177: Life Worth Living by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz

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5. 00:00:13 All right, so we have no follow up
6. 00:00:15 from the last episode.
7. 00:00:18 So I think I'm going to utilize this time
8. 00:00:22 at the beginning of this episode
9. 00:00:25 to talk to you, Joe Buellig, about properties in obsidian.
10. 00:00:29 Ding, ding, ding, ding.
11. 00:00:32 I got it right there.
12. 00:00:35 This is interesting.
13. 00:00:36 So I told Mike right before we hit record,
14. 00:00:38 I've seen the emails and I've seen the announcement
15. 00:00:41 that this is a thing.
16. 00:00:43 But I haven't had a chance to read them all.
17. 00:00:45 I've just got done running a big conference
18. 00:00:47 the last three days, four days, and trying
19. 00:00:52 to get caught up on all the things.
20. 00:00:53 And this is one of the pieces that I've not had a chance
21. 00:00:56 to read up on.
22. 00:00:56 So please enlighten me, Mike, what in the world
23. 00:01:00 are obsidian properties?
24. 00:01:01 Well, before I get into that, I'll just say that
25. 00:01:04 if you were not aware, there are chapter markers
26. 00:01:06 in these podcast episodes.
27. 00:01:09 So if you don't care at all about obsidian,
28. 00:01:10 you may want to skip the rest of this chapter
29. 00:01:12 and just go straight to the book.
30. 00:01:14 (laughs)
31. 00:01:16 But obsidian properties are kind of a big deal, I think.
32. 00:01:20 They add essentially database properties
33. 00:01:25 a lot like at the top of a Notion document to obsidian.
34. 00:01:30 And there's different types of data that can be used there,
35. 00:01:34 obviously dates and checkboxes and list items.
36. 00:01:39 But what's really cool about it is that it creates
37. 00:01:43 a visual interface for the document level metadata
38. 00:01:47 that was a little bit hard for people who were new to it.
39. 00:01:52 If you really dug into it and figured out
40. 00:01:54 the yaml stuff with the three dashes
41. 00:01:57 and then you could put in the tags colon
42. 00:01:58 and then document level tags and things like that,
43. 00:02:02 you could figure it out, you could hack it together.
44. 00:02:05 But this makes it a lot easier, a lot more visual.
45. 00:02:10 I'm not sure if you've seen any screenshots of it,
46. 00:02:12 but it's basically like these fields
47. 00:02:14 at the top of the document.
48. 00:02:15 It looks very much like a Notion document,
49. 00:02:19 except the properties can also be moved to the sidebar
50. 00:02:23 so you can put them exactly where you want them
51. 00:02:26 and not have them clutter up your document
52. 00:02:29 or your note at all.
53. 00:02:30 The big thing I think that is cool about it though
54. 00:02:33 is it makes the application of metadata
55. 00:02:37 a lot more approachable for the average person.
56. 00:02:41 You don't have to be a total plain text nerd
57. 00:02:43 in order to leverage this stuff anymore,
58. 00:02:46 which I think is kind of cool.
59. 00:02:48 - What's wrong with being a plain text nerd?
60. 00:02:50 - Nothing, but most people are not gonna do it.
61. 00:02:52 (laughs)
62. 00:02:54 So, okay, this is really good for me
63. 00:02:57 'cause I have seen many, many different ways
64. 00:03:00 of trying to handle document level metadata,
65. 00:03:04 things like tagging your daily notes
66. 00:03:08 or in my case, tagging bookworm notes and such,
67. 00:03:12 that way I can easily pull them together.
68. 00:03:15 Is that the idea behind this?
69. 00:03:16 But that's specifically referring to tags.
70. 00:03:20 I suppose if you were using different notes
71. 00:03:22 as like information about a plant
72. 00:03:25 and you've got a whole bunch of different types of plants
73. 00:03:27 and you wanted to put perennial versus annual
74. 00:03:30 and have a checkbox for one or the other at the top
75. 00:03:32 and you could pull those together.
76. 00:03:33 Is that kind of the concept here?
77. 00:03:35 - Kinda, so, (laughs)
78. 00:03:39 I'll give you an example.
79. 00:03:41 This does not exist yet,
80. 00:03:43 but as I've been playing with properties,
81. 00:03:45 this is what I'm going to do.
82. 00:03:47 I am going to create a note in my obsidian vault
83. 00:03:51 for each of my fountain pens.
84. 00:03:54 And in the properties, you can put things like,
85. 00:03:57 this is the ink that's in there
86. 00:03:59 and this is when it was inked
87. 00:04:00 and this is when it was last cleaned
88. 00:04:03 and this is the nib size.
89. 00:04:05 And obviously those are all metadata,
90. 00:04:08 so then you use something like DataView
91. 00:04:10 and you can sort all that stuff.
92. 00:04:12 One of the things that I was doing with YAML
93. 00:04:15 back in the day was creating notes
94. 00:04:16 for each of the Bookworm episodes
95. 00:04:18 and I would have my rating and your rating
96. 00:04:20 and then a DataView table for all of the files
97. 00:04:22 that were in the Bookworm folder
98. 00:04:24 and then I could ascend it or descend it
99. 00:04:25 by Mike's rating or Joe's rating.
100. 00:04:28 The Bookworm stats page has basically eliminated
101. 00:04:32 the need to do a lot of that, (laughs)
102. 00:04:33 which is really cool.
103. 00:04:34 Thanks, Joshua, for putting that together.
104. 00:04:36 So, yeah, there's lots of cool stuff you can do
105. 00:04:39 with DataView but now you can do it visually.
106. 00:04:44 You can, once you the properties are in your,
107. 00:04:47 your Obsidian Vault, you can say,
108. 00:04:48 "I want this property here."
109. 00:04:49 And then you just select the values,
110. 00:04:51 you can auto-complete, so it's not just putting
111. 00:04:53 in the plain text and hoping you got the incantation right.
112. 00:04:56 (laughs)
113. 00:04:58 - That sounds so, I mentioned the plant thing
114. 00:05:00 'cause that sounds similar, your fountain pen thing
115. 00:05:02 sounds similar to what I do in,
116. 00:05:05 I've got a perennial flower herb medicinal garden
117. 00:05:10 of sorts that I have at our house
118. 00:05:12 and when I put together the garden
119. 00:05:15 of what I'm gonna have in that for that year,
120. 00:05:17 I have notes for each of the types of plants
121. 00:05:20 that I have in that garden,
122. 00:05:21 but I have a lot of things like aliases for the type,
123. 00:05:25 so then I've got like the scientific name for it,
124. 00:05:27 what type it is as an herb, a flower, a vegetable,
125. 00:05:30 et cetera, et cetera.
126. 00:05:31 Is it an annual perennial?
127. 00:05:33 How deep to plant it?
128. 00:05:34 How early you need to start it?
129. 00:05:35 I've got all that stuff as currently,
130. 00:05:39 it's just in data fields to use through data view,
131. 00:05:43 like that's how I currently do that.
132. 00:05:45 It sounds like this is a specifically built
133. 00:05:50 to purpose thing that would handle that,
134. 00:05:52 my catching on.
135. 00:05:54 - Yeah, basically, I don't know,
136. 00:05:57 I mean, a lot of people can use Obsidian
137. 00:05:59 without any sort of metadata whatsoever.
138. 00:06:03 - But it's no fun.
139. 00:06:04 - Yeah, I know, but I feel like
140. 00:06:05 I haven't been doing it very well.
141. 00:06:08 I feel like this gives people the foundation
142. 00:06:10 that they need to actually make their metadata useful.
143. 00:06:14 So I am considering a lot of really interesting ways
144. 00:06:17 to use this, don't have it all figured out yet.
145. 00:06:21 By the way, if anyone has recommendations
146. 00:06:24 for books on how to structure metadata,
147. 00:06:28 I would love to hear your recommendations
148. 00:06:32 'cause I went searching spelunking, shall we say,
149. 00:06:36 for books on how to structure metadata
150. 00:06:38 for digital collections and something along those lines.
151. 00:06:42 There is a handful of textbooks
152. 00:06:44 that are all like $100 each,
153. 00:06:45 and they have like six ratings,
154. 00:06:48 and I'm not gonna drop a hundred bucks
155. 00:06:51 on what looks like a textbook
156. 00:06:53 without knowing that it's really, really good.
157. 00:06:55 - Yeah.
158. 00:06:56 - I've been in the Obsidian Forum
159. 00:06:57 and other people have asked this question too,
160. 00:06:59 and I have not found anything that looks approachable.
161. 00:07:04 I want to do some research here
162. 00:07:07 and eventually condense this down
163. 00:07:10 into you're just getting started with Obsidian properties.
164. 00:07:13 Here's how you use it in different practical ways
165. 00:07:17 that aren't gonna mess up your vault down the road.
166. 00:07:19 But as it pertains to metadata,
167. 00:07:23 I feel like it's all just kinda trial and error.
168. 00:07:25 You figure out what mistakes to avoid by making them,
169. 00:07:30 and then you have to go back and clean them all up,
170. 00:07:33 and I wanna not have to do that.
171. 00:07:36 Or at least I wanna save other people
172. 00:07:37 from having to do that.
173. 00:07:38 So.
174. 00:07:40 - This is, so this is why I went down the road
175. 00:07:44 of like the text file process for a long time,
176. 00:07:48 and borderline still do,
177. 00:07:51 and this concept of properties,
178. 00:07:54 like this is one of the first things
179. 00:07:55 I'm starting to come to grips with,
180. 00:07:56 because this now gets you into the proprietary side of it,
181. 00:08:01 somewhat, it doesn't have to be.
182. 00:08:04 I'd be curious to see what those properties
183. 00:08:06 look like in a text file,
184. 00:08:07 like the raw text view of that.
185. 00:08:12 But that gets to be the tricky part with it is like,
186. 00:08:15 okay, how do you transport that to another tool?
187. 00:08:18 'Cause it's forever been a thing that they talk about.
188. 00:08:21 The more you get into the plugins
189. 00:08:23 and the special ways of using it,
190. 00:08:26 the less flexible you can be,
191. 00:08:29 and the less portable it becomes.
192. 00:08:31 So like that can easily be a hang up for some people.
193. 00:08:35 Not necessarily for me in my case,
194. 00:08:37 'cause I know like I can write the scripts
195. 00:08:38 and fix all the things very quickly,
196. 00:08:41 but I also tend to not use some stuff like this
197. 00:08:45 just because it does take a lot of work to fix it
198. 00:08:48 if you change your mind on how you wanna do it.
199. 00:08:50 No, as time has gone by,
200. 00:08:52 I've kind of started using it more and more knowing
201. 00:08:56 that like the difficulty for me to write a script
202. 00:08:59 and fix it is actually very, very low.
203. 00:09:02 So it's very easy for me to fix them.
204. 00:09:04 So I'm more likely to try using it to begin with.
205. 00:09:07 But that said, it's just a thing
206. 00:09:10 I feel like people should be aware of.
207. 00:09:12 - Well, it's all still the yaml formatting.
208. 00:09:16 It's just now you can see it visually.
209. 00:09:18 It takes that yaml section and creates,
210. 00:09:21 I keep coming back to Notion.
211. 00:09:24 It's just like the property fields in Notion,
212. 00:09:26 like you have those different lines underneath,
213. 00:09:28 except they're all based off of plain text
214. 00:09:32 and you can move them to the sidebar
215. 00:09:33 if you don't want them at the top of your document.
216. 00:09:35 - Sure.
217. 00:09:36 - But-- - So if I have notes
218. 00:09:38 that with pre-existing yaml,
219. 00:09:39 it'll just show up that way.
220. 00:09:40 - Yep.
221. 00:09:42 Those will be properties.
222. 00:09:43 And then you can change at a system level
223. 00:09:46 what types of values those properties are.
224. 00:09:51 So like if you just had plain text for dates, for example,
225. 00:09:54 you can choose a date property type
226. 00:09:57 and then it renders that with a calendar picker
227. 00:10:00 and it's pretty cool.
228. 00:10:01 I think that everyone should take a look at it.
229. 00:10:06 The one piece of advice I'll give people
230. 00:10:08 who are gonna go nuts with this is don't go to nuts.
231. 00:10:12 Because each value that you create
232. 00:10:16 or each property that you create
233. 00:10:20 adds to the list of properties.
234. 00:10:22 So just like tags, if you have a whole bunch of tags,
235. 00:10:25 you can kind of dilute the value of the tags
236. 00:10:27 that you have.
237. 00:10:29 So it's easy to say, I'm gonna put 10
238. 00:10:31 or 20 different properties at the top
239. 00:10:33 of every single document.
240. 00:10:34 And just from my own experience,
241. 00:10:36 working with teams that have done that,
242. 00:10:38 there's like three or four that you actually use.
243. 00:10:41 And when you have all those properties
244. 00:10:42 and most of them are empty,
245. 00:10:43 you glance at it and you're like,
246. 00:10:45 oh, this isn't up to date.
247. 00:10:46 And you don't trust any of it.
248. 00:10:48 So just be careful with some of that stuff.
249. 00:10:53 But yeah, it's fun.
250. 00:10:57 And I feel like it makes Obsidian more
251. 00:11:00 of a database application.
252. 00:11:02 Obviously you gotta figure out how to use something
253. 00:11:04 like DataView in order to really make the most of this.
254. 00:11:07 But it really does position Obsidian
255. 00:11:10 as a notion alternative,
256. 00:11:12 which I never thought I would ever say, but totally true.
257. 00:11:16 - Once you get the sharing side of it nailed down,
258. 00:11:19 which is a little tricky with Obsidian.
259. 00:11:22 - That's true.
260. 00:11:23 You can do collaborative vaults though.
261. 00:11:24 I was gonna say we should probably test that
262. 00:11:25 for Bookworm.
263. 00:11:27 - There you go.
264. 00:11:29 Test it for the Bookworm people
265. 00:11:30 who don't wanna get into notion.
266. 00:11:32 - Yep, exactly.
267. 00:11:34 All right, thanks for let me talk about
268. 00:11:36 something Obsidian related.
269. 00:11:37 We should probably talk about today's book now.
270. 00:11:39 - Okay, sounds good.
271. 00:11:42 - All right, so today's book is Life Worth Living
272. 00:11:47 by three separate authors,
273. 00:11:49 who I'm gonna butcher these names every single time
274. 00:11:52 that I'll say them.
275. 00:11:54 So maybe I just won't say that.
276. 00:11:55 (laughs)
277. 00:11:57 It's, there are three academics
278. 00:12:00 and they're all teachers at Yale, I believe.
279. 00:12:04 Life Worth Living is actually a class
280. 00:12:09 that you can take as a Yale student.
281. 00:12:12 Okay, fine, I'll mention these names once
282. 00:12:14 and then you can make fun of the way that I pronounce these.
283. 00:12:19 Miraslav Volf, Matthew Grossman
284. 00:12:23 and Ryan McAnally-Lins.
285. 00:12:26 - Well done.
286. 00:12:27 (claps)
287. 00:12:28 How are you, Mike?
288. 00:12:29 - Thanks. (laughs)
289. 00:12:31 This is not the traditional type of book
290. 00:12:36 that we would cover for Bookworm.
291. 00:12:38 There are lots of parts.
292. 00:12:41 There are five official parts
293. 00:12:43 in addition to an introduction and an epilogue.
294. 00:12:47 So I think instead of trying to tackle this by chapter,
295. 00:12:50 we will tackle it by part.
296. 00:12:52 It is very difficult to discern
297. 00:12:55 and it really doesn't matter, I guess,
298. 00:12:58 where which author is speaking.
299. 00:13:01 It's not really written as the type of book
300. 00:13:05 where I'm the expert
301. 00:13:07 and I'm gonna convince you about a thing.
302. 00:13:09 It's really designed to give you a bunch of questions
303. 00:13:12 and then you dig in and find the answers yourselves.
304. 00:13:15 So it's definitely checking the right boxes for me
305. 00:13:20 here at the beginning,
306. 00:13:24 but in addition to the, let's see,
307. 00:13:28 15 different chapters here,
308. 00:13:30 there are questions and basically a whole workbook
309. 00:13:35 that goes along with this.
310. 00:13:37 It's not officially a workbook.
311. 00:13:39 There is a workbook that you can buy,
312. 00:13:41 but there are basically questions to consider
313. 00:13:45 and exercises to complete at the end of each of these chapters,
314. 00:13:49 which I don't know about you,
315. 00:13:50 but I did not have time to go through and do those.
316. 00:13:53 So I'm assuming you didn't either.
317. 00:13:55 - I got to the end of chapter one
318. 00:13:57 and I looked through the list
319. 00:13:59 and then I looked at my watch and said,
320. 00:14:02 uh-uh.
321. 00:14:02 (laughing)
322. 00:14:04 - That's fair.
323. 00:14:05 (laughing)
324. 00:14:06 - It's like this would be amazing to go through.
325. 00:14:09 However, it's gonna take a lot of time
326. 00:14:12 and I don't know that in two weeks time,
327. 00:14:15 if you ignored the process of reading the book,
328. 00:14:20 I don't know that I have,
329. 00:14:21 if I had taken all of my reading time
330. 00:14:23 and put it towards answering these questions and doing
331. 00:14:26 the work, I don't know that I would have enough time
332. 00:14:28 to actually do it, not appropriately.
333. 00:14:30 So no, I didn't even attempt it.
334. 00:14:33 - Yeah, I mean, it's designed to be a college course.
335. 00:14:36 I forget if it's undergraduate or graduate,
336. 00:14:38 it doesn't really matter.
337. 00:14:39 It's a lot of work if you're gonna go through
338. 00:14:41 the whole thing.
339. 00:14:42 All that to say that I feel like there is a lot of meat here
340. 00:14:47 and we are not gonna be diving quite as deep.
341. 00:14:50 That description is actually pretty punny
342. 00:14:54 if you understand the contents of the book,
343. 00:14:56 which we'll get into in a bit.
344. 00:14:57 (laughing)
345. 00:14:59 But we're not gonna be doing it the way
346. 00:15:00 the author is intended.
347. 00:15:01 I think there's some good stuff there.
348. 00:15:04 I'm kinda curious.
349. 00:15:05 We're not gonna talk about the specifics of the exercises
350. 00:15:08 but did you read them?
351. 00:15:10 What did you think of the exercises?
352. 00:15:12 One of the first ones I think was make a life inventory
353. 00:15:15 and stuff like that.
354. 00:15:17 Did you think those sounded interesting
355. 00:15:18 or were you like, yeah, that sounds stupid,
356. 00:15:20 I'm not gonna do that.
357. 00:15:21 - I wouldn't say I thought it sounded stupid.
358. 00:15:24 I think that reading those questions,
359. 00:15:26 'cause I read all of the expected work for you
360. 00:15:31 to do through this.
361. 00:15:34 And I can't say any of it struck me as that silly.
362. 00:15:37 It's all questions that are very inward focused,
363. 00:15:41 like you're trying to find answers
364. 00:15:43 to things inside yourself.
365. 00:15:45 And that seems to be a theme throughout the book.
366. 00:15:47 There's not gonna be cut and dry answers to things.
367. 00:15:52 Like I can't tell you what the guide
368. 00:15:54 to what matters most really is
369. 00:15:56 because there's just a series of questions
370. 00:15:58 that help you get there.
371. 00:15:59 And that's the part that they're guiding you through
372. 00:16:02 at the end of each chapter
373. 00:16:04 and what those questions are designed to help you with.
374. 00:16:08 So having read them, I thought they were super interesting.
375. 00:16:10 I feel like there's a lot of them
376. 00:16:12 that would have a lot of value.
377. 00:16:14 But again, my concern is like,
378. 00:16:17 it's gonna take a lot of time.
379. 00:16:19 Like again, this is for students in college.
380. 00:16:23 I don't remember if it was undergrad or grad,
381. 00:16:26 but if you were to take the time to answer all of them,
382. 00:16:28 it's not a small commitment to do that.
383. 00:16:31 I think if you were to go through
384. 00:16:32 and pick out some of them and answer some of them,
385. 00:16:35 then it could be a little more doable.
386. 00:16:39 Personally, I'm probably not gonna go back
387. 00:16:42 and do this just because of time.
388. 00:16:45 But I could easily say that there's a lot of value
389. 00:16:48 in doing it if you choose to do that.
390. 00:16:50 - Yeah, I agree.
391. 00:16:53 I'm kinda torn on whether I wanna go back
392. 00:16:56 and try to follow the process.
393. 00:16:58 I thought most of the exercises
394. 00:17:01 and like the thinking time prompts
395. 00:17:03 and the questions that they give you were pretty good.
396. 00:17:07 There weren't any in there
397. 00:17:10 that just completely impressed me, I guess,
398. 00:17:15 which I kinda expected there would be.
399. 00:17:19 Just given the whole positioning of this book
400. 00:17:24 and how like, if this class was offered,
401. 00:17:27 when I was in college, I totally would have taken it.
402. 00:17:31 - Sure.
403. 00:17:32 - But yeah, it's three academics
404. 00:17:35 who are not trying to convince you of anything,
405. 00:17:38 but they're trying to present a lot of different options
406. 00:17:41 and a lot of different questions
407. 00:17:42 and get you to consider things from different perspectives.
408. 00:17:45 Part of the way that they do that
409. 00:17:47 is they tell a whole bunch of stories
410. 00:17:49 from a lot of different backgrounds.
411. 00:17:53 They'll mention Bible stories, they'll mention Buddhist stories,
412. 00:17:57 they'll mention historical stories,
413. 00:17:59 they'll mention Confucius.
414. 00:18:02 I'm trying to think of any of the other different
415. 00:18:07 like major religions that they covered,
416. 00:18:10 but this is not a religious book.
417. 00:18:12 They're basically saying like,
418. 00:18:15 these are the big questions that everybody is trying to answer
419. 00:18:20 and they do a little bit of projecting maybe
420. 00:18:23 where they say this is how the Christians answer this
421. 00:18:27 and this is how the Muslims answer this.
422. 00:18:30 But I feel like for the most part,
423. 00:18:32 they do a pretty good job of identifying the main points
424. 00:18:37 without making a whole bunch of other assumptions.
425. 00:18:43 This is kind of hard to explain,
426. 00:18:45 but this is my big beef with a lot of non-religious books
427. 00:18:50 that try to bring up aspects of like Christianity
428. 00:18:55 or Bible scripture is they'll look at part of it
429. 00:18:59 and they'll draw a conclusion and I'm not a Bible scholar,
430. 00:19:03 but I have gone to Bible college and I know enough
431. 00:19:06 to know that that inference that you just made
432. 00:19:09 is totally wrong.
433. 00:19:10 - Yeah.
434. 00:19:12 - I can see through that stuff
435. 00:19:15 and I don't even really know enough to point out
436. 00:19:18 the specifics of the inaccuracies,
437. 00:19:22 but I feel like they do a pretty good job
438. 00:19:24 of not overextending themselves to the point
439. 00:19:26 where they look silly, which.
440. 00:19:29 - I think that's a good point in that like,
441. 00:19:32 whenever we read books and they do bring up scripture
442. 00:19:34 and it's like you totally misquoted that.
443. 00:19:37 Because you know that and if it's just something point blank
444. 00:19:40 wrong about how they've inferred what the scripture means,
445. 00:19:45 then I instantly question all of the references
446. 00:19:50 to things that I don't have the background to
447. 00:19:53 because did they misunderstand that one as well
448. 00:19:55 and they just, I just don't know if it's correct or not.
449. 00:20:00 Like that and so then I'm second guessing the author
450. 00:20:03 the rest of the time.
451. 00:20:04 - Yep, definitely.
452. 00:20:07 So let's get into the actual book itself.
453. 00:20:10 Now the first part here is the introduction.
454. 00:20:13 There's not a whole lot here.
455. 00:20:15 Some of what is here we actually talked about already.
456. 00:20:18 This is where they talk about.
457. 00:20:19 They are three authors who have unique perspectives
458. 00:20:23 and they teach this as a class together at Yale.
459. 00:20:27 One of the things that they mentioned though
460. 00:20:29 in the introduction, which is titled
461. 00:20:31 This Book Might Wreck Your Life.
462. 00:20:32 Very appropriate introduction I feel.
463. 00:20:37 They'll get into the specifics of the approach
464. 00:20:41 that they're gonna take actually in the next section.
465. 00:20:43 So we won't get there quite yet.
466. 00:20:46 But yeah, anytime you start asking big questions
467. 00:20:50 it can be uncomfortable when you start to get some answers.
468. 00:20:55 But finding out the answers is a worthwhile pursuit.
469. 00:20:59 They would argue and I would agree.
470. 00:21:01 They do mention that questions are best tackled
471. 00:21:04 with true seeking communities.
472. 00:21:06 So figure out for yourself where that is for you
473. 00:21:11 in some sense, the Bookworm podcast can be that.
474. 00:21:17 But I don't think that is quite what they're describing
475. 00:21:20 I think they're talking more about a more regular,
476. 00:21:23 more intimate gathering of a handful of people.
477. 00:21:28 Again, recognize that this is typically taught
478. 00:21:30 as a college class.
479. 00:21:32 They see a small group of students multiple times per week
480. 00:21:36 for multiple weeks in a row.
481. 00:21:39 So that creates the space to consistently have
482. 00:21:44 these conversations.
483. 00:21:46 And I think they're right that that's the way
484. 00:21:51 that you get the most out of this
485. 00:21:53 is by having conversations with other people
486. 00:21:56 who are on the same journey.
487. 00:21:59 And then the other thing here is that like in poker,
488. 00:22:02 so that kind of alluded to the books
489. 00:22:04 that we've read by Annie Duke.
490. 00:22:07 You are not responsible for the outcome
491. 00:22:09 but you are responsible for how you play your hand.
492. 00:22:12 And I feel like that is a perfect analogy for metaphor,
493. 00:22:17 whatever.
494. 00:22:18 That's a good way to think about
495. 00:22:20 why should we be asking these questions in the first place?
496. 00:22:24 If we can never be sure that we're gonna get
497. 00:22:28 to the ultimate truth, why should we even pursue this
498. 00:22:32 in the first place?
499. 00:22:33 And I think you and I probably both have our own reasons
500. 00:22:37 for doing that, but I think they lay out
501. 00:22:40 a pretty good case why anybody regardless
502. 00:22:45 of your belief system should at least consider
503. 00:22:48 these questions.
504. 00:22:50 - Yeah, and just so you understand
505. 00:22:52 like some of these questions that they're referring to,
506. 00:22:55 we should probably detail out what the question is as well.
507. 00:22:59 But some of these questions that they have
508. 00:23:01 towards the end of that introduction
509. 00:23:03 are what are your greatest hopes for yourself?
510. 00:23:06 What are your greatest fears?
511. 00:23:07 What brings you joy?
512. 00:23:08 What are your sources of peace?
513. 00:23:09 What memories trigger responses of regret or disappointment?
514. 00:23:14 What memories trigger responses of satisfaction or delight?
515. 00:23:17 What tends to make you feel embarrassed?
516. 00:23:18 Like these are questions that are,
517. 00:23:20 and this isn't even the workbook part of it.
518. 00:23:22 Like this is just the pre-book
519. 00:23:26 is where we're at right now.
520. 00:23:27 And that's why I'm saying like these questions
521. 00:23:29 are not something you're going to answer very quickly.
522. 00:23:32 And it's not something that you can do lightly either.
523. 00:23:35 Like I can come up with some of these very quick,
524. 00:23:38 like very, very swiftly,
525. 00:23:40 but some of these I have to stop and process for a while,
526. 00:23:44 maybe go for a walk before I can get an answer
527. 00:23:47 to some of these, it's not a simple thing.
528. 00:23:49 Honestly, like going through this introduction,
529. 00:23:51 it made me think of your life-themed course quite a bit, Mike.
530. 00:23:54 Like this whole book made me continue to come back to that.
531. 00:23:58 Just knowing like some of the questions you had me process
532. 00:24:00 in the middle of that cohort.
533. 00:24:01 So for what it's worth,
534. 00:24:04 there's a little plug there for you as well, but.
535. 00:24:06 - Thanks.
536. 00:24:06 - Yeah, that was something that continued to come up
537. 00:24:08 in my brain.
538. 00:24:09 Like these aren't the exact same questions
539. 00:24:12 that I worked through when I was coming up
540. 00:24:14 with my life theme,
541. 00:24:15 but they're in the same vein.
542. 00:24:17 Like it's in that same territory.
543. 00:24:19 - Yeah, and for people who are interested in that,
544. 00:24:24 by the way, the cohort is not available currently,
545. 00:24:27 but I do have a email course, which is five parts.
546. 00:24:32 It's a watered down version of the cohort, basically.
547. 00:24:34 So I'll put a link to that in the show notes
548. 00:24:37 for anybody who is interested.
549. 00:24:39 But you're right, that's essentially
550. 00:24:41 what drew me to this book in the first place.
551. 00:24:44 Was this sounded like another version
552. 00:24:46 of my life-themed cohort?
553. 00:24:48 - Sure.
554. 00:24:49 - So. - I kind of wondered,
555. 00:24:50 getting through the first few chapters,
556. 00:24:52 like I wonder if this is either,
557. 00:24:55 like in my brain, it's like,
558. 00:24:56 I wonder if this is where Mike got some
559. 00:24:57 of his life-themed concepts,
560. 00:24:58 but I know the book was just written this year,
561. 00:25:01 and you've been on that for quite a while.
562. 00:25:03 So I was like, I know that that's not the case,
563. 00:25:04 but it's what made me,
564. 00:25:06 it made me question it for a split second.
565. 00:25:09 - Well, it's interesting because
566. 00:25:14 I don't think anything is probably truly original
567. 00:25:19 in the productivity space.
568. 00:25:21 It's all kind of a remix.
569. 00:25:23 And I realize that the life-themed stuff
570. 00:25:28 that I've kind of put together is my version of it,
571. 00:25:31 but I'm constantly refining it.
572. 00:25:34 And so selfishly, I was going into this as like,
573. 00:25:37 well, maybe they have some really great ideas
574. 00:25:39 that I could glean some insight from
575. 00:25:41 and make some modifications to the course from.
576. 00:25:43 But the real reason that I picked this book
577. 00:25:46 in the first place was that it was a recommendation
578. 00:25:48 in the Bookworm Club.
579. 00:25:50 And when I saw it come across, I was like,
580. 00:25:52 this looks great.
581. 00:25:53 I'm gonna pick it.
582. 00:25:54 - Nice.
583. 00:25:56 - Yeah.
584. 00:25:58 All right, so let's get into the first section here.
585. 00:26:03 Part one is titled Diving In.
586. 00:26:08 And there are just two chapters in this first part.
587. 00:26:13 What's worth wanting and where are we starting from?
588. 00:26:17 And the big thing to be discussed at the top here
589. 00:26:24 is the four modes of being that they talk about.
590. 00:26:29 So they have this visual where you've got action
591. 00:26:34 and reflection on kind of like a Y axis.
592. 00:26:39 Okay, and at the very top is action.
593. 00:26:42 And then there's a bar that goes across
594. 00:26:46 which represents autopilot.
595. 00:26:49 And then there are layers below that
596. 00:26:52 that are effectiveness, self-awareness,
597. 00:26:54 and self-transcendence.
598. 00:26:56 And then on the right side of this,
599. 00:26:59 for autopilot, our habits, for effectiveness,
600. 00:27:01 a strategy for self-awareness,
601. 00:27:03 his vision for self-transcendence is truth.
602. 00:27:06 And then there's this little like plotted path
603. 00:27:10 where you start at autopilot, you go down
604. 00:27:14 and then you come back up.
605. 00:27:15 So that's essentially what they're trying to do
606. 00:27:20 with the structure of this book
607. 00:27:22 is that you are engaging with this topic right now.
608. 00:27:26 And I think they're kind of assuming
609. 00:27:28 that you've never really thought about this stuff before.
610. 00:27:31 Otherwise, like why would you be starting at the autopilot?
611. 00:27:34 But the whole goal is to go down and then come back up.
612. 00:27:39 In fact, just let me read through the different parts.
613. 00:27:42 Part one is diving in, part two is the depths,
614. 00:27:44 part three is bedrock.
615. 00:27:45 So that's how we go all the way down, right?
616. 00:27:47 Part four facing the limits
617. 00:27:48 and then part five is back to the surface.
618. 00:27:51 So the journey they're trying to take us on is you go down
619. 00:27:56 and then you come back up.
620. 00:27:58 And there's some key actions or questions
621. 00:28:00 that go along with each one of these areas.
622. 00:28:03 So autopilot, that's basically we do what we do
623. 00:28:06 because that's what we do.
624. 00:28:08 Effectiveness is what we do getting us what we want.
625. 00:28:13 Then there's self-awareness,
626. 00:28:15 which is what do we really want?
627. 00:28:18 And then self-transcendence is what is worth wanting?
628. 00:28:23 And that's the part where I'm not sure
629. 00:28:28 how anybody can actually coach someone
630. 00:28:33 in that particular arena.
631. 00:28:37 I don't know, I don't have a whole lot of examples of this,
632. 00:28:41 but it struck me as I was thinking about this,
633. 00:28:45 that most of the stuff that I've found,
634. 00:28:47 because I've tried to find like personal mission statement stuff,
635. 00:28:51 we did, what was the Donald Miller book,
636. 00:28:55 Hero on a Mission, right?
637. 00:28:57 - Yeah.
638. 00:28:58 - A lot of them don't go all the way down
639. 00:29:03 to the self-transcendence level.
640. 00:29:06 And maybe that's just the result of three academics
641. 00:29:10 getting together and making a course about this
642. 00:29:11 where it's like, well, obviously we gotta consider this piece.
643. 00:29:15 I don't think they can really, or anybody really,
644. 00:29:19 can point you in the right direction
645. 00:29:22 once you get to that level.
646. 00:29:25 And I'm not sure if it's good or bad
647. 00:29:28 that they attempted to do this.
648. 00:29:30 What do you think?
649. 00:29:32 - Well, I know that when I look at these four different levels,
650. 00:29:36 autopilot effectiveness, self-awareness,
651. 00:29:39 and self-transcendence,
652. 00:29:41 the first two, the autopilot piece, which are your habits
653. 00:29:45 and the effectiveness, which is basically strategy.
654. 00:29:48 Those two, I think, those are the territory
655. 00:29:51 that probably 90 to 95% of our productivity
656. 00:29:54 and self-help books cover, business books as well.
657. 00:29:57 That is the territory where most of them live.
658. 00:30:00 When you get to like the self-awareness piece,
659. 00:30:02 what do we really want?
660. 00:30:04 That particular component, I feel like we hit books
661. 00:30:07 on that sometimes.
662. 00:30:10 I'm thinking about things like the second mountain,
663. 00:30:12 like going towards the second level of things,
664. 00:30:15 like that concept, or you could even maybe get into
665. 00:30:19 like mental models, maybe touches this a hair
666. 00:30:22 where you're starting to put together
667. 00:30:23 like the meaning of life, territory,
668. 00:30:26 and what is it that you actually want to accomplish in life?
669. 00:30:30 That territory gets covered sometimes.
670. 00:30:33 What is worth wanting?
671. 00:30:35 I have a hard time figuring out what is even meant by that,
672. 00:30:40 and we'll get to it a little bit,
673. 00:30:44 but that concept is one that I don't know
674. 00:30:47 that I've ever touched on through anything I've read
675. 00:30:51 or even really discussed.
676. 00:30:53 So that one's a little bit like, hmm,
677. 00:30:56 either you are brilliant, and this is a great idea,
678. 00:31:00 and absolutely something that should be talked about more,
679. 00:31:03 you're full of baloney.
680. 00:31:06 It's one of the two.
681. 00:31:09 Maybe it's somewhere in the middle,
682. 00:31:11 but I'm hoping that as we go through this,
683. 00:31:14 I'll get clean answers on my opinions on it,
684. 00:31:16 'cause right now I'm just a little unsure
685. 00:31:18 of what to think of it.
686. 00:31:20 - Sure, yeah, well, so let's put a pin
687. 00:31:22 in the self-transcendant stuff.
688. 00:31:24 I definitely want to come back to that,
689. 00:31:26 but that is gonna be part three, I believe,
690. 00:31:29 the bedrock stuff.
691. 00:31:30 - Yeah.
692. 00:31:32 - The other thing that we should talk about here
693. 00:31:34 in this first section is,
694. 00:31:38 where are we starting from, that's chapter two?
695. 00:31:41 And they talk about the Walgreens motto
696. 00:31:43 on the corner of happy and healthy,
697. 00:31:46 and they add to that in a very academic way,
698. 00:31:50 well, if you're gonna be happy
699. 00:31:51 and you're gonna be healthy,
700. 00:31:52 then you probably have a long life too.
701. 00:31:54 So they have, the good life is,
702. 00:31:58 and this is not what they're,
703. 00:31:59 like the theme of the book,
704. 00:32:00 but this is where they're starting.
705. 00:32:02 Long, healthy, and happy.
706. 00:32:04 But then they go on to share examples
707. 00:32:06 of famous people who did not have a long,
708. 00:32:09 not have a happy or not have a healthy life,
709. 00:32:12 and these stories were great.
710. 00:32:13 Martin Luther King Jr. were familiar with Abraham Lincoln.
711. 00:32:16 Again, we're familiar with this,
712. 00:32:18 but they get into the depths of his depression,
713. 00:32:22 basically, and that was an interesting
714. 00:32:24 wrinkle to the character that I never really understood.
715. 00:32:26 And then not healthy,
716. 00:32:27 or they talk about Lady Constance Leiten.
717. 00:32:31 I'm terrible with these names.
718. 00:32:34 But again, not familiar with that story,
719. 00:32:37 but the point that they're making
720. 00:32:38 with each of those short stories
721. 00:32:40 is that you can't just buy into this narrative.
722. 00:32:44 You can have a long, healthy, happy life
723. 00:32:46 and not have a life worth living.
724. 00:32:49 Likewise, there are people who have been missing aspects
725. 00:32:53 of this, but everyone would agree
726. 00:32:55 that they actually lived a life worth living.
727. 00:33:00 So they end this whole section
728. 00:33:03 with a couple of wrong beliefs,
729. 00:33:04 which is that we can know what's good
730. 00:33:06 by what makes us feel good,
731. 00:33:08 and that doing good will automatically make us feel good.
732. 00:33:11 I guess this is effective in scrambling you
733. 00:33:16 at the beginning, which is probably their intention.
734. 00:33:19 Like you've been on autopilot for a long time.
735. 00:33:22 You've probably been living your life
736. 00:33:23 in accordance with these basic belief systems
737. 00:33:26 and kind of unintentionally been optimizing
738. 00:33:29 for these three things,
739. 00:33:31 living a long, healthy, happy life.
740. 00:33:33 And they're trying to disorient you
741. 00:33:34 and get you to think that the default
742. 00:33:37 is not necessarily the best course of action.
743. 00:33:39 Planting the belief like, well,
744. 00:33:41 I've been following these wrong beliefs,
745. 00:33:43 well, what is the right belief that,
746. 00:33:44 well, I'm glad you asked.
747. 00:33:45 Let's go on to the next section.
748. 00:33:47 I feel like that's what kind of the response
749. 00:33:49 that they're going for here.
750. 00:33:50 - Yeah, but it's also a good place to start from as well,
751. 00:33:56 because so many books and public speakers
752. 00:33:59 and stuff talk about how to have a happy life.
753. 00:34:02 How many times have we talked about this
754. 00:34:03 where that's not the answer?
755. 00:34:04 Like that's not the end goal.
756. 00:34:06 Struggle, although we tend to avoid it
757. 00:34:09 is actually a very big positive.
758. 00:34:12 So as much as we want to avoid things that are difficult,
759. 00:34:16 that's where a lot of the joy in life can come from.
760. 00:34:18 And although they didn't spell that out here,
761. 00:34:22 they're saying that this happy, long, healthy life
762. 00:34:27 isn't necessarily the target, even though
763. 00:34:32 that's what many people find as like the bullseye
764. 00:34:35 for their life success.
765. 00:34:37 But if you were to hit that bullseye,
766. 00:34:40 you end up having lots of regrets,
767. 00:34:42 which they've shown many, many, many times.
768. 00:34:44 So that's not the end game,
769. 00:34:47 even though they don't really tell you what the end game is,
770. 00:34:51 they're just getting you to ask the questions.
771. 00:34:53 - Yeah, I mean, I get the approach.
772. 00:34:57 And I think for part one anyways, it works.
773. 00:35:00 Let's go on to the next part, which is part two,
774. 00:35:05 the depths.
775. 00:35:06 And in this section, there are four chapters,
776. 00:35:09 chapter three, who do we answer to?
777. 00:35:10 Chapter four, how does a good life feel?
778. 00:35:13 Chapter five, what should we hope for?
779. 00:35:15 Chapter six, how should we live?
780. 00:35:18 This is where started to lose me a little bit.
781. 00:35:22 They basically structure these chapters
782. 00:35:28 in a way where they tell a story
783. 00:35:32 and they try to make a point or introduce a key concept.
784. 00:35:37 And then they wrap it up with some questions
785. 00:35:41 to get you to think about that particular thing.
786. 00:35:43 So like, for example,
787. 00:35:45 with chapter four, what is a good life,
788. 00:35:48 or how does a good life feel?
789. 00:35:49 They introduce the topic of utilitarianism,
790. 00:35:52 which is doing whatever brings the most happiness or pleasure.
791. 00:35:56 And there's a story that goes along with it.
792. 00:35:58 And the story is pretty well done.
793. 00:36:00 All of the stories in the book are pretty well done, I feel.
794. 00:36:03 However, utilitarianism, this is essentially
795. 00:36:08 not just your happiness pleasure,
796. 00:36:12 but maximizing happiness pleasure for the entire group.
797. 00:36:16 And then they talk about how pleasure,
798. 00:36:18 what feels good can actually lead us away
799. 00:36:19 from what really matters.
800. 00:36:20 And talk about how sorrow is just as important
801. 00:36:23 for a good life as pleasure.
802. 00:36:26 So you leave the chapter with more questions than answers.
803. 00:36:30 And again, that's intentional
804. 00:36:33 because there's a workbook associated with this.
805. 00:36:35 So had we actually gone through this,
806. 00:36:38 like a semester course that it is,
807. 00:36:41 I'm sure we would have some different reactions to this.
808. 00:36:45 But because of the format here for Bookworm,
809. 00:36:49 we cranked through it in a couple of weeks,
810. 00:36:52 and we're wrestling with the content.
811. 00:36:54 Now, a lot of the content that they share,
812. 00:36:58 and a lot of the ideas that they introduce,
813. 00:37:02 I've heard different versions of these before.
814. 00:37:03 I'm not sure how familiar you are with this kind of stuff,
815. 00:37:06 but it didn't feel like anything was completely new
816. 00:37:11 from anything in this book.
817. 00:37:15 But this section right here,
818. 00:37:17 part two, the depths,
819. 00:37:18 this is where we're starting to get into the effectiveness
820. 00:37:21 and the self-awareness section.
821. 00:37:23 So this is where is what we do,
822. 00:37:26 getting us what we want,
823. 00:37:28 and what do we really want.
824. 00:37:30 And I don't know, I mean,
825. 00:37:33 I didn't actually take a whole lot of notes
826. 00:37:35 in this particular section,
827. 00:37:38 because I feel like maybe I've wrestled through this already.
828. 00:37:44 Maybe I have a version of this that I've kind of figured out,
829. 00:37:47 and so I've gone through some of this already, I don't know.
830. 00:37:51 I agree with some of their minor points,
831. 00:37:54 you know, that money is a form of influence or power,
832. 00:37:57 and they talk about a AAA vision
833. 00:37:59 where we have things that are available,
834. 00:38:01 accessible and attainable to us.
835. 00:38:03 They talk about this idea of moral alchemy,
836. 00:38:07 where we're balancing the needs and wants of individuals
837. 00:38:11 in a way that promotes the good of the group,
838. 00:38:13 like checks and balances, things like that.
839. 00:38:16 But they also get into like full-on academic mode,
840. 00:38:20 and I have a little bit of a reaction to that,
841. 00:38:24 I feel like to talk about consequentialism,
842. 00:38:27 ethics, concerned with the consequences of our actions.
843. 00:38:31 That term, consequentialism,
844. 00:38:34 just kind of rubs me the wrong way,
845. 00:38:37 because I like the idea, but it's like,
846. 00:38:41 "Oh yeah, what you do doesn't exist in a vacuum
847. 00:38:43 when you do something, it affects the people around you."
848. 00:38:46 That seems very basic, and I get like,
849. 00:38:48 that's because of the way I was raised
850. 00:38:51 and the beliefs that I hold,
851. 00:38:53 but it did feel sometimes like the way
852. 00:38:56 that they describe some things,
853. 00:38:57 especially in this section, it's like,
854. 00:39:01 while the topic sounded like it's right in my wheelhouse,
855. 00:39:05 at this point it feels a little bit like
856. 00:39:07 we're speaking different languages.
857. 00:39:09 - I think some of my, 'cause I'm with you on this,
858. 00:39:14 in like the angst with this particular part,
859. 00:39:17 who do we answer to, really the answer is ourselves,
860. 00:39:20 how does a good life feel,
861. 00:39:21 what should we hope for, how should we live?
862. 00:39:24 It's all left with questions at the end,
863. 00:39:28 so that you can work through the process
864. 00:39:29 of figuring out what the answer to those questions are yourself.
865. 00:39:33 The problem with that is that what happens
866. 00:39:36 if my answer to that question conflicts
867. 00:39:40 with your answer to that question,
868. 00:39:43 and by me achieving success in my answer,
869. 00:39:48 it takes away from success on your answer.
870. 00:39:53 Do you get where I'm going with this?
871. 00:39:53 Like this is like the whole relativism thing
872. 00:39:58 that I feel like is creeping into this,
873. 00:40:00 because then it means that how should we live?
874. 00:40:03 Well, it kinda depends on how you feel about a certain topic.
875. 00:40:08 That's the air that I got from this.
876. 00:40:10 No, they don't say that to be clear.
877. 00:40:14 Like that is not something that they point out,
878. 00:40:17 but because the answers to these questions
879. 00:40:20 aren't founded in something concrete,
880. 00:40:23 and it allows it to be flexible,
881. 00:40:28 this part, they lost me on this.
882. 00:40:31 This is where I started to really question
883. 00:40:33 the entire validity of the book,
884. 00:40:35 and I started to wonder, what are we getting into?
885. 00:40:39 (laughs)
886. 00:40:40 Like, what is this, Mike?
887. 00:40:41 What did you do?
888. 00:40:42 (laughs)
889. 00:40:44 That's what I started to wonder.
890. 00:40:47 I wanna be clear, there are some good
891. 00:40:49 points in here, and some of these questions
892. 00:40:51 are absolutely 100% things you should ask of yourself.
893. 00:40:54 So I wanna be clear on that.
894. 00:40:56 It's not 100% like all, yes, you get my point.
895. 00:41:01 So I'm not 100% against them,
896. 00:41:03 I'm just saying like this is where it started to lose me,
897. 00:41:06 and the fact that there's not any basis that this stands on,
898. 00:41:11 and that it's dependent on how I process something,
899. 00:41:14 that's the part that got me a little bit
900. 00:41:16 questioning of the validity of this.
901. 00:41:20 That's interesting.
902. 00:41:21 I think I agree with you, though,
903. 00:41:24 I never really realized that as I was going through this,
904. 00:41:26 I just thought this section felt awkward.
905. 00:41:29 (laughs)
906. 00:41:29 Yeah, I think when I got through,
907. 00:41:32 I think it was chapter five,
908. 00:41:34 what should we hope for the third chapter in this part?
909. 00:41:37 And it was because we came out of the chapter,
910. 00:41:39 how does a good life feel?
911. 00:41:41 It got me wondering why we were asking questions
912. 00:41:45 that were so, like they didn't have any true basis.
913. 00:41:50 Now, I'm coming at this as a Christian
914. 00:41:51 who stands on a Bible,
915. 00:41:53 and like that is my concrete foundation.
916. 00:41:56 So because of that,
917. 00:41:58 if I answer these questions in a way that conflicts with that,
918. 00:42:01 to me that's then wrong,
919. 00:42:03 but I know that not everybody's gonna view things that way.
920. 00:42:06 Yeah, I guess you don't necessarily have to though.
921. 00:42:12 If you've thought about the creed
922. 00:42:15 by which you live your life,
923. 00:42:17 then this section feels unnecessary.
924. 00:42:21 But if you have never considered that before,
925. 00:42:25 I think I understand where they're coming from.
926. 00:42:29 Sure.
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991. 00:44:49 Yeah, let's go to the next section
992. 00:44:53 because this is the one where I feel like
993. 00:44:58 you'll get some real benefit from considering
994. 00:45:01 some of the stuff,
995. 00:45:02 but I think I might have issues
996. 00:45:04 with some of the ways that they assemble it.
997. 00:45:07 So let's talk through it.
998. 00:45:10 Maybe you can help this make sense.
999. 00:45:12 So part three is bedrock.
1000. 00:45:14 And there's two chapters here.
1001. 00:45:16 Chapter seven is the recipe test.
1002. 00:45:17 Chapter eight is the really big picture.
1003. 00:45:20 And the recipe test,
1004. 00:45:22 I think this is a bold move.
1005. 00:45:27 But I think it's effective in thinking through like,
1006. 00:45:33 well, what is a life worth living to go back to the title?
1007. 00:45:38 There are different aspects that make up this good life.
1008. 00:45:43 And they talk about a life being like a recipe
1009. 00:45:48 and for a recipe to be good,
1010. 00:45:53 you have to have different foods
1011. 00:45:58 from these different categories,
1012. 00:46:00 three basic food groups they call them of a good life.
1013. 00:46:04 One of them is agency.
1014. 00:46:05 One of them is circumstance and one of them is effect.
1015. 00:46:11 So stoicism is one life recipe
1016. 00:46:16 that elevates the agency area above others.
1017. 00:46:19 Utilitarianism elevates the affect part
1018. 00:46:23 above the others and Confucianism
1019. 00:46:25 elevates circumstance above the others.
1020. 00:46:29 And the thing we have to figure out
1021. 00:46:33 is how are we going to handle the inconsistencies?
1022. 00:46:38 Will we ignore them?
1023. 00:46:39 Will we view them as opportunities
1024. 00:46:42 because they're never as simple and black and white
1025. 00:46:45 as they appear to be?
1026. 00:46:47 They talk about Confucianism in here
1027. 00:46:49 and how he never actually defined the way that a lot of,
1028. 00:46:54 I'm not a Confucious, I don't know.
1029. 00:46:59 - You're not confused.
1030. 00:47:01 - Well, I mean-- - Sorry, I couldn't pass that one.
1031. 00:47:04 - Yeah, yeah.
1032. 00:47:05 I don't understand the frame of reference for the way.
1033. 00:47:08 I'm assuming that's kind of like
1034. 00:47:10 a idea that is communicated in that belief system,
1035. 00:47:16 which I just don't understand.
1036. 00:47:19 But basically he was saying that Confucious never defined
1037. 00:47:23 the way it was the followers, I guess, of this religion.
1038. 00:47:27 I don't know, that defined the way.
1039. 00:47:30 So my big takeaway from this is at this point,
1040. 00:47:35 we're trying to answer questions that you and I have
1041. 00:47:40 answered with religion, without religion,
1042. 00:47:44 but then we're talking about religion
1043. 00:47:46 and sharing a bunch of different examples
1044. 00:47:50 of how people use religion to answer these questions.
1045. 00:47:53 Now, I commend them getting people to ask the questions,
1046. 00:47:57 even if they don't consider themselves
1047. 00:47:59 to be religious, one of my big takeaways
1048. 00:48:02 from doing the Life-Name cohort,
1049. 00:48:03 which is part of my faith-based productivity community,
1050. 00:48:06 it says it on the tin, but I had a bunch of people
1051. 00:48:09 that were in there and from all over the world,
1052. 00:48:12 who weren't, they didn't consider themselves to be religious,
1053. 00:48:17 they were just interested in this idea of applying
1054. 00:48:20 their values to their productivity and their actions.
1055. 00:48:25 Again, recognize I have a bias here
1056. 00:48:28 and I'm coming at this from a certain direction,
1057. 00:48:31 but this feels like a lot to grok at this point
1058. 00:48:36 and then at the end of chapter seven,
1059. 00:48:40 they're basically saying,
1060. 00:48:41 we're never gonna figure it all out anyways,
1061. 00:48:43 there's always gonna be inconsistencies.
1062. 00:48:45 I feel like if you go into this,
1063. 00:48:47 as someone who is anti-religion,
1064. 00:48:52 there's a good chance you are that way
1065. 00:48:54 because there is an element of faith involved
1066. 00:48:56 and you can't reconcile everything
1067. 00:49:01 in the accounts in your head, right?
1068. 00:49:04 So I feel like this right here would throw some people
1069. 00:49:07 for a loop, it's like, yeah, you know what?
1070. 00:49:09 You're not gonna be able to figure it all out anyways,
1071. 00:49:10 so don't worry about it.
1072. 00:49:12 I think there's a certain person who's getting into this
1073. 00:49:14 and like, whoa, what?
1074. 00:49:15 Screw this, and chuck it and walk out of the class.
1075. 00:49:19 - Yeah, yeah, I can see that for sure.
1076. 00:49:24 'Cause like even, so again, by the time I got here,
1077. 00:49:29 I was in skeptic mode,
1078. 00:49:31 but the title of chapter seven, the recipe test,
1079. 00:49:34 what does a test give you when you're done?
1080. 00:49:37 - A result.
1081. 00:49:39 - A result based on known answers, right?
1082. 00:49:43 So we're now trying to put this recipe test together
1083. 00:49:48 with these three components,
1084. 00:49:50 but then we're told that it can change
1085. 00:49:53 and that the answer isn't always the same.
1086. 00:49:58 - Yeah.
1087. 00:49:59 - It's not how a test works.
1088. 00:50:01 Like that's the part that now I get, like sometimes like
1089. 00:50:04 with English, you're writing a paper or you can get a test
1090. 00:50:06 and there's a test that's a written paper
1091. 00:50:08 and it's subjective, like I get that,
1092. 00:50:11 but that's not where my brain was at the time.
1093. 00:50:13 But I was very much like, that's not the point,
1094. 00:50:15 like don't tell me that there's these three pieces
1095. 00:50:19 and that you're going to show me how to put them all together
1096. 00:50:21 and then don't put them all together.
1097. 00:50:23 But that's super frustrating for me.
1098. 00:50:26 - Yeah, I completely agree and that's why when I read
1099. 00:50:30 the recipe test as the title, I'm like,
1100. 00:50:32 oh, I think I see what you're going to try to do.
1101. 00:50:35 I hope this works for you and it kind of doesn't.
1102. 00:50:38 (laughs)
1103. 00:50:39 - Yep.
1104. 00:50:40 - It's good in theory and it, like you go into this
1105. 00:50:45 and you're like, oh, I want this to make sense.
1106. 00:50:48 I want this to be true, you know, because it's convenient
1107. 00:50:51 and if I could just think about it this way
1108. 00:50:52 and base it off of this other thing that I understand,
1109. 00:50:55 like that would make this simple and,
1110. 00:50:58 but they can't quite get there.
1111. 00:51:00 (laughs)
1112. 00:51:01 - Yeah.
1113. 00:51:01 - Question is just too big. (laughs)
1114. 00:51:04 Which actually leads to the next chapter,
1115. 00:51:06 which is the really big picture.
1116. 00:51:09 And this is where they talk about where are we,
1117. 00:51:14 cosmology and who are we, anthropology.
1118. 00:51:16 Talk about tribalism, Ray Kurzweil's six stages
1119. 00:51:21 of the universe, which is interesting,
1120. 00:51:24 but again, like I don't really know what you do with this.
1121. 00:51:26 (laughs)
1122. 00:51:27 The six stages of Ray Kurzweil's,
1123. 00:51:30 six stages of the universe, by the way,
1124. 00:51:32 they do a good job of condensing this, I feel,
1125. 00:51:34 to physics and chemistry, biology and DNA, brains,
1126. 00:51:37 technology, the merger of human technology
1127. 00:51:40 with human intelligence and then the universe wakes up.
1128. 00:51:45 So you read that and you're like, oh, we're at stage five.
1129. 00:51:49 And he basically, I guess I'm talking about Ray Kurzweil,
1130. 00:51:53 but really it's the authors who are interpreting this.
1131. 00:51:56 So they basically are saying that,
1132. 00:52:01 well, again, that's not really fair either,
1133. 00:52:02 because they say we're gonna present
1134. 00:52:03 all these different perspectives
1135. 00:52:05 and you gotta figure out what you believe about this.
1136. 00:52:07 So I'll go back to he, Ray Kurzweil.
1137. 00:52:10 Basically saying that the universe
1138. 00:52:12 has lots of different iterations of this.
1139. 00:52:14 This is the cycle, but it hits reset
1140. 00:52:16 and it starts all over.
1141. 00:52:18 And the net result of that is kind of a dread
1142. 00:52:23 of the matrix style, the robots are coming.
1143. 00:52:29 And then you couple that with all the stuff I see
1144. 00:52:35 and read and hear about people who have never really
1145. 00:52:40 experimented with generative AI,
1146. 00:52:44 but they are absolutely terrified of it.
1147. 00:52:47 I don't know.
1148. 00:52:48 I mean, you could hear all that stuff and be like,
1149. 00:52:51 oh yeah, this is confirmation.
1150. 00:52:52 Ray Kurzweil was right.
1151. 00:52:53 We better be careful.
1152. 00:52:54 I tend to think that this is a little bit sensationalized
1153. 00:52:58 and yeah, the universal ends someday, but not like that.
1154. 00:53:03 I don't know, but at the end of this chapter,
1155. 00:53:08 they're kind of leading you into that,
1156. 00:53:11 kind of leading you down that road,
1157. 00:53:13 which I know they talk about how they're trying not
1158. 00:53:17 to do that and all the opinions and the perspectives
1159. 00:53:20 that they're sharing are simply for diversity sake
1160. 00:53:23 and you can be exposed to a bunch of this different stuff.
1161. 00:53:28 There's nowhere else really to go with this chapter.
1162. 00:53:32 It's kind of like, well, if we can't really draw any
1163. 00:53:35 conclusions or we can't really take anything away from this
1164. 00:53:38 because you could be at that point,
1165. 00:53:39 the merger of human technology, human intelligence.
1166. 00:53:42 And oh my gosh, the universe is gonna wake up
1167. 00:53:45 and disappear at some point in the future.
1168. 00:53:47 How does that actually change anything?
1169. 00:53:48 You just do the best you can with what you have.
1170. 00:53:54 And so it kind of feels like, well, why is this even here
1171. 00:53:57 in the first place?
1172. 00:53:58 - Yeah, I'm 100% with you because there's so much
1173. 00:54:02 of this that's like, okay, so you're just trying
1174. 00:54:04 to show me how small and insignificant I am.
1175. 00:54:06 Like I'm already aware of that,
1176. 00:54:08 but that doesn't really help me here.
1177. 00:54:12 And I get that we are a cog in the wheel of life
1178. 00:54:17 and I get that, but I can't quite put my finger on why
1179. 00:54:24 this is here, like coming back to like the structure
1180. 00:54:27 of the book, maybe this is that transcendent piece
1181. 00:54:32 that I don't understand and maybe my brain is just too small
1182. 00:54:36 to grasp what they're trying to share.
1183. 00:54:40 Absolutely 100% of these could be the answers to it,
1184. 00:54:43 but given my lack of knowledge on this
1185. 00:54:47 and my current background, I have to say this is just weird
1186. 00:54:51 and I don't understand it.
1187. 00:54:53 I don't really, I don't know why this is here.
1188. 00:54:56 Other than just they wanted to rant about how small we are.
1189. 00:55:00 That's really the only thing I got out of it.
1190. 00:55:04 Now I've been through those exercises before where,
1191. 00:55:08 again, I'm bringing up Christianity in such quite a bit
1192. 00:55:11 because they bring it up a fair amount in the book as well.
1193. 00:55:14 They bring up a lot of Bible references in this.
1194. 00:55:17 I don't know what their like personal beliefs are now that I
1195. 00:55:23 am saying that, but because of my background,
1196. 00:55:26 like I've been through that process of trying to understand
1197. 00:55:28 like how big God is and how small I am.
1198. 00:55:31 It's like I've been through that exercise many, many times
1199. 00:55:34 at this point, this feels just like another one of those
1200. 00:55:36 only without the experience of how big is God.
1201. 00:55:40 Because just here's how small you are,
1202. 00:55:42 like that's which is strange to me.
1203. 00:55:46 Yeah, I don't know what to do with this one.
1204. 00:55:48 [laughs]
1205. 00:55:50 Well, I understand why they got here because of the model
1206. 00:55:53 that they anchored everything off of in chapter one.
1207. 00:55:57 If you're going to go all the way down to the depths
1208. 00:56:00 and then come back up, like you do have to consider
1209. 00:56:03 some of these giant questions.
1210. 00:56:07 But I think--
1211. 00:56:08 Maybe that's it.
1212. 00:56:08 Maybe that-- maybe-- still processing.
1213. 00:56:11 Maybe the reason for that is like they're trying to get you
1214. 00:56:14 go all the way down into this transcendent piece
1215. 00:56:16 so that you can start to see like your role in the broader
1216. 00:56:20 world.
1217. 00:56:21 Like maybe they're just trying to help you understand
1218. 00:56:22 your place in and amongst everybody else.
1219. 00:56:26 Maybe that's it.
1220. 00:56:27 I'm trying to find the doubt, like the benefit of a doubt
1221. 00:56:30 here, like I'm trying to find it.
1222. 00:56:34 Yeah, I think that's kind of what they're trying to do.
1223. 00:56:36 But again, having read 170-some books for Bookworm,
1224. 00:56:45 probably about 500 of these types of books overall,
1225. 00:56:51 I feel this isn't the most effective approach
1226. 00:56:56 for most people.
1227. 00:56:57 Again, they're adapting a Yale class.
1228. 00:57:01 So maybe it fits perfectly when you stretch it out
1229. 00:57:05 and you have more time to go that deep.
1230. 00:57:09 I don't know.
1231. 00:57:09 But I agree.
1232. 00:57:10 It kind of feels like why did we go there.
1233. 00:57:15 Now let's go into the next section,
1234. 00:57:18 if you're cool with that.
1235. 00:57:19 Part four is facing the limits.
1236. 00:57:23 And this is before we technically go back to the surface,
1237. 00:57:27 that's actually part five.
1238. 00:57:29 But I think this is my favorite section in the whole book.
1239. 00:57:34 And this is all about when things go wrong.
1240. 00:57:38 And chapter nine is when we inevitably botch it.
1241. 00:57:42 Chapter 10 is when life hurts.
1242. 00:57:44 Chapter 11 is-- and there's no fixing it--
1243. 00:57:47 Chapter 12, when it ends.
1244. 00:57:49 So this is where we start to wrestle with,
1245. 00:57:53 like chapter 12, when it ends.
1246. 00:57:55 We can't escape the fact that we're all going to die someday.
1247. 00:58:01 When we inevitably botch it, as much as you
1248. 00:58:03 try to live a perfect life, you're going to mess it up.
1249. 00:58:08 When life hurts and there's no fixing it,
1250. 00:58:11 there's pain involved here.
1251. 00:58:13 And you're not always going to be able to find a solution
1252. 00:58:18 to that, which I think is probably--
1253. 00:58:22 most people anyways would want to alleviate the suffering.
1254. 00:58:30 Yeah, I really like this whole section.
1255. 00:58:34 There's nothing really specific in here
1256. 00:58:36 that stands out to me.
1257. 00:58:38 It's like this is new revelation,
1258. 00:58:42 and this has really rocked my world.
1259. 00:58:45 But this is kind of the stuff that I was anticipating.
1260. 00:58:48 The types of questions we were going to be wrestling with
1261. 00:58:51 throughout the entire book, not the Rakers, Well Stuff,
1262. 00:58:57 et cetera.
1263. 00:58:58 Now, there are little things in this section
1264. 00:59:00 that I could nitpick.
1265. 00:59:02 They're definition of repentance, I don't think,
1266. 00:59:06 is quite the same as my Christian definition of repentance,
1267. 00:59:11 because they define repentance as confession,
1268. 00:59:14 make things right, and restitution, do what's right,
1269. 00:59:17 whereas our religious belief system would say,
1270. 00:59:21 well, it's up to us for the confession part,
1271. 00:59:24 but the restitution part is not up to us.
1272. 00:59:27 So it feels a little bit weird to put that in the hands
1273. 00:59:30 of the individual, but I don't necessarily
1274. 00:59:34 think that that's wrong.
1275. 00:59:38 I think that probably is the thing
1276. 00:59:40 that we should be trying to do when we inevitably
1277. 00:59:42 botch it, because that's the chapter that this is coming from.
1278. 00:59:47 But I guess if I had to pick one thing that really just kind of
1279. 00:59:50 stood out, well, two things that stood out to me
1280. 00:59:53 from this section, first comes from chapter nine,
1281. 00:59:56 where being wrong without realizing it
1282. 00:59:58 feels exactly like being right, which is why you have to ask
1283. 01:00:03 all these questions, because you can convince yourself,
1284. 01:00:06 especially if you surround yourself with people who
1285. 01:00:08 think and talk and act just like you,
1286. 01:00:11 that you have the corner on the truth,
1287. 01:00:13 and no one else knows anything and wake up sheeple.
1288. 01:00:18 But it's much more effective, and it's honestly much more fun
1289. 01:00:21 when you consider that you might be wrong,
1290. 01:00:26 and just realizing that you can't trust your feelings.
1291. 01:00:31 You can't trust the strength of your convictions.
1292. 01:00:35 Strong convictions lately held is that saying.
1293. 01:00:37 That's kind of the goal here.
1294. 01:00:39 I constantly want to be putting things under the microscope.
1295. 01:00:42 And saying, is this what I still believe?
1296. 01:00:47 Then the other one comes from chapter 12
1297. 01:00:49 that what we do only matters if time is finite.
1298. 01:00:52 I never thought about that before.
1299. 01:00:55 But that was interesting, because if we're
1300. 01:00:56 going to live forever, yeah, it doesn't really matter
1301. 01:00:58 what we do today.
1302. 01:01:00 If we don't do the right thing, we can try again tomorrow.
1303. 01:01:04 So I like that the whole reason for caring about productivity
1304. 01:01:11 in the first place is because time is a finite resource.
1305. 01:01:13 It's the one resource we can never get anymore of.
1306. 01:01:17 So if you threw out that constraint,
1307. 01:01:19 that changes the whole discussion.
1308. 01:01:22 Yeah, I have to agree with you that this
1309. 01:01:23 is my favorite part in the book, because it kind of brings us
1310. 01:01:28 back to reality of we're going to screw things up
1311. 01:01:32 and trying to understand how the whole--
1312. 01:01:39 if we lived forever, nothing would matter what we do.
1313. 01:01:43 Well, because you've got infinite amount of time
1314. 01:01:45 to try again tomorrow or patch up that relationship
1315. 01:01:49 or build a new one.
1316. 01:01:51 You've got gobs and gobs at times.
1317. 01:01:52 So who cares how long it takes?
1318. 01:01:56 Whereas because we have an expiration date,
1319. 01:02:00 it means that you only have so much time
1320. 01:02:03 to take advantage of the relationships and the energy
1321. 01:02:09 that we have right now.
1322. 01:02:10 So as a result of that, whenever you have situations
1323. 01:02:13 when we inevitably botch it, as they say,
1324. 01:02:17 there are some things you need to do to either learn from
1325. 01:02:22 or recover from that situation.
1326. 01:02:26 And I'm with you.
1327. 01:02:28 Their definition of repentance doesn't really
1328. 01:02:32 mesh with me at all.
1329. 01:02:34 But I think some of that is we're coming from a background
1330. 01:02:38 where that's something that's talked about quite a bit.
1331. 01:02:41 That some of our angst with this is
1332. 01:02:42 like this is coming at it from a stance
1333. 01:02:44 that is attempting to cover a territory that we both live
1334. 01:02:49 and breathe a lot.
1335. 01:02:51 And yet they're not calling it out point blank
1336. 01:02:54 and they're trying to dance around it.
1337. 01:02:56 Maybe that's what's going on.
1338. 01:02:57 Martin in the chat thinks they're all Christian, according
1339. 01:03:00 to the Amazon plug.
1340. 01:03:02 Maybe that's true.
1341. 01:03:03 And maybe they're trying not to be point blank with it.
1342. 01:03:06 But I kind of wonder if there's some underlying stuff here
1343. 01:03:11 that would make this a lot more clear that's just not being
1344. 01:03:13 said.
1345. 01:03:14 But I have no way of knowing that.
1346. 01:03:17 Because I'm probably not going to get all three of them
1347. 01:03:19 in a room to ask them.
1348. 01:03:21 Well, let me just say that with any sort of community
1349. 01:03:28 that assembles around a shared belief system,
1350. 01:03:32 the natural tendency is going to be
1351. 01:03:36 to just accept certain things as true
1352. 01:03:40 because you have this either explicit or implicit
1353. 01:03:44 shared belief system.
1354. 01:03:46 And this is the way things are.
1355. 01:03:48 So we don't question those things when we're with
1356. 01:03:51 those groups.
1357. 01:03:53 And I think that it is absolutely valuable
1358. 01:03:57 to question everything.
1359. 01:04:01 And so I don't-- maybe what's happening here
1360. 01:04:04 is just being academics coming at this,
1361. 01:04:08 the same topic that we have these--
1362. 01:04:12 for lack of a better term, blind spots.
1363. 01:04:14 I don't really feel like they're blind spots
1364. 01:04:16 because I feel like I've considered them
1365. 01:04:17 and I've made my decisions about them
1366. 01:04:20 and I'm open to changing my mind about things.
1367. 01:04:24 But I haven't.
1368. 01:04:28 So I'm willing to entertain a different perspective.
1369. 01:04:33 And it could be just that they're
1370. 01:04:35 talking about things in terms that we're not used to hearing.
1371. 01:04:40 I don't really know.
1372. 01:04:44 I don't know.
1373. 01:04:44 I guess at this point, I'm willing
1374. 01:04:46 to give them the benefit of the doubt
1375. 01:04:49 with the stuff like defining repentance.
1376. 01:04:53 Because if you were to pull the people up my church,
1377. 01:04:57 I'm not sure how many of them would even
1378. 01:04:59 have a definition of the word repentance.
1379. 01:05:00 We all kind of understand what we think it means.
1380. 01:05:05 But it's one of those things that's foundational.
1381. 01:05:08 And because it's foundational, we never
1382. 01:05:11 go deep enough to consider it.
1383. 01:05:13 And that is the model that they introduced at the very beginning
1384. 01:05:15 is like, we're going to go all the way down.
1385. 01:05:17 And then we're going to come all the way back up.
1386. 01:05:21 So I think it's good that they're forcing us
1387. 01:05:24 to get outside of our comfort zone with some of this stuff,
1388. 01:05:28 even though it feels a little bit clunky to me in some places.
1389. 01:05:34 And I think that's to go with that thought there quick
1390. 01:05:38 before you move on.
1391. 01:05:40 I think that point right there is one that I mentioned
1392. 01:05:44 early on, either this is a brilliant thing
1393. 01:05:46 or I'm just not smart enough for it.
1394. 01:05:48 And there's a part of me that wonders
1395. 01:05:50 if it's the latter of those two, because there's a lot of it
1396. 01:05:52 that just like, why is this even here?
1397. 01:05:55 I don't understand this.
1398. 01:05:57 I want to leave room for the fact that I'm not
1399. 01:06:01 at a spot where my intelligence can handle that conversation.
1400. 01:06:05 And maybe I've got some growth to do before this hits me
1401. 01:06:09 like it should.
1402. 01:06:10 So I want to make sure I leave room for that,
1403. 01:06:13 because obviously I don't know everything.
1404. 01:06:16 Well, possible.
1405. 01:06:18 But I think the other thing that might be happening here
1406. 01:06:21 is that because they're trying to go deep, come back up,
1407. 01:06:27 and they're looking at so much material,
1408. 01:06:30 it's possible that in any given situation
1409. 01:06:33 there is a certain aspect of the material
1410. 01:06:38 or a certain type of question that really triggers--
1411. 01:06:43 maybe triggers is the wrong word,
1412. 01:06:44 but resonates with an individual based on their upbringing
1413. 01:06:51 and their experiences.
1414. 01:06:53 That's the question that unlocks the new perspective.
1415. 01:06:58 But it's hard to tell which one it is,
1416. 01:07:02 because we're not doing it the right way,
1417. 01:07:04 because we're just cranking through this book
1418. 01:07:07 in a couple of weeks.
1419. 01:07:08 So I think if you were to tackle this,
1420. 01:07:12 let's just assume each chapter is a week in the class.
1421. 01:07:16 Some weeks, you're like, eh, I didn't really care
1422. 01:07:20 for that class.
1423. 01:07:21 There might be some weeks though where it's like, oh, yeah,
1424. 01:07:23 that's the one.
1425. 01:07:24 That makes the whole semester worth it.
1426. 01:07:26 But we kind of missed that, I feel,
1427. 01:07:28 because of how fast we're going through this.
1428. 01:07:32 And I don't think--
1429. 01:07:33 Very well could be.
1430. 01:07:34 I don't think they are trying to find--
1431. 01:07:38 this is the one question that the average person should
1432. 01:07:42 be asking, although that would be an interesting perspective
1433. 01:07:46 for a book as well.
1434. 01:07:49 All right, let's go into the last part here.
1435. 01:07:52 Part 5 is back to the surface.
1436. 01:07:58 And this is where we're bringing this back around.
1437. 01:08:01 Chapter 13, it turns out we have some work to do.
1438. 01:08:03 Chapter 14 changes hard.
1439. 01:08:05 Chapter 15, making it stick.
1440. 01:08:08 I like this section a lot too.
1441. 01:08:10 So it seems like just the going down part was the--
1442. 01:08:13 It's just that bottom of the dip where
1443. 01:08:16 we're in that self-transcendant thing.
1444. 01:08:18 Yeah, yeah.
1445. 01:08:20 So the things that they call out here that I really like--
1446. 01:08:23 actually, there's something I like from each one
1447. 01:08:25 of these chapters.
1448. 01:08:27 The first one, they talk about how insights are one thing,
1449. 01:08:30 but action is another.
1450. 01:08:31 And they use the example of Thomas Jefferson writing the words,
1451. 01:08:34 all men are created equal while holding hundreds of slaves.
1452. 01:08:38 And I have heard that story used previously as an accusation.
1453. 01:08:46 And from where we are today, we could say rightfully so.
1454. 01:08:51 But I like the perspective that they have here,
1455. 01:08:53 because essentially what they're saying without saying it
1456. 01:08:59 is, no matter where you find yourself in the scope of time,
1457. 01:09:07 if you don't put wisdom into practice, it withers and dies.
1458. 01:09:10 So the question we need to be asking ourselves
1459. 01:09:13 is, am I doing the right thing with what I know or what
1460. 01:09:21 I believe?
1461. 01:09:22 Am I practicing?
1462. 01:09:24 And then the other thing that strikes me about this
1463. 01:09:27 is this was a small error in judgment.
1464. 01:09:31 Now you could say small wasn't small.
1465. 01:09:33 He impacted hundreds of people's lives.
1466. 01:09:36 That is true.
1467. 01:09:38 But it wouldn't have taken a whole big mindset shift,
1468. 01:09:42 I feel, for that to be a completely different story.
1469. 01:09:47 In fact, they share a different story about somebody else
1470. 01:09:50 and I didn't shut down the name, who actually did free
1471. 01:09:54 all of their slaves when they became aware that this is wrong.
1472. 01:09:58 And I would like to think that I would take the same approach.
1473. 01:10:02 If I was shown the error of my ways, I would change.
1474. 01:10:06 I don't think any of us know that until we're
1475. 01:10:07 put in that position.
1476. 01:10:09 But that's the goal here.
1477. 01:10:12 Chapter 14, to talk about how change is hard
1478. 01:10:16 and how you should design your world to nudge you
1479. 01:10:20 in the desired direction.
1480. 01:10:23 And that gets back to the book nudge that we actually covered.
1481. 01:10:27 I forget which episode that was a long time ago,
1482. 01:10:33 the one with the elephant on the cover.
1483. 01:10:35 Surprise.
1484. 01:10:35 You don't remember every book and every number.
1485. 01:10:38 I remember a shocking amount of them.
1486. 01:10:41 Because I do all the show notes.
1487. 01:10:43 I do.
1488. 01:10:44 I do all the show notes.
1489. 01:10:45 So I've got a raycast search that
1490. 01:10:50 finds the book titles on the site for me.
1491. 01:10:52 But there's some.
1492. 01:10:53 I don't even need the search.
1493. 01:10:54 I'm like, oh, yeah.
1494. 01:10:55 42, that's how to read a book.
1495. 01:10:59 When it's mentioned.
1496. 01:10:59 And at least every other, if not every third episode.
1497. 01:11:05 The other thing that is interesting in this chapter,
1498. 01:11:08 though, is that they say, art is how we express our truest selves.
1499. 01:11:12 And that is a small statement that could easily be overlooked,
1500. 01:11:17 except that I just got done writing a whole big email
1501. 01:11:21 course on the creativity flywheel.
1502. 01:11:24 And I was like, yes, absolutely.
1503. 01:11:27 Because I've been wrestling through how to communicate this
1504. 01:11:30 myself.
1505. 01:11:30 But I really believe with that creativity flywheel
1506. 01:11:32 that there has to be some sort of output.
1507. 01:11:34 And I get pushed back occasionally when I talk to people
1508. 01:11:36 about this because, oh, I'm just not creative.
1509. 01:11:38 I don't write anything for public consumption.
1510. 01:11:41 I'm not a podcaster.
1511. 01:11:42 I don't have a YouTube channel.
1512. 01:11:44 Doesn't matter.
1513. 01:11:45 I always argue you are creative.
1514. 01:11:46 You have to have some way of expressing yourself.
1515. 01:11:49 And so this was basically an admonition.
1516. 01:11:52 I felt like that we should all try to be artists.
1517. 01:11:55 And then chapter 15, they talk about the Ignatian Retreat.
1518. 01:12:00 And this was cool.
1519. 01:12:01 The Ignatian Retreat is 30 days, I believe.
1520. 01:12:06 And the bigger idea here is that spiritual awakening
1521. 01:12:10 is not a one time thing.
1522. 01:12:11 However, they talk about this examine, ex-amen.
1523. 01:12:15 I don't know if that's how you actually pronounce it.
1524. 01:12:17 But the goal of the examine is to notice God's presence
1525. 01:12:19 in the day to day.
1526. 01:12:20 And it's broken down into these different parts.
1527. 01:12:22 Gratitude, review, sorrow, forgiveness, and grace.
1528. 01:12:26 And this obviously has parallels to journaling.
1529. 01:12:30 But also, I would argue, if you extended a little bit further
1530. 01:12:35 somewhere between the 30 days and 15 minutes that this is,
1531. 01:12:38 you've got essentially the personal retreat that I am a huge fan of.
1532. 01:12:43 So I don't know.
1533. 01:12:44 I feel like we're on the same wavelength here as we wrap up this book.
1534. 01:12:49 Yeah, this is so obviously like we're getting back up
1535. 01:12:51 into the territory where we're talking about habits and actions,
1536. 01:12:55 which is a lot of the territory where we tend to gravitate.
1537. 01:12:59 And they start that off with like we've got work to do.
1538. 01:13:03 You've got to get, you know, just sitting around thinking about this
1539. 01:13:06 is not going to accomplish anything.
1540. 01:13:08 So you need to act on it.
1541. 01:13:11 I've got a thing on my home screen on my phone
1542. 01:13:15 that says words don't matter, deeds do.
1543. 01:13:18 That comes from a book we read, I don't know, five or six ago.
1544. 01:13:20 I don't remember what it was.
1545. 01:13:22 But I know that that phrasing stuck with me.
1546. 01:13:25 It's like words do matter.
1547. 01:13:26 Like obviously we read books and we think that they matter.
1548. 01:13:30 But that's not the intention behind that phrase.
1549. 01:13:33 It's purely that I can say a lot of things.
1550. 01:13:36 But unless I act on it, it doesn't really have much weight.
1551. 01:13:40 To me, like this last part tends to try to bring that to life.
1552. 01:13:43 And just saying like, you know, there are many, many things
1553. 01:13:46 that you can process mentally and that you can spend some time
1554. 01:13:51 in your, you know, thoughts trying to come up with the answers
1555. 01:13:54 of these questions.
1556. 01:13:56 But until you take the time to act on them,
1557. 01:14:02 it really doesn't come to fruit at all.
1558. 01:14:06 And I think that's where some of the creativity piece,
1559. 01:14:08 like they're offering options for how those actions could come about.
1560. 01:14:13 And I think it's great.
1561. 01:14:14 You know, I love to see, you know, when authors tell us
1562. 01:14:17 to be creative like that in those ways.
1563. 01:14:20 And I think to your point, it doesn't always have to mean like art per se.
1564. 01:14:26 People tend to say that, you know, being creative is art.
1565. 01:14:30 But art has it's a very loose term, I would say.
1566. 01:14:35 I think of art in a lot of different ways.
1567. 01:14:36 Like I obviously spend a lot of time behind a sound board.
1568. 01:14:39 That's like, if anything, that's the area where I spend a lot
1569. 01:14:42 of time developing art in music and taking the instruments
1570. 01:14:46 and the singers that I am given and their talents as well.
1571. 01:14:51 And then trying to put that all together into a cohesive song
1572. 01:14:53 and trying to bring the energy of that song out.
1573. 01:14:56 So that's my form of like creativity and artwork of sorts.
1574. 01:15:00 So I am 100% on board with this.
1575. 01:15:03 I like this part.
1576. 01:15:05 So I didn't get all confused elated on this one.
1577. 01:15:08 I understood it, I think.
1578. 01:15:10 Nice. All right.
1579. 01:15:13 And then the last part is the epilogue.
1580. 01:15:17 And this is titled What Matters Most.
1581. 01:15:21 It's basically an admonition to live a life worth living.
1582. 01:15:26 They talk about essentially paraphrasing,
1583. 01:15:30 but do what you can not to live a trivial life.
1584. 01:15:33 Your life is too valuable to be guided by anything less
1585. 01:15:36 than what matters most.
1586. 01:15:39 And page 283, there's a quote that I really liked.
1587. 01:15:43 What matters most will not clamor for your attention.
1588. 01:15:45 It's really loud.
1589. 01:15:47 It's almost never flashy.
1590. 01:15:48 It's easy to miss and it can be hard to hold on to.
1591. 01:15:51 So again, that is a big reason why I really
1592. 01:15:54 like the personal retreat idea.
1593. 01:15:58 Not going to go too deep into that, but I will share.
1594. 01:16:01 As we record this, I just recorded a YouTube video
1595. 01:16:05 on my last personal retreat.
1596. 01:16:07 I walked through the whole template that I use in Obsidian.
1597. 01:16:12 And you can actually download that for free.
1598. 01:16:14 So if you're interested in doing a personal retreat in Obsidian,
1599. 01:16:18 there'll be a link to that in the show notes.
1600. 01:16:20 And you should go check that out.
1601. 01:16:21 But a real effective way, I feel,
1602. 01:16:24 like to wrap all this up before we get into style and rating.
1603. 01:16:30 I guess I don't want to talk too much about the whole journey
1604. 01:16:35 that they attempted to bring us on.
1605. 01:16:37 But just in isolation with this epilogue,
1606. 01:16:40 I feel like it's an effective conclusion to the very long book.
1607. 01:16:45 Yeah, I think in the epilogue, the quote
1608. 01:16:48 that you mentioned, what matters most rarely
1609. 01:16:52 clamors for our attention.
1610. 01:16:53 That concept is one of the few quotes out of the book
1611. 01:16:57 I wrote down as well.
1612. 01:16:59 And I think it's a great place to end it,
1613. 01:17:01 because the things that we tend to put on a pedestal,
1614. 01:17:05 like this is the most important thing to me,
1615. 01:17:08 they're almost never the thing that are right in front of you
1616. 01:17:12 and that just naturally happen you don't have to work at.
1617. 01:17:16 That's not the case.
1618. 01:17:17 It's almost always the thing you have to sacrifice
1619. 01:17:20 and work your tail off for.
1620. 01:17:21 So it's not going to be the thing to saying, hey,
1621. 01:17:24 pay attention to me.
1622. 01:17:25 It's always going to be the thing that
1623. 01:17:27 wants to hide behind the corner.
1624. 01:17:29 And you have to seek it out.
1625. 01:17:31 Otherwise, it's not going to happen.
1626. 01:17:33 Yep.
1627. 01:17:34 All right, anything else before we get into action items?
1628. 01:17:38 It's a really long list of action items,
1629. 01:17:40 so we better get after it.
1630. 01:17:42 (laughs)
1631. 01:17:43 Well, I do have one that I was sort of on the fence about,
1632. 01:17:48 but I think I am going to pick up the workbook
1633. 01:17:56 that I saw on Amazon that goes along with this.
1634. 01:18:00 I don't know, maybe I don't need the actual workbook.
1635. 01:18:03 Maybe I just need to spend a little bit more time
1636. 01:18:05 with some of these exercises and action items,
1637. 01:18:09 but I'm not committing to giving it the whole effort
1638. 01:18:14 that they're asking for.
1639. 01:18:18 But I do think it's possible that there's a little bit more
1640. 01:18:23 to be mined here than we got in the two weeks
1641. 01:18:28 that we had to crank through the book.
1642. 01:18:31 So I intend to pick up the workbook
1643. 01:18:34 and kind of pick at this here and there
1644. 01:18:37 and consider some of these questions
1645. 01:18:39 and go through some of these exercises
1646. 01:18:41 when I have a little bit of extra time.
1647. 01:18:44 Obviously, a life theme is a thing for me.
1648. 01:18:47 And so as I shared before,
1649. 01:18:48 I feel like there's elements of this
1650. 01:18:49 that can give me some new perspective
1651. 01:18:52 and some new insights, some new dimensions
1652. 01:18:54 to some of the stuff that I'm already doing,
1653. 01:18:56 but that's also the trick is figuring out
1654. 01:18:59 how do I make this system or this process my own?
1655. 01:19:04 And I don't have anything specific
1656. 01:19:09 that I am looking to get from this.
1657. 01:19:11 It's quite possible.
1658. 01:19:12 I spend several hours going through some of these exercises
1659. 01:19:15 and I'm like, yeah, I like what I have already a lot better.
1660. 01:19:18 (laughs)
1661. 01:19:19 But I want to at least dig a little bit deeper.
1662. 01:19:23 - Yeah, I don't have any action items on this.
1663. 01:19:27 None.
1664. 01:19:28 Other than maybe think about it,
1665. 01:19:31 but I don't foresee that happening either.
1666. 01:19:33 So sorry, no action items on this one for me.
1667. 01:19:37 - That's all right.
1668. 01:19:39 Okay, style and rating.
1669. 01:19:42 This is gonna be tricky.
1670. 01:19:44 (laughs)
1671. 01:19:46 - Tricky or easy?
1672. 01:19:48 - Well, as already said,
1673. 01:19:50 we didn't do this the right way.
1674. 01:19:54 So giving this any sort of rating
1675. 01:19:59 based on our experiences kind of unfair,
1676. 01:20:02 but also this is the podcast at this point,
1677. 01:20:07 175 episodes in or 177 I guess, actually.
1678. 01:20:12 - Yep, that's getting ready to correct you.
1679. 01:20:16 - Yep.
1680. 01:20:17 - Yeah, this is what we do.
1681. 01:20:18 So from the Bookworm perspective,
1682. 01:20:23 I feel that cranking through this material
1683. 01:20:26 in a couple of weeks is good and beneficial,
1684. 01:20:30 but it's not gonna give you
1685. 01:20:33 what the authors intended to give you.
1686. 01:20:37 That's not necessarily a bad thing,
1687. 01:20:41 although the argument could be made it is
1688. 01:20:43 when they are three academics at Yale
1689. 01:20:46 trying to walk you through the material
1690. 01:20:49 that they teach in a semester long course.
1691. 01:20:52 (laughs)
1692. 01:20:54 I am glad that I read this.
1693. 01:20:56 I am thankful for the recommendation.
1694. 01:21:00 There are some things that I will continue
1695. 01:21:03 to noodle on from here.
1696. 01:21:05 The things that I did not like about this book
1697. 01:21:09 were number one, the approach where we start up high,
1698. 01:21:14 we go down and then we come back up,
1699. 01:21:16 which is a little bit surprising to me
1700. 01:21:18 because I feel like the way that that is framed
1701. 01:21:21 at the beginning that is somewhat of an effective way to do it.
1702. 01:21:26 However, having gone through this,
1703. 01:21:27 I think my approach would not be,
1704. 01:21:30 okay, start at the top and we're gonna go all the way
1705. 01:21:33 down to the bottom and then back up,
1706. 01:21:35 but it would be to shine a light on
1707. 01:21:39 what you are currently doing
1708. 01:21:42 and is that getting you the results
1709. 01:21:44 that you were hoping for?
1710. 01:21:46 So my version of something like this
1711. 01:21:49 probably would not have four layers.
1712. 01:21:53 It'd probably only have three.
1713. 01:21:55 And instead of starting out top and going down,
1714. 01:21:58 it would be sort of establishing a baseline
1715. 01:22:00 and then okay, let's build on top of that.
1716. 01:22:03 The whole like arc thing felt a little bit disorienting,
1717. 01:22:08 but that's just me.
1718. 01:22:09 Again, you've got a longer timeframe.
1719. 01:22:11 Maybe that works a lot better.
1720. 01:22:14 Some of the stuff in here,
1721. 01:22:17 I had a hard time reconciling.
1722. 01:22:21 We kind of talked about the recipe test
1723. 01:22:24 and the really big picture stuff
1724. 01:22:26 and all this stuff at the beginning,
1725. 01:22:28 I feel like unfairly, not unfairly,
1726. 01:22:33 but it definitely anchored me on a lower score
1727. 01:22:37 than it would have if we just started with part four.
1728. 01:22:44 If we did part four through the epilogue,
1729. 01:22:47 feels like a totally different experience to me.
1730. 01:22:52 So really this is a tale of two different journeys here,
1731. 01:22:57 one on the way down, one on the way back up.
1732. 01:23:00 I feel like the one on the way back up
1733. 01:23:02 felt a lot different.
1734. 01:23:05 Left me with a lot of great food for thought
1735. 01:23:10 but the stuff at the beginning,
1736. 01:23:13 like the whole first part of the book,
1737. 01:23:14 I was kind of like, where are we going?
1738. 01:23:16 I was looking for something to grab onto
1739. 01:23:18 some sort of reference point
1740. 01:23:21 and didn't really, really get it.
1741. 01:23:24 I am struggling with what to rate this.
1742. 01:23:29 Going back to the discussion on the obsidian properties,
1743. 01:23:34 I've been thinking about creating a property
1744. 01:23:38 for book ratings in obsidian.
1745. 01:23:42 However, there is no half-star
1746. 01:23:44 Unicode character that renders in obsidian.
1747. 01:23:48 So I am hearing David Sparks' voice in my head saying,
1748. 01:23:53 you guys gotta quit using these half-star ratings.
1749. 01:23:56 And so I think I'm gonna try to do that.
1750. 01:24:01 So that leaves me with three stars or four stars.
1751. 01:24:04 This is tough.
1752. 01:24:08 I think I'm gonna go with four stars
1753. 01:24:13 just because I don't think I've found very many books
1754. 01:24:18 that are willing to consider these questions.
1755. 01:24:22 And I think that there is a reason for that
1756. 01:24:24 because it is difficult to do.
1757. 01:24:26 And I can nitpick a lot of stuff
1758. 01:24:32 with especially the first half of this book
1759. 01:24:35 but my overall feeling at the end of it,
1760. 01:24:39 I think this is worthwhile.
1761. 01:24:42 I think I would recommend this book for a lot of people
1762. 01:24:46 till I write mine.
1763. 01:24:47 I don't know that I've got a better resource
1764. 01:24:51 to send people to.
1765. 01:24:52 - I'll recommend this one until I have mine done
1766. 01:24:56 and then I'm not gonna recommend it anymore
1767. 01:24:58 'cause then you should read mine.
1768. 01:25:00 - Well, I guess, you know, who is this for, right?
1769. 01:25:03 What is the problem this is trying to solve?
1770. 01:25:06 And it's really thinking about
1771. 01:25:09 what is the life that I want to live?
1772. 01:25:14 It's essentially the same sort of stuff
1773. 01:25:17 that I'm trying to help people wrestle through
1774. 01:25:20 with the life theme
1775. 01:25:22 and a totally different approach to doing it.
1776. 01:25:25 I don't have a book and I don't have a PhD
1777. 01:25:28 and I'm not teaching a college level class
1778. 01:25:31 but I guess the people that I have worked
1779. 01:25:36 through a life theme with,
1780. 01:25:38 if they were to come to me and be like,
1781. 01:25:40 you know what, I don't like your life theme.
1782. 01:25:42 Give me a book to read instead
1783. 01:25:43 'cause I really like your book recommendations.
1784. 01:25:46 I just don't like the way that you teach this thing.
1785. 01:25:50 I would recommend this.
1786. 01:25:51 I don't have a better resource.
1787. 01:25:53 - Sure.
1788. 01:25:54 - Maybe there is one out there.
1789. 01:25:56 I'll continue to look for it but haven't found it yet.
1790. 01:26:00 - Well, as far as your obsidian property thing goes,
1791. 01:26:03 you could use a scale of zero to 10 in obsidian
1792. 01:26:06 and then use your, like a nine would be a 4.5
1793. 01:26:10 and have it translate and using BVU.
1794. 01:26:12 You could do that.
1795. 01:26:14 I have no qualms with a half star.
1796. 01:26:17 I think your whole, like Max Sparky, like sure, great
1797. 01:26:21 but I'm perfectly happy with a half star.
1798. 01:26:24 I have no issues with that.
1799. 01:26:25 Like Amazon reports things in half stars.
1800. 01:26:28 It's gotta be okay.
1801. 01:26:29 - It's gotta be reports things
1802. 01:26:30 but when you rate something, what are your options?
1803. 01:26:34 One, two, three, four, five.
1804. 01:26:36 - Yep, it's true.
1805. 01:26:38 That is true.
1806. 01:26:39 I'm perfectly happy with I have star.
1807. 01:26:43 (laughing)
1808. 01:26:44 - Okay.
1809. 01:26:44 - Besides, we'd have all this retro stuff
1810. 01:26:49 we'd have to figure out what to do with.
1811. 01:26:50 I can't just script rewrite all of the episode.
1812. 01:26:54 - That's fair.
1813. 01:26:55 - And how we recorded it.
1814. 01:26:56 Okay, style and rating.
1815. 01:26:57 So style of this book,
1816. 01:26:59 I like the stories.
1817. 01:27:00 I like the idea of taking a story,
1818. 01:27:04 process it and then give me some questions
1819. 01:27:05 to process through it at the end.
1820. 01:27:08 I think if I had taken the time to go through
1821. 01:27:12 this entire book in the span of 15 weeks,
1822. 01:27:17 so I'm taking a chapter a week
1823. 01:27:19 and doing all of those probably gonna be something
1824. 01:27:23 that I get more out of
1825. 01:27:25 and I could probably understand it at a deeper level
1826. 01:27:28 but I could also say that for about any book we read.
1827. 01:27:32 So that's an obvious.
1828. 01:27:34 I am aware that we don't cover this.
1829. 01:27:38 We're not covering this book
1830. 01:27:39 in the way it's intended to be processed.
1831. 01:27:42 I do know at the beginning,
1832. 01:27:44 they do mention that you need to cut yourself some slack
1833. 01:27:48 and that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself.
1834. 01:27:50 So I'm aware that they start off with that.
1835. 01:27:53 So you haven't even got into the book
1836. 01:27:55 before they're already starting to tell you,
1837. 01:27:57 like it's okay to come up a little bit short
1838. 01:28:01 on some of the stuff.
1839. 01:28:02 So I'm aware of that.
1840. 01:28:03 So I'm grateful that they do offer that.
1841. 01:28:06 The dip thing where we're gonna start at the top,
1842. 01:28:10 go to the bottom, come back to the top.
1843. 01:28:12 I think I understand why they're doing that.
1844. 01:28:16 If you process it in the scheme
1845. 01:28:18 of we're gonna do this in 15 weeks,
1846. 01:28:21 which I don't know if that's how they do it or not.
1847. 01:28:22 This is how I am thinking about it
1848. 01:28:25 because if you're starting at the top
1849. 01:28:26 or you're talking about your actions and your habits,
1850. 01:28:30 and then we're gonna go down to the hard to process stuff
1851. 01:28:33 of the self-transcendant, very high level view of things.
1852. 01:28:37 And then we're gonna come all the way back to action.
1853. 01:28:40 If you do that over the span of 15 weeks,
1854. 01:28:42 it takes you from, here's where your starting point is.
1855. 01:28:45 Here's what you're currently doing.
1856. 01:28:47 Here's how we get all the way to the meaning of your life.
1857. 01:28:49 And then here's how you start acting on that meaning in life.
1858. 01:28:52 If you do that over that span of time,
1859. 01:28:54 like I could see how that would be a little more motivating
1860. 01:28:56 and could drive you to some actions.
1861. 01:28:58 When you do this in two weeks
1862. 01:28:59 and you're going from top to bottom to top
1863. 01:29:03 in the span of probably a few days,
1864. 01:29:05 it gets to be a little bit jarring.
1865. 01:29:07 So I wonder if there's a little bit of
1866. 01:29:09 the translation from a class into a book,
1867. 01:29:12 just didn't go well.
1868. 01:29:14 And the way that we are processing this book
1869. 01:29:17 has us reviewing it in a way that's unfair.
1870. 01:29:22 So I need to put that caveat on this.
1871. 01:29:25 That all said, the beginning and ending parts,
1872. 01:29:29 I feel like I understand well enough
1873. 01:29:32 and can resonate with,
1874. 01:29:34 there's some real weird stuff to me in the middle
1875. 01:29:36 and there's some parts of it
1876. 01:29:37 that kind of made me think you guys are weird and crazy.
1877. 01:29:40 Or I just don't understand.
1878. 01:29:43 And again, I'm leaving that as a caveat.
1879. 01:29:45 Since I don't have issues with half stars,
1880. 01:29:50 unlike Max Sparky and Mike,
1881. 01:29:53 I will rate it at the 3.5.
1882. 01:29:55 (laughs)
1883. 01:29:57 'Cause I don't think it's in that four territory
1884. 01:29:59 and I don't think it's quite as bad as a three.
1885. 01:30:02 So I am going to put it at 3.5.
1886. 01:30:04 Somebody ever figures out how to put us on to the zero scale.
1887. 01:30:08 I'll make that change, but I don't see that happening.
1888. 01:30:11 So 177 books deep and we're not on that yet.
1889. 01:30:15 So here we are.
1890. 01:30:18 Anyway, I'll do a 3.5.
1891. 01:30:20 - All right, let's shelf it.
1892. 01:30:23 What's next, Joe?
1893. 01:30:24 The next is another Bookworm Club recommendation.
1894. 01:30:28 This is The Good Life by Robert Waldinger and Mark Schmitz.
1895. 01:30:33 I think we talked about this a little bit last time.
1896. 01:30:34 Mark Schmitz is no relation, I'm assuming.
1897. 01:30:37 At least that you're aware of.
1898. 01:30:39 - Nope.
1899. 01:30:40 - Okay, just checking on it.
1900. 01:30:42 But this is probably gonna be in the same vein.
1901. 01:30:45 I have not actually picked it up to start reading it.
1902. 01:30:47 Like I have it at my house,
1903. 01:30:48 but I've not actually started reading it.
1904. 01:30:50 So I'm like, gonna guess it's gonna be
1905. 01:30:52 in the same territory as the one we just covered.
1906. 01:30:54 By the way, it's Mark Schulz, I believe, not Schmitz.
1907. 01:30:58 - What?
1908. 01:30:59 How did I get that wrong?
1909. 01:31:02 - Totally thought it was Schmitz.
1910. 01:31:03 Did I just think it was your name?
1911. 01:31:05 - Probably.
1912. 01:31:06 I mean, it still looks like a good book
1913. 01:31:10 and I'm glad you picked it, but.
1914. 01:31:12 - Schulz.
1915. 01:31:14 - Now I'm frustrated.
1916. 01:31:16 - I'm not personally invested in this one
1917. 01:31:18 like you thought I was.
1918. 01:31:20 (laughing)
1919. 01:31:22 - Well, my bad, Mark Schmitz apparently doesn't exist
1920. 01:31:26 in the scheme of what I thought.
1921. 01:31:27 Mark Schulz, that's what you said.
1922. 01:31:30 - Yeah, I'm sure Mark Schmitz is out there somewhere.
1923. 01:31:32 - I would assume so, yes.
1924. 01:31:34 My bad.
1925. 01:31:37 Anyway, what's after that one, Mike?
1926. 01:31:39 - Good question.
1927. 01:31:41 So I've been going back and forth between a couple of them,
1928. 01:31:44 but I think I'm gonna pick one
1929. 01:31:46 that I really want to exist in the Bookworm canon.
1930. 01:31:52 - Yeah.
1931. 01:31:53 - There is a book that is very popular
1932. 01:31:57 that we have never read
1933. 01:32:00 and it is called The Emith Revisited by Michael Gerber.
1934. 01:32:04 - Oh.
1935. 01:32:04 - And this I know is a businessy book.
1936. 01:32:07 So hopefully you're still interested in this one, but yeah.
1937. 01:32:12 I think it'll be a fun conversation
1938. 01:32:15 and it's gonna be one of those ones
1939. 01:32:17 that I'm adding links to the show notes
1940. 01:32:20 from for a long time to come.
1941. 01:32:22 This is one of those that's like polarizing, right?
1942. 01:32:25 I think this is one of those
1943. 01:32:26 that people either love or hate.
1944. 01:32:28 - Kinda, yeah.
1945. 01:32:30 - Didn't they cover this on Cortex at one point?
1946. 01:32:34 - They did, yep.
1947. 01:32:36 - Okay.
1948. 01:32:37 I'm like nervous about that one, no.
1949. 01:32:39 Okay, all right.
1950. 01:32:40 - Sorry.
1951. 01:32:42 - I mean, I'm with you in that we should definitely cover this.
1952. 01:32:45 That doesn't make me not nervous about it though.
1953. 01:32:47 - That's fair.
1954. 01:32:49 All right, you got any gap books?
1955. 01:32:51 - No, with the conference and everything going on
1956. 01:32:53 and all sorts of craziness, absolutely not.
1957. 01:32:58 I'm itching for our ministry season to start
1958. 01:33:00 that way I can get some time off.
1959. 01:33:02 (laughing)
1960. 01:33:04 - I actually do have one.
1961. 01:33:05 - Okay.
1962. 01:33:06 - So I am about 75% of the way through a book called
1963. 01:33:11 How to be miserable 40 strategies you already use
1964. 01:33:18 by Randy J. Patterson.
1965. 01:33:21 - Okay.
1966. 01:33:22 - This is kind of a parody of a self-help book.
1967. 01:33:27 It's broken down into four different parts
1968. 01:33:32 and each part has 20 different strategies.
1969. 01:33:35 And it's basically the inverse of everything
1970. 01:33:37 you've ever heard in the productivity world.
1971. 01:33:39 Like make sure you get enough sleep
1972. 01:33:41 and make sure you eat right.
1973. 01:33:43 So they're written as ways to be miserable, right?
1974. 01:33:46 And so it is kind of like satirical.
1975. 01:33:49 You can sleep when you're dead.
1976. 01:33:50 You know, you should stay up as long as possible.
1977. 01:33:53 Try to work as soon as you get up,
1978. 01:33:56 keep your phone by your bed
1979. 01:33:57 so you don't lose any time like that sort of thing.
1980. 01:33:59 It's quite humorous for people like me
1981. 01:34:02 who have been in this world for quite a while.
1982. 01:34:04 But there's probably people who would pick this up
1983. 01:34:06 and be like, "What? I don't get it."
1984. 01:34:08 I think you would find it pretty funny though.
1985. 01:34:11 - I wrote it down to buy it.
1986. 01:34:13 So that's immediately what I'm, yes.
1987. 01:34:17 As soon as I'm done here.
1988. 01:34:19 - I think it's any good.
1989. 01:34:20 Maybe we can talk about it for Bookworm.
1990. 01:34:23 - Have to do like an after dark episode.
1991. 01:34:26 - Yeah, exactly. It's like a satirical thing.
1992. 01:34:29 - I like it.
1993. 01:34:30 - All right.
1994. 01:34:31 So thank you to everyone who supports the show.
1995. 01:34:34 Thank you for listening.
1996. 01:34:35 Thank you if you have attended the live recording.
1997. 01:34:37 Thank you specifically if you are a Bookworm Club Premium member
1998. 01:34:40 and you support the show financially,
1999. 01:34:42 really means a lot to Joe and myself.
2000. 01:34:44 Helps us keep the lights on.
2001. 01:34:46 If you want to become a Bookworm Club Premium member,
2002. 01:34:49 you can go to bookworm.fm/membership,
2003. 01:34:51 five bucks a month, 50 bucks a year.
2004. 01:34:53 And that gets you an access to the Pro Feed,
2005. 01:34:58 which is the Ad-Free version.
2006. 01:34:59 Also a bootleg version, which Joe publishes
2007. 01:35:02 right after we wrap up.
2008. 01:35:04 So you get to hear all of the technical issues
2009. 01:35:07 we encounter, all of the stupid things we say
2010. 01:35:10 that Toby edits out in the main episode.
2011. 01:35:16 That's all in the bootleg.
2012. 01:35:18 And then I've got the Mind Map files
2013. 01:35:21 for all of the books that we have read.
2014. 01:35:24 Those are available in both PDF and Mind Node format
2015. 01:35:28 for Bookworm Club Premium members.
2016. 01:35:30 So again, if you want to support the show,
2017. 01:35:32 we would love to have you join us,
2018. 01:35:34 bookworm.fm/membership.
2019. 01:35:37 - One other side note about the bootleg.
2020. 01:35:38 You also get to hear like the pre and post conversations we have.
2021. 01:35:41 - That's true.
2022. 01:35:42 - On the episode, like I think today we were talking about
2023. 01:35:45 racing electric cars.
2024. 01:35:46 So like, yeah, anyway, all sorts of fun stuff.
2025. 01:35:49 So if you're one of these amazing people
2026. 01:35:50 that reads along with us,
2027. 01:35:52 pick up The Good Life by Robert Waldinger and Mark Schulz.
2028. 01:35:56 Not Schmitt's and we'll cover that with you
2029. 01:35:59 in a couple of weeks.