155: Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson

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1. 00:00:00 So I have good news and bad news for you Joe B. Legg. Oh
2. 00:00:03 fun
3. 00:00:06 Well the good news is that remember a while back. I mentioned Ali Abdul listed us in his YouTube video
4. 00:00:12 Yes
5. 00:00:14 Well, he's got a Twitter thread now and bookworm is number three. So that's the good news
6. 00:00:19 Number three. So I saw this thread
7. 00:00:22 What were the other two ahead of it? I don't even have it in front of me because I didn't know you were gonna bring this up
8. 00:00:27 but
9. 00:00:28 To me, somebody like Ali Abdul probably has a long list of podcasts that they listen to so
10. 00:00:34 It's a curiosity to me that it's within the top three
11. 00:00:39 Yeah, I don't remember what the second one was number one was the Tim Ferriss show. I believe and
12. 00:00:46 I bring this up because number one. It's cool to see bookworm included in these types of lists, right?
13. 00:00:54 But that brings us to the bad news
14. 00:00:57 There's no link no link. Yes, as Scott Deller mentioned to me
15. 00:01:02 Well deserved you could have linked you though. So this is twice now Ali. I know you listened to the show
16. 00:01:09 You sent the wrong link via YouTube and you shared it via Twitter and no link
17. 00:01:13 So I appreciate the fact that you listen and you love the podcast but help us help you
18. 00:01:19 Throw us a bone next time use a link hilarious. I
19. 00:01:23 Don't know if I'll ever hear that but
20. 00:01:27 Doesn't matter. It's so fun
21. 00:01:29 All right, so that's my intro should we talk about follow-up?
22. 00:01:34 Yeah, you have like 14,000 on this list. I do have not 14,000, but several yes
23. 00:01:41 So for context here there were two follow-up items from the last episode
24. 00:01:46 But I completely botched my follow-up on that episode
25. 00:01:50 So instead of saying like yeah, well, sorry
26. 00:01:53 I messed it up. I promised that I would follow through with these for next time. So I did do all of these
27. 00:02:00 Okay
28. 00:02:01 I'm not sure how detailed I want to get into the specifics of all these but I'll just share them make a list of things
29. 00:02:08 that settle me and
30. 00:02:10 I guess some highlights here
31. 00:02:12 Going for a run working out reading a book being alone
32. 00:02:17 Going to Door County my parents have a place in
33. 00:02:21 Sister Bay and I love going up there because it's really quiet, especially in the winter and so that's kind of like being alone, but
34. 00:02:29 Yeah, that that is my my happy place
35. 00:02:32 The next one I had was who do I compare myself to turns out quite a few people and
36. 00:02:39 It all happens to be around these things that I do
37. 00:02:44 I guess that might be obvious if you're thinking about who you would compare yourself to but it's other creators
38. 00:02:49 It's other writers
39. 00:02:51 It's other people who are
40. 00:02:53 Athletes or runners so basic version of this is you go to the gym and you're doing the bench press and you see some guys sit down next to you
41. 00:03:00 And you're I wonder if he can do more or less than me, right?
42. 00:03:03 That's the immediate comparison, but with runners specifically it always kind of whenever you talk to another runner kind of devolves into like well
43. 00:03:10 What what's your what's your pace?
44. 00:03:12 Right, right. I'm not I'm not fast. So this one kills me every time I I talk about it
45. 00:03:18 So that means Mike when you when you bring that when that comes up like hey, it's
46. 00:03:23 12 minutes a mile
47. 00:03:26 For all 24 miles I run every day like you know, you know, I mean I know that's exaggeration
48. 00:03:31 I'm aware of that but that's my point like the distance can then be the thing that overcomes the other person
49. 00:03:36 Yes, it can however the people who are really good who you might want to like position yourself and favorably compare yourself to are
50. 00:03:44 Completely smoking me. Yeah, I remember running a half marathon and seeing my time and I'm like, oh, hey
51. 00:03:51 I felt like I did pretty good
52. 00:03:52 Maybe I should look into running a full marathon
53. 00:03:55 I wonder because I have a sister-in-law who's run the Boston several times like what are the times for the men in my age group to
54. 00:04:00 Qualify for the Boston Marathon and it was basically running a full marathon in the time that I ran the half
55. 00:04:05 Like nope not for me
56. 00:04:09 Guess I'm not that good. Yep
57. 00:04:13 All right valid point
58. 00:04:15 Yep
59. 00:04:16 Other people who podcast other people who make sketch notes
60. 00:04:20 I mean basically anything that I do there's a comparison to like well
61. 00:04:23 I wonder what other people are doing in this arena and you can always find somebody like if if you're trying to figure out
62. 00:04:29 How you rank on something you will always find somebody that you can compare to and
63. 00:04:33 You can also always find somebody who is better than you?
64. 00:04:37 So that doesn't mean you should stop
65. 00:04:41 Doing the thing you're doing but exactly comparison pieces the problem. Yeah, that's the context for all of this is that comparison is bad
66. 00:04:48 So this isn't something that I should be doing. It's just recognizing that I have this tendency
67. 00:04:53 Next one was to make a list of good small
68. 00:04:58 Ordinary things and this one I think is gonna continue
69. 00:05:03 I think I'm gonna just keep adding to this list as I think of things
70. 00:05:06 But I've got eight things on this list already. I have a cup of in quotes good coffee
71. 00:05:12 Yep, because I have discovered recently that what I consider to be good coffee is
72. 00:05:18 Completely snobbish compared to most other people so I can't just say this good cup of coffee because different definitions of good
73. 00:05:26 Yep, a long run a good book
74. 00:05:29 Petting my dog my dog
75. 00:05:33 I don't think you've met Lucy. She's not met Lucy. No, she's a giant golden doodle like probably close to 70 pounds
76. 00:05:40 She's supposed to be 45 and she's like a gentle giant. Yeah, she's she's ginormous
77. 00:05:46 But she never tries to come up on the furniture
78. 00:05:48 She never like jumps up on anyone
79. 00:05:50 She does this thing where if I'm sitting in one of those chairs in the corner reading a book
80. 00:05:56 She'll come and she'll like put her head on on your lap and want you to pet her and then eventually she will just lay
81. 00:06:01 Underneath your feet
82. 00:06:03 She just always wants to be by you. So she basically whenever I'm sitting reading a book
83. 00:06:07 She's within arms reach nice nice. So one of my favorite things is reading a book and petting my dog
84. 00:06:13 Pedding the dog. I've also gotten the habit of taking naps on Sundays, which is amazing. That is amazing that that is actually
85. 00:06:20 It's how the girls refer to it. It's daddy's sleep time
86. 00:06:27 I think is what they refer to it out because I have done this for it's probably approaching a year now where
87. 00:06:33 Sunday afternoon
88. 00:06:35 Naps have become a thing on my part and I had a friend we're talking about
89. 00:06:39 You know taking a Shabbat Sabbath dinner that sort of thing and they said something about a Shabbat sleuth
90. 00:06:45 Like that is a technical term. I guess in some circles. Oh, I could do that Shabbat sleuth. That's that's my that's my thing now
91. 00:06:53 I will I will take that one on full steam ahead
92. 00:06:57 Interesting
93. 00:06:58 Yeah, so I've I've fallen in love with the Sabbath nap as I call it
94. 00:07:03 Yep, and other things I like home-cooked meal playing board games with my kids
95. 00:07:08 But I know that there's lots of little things are basically if I express gratitude for something in my daily questions journal
96. 00:07:14 Essentially that is the type of thing I want to add to this list and have this list that I can just go look at anytime
97. 00:07:21 I need to pick me up
98. 00:07:23 Find a way to do some unprompted kind thing every day
99. 00:07:26 I've been doing this but not every day. So I
100. 00:07:29 Guess quasi failed at this again. I don't know. I feel like the
101. 00:07:35 The spirit of the action item is to get me thinking this way and I would like to improve my
102. 00:07:40 success rate on this but I
103. 00:07:42 Feel like this is a win already just starting to think this way sending the encouraging text message stuff like that
104. 00:07:48 And then the two which were from the last episode
105. 00:07:53 How can we get more lean at work? These are just thinking time questions and how often do I look for opportunities to cooperate or collaborate?
106. 00:08:00 I guess would be another another way to say that
107. 00:08:02 These have sparked a whole bunch of insights for me in the last couple weeks
108. 00:08:08 Nothing specifically that I want to share here, but these have been really successful
109. 00:08:12 Again proving that the best action items for me are the ambiguous ones that I just think about
110. 00:08:18 Yeah, it's kind of how it goes anymore, right?
111. 00:08:21 And I feel like that's actually this is a diversion that it might actually be a progression of bookworm
112. 00:08:26 I've kind of wondered about that. So yeah, when we first started they were very there were a lot of tactical
113. 00:08:32 Action items like I am going to put this timer on my desk and use it all day long like that type of task
114. 00:08:39 anymore, we've got these kind of
115. 00:08:42 higher level action items and I wonder if it's purely like a
116. 00:08:47 progression of what what we consider is something to work on like it's more mindset stuff than it is
117. 00:08:53 physical stuff very true I
118. 00:08:55 Say that and yet the two action items I have are very tactical from this
119. 00:09:00 Last round one of which I've already completed had already completed when we were recorded
120. 00:09:05 And that is I don't think you can't see it on stream, but there's a whiteboard here right behind me. That's right there
121. 00:09:10 I know you can't see it
122. 00:09:12 but that has proven to be invaluable for
123. 00:09:16 My little worker bees and myself
124. 00:09:18 So that has been something is just kind of gold. I just regularly come up
125. 00:09:23 Hey, Joe just real quick like nope go right on the board like unless it's mission critical right now
126. 00:09:28 go right on the board and I will see it tomorrow morning and that has in itself saved me many many many times in
127. 00:09:37 Running off to solve some problem. I don't need to solve right away
128. 00:09:40 So love the whiteboard the other one was to work on my environment and I wasn't sure what that meant
129. 00:09:46 when I detailed it and
130. 00:09:48 I have started to figure out what that means
131. 00:09:52 because the the goal is to set up the environment to allow me to maybe be a little more creative and and
132. 00:09:58 have more focus on the work that I'm doing and
133. 00:10:01 Some of that is as simple as the door to this room
134. 00:10:07 Regularly just without me thinking about it. It's always wide open
135. 00:10:12 It's a little weird to have it shut
136. 00:10:15 all the time
137. 00:10:16 Because then people don't know if I'm here or not unless they see the currently recording sign on the door handle
138. 00:10:21 So that feels a little weird
139. 00:10:23 But I did learn that if I close it like 75% to where it's like mostly shut, but it's still open
140. 00:10:30 It's open enough that if somebody really needs something they will open knock and then come in
141. 00:10:36 But they're more prone to letting me be at that point
142. 00:10:40 So then that that one small thing has actually proven to be very helpful
143. 00:10:45 At the same time we've started like
144. 00:10:48 Moving a lot of gear in this room to kind of get it out of this space where my desk sits
145. 00:10:53 Which frees me up to stand a lot more because sometimes I don't stand at this desk
146. 00:10:59 Just because I've got a pile of speaker monitors behind me
147. 00:11:02 So I can't roll the chair back because it'll slam into speakers
148. 00:11:06 so just simple stuff like that seems to make a big difference and
149. 00:11:10 I'm continuing to just kind of see like okay. What what happens when I make these small changes and
150. 00:11:16 It's amazing to me how much of that little subtlety can make such a big difference just mentally so
151. 00:11:22 so far
152. 00:11:25 Limited success, I would say maybe not limited but continuing to work on it that might be an ongoing thing here for a while nice
153. 00:11:32 Super fun. You ready to talk about where ideas come from? Yes, I am
154. 00:11:37 All right
155. 00:11:40 well today's book is where good ideas come from by Stephen Johnson and
156. 00:11:46 this was a book that I picked and I had heard from several people
157. 00:11:53 about Stephen Johnson in this book in particular
158. 00:11:57 so kept coming onto my radar and
159. 00:12:01 With the whole topic of PKM fascinating me. I figured this would have some overlap with that
160. 00:12:08 I did not expect it to speak directly to software spoiler alert. He does a little bit even in this older book, which is
161. 00:12:16 surprising and his choice of software is
162. 00:12:19 Fitting for the time frame - yes, yes, exactly
163. 00:12:23 So stay tuned for that
164. 00:12:25 But essentially it's really about how do good ideas come about which I think is a fascinating
165. 00:12:32 concept
166. 00:12:34 The book itself is not like your traditional book. There's an introduction
167. 00:12:38 There's a conclusion and then there are seven chapters in between there are not multiple parts
168. 00:12:42 They're not even labeled chapters. It's just the number and then the thing
169. 00:12:45 so
170. 00:12:47 A little bit different a little bit refreshing approach. I would say to this
171. 00:12:53 Before we get into the the specifics though, what were your first impressions of this book?
172. 00:12:59 All sorts of things so
173. 00:13:02 I wasn't real sure what I was getting into when I read the title where good ideas come from
174. 00:13:07 And my mind it was potentially
175. 00:13:10 Going to go down the route of a systems book like here's a process you can go through to come up with good ideas
176. 00:13:16 Like I had that as a potential
177. 00:13:18 in the back of my mind
178. 00:13:21 But then if you read the subtitle on this the natural history of innovation
179. 00:13:25 It kind of lends itself to saying that probably that's not going to be
180. 00:13:29 What you're going to get out of this
181. 00:13:32 If you read the whole paragraph and and bio of sorts on the the back of it
182. 00:13:37 It would tell you that you're probably not going to get a system out of this and yet somehow I thought that was maybe going to happen
183. 00:13:43 But if you continued the whole how to read a book concept and wrote through
184. 00:13:47 the table of contents like what you were saying
185. 00:13:51 It's it definitely could have been put together in a three-part book
186. 00:13:55 It definitely could have been a whole bunch of things, but I feel like they did really well and just saying no
187. 00:14:00 It's not a three-part book. It's
188. 00:14:02 seven segments
189. 00:14:05 Intro conclusion with an actual real
190. 00:14:07 conclusion for once I feel like that's maybe a breath of fresh air will get there
191. 00:14:12 And then there's this massive amount of like acknowledgement and
192. 00:14:17 appendix and stuff on the back
193. 00:14:19 But something that's in the back that I I kind of wish more books did
194. 00:14:24 Uh, but there is like a further reading
195. 00:14:28 section in the back
196. 00:14:30 That I tend to appreciate now
197. 00:14:32 That said a lot of these are his own books
198. 00:14:36 Or are they all his own books? Anyway, I think it's it is helpful to just kind of see like here's some other stuff that you can read
199. 00:14:42 That's similar to
200. 00:14:44 This topic and that's that's something that I wish more books would do. I know that a lot of books will reference
201. 00:14:49 Uh other books within it and that's that's a lot of times how I come up with ideas for
202. 00:14:55 next
203. 00:14:57 The next books that we're going to read so
204. 00:14:59 overall I liked it, but
205. 00:15:02 Uh, the layout of it and the structure of it. It was definitely a breath of fresh air just based on what we normally see
206. 00:15:08 Agreed
207. 00:15:10 Uh, it is definitely a different type of book. Um, let's actually
208. 00:15:14 go into the uh, the introduction here because
209. 00:15:18 This really sets up the framework that he uses throughout the rest of the book
210. 00:15:23 This appendix by the way, I think it was the last book
211. 00:15:26 You are the great mental models volume two. You were surprised at how small the appendix was
212. 00:15:31 Didn't exist this book made up for it. Yeah, it absolutely did
213. 00:15:36 I'm just looking at it. It's like how long is this thing?
214. 00:15:40 Because it's
215. 00:15:41 That's the bibliography
216. 00:15:43 Yeah, it's long 40 pages
217. 00:15:45 There's the book feels bigger than it than it is because it's
218. 00:15:49 247 pages I think and then there's a whole bunch after that
219. 00:15:54 Feels like you're only about two thirds of the way through the book when you're physically holding it right which is all
220. 00:16:00 All uh appendix and references and things like that which he addresses
221. 00:16:05 How and why he used the format that he did later on in the book, but
222. 00:16:10 In the introduction he really pieces together three different
223. 00:16:15 Metaphors, I guess for idea generation
224. 00:16:19 one of them
225. 00:16:21 is
226. 00:16:22 the coral reefs and Darwin and how he recognized that this is a very small percentage of the
227. 00:16:29 earth's landmass, but
228. 00:16:32 it houses an insane number of the
229. 00:16:35 The majority of the species, but it's a disproportionately high percentage
230. 00:16:39 and then he talks about cities
231. 00:16:43 and then the third metaphor that he uses is the internet or the world wide web
232. 00:16:48 so a lot of the arguments that he makes in all the other chapters following this
233. 00:16:54 are all
234. 00:16:56 filtered through these
235. 00:16:58 Metaphors, which I'm curious if you thought that was
236. 00:17:03 Successful or not, how did you feel about this approach setting up the rest of the book?
237. 00:17:07 At the very beginning like when I read those particular pieces
238. 00:17:12 It was one that I felt like this could either go one of two ways
239. 00:17:17 Like he's setting me up with these three different stories
240. 00:17:20 And it seems to work pretty well at least in the intro
241. 00:17:24 But you know at that point I wasn't so sure that it was going to continue throughout the rest of the book
242. 00:17:29 You could kind of like that happens pretty commonly like the
243. 00:17:32 Whatever is pitched in the introduction
244. 00:17:35 Seems like it carries on throughout the rest of the book like that's the the recurring theme you're about to get
245. 00:17:42 That seems to be a common thing
246. 00:17:44 Which is partly why I tell people be sure you read the introduction because a lot of people I've learned skip it which seems weird to me
247. 00:17:50 but
248. 00:17:52 given that he takes these three different concepts with Darwin and
249. 00:17:57 you know inner city life and
250. 00:17:59 You know the worldwide web taking those three
251. 00:18:02 Stories and carrying them throughout the rest of the book. It seems to work pretty well
252. 00:18:07 Knowing
253. 00:18:10 Quite a bit about each of those three
254. 00:18:13 There's a bunch of like places that you could say are loopholes and potential foundational problems
255. 00:18:19 With that particular approach like what the the details that he's going to talk about throughout the rest of the book
256. 00:18:25 So I'm not sure how well it played out
257. 00:18:28 Time it was done
258. 00:18:30 but
259. 00:18:31 It's it's kind of a cool way to do it. I think having these three different ones that you're going to carry through the whole
260. 00:18:36 Book that part was fascinating to me versus the standard
261. 00:18:40 Let me pitch this one idea that we're going to talk about throughout the entire book
262. 00:18:44 No, we're going to come at this from three completely different angles
263. 00:18:46 And i'm going to give you examples and stories about each of them through the entirety of this text
264. 00:18:53 That I greatly appreciated like that that really puts some
265. 00:18:56 Teeth to the content here. So very grateful for that part
266. 00:19:00 Yeah, and actually let's just talk about that a little bit
267. 00:19:04 I mentioned he kind of explains his approach at the end of the book
268. 00:19:07 But I don't think it really fits with the arguments and the things that we're going to be talking about
269. 00:19:10 So let's just talk about it here. Okay
270. 00:19:13 He says essentially there's a couple different ways that you can attempt to write a book like this
271. 00:19:18 You can select a single
272. 00:19:22 Example or very few examples and that is your case study
273. 00:19:26 You're going to go really deep on this one example
274. 00:19:29 The problem with that is that you have potentially cherry picked one example and it may not represent the larger sample size
275. 00:19:36 Doesn't really tell you what's going on in that particular domain
276. 00:19:39 You really have to have confidence that you picked something that represents the whole
277. 00:19:44 So another option would be that you can select a whole bunch of
278. 00:19:49 Stories and kind of piece them together and that's kind of what he's tried to do here
279. 00:19:54 There's a whole bunch of stories and I would argue that he is a pretty does a pretty good job of telling those stories
280. 00:20:00 But again, he's working them into this framework with these three metaphors that we mentioned at the beginning
281. 00:20:05 And he calls out that again
282. 00:20:08 There's a possibility here that you're cherry picking things and you get it wrong
283. 00:20:12 So essentially he's saying like you got to pick the the lesser of two evils here
284. 00:20:18 Right, right if you really want to go in any sort of depth
285. 00:20:21 And so he basically calls out this is what I have decided to do and this is why I've made the decisions that I've made
286. 00:20:29 You can see his
287. 00:20:31 Perspective and I don't think that either of us would 100% agree with everything that he says in here
288. 00:20:39 But I at least appreciate the transparency there
289. 00:20:42 I don't think I've ever read another productivity book like that where essentially they're saying
290. 00:20:47 You know, I recognize that what I'm sharing here is not just obvious fact and you're going to have to trust me
291. 00:20:53 Right and I wish more authors would would take that approach
292. 00:20:57 Yeah, and this is where
293. 00:21:00 And I was trying to figure out where to put this in this episode, but that sets it up really well in that
294. 00:21:07 Because of the way he's approaching this it lends a lot of credibility to what you're about to read
295. 00:21:13 Because there's so much that he calls out here saying
296. 00:21:17 You know, they're potentially flaws in this kind of like what I was saying
297. 00:21:20 Like there are points in each of these three concepts that I feel like I would disagree with or argue with
298. 00:21:25 but collectively
299. 00:21:27 The idea comes across like I can nitpick on his examples and his metaphors here
300. 00:21:33 because I've
301. 00:21:36 read darwin's on
302. 00:21:38 Uh on origin of origin of species like because I've read that
303. 00:21:42 Like I know some of the things that are in there that he's not calling out here
304. 00:21:46 that might change what he says here
305. 00:21:49 but
306. 00:21:51 He didn't call that out and he did use that particular route of thinking and that is not
307. 00:21:58 The point that he's trying to make here. Like that's that's an adjacence issue. That's not impacting
308. 00:22:04 The the topic or the idea that he is presenting. So that said like it doesn't take away from the book
309. 00:22:12 I don't find it's simply something I would disagree with
310. 00:22:15 but because he has these three different examples
311. 00:22:18 And he calls out that hey, there's probably problems with this
312. 00:22:22 Like oh, okay
313. 00:22:24 But that means that now this is an open dialogue between me and this author about
314. 00:22:29 Whether or not the concepts are true like the the the philosophies that he's going to present here
315. 00:22:36 Are they true or not? Well
316. 00:22:39 He's working his way through it. I'm fine having that dialogue because he's allowing me to have that dialogue
317. 00:22:44 He's not telling me hey, this is the only way this works and you have to listen to me
318. 00:22:47 That's not what he's saying at all. He's like I'm working through this as well
319. 00:22:50 So because of that, it's it's a lot easier to give grace when you're working through it
320. 00:22:56 Yeah, that's a really good description
321. 00:22:58 I had the same
322. 00:23:01 reaction
323. 00:23:03 So just to call it out, obviously he uses Darwin a lot and
324. 00:23:06 Evolution big bang stuff like that. I was a biology major in college and I remember sitting my freshman biology class
325. 00:23:13 And my professor who was teaching the theory of evolution
326. 00:23:16 Was like yeah, so the basis for all this stuff is radiocarbon dating and this really doesn't make any sense
327. 00:23:22 I'm sorry. Just take my word for it. Yeah, and I've never done well with somebody who just
328. 00:23:27 Take my word for it
329. 00:23:29 Yep
330. 00:23:30 So the only nitpick I really have is with the the dates
331. 00:23:33 I don't really know and I don't I don't want to argue
332. 00:23:36 Specifics with that because it's not relevant with what he's really trying to do here number one
333. 00:23:41 He's using three different examples like you said so it's a framework for discussing a concept not debating
334. 00:23:48 facts, which
335. 00:23:51 Means that we can have that dialogue like you said there's no direct challenge. You're either right or wrong
336. 00:23:56 We can just have a conversation
337. 00:23:59 We can learn from it, which is really the whole idea when you read a book going back to how to read a book
338. 00:24:04 There's our obligatory how to read a book mentioned for this episode
339. 00:24:10 So true so true has to come up a lot
340. 00:24:12 It's so good though
341. 00:24:14 I mean one of the most important things I got from that was that when you read a book
342. 00:24:18 You're having a conversation with the author and what you are supposed to do
343. 00:24:22 Is not just blindly except that everything that they tell you is true
344. 00:24:26 But you're supposed to understand their arguments and then respond I feel like this book is perfect for that
345. 00:24:33 Yep
346. 00:24:33 If you're reading how to read a book and then you're like, okay
347. 00:24:36 Now I need one to practice on pick up this one
348. 00:24:39 No kidding
349. 00:24:41 Yeah, because it it does
350. 00:24:42 It does all the things right the well
351. 00:24:46 There there there's probably a couple that it doesn't
352. 00:24:49 in minutes he in
353. 00:24:52 In adler's book how to read a book he has a specific call towards
354. 00:24:56 A very well laid out table of contents. That is not here
355. 00:25:01 It's just almost single words per segment
356. 00:25:03 So it it really doesn't give you a whole lot about what you're going to cover in each section
357. 00:25:08 And then it also doesn't really do a very good job
358. 00:25:11 like if you were to just flip through and try to scan the book
359. 00:25:14 because it's so story heavy and because it's
360. 00:25:19 got very little for like subtopics within a segment within a chapter
361. 00:25:25 It's it's kind of tough to get a general idea when you're skipping through it ahead of time before you start reading to get your general
362. 00:25:32 Just of the book before you dig in so like according to adler like those two components would be missing here
363. 00:25:39 So not to say that it's bad in any way. It's just different
364. 00:25:43 but
365. 00:25:46 That all said there's a lot to love here for sure
366. 00:25:48 All right, so let's get into meet here
367. 00:25:52 chapter one
368. 00:25:55 Is the first very interesting idea that this book about ideas introduces us to and that is the adjacent
369. 00:26:04 possible
370. 00:26:06 I love this term and this idea the adjacent possible basically are the first order possibilities
371. 00:26:14 So if you are
372. 00:26:16 In a room the adjacent possible would be the four doors that lead out of that room
373. 00:26:22 But nothing beyond that so if those rooms had other doors that went to other rooms. That's not the adjacent possible
374. 00:26:28 It's what is right next to you that you could take action on
375. 00:26:32 What do you think about this idea?
376. 00:26:36 To me it makes perfect sense that it's the first chapter in the book because I feel like this is the most common
377. 00:26:40 Like how so it might be technically wrong, but I feel like
378. 00:26:44 The type of innovative ideas that come out like this is probably how most of them
379. 00:26:50 come about that
380. 00:26:53 Save maybe chapter six
381. 00:26:55 Exaptation like that one might be there as well. But anyway things that are like right beside it
382. 00:27:00 um
383. 00:27:02 This this is a really cool concept and I especially like the term as well because when you you have an existing technology or concept an idea
384. 00:27:10 And then like see something like right beside it like it's just like tipping over
385. 00:27:15 It's like oh that that'll make sense like that concept is really it's really powerful when you start thinking about it that way
386. 00:27:22 Yeah, I mean when it comes to
387. 00:27:25 good ideas
388. 00:27:29 Like a single good idea can change your life is something that I've
389. 00:27:31 Set off and I don't know where I originally got that but when you think about that phrase
390. 00:27:36 You really are thinking like
391. 00:27:38 Well in order to totally transform my situation this idea has got to be completely different
392. 00:27:44 But this whole bucket where good ideas come from basically is saying it's not going to be something that's completely out of left field
393. 00:27:54 It's going to be something that is very close to where you are
394. 00:27:59 That's the thing that's going to be the the breakthrough and I feel like that releases a lot of pressure in terms of
395. 00:28:06 Trying to find and develop
396. 00:28:10 good ideas
397. 00:28:12 Because you don't need to go search a whole bunch of domains that
398. 00:28:16 You have no experience with you don't have to give in to the FOMO that's associated with that
399. 00:28:23 I feel like when it comes to
400. 00:28:26 Making the most of what you've got to work with
401. 00:28:28 That's the danger at least for me is like well there must be something I'm missing
402. 00:28:33 There must be some podcast that somebody's listening to that they're
403. 00:28:36 Getting the answers that I'm not or they're reading some books that are giving them the answers that I'm not getting
404. 00:28:42 And this kind of diffuses all that it's really just saying you know the things that are really going to
405. 00:28:48 Change your life are
406. 00:28:51 To the left and to the right of you
407. 00:28:53 They're not way out there and you need this crazy roadmap that's going to lead you right there
408. 00:28:58 You just need to be curious enough and look up from the day-to-day and what's directly in front of you long enough to consider what is possible
409. 00:29:04 Yeah, if if you're willing to do that
410. 00:29:08 Like you're saying it can make some pretty massive
411. 00:29:12 changes for you
412. 00:29:14 just in your entire existence really because
413. 00:29:17 whenever you take something that's small
414. 00:29:21 And then look right beside it like you you've got a particular issue. I'm trying to think of a good example
415. 00:29:26 but
416. 00:29:27 you know if you've got things that you're doing every single day and then
417. 00:29:30 you come across
418. 00:29:33 something that's right beside that like
419. 00:29:36 Can't think of a good example right now
420. 00:29:39 Well, here's one so
421. 00:29:42 We were talking about earlier on about you know how I've been changing my environment and stuff
422. 00:29:47 And there are a lot of different ways that people store sound equipment, right
423. 00:29:52 Some people will put the microphones in bags and then they make a pile of the bags
424. 00:29:57 Some people will drill holes and things and stick all the microphones down in that so that they're all in a line
425. 00:30:02 and
426. 00:30:03 It
427. 00:30:04 It really occurred to us as of like last week that
428. 00:30:08 We could really combine a couple of those things and take better care of our microphones
429. 00:30:14 And yet have them easily accessible. So we just have little bins that are labeled with the mics in their bags
430. 00:30:21 That can be stacked so I can actually use more space that way
431. 00:30:25 but that idea came
432. 00:30:28 from
433. 00:30:29 Us walking from the work room
434. 00:30:32 Which is literally right next door to the sound storage room
435. 00:30:37 Where they had a whole bunch of bins sitting there like this is a very physical like it's right beside it sort of thing
436. 00:30:43 So to me, it's kind of like that in that like we saw this idea here
437. 00:30:47 It's kind of delves into chapter six a little bit
438. 00:30:50 But it takes an idea from this spot right beside us and then we can use it in this existing place
439. 00:30:56 so
440. 00:30:58 It kind of floats over from side to side there, but it it is an easy way to take existing ideas or
441. 00:31:04 Taking idea that you need to or probably you need to solve and take an idea right beside it to come in
442. 00:31:10 Feel like I keep saying the same thing, but it feels different in my brain, but hopefully you get the point
443. 00:31:14 I do
444. 00:31:17 The example that they use that really stood up to me from this chapter was Charles Babbage
445. 00:31:22 He created the difference engine and the analytical engine, which was over a hundred years before the first computer
446. 00:31:28 And it did not take off
447. 00:31:31 And the argument that Stephen Johnson makes is that it was because it was outside of the adjacent possible for
448. 00:31:38 Everybody in the culture at the time
449. 00:31:40 And I feel like the same argument could be made for something like apples newton
450. 00:31:45 And i'm sure there's a million other examples that non apple people can use to fill in this
451. 00:31:50 This too, but that's the one that comes to mind for me
452. 00:31:53 It's essentially an iPad before the iPad, but it was so far before the iPad that no one really saw
453. 00:31:59 The value of the tablet like device like that
454. 00:32:02 And that's generalizing a ton. I get it
455. 00:32:06 But we can all identify those different examples
456. 00:32:09 Where something is a good idea, but it's the wrong time, you know, and that's just because in
457. 00:32:17 Stephen johnson's words
458. 00:32:19 The culture is not ready to accept that yet because it's not yet in that adjacent possible. They can't figure out
459. 00:32:26 Why that's beneficial because there's no clear path from where they are to
460. 00:32:32 Where that is
461. 00:32:35 I think that's an interesting idea
462. 00:32:38 I don't know what practically comes from that other than to look back and at history at some of the
463. 00:32:44 The things that were quote unquote before their time
464. 00:32:47 But I think if I were to pick something that's a applicable takeaway from this it's
465. 00:32:52 not to assume that
466. 00:32:54 Everybody is going to be as excited about whatever new thing you're bringing as you are
467. 00:32:59 and you have to consider where they are
468. 00:33:03 And what they are experiencing and what they are able to see
469. 00:33:07 If you can't chart a real clear and short path
470. 00:33:11 From here to there
471. 00:33:14 It's just not going to work because this is how people operate. This is
472. 00:33:18 Where good ideas come from is that adjacent possible? It's like if it's not in the adjacent possible for a lot of people
473. 00:33:24 It's not even an option
474. 00:33:26 Yeah, probably a good example of this is
475. 00:33:28 from the book is the story of youtube
476. 00:33:32 and it's beginning where like people were able to
477. 00:33:35 Watch videos online, but they didn't really have a place to share their own
478. 00:33:39 online so like that
479. 00:33:42 That the things that were currently happening like you could watch videos online
480. 00:33:45 In a lot of places the bandwidth capabilities were fast enough that you could watch videos online
481. 00:33:54 Which meant that it was
482. 00:33:57 Adjecently possible now for people to upload their own to a social network of sorts
483. 00:34:03 Way back in 1995 like that became possible
484. 00:34:07 But if they had done that 10 years prior the web was already around
485. 00:34:10 And the concepts were there like technically they probably could have pulled it off
486. 00:34:16 But because people weren't used to watching videos on the web yet and because the download speeds were not there yet
487. 00:34:22 It would not have been really possible for it to take off
488. 00:34:26 Whereas when it did release it exploded within a year
489. 00:34:30 because
490. 00:34:32 That that collection of requirements made it a possibility for it to take off
491. 00:34:37 Yep, I forgot about the youtube example
492. 00:34:41 There are so many examples in this book. Yeah, and that's really the powerful thing about this
493. 00:34:46 I gave up trying to detail all the
494. 00:34:48 All the stories that they're telling because it was impossible
495. 00:34:52 But that's the beauty of it too is that
496. 00:34:54 There's so many examples one of them is going to resonate and that's the one that you dive deeper into and that's the one that
497. 00:35:00 Allows you to to connect the dots that you weren't able to connect before
498. 00:35:03 That's actually a good place to go into the next chapter. So let's do that chapter two is liquid
499. 00:35:11 networks
500. 00:35:14 Do you have a definition for a liquid network?
501. 00:35:18 so maybe
502. 00:35:22 The the best way I could come up with this is
503. 00:35:25 Like the easiest example I can think of off top of my head is if you think of a cup
504. 00:35:29 Full of water and it's overflowing
505. 00:35:32 And then that water goes everywhere else
506. 00:35:35 Like that to me
507. 00:35:36 That's the easiest way to think of it just because by a liquid network
508. 00:35:39 I think what he's referring to is you have a collection of people in an area
509. 00:35:44 That because they're simply around other people you can't help but absorb some of the ideas from those other groups
510. 00:35:53 And then that can inform your own thinking on an idea and develop an idea
511. 00:35:57 And those ideas can come out of that kind of oozing out of
512. 00:36:01 Concepts from other groups. That's kind of how I think about it now
513. 00:36:05 Whether that's the way he would explain it or not. I don't know, but it seems to make sense in my brain
514. 00:36:09 Well, I like that definition. I'm glad I asked you first
515. 00:36:14 Because I think the the big thing I got from this is that a good idea is always the result of a network
516. 00:36:20 The size of the network is important for good ideas
517. 00:36:23 And you have to be able to bump into things like you were talking about. It's not clean
518. 00:36:28 It's not tidy even though
519. 00:36:30 That's what we tend to do. We tend to condense
520. 00:36:32 The origin stories of our best ideas into tidy narratives, but it's never really that
521. 00:36:38 Simple
522. 00:36:41 And I like the idea of a cup overflowing and because there is no way to prevent those things from bumping into each other
523. 00:36:47 I think the big thing I took away from this when I read it
524. 00:36:50 Was that the network has to be plastic is a definition that he uses able to adopt new configurations
525. 00:36:57 So essentially it doesn't need to be as messy as an overflowing cup of water
526. 00:37:02 I think but it does have to
527. 00:37:04 Not be
528. 00:37:06 Solid in its configuration and it has to be adaptable. It has to respond to different
529. 00:37:10 Forces from the environment
530. 00:37:13 I think this this concept is one
531. 00:37:17 I don't like people would have said it, but this concept is one that
532. 00:37:20 Had a pretty big impact on the idea behind open layout offices like this this
533. 00:37:28 Kind of connection and letting people run into each other sort of thing like building those networks
534. 00:37:34 I think is a big part of why people were doing that because they're trying to create those instances where you're
535. 00:37:41 Sharing information across departments and such
536. 00:37:44 so like that idea is kind of what he's getting at and
537. 00:37:48 It does work
538. 00:37:52 I don't think that people would say that it's forced
539. 00:37:55 Liquidity in that case is a good idea
540. 00:37:59 We've learned that that's not a great thing long term. So don't do that. Please
541. 00:38:04 Open layout offices are
542. 00:38:07 Terrible, please don't please don't build them
543. 00:38:12 Yeah, it mentions that the innovative systems tend to gravitate to the edge of chaos
544. 00:38:18 So that makes me a little bit
545. 00:38:22 Uncomfortable, I guess i'm getting better at being okay with being uncomfortable when it comes to that sort of stuff though
546. 00:38:30 I recognize that that's where a lot of the the good stuff happens, but
547. 00:38:34 And he also mentions that to make your mind more plastic you need to put it in an environment that resembles a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent possible
548. 00:38:42 That's interesting and that kind of ties back to your
549. 00:38:45 Action item of considering your environment. I feel now that could be physical environment, but it could be a bunch of other things as well
550. 00:38:54 So I thought that was
551. 00:38:57 That was interesting and then ends or one of the last things he talks about in this chapter is that the most productive tools for generating good ideas are humans around a table
552. 00:39:04 That is going to make
553. 00:39:10 The introverts who don't like open offices uncomfortable
554. 00:39:13 But I do think it really is important to recognize when to deploy that tactically that is absolutely the the best
555. 00:39:21 Scenario if you want to generate good ideas is get face to face and talk about things
556. 00:39:27 Yeah, and just just to piggyback on that idea like the the idea of
557. 00:39:32 Like getting together in a room to talk through
558. 00:39:35 Situations or a new concept of some kind
559. 00:39:40 Uh that that is something that as an introvert. I am always like no don't make me do that
560. 00:39:45 But then when it's done, it's usually a good experience like I know that I've got one of these coming up here soon. We're in the middle of
561. 00:39:52 remodeling our church website, so I'm kind of quarterbacking that whole process and
562. 00:40:00 There's a fair amount of let's talk through our existing website. What do we like what don't we like?
563. 00:40:07 Let's find new ideas for things like let's talk through each potential feature
564. 00:40:11 And then we can start to wireframe some ideas for what that could become
565. 00:40:15 based on all of that feedback, but
566. 00:40:19 All of that is dependent on us getting together around a table
567. 00:40:22 And just talking through all of these potential things and trying to make sure that everybody gets a voice
568. 00:40:27 In that process right or wrong doesn't matter. Let's just talk about it
569. 00:40:31 And keeping that group small you don't want that to be a huge group just saying
570. 00:40:36 Agreed anything else from this? Should we move on to the next chapter?
571. 00:40:40 No, we should slow down though
572. 00:40:43 Uh, I don't know. I think uh, there's some good stuff to get into here in a little bit
573. 00:40:49 so uh chapter three is the slow hunch
574. 00:40:54 And this essentially if I were to summarize this is
575. 00:40:59 That you're never going to have that eureka moment right away
576. 00:41:05 It takes some time to connect those dots
577. 00:41:09 You have to kind of brew on things for a while
578. 00:41:13 And he used a phrase in here which reminded me of
579. 00:41:18 The five sees a creativity that I put together. I hadn't read this book at that time
580. 00:41:22 But it's uh, the middle step for me is cultivate
581. 00:41:27 And that was that was like a big aha moment for me is that I have these ideas
582. 00:41:30 I put them in to my system
583. 00:41:32 And then I don't really know what they're going to be for a while. I have to
584. 00:41:35 Give them the right conditions and and let these ideas mature
585. 00:41:39 It's kind of like you put seeds in the ground and you got a water them and give them sunlight
586. 00:41:44 And then they poke through and then you kind of see what you what you've got
587. 00:41:47 Maybe you're a master gardener. You know what those seeds look like. I'm not so
588. 00:41:50 It's not till I till they poke through and they actually start producing some fruit that I'm maybe able to tell what they are
589. 00:41:55 And that is essentially the what he's talking about here with the slow hunch and he even used that word cultivate
590. 00:42:01 Which I thought was really interesting. Yeah, and there are again, there's a whole bunch of
591. 00:42:06 Examples here, but the the concept of a slow hunch is probably
592. 00:42:12 Well, no, I wouldn't say it's like your
593. 00:42:16 classic hollywood version of eureka moment
594. 00:42:19 Uh, but it's one of these where
595. 00:42:22 You've been thinking about something for a long time
596. 00:42:26 And you probably can't put your finger on what the grand idea is quite yet
597. 00:42:31 But you're like one step away from it like you've got a whole collection of
598. 00:42:36 Background that you're leading up to something and you don't really have
599. 00:42:42 The final answer, but you're you're building it could take decades to get that all
600. 00:42:46 Built up for example one of the ones that I like personally that I've been kind of working through as this concept of
601. 00:42:53 building daily routines and seasonal routines around the sun clock
602. 00:42:58 Like when the sun is up versus when the sun is down like during the winter we tend to slow down
603. 00:43:03 During the summer we speed up
604. 00:43:06 Like that concept is one that I've been like working through from a productivity stance. No, I don't know what comes of that
605. 00:43:13 I don't really have
606. 00:43:15 any like
607. 00:43:16 Here's what that means like here's the routine process. I feel like you should work through and here's what that
608. 00:43:21 leads to in my life personally like I don't have any of that
609. 00:43:24 But I've got this whole thing that's like slowly putting puzzle pieces together that I've been working on for maybe four years now
610. 00:43:32 Around that concept. So it's something that I know like I'm working my way towards
611. 00:43:37 To me that feels like the type of thing he would refer to as a slow hunch
612. 00:43:41 Like I have a feeling that there's something connected here
613. 00:43:44 But I can't quite tell you what it is
614. 00:43:47 So the scientists out there need to reach out and let me know the answers to the questions
615. 00:43:50 Because I'm sure somebody has solved it already. I just don't know what it is
616. 00:43:53 A couple of quotes
617. 00:43:57 Here actually one one quote and then another idea that I wanted to call it page 78
618. 00:44:02 Sustaining the slow hunch is less a matter of perspiration than of cultivation
619. 00:44:06 There's that word that I was looking for
620. 00:44:08 You give the hunch enough nourishment to keep growing and plant it fertile soil where its roots can make new connections
621. 00:44:14 And then you give it time to bloom
622. 00:44:17 And then related to that keeping a slow hunch alive can be difficult
623. 00:44:20 I agree with this and this is the the thing that was always difficult for me
624. 00:44:26 Prior to get the bell ready obsidian
625. 00:44:29 I would
626. 00:44:32 I would just capture things whenever I would think of them into drafts and then I would have this giant list of things and then
627. 00:44:39 Transfer all of that stuff without any sort of
628. 00:44:43 Quality control cut to a task manager like omni focus
629. 00:44:47 And then I've got a whole bunch of things in there and that initially it was like hey great check this out
630. 00:44:52 I've got all these things that I can possibly take action on whenever I want to but they just sat there
631. 00:44:57 I never did anything with them. They got old and they got stale and then I threw them out after a while
632. 00:45:02 And so yeah, it's a lot more work to put stuff into a software program and create links and connections between things
633. 00:45:11 But I kind of feel like that's part of the cultivating effort and you don't want to do that with everything
634. 00:45:15 You want to do that around the stuff that
635. 00:45:17 Really matters to you
636. 00:45:20 So for me for example
637. 00:45:22 When I did the linking your thinking workshop with nikmylo you have like this capstone project
638. 00:45:27 And mine was this cross reference of all of the sermon sketch notes that I have taken
639. 00:45:33 Which by the way, if you want to see what that looks like i've got a public version of it at notes.bathbasepredictivity.com
640. 00:45:41 Now
641. 00:45:42 Essentially what I do is I take sketch notes of the sermons that I
642. 00:45:45 I listen listen to and then I you have a
643. 00:45:48 A coding system I draw a box around the verse references and each one of the verses is an individual note in obsidian
644. 00:45:55 Thanks to joe buleg and his fantastic scripts
645. 00:45:58 And then what I can do is link those things together based on the notes that I've taken and kind of build my own cross-reference library
646. 00:46:07 I'm taking that a step further by the way getting maybe a little too nerdy here, but in the yeah
647. 00:46:11 I added a yaml section to each one of those
648. 00:46:15 verses
649. 00:46:16 Okay
650. 00:46:17 And I'm applying tags at the note level for bible slash whatever and those are going to be like broken down into different themes
651. 00:46:24 Once I have gone through and added all those because I have all those like different color highlights in my paper bibles
652. 00:46:31 Right, so I'm going to add all that stuff
653. 00:46:33 And then I'm going to package that all up as something that people can download as like a starter of
654. 00:46:37 Nice. Nice. Yeah, I think that is pretty cool
655. 00:46:42 But that's kind of the point is like I know exactly how I want to be able to use this and the value of
656. 00:46:46 linking those things together how that can help me
657. 00:46:48 See new things and cultivate new ideas based on the stuff that's that's in there
658. 00:46:52 I'm that's really what you need in order to make this this stuff work
659. 00:46:56 You can't just say okay every note I've ever connected I'm gonna or ever collect it
660. 00:47:00 I'm gonna try to connect them all that is the path to madness
661. 00:47:04 Well, this this chapter is one where the common place book comes up. Yep, and that's how I was gonna talk about next this this one
662. 00:47:13 Like as soon as I read the word commonplace
663. 00:47:17 And I I didn't write down what the first place is that that word occurred, but the first time it came up
664. 00:47:22 I actually had to put the book down
665. 00:47:26 I remember doing this because it was still dark outside and I set the book on the arm of the couch
666. 00:47:32 but
667. 00:47:33 When I read the word it occurred to me that a lot of
668. 00:47:36 This book up to this point. This is like in page mid 80s
669. 00:47:41 at that point it occurred to me that
670. 00:47:43 So much of what people talk about in the world of note making and obsidian roam
671. 00:47:49 PKMs like all this world of note
672. 00:47:53 connection and linking process
673. 00:47:56 It it really can come back to
674. 00:47:58 this slow hunch concept
675. 00:48:01 But it can also come back to a lot of these other idea
676. 00:48:05 mechanisms that we're talking about here simply because
677. 00:48:07 when you have things like you know take the adjacent possible
678. 00:48:13 because you can
679. 00:48:16 See other connections to notes
680. 00:48:18 It makes it easy then to see what could become possible
681. 00:48:23 We'll talk about in the next chapter about serendipity. That's easily connected into
682. 00:48:28 This this concept of note making the slow hunch you're continually working on particular topics and trying to put them together so you can slowly build up that
683. 00:48:36 Knowledge base to come to an idea
684. 00:48:41 You can do the same thing with like liquid networks like you can start to see
685. 00:48:45 Connections and spilling over from one area into another like you can start to apply these to different
686. 00:48:52 components of that note database of sorts and
687. 00:48:56 It might be partially why so many people are excited about it because they've started to have a lot more ideas on what they have
688. 00:49:03 previously
689. 00:49:06 That might come up more as we talk about this especially when we get to the software thing here before too long
690. 00:49:11 So that that particular concept of the commonplace comes up here and like all those bells started going off for me
691. 00:49:19 That's really what he's talking about like what just happened in my brain at that moment reading this book
692. 00:49:24 That concept of having the idea pop up like that. That's that's exactly what he's referring to
693. 00:49:29 Yeah, I mean we've heard about the commonplace book before
694. 00:49:33 I think the most recent thing that we've read that has spoken to this is probably building a second brain
695. 00:49:39 by uh tiago forte
696. 00:49:42 But there was a phrase that they use here which made the whole idea of the commonplace book
697. 00:49:47 Click a little bit better for me and it's with this definition of common placing. I love that term
698. 00:49:53 I'm going to start using that
699. 00:49:55 What you're doing? Oh, I'm common placing
700. 00:49:57 But common placing is writing down
701. 00:50:02 interesting quotes and phrases
702. 00:50:04 That word interesting
703. 00:50:07 for whatever reason that unlocked a whole bunch of stuff for me
704. 00:50:10 because
705. 00:50:12 You can read a book and everyone can agree
706. 00:50:16 There is some great information in this book and you may not find it interesting at all
707. 00:50:21 And then according to this definition of common placing then you should transfer
708. 00:50:26 None of the information in that book into your commonplace book
709. 00:50:30 Does that
710. 00:50:32 feel revolutionary to you at all it does to me because I've always I guess felt a little bit of pressure at least to like
711. 00:50:39 Collect the good ideas even if I don't think they're good
712. 00:50:44 I should collect the things that other people say are good
713. 00:50:46 And this is basically saying no
714. 00:50:48 Don't do any of the don't do any of that
715. 00:50:52 Just keep the stuff that stands out to you
716. 00:50:54 And I know that I've talked about how when I write my mind-note files
717. 00:50:57 I really just capture the things that are interesting to me
718. 00:50:59 But there's always been that voice in the back of my head that's like you're doing it wrong
719. 00:51:02 You're missing some stuff
720. 00:51:04 And this basically was the release that I needed to like no just keep keep doing it the way you want to do it
721. 00:51:10 Yeah, this this is actually I was trying to find it. I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't place it
722. 00:51:16 Um where he was talking about that concept of the interesting components because I had the same
723. 00:51:21 Feeling that you did in that
724. 00:51:24 Like I always feel like whenever I'm taking book notes or I'm taking notes in a meeting or something or on a sermon
725. 00:51:31 You name it. I'm always like trying to catch. Okay. What are all the topic points?
726. 00:51:35 What are the sub points like I'm not writing down verbatim quotes
727. 00:51:40 that
728. 00:51:41 Struck me I'm trying to capture the entire
729. 00:51:44 Thing whether it's a meeting whatever book
730. 00:51:48 It's more like I'm trying to capture the gist of it as opposed to the things that I found
731. 00:51:55 Fascinating or I wanted to dig more into and
732. 00:51:59 when when you come at it from the perspective of no, I'm just going to write down the things that are of interest
733. 00:52:06 Or that I want to come back to at some point because sometimes it is a high point sometimes it is a known thing that
734. 00:52:13 a known topic that
735. 00:52:16 It's not especially interesting, but you do want to come back to it because you feel like you missed something there like those two pieces
736. 00:52:22 Starting to capture just those and being free to just let the other stuff go away because it's no fun
737. 00:52:28 I think that's incredibly freeing
738. 00:52:32 But I also know that some of maybe my angst with that and maybe this is some of yours as well
739. 00:52:38 Mike is probably because we make things for the internet
740. 00:52:41 In that like I feel like I got to capture all this stuff because all the people who follow me on twitter are going to expect that
741. 00:52:48 and
742. 00:52:50 That expectation then kills the
743. 00:52:53 Process as opposed to me just grabbing what's interesting. So
744. 00:52:58 I'm not real sure what to do with that particular component of this
745. 00:53:02 but I
746. 00:53:03 I definitely like the freeing concept of like let's let's
747. 00:53:07 Write down. Let's commonplace the interesting. Let's not commonplace everything that that part is freeing. Yes
748. 00:53:14 Okay, cool
749. 00:53:17 Well, let's go into the the next section here because we kind of talked about this a little bit already
750. 00:53:22 But this I think is the reason why you just need the stuff that is interesting the stuff
751. 00:53:26 That isn't interesting is not going to contribute to chapter four
752. 00:53:29 Serendipity
753. 00:53:31 And serendipity is the power of accidental connection
754. 00:53:35 So if it's not interesting you're not going to be turning these things over in your brain
755. 00:53:39 And really the thing that
756. 00:53:42 Makes me uncomfortable about this is a phrase at the beginning of this chapter the more disorganized your brain is the smarter you are
757. 00:53:49 I don't like that. I'm really smart then
758. 00:53:53 It's true
759. 00:53:58 because
760. 00:54:00 Last night we were pecking over running errands kids where to wanna and
761. 00:54:05 There was a a conversation we had earlier
762. 00:54:09 I'm not gonna give you all the details because it'll take too long
763. 00:54:12 We had a conversation when we're at the house
764. 00:54:14 We were headed to the store and she mentioned something else and then I brought something completely unrelated to either one of them up
765. 00:54:21 And I was like, okay
766. 00:54:24 Before I bring this up like here's what i'm gonna bring up
767. 00:54:28 Just so you're aware and I stepped her through there were 12 points of
768. 00:54:32 lawn mowers pto shafts
769. 00:54:35 spinning rods like
770. 00:54:38 It went all the way through this progression to the topic we were talking about which was like gardening seeds
771. 00:54:43 How we got to that point like that was just the way my brain worked and it was like
772. 00:54:49 Instant like I just immediately jumped to it like sorry
773. 00:54:53 racecar brain we got there quick
774. 00:54:56 That is interesting. I did not make that connection at all, but it totally makes sense the adhd
775. 00:55:02 um
776. 00:55:04 tendencies and how that could encourage more
777. 00:55:07 Serendipity so uh
778. 00:55:10 Yeah, I'm after noodle on that one
779. 00:55:15 This is because one that I feel like I run into a lot so I really liked this one
780. 00:55:20 Sure sure. Well, I like the idea of the serendipity
781. 00:55:24 I feel like that's the promise of a lot of these pkm apps which speaking of apps
782. 00:55:28 This is where we tease this a little bit. This book was written. I don't have the book in front of me
783. 00:55:33 I don't know the the copyright date 2010 2010. Okay, so roman obsidian are not a thing
784. 00:55:39 However, devinthink is and he talks about using devinthink and really the ai in devinthink to make
785. 00:55:47 the connections between different things and
786. 00:55:53 uh, I really want to updated version of this and what he thinks of obsidian, but
787. 00:55:58 That's kind of the way that I've chosen to apply the principles that he's talking about here
788. 00:56:03 however, the main takeaway is that
789. 00:56:05 Software can help us think better by encouraging serendipity
790. 00:56:10 And that clearly articulates this idea the slow hunch I guess that I have had in my head for a long time
791. 00:56:18 And I have not been able to articulate well
792. 00:56:21 He says that it's not just a dumb search
793. 00:56:25 And I feel like you really have to read this book up until this point to really get the context of this
794. 00:56:31 However, this is the response to anyone who would argue
795. 00:56:36 Oh, well, it's just a bunch of notes and you can search and find things. No, you're missing the point
796. 00:56:41 By using a search you've already
797. 00:56:44 Determined what angle you're coming at this from
798. 00:56:49 So that filter is going to reduce the serendipity
799. 00:56:53 Does it take more time to set this up and to just play with your notes like this?
800. 00:56:58 Yes, it absolutely takes more time
801. 00:57:02 However, if you are concerned about having more and better ideas
802. 00:57:06 I think he's saying at this point that it's essential
803. 00:57:09 This this is where like he spends three pages on devinthink
804. 00:57:15 Remember what we talked about early on like he he called out that
805. 00:57:19 There's going to be problems with his metaphors or going to be issues and that's okay
806. 00:57:25 And but we need to have these things in order to have the conversation
807. 00:57:28 Because he made that point
808. 00:57:30 He brought up devinthink and I immediately said oh that's probably what they used to the time
809. 00:57:34 Probably wasn't a bad tool to use at the time. We've moved on since then. That's okay
810. 00:57:38 Like that was as far as my brain went
811. 00:57:41 But if he had been
812. 00:57:43 Pitching things is this is the way this works. This is the way you should do it
813. 00:57:47 I'd have been like no, it's a terrible idea. I'm never doing that
814. 00:57:50 You're terrible even recommending that like that's probably what my reaction is
815. 00:57:54 So this is very different because of the way he has positioned the entirety of the book
816. 00:57:59 So I'm very grateful that he did that number one
817. 00:58:01 Uh, and number two like this is absolutely like what you're saying
818. 00:58:05 the linking process with notes
819. 00:58:09 This is something like I didn't really get for quite some time
820. 00:58:12 And if you go listen to or watch some of my old streams or even some old bookworm episodes like
821. 00:58:18 I don't even know that pkms are the thing you should be doing
822. 00:58:21 but if you can stick with it for a little bit and then you have
823. 00:58:26 A linked note show up that you weren't expecting
824. 00:58:29 that
825. 00:58:31 makes a connection
826. 00:58:32 like mentally not in the software
827. 00:58:36 And then you have an idea that you would not have had otherwise
828. 00:58:39 That's when the light bulb will go off and you'll realize the whole system works
829. 00:58:42 But until you get to that point and until you have that first
830. 00:58:46 Huh hadn't made that connection before until you have that
831. 00:58:50 It's it's probably not going to be there and it's just going to feel like a total
832. 00:58:54 Waste of time. Um, emosies are a terrible idea Blake
833. 00:58:59 Call them a map
834. 00:59:02 and be done
835. 00:59:04 Same thing though. Same thing. I am nodding my head vigorously over here
836. 00:59:09 Because I agree with everything that you're saying and you're right. You need to experience that
837. 00:59:13 You can't just describe what is going on
838. 00:59:17 Technically the moment that you get that first connection that you would not have gotten otherwise
839. 00:59:22 You're like, oh, this is magical
840. 00:59:26 And I feel like what most people do is they add all the obvious connections
841. 00:59:31 Which are not going to give them any future value. They're just another way that they can organize things
842. 00:59:38 Which again, it's not the purpose serendipity requires disorganization
843. 00:59:44 It's these unexpected links that provide the the insights
844. 00:59:50 Now I do I am curious if he is still
845. 00:59:54 Let's say he's he's a apple nerd like we are
846. 00:59:58 Is he still using dev and think I don't know because I think there's a potential that he's still using dev and think
847. 01:00:03 I don't think it's automatically that that's what they had available to them back then
848. 01:00:06 Uh, I know a lot of people who use dev and think and
849. 01:00:10 Obsidian together because dev and think is better at this kind of stuff
850. 01:00:14 Just like searching a whole bunch of files and grouping metadata together
851. 01:00:17 It's kind of
852. 01:00:20 Crazy how powerful that is
853. 01:00:22 It's not the direct connection backlink or bidirectional links that obsidian has but they're they're kind of different things and you can
854. 01:00:28 You don't have to use one or the other really just find one that's going to increase the serendipity for you
855. 01:00:33 now I have
856. 01:00:36 A bunch of action items from this particular chapter
857. 01:00:39 Uh, three of my four action items actually are from this chapter
858. 01:00:44 So one of the things he mentions and then he talks about reading books is that you need to allow ideas to bounce into each other
859. 01:00:51 I don't know how you read books
860. 01:00:55 In the past, I have tended to read one at a time
861. 01:00:58 He's basically saying that's not a good idea because again you want to allow these ideas to bounce into each other
862. 01:01:04 Okay, reluctantly
863. 01:01:08 I'm going to read more than one book at a time
864. 01:01:10 You're gonna be okay
865. 01:01:13 I don't know. I don't know. Uh, I have trouble deciding which book to read when i'm reading
866. 01:01:17 One at a time for whatever reason that is enough friction to cause me not to read sometimes I always say has been
867. 01:01:23 But I understand the benefit of this and it makes total sense. So i'm going to try and do that
868. 01:01:27 Another thing he talks about in terms of allowing be ideas to bounce into each other is reading a whole bunch of books in a short period of time
869. 01:01:34 He calls it a reading sabbatical
870. 01:01:37 Which i've done this before when i've gone on vacation, but i'm totally going to schedule a reading sabbatical
871. 01:01:43 I was going to say i've heard of one other person doing this
872. 01:01:48 uh
873. 01:01:50 outside of the book and
874. 01:01:53 They they
875. 01:01:55 Likened it to two things one doing a silent retreat
876. 01:01:59 It's it's very similar to that
877. 01:02:02 um and two doing a meditation retreat
878. 01:02:05 It tends to flow in that
879. 01:02:09 realm
880. 01:02:10 Uh, they they actually recommended that if you're going to do a reading sabbatical
881. 01:02:14 Do your best to have zero devices around and and make it a silent
882. 01:02:21 Thing like you're gonna do like three days on a reading sabbatical. Okay. Well, no words coming out of your mouth
883. 01:02:27 For those three days and no devices allowed like kind of combining some of those just because then
884. 01:02:33 To what you're getting at like it forces you to think about the material and doesn't give you an outlet to focus on other things
885. 01:02:39 Yeah, I could I could see that. I don't know if i'm ready to go that far with it though because all my notes i take
886. 01:02:46 I know i know is breaking the rules, but
887. 01:02:50 I don't know. I think I have enough self-control to get the
888. 01:02:52 the 80/20 benefit there
889. 01:02:55 Um, the big the thing I thought of right away when I yeah exactly Blake. I was thinking of bill gates think weeks
890. 01:03:01 When uh talked about this which was the original inspiration for my personal retreats
891. 01:03:07 So I don't think I want to bring a stack of books on a personal retreat
892. 01:03:12 But I do my personal retreats every quarter already anyways following the framework that I put together
893. 01:03:16 And I think I could easily add another day
894. 01:03:20 to read
895. 01:03:23 And so i'm thinking of how I can do that
896. 01:03:26 Um, I think that's what i'm going to do in terms of taking action on on this particular idea
897. 01:03:32 And then the last one
898. 01:03:35 Was to create an idea exchange at the day job
899. 01:03:38 A place where ideas can bump into each other. All right, so i've already had this idea for like an ideas board
900. 01:03:46 Uh, just like one percent improvements that anybody in the company can just add whatever they think
901. 01:03:50 Would be a benefit to the the company and then we can
902. 01:03:54 Together select. Okay. This is the one we're going to implement and here's what we're going to do a scrum style to find it ship it whatever
903. 01:03:59 Uh, so I have had that on like the back burner, but i'm going to prioritize that because I
904. 01:04:06 Think that if you do this with multiple people then there's obviously a lot of more benefit that can come from that
905. 01:04:13 Whole idea of like the cities and allowing different perspectives ideas bump into each other
906. 01:04:17 That's the digital application of this for me at the day job. So that's my my third action item from this one chapter nice
907. 01:04:25 Nice I have one from this chapter, but it's dependent on actually your answer to a question
908. 01:04:32 Which is kind of weird
909. 01:04:35 in that
910. 01:04:37 Reading the section the section in here on dev and think and how it
911. 01:04:41 Like connects things together and suggests things
912. 01:04:44 I feel like there should be something like that in obsidian
913. 01:04:47 But does something like that exist that i'm unaware of like some form of like an AI service that can try to find
914. 01:04:54 thematic or conceptual connections
915. 01:04:57 outside of raw metadata connections
916. 01:05:00 Inside of obsidian not that I know of I
917. 01:05:04 Don't think it's a stretch to envision something like that
918. 01:05:08 however, dev and think in addition to
919. 01:05:10 Having a better AI brain for connecting these things also is going to allow you to ocr your pdfs and incorporate stuff from that
920. 01:05:18 It's just a better solution for that kind of stuff
921. 01:05:22 Which is why people use it in conjunction with obsidian obsidian is a full as a
922. 01:05:26 A folder on your desktop. So if you have dev and think you can do this just point at that same folder get double benefit
923. 01:05:32 But I don't have dev and think
924. 01:05:35 And don't want to pay for it
925. 01:05:38 Well, then you're in what we call in the business of pickle
926. 01:05:40 thus I want to do some research on this one because
927. 01:05:45 I'm curious because I know there are
928. 01:05:48 Like AI based services that do that type of thing
929. 01:05:52 given text that's thrown at it
930. 01:05:55 And I don't know if that could be incorporated into obsidian
931. 01:05:59 So dear listeners if you know of this
932. 01:06:02 Please let me know
933. 01:06:04 If you don't know of this, please let me know if this is something you're interested in
934. 01:06:08 Because i'm very curious about it
935. 01:06:11 Ready to go on to the next chapter
936. 01:06:14 Sure
937. 01:06:16 All right, so the next chapter
938. 01:06:18 Which is number five is error
939. 01:06:22 And essentially what this whole chapter is about is that a shockingly large number of the transformative ideas that have
940. 01:06:32 come can be contributed
941. 01:06:34 to contaminated lab environments basically a discovery that was made by accident they were trying to
942. 01:06:41 Find or prove something else and then discovered this thing by accident instead
943. 01:06:46 Which is a really fascinating idea on one hand, but on the other hand is kind of discouraging
944. 01:06:53 Because every time you think you've got things figured out essentially this is saying you have no idea what you're talking about
945. 01:07:01 That's how we have the microwave
946. 01:07:03 There's a few of these like the microwave was found because
947. 01:07:06 I don't even remember the full story anymore, but he was
948. 01:07:10 The the scientist was trying to develop some way of sharing. I think it was information or like radio waves that sort of thing
949. 01:07:17 um
950. 01:07:19 And then discovered on his way
951. 01:07:21 Walking home that his chocolate barry had in his pocket was completely melted like that doesn't make sense
952. 01:07:26 it's cold in the lab
953. 01:07:28 and then
954. 01:07:29 Through checking things discovered that the system he was working on he was microwaving his pocket
955. 01:07:34 And melting his chocolate with it thus they package it up and make the microwave like that's that's where that comes from
956. 01:07:42 So a complete error, you know or a translation of an existing thing into something completely different
957. 01:07:47 The one I found fascinating was I think the guy's name was wilson great batch
958. 01:07:53 Who accidentally created the first pacemaker when he grabbed the wrong spare part
959. 01:07:58 Yep, yep
960. 01:08:00 Like that's kind of fascinating to
961. 01:08:03 Think about and really what this chapter
962. 01:08:07 Reinforced for me is you have to be willing to consider that you're wrong
963. 01:08:13 If you're never willing to second-guess things you're never going to be able to benefit from the errors
964. 01:08:19 and I feel like this is
965. 01:08:21 maybe even more important now because
966. 01:08:24 going all the way back to
967. 01:08:27 liminal thinking by dave gray
968. 01:08:30 The internet is a grocery store for facts and you can find whatever fact you want quote-unquote fact
969. 01:08:37 Because facts aren't truth
970. 01:08:40 You can have a fact and you can manipulate that data to tell the story that you want and reinforce the belief that you have
971. 01:08:47 Which may actually be wrong, but you don't ever consider that possibility. You're never going to know
972. 01:08:53 and I feel like that is a
973. 01:08:56 a sad missed opportunity and
974. 01:08:58 Not something I want to find myself falling into
975. 01:09:02 Yeah, I feel like this this one on error
976. 01:09:05 It's easy. I think to see where something happens because of a mistake that was made or you discover something by accident
977. 01:09:14 and
978. 01:09:15 Immediately dismiss it as bad because it's not what was expected
979. 01:09:19 to me to me that's the part that
980. 01:09:23 Could be a bit detrimental here is like if I don't accept that I made a mistake first off
981. 01:09:28 And that something good came of it then I don't really have a good view of actions in general
982. 01:09:35 because if
983. 01:09:37 My expectation of an outcome dictates whether or not I view the end result is good or bad
984. 01:09:44 Then my own brain is coloring the actual results of what i'm seeing
985. 01:09:48 That's a bit of an alarm bell
986. 01:09:51 Going off because then simple things like my expectations of my kids at a sports event
987. 01:09:56 Whether they did well or did poorly
988. 01:10:00 If my expectation is that they should do well, but they didn't quite live up to what I expected them to do
989. 01:10:06 It's immediately a bad performance, but if that's the case I may miss those instances where they're encouraging their teammates or
990. 01:10:14 Like I can't hit a basketball shot today to save my life
991. 01:10:18 But I can run like the Dickens and wear people out and make some passes
992. 01:10:22 But if you just see me failing to hit your expectation of the basketball shots
993. 01:10:29 Then you're not going to see those other things
994. 01:10:31 That to me is the part that could be a problem here's like
995. 01:10:35 Just because it's not what you wanted because you made an error
996. 01:10:39 Doesn't mean that it immediately becomes a bad thing
997. 01:10:42 True
998. 01:10:45 I think it doesn't translate as easily to sports as other things though
999. 01:10:50 I think it definitely definitely could have applied there
1000. 01:10:53 I think uh basketball for example though. There's kind of
1001. 01:10:57 Generally accepted principles that
1002. 01:11:00 Everyone who plays basketball agrees like this is the way to do things. Obviously there's exceptions to that like uh
1003. 01:11:06 in college
1004. 01:11:08 We played a d3 team that was occasionally on espn
1005. 01:11:15 Uh
1006. 01:11:16 I think their name was Grinnell because they would score like 200 points a game
1007. 01:11:20 All they did was shoot threes and they shot within the first six seconds of the shot clock
1008. 01:11:24 Yep, so they just forced this crazy fast tempo
1009. 01:11:27 Game and they were they're really good at it, but you know, not very many people do something completely outrageous like that
1010. 01:11:33 uh, I think when you consider the the field of of science and
1011. 01:11:38 invention
1012. 01:11:39 It's probably the
1013. 01:11:41 The place where this has the most
1014. 01:11:44 benefit
1015. 01:11:45 And really as it pertains to what is a good idea
1016. 01:11:48 I think you have to define for yourself. What are you really going after here?
1017. 01:11:52 Is it a new way to do something?
1018. 01:11:55 Is it a different spin on something that currently exists like you're trying to just figure out how to express this in your own voice
1019. 01:12:01 Or are you really looking for something that is a completely revolutionary way of of doing something?
1020. 01:12:10 As it pertains to creating which is the lens that I was coming at this book from
1021. 01:12:15 I don't really know how to how to apply this
1022. 01:12:19 um, I think it's really just continuing to connect dots collecting connect dots
1023. 01:12:26 And for me the big takeaway is
1024. 01:12:29 All of those things that you have made up your mind about
1025. 01:12:33 Be willing to change your mind about those things again that the closest connection
1026. 01:12:37 I can think of is liminal thinking by dave gray where you got this whole bubble of belief
1027. 01:12:41 Uh, well bubble belief is is what reinforces your your perspectives, but it's all built on this tiny little sliver of what is
1028. 01:12:49 actually knowable
1029. 01:12:51 I guess what i'm trying to say is like in the field of sports there's a greater percentage of
1030. 01:12:56 What is knowable that is already known
1031. 01:12:58 But when it comes to just general ideas and creative ideas specifically, I think we're just scratching the surface there
1032. 01:13:07 Yeah, I think my point is that not necessarily like the making an error in the sport
1033. 01:13:12 It was just about expectations
1034. 01:13:15 Like because you didn't achieve
1035. 01:13:17 A result like you made an error and came up with something different than what you wanted
1036. 01:13:23 Just because of that it doesn't mean that the overall thing was a failure. I think that's sure
1037. 01:13:28 That's my point there
1038. 01:13:30 Got you. So as a coach then basically you either win or you learn right correct. Yes
1039. 01:13:37 [laughs]
1040. 01:13:38 Good job coach smits good job. That makes that makes a lot of sense
1041. 01:13:41 And I feel uh, that is an important takeaway
1042. 01:13:45 So I'll I'll just restate this and maybe some different words
1043. 01:13:48 That whenever you try an experiment and it doesn't turn out the way that you thought it was going to
1044. 01:13:54 Don't write that off as a failure figure out what you're going to take away from that
1045. 01:14:02 If you don't you're missing an opportunity to convert that time that you've invested and really produce what
1046. 01:14:09 The potential that it has for you
1047. 01:14:11 Just as a just a maybe put some more teeth to this
1048. 01:14:15 If you remember one of my action items from a couple times ago was the concept of a portable routine
1049. 01:14:21 Like having these yep things that I wanted to do each day
1050. 01:14:25 But I wasn't sure like when they were going to happen in order and such
1051. 01:14:28 um
1052. 01:14:30 And I found that I was cherry picking certain ones on certain days in certain times
1053. 01:14:36 and
1054. 01:14:38 After I looked at some of that I realized that on certain days
1055. 01:14:42 You know on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I would tend to pick the ones where I was writing
1056. 01:14:47 And then on like Wednesday mornings I would pick the ones around video
1057. 01:14:51 so
1058. 01:14:54 I intended to do this portable routine concept
1059. 01:14:58 But that really didn't work out too well because I was always just picking the ones I wanted to do on different days
1060. 01:15:02 But what did evolve out of that what I realized is that
1061. 01:15:05 Essentially I was picking
1062. 01:15:08 Certain tasks for certain mornings and other tasks for certain afternoons
1063. 01:15:12 So that that has led me to like theming each morning of
1064. 01:15:16 The week in each afternoon of the week based on the tasks that I was cherry picking for those times
1065. 01:15:21 It's like so
1066. 01:15:23 Basically taking is like, okay. Here's the thing that I attempted to do. It didn't work
1067. 01:15:26 I made a complete mistake and what I thought was going to happen
1068. 01:15:29 But it led me to something completely different and I was willing to take that and adapt it
1069. 01:15:34 To then become something that I've now been doing for a while with some success. So there's that
1070. 01:15:39 Cool
1071. 01:15:41 Should we talk about?
1072. 01:15:42 Exaptation
1073. 01:15:43 I really like this one
1074. 01:15:44 You want to introduce it then? Yeah, so exaptation is
1075. 01:15:47 uh, basically taking an idea that works in one realm
1076. 01:15:51 And morphing it to work in a different realm
1077. 01:15:55 Like it's it's an idea that already works somewhere else
1078. 01:15:58 But we're going to take it and put it in a new place
1079. 01:16:01 And this isn't in the book, but the one that actually came to my mind right away whenever we explain that
1080. 01:16:06 was
1081. 01:16:08 There's a movie that's called what is it the boy who harnessed the wind have you seen this?
1082. 01:16:13 And it's a story about a small african
1083. 01:16:17 village where
1084. 01:16:19 this boy
1085. 01:16:20 is able to take
1086. 01:16:22 uh, a device that's on a bicycle
1087. 01:16:25 That generates electricity for a light bulb on the bike
1088. 01:16:29 He takes that device and he takes the bike and turns it into a windmill
1089. 01:16:34 That can then drive a pump to pump water onto their gardens because they weren't able to get water to the gardens
1090. 01:16:39 Like they needed to
1091. 01:16:41 He took that technology and used it elsewhere to get something to happen
1092. 01:16:45 Like that's that's the concept like this concept of a bike
1093. 01:16:49 and this little
1094. 01:16:51 I don't even know what the thing was called. It was a name for it and I can't think of it
1095. 01:16:54 But it drove the whole thing
1096. 01:16:57 That little device got used elsewhere to do the exact same thing just for a different purpose
1097. 01:17:02 And that's really what he's talking about with
1098. 01:17:05 Exaptation like you're adapting something and moving it from one realm to another
1099. 01:17:10 Yeah, the the story that he tells at the beginning of this chapter. I really liked which is the the gutenberg press
1100. 01:17:20 And how this is so weird
1101. 01:17:22 So I was familiar with this story. This gave me some additional details though
1102. 01:17:29 Um, all the pieces of the gutenberg press had been around on their own for a really long time
1103. 01:17:35 And kind of the thing that made this all work
1104. 01:17:37 Was the fact that gutenberg had very little experience with the wine press itself
1105. 01:17:43 Which is what it was based off of
1106. 01:17:45 That allowed him to see other ways to use it
1107. 01:17:47 So basically he combines that a couple other things the big one being the concept of movable type
1108. 01:17:53 Which was invented by a chinese blacksmith three centuries prior
1109. 01:17:58 So we've got this wine press and we've got this movable type which have both been around for a really long time
1110. 01:18:05 And gutenberg is like hey, I know we can use this to print bibles
1111. 01:18:09 Which anyone who had
1112. 01:18:15 Domain knowledge of either of those things probably was like what that's ridiculous
1113. 01:18:19 You don't do that with a wine press. That's not what movable type is
1114. 01:18:23 But because he was inexperienced in those different areas, uh, the term I think for this is like weak ties
1115. 01:18:30 That allowed the cross pollination of those ideas across some different domains and allowed
1116. 01:18:36 something totally new to be
1117. 01:18:38 To be created because of that the definition for adaptation
1118. 01:18:43 By the way is an organism
1119. 01:18:45 That develops a trait for a specified use, but then that trait gets hijacked for a completely different function
1120. 01:18:50 And the example that he used was feathers originally being
1121. 01:18:55 Developed for warmth and then being instrumental to flight
1122. 01:19:01 His argument is that the warmth came before the flight, which is an interesting idea
1123. 01:19:06 but
1124. 01:19:08 Regardless like I feel this is really interesting and i'm trying to think of of practical ways to
1125. 01:19:15 To apply this myself. Uh, he also talks about
1126. 01:19:19 How the most innovative companies he mentions apples specifically they function more like a coffee house than an assembly line
1127. 01:19:25 And really just putting yourself in a place where you can bounce all this stuff around and the fact that you're not an expert
1128. 01:19:32 And you're talking about things is actually a benefit
1129. 01:19:35 so
1130. 01:19:37 I don't know I guess it's validation for us to continue bookworm
1131. 01:19:40 Yeah, there you go, but i'm thinking of other ways that I can do that
1132. 01:19:44 Typically when it comes to different communities and things
1133. 01:19:47 My initial reaction is well, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to be wrong
1134. 01:19:52 I don't want to appear stupid. I want to figure it out first
1135. 01:19:55 And really reading this chapter what it's shown me is that no actually
1136. 01:19:59 You've got a lot to contribute in the fact that you don't know a whole lot about something actually means that you should contribute
1137. 01:20:05 The more that you get immersed in a subject the more you're going to sound like everybody else who has those strong ties and the fact that you have weak ties allows you to
1138. 01:20:12 Suggest things that other people aren't ever going to see
1139. 01:20:15 Yeah, I consider it a strength sometimes to not know all the details about a certain
1140. 01:20:20 sector
1141. 01:20:22 I I find that I can come up with ideas for
1142. 01:20:26 Like building websites and writing code
1143. 01:20:29 In really strange weird ways that work really well
1144. 01:20:34 Because i'm not trained in it like that that is something that I find super helpful at times
1145. 01:20:39 Uh, there are other times I wish I had the training in it like it's definitely a two
1146. 01:20:44 Two-sided coin, but I know that there are many many times that like okay
1147. 01:20:50 I would rather have somebody help out or at least look at this that has no idea what or how it's supposed to work
1148. 01:20:57 Uh, you know if i'm working on something mechanical or technical
1149. 01:21:02 Sometimes I'll have my wife come look at it and just I'll talk her through it
1150. 01:21:06 She has no idea how it works or what it is or even what it's supposed to do
1151. 01:21:11 But she can at least it's like well
1152. 01:21:13 We do this when i'm cooking with cast iron. Why don't you do that with it like brilliant. Let's do that
1153. 01:21:19 So sometimes bringing somebody in from a completely different domain
1154. 01:21:24 Is exactly what you need like that sort of thing works really well
1155. 01:21:28 Uh in the world of like creativity and like making things online
1156. 01:21:32 It it's not uncommon for people to see someone in a different
1157. 01:21:36 realm doing something like doing something innovative with
1158. 01:21:40 um
1159. 01:21:42 specific coursework or articles and such or
1160. 01:21:46 web development and the like oh that's really cool
1161. 01:21:49 I'm going to take the same thing you're doing but apply it to this other domain
1162. 01:21:52 Like that that sort of thing can happen quite a bit
1163. 01:21:56 You just have to be willing to see it like that that's the hard part with it
1164. 01:21:59 It's like being willing to see or look high level enough in order to see the concept to move over
1165. 01:22:04 Like to me. That's the idea side of it
1166. 01:22:06 Yep, totally agree
1167. 01:22:09 All right, the last chapter here is number seven platform
1168. 01:22:15 Uh, what's a platform joe? Something you stand on
1169. 01:22:19 Wait, you didn't like that
1170. 01:22:21 Sure
1171. 01:22:24 That works. I mean the the easy way of thinking about this at least the way I took it was like
1172. 01:22:29 This is this is a basis on which you're going to stand
1173. 01:22:32 Like again, this is in this why I was being you know obnoxious with that
1174. 01:22:36 The series here. Yeah, but it's it's not wrong
1175. 01:22:39 It's not wrong. It's not necessarily right either
1176. 01:22:42 it's basically
1177. 01:22:46 A a foundation of ideas that you can move
1178. 01:22:50 Like you can move from one foundation to another in order to change your viewpoint on something
1179. 01:22:56 Like that's that's kind of the way I came at it. It's like, okay. Here's here's a a base worldview
1180. 01:23:00 If you will that I'm going to stand on and this is going to color everything that I look
1181. 01:23:05 Uh, you know, it's going to color all the things I'm looking at based on that worldview or that that system that I'm
1182. 01:23:11 Coming from
1183. 01:23:13 Is that fair? Yeah, so let's let's talk about that thing that you stand on
1184. 01:23:18 Uh, I like the term foundation. There's a couple of things that he talks about here
1185. 01:23:23 Uh, again, I was a biology major for a little while so this stuff is kind of fascinating to me
1186. 01:23:27 Keystone species which is an organism that has a disproportionate impact on its ecosystem
1187. 01:23:32 So essentially every species has an impact on the ecosystem and the ecosystem has an impact on the species
1188. 01:23:38 But there are certain species that just really contribute to the ecosystem itself
1189. 01:23:44 And there's another term here ecosystem engineer, which is a keystone species that actually creates the habitat
1190. 01:23:53 itself
1191. 01:23:54 So that is the habitat in that example is the platform
1192. 01:23:59 It's the people who are creating the thing that is going to uphold
1193. 01:24:04 Everything else that comes after that
1194. 01:24:06 Quote on page 183 platform builders and ecosystem engineers do not just open a door to the adjacent possible
1195. 01:24:13 They build a whole new floor
1196. 01:24:16 And
1197. 01:24:17 That makes a ton of sense for me
1198. 01:24:20 Uh, the most generative platforms says come in stacks
1199. 01:24:24 And this is where he gets into technology stacks
1200. 01:24:27 Which i'm sure you have thoughts on on this and i'm curious what you think of of this analogy here
1201. 01:24:34 Um, he mentions twitter though and for a long time twitter had this limitation of 140 characters
1202. 01:24:40 Do you know what that why that?
1203. 01:24:42 Number was selected that 140 characters. Did you catch this when you read it?
1204. 01:24:47 Uh, I did not what was it?
1205. 01:24:49 It was based on the sms limitations. So twitter was essentially based off of
1206. 01:24:55 text message technology
1207. 01:24:57 That was in the tech stack
1208. 01:24:59 And the approach which twitter was different the reason that he used this as an example is that they built it differently
1209. 01:25:05 Then almost every other web software out there because most software is built and then the api is built
1210. 01:25:11 But twitter built the api so people could post a twitter from their cell phones
1211. 01:25:16 And then the site was built which is kind of interesting because then if you're following this narrative
1212. 01:25:21 twitter tried to take back control of the api and it didn't work and there was an uproar and
1213. 01:25:26 Still is yeah, yeah, but this is also why I think twitter is still a thing
1214. 01:25:33 Is the fact that they have these these api's and it's so firmly entrenched and there's this platform
1215. 01:25:39 Which is larger than just the the website and the first party app that
1216. 01:25:43 People are concerned like facebook would be the other example
1217. 01:25:46 I can't think of anybody who has a positive impression
1218. 01:25:50 Of facebook at the moment
1219. 01:25:53 I mean, even if you like the platform you assume that the app is doing crazy things and recording your audio and all sorts of stuff because
1220. 01:26:02 Big tech and no one trusts that specific company an individual company that is gone though when you have an api and you have a community that's kind of
1221. 01:26:10 policing itself and
1222. 01:26:13 I know there's a a lot of people who would argue that twitter does a terrible job policing itself
1223. 01:26:17 So I don't want to go any further down there
1224. 01:26:19 But you can kind of see like the reason I think twitter still has a whole bunch of momentum is the fact that there's not a single entity that controls
1225. 01:26:27 everything they
1226. 01:26:29 They delegated the platform building to some key players the developers which is contributed to some
1227. 01:26:35 ongoing success
1228. 01:26:38 if you want to talk about like tech stacks and platforms like the
1229. 01:26:43 Your your choice of technology stacks is like crazy important
1230. 01:26:47 Because to change that stack later
1231. 01:26:50 It's super painful. This is why like facebook is built on php
1232. 01:26:56 Which is kind of laughable in today's world like really
1233. 01:27:00 really
1234. 01:27:03 and
1235. 01:27:04 It just as an example like how platforms can have an impact
1236. 01:27:08 on my website
1237. 01:27:10 if I post a note to my website it automatically syndicates it to twitter
1238. 01:27:15 and
1239. 01:27:16 It's a real simple like two liner two code lines
1240. 01:27:20 That I have written that take whatever I've written in markdown
1241. 01:27:24 converts it to
1242. 01:27:26 Twitter's formatting that they want and then post it to twitter
1243. 01:27:29 That's really all it is
1244. 01:27:32 I can post a picture to twitter as well with like four lines of code
1245. 01:27:37 Like that that's all we're talking about because their api's their their stacks their platform that they have built make that super easy
1246. 01:27:43 To do that for say instagram and I know that some people like instagram doesn't have an api yes they do
1247. 01:27:50 Because I post pictures to their from my own system from my own site as well
1248. 01:27:55 If you want to use that system because instagram's owned by facebook in case you didn't know that meta technically
1249. 01:28:02 uh
1250. 01:28:03 In order to do the same thing the exact same thing
1251. 01:28:07 on their platform
1252. 01:28:09 It's like these multi-function processes that I have to write in order to get the right
1253. 01:28:15 Authentication codes in order to format things correctly to post the picture and get the code and then take the code and then post it to a thing
1254. 01:28:23 And then it's like this back and forth like a 40/50 line or deal
1255. 01:28:26 Because it was built after the fact and because they have so many restrictions on it
1256. 01:28:31 Which means that when people build
1257. 01:28:35 Like external systems like here's here's an example of why this matters
1258. 01:28:38 If you have a system similar to buffer if you know buffer
1259. 01:28:43 Where you can schedule posts and it'll kick them out at different times
1260. 01:28:47 Buffer has had twitter support from day one like that was their primary thing
1261. 01:28:51 And that meant that buffer took off because people could schedule things for twitter the platform was made for and it did really well with it
1262. 01:28:58 I don't think they can do that with instagram even today
1263. 01:29:01 Like I still don't think they have instagram support
1264. 01:29:04 Truly they can like post a notification to your phone and then you can go manually post it
1265. 01:29:09 But they don't do anything automatic because the system is so complicated and so painful
1266. 01:29:15 So it's just not built for it
1267. 01:29:18 The difference between those two platforms means that in depending on your circumstances you're going to thrive on one
1268. 01:29:24 And be destroyed on the other
1269. 01:29:27 Yeah, well, I've got a more modern
1270. 01:29:29 Example, I think than buffer because I've went going through ship 30 and the tool that they've created is called type share
1271. 01:29:34 And there's other ones that do the same sort of thing
1272. 01:29:36 The value proposition of type share is they give you a place where you can write once and publish multiple places
1273. 01:29:44 And it's formatted for the different places that it things can go
1274. 01:29:47 So out of the box
1275. 01:29:50 I know they're adding additional things, but you can publish to twitter you can publish to medium and you can publish to linked in
1276. 01:29:56 those three things
1277. 01:29:58 And it appears different in each one of those platforms, but type share takes care of all of the formatting and things
1278. 01:30:04 There is no facebook. There is no instagram
1279. 01:30:06 They talk about because i'm part of the captain's table thing that they they've had
1280. 01:30:11 Different like mastermind calls about here's what we do in order to format things and share via those platforms
1281. 01:30:18 But yeah, you can't natively do it
1282. 01:30:21 Which means I would guess that most people who are using type share
1283. 01:30:27 Are not caring about those platforms
1284. 01:30:29 So in the long run, this is gonna end up hurting them and actually this is a great place to
1285. 01:30:34 Transition to the conclusion if you've got nothing else to say about platforms. Yep. Go for it. Yep, because I was actually going to do the same
1286. 01:30:41 Okay
1287. 01:30:43 So the last chapter is
1288. 01:30:45 The conclusion and it's titled the fourth quadrant and there's this visual here two by two grid as every productivity book needs to have
1289. 01:30:56 And it talks about the different innovations which were created for the market by an individual
1290. 01:31:01 For the market by a network not for the market by an individual and not for the market by a network when I say for the market for
1291. 01:31:08 commercial gain
1292. 01:31:11 They did it because they wanted to make money from it
1293. 01:31:14 So so just to just to expand on it because this is important for the rest of this conversation
1294. 01:31:18 The the individual side is like a single person working on it
1295. 01:31:23 The network side is a collective group of people working on it
1296. 01:31:26 Market is it's being worked on specifically for
1297. 01:31:30 Profitable gain. Yep. The non market is purely like a passion project like this is cool and i'm going to share it with you
1298. 01:31:38 Exactly put some more on those. Yep
1299. 01:31:41 And then throughout the conclusion
1300. 01:31:43 They take different time periods and they chart the really big innovations from those time periods into the different quadrants
1301. 01:31:51 And the big takeaway from this is that there's been a shift in the last couple hundred years towards innovation for non market
1302. 01:31:59 And by networks. So it's no individual person that gets the credit and it's not for financial gain
1303. 01:32:05 And that is the fourth quadrant the bottom right one
1304. 01:32:09 And they make the argument again. This book was written 10 years ago
1305. 01:32:13 That today new ideas are published just so people can build on them
1306. 01:32:17 And I feel like that has just gotten
1307. 01:32:20 Exponentially more true as information flows faster than it ever has before
1308. 01:32:27 It's also interesting because it talks about how ideas can't be a subject of property to talk about this person who was
1309. 01:32:35 Suing somebody and Thomas Jefferson was the the person who was overseeing the case and basically it was like no
1310. 01:32:41 You can't copyright an idea
1311. 01:32:43 It's like you just mashed together a couple of things that already existed anyways and that's uh
1312. 01:32:50 Number one, uh, it's an interesting way to end the book
1313. 01:32:54 And as i've been thinking about this, I think really what he's trying to encourage us to do is like
1314. 01:32:59 Go ahead and have your good ideas. Don't feel like you need to capitalize on them from a capitalist perspective
1315. 01:33:07 The value of the idea is going to come back to you by sharing it
1316. 01:33:12 This this section is so when I when we first started this I said something about how the conclusion
1317. 01:33:18 Was the breath of fresh air because it actually tied the book together
1318. 01:33:21 Right, that's something I was saying early on. This is what I mean by that in that
1319. 01:33:28 They just took us through he just took us through these seven different ways that ideas
1320. 01:33:34 come about
1321. 01:33:36 Doesn't really give you anything about how to encourage those to happen, but you can kind of deduce those based on your situation
1322. 01:33:42 This is where the dialogue with the author piece comes in
1323. 01:33:46 But then you get to this section and he's talking about okay, that's cool now
1324. 01:33:50 Once you have these ideas, how do you go about it? Like what is your purpose behind having ideas?
1325. 01:33:56 Like let's let's tie this whole thing up in a nice little pretty package
1326. 01:33:59 and say like okay, here's
1327. 01:34:02 When you're coming up with things, how do you go about coming up with them number one?
1328. 01:34:06 And two, what do you do with it once you've come up with it?
1329. 01:34:10 And this is definitely a play to try to do this with other people and make these free
1330. 01:34:15 freely available so that more ideas can come about freely
1331. 01:34:19 This is the world of open source software like 100% which he brings up here in that like open source software
1332. 01:34:27 Is a big group of people working together to build something and there is no monetary gain to it like that is the way
1333. 01:34:34 It is designed by nature now. There are run-offs people do monetize these things that is possible blah blah blah
1334. 01:34:41 But that's not the main core driver there
1335. 01:34:43 it is a thing that
1336. 01:34:46 He definitely encourages and that is to me awesome as somebody who contributes to open source software fairly regularly
1337. 01:34:53 Like that is something I think is
1338. 01:34:56 Absolutely worthwhile. So
1339. 01:34:58 I like it. I like that this all came together in this whole concept of a fourth quadrant
1340. 01:35:03 And I love that he came up with a name for it in that so
1341. 01:35:06 I like it. Good job. Mr. Johnson
1342. 01:35:10 Hmm
1343. 01:35:11 All right, should we talk about action items?
1344. 01:35:13 Sure
1345. 01:35:15 How many you got?
1346. 01:35:17 14,000 got a few. I've got four actually
1347. 01:35:22 so the
1348. 01:35:25 First one I mentioned I want to read more than one book at once. That's a reluctant action item
1349. 01:35:33 I also want to take a reading sabbatical not a true sabbatical extended time just where I read
1350. 01:35:39 But maybe adding a day to the personal retreat where I just read a bunch
1351. 01:35:43 The third one is I want to create that idea exchange at the day job
1352. 01:35:47 a place where we can capture ideas and decide on
1353. 01:35:50 Taking action and shipping certain ones
1354. 01:35:53 I feel once we start doing that and we actually ship some things that's where we'll really get the traction from that by the way
1355. 01:35:59 I think at the beginning people will
1356. 01:36:02 Drop some things in there, but you're not going to really have a whole lot of focus on it
1357. 01:36:06 Because it's it's kind of like an additional thing into it as opposed to
1358. 01:36:09 All the other stuff that you would normally be doing for like billable hours sort of a thing
1359. 01:36:13 It'll feel like one additional thing
1360. 01:36:15 But I'm hoping that after we do it and I have we continue to make these 1% improvements and it makes people's work easier that
1361. 01:36:21 They'll uh start contributing things as they see things and trust that you know
1362. 01:36:26 We're going to follow through and take action on them and then the fourth one
1363. 01:36:31 Obviously this whole book and the concept of p.k.m
1364. 01:36:34 It's got me jones in to go through the linking your thinking workshop again
1365. 01:36:39 So I actually a while back nick had a an option where you could upgrade
1366. 01:36:45 to a lifetime
1367. 01:36:47 Pass and I did that
1368. 01:36:49 So he's got another one as we record this which is going to be starting very shortly and I have opted into it
1369. 01:36:55 And i'm hoping I can keep up with it
1370. 01:36:58 But I really just want to I want to rethink
1371. 01:37:01 How i'm using obsidian not that there's
1372. 01:37:04 drastic changes that I want to make but I just want to consider the options and see if there's
1373. 01:37:10 Some low hanging fruits some things where I can tighten things up
1374. 01:37:13 Maybe there's some things that i'm doing that are a waste of time
1375. 01:37:15 And just reconsider how i'm using it
1376. 01:37:18 Obviously, I mean I continue to use it
1377. 01:37:21 But see if I can't make it a little bit better
1378. 01:37:23 How about you
1379. 01:37:26 So I have
1380. 01:37:28 Two primarily here
1381. 01:37:32 One is the one I talked about earlier which was doing some research on an AI based obsidian
1382. 01:37:39 something
1383. 01:37:41 Not sure what that's going to come out to be but i'm at least want to do a little research on it because that might be
1384. 01:37:45 Much bigger of a project that i'm ready to take on right now
1385. 01:37:49 And it could also be something that I feel is very simple and i'm super interested in
1386. 01:37:55 Attempting to do so I want to at least do some research on that
1387. 01:37:58 uh, and then to kind of piggyback on your
1388. 01:38:01 You know pkm thing
1389. 01:38:04 Like this this was definitely a reminder to me that I need to be trying to make sure i spend time with that every day
1390. 01:38:09 I do two or three times a week
1391. 01:38:11 But it really cemented how important that is
1392. 01:38:15 So it's something that I want to spend some more time with
1393. 01:38:18 essentially, so that is uh
1394. 01:38:21 It's what I got
1395. 01:38:23 Cool
1396. 01:38:24 So on the topic of like the spending time in the pkm every day, I feel like this is
1397. 01:38:31 That is another data point for me
1398. 01:38:34 That encourages using
1399. 01:38:37 A digital journal that really is the glue for obsidian for me is the fact that I use it as a
1400. 01:38:44 A journal if you're going to go spend time journaling
1401. 01:38:47 It's natural to just also spend a little bit of time
1402. 01:38:49 Playing with some of the other things that are are in there
1403. 01:38:53 Just my two cents
1404. 01:38:55 Yeah, I would say like one of the things I was debating was going through the linking you're thinking
1405. 01:38:59 workshop, but
1406. 01:39:02 $1,200 for a course is just a bit spindy for me. I get it
1407. 01:39:06 All right style and rating and this is my book. So I will go first
1408. 01:39:14 I really enjoy this book
1409. 01:39:18 I feel this is one of you know, he talked about keystone
1410. 01:39:23 Species, I feel this is a keystone book
1411. 01:39:28 There's a lot of stories in here that I had
1412. 01:39:31 heard
1413. 01:39:33 a
1414. 01:39:34 different things about
1415. 01:39:35 previously
1416. 01:39:37 But he shared a a lot more detail
1417. 01:39:40 You can tell there is a ton of research that has been done in this book and as we talked about at the beginning
1418. 01:39:45 There's a huge appendix that supports that
1419. 01:39:48 I also really appreciate just the whole framing of everything that he shared
1420. 01:39:52 Essentially saying that I've chosen this approach and I recognize that I'm making some assumptions
1421. 01:39:58 And you may disagree with some of this and that's okay
1422. 01:40:01 That
1423. 01:40:03 You mentioned that that was a breath of fresh air and and I agree with that
1424. 01:40:07 I don't agree with everything that is in here and I kind of think it doesn't really matter
1425. 01:40:11 Uh, I think the value of this book
1426. 01:40:16 is really an understanding the key concepts from the different sections that he goes through
1427. 01:40:22 And for that reason I would recommend just about everybody pick this one up
1428. 01:40:29 I feel the style is
1429. 01:40:31 Really well done. He's a very good writer
1430. 01:40:35 It doesn't feel long or superfluous like a lot of the books that we read
1431. 01:40:39 Especially the productivity systems books. It's like this could have been a blog post
1432. 01:40:44 Right, but it was a stretch out to a whole bunch of pages. I feel like this could have been
1433. 01:40:48 10 different volumes and he condensed it down into one
1434. 01:40:50 He's very masterful at weaving things together through those three different metaphors throughout the whole book the coral reef
1435. 01:40:57 The cities and the worldwide web
1436. 01:40:59 So there is this very strong connection to this this thread
1437. 01:41:02 I think i'm going to rate it 5.0. I'm going back and forth to 5.04.5
1438. 01:41:07 I think i'm leaning
1439. 01:41:11 a little bit towards 4.5 just because
1440. 01:41:14 I have already
1441. 01:41:16 implemented a bunch of the ideas from this book that I didn't realize were from this book
1442. 01:41:20 We were talking about the adjacent possible for example and blake had had said yeah, I feel like i've heard this before
1443. 01:41:26 We probably brought it up before
1444. 01:41:28 Because we've talked about a whole bunch of books that were in the adjacent possible of this one if I were to pick one
1445. 01:41:33 However, this is this is probably the one
1446. 01:41:35 I think if I had to pick like a pkm book
1447. 01:41:39 Someone's interested in the concept of pkm or they don't really like it. They don't know why they want to learn more about it
1448. 01:41:45 This is the one that you pick up. I feel
1449. 01:41:47 so
1450. 01:41:49 given the fact that that's an fascinating concept to me and
1451. 01:41:53 It's really good information even though I I feel like i've already kind of achieved the transformation from some of this stuff already
1452. 01:42:00 It helped fill in a whole bunch of holes that gave me a whole bunch of more dots to connect
1453. 01:42:06 And there were a lot of aha moments that came from this for me
1454. 01:42:10 I feel like if I had come to this
1455. 01:42:12 Six to 12 months ago, maybe a little bit longer
1456. 01:42:16 When I was starting to dabble with obsidian after I've been playing with rome for a little while
1457. 01:42:21 That would have been the prime time for me to pick up this book
1458. 01:42:24 And I absolutely would have left thinking
1459. 01:42:26 Oh, this is a double this is easily a five star book
1460. 01:42:29 Right. So i'm trying to separate the fact that you know
1461. 01:42:33 I've read some other things and implemented it some other things and not detract from what is actually here in terms of of content
1462. 01:42:40 so
1463. 01:42:42 I will
1464. 01:42:43 Reluctantly give it five stars. I guess
1465. 01:42:45 A reluctant five star interesting way to come at that
1466. 01:42:50 uh, I will say that
1467. 01:42:54 This one has
1468. 01:42:57 A lot of gold in it
1469. 01:42:59 Uh, there are some stories here that i've heard before but a lot of them are new
1470. 01:43:03 And I don't know if you felt that way, but it seemed like a lot of these were
1471. 01:43:08 Like a fresh take on an existing story or telling a part of a story. I haven't heard before or something completely new
1472. 01:43:15 I've never even heard of that person. Yeah, it's ryan holiday esk in that that way. Yeah
1473. 01:43:20 Definitely is so that is that is definitely here in something. I don't want to
1474. 01:43:26 Short cuts just because that is typically something that I I value because I don't like hearing the same thing over and over again
1475. 01:43:34 It's easy for me to discount a book just because of that so that doesn't happen
1476. 01:43:38 So I can't discount it because of that
1477. 01:43:40 Um, there are a lot of things in here a lot of ideas like yeah, I I know that like the serendipity thing like sure
1478. 01:43:48 That makes perfect sense to me that happens in my brain all the time like I get that
1479. 01:43:54 Uh, the the concept of
1480. 01:43:56 Exaptation like moving an idea from one place to another like that is something I've done and worked with many times intentionally and actively
1481. 01:44:03 Uh, you know the the adjacent possible is something I feel like I've thought through a number of times the slow hunch is something i've done
1482. 01:44:11 Uh on a handful of things over time
1483. 01:44:15 I I've just not had clean names for any of these error. I've heard these stories many times like
1484. 01:44:23 The stories he's using to explain these innovative
1485. 01:44:26 idea generation processes
1486. 01:44:29 Like I don't think any of these were completely new to me
1487. 01:44:33 Uh, maybe that's because we've talked about creativity and idea generation enough that
1488. 01:44:39 Like these are all things that have come up before
1489. 01:44:42 Uh, that said I I don't think I know of another book that has them all put together in such a clean
1490. 01:44:51 setup like this like this is
1491. 01:44:53 Well put together
1492. 01:44:56 I I kind of understand where you're coming from in that like where do I rate this just because like there's a lot of really good stuff here
1493. 01:45:03 But there's a lot of this that isn't as groundbreaking just because of history
1494. 01:45:09 But I don't know that history is a good indicator of what it should be rated at
1495. 01:45:14 Otherwise our ratings are all dependent on the time frame and season of life exactly exactly
1496. 01:45:19 So that's that's tough to say now that said
1497. 01:45:23 if if you wanted to
1498. 01:45:26 Understand like how to ideas come about and you you're not
1499. 01:45:32 Someone who has read a whole bunch of books like we have
1500. 01:45:35 This is probably the right place for you to start like this is a nail down like this is going to give you all of the
1501. 01:45:42 Uh
1502. 01:45:44 specifics on how this can happen if you haven't studied this in any form whatsoever like this is a really good place
1503. 01:45:49 of start
1504. 01:45:50 Uh, so I don't know that I'm
1505. 01:45:52 Reluctant in saying this but I'll put it at five oh
1506. 01:45:55 With you I think it absolutely needs to fit there just because like I don't think seasonality needs to dictate the rating
1507. 01:46:01 But at the same time I know like this is gold as far as like
1508. 01:46:04 understanding idea generation and how they can come about and
1509. 01:46:08 understanding that in such a way that you can
1510. 01:46:11 Put yourself in those situations
1511. 01:46:15 There's definitely like a mindset piece that comes with this whenever you've gone through it
1512. 01:46:19 So yeah, I'll put it at five oh, I think this is definitely something you should pick up
1513. 01:46:23 All right, well, let's put where good ideas come from on the shelf. What's next joe?
1514. 01:46:30 Yeah, so up next we have a book called
1515. 01:46:33 ritual
1516. 01:46:36 How seemingly senseless acts make life worth living? This is by Demetrius
1517. 01:46:40 Demetris zigalatus
1518. 01:46:42 I looked up how to say his name because ain't no way. I'm gonna figure that one out on my own
1519. 01:46:46 It's basically why do we do things like
1520. 01:46:50 You know get collective chance going at sports games. Why do we have our
1521. 01:46:55 pregame
1522. 01:46:58 You know cook offs and such like why do we do these things?
1523. 01:47:00 That's just two sports examples. There are many many others
1524. 01:47:04 Around religion and such like why do we do these things?
1525. 01:47:06 And why do we think they're worthwhile?
1526. 01:47:11 I think it would be interesting to work through that. All right sounds interesting
1527. 01:47:15 Yeah, and then then what are we doing?
1528. 01:47:18 Then we are doing the laws of creativity by joey kofon. Do you know who joey kofon is?
1529. 01:47:24 We talked about this last time and I forgot
1530. 01:47:27 He is the uh the founder of barenfig
1531. 01:47:31 Yes, there you go
1532. 01:47:33 Yeah, so this book is technically still in pre-order as we
1533. 01:47:38 Record this however if you go to amazon you can order it and it'll be delivered by saturday
1534. 01:47:44 Ah good to know all right
1535. 01:47:47 So I actually have an advanced copy of this. It's a beautiful book. It's uh, well, it's a barenfig book
1536. 01:47:54 So that's really all you need to know
1537. 01:47:56 Going into it, but obviously the whole topic of creativity where good ideas come from. This is something that is fascinating to me
1538. 01:48:04 Uh, I feel like this is going to be a fun one to talk about
1539. 01:48:08 I am looking forward to going through it with you
1540. 01:48:10 That'll be fun
1541. 01:48:12 Looking forward to that one
1542. 01:48:14 Any gap books
1543. 01:48:16 Uh, do not have any gap books
1544. 01:48:18 I'm gonna it's going to be a struggle for me to get through this one to be honest
1545. 01:48:21 Uh, the laws of creativity by the way, that is a uh, a really big book
1546. 01:48:26 It is 400 pages. I think fun, but it is a lot of visuals
1547. 01:48:33 So
1548. 01:48:35 Yeah
1549. 01:48:36 It'll be a
1550. 01:48:37 Visuals, but still not enough to make it like normal book length
1551. 01:48:40 Yeah, which is why I mentioned it. So you gotta you got a little bit of a
1552. 01:48:44 I had to start hopefully
1553. 01:48:47 So get through ritual and then dive into that one ahead of time. That's what i'm hearing. Okay. Yep. Got it. Yep
1554. 01:48:52 All right, so thank you to everyone who has joined us live today
1555. 01:48:59 Uh, thank you to specifically to the bookworm club premium members the people who are willing to
1556. 01:49:05 Support us financially to keep the lights on here. We really appreciate that if you want to become a bookworm club premium member
1557. 01:49:09 You get a couple perks
1558. 01:49:11 like a wallpaper I designed
1559. 01:49:13 The mind node files for the book notes that I take couple of gap book episodes that you're recorded
1560. 01:49:19 And you can find out more at bookworm.fm/membership
1561. 01:49:24 Five bucks a month 50 bucks a year. Thank you to everyone who supports the show
1562. 01:49:30 And if you want to read along with us
1563. 01:49:33 The book to pick up is ritual by Demetris zigolatus
1564. 01:49:37 We will cover that with you in a couple of weeks