154: The Great Mental Models Volume 2 by Rhiannon Beaubien and Shane Parrish

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1. 00:00:00 So Mike have you been watching the bookworm YouTube channel last week?
2. 00:00:03 No, I have not I haven't been on YouTube at all in the past week let alone publishing videos or
3. 00:00:10 Watching videos that I really only create for the bookworm channel. I'm sorry. I don't go back and rewatch either
4. 00:00:16 I do not go back on rewatch them that is for sure
5. 00:00:19 But I know that other people would like to
6. 00:00:22 So I'm bringing it up now because it occurred to me
7. 00:00:25 I think you and I talked about this two or three weeks ago
8. 00:00:28 Maybe it was longer than that about how
9. 00:00:30 We weren't getting the watch time on our videos that we probably should have and I went back and looked and realized
10. 00:00:36 Oh, it's because they're all unlisted nobody can find them. I would do it. So I
11. 00:00:41 Went through and I've been scheduling one to come out every day
12. 00:00:46 so they've been publishing for about a week or so now and
13. 00:00:50 Like every single day. There's one of the old bookworm episodes. It's now
14. 00:00:56 Coming up on YouTube. I've been doing some of this on my personal channel, too
15. 00:01:00 But there's there's a bunch of this that's now going out
16. 00:01:03 So if you want to ever see us, I know sometimes people pop in in the chance like that is not what I expected you guys to look like
17. 00:01:09 Like every once while that happens. So hi
18. 00:01:11 But you can come see us record these we don't ever really do any I don't think we've ever done like screen sharing type
19. 00:01:18 Stuff here, but if you ever wanted to see us see the episode live you can do that those recordings are there
20. 00:01:24 It's also a good way if you ever want to listen to it from YouTube you can do that, too
21. 00:01:27 There's also a special perk of hearing some of our banter before and after a pod. Yes
22. 00:01:31 Just just saying it's true like finding out what the next next book. I'm going to pick it
23. 00:01:37 That's true that will not be in the live up the final episode, but for you to watch this recording you would know that answer
24. 00:01:44 It's true inside baseball. That's what it is
25. 00:01:47 Super fun that said should we do some follow-up? You have a lot. I have a little
26. 00:01:53 If we have to I was reading your list earlier before we started recording and I was running through all the notes ahead of time
27. 00:02:01 It's like holy cow. He's got like some intense stuff here
28. 00:02:04 Yeah, and to be honest I did not do any of it. Oh
29. 00:02:11 Yeah, bummer I am ashamed I am ashamed you can leave it on here for next time. I still intend to do all these things
30. 00:02:21 so I'm gonna add these to the
31. 00:02:24 List for 155 and I will follow through with these
32. 00:02:28 I'm assuming people aren't interested in hearing my excuses, so I won't make any care
33. 00:02:34 I usually give excuses because it makes me feel better, but that's that's me
34. 00:02:39 It's been a busy couple of weeks for me and
35. 00:02:45 I barely got this book done
36. 00:02:49 which was
37. 00:02:51 Shocking in and of itself because I have been looking forward to reading this one for so long, but
38. 00:02:56 life happened and
39. 00:02:59 Between soccer and church and day job. I
40. 00:03:02 Haven't had a moment to breathe so I did not action on these okay apologies. That's
41. 00:03:11 Totally valid. Well, I have to
42. 00:03:15 Should I share the ones I suck that or should I just hide them until next time?
43. 00:03:19 Let's hide them
44. 00:03:21 If you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist
45. 00:03:23 All right, well, I won't make that comment. We'll talk about that later
46. 00:03:28 so I have to
47. 00:03:31 One of these was to put together a portable routine
48. 00:03:34 So basically what are some things that I'm gonna do throughout the day, but it doesn't have to happen at a certain time, okay?
49. 00:03:39 I did do this and I had limited success with it
50. 00:03:44 What I found was that there are two or three items on this list
51. 00:03:49 That I tend to be pretty excited about doing so then I do them pretty quick and I tend to do them
52. 00:03:56 Earlier on in the morning just because I want to make sure I do those that day
53. 00:04:01 Which is fine, but then there's three or so of those that are like I should really do this every day
54. 00:04:08 But I'm not super stoked about doing it
55. 00:04:10 I know that I would be better off if I were to do it
56. 00:04:12 But I don't really want to do it and for whatever reason you can probably make some pretty good guesses here
57. 00:04:18 Those are the ones that get carried over day over day after day and I don't
58. 00:04:22 accomplish
59. 00:04:24 I don't really know what to do with that other than maybe do those first, but I don't want to do those first. I want to do the other ones first so
60. 00:04:31 lame motivation that's what that is
61. 00:04:34 so limited success on that I
62. 00:04:38 Haven't really figured out what I'm doing that maybe today's book will help with that a little bit
63. 00:04:42 But my other action item this one was more
64. 00:04:46 Fascinating to me than I was expecting
65. 00:04:49 And it was to do one generous act per day basically
66. 00:04:53 Choosing to give more in a specific scenario than I normally would have and
67. 00:04:58 when I made that
68. 00:05:01 action item my intent was to
69. 00:05:03 Make that part of my day job like let me take a request that was given to me somebody's got an issue
70. 00:05:11 With something let me help them out a little more and like offer help in scenarios when I normally wouldn't have
71. 00:05:17 That was kind of my intention
72. 00:05:20 With that I can tell you that save I think one day
73. 00:05:26 I was able to do this every single day since we last
74. 00:05:29 Recorded
75. 00:05:31 What what I found was it's very easy to
76. 00:05:34 Do this?
77. 00:05:37 the ramifications of doing this are still
78. 00:05:40 weird to me because
79. 00:05:42 On one hand it ends up meaning more work
80. 00:05:45 to me because people then like oh well if I could do that that then they start exploring that thing
81. 00:05:51 But then they need more help so it ends up leading to more work in
82. 00:05:55 the long run
83. 00:05:57 But then at the same time people have a higher view of the work that I'm doing at the same time it seems
84. 00:06:03 So it's kind of this two pronged thing
85. 00:06:06 At the same time. I don't have that kind of time
86. 00:06:09 To do that much support stuff
87. 00:06:12 And that's fine. It's just a weird thing that I've got to kind of work through at the moment. So
88. 00:06:19 I'm still doing this and we'll continue to try to do this. I just haven't quite figured out what all the
89. 00:06:26 trickle-down effects of this one are if I'm honest and look at it holistically these are all positives, but
90. 00:06:35 I wasn't expecting to need to put
91. 00:06:37 Even more time into it because of that if that makes sense like that's kind of a weird dynamic that's going on there
92. 00:06:43 It does
93. 00:06:45 That is basically how I got in the situation that I am. Oh good job. Good to know
94. 00:06:50 We were chatting before we hit record that I am taking a an accounting class
95. 00:06:56 I'm digging into business financials in a way that I never have before
96. 00:07:01 Because someone's got to do it. So I raise my hand and that means a lot more
97. 00:07:07 Time and effort to figure things out in addition to all the other stuff I got to do. So
98. 00:07:12 Here we are awesome have fun with accounting careful, I guess
99. 00:07:16 Anyway, so don't be too nice. It's kind of an interesting action item results
100. 00:07:23 I haven't really had one kind of like that that I can recall so I don't know we'll see I'll keep up with it
101. 00:07:29 So it turns to it turns into
102. 00:07:31 Sure. All right, that said we should jump into today's book because this is either going to be fairly straightforward
103. 00:07:37 And we'll get through it or this is going to take a very long time
104. 00:07:39 It's going to be one of those two it's not really going to be in between and I think we both know that
105. 00:07:43 Yeah, really fair. Yeah, so today's book is the great mental models. This is volume two
106. 00:07:49 This is the physics chemistry and biology
107. 00:07:52 segment of the great mental models and this is by
108. 00:07:58 Rihanna Rianon
109. 00:08:00 Bobian
110. 00:08:01 I'm sure I'm butchering that horribly and Shane Parrish. I know Shane. This is from the Farnham Street team
111. 00:08:08 But I don't know this name Rianon. It doesn't ring any bells
112. 00:08:14 I feel like I've not seen that one on any of the Farnham Street stuff. So I'm not sure what the connection is there
113. 00:08:20 This is the same co-author that was with the right right and I know that but I have not familiar with
114. 00:08:28 The name of it. Yeah, I know it on the third volume
115. 00:08:31 That name is connected as well, but Shane is not there's a third author that steps in on the volume three. I
116. 00:08:38 Don't know the story there at all and there's not a
117. 00:08:43 like in a lot of these books
118. 00:08:45 There's like an author's piece like at the back like on a the dust cover and such. There's usually like about the author
119. 00:08:51 There's not that on this one and I don't I didn't go back and look at volume one. I assume it's not there
120. 00:08:57 Either so I don't really have any history there could have looked it up, but I don't know yet
121. 00:09:01 I don't know but if I were to take a stab at the name, I would say Rianon Bowelbin Bowelbin
122. 00:09:07 Not Bowelbin. There's an eye. I don't know if that's right. I don't know but anyways
123. 00:09:13 Let's stop butchering his name by the Farnham Street team that that I can pronounce. I can I can run with that
124. 00:09:18 So this is this is about mental models, right? And this is coming at it from the sciences effectively
125. 00:09:27 and
126. 00:09:29 I know that whenever I picked this I had asked you if we should pick it or not because I didn't know how deep into
127. 00:09:34 Science that were land. This was gonna go
128. 00:09:37 And I was not so sure we would be able to explain some of this in layman's terms
129. 00:09:42 So I was asking you about it. You said it would be okay
130. 00:09:46 So here we are and we get to talk about great mental models once more
131. 00:09:49 All right, so blame me if it's too sciency for you all pretty much
132. 00:09:55 And I know that there are many many much chapters here that we're not going to cover
133. 00:10:00 because this is
134. 00:10:03 This is one of those books. It's pretty dense. I would say just just from an initial view of this. There's a lot
135. 00:10:09 In here how many pages is it?
136. 00:10:12 Do you notice there's no 380 some 380?
137. 00:10:15 I know that there's no appendix like there's no real
138. 00:10:19 like usually when we get a book of this size there's like
139. 00:10:23 Almost a third or at least a quarter of the back of it is all like added extra materials
140. 00:10:28 That I usually don't go through
141. 00:10:31 So I kind of assumed that when I picked it up and then I started reading it and was like wait
142. 00:10:35 What's in the back is doing the whole how to read a book thing?
143. 00:10:37 It was slipping through the back and it's like wait a second
144. 00:10:39 the conclusion is on like
145. 00:10:42 Three pages from the end of the entire book. What?
146. 00:10:45 Yep, okay. It's true. So very full book
147. 00:10:50 The three sections are broken out in the physics chemistry and biology in that order
148. 00:10:55 Uh, so yeah, it's those three sections and I've picked out two or three within each of those
149. 00:11:01 for us to talk about today
150. 00:11:04 So unless you want to add something to it, Mike, I'll mention the other ones, but we're going to cover
151. 00:11:08 Two to three of each of those and there are others. I'll read those off when we get to them
152. 00:11:13 Anything else before we jump in?
153. 00:11:15 We'll see. I don't know which of these other ones I would want to
154. 00:11:20 Bring up maybe a couple where I have action items associated with them
155. 00:11:25 But I think it kind of depends on how the conversation goes. So we will uh
156. 00:11:32 Take it as it comes. Yep
157. 00:11:35 Uh, I want to start this with
158. 00:11:37 so in
159. 00:11:39 The actually in the pre-introduction
160. 00:11:42 Let me get my book open here. There's a section actually before the table of contents
161. 00:11:47 which is
162. 00:11:49 Effectively talking about what mental models are from a very high level short condensed summary
163. 00:11:55 view
164. 00:11:58 and
165. 00:11:59 I think that it helps a little bit to read there's there's a little bit of a section here that I want to
166. 00:12:03 Uh to read you, but I think it'll it'll help set the stage if you're not familiar with the concept of mental models
167. 00:12:10 Uh, so anyway, this is this is from the Farnham street team
168. 00:12:13 And they have a statement that they strongly believe that that says the quality of your thinking depends on the models that are in your head
169. 00:12:20 And then a little bit down below that
170. 00:12:23 It says when you learn to see the world as it is
171. 00:12:25 And not as you want it to be
172. 00:12:28 Everything changes the solution to any problem becomes more apparent when you can view it through more than one lens
173. 00:12:33 And that's that's effectively what they're getting at is like these models are different ways to view things
174. 00:12:39 so if you're struggling with
175. 00:12:41 Understanding something that's going on you can use these different models to
176. 00:12:44 Basically color the situation that you're looking at to try to give you a different perspective on it
177. 00:12:50 Is that fair? Yeah, and the first book. Yeah, and the first book they mentioned
178. 00:12:55 That mental models are the lattice work, which you hang your ideas
179. 00:12:59 And it's basically the lens at which you look at the world
180. 00:13:03 So by looking at your situation or your problem through different mental models, you can make sense of it in different ways
181. 00:13:09 And uh some of the mental models from the first book like aakim's razor for example if you're trying to decide between two different options
182. 00:13:17 Akim's razor says that the simplest solution is the best solution
183. 00:13:22 Oh, okay. Well looking through that mental model then this solution is significantly simpler than the other one
184. 00:13:27 That's the right one right and that doesn't necessarily mean that from every perspective
185. 00:13:31 That's the right answer or that is 100 correct that that's the right answer. It depends on your bias basically
186. 00:13:39 so
187. 00:13:42 That was the idea behind the first mental models and I feel like it is actually more effective in the second one
188. 00:13:49 Because of the domains that they are taking the ideas from and they're basically making them more generalizable
189. 00:13:58 So they'll take the ideas from the different categories in this particular book and then they'll use some
190. 00:14:04 Completely different genre as the basis for this is how you can see that this played out in another realm
191. 00:14:10 And I feel like in terms of accomplishing the goal of helping people realize how to apply these mental models
192. 00:14:17 This might be better than the first one. Yeah, I would agree with that which I was not expecting
193. 00:14:22 At all. I was really expecting it to kind of just build on the previous
194. 00:14:27 and
195. 00:14:29 Be a little more explicit about how things could be applied but pulling these sciences in
196. 00:14:33 And showing how it applies in areas completely outside the realm that you would think
197. 00:14:39 It should be a covering like thermodynamics. Well, how does that apply?
198. 00:14:43 In a lot of ways actually we're not gonna talk about them today, but in a lot of ways
199. 00:14:48 so
200. 00:14:50 There there's just a lot of application outside of it
201. 00:14:53 I just was kind of caught off guard by that. So I was very grateful for it and I think you're absolutely right
202. 00:14:58 Yeah, and to kind of piggyback on this Martin mentions in the chat that
203. 00:15:03 This one he enjoyed rereading this one
204. 00:15:06 Because when they read it the first time they compared it to the first and it's quite different. It is quite different
205. 00:15:11 I think because the
206. 00:15:14 Because of the models that they chose to use in the the first one
207. 00:15:17 There are significantly more models in this one and they are things that you are kind of familiar with already
208. 00:15:23 It doesn't read like new information
209. 00:15:25 And that's why I made the comment that I did about this actually being maybe more applicable
210. 00:15:30 Because to the point that you just mentioned Joe like thermodynamics
211. 00:15:34 and
212. 00:15:35 All these types of things you heard about in your elementary school science class and you moved on because you didn't become a scientist
213. 00:15:42 Right, right and you don't think about the second law of thermodynamics very often
214. 00:15:45 But actually there are ways that that plays out in other
215. 00:15:51 uh
216. 00:15:53 Another domains and so that is I think one of the cool things about this second volume
217. 00:15:59 It has a lot more
218. 00:16:01 Surprising application than you thought but almost everyone that I've told about this series
219. 00:16:07 The first volume they're like, oh, yeah, that's great. They picked that one up
220. 00:16:10 No problem and then they look at the contents for the second and the third ones
221. 00:16:13 And they have the exact same reaction. They're like, I don't think this one's for me. Right, right?
222. 00:16:19 I'm having read it. Yes, it is for you. That's kind of the point if you are if you uh,
223. 00:16:25 are only looking for
224. 00:16:27 Scientific information or chemistry information
225. 00:16:29 Then this book isn't for you
226. 00:16:32 But if you want to take these ideas that you know just a little bit about maybe because you remember being taught this
227. 00:16:38 But you've moved on from that because you don't see any sort of application for it
228. 00:16:41 This is absolutely the book for you
229. 00:16:44 And and just to kind of cement that idea, okay
230. 00:16:49 If we jump into the introduction, there's a story in the introduction that I feel like explains this very well
231. 00:16:54 And that's the story of the frame
232. 00:16:57 Which is this boat that was built to work with nature instead of against it. I thought this was a fascinating story
233. 00:17:04 I'm gonna butcher all the names. So I'm not going to tell you all the names, but Norwegian scientist
234. 00:17:10 This is the was it early 1800s. It was right in front of me. Yeah late 1800s
235. 00:17:16 They had a lot of curiosity about what's going on at
236. 00:17:19 The north pole, but every time they tried to send a ship there
237. 00:17:22 They had this really odd
238. 00:17:25 Coincidence in that they would try to get somewhere close and then it took so long to get there that the water would freeze
239. 00:17:32 Crash and smash the boats and they couldn't get anywhere near it, right? So
240. 00:17:37 This scientist had the idea to develop a ship that worked with this instead of against it
241. 00:17:45 Obviously, there's major crushing forces when it comes to freezing water
242. 00:17:48 So that's what would destroy these boats
243. 00:17:52 Instead of building a typical boat that had your normal keel and had a special shape underneath of it to glide with the water
244. 00:18:01 He built one that was pretty much spherical
245. 00:18:04 Didn't really have much for a keel and anything that would reach down into the water to propel it forward could be lifted and removed
246. 00:18:11 What that meant was whenever it would get to the points where the water was freezing
247. 00:18:15 It would have that crushing force, but because of the spherical nature of underneath of it
248. 00:18:20 It would essentially pop the boat up out of the water
249. 00:18:23 And set it on top of the ice and then it would thaw and it could come back down and then they could keep going
250. 00:18:29 So it prevented the boat from being crushed. They collected a lot of information
251. 00:18:33 They never actually got to the north pole it sounded like but they were able to get somewhere close
252. 00:18:37 All of this was done
253. 00:18:40 By using the mindset of how do I work with this instead of against it? Like how do I try to force my way through it?
254. 00:18:45 Let me look at it from a different angle
255. 00:18:48 And see how I can make this work. That's the concept
256. 00:18:51 That's basically the process that of mental models that we're talking about like choosing a different lens to look at a problem through
257. 00:18:58 Yep, that is a brilliant application of the
258. 00:19:03 Approach for the rest of the book
259. 00:19:05 You don't really expect that sort of thing in the introduction right but
260. 00:19:10 That is the exact thing you're going to get for the next
261. 00:19:13 397 pages. Yes
262. 00:19:17 Yep, that because this is before you ever get into the book. We haven't even started the book yet. So
263. 00:19:22 Take that for what it is
264. 00:19:25 So that said
265. 00:19:27 uh, the last thing before they get into
266. 00:19:29 The the meat of the book there's a quote here
267. 00:19:33 The most important thing to remember is that all of these models are tools
268. 00:19:37 So there is no like it's typical, right? Like you don't
269. 00:19:41 Treat everything like a nail to beat it with a hammer
270. 00:19:45 Because sometimes you don't need that tool you need a different tool
271. 00:19:49 So not every one of these is going to be applicable to every situation. So you got to pick the right one
272. 00:19:53 for the time
273. 00:19:56 And that is the
274. 00:19:58 dangerous part
275. 00:20:00 with reading the books that we read I feel
276. 00:20:04 Because you're referring to that famous saying that when all you have is a hammer. Yep, everything looks like a nail
277. 00:20:09 and uh
278. 00:20:11 So you can get a mental model
279. 00:20:13 You can get an idea or a framework from a single book
280. 00:20:18 And you can be like this is the tool
281. 00:20:22 This is the solution and you can just go to town trying to apply it to every area of your life
282. 00:20:27 And it takes a lot of skill to figure out
283. 00:20:30 What are the right places to apply and what are the wrong places
284. 00:20:33 And this is the problem with systems books, especially when taken in isolation. Yep
285. 00:20:38 Yeah, it is just the term system or that what we refer to as a systems book
286. 00:20:44 It's basically saying yes, this is your all-in-one
287. 00:20:47 multi tool your Swiss army knife for productivity
288. 00:20:51 And to help you get to the next level in your life, but it's never that that simple
289. 00:20:57 Even that analogy like there there are no multi tools here. There's just the individual tools
290. 00:21:02 And so you have to learn through trial and error probably
291. 00:21:06 When to use certain things
292. 00:21:09 And if I were to summarize like the biggest lesson i've learned through 154 episodes of bookworm
293. 00:21:15 It is that exact thing that there's going to be something
294. 00:21:20 In each book that we read that has the potential to benefit my life
295. 00:21:24 But at no point is there going to be a book that is just like this is everything now just do this
296. 00:21:30 I guess from our christian standpoint, you could say the bible would be that book
297. 00:21:35 But even that is like a collection of books and you have to learn the context in order to apply those things
298. 00:21:40 It's the exact same thing with all of all of these books that we read
299. 00:21:43 You have to figure out when and where to use this stuff
300. 00:21:45 So that means that we should all be on the same quest here to collect more mental models
301. 00:21:52 To collect more dots and and allow us to connect them in new and interesting ways
302. 00:21:57 And never be satisfied with well i've got a couple of them now so
303. 00:22:01 Right, right
304. 00:22:04 Yeah, there's
305. 00:22:05 Well, let's let's just jump into them because there's there's a lot of different ways you can come at these but the first section here is on physics
306. 00:22:11 and the very first chapter inside of this is about relativity
307. 00:22:15 and the
308. 00:22:17 theory of relativity
309. 00:22:20 You know, there's a lot of different ways we could maybe discuss that but i'm not gonna
310. 00:22:24 That's this one thing I don't want to do is spend a lot of time just talking about the science part of this because it can get to be
311. 00:22:30 A bit much on that, but you can get the kind of gist of it
312. 00:22:35 Basically things are different depending from the viewpoint that you see them
313. 00:22:40 And that's one of the main points here is that
314. 00:22:43 your
315. 00:22:45 Your perspective informs your experience
316. 00:22:49 Like that's one of the quotes in the book
317. 00:22:51 uh a good example of this is one of the initial
318. 00:22:54 kind of
319. 00:22:56 science
320. 00:22:58 Parts i guess is this concept of bob and allis on the train
321. 00:23:01 with
322. 00:23:03 Two lightning strikes so bob is outside the train watching the train
323. 00:23:07 allis is on the train
324. 00:23:10 And the very front of the train and the very back of the train get hit by a bolt of lightning two different bolts of lightning at the same time
325. 00:23:19 Okay, bob is watching from the outside. He's talking to allis afterwards
326. 00:23:23 And says wow wasn't that crazy that the train got hit in two places at the same time
327. 00:23:27 Allis says what are you talking about the front of the train got hit first and then the back of it got hit
328. 00:23:33 Well
329. 00:23:35 Technically who's correct?
330. 00:23:37 Well depending on which perspective you're coming from they're both correct
331. 00:23:41 Because bob saw the front and the back hit at the same time
332. 00:23:46 but because the train is moving and
333. 00:23:50 the speed of light
334. 00:23:53 Working the way it does the bolt of lightning it hits at the back has further to travel than the one that hit in the front
335. 00:23:59 Because she's moving towards the one in the front
336. 00:24:02 Which means that she sees the one in the front strike first
337. 00:24:06 And then the one at the back strikes so from her perspective she is correct
338. 00:24:10 Because scientifically that's what she saw. She's not wrong
339. 00:24:14 But that's her perspective, right? So you had to be a little careful when you're perceiving things because you don't know what
340. 00:24:20 Laws of nature or sometimes at play and affecting your viewpoint
341. 00:24:24 Yeah, so you did a fine job retelling that story, but i'm just as confused
342. 00:24:31 You tell it it's when I read it in the book really there's there's a the better version of the story from this chapter
343. 00:24:37 To me the one that made sense to me was that you are traveling on a ship
344. 00:24:42 Okay, so you are moving in a direction plane car, whatever
345. 00:24:45 You're in a vehicle that is moving and on the vehicle you're holding a ball and you drop the ball and it goes straight down to the floor
346. 00:24:53 So from your perspective the ball falls straight down
347. 00:24:57 But if you were to remove the vehicle that you were traveling in and someone who is removed from the situation
348. 00:25:04 Sees you moving but there's like this transparent barrier now
349. 00:25:08 So that and they see the point at which you drop the ball and then the point it where the ball ends up
350. 00:25:13 It's obvious that the ball is moving forward
351. 00:25:16 As you drop it but because of your perspective you're seeing it drop straight down
352. 00:25:20 And all of that is to say that
353. 00:25:23 everyone bases their
354. 00:25:26 beliefs on their
355. 00:25:28 perspective
356. 00:25:29 And no one understands
357. 00:25:31 100 percent what is going on because you can't see all the different perspectives at the same time, right?
358. 00:25:38 So I don't have an action item from this chapter, but it did challenge me
359. 00:25:42 basically
360. 00:25:44 What you see is never
361. 00:25:46 All there is and the skill to develop here is to get good at perspective taking
362. 00:25:51 Which is the ability to perceive a situation from an alternate point of view. That's something I want to improve
363. 00:25:56 I want to be able to see things from other people's
364. 00:25:59 point of view which step one
365. 00:26:02 Is just
366. 00:26:04 Assuming that people are not lying to you if they tell you something that doesn't make sense
367. 00:26:10 Right and that sounds ridiculous to explain it that way, but I've noticed lately
368. 00:26:15 I've been getting annoyed with people that I see falling into this like well, it's not my experience like I don't care if it's your experience
369. 00:26:23 You might be wrong. Yes
370. 00:26:27 About many things. I am
371. 00:26:30 Can't we just all agree that we don't know everything? I don't know why that's so hard
372. 00:26:34 Well, I was to admit that I'm wrong in that case. I even do this so
373. 00:26:39 Like what you were just saying like taking somebody else's perspective like viewing a situation relative to someone else's perspective
374. 00:26:47 Simple things like I'm impatient when I'm driving like this is no no secret to my family is like if I'm behind somebody and they're moving slow
375. 00:26:55 I'm sometimes physically irritated like it
376. 00:26:58 I'm just it drives me up a wall when speed limits 60
377. 00:27:02 You're doing 55 because I know this road feels like it should be 55
378. 00:27:05 But it's actually 60 which means it's okay to do 67 like that's that's Joe's way of driving
379. 00:27:11 And I will pull up behind somebody
380. 00:27:13 They're going 55 it drives me nuts and I will get upset
381. 00:27:18 But then I've noticed that my kids sometimes like they're going so slow
382. 00:27:22 Okay, take a deep breath
383. 00:27:25 We don't know what's going on in that car
384. 00:27:26 Maybe they have a pot of chili in the back that they're taking to somebody who's sick
385. 00:27:30 And they can't go that fast because they may spill it like you don't know the answers to these things like I'm trying to assume that
386. 00:27:37 Next time I'm behind somebody's slow. They are bringing someone sick a pot of chili
387. 00:27:41 Exactly. That's what it is every time if they're going slow
388. 00:27:44 They have a pot of chili in the back and they can't spill it like that's that's like my go-to response on that one because
389. 00:27:50 I've done that before I've had pot of chili in the back to take it somewhere
390. 00:27:54 And if you take hard corners or you have to react quickly guess what it ends up on the floor
391. 00:27:59 I don't want to do that. Don't spill the chili. Yep
392. 00:28:01 It's or or here so another example I had had
393. 00:28:05 a surgery
394. 00:28:08 And I was told I wasn't allowed to lift more than I want to say it was 10 pounds at the time
395. 00:28:13 for a couple weeks and which was
396. 00:28:16 Not fun. Anyway, we had little little baby kids at the time
397. 00:28:20 which meant that
398. 00:28:22 When we would put kids in and out of the car, I shouldn't be lifting them
399. 00:28:26 But there were a couple times when we would get to the car to do that
400. 00:28:30 I would be pushing the stroller to the car
401. 00:28:32 And then would ask my wife to pick up the kid to put them in the car and I would go around and get in the car and sit
402. 00:28:38 It's like, okay. What kind of dad am I? I'm not even gonna put my kid in the car
403. 00:28:42 That's what it looks like from the outside
404. 00:28:44 Like don't be that guy like don't be the one that makes your wife do all the things like that was the view that it came across
405. 00:28:49 But I wanted to explain to everybody who was watching. No, I just had surgery. I'm not allowed to do that like
406. 00:28:53 But whenever I see other people do things like that
407. 00:28:58 I try to remember those situations because then
408. 00:29:00 I'm less likely to be like don't be like that. Don't be like that person. Well, you don't know the full story
409. 00:29:06 You don't know their perspective
410. 00:29:08 And that's the thing you'll never know the whole story. So that is like a fairly
411. 00:29:13 Inoculous example like they don't know your situation
412. 00:29:17 So you can't do things a certain way because of this thing that is true. You just had surgery
413. 00:29:24 Right, but I think we can explode this to a much higher level
414. 00:29:28 I'm not talking about relativity in terms of relative truth
415. 00:29:32 Just assuming that my perspective is not all that there is to be gained on the topic of what is true
416. 00:29:40 So it's it's not
417. 00:29:43 necessarily
418. 00:29:45 Thinking that you're wrong all the time. Uh, there's that saying strong convictions lightly held like being willing to change your mind as you get
419. 00:29:52 New information, but also not just like rejecting all the information that comes to you because it doesn't fall in line with your
420. 00:30:00 Worldview or your bubble of belief going back to liminal thinking by
421. 00:30:04 Dave grace. Yeah, I love how all this stuff ties together if you were just to read read
422. 00:30:09 Yeah, I mean, I don't forget when we read liminal thinking it might have been after
423. 00:30:15 the first round of the great mental models, but I can totally see it how reading that book influenced my approach to this one
424. 00:30:22 Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it is fast. I wish we had ways to do like a
425. 00:30:27 I don't even know how this would happen, but a way to do like a book review that's
426. 00:30:31 topical
427. 00:30:33 And then your sin topical I guess to use the word and then you're reviewing actually like six or seven books at the same time
428. 00:30:39 The problem is trying to nail down which six or seven because it branches out into so many different fingers that you'd have a hard time
429. 00:30:45 Nailing down what those are
430. 00:30:47 Well, if we're gonna embrace a mental model known as the map is not the territory
431. 00:30:51 You could say joe that you could make a map of this
432. 00:30:54 What would you say content?
433. 00:30:57 Interesting interesting terminology. I declined to use said terminology
434. 00:31:04 Okay, okay
435. 00:31:07 All right, so that's that's the relativity piece of physics. There's a couple more here. We're gonna skip
436. 00:31:13 Unless there's something you want to cover in here, Mike, but one is reciprocity
437. 00:31:17 Basically, it's the concept of a scratch your back you scratch mine
438. 00:31:21 that theory of
439. 00:31:24 thinking
440. 00:31:25 The other one is thermo dynamics and they do go through
441. 00:31:28 Three the four laws
442. 00:31:31 I just had a brain for laws for laws. I can I can jump in here real quick with reciprocity
443. 00:31:38 I think the big thing that I got from this section is that we reap benefits when we volunteer so one of the things that
444. 00:31:46 We as a family we have these family core values and one of them is to
445. 00:31:53 To serve others selflessly basically but finding the needed meeting it
446. 00:31:57 and so that kind of was cool to see how like there is actually a
447. 00:32:05 not just religious but psychological
448. 00:32:07 basis for that being true that when you give you get back in a higher level
449. 00:32:16 And then for the laws of thermodynamics, I can run through these quick if you want because they are in my mind node
450. 00:32:22 File here the first law energy can't be created or destroyed
451. 00:32:25 Second law everything always tends towards disorder the third law's temperature approach is absolute zero entropy approaches a constant value
452. 00:32:33 Fourth law of two objects are in equilibrium with the third object then they are in equilibrium
453. 00:32:37 with each other and so all of that is to say
454. 00:32:40 That we are influenced by the people around us regardless of the walls or barriers that we try to put up
455. 00:32:47 Yeah, and in that section there's a piece that talks about literally walls and insulators
456. 00:32:54 because
457. 00:32:55 Information if you think of information trying to come to an equilibrium
458. 00:32:59 And allowing information to cross lines and being easily shared
459. 00:33:03 If it is easily shared you have more common ground you seek an equilibrium with those on the other side if you don't have easily
460. 00:33:09 Shared information you can lead to extremes
461. 00:33:12 of thinking
462. 00:33:15 And one of the examples that's brought up in there is the Berlin wall and sharing
463. 00:33:18 Information or not sharing information on two sides of Germany. So
464. 00:33:24 Super fun stories involved there. We're not going to go into too much further
465. 00:33:30 And then that brings us to the section on inertia, which I do want to spend a little bit of time on
466. 00:33:35 here because they're talking about
467. 00:33:37 how
468. 00:33:40 one of the
469. 00:33:41 equations and such involved here is that basically
470. 00:33:43 if something's in motion
471. 00:33:46 It's easier for it to stay in motion than it is for it to stop and if something is stopped
472. 00:33:50 It's harder for it to get moving than it is to stay stopped
473. 00:33:53 Basically, that's what you're so let's let's just call a spade a spade here
474. 00:33:57 You want to talk about this section because it talks about habits, right?
475. 00:34:00 No, actually we can't we can't resist the habits discussion on this podcast
476. 00:34:04 I wasn't going to go there, but hey, we could do that
477. 00:34:08 But yes, this one, you know, there's a couple of examples that are brought up here
478. 00:34:16 That were fascinating to me one was the use of lead
479. 00:34:20 in
480. 00:34:22 A lot of materials, you know, if you've bought an older house or you've been around DIY stuff at all
481. 00:34:28 You know that lead paint is a thing that's pretty much everywhere from a certain time period
482. 00:34:33 Lead pipes are a thing lead was in many many many many much things
483. 00:34:39 And over time they've been slowly removing that from things despite the fact that going back
484. 00:34:45 long long time ago
485. 00:34:47 We've known that it causes health issues
486. 00:34:49 despite lots and lots of
487. 00:34:52 um
488. 00:34:53 Science and data
489. 00:34:55 They've known that it can cause death and serious side effects
490. 00:34:59 So why is it taking so long to get rid of some things like it was like 50 years it took
491. 00:35:06 to actually get it out of a lot of
492. 00:35:09 systems
493. 00:35:11 Contrast that with absent. I know you saw that one coming
494. 00:35:15 uh, the green alcohol that is
495. 00:35:19 Supposedly claimed to cause hallucinations and such
496. 00:35:21 it was supposed that
497. 00:35:24 absent caused a lot of like a mental
498. 00:35:28 I guess hallucinations and delusions
499. 00:35:32 Uh, but it led to
500. 00:35:34 I guess it was in france. They led it led to the absent murders
501. 00:35:38 It was a guy who killed
502. 00:35:41 Uh his family
503. 00:35:42 And then they ended up banning
504. 00:35:44 Absent and then they were studying it and found out that it doesn't actually cause any of those things. It was all just
505. 00:35:49 false perception
506. 00:35:51 and
507. 00:35:53 It's only recently that they've started to bring it back into certain areas, but uh, it was dropped off very quickly
508. 00:35:59 Instead of taking long long time
509. 00:36:02 But the reason for that is because with lead
510. 00:36:05 It was used in so many different ways and it was beneficial
511. 00:36:10 To like in certain properties it had a lot of things going for it. It was used in a lot of different industries
512. 00:36:15 absence
513. 00:36:17 Would just get you drunk like that's that was all it had going for it
514. 00:36:21 So it was very easy
515. 00:36:23 To drop that because it didn't have the mass, right? Didn't have a lot of
516. 00:36:28 Places that it was being used
517. 00:36:31 Unlike lead so it was a lot harder to get led out of the
518. 00:36:34 Supply chain than it was to get absent out
519. 00:36:37 Hopefully that made sense
520. 00:36:39 It does make sense to me because uh the way that I
521. 00:36:44 Thought about this section
522. 00:36:47 They mentioned that the inertia of belief can make it hard to affect real change in the world
523. 00:36:51 and I immediately thought of
524. 00:36:54 The word hustle because I wrote a book called they'll show hustle before I really understood what Gary Vaynerchuk was talking about
525. 00:37:01 When he started talking about hustle and I don't think they're the same thing at all and uh, I don't think i'm gonna
526. 00:37:09 Be able to change or reclaim that definition
527. 00:37:12 Right, right because there's so much inertia behind it
528. 00:37:16 uh
529. 00:37:18 And so that is what it is, you know, you can
530. 00:37:20 You can either just live with it and say that's not what that means and
531. 00:37:25 Try to convince the the much smaller audience I have and right?
532. 00:37:29 like hey, what you heard before isn't true or uh, just
533. 00:37:33 Go with the flow, you know, that's kind of the
534. 00:37:37 the choice that you you are left with
535. 00:37:39 and I
536. 00:37:42 I don't know. I don't think there's a formulaic right way to uh to do it, but recognizing it is important because
537. 00:37:47 You got to know
538. 00:37:50 What sort of battle you're in for if you're really going to try and change people's minds about things
539. 00:37:55 Uh, and it the nurse is not just a as it pertains to the way people view a topic or think about a certain thing
540. 00:38:03 But that's where my mind went right right? I I mostly was thinking about it in the sense of
541. 00:38:09 Once you have something moving
542. 00:38:13 It's not simple to change course or to get it to stop
543. 00:38:18 The obvious way as you're saying
544. 00:38:21 You mentioned when we first brought this up is habits, right? Like that's an obvious direction. You can take this
545. 00:38:27 But it it does apply in a lot of different areas like if you already have
546. 00:38:33 Uh, the train moving on a content creation
547. 00:38:36 Process if that's already in flow. It's a lot easier to keep it going
548. 00:38:41 If you're trying to get that train moving
549. 00:38:44 It takes a lot of work. We'll actually talk about that one a little bit here in the next section, but
550. 00:38:50 Once it's moving it has a lot of that inertia and it's easy to keep it
551. 00:38:56 on track
552. 00:38:58 uh, so I think about this in terms of
553. 00:39:01 You know a lot of things actually when I have a volunteer schedule and I've got people running for a sunday morning on different tasks
554. 00:39:08 Uh that whole cycle and system is a well-oiled machine at this point
555. 00:39:14 It's very easy to keep that
556. 00:39:16 Moving and when I have to add a person or something slightly changes
557. 00:39:19 You can just slightly course correct and it's not that big a deal
558. 00:39:22 But when i'm trying to implement an entirely new tool or a new scheduling system
559. 00:39:28 Like that takes a lot of work
560. 00:39:31 Because there's not anything already moving
561. 00:39:34 Like I have to get that momentum moving. It doesn't exist
562. 00:39:39 So it does kind of help explain those situations
563. 00:39:42 and the mass of the
564. 00:39:44 Object
565. 00:39:46 Matters too. The bigger it is the harder it is to get it moving or to get it to stop or I would argue to change its direction
566. 00:39:53 I mean this is
567. 00:39:55 a lot of what I am fighting in the day job is
568. 00:39:59 team of
569. 00:40:00 17 people
570. 00:40:02 and
571. 00:40:03 Trying to change the way that we do things is not as simple as like oh well. It's just created a new system
572. 00:40:07 Right, right
573. 00:40:09 Wish it was that easy, right
574. 00:40:11 Yeah, yeah, exactly
575. 00:40:13 It's kind of interesting because going back to the Colby stuff
576. 00:40:16 I am not a high quick start
577. 00:40:18 But I can see like this is the way to improve this process
578. 00:40:22 And I'm not used to being the one who's like hey, let's just go do the thing
579. 00:40:26 Right, right
580. 00:40:29 But that's my role a lot of times
581. 00:40:31 So the next section here is friction and viscosity
582. 00:40:36 I think a lot of people understand what friction is viscosity is like the thickness of a material
583. 00:40:42 So think of molasses versus water
584. 00:40:45 How hard it is for one layer of fluid to slide past another layer. Yes, that is viscosity
585. 00:40:52 Technically good job
586. 00:40:54 I like molasses versus water. It makes sense to me molasses has a higher viscosity than water. That's what i'm
587. 00:41:01 So i'm gonna run with
588. 00:41:03 It's my understanding of it
589. 00:41:05 the the part in here that I think is
590. 00:41:07 super interesting
591. 00:41:09 uh is actually this story about Chernobyl
592. 00:41:11 and how
593. 00:41:14 Lots of stuff happening there, but the part of it that he's so messed up
594. 00:41:19 I know there was so much. I was like really that was a thing come on, but
595. 00:41:24 basically
596. 00:41:26 What what was happening was there was a whole system in place that tried to slow down
597. 00:41:31 and prevent information from being shared
598. 00:41:35 whether that was
599. 00:41:37 How to help the people who were impacted by the incidents at Chernobyl
600. 00:41:41 uh
601. 00:41:43 Or the process that led up to the incidents at Chernobyl
602. 00:41:48 In both scenarios information flow had a lot of friction
603. 00:41:51 They had a lot of pain points
604. 00:41:54 Serious side effects to the people if they were to report on things
605. 00:41:58 namely death
606. 00:42:01 This is the culture that was created
607. 00:42:04 And it meant that the entire situation was significantly worse than it probably should have been
608. 00:42:09 Uh and had
609. 00:42:12 Those checks and balances not been so difficult like if the information flow had not been so difficult
610. 00:42:18 A lot of it probably wouldn't have happened. So
611. 00:42:21 That's purely in the sense of friction for sharing information that that's effectively what they had set up
612. 00:42:28 and
613. 00:42:30 that
614. 00:42:31 To me anyway is a big alarm bell when it comes to like how do I share information with my teammates?
615. 00:42:37 like
616. 00:42:39 Is it easy or is it difficult?
617. 00:42:41 Uh, yeah, I actually I have an action in them specifically from that which i've already completed
618. 00:42:47 So whoo
619. 00:42:49 But that was to set up a whiteboard in my office. I don't think you can see it on camera
620. 00:42:53 It's right here. Good not but
621. 00:42:55 The the thing with this is it makes it easy for me and a few of the team members here
622. 00:43:00 To see what big projects are we working on?
623. 00:43:03 They have a place to write any notes
624. 00:43:05 To share with other people in the team
625. 00:43:08 Uh, and then we can also manage like one-off problems like I noticed this had an issue
626. 00:43:14 Yeah, go check the board if it's written on it great
627. 00:43:16 Put your name next to it and add your name to the list of people who want to know when it's fixed
628. 00:43:20 Otherwise write it on the list like that's
629. 00:43:23 A way for anybody to see what it is. We're working on in those situations makes that information flow very easy
630. 00:43:29 Uh, this is like the secondary piece of this chapter which is resistance and making things easier to do
631. 00:43:34 Eliminating friction eliminating resistance kind of all the same thing in that case. So anyway, that's an action. I have set up a whiteboard and start using it
632. 00:43:43 Check got that one done
633. 00:43:45 Nice
634. 00:43:47 Yeah, so you're talking about the information sharing in the Soviet union
635. 00:43:51 And how that system was set up with intentional friction to prevent the communication, right?
636. 00:43:57 The other example they use in this chapter is of toyota creating a smoother environment and empowering workers to engage with their work
637. 00:44:04 Pulling the cord if they see something wrong so that things can be fixed, right?
638. 00:44:08 and uh
639. 00:44:11 I have an action item here from here as well to consider how can we get more lean at work again reducing the friction in terms of communication
640. 00:44:19 So that we can move faster. I mean, that's kind of the big point at the end of this chapter reducing resistance is often easier than using more force
641. 00:44:27 But I have a
642. 00:44:30 Question that pops up just now as we're talking through this. Can you think of a situation
643. 00:44:36 Where more friction would actually be a beneficial thing?
644. 00:44:41 And I don't mean like the Soviets had a specific end in mind
645. 00:44:44 And they wanted to keep people in the dark like I think we can all agree. That's bad
646. 00:44:49 That's generally not a good thing. Yeah, so is there a generally good scenario where friction is
647. 00:44:56 A positive instead of a negative. I think it's it's always going to depend on the perspective, right?
648. 00:45:03 uh, but
649. 00:45:06 Two examples one of which I think martin's already pegged in the chat
650. 00:45:10 but uh
651. 00:45:12 for me personally
652. 00:45:14 I
653. 00:45:15 Want a lot of friction
654. 00:45:17 in place for getting joe's phone number
655. 00:45:20 I make that hard to get a hold of my cell phone number
656. 00:45:24 We have our whole church database system so you can keep track of you know, everybody's contact information
657. 00:45:29 Uh, and I don't even put my phone number in that
658. 00:45:32 Uh because i've had cases where
659. 00:45:35 People go in and find it and they give it out like our staff members go grab that and hand it out to congregation members
660. 00:45:40 So like so I took it out. So if they want to share that number they have to come talk to me first
661. 00:45:44 So it's gotten more difficult
662. 00:45:47 For people in general to get a hold of me
663. 00:45:49 That's partially because i've had so many people's like, can you come fix my printer?
664. 00:45:54 My wi-fi is not working in my house. Why can't I get this to connect to that like
665. 00:45:58 I don't know. I'm not in charge of your house
666. 00:46:01 Like I don't have time to fix all of your houses
667. 00:46:03 Like I would be doing nothing but that for the church if it was that simple
668. 00:46:08 So I want that friction and I get that that's and again. This is why I say it depends on your perspective
669. 00:46:14 I see that as a very good thing
670. 00:46:16 Some people see it as not a good thing
671. 00:46:18 So let me let me reframe this because yeah, I understand like the intentional friction around the personal stuff
672. 00:46:22 And that all depends on your perspective
673. 00:46:24 Right
674. 00:46:24 You want to make it harder for somebody to get your information somebody else on the other hand
675. 00:46:29 wants to make it easier to reach out get their problem solved correct is there anything
676. 00:46:33 At a larger scale that a society as a whole can all agree
677. 00:46:38 This is a positive application of friction that is not just eliminating something bad
678. 00:46:44 I guess that's the obvious
679. 00:46:46 Way that you would apply it and I guess you could apply that for personal or group, but
680. 00:46:50 in terms of
681. 00:46:53 achieving a positive outcome friction is always a bad thing, right? But in terms of preventing a negative outcome
682. 00:46:59 That's when it can be viewed as a good thing. Is there any place that you can think of where those?
683. 00:47:03 Those are crossed. Yeah, the one that immediately comes to my mind is the concept of the tragedy of the commons
684. 00:47:10 familiar with this so
685. 00:47:13 Things like fishing right where it not for checks and balances in limits
686. 00:47:18 and resistance to
687. 00:47:21 being able to fish a certain number
688. 00:47:23 then
689. 00:47:25 Big businesses come in and they will wipe out the entire population
690. 00:47:29 so putting in that resistance and that
691. 00:47:32 requirements
692. 00:47:34 and caps
693. 00:47:36 In this case it would be government regulation to prevent that means that the entirety of that
694. 00:47:40 Species isn't wiped out
695. 00:47:43 Is that fair? Is that kind of what you're thinking of?
696. 00:47:46 Maybe I guess this ties into something that is later on in the third section
697. 00:47:51 where they talk about
698. 00:47:54 democracies
699. 00:47:56 I forget which chapter specifically
700. 00:47:58 That comes from maybe it was incentives
701. 00:48:01 I don't remember
702. 00:48:04 but essentially they say that the problem with democracies is that you have millions of people all acting in their own self-interest
703. 00:48:11 Right, right
704. 00:48:13 So someone is deciding somewhere friction is good or bad. Yes
705. 00:48:17 There's no collective unanimous
706. 00:48:21 Hey friction is a good thing here because right
707. 00:48:24 Yeah, I think even even you know even if I look at
708. 00:48:29 What I just said like the tragedy the commons with fish right
709. 00:48:33 Even that resistance is seen as bad to somebody
710. 00:48:37 Right, I don't know that universally you're gonna find anything that's not considered universally
711. 00:48:44 Positive because there's always a different perspective that looks at it from the other side and says hmm. I don't like that
712. 00:48:50 Yeah, so friction is is positive when you're viewing it through a
713. 00:48:55 A lens of what do I remove?
714. 00:48:59 Right
715. 00:49:01 Yeah, because I know that one of the things that Martin had brought up was like diet and food
716. 00:49:04 What was the I don't know it came up in a few different books
717. 00:49:08 but the concept of making it more difficult for kids at school lunch lines to get
718. 00:49:13 soda and chips like
719. 00:49:16 Putting them not as the first thing in the line and putting them
720. 00:49:19 Kind of off on their own so it's not the easy thing to grab like that's putting friction in place. It's putting resistance in place
721. 00:49:25 Even then the kids would say that's a bad idea
722. 00:49:29 So yeah, I call I call it out just because going all the way back to the beginning of when and how do you use these mental models? Yep
723. 00:49:38 I think
724. 00:49:39 Recognizing do I want to add something or do I want to remove something right? That could be a clue as to what mental model you?
725. 00:49:46 You want to select?
726. 00:49:48 I don't know that you're gonna find a universal on that one
727. 00:49:50 It's it's much too slippery agreed. It's very viscous
728. 00:49:56 Uh, so there's three more sections here. No two more sections before we get into chemistry
729. 00:50:01 one is velocity which
730. 00:50:05 people regularly misunderstand velocity and just assume it's how fast you're going but
731. 00:50:11 having
732. 00:50:13 Well, people don't usually know this but when I was in college I did take a couple of advanced
733. 00:50:18 calculus based physics classes and we would regularly get into debates about different velocity things because
734. 00:50:25 Velocity isn't just speed in a direction. Well, it is speed in a direction. It's not just how fast you're going
735. 00:50:32 so whatever speed you're going it has a calculation of what direction that
736. 00:50:38 Speed is being pointed at
737. 00:50:40 That's velocity
738. 00:50:43 And I loved some of the stories in here around napoleon
739. 00:50:46 So he was talking a lot about napoleon and how he
740. 00:50:49 Conquered a lot of places due to speed, but he always gave his troops a direction
741. 00:50:54 He had velocity and it was all based on it
742. 00:50:57 So anyway that concept can be used in a lot of different ways the other section here is on
743. 00:51:01 Can we talk about velocity and task management for a second?
744. 00:51:04 Sure, why not?
745. 00:51:07 I've got a beef with the way most people use task managers
746. 00:51:10 And that is they put in all the metadata
747. 00:51:13 They get uh, they let the computer be the computer and say based on the context the due date the start date whatever
748. 00:51:22 Here's everything you got to do today
749. 00:51:25 And it's like 25 items long
750. 00:51:27 And the natural approach is okay. This is the stuff I got to get done
751. 00:51:32 I'm going to crank through these things and I think that is an example of speed
752. 00:51:37 Without considering direction or velocity
753. 00:51:40 Absolutely. Yeah, that's actually one of the things I thought about on it is because
754. 00:51:43 It it's easy to say like i'm going to move fast on these things today
755. 00:51:48 but
756. 00:51:50 Unless you're pointing
757. 00:51:52 Those things at the direction you want like what your mission is
758. 00:51:57 What your goal is mike, whatever goals you've set
759. 00:51:59 If you're pointed at those, oh wow it then you're running towards success
760. 00:52:05 But if you're just aimlessly doing a whole bunch of things very quickly
761. 00:52:09 That's a still a failure
762. 00:52:12 So it's velocity not speed. Yes, and then the other thing from here
763. 00:52:17 Uh, sorry, I end up talking about every single one of these chapters, but they talk about how to read direct. Uh, yeah, you did you did
764. 00:52:26 They talked about how it's easier to redirect a canoe than a battleship and with the day job
765. 00:52:30 I mentioned 17 employees that feels like a battleship sometime. Yep
766. 00:52:33 And it occurs to me that the way to
767. 00:52:37 steer that ship more effectively
768. 00:52:41 Is to have
769. 00:52:43 This is going all the way back and I hate to reference this book
770. 00:52:47 before disciplines of execution
771. 00:52:50 And that is way back
772. 00:52:53 And the scoreboard 40x I mean that's that's not the only place they talk about it
773. 00:52:57 But having that scoreboard where everybody can see
774. 00:53:00 This is the result of the velocity not just the speed like people will tend to just do the things
775. 00:53:06 and
776. 00:53:08 Moo try to move fast if they don't have that unifying direction of like this is where we're going to go
777. 00:53:13 And the scoreboard is the thing that gets everybody going in the the same direction
778. 00:53:16 I have been in the day job long enough to realize the effects of not having that and also having that
779. 00:53:22 Yeah
780. 00:53:23 Yes
781. 00:53:24 So the last chapter in this section is leverage
782. 00:53:27 And it's just what it sounds like if you have
783. 00:53:32 Control over something have power in a situation that is something that you can then use
784. 00:53:36 To leverage yourself into a different place think of levers
785. 00:53:40 Sometimes this term leverage gets used
786. 00:53:43 In a lot of different ways and it's not always clear what people mean by it
787. 00:53:47 But if you think about a lever
788. 00:53:49 With a fulcrum like a teeter totter
789. 00:53:51 It gives you a force that you can apply elsewhere
790. 00:53:55 Against something else that's that's the easy way to think about it
791. 00:53:58 Yeah, there are three types here
792. 00:54:01 And basically where the force the fulcrum and the weight it are distributed
793. 00:54:05 That's all in the the mind known file people aren't interested in that
794. 00:54:08 But the thing that I thought was interesting with this is the three questions about leverage
795. 00:54:13 How do I know when I have it where and when should I apply it? And how do I keep it?
796. 00:54:18 I feel like those are great just like thinking time questions. There's no simple answer to those
797. 00:54:22 But also this is the thing that you should be seeking to get and leverage itself is not a bad thing
798. 00:54:27 They make the point that leverage is a moral
799. 00:54:30 So most people I think if they don't have leverage they don't have that influence
800. 00:54:34 They are resent the fact sometimes that it's been used against them
801. 00:54:38 When they're not in alignment with the outcome that people are trying to drive
802. 00:54:41 And so they kind of push back on that. Oh, that's a bad thing
803. 00:54:45 I don't want to manipulate people you don't have to
804. 00:54:48 Manipulate people you don't have to use it in a bad way, but you should
805. 00:54:54 Look you should be considering when you have leverage and you should be considering how to use it
806. 00:54:59 Uh, and then also recognizing that you don't always have to use it
807. 00:55:02 Just because you have leverage doesn't mean that you should use it
808. 00:55:04 You have to take a new account. It's impact on the people that are around you as well
809. 00:55:08 I think silent in the chat has a great
810. 00:55:12 Have example for this because best example of leverage have ever heard their comment here
811. 00:55:17 I leverage Mike and jose time reading to find out if I will read a book or not
812. 00:55:21 That that's exactly what we're talking about using something to help you make a decision or something
813. 00:55:27 You're gonna do right. So and we know this a lot of people use bookworm
814. 00:55:31 As a pre-filter for books that they're going to read
815. 00:55:35 Like it's kind of a precursor to choosing a book to read
816. 00:55:39 Absolutely like that's leveraging the podcast to save yourself time in choosing books, right? So
817. 00:55:45 Absolutely do that. Good job. Well done silent
818. 00:55:49 1000 points
819. 00:55:53 That brings us to what the next section am I there? Yes chemistry
820. 00:55:58 Oh chemistry chemistry was one of my least favorite classes. Did you have to take chemistry in college?
821. 00:56:05 Ah
822. 00:56:07 Yes, I did because I was a biology major for my first year got it
823. 00:56:12 Got it. So
824. 00:56:14 I took lots of biology and lots of chemistry got it but only for a year
825. 00:56:20 Had a lot more on the math side. So the physics side was the part I was deep into I did a fair amount of biology stuff because the agricultural side of
826. 00:56:28 I might agree, but
827. 00:56:30 The chemistry piece was not really there. I was not chemistry. Anyway, all that to say
828. 00:56:35 The first chapter here is on activation energy
829. 00:56:37 This is the one that I was kind of alluding to earlier when we were talking about inertia in that
830. 00:56:42 Activation energy is the amount of energy it takes to get something moving forward like that's that's what gets us
831. 00:56:48 Get something started and
832. 00:56:51 It's not what continuous not what is used to keep it going. It's what it takes to get it moving, right?
833. 00:56:58 um
834. 00:56:59 I don't really have any of the specific examples here that I
835. 00:57:02 For care to reiterate, but the part about it that I thought was interesting is that
836. 00:57:05 If you have activation energy you have to have enough of it
837. 00:57:11 To get the ball rolling so much so that it will continue rolling once that activation energy is depleted
838. 00:57:18 Yep, think about that for a second
839. 00:57:21 And then think about some of the things we've talked about already. So take take uh, which one let's take task management because that's fun to talk about
840. 00:57:30 If you're setting up a new task management system
841. 00:57:32 And you're working through the process of how is that going to be used in a lot of different scenarios
842. 00:57:40 You have to have a lot of energy up front
843. 00:57:43 to not only set it up
844. 00:57:46 But also keep it moving once you've got it
845. 00:57:49 started long enough that it becomes
846. 00:57:52 Perpetuating right that it becomes something that can keep itself
847. 00:57:55 going
848. 00:57:58 Because otherwise it drops off it fails. It's boring. It's not working. I'm going to quit
849. 00:58:03 Like this this is a lot of like the dieting and exercising that happens after new years
850. 00:58:08 Yes, people have a like a little bit of activation energy because it's new years
851. 00:58:12 But they don't have enough to get it into the territory of becoming a change
852. 00:58:19 holistically
853. 00:58:21 Yep, so that was the example that I was thinking of in terms of activation energy and habits
854. 00:58:26 specifically around diet and exercise
855. 00:58:28 because
856. 00:58:31 I
857. 00:58:32 Have been working out long enough that I have seen it every single year
858. 00:58:38 That right after new years there are about
859. 00:58:42 three times the number of people in the gym
860. 00:58:46 Because they have made a quick decision and they have not thought through
861. 00:58:51 How much effort this is actually going to take to do this
862. 00:58:55 Multiple times a week for the rest of your life. Yep
863. 00:58:58 And build out the system in order to have protect the time and space to do that
864. 00:59:03 And so they burn out right and that is the
865. 00:59:07 Obvious example that I think a lot of people can relate to either because they see it or they fall and pray to it themselves
866. 00:59:14 And I've I've been on both ends of that by the way
867. 00:59:16 But the point is that change that doesn't last is easy
868. 00:59:21 and so
869. 00:59:23 This mental model really should be applied anytime you're thinking about
870. 00:59:29 Any sort of behavioral change
871. 00:59:31 I am forced to ask myself
872. 00:59:35 All of the action items that I failed on at the beginning of this episode. Yep
873. 00:59:39 Why didn't I follow through with those things and if I am going to follow through with those things
874. 00:59:44 I also have to ask the question. Is this something that I want to continue to do?
875. 00:59:49 If it's something that I want to continue to do if it's going to become a habit, I need to automatically assume, okay
876. 00:59:55 It just it just increased from here to here like it's exponentially more work in order to get this done
877. 01:00:01 And just recognizing that I feel would provide a ton of value because
878. 01:00:07 Now if you're viewing this thing as this giant change you're trying to affect
879. 01:00:13 You're forced to consider well if I'm going to make this big change in my life
880. 01:00:18 What are the things that I'm not going to do in order to make this happen?
881. 01:00:22 And just thinking about things that way like I don't have a number in mind
882. 01:00:26 What do you think the the impact that that has on your potential success rate?
883. 01:00:31 I mean, it's got to go from like
884. 01:00:34 the 10 percent for the people who just say they're going to start doing something
885. 01:00:39 right up to
886. 01:00:41 75 80 because
887. 01:00:43 You're taking it seriously and I say taking it seriously just in terms of you're giving it the amount of weight that it should actually have
888. 01:00:51 And that's a really cool application of a mental model
889. 01:00:55 I just wanted to call it out because I think that's why this stuff is so so great
890. 01:00:58 Because you don't even really you can't really predict
891. 01:01:01 The ways that this stuff is going to benefit you until you start like trying these on for size and then oh
892. 01:01:07 That's why it didn't work last right right and like you're saying
893. 01:01:13 the more time you spend planning
894. 01:01:15 You're you're effectively building up a store of activation energy
895. 01:01:19 So so if I'm planning and putting it together
896. 01:01:22 Like before it actually has launched like we're building up all of that
897. 01:01:28 And then when you get to the starting day
898. 01:01:31 You have all of that built up and you can take off like whenever I do these outdoor events
899. 01:01:36 We've spent probably three weeks a month month and a half
900. 01:01:42 Planning and building and collecting and deciding and architecting and drawing out plans of all sorts of stuff
901. 01:01:48 That's all like building up that activation energy and then it all gets launched all on that day
902. 01:01:55 And usually about noon we're done and ready to go crash because we've just spent the entire day
903. 01:02:01 Exploding with that energy to get it all to happen very quickly. So it's it's kind of that concept, right?
904. 01:02:09 um one of the things that like one of the stories in here at least
905. 01:02:12 On a high level i'm not going to tell the specific story
906. 01:02:15 But whenever you heck hear about coups and overthrowing governments and such and trying to break down existing
907. 01:02:21 constructs
908. 01:02:24 The part that is oftentimes forgotten is the amount of energy and and time and effort it takes to build up a new structure to replace
909. 01:02:32 The one that you just destroyed
910. 01:02:35 Whenever you're breaking something down and you want to
911. 01:02:39 Like get past that negative thing that you're seeing as
912. 01:02:42 detrimental
913. 01:02:45 You got to have enough energy to not only destroy that problem
914. 01:02:48 But build up whatever it is. It's going to replace it
915. 01:02:51 You don't get to just break down all the stuff you don't like and then everything's hunky dory and fine after that no
916. 01:02:57 You have to put something
917. 01:02:59 Back in place of it, especially if it's like a government overthrow
918. 01:03:03 Like you're not going to just tear it down and everybody's going to be okay. Like you've just removed all
919. 01:03:08 All hierarchy so
920. 01:03:12 Every man for himself like that's not gonna go well. Welcome to the wild west that didn't turn out great did it?
921. 01:03:17 So let's not do that
922. 01:03:20 Yep. Yep. And then the other thing here is uh
923. 01:03:23 That the reactions are not always quick
924. 01:03:27 Um, so what you're talking about don't underestimate the effort
925. 01:03:31 uh, they have a different way of explaining this in the
926. 01:03:35 In the book they talk about the bonds that have to be broken and then you also have to create new ones
927. 01:03:43 Uh to replace that
928. 01:03:45 That just sounds like a lot of work. Yes
929. 01:03:48 So yeah recognize that it's a lot of work recognize that it's not going to necessarily change
930. 01:03:52 overnight and then
931. 01:03:54 Are you willing to put in that amount of effort for a sustained period of time in order to
932. 01:03:59 Achieve that outcome that you want. So the next section here is about catalysts
933. 01:04:04 I like this one. This one's kind of fun
934. 01:04:07 catalysts accelerate change
935. 01:04:10 So if the change is currently in action a catalyst takes that change and makes it happen faster
936. 01:04:19 But is not consumed by the reaction correct
937. 01:04:23 It's not consumed by the reaction
938. 01:04:26 So this is not pouring gasoline on the fire and it's also not
939. 01:04:30 What starts the change either?
940. 01:04:33 So the change is started by an external force
941. 01:04:37 This is why this comes after activation energy you get your activation energy
942. 01:04:41 It gets something started and then you can have a catalyst come in and accelerate that change
943. 01:04:46 and
944. 01:04:47 That there's a whole bunch of examples here the easiest one for us to probably understand
945. 01:04:51 our instagram or social media influencers
946. 01:04:55 This this is the easy one. Let's say that mics already excited
947. 01:04:59 Let's say that there's a product or an idea
948. 01:05:02 that has been started
949. 01:05:05 and one of these influencers or
950. 01:05:07 social media stars if you will
951. 01:05:10 Takes it and talks about it
952. 01:05:12 What happens?
953. 01:05:14 It perpetuates and becomes more and more popular
954. 01:05:17 That's
955. 01:05:19 That's a very easy way to think about a catalyst. That's what a catalyst is
956. 01:05:22 It's a social media influencer
957. 01:05:25 [laughs]
958. 01:05:27 The chemists are upset right now
959. 01:05:29 Trying to think of a positive application of that and I can't
960. 01:05:32 so uh
961. 01:05:34 Yeah
962. 01:05:35 I don't know
963. 01:05:36 I would like bookworm to be a catalyst for people buying more physical books
964. 01:05:40 Does that work? I don't know, but I don't know if that's actually happening
965. 01:05:44 I don't know
966. 01:05:46 So uh, maybe I should just step on the soapbox here for a moment
967. 01:05:48 You know the fact that you have read a uh, an outline
968. 01:05:52 Does not mean that you have read the book the fact that you have listened to
969. 01:05:55 An audible version does not mean you have read the book
970. 01:05:58 Just like you listen to this podcast. You don't engage with it
971. 01:06:01 The audio just keeps moving whether you're paying attention or not
972. 01:06:03 so
973. 01:06:05 That's not the
974. 01:06:07 The hard work the hard work is when you have to force your eyeballs to move across the page and
975. 01:06:10 Answer the question. What did I just read?
976. 01:06:13 Yes
977. 01:06:14 Yep
978. 01:06:15 And uh, it doesn't automatically advance when you stop paying attention
979. 01:06:19 um, so
980. 01:06:22 Yeah, I am a firm believer that uh, physical books are the way to go
981. 01:06:26 Kindle books, I will concede the point to martin
982. 01:06:30 Kindle books are
983. 01:06:33 Acceptable
984. 01:06:34 Uh, I do think for me personally physical books are
985. 01:06:38 Are better
986. 01:06:39 Yeah, I read more when I because I started buying physical books 100
987. 01:06:42 Um, if you read more because you started buying Kindle books more power to you
988. 01:06:48 I would love to see the data to support that though
989. 01:06:51 I
990. 01:06:53 Don't know if bookworm is a catalyst or
991. 01:06:56 Maybe it's hmm. I don't know if it would classify
992. 01:07:01 You get what I'm I'm saying though because the the intended change is we want people to buy physical books. Yep, right
993. 01:07:07 Not just listen to to audio
994. 01:07:09 So if a certain number of people the trend is that people are buying ebooks and they're specifically just listening to audio books
995. 01:07:19 We can say well you shouldn't do that you should buy physical books
996. 01:07:22 And then if there's a bump in the the data people buying physical books that would be technically
997. 01:07:26 Catalyst like that's kind of what I'm trying to spin your social media influencer thing in a positive way and I I'm failing it
998. 01:07:34 I I just don't know that bookworm is the right example there
999. 01:07:38 because I I I
1000. 01:07:41 I struggled to know if bookworm would be the catalyst or
1001. 01:07:45 An additional activation energy to get somebody to start it would depend on the person and where they're at and the journey
1002. 01:07:51 Because for some people we would be the like starting point like
1003. 01:07:56 You don't read at all. Well, listen to bookworm
1004. 01:08:00 Learn about these books and maybe it'll spark that energy to get you to start like that could be a person
1005. 01:08:06 I'm just going to lean into this now bookworm is a catalyst because catalyst decreased the amount of energy required to cause change
1006. 01:08:13 So if we're trying to get people to read more books, we've already had multiple people in the chat today
1007. 01:08:17 Say that they use this as a screener then they decide okay
1008. 01:08:22 I'm going to read that one and there are a couple people who have said I can't wait for my
1009. 01:08:26 Volume two of great mental models to arrive so I can read this so we are absolutely a catalyst
1010. 01:08:32 Okay, so we're a social media influencer since we push things on no no don't go there
1011. 01:08:37 [Laughter]
1012. 01:08:39 Uh, we won't talk about how so much of our marketing is done on social media. Okay social media
1013. 01:08:49 Since you're talking as soon as you continue to talk about this let's talk about the other example
1014. 01:08:54 They use in this section the black death was a catalyst for societal change Instagram is the black way more fun
1015. 01:09:03 It's true. You are absolutely correct black death was as weird as that is to say a great catalyst for change in a lot of positive ways
1016. 01:09:10 Yep
1017. 01:09:11 But we don't want to talk about that because it's just icky to talk about how something that killed so many people
1018. 01:09:18 Was a positive it's just it feels very wrong, but okay. Well, let's let's uh
1019. 01:09:24 Just as controversial
1020. 01:09:27 Oh good. Oh good. I'll say I'll say covid was a catalyst
1021. 01:09:30 because it changed the way that we
1022. 01:09:33 Do a lot of different things the way we work specifically has changed forever
1023. 01:09:38 There is no way you're going to get people to go 100% back little pockets maybe individual small companies
1024. 01:09:45 Yes, but at as a society
1025. 01:09:47 It is now acceptable to work from home and there is nothing business owners can do about it
1026. 01:09:52 Right is what employees expect because it has been proven that it works
1027. 01:09:56 Right, so that's an example of a change that was brought on by the by a catalyst sure
1028. 01:10:02 Okay, hey, whatever you need to do like this. This this is totally fine
1029. 01:10:10 All right, the last section in chemistry, I'm not going to spend much time on it unless Mike decides to bring it up even more but alloying
1030. 01:10:19 Halloween
1031. 01:10:22 Like an alloy think of two metals together
1032. 01:10:25 Like it's just a weird word to say alloying
1033. 01:10:27 How do I in none see that one? Anyway, when you put two things together, they both become better
1034. 01:10:33 at the other end right so
1035. 01:10:36 Think of like peace treaties
1036. 01:10:38 Both parties end up better when they work together
1037. 01:10:41 Maybe not necessarily treaties, but peace treaties, but treaties in general
1038. 01:10:45 um
1039. 01:10:47 Anytime you have two things that are working together towards a common goal
1040. 01:10:50 And they become better together than a part
1041. 01:10:54 Right, so it's not one plus one equals two
1042. 01:10:56 It's one plus one equals four that concept right?
1043. 01:10:59 That math doesn't work
1044. 01:11:02 This is why we read books
1045. 01:11:04 I mean the the best example here at the end they talk about how knowledge is the ultimate alloy and they talk about Leonardo da Vinci
1046. 01:11:10 Uh, he was a genius because he could combine knowledge from different disciplines
1047. 01:11:14 That's if I were to summarize my goal from reading all these books. That's what I want to be able to do
1048. 01:11:20 I want to be able to take these ideas and mash them up with those other ideas and get something totally new in the process
1049. 01:11:25 And oh, hey, that's the thing that really changed my life. Right?
1050. 01:11:27 Yeah, it is fascinating. You know, we've we've continued to talk about this syntopical piece
1051. 01:11:33 Here it is amazing how much
1052. 01:11:36 the connections between books and seeing a holistic view across them
1053. 01:11:42 is more revelatory than reading one of them and
1054. 01:11:48 Five years ago. I don't think I could have told you that that was a thing that even existed
1055. 01:11:53 But now I'll tell you you should read a lot and read widely because
1056. 01:11:58 You get to see a much broader picture and you can have a much better view of the world if you do that
1057. 01:12:04 obligatory mention of the how to read a book episode
1058. 01:12:08 Yeah, link in the show notes by the way, it cracks me up every time we talk about that
1059. 01:12:13 Because that is episode 42. I believe
1060. 01:12:18 And 42 hitchhikers guide to galaxy is the answer to life the universe and everything
1061. 01:12:23 So obviously the answer to life the universe and everything is read more books
1062. 01:12:28 I did not connect all those dots, but that is that is amazing
1063. 01:12:34 So there you go. The answer to life is how to read a book
1064. 01:12:37 Great fun
1065. 01:12:41 Uh, let's go on to the last section here, which is the biggest actually
1066. 01:12:46 biology, okay
1067. 01:12:48 And we started off with
1068. 01:12:50 two parts on evolution
1069. 01:12:53 Which I thought was interesting that they broke it down into essentially four pieces across two parts the first part being natural selection and
1070. 01:13:02 Extinction and they they specifically call out that it's a little bit
1071. 01:13:07 Odd to do that knowing that natural selection can lead to extinction
1072. 01:13:12 But they call it out because natural selection can work within
1073. 01:13:16 Uh a given species
1074. 01:13:18 Not necessarily wiping it all out, right? So there's that
1075. 01:13:22 Uh, I didn't really want to spend a whole lot of time on evolution because
1076. 01:13:25 It's evolution and I feel like even scientists have been telling me that it's not necessarily true
1077. 01:13:31 So it's a bit weird to think of it and talk about it because even I've got scientists telling me that this isn't a thing so
1078. 01:13:37 Whatever, okay. There's that well, I I'll summarize these two chapters
1079. 01:13:43 And I think the application of this is disconnected from
1080. 01:13:48 What you're talking about? Sure
1081. 01:13:51 So the first part natural selection extinction natural selection is non-random elimination
1082. 01:13:57 Which I think that definition when I read that I was like, oh
1083. 01:14:02 This can apply
1084. 01:14:05 anywhere. Yeah
1085. 01:14:07 So it's just the reduction of options
1086. 01:14:09 based on
1087. 01:14:11 Certain characteristics and that's the the goal here with the mental models, right?
1088. 01:14:16 Is how do we see this stuff at play in other domains?
1089. 01:14:18 And then at extinction extinction doesn't occur in
1090. 01:14:22 Isolation
1091. 01:14:24 It's not just this thing
1092. 01:14:26 ceases to exist
1093. 01:14:28 Because this thing ceases to exist there are outside factors that
1094. 01:14:31 contribute to that
1095. 01:14:33 and then part two
1096. 01:14:36 is
1097. 01:14:37 Where they talk about the adaptation rate and then they call it the the red queen effect
1098. 01:14:42 So adaptation is both a noun and a verb
1099. 01:14:46 Which I think is interesting
1100. 01:14:48 adaptation requires leaving or being forced from your comfort zone when you observe and experience new threats
1101. 01:14:53 Well, every time you read a book and you encounter a contrary idea that is potentially a new threat
1102. 01:14:59 And you have a choice whether you are going to adapt or you are going to barrier
1103. 01:15:04 head in the sand and pretend that that thing is not there
1104. 01:15:07 whatever so
1105. 01:15:09 I
1106. 01:15:11 Like this a lot
1107. 01:15:13 Okay
1108. 01:15:15 I feel this is a good
1109. 01:15:18 Summarization of the growth mindset
1110. 01:15:22 Um, you have ideas you have beliefs
1111. 01:15:26 You continue to look for new information
1112. 01:15:29 You be willing to admit when you are wrong you be willing to change your beliefs
1113. 01:15:36 That is adaptation that is the thing that
1114. 01:15:40 fights against extinction
1115. 01:15:43 Um, in fact, the the thing that's kind of interesting about this is like just pretending that the threat isn't there
1116. 01:15:50 Uh that complacency
1117. 01:15:54 That can be the thing that ends up killing you that can be the thing that brings about the extinction
1118. 01:15:59 And uh, yeah, I don't want to get into a debate about the
1119. 01:16:04 The science part of this. Yes, but as I consider how this
1120. 01:16:08 applies to a personal development journey. I I think this is this is pretty cool. Yeah, that that I could get on board with yes
1121. 01:16:17 But the broader
1122. 01:16:20 Yes
1123. 01:16:21 Sure percent
1124. 01:16:23 So after the evolution piece, there's this supporting idea of competition
1125. 01:16:28 Basically survival of the fittest I guess is that concept
1126. 01:16:31 Not quite that extreme, but that that concept
1127. 01:16:34 Uh, then they get into
1128. 01:16:37 A section called ecosystem
1129. 01:16:39 I do want to spend a little bit of time here because this one is where you start talking about things like culture
1130. 01:16:43 and the broader
1131. 01:16:46 interconnected
1132. 01:16:48 pieces of
1133. 01:16:50 animals people in connection to each other
1134. 01:16:53 In relationship to each other
1135. 01:16:56 And how those impact one another and they they give the example of
1136. 01:17:01 Was it sea otters and sea urchins and kelp and how if you remove the sea otters from the mix
1137. 01:17:08 They're not eating the sea urchins which in turn eat the kelp which in turn lead to a healthier environment for all sorts of things
1138. 01:17:14 And so you got to have sea otters like they're uh, a keystone species as they called it
1139. 01:17:20 So you got to have those
1140. 01:17:22 but
1141. 01:17:23 there's also
1142. 01:17:25 situations where
1143. 01:17:27 If you change the ecosystem you change the environment that
1144. 01:17:30 An animal or a situation is operating within
1145. 01:17:33 It can have wildly different effects
1146. 01:17:36 One of these stories was about breeding elephants. I forget the sub-sea sub
1147. 01:17:40 type of elephant that they were talking about but
1148. 01:17:45 it's on the verge of extinction and instead of like
1149. 01:17:49 sectioning off an area where the wild ones can be
1150. 01:17:54 You know kept close to each other so that they don't become extinct
1151. 01:17:57 Instead they've been doing artificial insemination and trying to help them breed
1152. 01:18:01 Ah, yes the intervention bias. Yes. So they they stepped in
1153. 01:18:06 And it's led to all sorts of problems
1154. 01:18:09 They shouldn't have stepped in they should have just stopped being jerks
1155. 01:18:12 Pretty much. Yeah, because it's now led to
1156. 01:18:15 infant mortality rates increasing and
1157. 01:18:20 Just a lot of problems. That's the that's the intervention bias in a nutshell is the desire to always do something instead of leaving things alone
1158. 01:18:27 So recognizing that you're impacting this ecosystem and it's having negative effects
1159. 01:18:31 rather than stop affecting the ecosystem the
1160. 01:18:35 The response is well, let's just take all these elephants captive and we'll try to breed them in captivity
1161. 01:18:41 But now we have a bunch of depressed elephants
1162. 01:18:43 Yep
1163. 01:18:44 We're having health problems because we kept them in captivity and they're not okay with that
1164. 01:18:49 Okay, yeah, I think this is interesting and it forces me to consider
1165. 01:18:52 Where is my intervention bias?
1166. 01:18:54 Where are the things that I try to fix when really they'd be fixed if I would just stop meddling with them? Yes
1167. 01:18:59 Yes
1168. 01:19:01 Honestly, this is gonna sound weird. We we struggle with this a little bit at
1169. 01:19:05 at our house with our homestead because
1170. 01:19:09 We have animals on that farm
1171. 01:19:12 On I hesitate to call the farm, but there's chickens cats like
1172. 01:19:18 these are animals that we're taking care of they're all outdoor and
1173. 01:19:21 When do you intervene in certain situations and when do you let nature take its course?
1174. 01:19:27 Right, so that it's a tough one and when you have kids trying to help you make decisions. It gets messier yet. So
1175. 01:19:34 Yes, that one's that one's a bit of a challenge. Anyway ecosystems
1176. 01:19:39 I specifically wanted to bring it up because if you translate that to
1177. 01:19:45 productivity habits making changes
1178. 01:19:49 This is a big deal because changing the system the ecosystem that you're operating within
1179. 01:19:55 Can oftentimes help you make those changes much easier
1180. 01:20:00 And it would then change the amount of you know if you use some of these other models
1181. 01:20:04 It would change the amount of activation energy you need to make those changes
1182. 01:20:08 And would make you less dependent on a catalyst to make long-term
1183. 01:20:14 effects permanent
1184. 01:20:16 So one the example here is bill to bill wallish. Does that sound right? Yes, I still love this
1185. 01:20:22 And wrote down this quote too. Yeah. Yeah, so he he
1186. 01:20:26 Was winning the super bowl NFL. I don't remember the teams. Do you have the teams written down, but yeah, I'm a football fan
1187. 01:20:34 So he he he took over the the 49ers and they were terrible
1188. 01:20:38 And then he just started working on the culture and getting everybody to believe in the team put the team first
1189. 01:20:44 Do the right things the right way and he wrote a book called the score will take care of itself
1190. 01:20:48 But the quote here is that the critical factor whenever people work together is that they expect something of each other
1191. 01:20:54 And I loved this because as I mentioned a couple times already
1192. 01:20:58 Big challenges I'm facing right now have to do the day job and
1193. 01:21:01 Shifting expectations with a large number of people who have done things a certain way for a very long time
1194. 01:21:07 Right, so you can't just be like, hey, we're gonna go this way now
1195. 01:21:13 Right, right
1196. 01:21:14 You have to when you're creating a a culture like this
1197. 01:21:18 There has to be
1198. 01:21:20 This mutual dependency on each other you have to trust each other you have to rely on each other and this is why something like
1199. 01:21:27 The five dysfunctions of a team is so fascinating to me because if that trust isn't there if people don't expect something of each other
1200. 01:21:35 that mutual
1201. 01:21:38 Mutual alignment is broken and then everything just stops working. You don't see it right away in a business
1202. 01:21:44 You can continue to sell the products and the systems continue to work
1203. 01:21:47 And it kind of slowly over time the revenue goes down and the other numbers go down and the bad numbers go up
1204. 01:21:54 And you look back a year later and you're like, how did we get here?
1205. 01:21:57 But it happens so slowly that you don't even realize it a lot of times
1206. 01:22:01 Yes, so my my point and what I was
1207. 01:22:05 Getting at is like bill Walsh made this big change like culturally
1208. 01:22:08 He changed the entire environment that the team was operating within
1209. 01:22:12 And that led to massive change what was it three years and they won the super bowl after he joined and like that's that's what we're talking about so
1210. 01:22:21 Altering situation
1211. 01:22:25 It's a big deal. That's that's my point
1212. 01:22:28 Cool by the way on the topic of the five dysfunctions of a team. I have a new favorite patrick one seony book
1213. 01:22:35 and
1214. 01:22:36 death by meeting
1215. 01:22:38 So the title is kind of clickbaity
1216. 01:22:42 It's not actually about how meetings are bad the big takeaway from the book actually is that meetings don't have to suck
1217. 01:22:49 and
1218. 01:22:52 The question that they ask at the big in the middle of the fable
1219. 01:22:56 It's like well, why do people like going to movies but don't like going to meetings?
1220. 01:22:58 Right. I don't want to turn this into a discussion about that book. I'll just leave it there, but it actually is is really good
1221. 01:23:04 Interesting read it recently and it's it's awesome
1222. 01:23:06 I listened to it recently, but I have also read it recently. I have two physical copies
1223. 01:23:11 That I have read before I work listened to it
1224. 01:23:14 Read each one like I read that book and then I read that one
1225. 01:23:19 Yeah, typically what I will do if I have both of those
1226. 01:23:23 I will read it first and then I will listen to it again to just see what kind of pops out to me
1227. 01:23:28 Um, never the other way around by the way
1228. 01:23:33 All right, good to know
1229. 01:23:35 All right, the other sections here
1230. 01:23:37 I'm going to kind of run through these
1231. 01:23:40 Fairly quick stop me if you want me if you want to talk about one more mic because the one I want to spend more time on is the actually the last one
1232. 01:23:46 So the one after ecosystem is
1233. 01:23:50 Nietzsche's basically finding your spot inside that broader ecosystem where you are the uh a key component to that
1234. 01:23:59 ecosystem so that would be finding your niche you hear that phrase quite a bit
1235. 01:24:03 Self-preservation so one after that
1236. 01:24:06 Pretty much what you would expect. I'm gonna look after myself and make sure I'm not the one that gets killed here like that's
1237. 01:24:12 What we're talking about whether you're in a discussion about
1238. 01:24:15 Mm-hmm. What a discussion of fight versus flight in that. Yes section. Yep. That's kind of interesting. Yep. When do you
1239. 01:24:21 Go to battle when do you say? Nope? I'm done. I think that's that's what we're talking about
1240. 01:24:28 uh replication when something's working and going well
1241. 01:24:31 repeat it
1242. 01:24:34 if I do have something about this one because uh the thing in here that I liked was commander's intent
1243. 01:24:40 And uh, I don't even remember the exact
1244. 01:24:44 story that this came from I think it was the German army
1245. 01:24:49 and
1246. 01:24:51 The commander's intent is the sweet spot between execution of strategy and the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions
1247. 01:24:57 There's four elements to commander's intent formulate communicate interpret and implement
1248. 01:25:01 and basically
1249. 01:25:04 From a business perspective what I thought of this is that uh
1250. 01:25:08 you
1251. 01:25:09 Want to
1252. 01:25:11 When you're communicating up and down the chain of command
1253. 01:25:13 You want to give people the information that they need to make the right decisions
1254. 01:25:17 You don't want to try to over process things
1255. 01:25:19 That's kind of what i'm dealing with is like so rigid these these processes and then like people follow the process and they don't stop to think like
1256. 01:25:27 Why are we doing this in the first place and to me?
1257. 01:25:29 It's like pretty obvious. This is not the right thing to do in this situation
1258. 01:25:32 So why didn't you stop and consider that like because i'm following the process. Yep, right?
1259. 01:25:36 so
1260. 01:25:37 uh, this has got me thinking about all of the sop process because uh
1261. 01:25:42 Work the system stuff like that that we've read, you know, it's like document every single process
1262. 01:25:46 And this I think is a little bit different
1263. 01:25:49 I want to document every single process, but I want to document it in a way that it communicates
1264. 01:25:54 Commanders intent as they talk about it here. Here's the information you need now you go and do what you think is right
1265. 01:26:00 Okay, there you go do that good job mike
1266. 01:26:04 Rince and repeat right so
1267. 01:26:07 After replication we have cooperation
1268. 01:26:09 So cooperating with other people working with other people to get things done
1269. 01:26:14 It's probably the very high level view of that uh that comes with the supporting idea of done bars number
1270. 01:26:20 Did you read this part in detail?
1271. 01:26:24 I did uh, don't have a whole lot written down from that
1272. 01:26:28 Uh, i'm familiar with dumb bars number and I did not write down everything
1273. 01:26:33 Right that they talked about in this book because it is
1274. 01:26:36 Generalmous. It would be twice as big as the mind map I created which broke mind node by the way for principles
1275. 01:26:42 If I would have tried to do that
1276. 01:26:44 I basically took the approach that I tell everybody else to take when they are creating their own book notes
1277. 01:26:50 Jot down the things that are
1278. 01:26:52 A relevant to you the things that you want to noodle on
1279. 01:26:54 And so I don't have anything in my mind map from
1280. 01:26:57 Dumb bars number. However, I will say that cooperation and trust is something I have been thinking about a lot lately
1281. 01:27:05 And I do have an action item from this section on how often do I look for opportunities to cooperate
1282. 01:27:12 So the the done bars number piece the reason I brought it up is like this was something that was fascinating to me
1283. 01:27:19 A while back, but anyway, the the number is 150 is the main number that we're talking about here
1284. 01:27:26 uh, basically it's
1285. 01:27:29 Friendships relationships that you can maintain
1286. 01:27:31 You can maintain a an inner core of closeness of friendships of five people
1287. 01:27:36 You have a close friend group of about 15
1288. 01:27:39 50 like basic friends and acquaintances and then 150 is like the size of a community that you feel like you know
1289. 01:27:47 Names and faces and pretty much know those people
1290. 01:27:50 Um, the 500 people here is a category that's like friends of friends
1291. 01:27:55 It's like you maybe met him once but you're not going to have any form of contact with him and then 1500 people is like the upper limit of
1292. 01:28:03 Anyone that you could potentially put a name or face to
1293. 01:28:07 That's the upper limit and I know some people that that number is probably way lower than that
1294. 01:28:11 Just saying like you are terrible with names and faces. I'm actually pretty good with that
1295. 01:28:16 but
1296. 01:28:17 I'm not so I might be lower
1297. 01:28:19 And I think maybe that's the thing I've always
1298. 01:28:22 Not really liked about thumbars number like it's a good starting point
1299. 01:28:26 Right and I can see how those numbers can be relevant
1300. 01:28:29 You can't be everybody's close friend. You got to pick and choose your your close friends for example
1301. 01:28:33 But after that like what do you really do with that? Correct. Okay. That's fun fun number
1302. 01:28:38 Uh, the next section is hierarchical
1303. 01:28:42 Hierarchical hierarchical
1304. 01:28:45 I can't get that word out organization hierarchical organization
1305. 01:28:48 uh, basically where do you fit in the hierarchy of
1306. 01:28:52 Whatever group you're talking about and understanding how that applies to
1307. 01:28:57 Your role in that organization. That's probably the easy way to understand it
1308. 01:29:02 Uh incentives you kind of eluded to this one
1309. 01:29:06 Earlier
1310. 01:29:08 Setting up incentives that help drive the actions and behaviors that you're after
1311. 01:29:13 Right all sorts of examples in there as well
1312. 01:29:15 And then the last one that I want to spend a little bit of time on here is tendency to minimize energy output
1313. 01:29:21 Basically, I'm lazy and I don't want to do anything and I would like for things to happen without me having to do a whole lot
1314. 01:29:27 Yeah, uh, are you familiar with veggie tails? Oh, yes. Yes. All right. I think it's the pirates who don't do anything
1315. 01:29:39 Immediately. Yeah, there's a there's a gourd in that one who is
1316. 01:29:44 Lazy and he has all these contraptions that he builds and he calls them labor-saving devices
1317. 01:29:51 That's immediately what I thought of
1318. 01:29:53 The the general premise here is like we'll take the path of least resistance
1319. 01:29:59 And we'll easily hunt or we will spend a decent amount of time trying to save ourselves time
1320. 01:30:06 Which doesn't make sense
1321. 01:30:09 And yet it's a thing that we will continue to to do
1322. 01:30:13 uh at the same time
1323. 01:30:15 Because we don't want to spend a lot of time making certain decisions or acting on things. We have a tendency to
1324. 01:30:22 generalize
1325. 01:30:25 and use previous experience to
1326. 01:30:28 Make a snap decision or make a quicker decision
1327. 01:30:32 Which oftentimes is positive
1328. 01:30:35 It helps us build experience and we can
1329. 01:30:39 You know have more accurate
1330. 01:30:41 Information at our fingertips because we've had so much experience with it. So you're better at making those assumptions
1331. 01:30:46 Uh, it can have a negative to it. Sometimes people get really been out of shape over like stereotypes
1332. 01:30:52 Like you shouldn't stereotype me like well
1333. 01:30:54 Exists for a reason
1334. 01:30:57 People stereotype me all the time
1335. 01:30:59 That's fairly common. I'm the tech guy. So people immediately assume
1336. 01:31:03 All sorts of things the problem is I came from a farm
1337. 01:31:06 It's a shortcut that fires the shortcut fires in your brain. You really can't do anything about it initially anyways. It's going to be there
1338. 01:31:13 Yeah, so it's it's fascinating to me the number of folks that assume things like
1339. 01:31:18 You're gonna cut your leg off if you run that chainsaw. I'm like, do you know how many trees? I've cut down with chainsaws over the years like
1340. 01:31:23 Just because I'm the tech guy does not mean
1341. 01:31:26 I'm completely
1342. 01:31:29 incapable of running a chainsaw like
1343. 01:31:31 Simple things like that can can permeate without we without us even realizing it. So
1344. 01:31:37 Because we have a tendency to want to minimize the amount of energy it takes to make decisions. We'll oftentimes use those snap reactions
1345. 01:31:45 Yeah, one of the ways that we tend to minimize energy output is through the practice of satisficing
1346. 01:31:52 I like this word. Yep. I like this concept
1347. 01:31:55 Uh, if for nothing else to recognize when you're doing this so you can push back against it
1348. 01:32:01 Satisficing is when you find the first thing in your brain that satisfies your minimum acceptable conditions
1349. 01:32:08 So as it pertains to
1350. 01:32:11 evaluating options and figuring out what's the right
1351. 01:32:15 path to take
1352. 01:32:17 You know your brain is going to latch on to something initially and and if you want to really spend some time and make the right decision
1353. 01:32:23 then you have to recognize that and
1354. 01:32:25 Consider other options
1355. 01:32:28 However, there are times when it does make sense to just go with your gut
1356. 01:32:32 The first one I tend to be on the other end of this
1357. 01:32:35 I think where I overthink things and I over research things and I would probably be better off if I went with the first thing that my brain found
1358. 01:32:43 With satisfies the minimum acceptable conditions
1359. 01:32:45 But when it comes to big important decisions, this is uh, something I feel like you can maybe
1360. 01:32:53 fall into
1361. 01:32:55 especially
1362. 01:32:57 quick starts, uh
1363. 01:32:59 You want to take action quickly
1364. 01:33:01 because you value
1365. 01:33:03 the uh, the action itself
1366. 01:33:05 And you you know, you can't steer a park car
1367. 01:33:09 So
1368. 01:33:11 It's easy to attach to something and then just resolve in your mind. This is the right way to go and then you you basically
1369. 01:33:17 Block off all the other inputs. That's the the dangerous part of this. I think the shadow side if you will
1370. 01:33:24 That and if you're not
1371. 01:33:26 Aware of the side effects of what's what you're doing too like they this they talked about
1372. 01:33:34 Open formats offices
1373. 01:33:37 Open layout offices cubicles and how
1374. 01:33:41 It's a lot
1375. 01:33:44 less
1376. 01:33:45 money and a lot less work to build an open layout office plan like
1377. 01:33:52 From a resources stance. It's cheaper to build. It's cheaper to maintain. It's cheaper to heat and cool. It's
1378. 01:33:59 All the things right. So why wouldn't we want to do this? This is a better thing because it also
1379. 01:34:06 Makes it easier
1380. 01:34:08 For people to have those one-off interactions to have the creative
1381. 01:34:12 Aha moments because they're talking with people in finance when they're in animation like these things can happen, right?
1382. 01:34:20 I'm not saying that those things don't happen
1383. 01:34:22 But the flip side of that is they know very well now that this is a bad idea because when are you supposed to sit down and focus and do your work?
1384. 01:34:30 When are you supposed to make those one-on-one phone calls that? Yeah, rely on trust
1385. 01:34:36 And being open with somebody when you have
1386. 01:34:41 40 other people somewhere close to you that can hear your entire conversation
1387. 01:34:46 Like that's not possible. So it doesn't happen. So then those relationships don't
1388. 01:34:50 Are not built. So then you end up not having those relationships at all. So
1389. 01:34:56 Although this concept of like energy conservation can oftentimes be
1390. 01:35:01 Desirable it can have some pretty bad
1391. 01:35:05 Detriments. Yep. Don't do an open office plan. Please don't
1392. 01:35:09 Agree that day
1393. 01:35:13 that
1394. 01:35:14 brings us to the very last of the book
1395. 01:35:16 Which is just putting it all together, which I appreciate that they did this
1396. 01:35:21 It kind of needs a conclusion
1397. 01:35:24 But basically they're saying use these as tools and use them as models
1398. 01:35:27 You don't need to force it
1399. 01:35:30 Use them where they make sense. That's kind of what they're saying at the very end, but it's literally a page and a half
1400. 01:35:35 They don't need to do some big long thing and then you're at the back of the book
1401. 01:35:40 And there's picture credits and that is it. It is two pages of picture credits and no appendix. No extra information. That's the book
1402. 01:35:48 Super interesting. I'm okay with that. I am okay with that. Yeah
1403. 01:35:54 So unless there's something else Mike that brings us to action items
1404. 01:35:58 Let's do it
1405. 01:36:00 So I had the two I have two
1406. 01:36:02 One I talked about which was putting up a whiteboard
1407. 01:36:05 What I already have that done. So probably doesn't count they were talking about that in the chat
1408. 01:36:09 Does it even count if you already did it? Probably not. So
1409. 01:36:12 Put it on the list, but check it off. I don't know. Don't even put it on the list
1410. 01:36:16 Anyway, that has been helpful. Uh, the other one that I need to work on
1411. 01:36:20 uh, this goes back to the ecosystem
1412. 01:36:23 chapter and
1413. 01:36:26 I need to do a little work on my environment. I think
1414. 01:36:29 I feel like they're a handful of things
1415. 01:36:32 I'm not gonna discuss them here, but they're a handful of things I've been trying to change in my like day-to-day
1416. 01:36:39 work
1417. 01:36:41 Structure
1418. 01:36:42 It's probably the cleanest way to say that
1419. 01:36:44 That just aren't working well
1420. 01:36:46 And I think it's environment related
1421. 01:36:49 But I don't think I connected that until we read this book
1422. 01:36:52 Sure, so I need to do some work on that
1423. 01:36:55 And I I don't know what's gonna come of it, but I at least need to explore it
1424. 01:37:00 So that's what I got. That's my one kind of bigger one
1425. 01:37:05 Here, uh, you would kind of expect to have a lot more here
1426. 01:37:08 But so much of this is just how you think
1427. 01:37:11 At least that's my perspective. You probably have 12 of these, right?
1428. 01:37:14 I do not I have the two that I've shared here, although the environment I do remember that coming up
1429. 01:37:22 Actually, it was in in my notes. It was the chapter on replication
1430. 01:37:27 Because once you get a feel for the environment you can adapt it to better suit your needs
1431. 01:37:31 That was the point that they were making and that
1432. 01:37:33 Rem that got me thinking about the environment that I do my work in as well
1433. 01:37:37 And uh, we did read a book about that
1434. 01:37:41 Which was a great book the extended mind by any Murphy Paul
1435. 01:37:45 So if you want to dive deeper into that topic, that's when I'd recommend
1436. 01:37:49 and uh
1437. 01:37:51 I don't know it kind of interesting to to hear what sort of action items you come up with that
1438. 01:37:57 Framed through the previous experience of of that book, right?
1439. 01:38:02 That's where I'll be thinking when you uh share what you're going to change in your environment
1440. 01:38:06 All right fair enough
1441. 01:38:09 But my action items I've got two just like thinking time questions
1442. 01:38:13 Uh in addition to the four I failed with at the beginning
1443. 01:38:16 How the one of the questions I want to ask is how can we get more lean at work?
1444. 01:38:22 Uh, just when I say more lean
1445. 01:38:25 I've kind of talked about a lot of different things in this episode, but basically
1446. 01:38:30 Allowing people to make the decisions that they think are best and do the work without
1447. 01:38:36 Extra process that slows everything down
1448. 01:38:40 And then the other question I want to consider is how often do I look for opportunities to cooperate?
1449. 01:38:45 And uh, this one is a little bit more broad because I think there are other
1450. 01:38:52 Other domains where I want to consider this not just work of the work is the one that comes to mind also
1451. 01:38:59 um for me in in terms of
1452. 01:39:01 There are opportunities here to take action on this
1453. 01:39:04 So those are mine. I captured both of yours. You have a check mark next to your whiteboard already. Yes
1454. 01:39:10 So good job. I'm batting
1455. 01:39:14 50 percent right now. Good job
1456. 01:39:16 I like that. All right style and rating
1457. 01:39:19 this book is
1458. 01:39:21 a challenge
1459. 01:39:22 not in the sense that it's hard to read
1460. 01:39:24 but I
1461. 01:39:27 I also am not sure
1462. 01:39:29 I'm a good person to tell you whether or not this will be easy for you to understand with the science explanations
1463. 01:39:36 because I think
1464. 01:39:39 There were no i'm kind of glancing at the list. I don't think there were any
1465. 01:39:44 of these laws or theories
1466. 01:39:48 that are the basis of
1467. 01:39:51 These topics that I haven't studied in
1468. 01:39:56 Formal schooling in some way shape or form
1469. 01:39:59 So because of that it's hard for me to know
1470. 01:40:01 That when we're talking about friction viscosity thermodynamics
1471. 01:40:06 I've studied those things before so I don't
1472. 01:40:10 I don't know how much of that if you haven't studied it at all
1473. 01:40:14 If that would be easy to understand in this book. I'm I'm a bad read for that one
1474. 01:40:18 For you
1475. 01:40:20 If you have any form of background on it. I will say that just from my stance
1476. 01:40:26 Having been away from that formal study for quite some time. This was very easy for me to understand
1477. 01:40:31 As far as the sciency side of it, but that's not a big part of the book either like it's not
1478. 01:40:37 I wouldn't even say it's a quarter of the book
1479. 01:40:42 It's kind of these short explanations at the beginning to help you understand what those laws or theories are
1480. 01:40:47 Like what the concept is but we're only talking about maybe a page
1481. 01:40:50 page and a half on that per
1482. 01:40:53 Chapter out of what do we decide?
1483. 01:40:55 397 pages
1484. 01:40:58 Our only chapters this is it's not even 20. So it's not much. That's that's covering that
1485. 01:41:03 So that said I I feel like this is one that is approachable to many people. I think that's
1486. 01:41:11 I'm going to preface it with that
1487. 01:41:13 That said a lot of the stories in this
1488. 01:41:15 I think they were only a handful that I feel like I've heard before
1489. 01:41:19 This is one of those where they've done their homework for sure
1490. 01:41:23 And helped us branch out into areas we haven't normally gone
1491. 01:41:27 I don't know of another book that I've ever encountered that takes
1492. 01:41:32 These types of scientific concepts and explains the general world and culture around us using those theories and concepts
1493. 01:41:40 I don't know that I've ever encountered that
1494. 01:41:43 Uh, so I absolutely love that that process
1495. 01:41:47 um
1496. 01:41:48 on a weird note
1497. 01:41:50 But there was some like editing things that were wrong here like some sentences that just had bad
1498. 01:41:55 Like the the editor didn't catch it and I noticed at least a handful of those which was a bit strange
1499. 01:42:02 I suppose we didn't talk about this. This was published by automatic
1500. 01:42:05 Sponsored by automatic
1501. 01:42:08 Gladys work publishing is the group that did it. Uh automatic is the team behind WordPress
1502. 01:42:12 If you don't know them, uh, they also did volume one. I assume they did volume three
1503. 01:42:18 I would assume they did all three of them
1504. 01:42:20 Uh, but
1505. 01:42:22 The form factor of this book is top notch. It's one of these that's done extremely well
1506. 01:42:27 Uh full color book they have photographs of many things in here
1507. 01:42:33 Uh, so anyway, it's a well-made book. I was shocked to find some of the editing things
1508. 01:42:38 And it's that seemed pretty blatant to me
1509. 01:42:42 Maybe I just didn't understand their sentence structures, but some cases the words are simply in the wrong places in that sentence
1510. 01:42:48 so
1511. 01:42:49 That was kind of an oddity, but it's easy to overlook that I find because of the the breadth of knowledge that they're covering
1512. 01:42:55 And the wide spectrum of places that it can be applied. So absolutely loved going through this. It's
1513. 01:43:01 Definitely going to color the way I view certain situations and and try to help me understand a different perspective on some things
1514. 01:43:08 So absolutely love that I've been able to go through this now
1515. 01:43:11 I don't know how I would rate this anything other than a 5.0
1516. 01:43:15 like this is
1517. 01:43:17 a solid book that I I think many if not all should read if you wanted to
1518. 01:43:22 Branch out in your thinking and are willing to
1519. 01:43:26 Look past the table of contents which can be a bit daunting as we talked about early on like this
1520. 01:43:31 Like are you sure we should be reading this? This just seems like I don't want to sit here and talk about science for an hour and a half
1521. 01:43:37 Uh, I mean I could do that, but it just seems a little odd. That's absolutely not what we're doing. So
1522. 01:43:43 Obviously seeing the way we've had to lay out this
1523. 01:43:47 Episode I feel like is a pretty good view of what you're gonna get when you go through the book. So I'm putting it at 5.0
1524. 01:43:53 All right
1525. 01:43:55 I will join you at 5.0
1526. 01:43:57 I was ready to rate it lower than the first one because those mental models are ones that I refer to all the time
1527. 01:44:03 These ones I don't think I will refer to all the time
1528. 01:44:06 Looking at the table of contents. I was like I haven't thought about some of these things for many years
1529. 01:44:11 I don't feel like my life is any less
1530. 01:44:14 Full because I have neglected these mental models having gone through it and seen the application of these science
1531. 01:44:20 Ideas and other domains. I've got way more out of it than honestly I expected to I expected to enjoy it because it's great mental models
1532. 01:44:30 I did not expect to enjoy it as much or possibly even more than the the first one, but that is what happened
1533. 01:44:36 It is definitely a big book. Yep
1534. 01:44:39 I understand why these models are in volume two
1535. 01:44:43 I think I would have taken the same approach put the
1536. 01:44:46 the seven I think there are in the first one
1537. 01:44:49 In the first one and then save these for the rest
1538. 01:44:53 Reading this does make me excited to read through the third one as well, which is on my bookshelf and it's just as big if not bigger
1539. 01:45:01 Same approach different domains that
1540. 01:45:05 Maybe you
1541. 01:45:07 Don't have any interest in just looking at the table of contents. However, this is the great mental models that you know and love
1542. 01:45:14 So I would encourage you to put in the effort and read them if that is an interesting topic to you at all
1543. 01:45:19 So we have a double five oh
1544. 01:45:21 Double five. Yep. That was a name for those you call them gold books
1545. 01:45:25 Golden books. Yep golden books. Whoo. Joshua has a logo for these. I gotta figure out how to get on the website
1546. 01:45:32 There you go. Okay. Well, it's a great book. That's for sure. No pun intended there
1547. 01:45:41 Uh, let's put it on the shelf. What's next Mike?
1548. 01:45:43 Next is where good ideas come from by Stephen Johnson and uh
1549. 01:45:48 This I think is going to be a fun follow-up from the great mental models
1550. 01:45:53 I hope so you've kind of been on this creativity track lately, so
1551. 01:45:59 Yes, I have for better for worse. Yeah
1552. 01:46:02 Uh, so following that so where good ideas come from by Stephen Johnson
1553. 01:46:08 Uh following that uh, I've discovered a book called ritual
1554. 01:46:12 Uh, this was by Demetris zigalatus. I did look up how to pronounce this one
1555. 01:46:18 It's x y g al a t s
1556. 01:46:22 Uh zigalatus, uh how seemingly senseless acts make life worth living
1557. 01:46:28 This has to do with
1558. 01:46:31 rituals that cultures and people do
1559. 01:46:35 And why we do them even though they'd make
1560. 01:46:38 No sense whatsoever
1561. 01:46:41 Why do we do chants at football teams at football games? Like why do we do that?
1562. 01:46:45 That's the type of thing this book covers should be interesting
1563. 01:46:49 Gotcha. Yeah, the sounds uh
1564. 01:46:53 sounds intriguing
1565. 01:46:55 Never heard of this before
1566. 01:46:57 I hadn't heard of it till about a week ago
1567. 01:46:59 And it got my interest very quickly
1568. 01:47:05 Anyway, cat books mike. What do you got?
1569. 01:47:07 Uh, I have lots of gap books
1570. 01:47:09 Um
1571. 01:47:10 Well lots of books that should be read as gap books
1572. 01:47:13 Sure, it's like wow you've been busy
1573. 01:47:16 I'm gonna throw this one out there because I actually
1574. 01:47:19 Have one on the way to me. I'll be getting it a little bit early
1575. 01:47:25 Uh the laws of creativity by joey kofoan the uh founder of bern fig
1576. 01:47:32 I am on this creativity kick as you have mentioned
1577. 01:47:36 Uh, he's going to be on the focus podcast
1578. 01:47:40 And uh, I promised I would get through this book before I talk to him. So I'm going to do it
1579. 01:47:45 So you have to you have no options
1580. 01:47:47 Yep
1581. 01:47:49 All right
1582. 01:47:50 Well, if it's any good, we should do it on bookworm, but
1583. 01:47:52 I'll let you read it and make that call
1584. 01:47:55 Sounds good
1585. 01:47:59 Oh super fun
1586. 01:48:00 So thanks to you those of you who have joined us in the chat
1587. 01:48:03 It's been kind of fun to see some of those and you're looking some stuff up and helping us figure out what we've got wrong
1588. 01:48:07 So thanks for that
1589. 01:48:09 Um, if you would like to join us on these
1590. 01:48:12 Adventures of recording, uh, you can check out our youtube
1591. 01:48:15 channel youtube.com/bookwormfm
1592. 01:48:18 And uh, as I mentioned it early on in the episode i've been posting all of the previous live streams
1593. 01:48:24 Which actually goes back to like episode 1 12, I think
1594. 01:48:30 Somewhere in there
1595. 01:48:31 I don't know that for certain somewhere in that range
1596. 01:48:33 So if you want to watch these, uh, again, you can you can go do that
1597. 01:48:37 We also
1598. 01:48:38 If you haven't already, you can join our bookworm membership
1599. 01:48:41 And uh, you can do that for five bucks a month bookworm.fm/membership
1600. 01:48:46 And we've talked about many things many perks that come along
1601. 01:48:49 Uh, with that membership, but the biggest and most important of all of those is our
1602. 01:48:54 Undying gratitude towards you to help keep the lights on
1603. 01:48:58 For bookworm so we're absolutely grateful to those of you who do that and wish
1604. 01:49:03 The best to all of you who do that and hope that the rest of you will join them
1605. 01:49:07 Yes, absolutely
1606. 01:49:10 Uh, if you are reading along with us
1607. 01:49:12 Pick up where good ideas come from by steve and johnson
1608. 01:49:15 If you are like most of the people in the chat just wait until a couple of weeks from now when we review the book for you
1609. 01:49:22 Either way
1610. 01:49:23 We will talk to you in a couple of weeks