy on the surface
840. 01:02:04 Again
841. 01:02:06 And you could easily answer this very quickly like up my audio value or audio production
842. 01:02:12 Ability like get a better microphone like sure you can raise the standard in that way
843. 01:02:16 But it's more of an impactful question if you ask it from the stance of like, okay
844. 01:02:21 Well, how do I become a better speaker?
845. 01:02:23 And how do I ask better questions? How do I have more?
846. 01:02:26 Insight in less time like those are all questions that you can ask about
847. 01:02:31 Podcasting in particular, but that's a whole different realm than just buy stuff because buy stuff is easy
848. 01:02:38 Be better is not
849. 01:02:40 Yeah, and even I think for me raising the standard doesn't mean
850. 01:02:45 becoming more
851. 01:02:47 Excellent necessarily in my craft or what I do
852. 01:02:51 But in terms of the impact that I have in the life of people around me
853. 01:02:59 so
854. 01:03:00 Yeah, if you're gonna
855. 01:03:02 Want to the the context with the conversation that I was having this morning was I want to get this message out there
856. 01:03:08 Okay, well, that's fine
857. 01:03:10 But you're not going to get it out to
858. 01:03:13 Gazillion people at the beginning what you got to do is you got to just really own this message
859. 01:03:19 with whoever is currently
860. 01:03:21 in your sphere of influence and just help them as much as you possibly can and
861. 01:03:28 If you do that to the best of your ability and you're constantly asking how can I do that better
862. 01:03:33 Then there will be opportunities for you to do that at a larger scale
863. 01:03:37 But if you're looking at it in terms of the numbers
864. 01:03:40 Of these are the number of people that I want to reach or impact
865. 01:03:44 You're not going to get there
866. 01:03:46 Right, right
867. 01:03:48 Numbers can get in the way of a lot of good things
868. 01:03:50 Yes
869. 01:03:51 Exactly
870. 01:03:52 Uh, next one is chris chembra
871. 01:03:54 We can cover this one pretty quickly. I just like this one because it's kind of focused on
872. 01:04:00 Gratitude and the question associated with this one is whom haven't I thanked lately
873. 01:04:05 Uh, if you dig into this a little bit more
874. 01:04:08 The underlying question is basically what relationships do I value the most in my life
875. 01:04:12 And there's a encouragement in this section to not forget the people who helped you to get the things
876. 01:04:17 That you have
877. 01:04:20 And I don't want to say that I have neglected that but it can slip my mind from time to time
878. 01:04:28 I do have a gratitude practice as part of my journaling routine my wife and I have a gratitude practice as part of our date night
879. 01:04:36 I have incorporated this into like even though my work meetings and things like gratitude is important and I recognize that
880. 01:04:44 But I also think that I also I tend to be more
881. 01:04:49 What is it? Recency bias
882. 01:04:52 You can focus on what has happened lately instead of looking more long-term and this is where I was five 10
883. 01:04:59 20 years ago
884. 01:05:01 And I can see how this thing led to that thing led to that thing
885. 01:05:04 But that thing way back there that was really the start of this
886. 01:05:07 So I don't want to go back and send text messages to people that you know influenced me 20 years ago
887. 01:05:13 But my big action item from this section is just to notice those things
888. 01:05:17 More frequently and the action item specifically is send encouraging text messages more often
889. 01:05:24 I should probably make this a little bit more specific, but I'm not going to
890. 01:05:27 Because I don't want to have a number associated with it
891. 01:05:31 I feel like if I did that come on no because I feel if I did that then I would just grab something for the sake of grabbing something
892. 01:05:39 So kind of my approach to this is I want to zoom out a little bit more and recognize
893. 01:05:45 All of the things that have clicked into place
894. 01:05:48 And be thankful and express gratitude for those things more consistently
895. 01:05:53 But I feel like the actual application of this action item is most valuable when it is an organic
896. 01:06:01 Response to that revelation
897. 01:06:03 And if I try to put a number on it
898. 01:06:05 I feel like I've confined it now to a task that needs to be done and it loses some of the authenticity that goes along with it
899. 01:06:13 Does that make sense?
900. 01:06:14 I get what you're saying. I'm not sure it makes sense. Okay
901. 01:06:18 That's fine because
902. 01:06:20 I think you can argue it both ways. Yep. So I don't think you're necessarily wrong
903. 01:06:25 I think this is one of those cases where
904. 01:06:28 Because I'm a bit conflicted on what to do it with this one from an action item
905. 01:06:32 This is partly why I have an action item to go through this whole thing again because
906. 01:06:37 with this one it's one where
907. 01:06:40 I can choose to be intentional with it and I can wait until that intention comes and then act on it
908. 01:06:46 Which I feel like is what you're saying you're
909. 01:06:49 planning to do or
910. 01:06:52 I can force myself
911. 01:06:54 to
912. 01:06:55 Have the action and therefore drive the heart and tension
913. 01:06:58 Sure, you get what I'm saying?
914. 01:07:00 So it has to do with like the motivation before the action or the action that then encourages the motivation
915. 01:07:06 This is why I say I don't think you're wrong. I just think that there's the possibility that sometimes
916. 01:07:12 For some people because you're I feel like you're significantly better at gratitude
917. 01:07:16 than many people I know you're way better at it than I am and
918. 01:07:20 It's something that I would need
919. 01:07:23 to just say
920. 01:07:25 I'm going to show gratitude to someone today no idea who that is
921. 01:07:29 But I am going to make it
922. 01:07:32 My task today to make sure that that happens like that's what I would have to do
923. 01:07:35 Because I'm not good at it. I'm terrible at it actually so like that's that's where my heart would need to be
924. 01:07:42 So again, I don't think you're necessarily wrong in your scenario Mike, but I think in mine it would be completely different
925. 01:07:48 Sure
926. 01:07:49 I can see that I think it is a chicken and egg scenario and I think for me specifically
927. 01:07:55 I don't want to focus on the task itself. I feel like the real value of this comes if it's
928. 01:08:01 rooted in
929. 01:08:03 Inspiration from reflection, which is the big thing for me. Yeah. All right. Part three is expand possibility
930. 01:08:12 And actually the first profile here Maya Angelou this
931. 01:08:16 Compliments that whole idea we were just talking about
932. 01:08:20 Well for me with the action item now
933. 01:08:23 I was not I knew who this was but I didn't really know that the story and I should say the question in this section is how do I rise up?
934. 01:08:30 Now the story here
935. 01:08:32 And I'm sharing this from the the book. I'm not really paraphrasing this so she was
936. 01:08:39 Raped when she was eight years old
937. 01:08:42 She told her family about it and then the day the man was released from prison. They found
938. 01:08:48 him killed and she thought that her words
939. 01:08:53 Confessing that to her family are what actually killed that man. So she
940. 01:08:57 felt very
941. 01:09:00 She felt guilty about that and she stopped speaking altogether for five years
942. 01:09:05 Which is a pretty
943. 01:09:09 Serious reaction to that and you hear that story and
944. 01:09:15 You're a monster if it doesn't do something inside of you
945. 01:09:17 Like how do you not have empathy and feel bad for her in in that situation? So right?
946. 01:09:24 Obviously though she was able to work through that and part of the things she credits for that is reading a ton
947. 01:09:33 So one of my bullets is read non-stop
948. 01:09:36 The action item associated with this though
949. 01:09:39 for me is to
950. 01:09:42 List the people in my life who have been kind or inspirational because her story is like she had somebody
951. 01:09:48 Who forced her to take a step out there and that was kind of the thing that helped heal her
952. 01:09:54 And she shares that story or mark shares that story in this profile
953. 01:10:01 So
954. 01:10:03 It's a good inspiration. It shows me that
955. 01:10:07 One person can really have a domino effect in terms of the impact because you don't know who you're influencing
956. 01:10:14 Maybe it's the next Maya Angelou or maybe it's the next Ryan holiday or the next James clear
957. 01:10:19 Whatever like the person that you have the opportunity to encourage
958. 01:10:23 And help that person
959. 01:10:26 Rise up that is
960. 01:10:29 Very exciting to me the the type of impact that you can have
961. 01:10:34 When you go beyond the individual
962. 01:10:38 That is standing in in front of you. So I want to make a list of the people in my life who have been kind or inspirational to me
963. 01:10:46 I've already been thinking about this and I've got several people
964. 01:10:50 Top of mind, but I want to make it make it formalized
965. 01:10:55 And then I want to pay it forward. I want to consider other people and how I can help them rise up
966. 01:11:02 Again, just recognizing that you can't take the person or the people in your life at face value
967. 01:11:10 You don't understand the real potential that they have and
968. 01:11:14 You got to assume that
969. 01:11:17 There's something bigger there to be unearthed and when you combine it with like all the stuff that we've talked about the curiosity and trying to figure out
970. 01:11:24 What's really there? I mean, it's kind of natural that you would be
971. 01:11:28 more self sacrificial
972. 01:11:32 I guess is the best way to describe it
973. 01:11:34 like
974. 01:11:35 my time is
975. 01:11:37 precious
976. 01:11:38 sure
977. 01:11:39 I time-block my day because I want to make the the best use of the time that I have but
978. 01:11:44 People are the reason for productivity and if you go into it like someone needs something from you
979. 01:11:50 And you go into it with a curious
980. 01:11:53 mindset and you're trying to be present I feel like that's
981. 01:11:56 kind of a
982. 01:11:58 Perfect conditions for some really cool stuff to happen and I feel like I've kind of seen this happen recently
983. 01:12:05 For me and I want to continue to go in this direction, but
984. 01:12:11 Just constantly looking for those people who you can help pull up
985. 01:12:15 I mean I had a conversation with somebody this morning
986. 01:12:18 I mentioned about the podcast stuff
987. 01:12:20 Somebody that I went to high school with that I ran into randomly at a coffee shop the other day
988. 01:12:25 And I was on my way out to a meeting and I was like, hey, we should get together and catch up
989. 01:12:30 You know, so we did that today and it was
990. 01:12:32 Really really cool. Did I have time to do it today? Probably not, but I did it anyway
991. 01:12:37 And it was extremely nice life giving and you know what all the other work stuff. That's all going to work out
992. 01:12:43 It's all going to be fine and that one
993. 01:12:46 Experience that I had today like that brings motivation to everything else that
994. 01:12:50 I've got to do today and that's the kind of thing I'm recognizing
995. 01:12:54 Translates into action and energy even further down down the road. It's not just for today
996. 01:13:00 It's it's going to I'm going to have feel the residue of that for several days
997. 01:13:06 And so I'm kind of thinking to myself. How do I like consistently do this and really it's not a system
998. 01:13:12 It's not task oriented. It's just being more aware
999. 01:13:16 And taking advantage of the opportunities that are already there for me
1000. 01:13:19 So the main question of this section, how do I rise up?
1001. 01:13:22 I cannot help but hear this song rise up from Hamilton rise up. I can't help
1002. 01:13:29 It's just over and over my head. Have you seen this Hamilton? Yep, you uh,
1003. 01:13:33 I can't get it out of my head. So I see it every time. I don't think that's bad
1004. 01:13:37 This is one of those cases where sometimes when you have a connection outside of the book
1005. 01:13:41 It helps you remind like reminds you of the book whenever you hear that song or something triggers that later
1006. 01:13:47 Which is I think is really good because like in this case
1007. 01:13:50 There's a couple of like sub questions underneath of this that we've kind of talked about
1008. 01:13:54 Where do I find the courage to rise up? How do I help others rise up? And I think the latter of those two
1009. 01:13:59 is where a lot of
1010. 01:14:02 genuine growth can come from
1011. 01:14:04 Because if I'm focusing on helping other people
1012. 01:14:07 Achieve what they are after
1013. 01:14:10 It forces me to go towards what I'm after as well. So it's kind of a double-edged scenario
1014. 01:14:17 So I'm I'm a fan. I mean, this is a good question to ask and you can take it again
1015. 01:14:21 You can take it on a lot of different levels. How do I help people rise up from an activist stance?
1016. 01:14:26 How do I help people?
1017. 01:14:27 Get to the point where they know what it is they want to do
1018. 01:14:30 Day-to-day throughout their life at least set a mission
1019. 01:14:33 You know build a team out of their family like there's so many different
1020. 01:14:37 Scenarios that you could take this so it's it's a solid question. I'm a fan
1021. 01:14:42 Yeah, and I'm recognizing looking at this outline now that this section in particular the expand possibility
1022. 01:14:49 This is really abundance mindset driven if you have a scarcity mindset none of this stuff makes any sense
1023. 01:14:56 But when you recognize that there's no scarcity
1024. 01:15:00 and
1025. 01:15:02 Just because I happen to be successful doesn't mean you can't be successful and let's just
1026. 01:15:06 All be decent humans to each other. That's really the the only way to do it
1027. 01:15:13 Right, right
1028. 01:15:15 next profile is navine jane and the question from this one is what if it were possible and
1029. 01:15:21 I'm trying to condense this because we're running long, but I I go through this profile
1030. 01:15:28 and I am encouraged to
1031. 01:15:31 think bigger society trains us to recognize limits and this profile
1032. 01:15:39 Kind of is like take the lid off
1033. 01:15:42 Imagine if there was no no limits. What would you do if you were wildly successful?
1034. 01:15:49 That's not the question that's being asked here, but that's kind of the the direction
1035. 01:15:54 really the
1036. 01:15:56 Thing that's being asked in this profile is actually more practical
1037. 01:15:59 It's getting you to take the first step in that direction without feeling like this is absolutely ridiculous
1038. 01:16:05 And there's no way I'll ever achieve this. So why am I even doing this?
1039. 01:16:08 But recognizing that every problem is solvable
1040. 01:16:10 Recognizing that you're creating a lot of your own
1041. 01:16:14 limits and so
1042. 01:16:17 Those limits will hold you back from making that decision to take action
1043. 01:16:23 So let's imagine for a moment that
1044. 01:16:26 You've gone through and you've made this decision you've taken that action
1045. 01:16:31 How do you feel after this decision has been made?
1046. 01:16:36 And recognizing that our own imagination and our own definition of what's possible and what isn't
1047. 01:16:42 Is what drives us it encourages me to think again think bigger, you know
1048. 01:16:49 What what would it look like if?
1049. 01:16:52 Everything that I did I had you know the golden touch
1050. 01:16:56 And everything that I did was was going to to succeed
1051. 01:16:59 Where would I take action that I am not currently just because I feel like well
1052. 01:17:05 I can't do that super well. So I'm just not even going to try
1053. 01:17:07 The big takeaway for me for this whole section is just try it anyways
1054. 01:17:12 The result almost doesn't matter
1055. 01:17:14 The belief in yourself is the thing that does
1056. 01:17:17 and just throw it out there and don't judge it by the
1057. 01:17:22 the result but give yourself the
1058. 01:17:25 Affirmation that you're the type of person who just takes action on these things
1059. 01:17:30 And I feel like if you do that consistently
1060. 01:17:35 You'll surprise yourself
1061. 01:17:37 I'm kind of learning that myself like there's some things that I'm doing currently that I didn't think I could do
1062. 01:17:42 But I'm learning that I can because I put myself in the position to try
1063. 01:17:48 And I had to overcome some limiting beliefs just to put myself out there took somebody
1064. 01:17:54 Somebody close to me saying you got to quit talking the way that you're talking because you can do this that
1065. 01:18:02 I was like the first time I believed in myself enough to actually put myself out there and try it
1066. 01:18:06 And I'm learning that yeah, I have the ability to do it. I just never even saw it before
1067. 01:18:11 Right
1068. 01:18:12 This one
1069. 01:18:13 I feel like this particular chapter is one that probably has impacted me the most
1070. 01:18:18 Out of all of them, which is saying something
1071. 01:18:20 because what if it were possible and
1072. 01:18:24 My brain jumps to a whole bunch of different places and
1073. 01:18:27 Some of these what if it were possible
1074. 01:18:31 Like it doesn't have to be
1075. 01:18:33 I don't think based on current, you know cultural scientific societal standards
1076. 01:18:40 It doesn't have to fit within those and it doesn't have to make logical sense
1077. 01:18:43 What you're asking because that's the point so
1078. 01:18:47 Some of what or when I read this chapter one of the things that jumped in my mind was what if it were possible to cure adhd
1079. 01:18:55 Like I don't know that that's actually
1080. 01:18:58 Intifically feasible because I don't know enough about it to be able to say yay or nay on that
1081. 01:19:03 But the question there is well, okay. Well, what if it was or
1082. 01:19:08 Even if you're not curing it. What if there was a way
1083. 01:19:12 to solve your specific symptoms
1084. 01:19:15 With something I don't even know what that is like what would it be like or
1085. 01:19:20 If you had it under control, how would you act and then you get what I'm
1086. 01:19:26 getting out here like if you start to ask those questions and
1087. 01:19:29 Even though you don't really think it might actually be possible. What if it was?
1088. 01:19:35 And then what actions would you take if it was that that can change a lot of things very quickly and it can get you to really process
1089. 01:19:45 Some of these other components here like the other two questions are in this chapter. What limits am I setting?
1090. 01:19:53 Okay for those of you who are in the add world, I find I set a lot of limits on myself unknowingly
1091. 01:19:58 But the question is what are those and how do I turn those loose? Like how do I break those chains?
1092. 01:20:05 What do you do with that? You know, what if these limits could be let go?
1093. 01:20:09 And the other one here, how do I know if this is the right decision?
1094. 01:20:12 That's another great question
1095. 01:20:15 So, you know, if you go at what I'm saying like if you start trying to bump up against all these things like you can have a lot
1096. 01:20:21 A lot of good things come from them because I feel like a lot of us tend to
1097. 01:20:25 Put these glass ceilings on ourselves
1098. 01:20:28 And we lower them and then we want to know why we can't achieve what we want to achieve. So
1099. 01:20:34 I really really really really like this one
1100. 01:20:37 Yeah
1101. 01:20:40 There's so many other ones that I want to talk about but
1102. 01:20:43 For the sake of time, we'll pick one more
1103. 01:20:46 and that is Steve Jobs and
1104. 01:20:50 I almost said we should not talk about this one because we've talked about Steve Jobs a lot
1105. 01:20:54 But the thing I want to talk about from this is very different than what I thought it was going to be
1106. 01:20:58 When I went into this profile
1107. 01:21:01 So
1108. 01:21:02 The question that goes along with this one is how can I think different
1109. 01:21:06 and in
1110. 01:21:08 1997 there was that ad which
1111. 01:21:11 Uh, here's to the crazy ones. I actually have that framed
1112. 01:21:15 I really like that that poem
1113. 01:21:19 But the thing that stands out to me from this is what Mark calls the pause
1114. 01:21:24 I don't know if he stole this from somebody else or not, but
1115. 01:21:28 This was the thing when Steve was driving people crazy with his perfectionism
1116. 01:21:35 This is the thing that would cause
1117. 01:21:38 Him and his teams to go back to the drawing board because something wasn't good enough
1118. 01:21:44 And there's a question in here that he I guess asked if it could save someone's life
1119. 01:21:49 Could you find a way to shave 10 seconds off the boot time?
1120. 01:21:52 That sounds a little extreme, but you can see how he kind of drove that idea forward
1121. 01:21:58 But that premise of the pause
1122. 01:22:01 This is something that doesn't just apply to product development
1123. 01:22:07 This is something that I feel can be value in anybody's day to day
1124. 01:22:14 Where in your life could you slow down to think?
1125. 01:22:16 All right, so maybe you know where this is going now
1126. 01:22:19 Uh, they also in this chapter or profile mark talks about the whole idea of mindfulness meditation and the value of that
1127. 01:22:28 mentions all the usual suspects
1128. 01:22:31 Calm headspace all that kind of stuff, but the way that it's framed here with the pause
1129. 01:22:36 and not
1130. 01:22:38 being guided this is very much in line with something that
1131. 01:22:42 Uh, david sparks and some other people have been talking to me about in terms of mindfulness meditation is like the real
1132. 01:22:47 Pro move with this is not having an app that you follow
1133. 01:22:53 But just thinking and just focusing on the breath just slowing down
1134. 01:22:58 So the action item here is to find a meditation routine that actually works for me
1135. 01:23:02 And uh, i've been doing this a little bit actually already
1136. 01:23:05 but not having to have a process that I follow and
1137. 01:23:12 just
1138. 01:23:13 slowing down for a couple of minutes and focusing on the breath
1139. 01:23:17 this
1140. 01:23:18 for whatever reason feels a lot more approachable to me than
1141. 01:23:23 The whole idea of mindfulness meditation because i've tried all those apps the 10 percent happier stuff like that
1142. 01:23:30 We've talked about this over and over and over again on this podcast
1143. 01:23:33 Do you still stick with a mindfulness meditation routine?
1144. 01:23:38 Uh, I do been in a weird sort of way so I don't use any apps for it
1145. 01:23:42 But i've started incorporating that into like my morning and evening walks outside
1146. 01:23:48 So I do kind of like a walking meditation of sorts. So that's what i've morphed into
1147. 01:23:53 Okay, yeah, and that's kind of the thing
1148. 01:23:56 As i'm thinking about this is like, I just got to find my own version of this. I got to not feel bad that
1149. 01:24:02 somebody else's
1150. 01:24:05 Meditation practice hasn't clicked for me
1151. 01:24:08 Yeah, and uh, I want to get a little bit more definition of what that looks like. I I feel like i'm
1152. 01:24:15 80 of the way there because I think part of this
1153. 01:24:19 is my
1154. 01:24:21 daily
1155. 01:24:22 prayer routine
1156. 01:24:23 Which for whatever reason i've hesitated to like lump that in with the term
1157. 01:24:29 meditation
1158. 01:24:30 but it kind of is
1159. 01:24:32 And then combining that with moments in my day-to-day routine
1160. 01:24:36 Where you know what things are moving a little too quick right now. I just need to hit pause
1161. 01:24:41 And I need to take a step back and just a minute or two
1162. 01:24:45 quick
1163. 01:24:47 recenter
1164. 01:24:49 Get some space and then i'll reengage
1165. 01:24:51 Because I feel like i've got opportunities to do that and that would provide a lot of benefit
1166. 01:24:56 but I kind of just
1167. 01:24:58 get caught up in the flow and the momentum
1168. 01:25:01 And don't take advantage of those
1169. 01:25:03 Yeah, I think having that space between
1170. 01:25:06 Between things when it does get crazy is super helpful, but I think being willing to rebrand certain activities as meditation
1171. 01:25:15 Is perfectly fine like a prayer practice
1172. 01:25:19 Absolutely is that think about what meditation is sitting and focusing on the thing in front of you?
1173. 01:25:24 Well during a prayer practice, that's exactly what you're doing
1174. 01:25:28 or
1175. 01:25:30 You know a bible study if you want to go that route too like that can be the exact same thing. Exactly. Yeah, it's okay
1176. 01:25:37 To do this is like this is partly why i've done the whole walking thing because I realized that
1177. 01:25:42 I was doing my best on those walks to pay attention to
1178. 01:25:46 My surroundings and trying not to let my mental, you know racecar take off and keep me focused on
1179. 01:25:54 Other things, but I want to focus on the nature that i'm in right now
1180. 01:25:59 So i'm doing that same thing. It's just in a different form
1181. 01:26:02 But because of such the like all the mainstream pieces and even what they explain here with steve jobs
1182. 01:26:08 His practice was more of the sit and meditate like comes some of the cliche views of that
1183. 01:26:15 But that's one small piece and one small form of that
1184. 01:26:20 So kudos to you you can find a different way to do this. You don't have to use headspace
1185. 01:26:24 It's okay
1186. 01:26:26 All right
1187. 01:26:28 the book ends with a profile on
1188. 01:26:32 mark himself
1189. 01:26:34 And this is just sharing kind of his journey
1190. 01:26:39 There's some specifics here about like a
1191. 01:26:42 theme for the year and kind of how he arrived at the
1192. 01:26:47 Place where he wrote this book because the his word for the year was thriving
1193. 01:26:53 he talks about
1194. 01:26:54 scans and prompts and
1195. 01:26:56 Things like that, which I I don't know
1196. 01:26:58 I feel like there's a cool way to end it and I feel like there's some really cool stuff in here
1197. 01:27:04 But I also think that it's uh a lot of stuff that we've kind of covered before and so since we're
1198. 01:27:09 Long on time we can probably skip this one. Yep. Basically. It's a summarization of here's what i've learned from all this stuff
1199. 01:27:16 Yep. Yep
1200. 01:27:18 He does give some practical tips on how to uh apply this yourself
1201. 01:27:23 some structure there, but I think it's something that you kind of have to discover for yourself and it's a mashup of a lot of the
1202. 01:27:30 The types of books that bookworm listeners have already read
1203. 01:27:34 Yep, so I guess that takes us to action items
1204. 01:27:37 And i've got a bunch
1205. 01:27:40 It's gonna say which of the 40 do you want to talk about so I have jotted down
1206. 01:27:47 five of them from our discussion here. This is not everything from
1207. 01:27:52 My outline, but I think this is what I am going to
1208. 01:27:56 land on here for formal action items
1209. 01:28:01 I want to
1210. 01:28:03 list out what I fear in a single sentence
1211. 01:28:05 And this is not so I can continue to allow this to hold me back
1212. 01:28:10 But just naming it and the attempts of of overcoming it and and I know it's easy to be like, well, I don't have any fear or
1213. 01:28:17 I think if you dig deep enough, you'll find something. So that's what i'm going to do is dig deep enough
1214. 01:28:20 See if I can find something add the how was I curious today to my
1215. 01:28:25 Journaling template and uh like my other journaling template
1216. 01:28:29 Sections, I don't
1217. 01:28:31 intend to force myself to answer this every day, but i'm going to create the opportunity in the prompt
1218. 01:28:35 So I have an opportunity to put something there if if uh, something stands out to me and then
1219. 01:28:40 It's part of my personal retreat process. I review all those journal entries
1220. 01:28:43 So I feel like a couple months from now when I do my next personal retreat that's going to provide value for me
1221. 01:28:49 I'm going to make a list of people who inspire me and start asking questions about why
1222. 01:28:54 I'm going to share encouraging test messages
1223. 01:28:57 More frequently and i'm going to find a meditation practice that works for me
1224. 01:29:02 Now you've mentioned a couple of them, but the one that you keep coming back to so the only one that I have written down at the moment
1225. 01:29:09 Is to go through this all again
1226. 01:29:11 Yes, I have three okay, so I have two of these are
1227. 01:29:16 That well one of them is kind of a summarization the other one is derived from a chapter we didn't cover but
1228. 01:29:22 um one of these is to visualize my day ahead of time as
1229. 01:29:27 Someone who can easily get distracted. I feel like it's
1230. 01:29:30 It's extremely helpful for me and i've done this in the past so I know it works
1231. 01:29:35 But it's super helpful for me to take five minutes and I actually have to set a timer for this because i'll shortcut it
1232. 01:29:42 Five minutes timer in the morning and then walk the entire day
1233. 01:29:45 Mentally like what is it that I go?
1234. 01:29:48 Where is it that I go sit and do x and then I move to go where to do y
1235. 01:29:53 Like I have to walk through that visually in my brain and then i'm much more likely to follow through on it
1236. 01:30:00 Otherwise, I'll get distracted and not do the things that I actually intended to do so it's kind of a
1237. 01:30:06 Different form of time blocking, but it's all mental so that works well for me. I need to do that
1238. 01:30:13 So that's one two
1239. 01:30:15 Again, this is kind of a summarization of a bunch of these but journaling morning and night because again
1240. 01:30:19 I don't have this practice of asking questions at all right now
1241. 01:30:23 So I'm going to start with this real quick morning and evening thing. It doesn't have to be anything big and elaborate
1242. 01:30:28 I'm just trying to make it a habit of
1243. 01:30:31 Basically a morning and evening check-in. I don't know what those questions are yet
1244. 01:30:36 because
1245. 01:30:37 Task number three is to I'm not going to reread the book
1246. 01:30:41 But basically skim my way through it having been through it and I know
1247. 01:30:45 All of the stories and such at this point
1248. 01:30:48 And we've talked about it and I've processed it to some degree
1249. 01:30:51 I want to kind of skim my way back through it
1250. 01:30:53 And collect these questions and figure out what those intervals are going to be
1251. 01:30:57 Now some of that's going to be in those journaling prompts
1252. 01:31:00 But I don't know that for certain as far as like which ones are daily and which ones aren't
1253. 01:31:05 I don't know the answer to that but that's I feel like a good
1254. 01:31:08 starting point for it at this
1255. 01:31:11 Juncture in the road. So that's where I'm gonna jump off
1256. 01:31:14 on this journey
1257. 01:31:17 All right
1258. 01:31:18 Style and rating my book. So I go first
1259. 01:31:21 This should be no surprise that I absolutely love this book
1260. 01:31:25 Yep
1261. 01:31:27 I do agree
1262. 01:31:29 That the majority of the value to be had from this is not in a single
1263. 01:31:34 Crank through this reading
1264. 01:31:36 I feel like the questions that are presented here
1265. 01:31:40 have
1266. 01:31:42 phenomenal value
1267. 01:31:44 And
1268. 01:31:45 I get the approach that's taken in terms of writing it
1269. 01:31:48 It's almost kind of a shame that it has to be packaged this way
1270. 01:31:52 Like people probably wouldn't pay $24 for a list of questions
1271. 01:31:56 But that's really the valuable thing that you're getting out of this
1272. 01:31:59 It is really well done. It's
1273. 01:32:03 I feel like the book itself is is high quality
1274. 01:32:06 I really like
1275. 01:32:07 The the book it feels different than most other books that you would get off of Amazon the corners are around it
1276. 01:32:13 It's really really nice a standard bear and fig stuff
1277. 01:32:16 I think mark did a great job with the profiles
1278. 01:32:19 I kind of talked a little bit about it at the beginning
1279. 01:32:21 The bullet list of the bio gives enough context without having to waste
1280. 01:32:25 Words in telling more stories to get people
1281. 01:32:29 Familiar with the person that he's talking about and what that does is it makes it very condensed
1282. 01:32:36 I know you mentioned it's 240 pages, but it's actually probably not
1283. 01:32:40 It's probably not long in terms of the number of words
1284. 01:32:44 Because remember each one of these chapters is a couple pages long
1285. 01:32:48 And then it'll end like at the top of the page and the rest of the page will be blank
1286. 01:32:52 And then sometimes there's even another blank page after that so that it can start on the left hand page in the next
1287. 01:32:58 The the next profile
1288. 01:33:00 So I've I don't know it's an easy read
1289. 01:33:03 It's easy to just crank through this
1290. 01:33:05 If you're looking to extract maximum value from this
1291. 01:33:08 Probably don't do that probably take your time and
1292. 01:33:11 Really think about some of these questions that are being asked there
1293. 01:33:15 But I also think having gone through this that I've collected a bunch of these questions
1294. 01:33:19 And these are going to go in a bank for me somewhere and I'm going to
1295. 01:33:22 Go back to the well
1296. 01:33:25 at different points in my life and this is going to continue to
1297. 01:33:28 To give me value. It's not just
1298. 01:33:30 This group of questions at this point in my life the question itself
1299. 01:33:35 It could be great, but it maybe doesn't land for you in a specific
1300. 01:33:41 Context a specific season, but later on it could be the exact right thing for you
1301. 01:33:46 So what mark has done is he's given you a whole bunch of questions
1302. 01:33:50 Which they're not all going to be
1303. 01:33:53 Awesome home run this question right now changed my life
1304. 01:33:56 Some of them will change your life further down if you go back and you revisit them
1305. 01:33:59 But the the value of what you get
1306. 01:34:01 If you as long as you recognize the value of the questions here is absolutely phenomenal in in my opinion
1307. 01:34:07 I feel like everybody should read this
1308. 01:34:09 In fact, I've gifted like 12 copies of this
1309. 01:34:13 I think since I originally got this one
1310. 01:34:17 And almost everybody that I have given it to is like man that book is so good
1311. 01:34:21 Thanks for for giving that to me
1312. 01:34:22 So I wholeheartedly would recommend this to the the book remodiness
1313. 01:34:25 This is one that should be in your library
1314. 01:34:28 And I'm going to give this five stars
1315. 01:34:30 I don't know how you could rate it
1316. 01:34:31 Less than that other than if you wanted something that you didn't really have to think about if you didn't want to have to
1317. 01:34:37 Engage with and ask the tough questions if that makes you uncomfortable then yeah, you're not going to like this one
1318. 01:34:43 But if you're curious at all
1319. 01:34:46 And you don't mind looking at things and maybe dealing with some uncomfortable things with the intention of becoming better and
1320. 01:34:54 Growing yourself as a person
1321. 01:34:56 Then there is so much gold to be mined here and it's not in the information that's provided
1322. 01:35:01 It's not in the system that's being sold to you
1323. 01:35:04 It's simply in the questions and the prompts and letting your brain unravel this stuff for itself
1324. 01:35:09 If you have a fixed mindset and you have a victim mindset and you don't want to let either one of those go
1325. 01:35:16 Don't read this book. Everybody else you should read this
1326. 01:35:19 Yep, that's pretty much what you need to know because this is going to force you to grow
1327. 01:35:24 I don't think it's going to be possible to ask these questions
1328. 01:35:27 Or even like you don't even have to ask the questions of yourself
1329. 01:35:32 I'll even go that far having read this
1330. 01:35:35 There's a lot of this and the stories and the questions that are being asked that
1331. 01:35:40 I didn't actually formally ask myself that question
1332. 01:35:43 and yet
1333. 01:35:44 I'm processing the potential answers for it
1334. 01:35:47 and realizing I've got a lot of work to do and
1335. 01:35:52 Thankfully, I have a date with my wife tonight. So there's a lot of questions
1336. 01:35:56 I want to ask her and hopefully she can answer. She's probably not going to appreciate me springing these on her, but she'll be okay
1337. 01:36:04 and
1338. 01:36:06 Yet as I went through this there's a lot of points at which I was getting a little emotional with it again
1339. 01:36:12 Like I don't know what this you and these books
1340. 01:36:14 You've done that to me lately. So
1341. 01:36:17 It's something you should read. I absolutely wholeheartedly think everybody should read this
1342. 01:36:23 It's an easy 5.0
1343. 01:36:25 I don't know how
1344. 01:36:26 else to rate it than that because it just has a huge impact
1345. 01:36:30 and I think that some of the value of it is
1346. 01:36:34 being willing to
1347. 01:36:37 set up some process or system at which point you're able to
1348. 01:36:42 Ask these questions regularly at some point and not just read them once answer them once and be done
1349. 01:36:47 I think being willing to tackle these
1350. 01:36:50 more than once
1351. 01:36:52 as seasons change as life events happen
1352. 01:36:55 I think that's where the value can truly come from this long term
1353. 01:36:59 So please pick this up and read it if you haven't already
1354. 01:37:02 All right
1355. 01:37:03 So let's put personal Socrates on the shelf. What's next Joe?
1356. 01:37:09 The next one up is unwinding anxiety by juts and brewer
1357. 01:37:13 Which i'm a little
1358. 01:37:16 hesitant about at this point when I first picked it as like, okay
1359. 01:37:18 This would be really good. I deal with a decent amount of anxiety and now that i've gone through personal Socrates and assolese questions
1360. 01:37:24 I'm like, hmm. Maybe I do have the answers to that right now, but
1361. 01:37:28 Reading a book on it probably wouldn't hurt yet at this point. So we'll we'll cover that one next time
1362. 01:37:34 And then what are you picking?
1363. 01:37:36 What's after that? Please don't tell me it's this gap book that you've got up here. No, it's not
1364. 01:37:41 So
1365. 01:37:43 One of the profiles which we didn't even talk about was chase Jarvis
1366. 01:37:47 Who is the CEO of creative live? He has a book
1367. 01:37:52 Called creative calling which looks amazing. So we're gonna do that one
1368. 01:37:57 Nice. Nice. I was on the edge
1369. 01:38:00 Of choosing to order that one just for my own
1370. 01:38:04 sake so one of the video reviews for the book on
1371. 01:38:07 Amazon says only read if you want life to become more interesting
1372. 01:38:12 Okay, that's fair enough
1373. 01:38:17 Sounds good any gap books mic. I know you've got one dude. I'm not reading this one. That's okay
1374. 01:38:22 so mindfulness meditation yada yada yada
1375. 01:38:26 there is a
1376. 01:38:28 Book, I don't remember if it was mentioned in this one or not
1377. 01:38:33 but dan heres the 10 happier guy
1378. 01:38:35 also
1379. 01:38:37 wrote another book
1380. 01:38:39 Called meditation for fidgety skeptics
1381. 01:38:42 And I feel I believe that is the one that's more
1382. 01:38:46 the approach to mindfulness meditation
1383. 01:38:49 As opposed to his own personal story
1384. 01:38:52 I picked this one up at a half price books the other day
1385. 01:38:55 So
1386. 01:38:57 I am going to start this one actually today. I've got my other gap book that I am finishing
1387. 01:39:03 And then i'm going to read this one because it's pretty short before jumping into unwinding anxiety
1388. 01:39:08 Sure, well if I have a gap book this time, I might actually like i'm going to be going through this one again personal Socrates somewhat
1389. 01:39:16 But I also did just reread
1390. 01:39:18 Take back your family with my wife. I feel like that one mic you should pick up and go through for
1391. 01:39:24 Uh the podcast you do with rachel. Yeah, I feel like that would be a solid because it's all about
1392. 01:39:31 Building a team with your family and being on a mission together collectively like that is the core of that book
1393. 01:39:37 I feel like it would fit you pretty well. All right. Well, we actually have that one. Uh, haven't read it yet. Oh, there you go
1394. 01:39:43 We'll uh, take a look
1395. 01:39:46 It's a solid that it is
1396. 01:39:49 All right
1397. 01:39:50 So thank you to everybody for listening
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1417. 01:41:10 You need to pick up the book unwinding anxiety by jetson brewer and we'll cover it together in a couple of weeks