183: Build by Tony Fadell

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1. 00:00:00 I did some really fun soundboard stuff on Sunday, Mike.
2. 00:00:02 Yeah, what'd you do?
3. 00:00:04 It was it was a little, well, I shouldn't say a little.
4. 00:00:09 It's very like soundboard audio engineering-ish.
5. 00:00:13 So I'm not going to explain the details, but I just know that it was super fun
6. 00:00:16 for me to play with it.
7. 00:00:18 But it was one of those things that I don't think I would have gone through
8. 00:00:22 the depth and the detail in learning the tricks I was using on Sunday.
9. 00:00:28 Had it not been for this really cool cohort that you put together,
10. 00:00:31 this like life theme thing that you do, because I learned a lot about myself
11. 00:00:38 and how I really love doing like big audio events through the process of going
12. 00:00:44 through that life theme cohort and have kind of made that a big part of
13. 00:00:48 like some of my personal mission, but that's stuff that I didn't really know
14. 00:00:53 and didn't really know that I wanted to focus on until I went through your cohort.
15. 00:00:57 And you have another one of these coming up soon that I think people should join.
16. 00:01:01 So I'm doing some of your promo for you because I love this thing.
17. 00:01:04 I absolutely love it.
18. 00:01:05 And I know that there's going to be a lot of this.
19. 00:01:07 I'm not going to be able to join, but I'm definitely going to try to where I can.
20. 00:01:10 So yeah, tell us about this thing because this is an amazing thing that people
21. 00:01:14 I think people should join hands down.
22. 00:01:16 Awesome.
23. 00:01:17 Well, thank you for the kind words and we'll take you whatever sessions you can attend.
24. 00:01:24 There was somebody else who joined the first one and is coming back for the
25. 00:01:28 second one, but was disappointed they weren't going to be able to attend you
26. 00:01:31 there just a couple of sessions here and I said, that is no problem.
27. 00:01:34 It's essentially a six week cohort is the best word.
28. 00:01:39 If you don't know what a cohort is, it's basically like a group coaching
29. 00:01:42 sort of a curriculum where you go through the material together.
30. 00:01:46 And the reason this is so great for the life theme stuff is we're talking about
31. 00:01:51 a life theme, which is like a personal mission statement.
32. 00:01:54 But when you share that it's very vulnerable, but it's a very safe space and
33. 00:02:01 everyone is there for the same reason.
34. 00:02:02 So what ends up happening is you get people who are sharing things that feel
35. 00:02:07 very personal to them.
36. 00:02:09 And then when they get positive feedback from the group, it is kind of on one
37. 00:02:15 level verification, but also it is very inspiring.
38. 00:02:21 Like you hear other people sharing their life themes and the things that resonate
39. 00:02:25 with them and it inspires new ideas and vision basically for yourself.
40. 00:02:33 And I love this because you get done.
41. 00:02:36 You have your life theme, which is a one sentence personal mission statement.
42. 00:02:39 That brings motivation and clarity to everything that you do.
43. 00:02:42 So it's not the type of thing where you may be going into it thinking like,
44. 00:02:47 I'm going to get clarity and then I'm going to realize that my job sucks and I
45. 00:02:50 need to quit it and go do something else.
46. 00:02:52 I mean, I guess maybe that could happen.
47. 00:02:53 But more likely what will happen is that you'll just kind of crystallize and
48. 00:03:00 codify the reasons why you're doing the things that you're doing and it'll be
49. 00:03:04 more meaningful.
50. 00:03:04 So either way, like it's a very positive experience and nothing but good comes
51. 00:03:11 from that clarity because the truth is that we've got limited time here on
52. 00:03:16 planet Earth and I think everyone, regardless of your religious background,
53. 00:03:20 wants to make the most of the time that they have available to them.
54. 00:03:22 And this is the best way to do that.
55. 00:03:24 When you have the clarity that comes from a life theme, then it becomes easy to say
56. 00:03:30 noted the things that aren't really the right things because you have the
57. 00:03:33 clarity to realize that that really doesn't connect.
58. 00:03:35 And so it's six weeks.
59. 00:03:37 The first week is the kickoff call and we kind of talk about when are the moments
60. 00:03:42 when you really came alive and then we talk about dreaming big and identifying
61. 00:03:47 our core values and distilling that all down, painting a picture of the type of
62. 00:03:51 life that we want to live.
63. 00:03:52 And the six week we added that this time, last time we did five, but we did an
64. 00:03:57 impromptu six week where we kind of shared our life themes at the end.
65. 00:04:00 And that went really, really well.
66. 00:04:02 So we're making it six weeks this time kicks off Monday.
67. 00:04:06 So as you hear this, if you hear the day it comes out, there's only a couple
68. 00:04:10 days left to sign up for this, but you can go to faithbasedproductivity.com/lifetheme
69. 00:04:15 to get all of the details and to sign up.
70. 00:04:19 It's not just me.
71. 00:04:20 My wife Rachel does this with me.
72. 00:04:21 And some of the feedback that we got last time was we want to hear from Rachel
73. 00:04:25 more. So we're going to do it more 50/50.
74. 00:04:28 She's going to be more involved.
75. 00:04:29 And yeah, it's going to be awesome.
76. 00:04:32 We really enjoy doing this and looking forward to doing it again.
77. 00:04:37 We got a bunch of people signed up already.
78. 00:04:38 So we'll have a pretty good group.
79. 00:04:40 If you want to join us, then it is $197.
80. 00:04:44 There is a $50 or $50 coupon for Bookworm listeners.
81. 00:04:48 Here's a code book where I'm at checkout.
82. 00:04:50 And yeah, we'd love to have you join us.
83. 00:04:52 I will say that one of the things I absolutely loved about the way this is
84. 00:04:57 set up is that you're sharing like your values and your missions and like the
85. 00:05:02 things that made you come alive at different points in the community that
86. 00:05:07 comes along with this.
87. 00:05:09 And I was fascinated by one reading what other people would share about their own.
88. 00:05:15 Like these were the unique moments in my life, but also people would chime in and
89. 00:05:20 say, well, I noticed you had this theme across your events that you didn't point
90. 00:05:26 out.
91. 00:05:27 Have you ever thought about that?
92. 00:05:28 And I know that whenever people did that with some of the stuff I shared, it just
93. 00:05:32 kind of made me pause.
94. 00:05:34 Like I've never connected those dots before.
95. 00:05:37 So there is a little bit of like borderline group therapy of sorts that goes on with
96. 00:05:43 this.
97. 00:05:44 So I was absolutely fascinated with it.
98. 00:05:46 So it's one I absolutely can wholeheartedly recommend.
99. 00:05:49 So please take my cup on his discount and go join in on this.
100. 00:05:53 Awesome.
101. 00:05:55 Thank you.
102. 00:05:55 So we've got quite a bit of follow up here, Mike.
103. 00:05:58 You significantly more so than myself.
104. 00:06:01 Uh, we should start in on this.
105. 00:06:03 I guess I'll go first here because I got a couple of them.
106. 00:06:07 Uh, one that I know you were a little bit fascinated by was to evaluate my
107. 00:06:11 defaults with Becky, my wife.
108. 00:06:13 And, uh, we had a date night the night we had recorded this and kind of worked
109. 00:06:18 through, and this kind of followed into my other one, I didn't intend for those two
110. 00:06:23 to be almost like connected action items, but they ended up being that way.
111. 00:06:29 Uh, it was to create a list of personal rules for automating decisions.
112. 00:06:32 So those two, what happened was I was working through the process like, okay,
113. 00:06:36 what are my defaults?
114. 00:06:37 Like what happens when somebody brings me a project and says, hey, we should do this.
115. 00:06:42 Well, my gut reaction is, yeah, absolutely I'll help out wherever I can.
116. 00:06:47 And this is not a surprise for anybody who's listened to me for more than 2.3
117. 00:06:50 seconds.
118. 00:06:51 So I jump in very quickly.
119. 00:06:53 Uh, so that particular default being aware of that then led to the development
120. 00:06:59 of a rule for automating decisions.
121. 00:07:01 Uh, so that that's why I say they were a little bit connected.
122. 00:07:04 So working through that with her meant that I quickly came to the, it's either a
123. 00:07:10 no or a let me process this.
124. 00:07:13 It's not even a let me think about it.
125. 00:07:15 It's just a let me process this and having that simple reaction then means that I can
126. 00:07:22 put a little bit of distance between the decision being made and some processing
127. 00:07:28 time to determine if it's the right decision to be made.
128. 00:07:31 So it is very helpful in that.
129. 00:07:33 That's probably the biggest of them.
130. 00:07:35 There's a few other like very personal ones that I found out that I didn't realize
131. 00:07:38 I had that I worked through with her as well, but that's probably the biggest one.
132. 00:07:42 I think, uh, and it's one that I've like tried to do in the past, but I don't think
133. 00:07:47 I've ever attempted to pull that one off with Becky's support behind it.
134. 00:07:52 So there's a little bit of a, you know, spouse accountability with that, which
135. 00:07:57 puts a lot more weight behind it.
136. 00:08:00 So yeah, I'm kind of combining those into one at this point, just because I realized,
137. 00:08:05 huh, those are very connected without me realizing it.
138. 00:08:07 Cool.
139. 00:08:09 That was an interesting experiment to talk through that.
140. 00:08:12 Awesome.
141. 00:08:13 All right.
142. 00:08:14 You have, you have a list here at me.
143. 00:08:16 I do.
144. 00:08:17 Um, so the first one asked myself, will this make the future easier or harder?
145. 00:08:25 Um, I've started to ask this, but.
146. 00:08:30 Like this is one of those conceptual ones that is just kind of like another
147. 00:08:35 data point to consider when making decisions.
148. 00:08:37 And the last couple of weeks have actually been pretty busy for me.
149. 00:08:42 We were traveling to Tennessee from my son Toby's, uh, national soccer tournament.
150. 00:08:48 And then, uh, last week I was at a men's ministry conference in, in Dallas.
151. 00:08:52 So I haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to practice this yet, which
152. 00:08:57 almost feels like I haven't really done it, but I don't think that's accurate.
153. 00:09:02 I think it is kind of shaping my thinking about decisions that I, I've been making,
154. 00:09:08 but there just haven't been a whole lot of decisions to be made.
155. 00:09:10 Um, the other one is ask others.
156. 00:09:13 Is this the best that you can do?
157. 00:09:15 I was very specific with this.
158. 00:09:16 I want to start using this with my kids.
159. 00:09:17 And again, haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to emphasize this, but this
160. 00:09:22 is definitely sticking.
161. 00:09:23 And this is definitely one of those things that I want to instill in my kids is this
162. 00:09:30 whole spirit of excellence.
163. 00:09:33 So I'm pretty confident that this one is going to, uh, stick, even if it's not
164. 00:09:38 exactly worded that same way.
165. 00:09:41 Um, it's definitely, uh, definitely something that, that resonates with me.
166. 00:09:45 And I'm going to keep working with that.
167. 00:09:47 Now the building, my personal board of directors, I did this.
168. 00:09:52 Uh, I've got a few names.
169. 00:09:54 I don't have a bunch of names.
170. 00:09:55 Now what was interesting about this exercise was that you could, he says you
171. 00:09:58 could pick people who are living or, uh, deceased.
172. 00:10:01 And I think a lot of the people on here are deceased, maybe half and half.
173. 00:10:06 Um, and I did not, uh, add these people with the specific like director of habits
174. 00:10:13 for James Clear, whatever, because that's kind of what I was thinking I was
175. 00:10:18 going to do before we read today's book.
176. 00:10:21 And there's a whole section in here about boards and it felt, I don't know, my,
177. 00:10:26 my picture of what a board was and the titles that go along with it kind of
178. 00:10:29 changed, I feel like.
179. 00:10:30 So, um, I grabbed a list of six people, which I think I'll add to this over time,
180. 00:10:36 but these are the six that really stuck with me.
181. 00:10:39 And I didn't say this is why, like the, the reason I'm putting this, this
182. 00:10:42 person here, now you may be able to identify that with, uh, that some of these
183. 00:10:47 names, but I'll just read the names.
184. 00:10:49 So first one is John Maxwell, he's leadership guy.
185. 00:10:53 And we've read, uh, the 21 laws of leadership.
186. 00:10:57 And, uh, I've read a lot of John Maxwell books.
187. 00:11:00 I just really like his style.
188. 00:11:02 It's been very impactful.
189. 00:11:03 So, um, he's somebody that I would love to have on my board of directors.
190. 00:11:09 Uh, the next one is Jim Rohn, who he has passed away, but of all the self-help
191. 00:11:14 business type stuff that I have read, all the advice that I have heard.
192. 00:11:18 I like his tone the best.
193. 00:11:20 It resonates the most.
194. 00:11:22 It feels the most authentic.
195. 00:11:24 I feel like there's a current generation of people in the space that take it too
196. 00:11:29 far, like Tony Robbins was his protege.
197. 00:11:32 And I feel like there's some stuff that I don't know Tony Robbins, uh, specifically.
198. 00:11:38 So I just know that his, his tone is a little over the top for me, but Jim
199. 00:11:43 Rohn feels like a good, good balance.
200. 00:11:46 Uh, there is, uh, someone who is kind of a famous historical Christian
201. 00:11:52 author called Ian Bownes is kind of like the prayer guy.
202. 00:11:55 So he's on there.
203. 00:11:57 Dale Carnegie is on there.
204. 00:11:58 He's kind of like a master communicator.
205. 00:12:00 Uh, I would love to have someone who can help me develop my communication skills.
206. 00:12:05 There's a guy Ed Cole, the men's ministry conference that I was just at is
207. 00:12:09 actually associated with him.
208. 00:12:10 It's called Christian men's network.
209. 00:12:12 And he's passed away.
210. 00:12:13 His son Paul is running it now, but he wrote this series of, of books, this
211. 00:12:17 men's curriculum that, um, people have basically, uh, he's kind of the father
212. 00:12:23 of the men's ministry movement.
213. 00:12:24 The promers keeper's guy was like a disciple of his and a bunch of famous
214. 00:12:28 people, you know, on the back book cover, like Reggie White and Chuck Norris, Ted
215. 00:12:32 Dibiasi, you know, like Ed Cole's ministry changed my life sort of a thing.
216. 00:12:37 So his books are very direct.
217. 00:12:39 Uh, there's a lot of, a lot of good wisdom, I feel in those.
218. 00:12:43 And then related to that, Mike Murdoch is another one.
219. 00:12:45 He's kind of the wisdom guy.
220. 00:12:46 Uh, so that's my board of directors and it's still a work in progress, but
221. 00:12:52 this was a really cool exercise to do.
222. 00:12:54 It sounds fascinating.
223. 00:12:57 Like that, that process of like choosing, and especially when you're like
224. 00:13:02 trying to limit it to a few people, like if you're not, you're not willing to
225. 00:13:05 say this is 30 people deep, like when you're trying to get like a core, small
226. 00:13:10 group of people, this is a challenge.
227. 00:13:13 Exactly.
228. 00:13:14 Yeah.
229. 00:13:15 Um, and then the other ones that I've got here, uh, create a list of personal
230. 00:13:22 rules for automating decisions.
231. 00:13:23 I have not finished this.
232. 00:13:26 Uh, I am thinking about this.
233. 00:13:28 There was actually a, uh, do you listen to the Cal Newport podcast at all?
234. 00:13:34 I binge listened to it on occasion.
235. 00:13:37 I'm a little bit behind on it right now, but I have like caught up with it up
236. 00:13:41 until maybe about three months ago.
237. 00:13:43 So I'm probably due for a Cal binge.
238. 00:13:46 Yeah.
239. 00:13:47 So I, I tend to be wary of podcasts like this, especially ones that are
240. 00:13:53 podcasts and video, but cows, I really like.
241. 00:13:59 And, um, he talked a little bit in there in a recent episode about having like,
242. 00:14:07 I forget how he worded it.
243. 00:14:09 I haven't written down in, in draft somewhere, but it's basically like the,
244. 00:14:14 the systems that you have for how you run your life.
245. 00:14:19 So you've got a master document and in there, there's a link to task management.
246. 00:14:24 And these are the systems that you follow for task management.
247. 00:14:27 And this is the, the way that you do your morning routines and basically
248. 00:14:31 documenting like all of the individual systems in your life.
249. 00:14:35 And I feel like that's a really cool idea and I intend to, to build that out over
250. 00:14:40 time.
251. 00:14:40 I just have like a really rough bare bones version of it, just kind of like
252. 00:14:43 placeholders at the moment.
253. 00:14:45 But I feel like that is more beneficial than creating just this list of rules.
254. 00:14:51 It's basically the same thing, but they're categorized and they're associated
255. 00:14:54 with the appropriate systems.
256. 00:14:56 So that's what that's going to look like and kind of started it, but got a lot
257. 00:14:59 more work to do.
258. 00:15:00 And then started a decision journal where I write what I was thinking, um, I
259. 00:15:04 have this kind of built into my daily notes template, but I haven't really had
260. 00:15:11 a chance to use this yet.
261. 00:15:13 Again, been traveling and so just trying to keep my head above water with, uh, the
262. 00:15:18 the stuff that I have to do, like getting the YouTube videos out and sending the
263. 00:15:22 newsletters, recording the podcast, things like that.
264. 00:15:24 Haven't been able to think strategically and really make important decisions.
265. 00:15:30 Um, but that should be, be changing here in a, in a couple of weeks.
266. 00:15:34 And so, uh, I think that I'm going to just continue to document these where I have
267. 00:15:39 these and not put pressure on myself to have one every week or anything like that.
268. 00:15:43 And just see, uh, by the time I do my next personal retreat, you know, maybe I've
269. 00:15:47 got a couple of these, maybe I've got a dozen of them and just think through the
270. 00:15:51 decisions that I, I made and document what I was, was thinking there.
271. 00:15:54 So I have the space for it, but haven't practiced it yet.
272. 00:15:57 Fair enough.
273. 00:15:59 Yeah, I know that, uh, Cal has, I forget what he calls it, but he tends to use
274. 00:16:05 like some of the business, so he terms like standard operating procedures and my
275. 00:16:09 core principles, like he uses some of those terms for his, like core documents
276. 00:16:14 that he uses to guide decisions and what he does every day and missions and such.
277. 00:16:19 So like I know he does use those quite a bit for it.
278. 00:16:23 And I think if I'm not wrong, he literally does this in like Microsoft word.
279. 00:16:29 Like this is just word docs, I think.
280. 00:16:31 Mm.
281. 00:16:32 Maybe it's not word docs, but it's just like, it's probably honestly, it's
282. 00:16:35 probably to plain text files.
283. 00:16:36 Like it's just very basic.
284. 00:16:38 I think it is plain text.
285. 00:16:40 Yeah.
286. 00:16:40 It's not anything fancy whatsoever.
287. 00:16:44 So it's not like he's, you know, drawing arrows and putting big, you know,
288. 00:16:50 colored fonts and styled fonts.
289. 00:16:52 It's just basic text is all it is.
290. 00:16:55 Yep.
291. 00:16:56 Exactly.
292. 00:16:56 Yeah, it's kind of his thing is you don't need the fancy tools for this.
293. 00:17:00 You just got to think about the right things.
294. 00:17:02 I'm very much looking forward to his next book, Slow Productivity.
295. 00:17:06 I feel like that's going to be perfect for for a bookworm.
296. 00:17:09 I've got it pre-ordered.
297. 00:17:10 I think it comes out in March or something, but.
298. 00:17:12 OK.
299. 00:17:13 Yeah.
300. 00:17:13 I knew that it was like almost done.
301. 00:17:16 Maybe it is done done now, but it's, yeah, it's pending.
302. 00:17:21 Very close.
303. 00:17:22 Oh, one other thing that is pretty cool.
304. 00:17:25 That happened.
305. 00:17:26 I'm not sure if you're on Twitter or X much these days, but Shane
306. 00:17:32 Paris was on to the last episode.
307. 00:17:34 Really?
308. 00:17:36 Yeah.
309. 00:17:36 He applied and he made a comment about the aligning the charts.
310. 00:17:44 He addressed the two comments that we made, you know, OK, so I think yours was
311. 00:17:48 aligning the charts and mine was the chapter numbering.
312. 00:17:51 Yep.
313. 00:17:52 Yep.
314. 00:17:53 So that was.
315. 00:17:54 Maybe maybe he just ran it through chat GPT.
316. 00:17:56 I don't know, but I choose to think that Shane Paris listens to bookworm.
317. 00:17:59 So thanks, Shane.
318. 00:18:00 That's really cool.
319. 00:18:03 All right.
320. 00:18:05 Well, let's jump into today's book because I feel like there's a lot to cover here.
321. 00:18:08 And hopefully we can cover it concisely, but today's book is billed by Tony Fadel.
322. 00:18:15 And the subtitle on this, an unorthodox guide to making things worth making.
323. 00:18:22 And on the onset, I picked this a lot because I picked this primarily because
324. 00:18:27 I knew that like you're in the middle building like your own business.
325. 00:18:32 I'm in the middle of like building some of my own mission of sorts.
326. 00:18:37 And I don't really have an interest in like building a product per se.
327. 00:18:43 But Tony Fadel is the guy that you probably want to listen to if you are
328. 00:18:48 going to attempt to build a product just because of the street cred that he has
329. 00:18:53 from his experience, which is building some fairly well known products
330. 00:19:03 and leading the teams behind.
331. 00:19:05 Have you ever heard of the iPod or the iPhone or the Nest thermostats?
332. 00:19:10 If you've ever heard of these products, Tony Fadel is somebody that you.
333. 00:19:14 Oh, those two.
334. 00:19:18 Like you owe a lot to him for those products.
335. 00:19:20 And so so hearing his story here, which there's a lot of in this book
336. 00:19:26 and seeing what his process was like for making those come about and what he
337. 00:19:31 learned in the process is super interesting.
338. 00:19:34 I think I got a lot more detail into that process in this book than I was expecting.
339. 00:19:39 But I think that's OK.
340. 00:19:42 What were your initial thoughts on it, Mike?
341. 00:19:44 My initial thoughts were you, jerk, you picked a 400 page book during two weeks
342. 00:19:50 that happened to be out of town.
343. 00:19:52 I did.
344. 00:19:53 I did not know this.
345. 00:19:55 And I see this is this and you were listening to me pick a book before we started
346. 00:20:00 recording. It's like it is not like length of book is not something I look at
347. 00:20:04 whenever I'm choosing these books.
348. 00:20:07 But yes, first first choice back after coming back to the podcast and I throw
349. 00:20:12 this 400 page monster at Mike when he's going to be gone.
350. 00:20:15 I think I've done that to you before, too.
351. 00:20:17 So it all evens up.
352. 00:20:19 I was interested in the book, but I expected it to be very startup heavy.
353. 00:20:26 And there is obviously a lot of elements of that.
354. 00:20:31 But I don't think it's quite as specific as I was thinking when I first picked it up.
355. 00:20:40 I mean, honestly, I thought that there was not going to be a lot for you and I
356. 00:20:47 to glean from this because of the very specific startup experience that he has
357. 00:20:54 had with the products that you mentioned.
358. 00:20:56 But I feel, I don't know, I mean, trying to get right to style and rating, I guess.
359. 00:21:03 But I feel like it was a lot more approachable and a lot more generalizable than
360. 00:21:08 I anticipated at first.
361. 00:21:10 And it's very fascinating.
362. 00:21:12 It's huge.
363. 00:21:13 Just broken down into several different sections, which are neatly organized, I feel.
364. 00:21:17 And there's a lot of really cool details that he adds here.
365. 00:21:22 He also does a pretty amazing job of not going too deep on a lot of the stories,
366. 00:21:29 which is another thing that I was anticipating is like, okay, we're going to
367. 00:21:32 hear behind the scenes all the details of some specific events.
368. 00:21:37 And he does give you some of that stuff, but it was very, very, I don't know.
369. 00:21:44 I felt more like a general business productivity type book than I had anticipated.
370. 00:21:51 And I feel like that was a pleasant surprise.
371. 00:21:53 Yeah, I would agree with that because there was a lot of potential for like
372. 00:21:59 dragging these stories out and giving us gobs of detail.
373. 00:22:02 It was unnecessary, which honestly was a little bit of a concern when I started
374. 00:22:06 getting into the introduction to kind of keep moving here.
375. 00:22:08 But when I got into the introduction and he started to give us some of his
376. 00:22:12 background and his story, which he lays out in that introduction.
377. 00:22:16 There's like a whole timeline for his career and his work journey all the way
378. 00:22:23 up till now.
379. 00:22:24 And I'll summarize that here briefly.
380. 00:22:26 But because he had all of that, it's very easy to see that this could be almost
381. 00:22:33 a memoir where it's showing us his entire journey.
382. 00:22:36 And he's just going to tell us his story.
383. 00:22:38 And he does do that, but that's like mixed in amongst the lessons.
384. 00:22:43 He starts off more story heavy and ends less story heavy.
385. 00:22:48 I don't know if you caught that or not, but like part one, again, we'll get to that.
386. 00:22:52 He's telling a lot more of his story to show how unconventional it is.
387. 00:22:56 And then by the time he's done, it's more, okay, here's how this works and this,
388. 00:23:02 how like he's generalizing a lot more at that point.
389. 00:23:05 So it seems like as the book goes on, he's less and less on his, his background.
390. 00:23:11 I kind of appreciated that, honestly.
391. 00:23:13 It was kind of a cool, cool way to do it.
392. 00:23:17 His, his story to kind of give you a very brief overview, he, he got started
393. 00:23:26 selling eggs in third grade.
394. 00:23:28 Like that, that was kind of his very beginning into the entrepreneur world.
395. 00:23:33 He got into programming.
396. 00:23:34 And when he was in middle school, he fell in love with some of the Apple products
397. 00:23:40 early on, he got into building some software and such.
398. 00:23:44 But anyway, he, he joined a company called General Magic, where he was learning
399. 00:23:50 to build hardware there, ended up being a lead software and hardware engineer.
400. 00:23:56 And that company and their product failed.
401. 00:23:59 He went to work for Phillips.
402. 00:24:01 Uh, they had a success but couldn't sell enough.
403. 00:24:06 So then that failed.
404. 00:24:08 Uh, he went for a work for a company called Real Networks, making a digital
405. 00:24:13 music player, uh, that did not pan out.
406. 00:24:16 He started to try to make his own.
407. 00:24:19 That didn't last for long.
408. 00:24:20 And then he ended up at Apple and, uh, that was when he had his first like
409. 00:24:24 critical success as he calls it, making the iPod, he then stepped into the iPhone,
410. 00:24:30 realized he was spending too much time at work, decided to step away.
411. 00:24:34 And then he started Nest Labs, where they started the Nest thermostat.
412. 00:24:38 That grew up until the point it was sold to, uh, Google where he quits.
413. 00:24:44 And then after that, he started a group called Build Collective, where he now
414. 00:24:49 advises and invests, uh, in other startups full time.
415. 00:24:53 So it's been quite a journey for him.
416. 00:24:56 And I think we'll get into some more of that detail as we get into it.
417. 00:25:00 But, uh, it, it, to me, it sounds very much like the standard, you know, tech
418. 00:25:06 person in Silicon Valley, this didn't work.
419. 00:25:09 That did work.
420. 00:25:10 And here's who I am.
421. 00:25:13 Like I feel like that's been his journey.
422. 00:25:15 Yeah, which is kind of terrifying to me.
423. 00:25:20 Uh, I don't know.
424. 00:25:22 Maybe my situation isn't all that different.
425. 00:25:24 I left a stable job to start my own thing, but I don't know, like some of the
426. 00:25:30 stories he tells, I'm just like, that's crazy.
427. 00:25:34 Um, so at the beginning here, I guess, as it pertains to what I think of this
428. 00:25:41 book, I feel like it makes it a little bit hard to relate to him.
429. 00:25:45 Uh, it's also kind of interesting though.
430. 00:25:47 I, I like that he added it here.
431. 00:25:49 And I also like that it doesn't dominate the rest of the book.
432. 00:25:52 Um, what this does is it does show his biases.
433. 00:25:57 And there are a couple of things that he talks about later on in the book when
434. 00:26:01 he's talking about the company structure and values and stuff like that, where
435. 00:26:05 I've got a little bit of a different perspective than, than he does.
436. 00:26:10 Um, but I can see how he arrives at the conclusions that he arrives at because
437. 00:26:16 he shares this in the beginning.
438. 00:26:18 So if we jump into part one, which by the way, did you notice the chapter numbering?
439. 00:26:23 I did.
440. 00:26:25 Yep.
441. 00:26:26 Very much like a clear thinking.
442. 00:26:30 So this chain, you're probably not wrong.
443. 00:26:32 So this follows the exact same process.
444. 00:26:38 We have chapter one point one, one point two, one point three, one point four that
445. 00:26:43 are all in part one, uh, and part two follows two, one, two, two, two, three, two,
446. 00:26:48 four, so on and so forth for the six parts and then a conclusion at the end.
447. 00:26:54 So part one is build yourself.
448. 00:26:58 These are all going to have a build theme and till we get to the last one anyway.
449. 00:27:02 So build yourself.
450. 00:27:04 And this is where, you know, he's, he's telling some of the story of his
451. 00:27:10 background first.
452. 00:27:11 And that's where I was saying, like he starts very story heavy at the beginning.
453. 00:27:15 So he's telling us the story of how he essentially got to where he was working
454. 00:27:21 on hardware in the tech sector and how it just doesn't work.
455. 00:27:26 Like it, he just has a whole bunch of failures and then he's like, thought he
456. 00:27:30 was on the right path, but he was not the wrong level, wasn't thinking about it
457. 00:27:34 holistically.
458. 00:27:34 And it ultimately would fail and he would move on to the next place.
459. 00:27:40 And that was where he was learning how to be an adult effectively.
460. 00:27:45 That's where like the chapter titles here, adulthood, get a job, heroes, don't
461. 00:27:49 only look down, uh, but he talks about getting a job.
462. 00:27:53 He's moving from job to job and then is ended up, ended up working with and
463. 00:27:57 for some people that he really saw as his heroes.
464. 00:28:00 Uh, but it, it is really just his story of those first few companies that he was
465. 00:28:04 a part of.
466. 00:28:06 There's obviously some more stuff mixed in.
467. 00:28:08 One of the things that I absolutely love.
468. 00:28:10 So this is like the book part itself, right?
469. 00:28:12 So he's jumping in, in part one.
470. 00:28:15 And the very first line of the book is I tried to build the iPhone twice.
471. 00:28:19 That's, that's a really for a business book.
472. 00:28:22 That's a really great hook at the beginning of this.
473. 00:28:25 So it's pretty stellar.
474. 00:28:26 But yeah, I like the way he started this with just kind of giving us his
475. 00:28:29 background because it builds like some of the credibility that you need to trust
476. 00:28:33 him once you get into these later parts.
477. 00:28:35 Yeah.
478. 00:28:37 And this is kind of where already my assumptions about this book are being
479. 00:28:42 challenged, like the heroes part specifically.
480. 00:28:45 I really liked that section.
481. 00:28:48 And he says that any job working with your heroes is a good job.
482. 00:28:53 And obviously that is very much in line with the whole startup world, but he shares
483. 00:28:58 some advice here that I feel like is applicable to just about anybody anywhere.
484. 00:29:04 Like one of the things that he mentions in that chapter specifically is to follow
485. 00:29:11 your heroes and contribute something smart.
486. 00:29:13 And he didn't specifically say it this way, but if he were to have like written
487. 00:29:18 a prescription for how Mike Schmitt's should apply this, it would be follow
488. 00:29:23 people that you look up to on social media and then join the conversation and
489. 00:29:29 add value where appropriate and that'll open up opportunities to work with them,
490. 00:29:32 which has basically been my life story.
491. 00:29:34 So I could definitely see how that could be applied to my situation.
492. 00:29:41 And it's one of those things that isn't blatantly obvious.
493. 00:29:46 I feel like we're getting into some of the deep stuff here and it's only the first
494. 00:29:50 section. And the whole like title for this section of build yourself,
495. 00:29:55 obviously that kind of resonates.
496. 00:29:57 We're very much invested in personal development, self development,
497. 00:30:05 whatever, just like taking responsibility for your situation and not just hoping
498. 00:30:08 that someday at some point the skies are going to open and you're going to find
499. 00:30:13 yourself in a good situation.
500. 00:30:14 You got to develop your skills.
501. 00:30:15 You got to have an eye towards excellence.
502. 00:30:18 You got to have resilience to stick with it when other people are going to quit.
503. 00:30:22 And so that's kind of what he's talking about here, but it's a different
504. 00:30:29 perspective than pretty much every other book in this space that we have read so
505. 00:30:35 far and I liked it.
506. 00:30:36 Yeah, I like this whole section around basically learning how to be
507. 00:30:44 an employee of sorts because he ends this with the last chapter of it is don't only
508. 00:30:50 look down.
509. 00:30:51 And what he means by that is just it's very easy when you're heads down on a
510. 00:30:56 project to just focus on your one little piece that you're a part of.
511. 00:30:59 Instead of like looking up to see how your work fits into the broader picture
512. 00:31:06 that your company or your team is working on.
513. 00:31:09 That's what he's getting at here.
514. 00:31:11 And that's that's a very big lesson I know for a lot of people, including myself,
515. 00:31:15 where it's easy to get focused on your thing.
516. 00:31:19 But if your thing doesn't fit the broader narrative of what the company is
517. 00:31:26 trying to do, that project, whatever you're working on is likely to be cut.
518. 00:31:31 I love the story they were talking about like this dancing lemon, uh, Jeff that
519. 00:31:38 I spent a lot of time working on for their product and they mentioned he
520. 00:31:43 mentioned it to or he was in a conversation with an upper management
521. 00:31:46 person.
522. 00:31:47 I forget the details around this one, but she effectively said, yeah, that's
523. 00:31:52 really cool.
524. 00:31:52 But what are we going to sell?
525. 00:31:54 Like that's cool.
526. 00:31:56 It's a fun little toy, but people aren't going to buy our expensive product
527. 00:32:01 for a dancing lemon like that.
528. 00:32:03 That doesn't make sense.
529. 00:32:04 Oh, how are we actually going to sell this?
530. 00:32:07 I just made this connection.
531. 00:32:09 I think that dancing lemon is on the inside cover of the book.
532. 00:32:12 Do you have your book with you?
533. 00:32:13 Yes.
534. 00:32:14 Yeah, it is.
535. 00:32:15 Absolutely is.
536. 00:32:17 It's, let's see if I can get this to where you can see it.
537. 00:32:20 I don't, I know we don't have the video, but yes.
538. 00:32:22 Yeah.
539. 00:32:22 Absolutely.
540. 00:32:24 There it is dancing lemon.
541. 00:32:25 Do fail learn is mixed in and amongst this dancing lemon.
542. 00:32:28 Yes.
543. 00:32:29 But I think that was like his big, his big turning point, right?
544. 00:32:35 Where he realized, hey, it's a lot of work to like in a lot of technical.
545. 00:32:40 Difficulties behind making this GIF work, at least at the time, I forget the
546. 00:32:46 exact time period, maybe the eighties where he was trying to get this to work.
547. 00:32:52 So the technology just wasn't there for this type of thing.
548. 00:32:56 So they were making it, which is awesome.
549. 00:32:58 Like it's groundbreaking, right?
550. 00:32:59 But you're, you're not going to sell products with this fancy little, you know,
551. 00:33:04 do hickey that doesn't really accomplish or solve a problem.
552. 00:33:08 And that's what this upper management person was trying to get across.
553. 00:33:11 Like that's really cool, but we had a, we had to sell a product.
554. 00:33:14 Like marketing and sales is going to really struggle with this fun thing that you
555. 00:33:18 guys spent, how many weeks trying to make when you could have been solving these
556. 00:33:21 other problems that were still under the gun on.
557. 00:33:23 And that, that type of.
558. 00:33:26 Miss direction, if you will, for where they were spending their time and their
559. 00:33:32 energy is a big part of why that group did not succeed.
560. 00:33:35 They were focused on the wrong things.
561. 00:33:37 Yep.
562. 00:33:38 Which, I mean, just in that one story, there's a whole bunch of lessons to be
563. 00:33:44 gleaned there.
564. 00:33:44 I'm not sure if these are obvious to other people or just, that's where I went
565. 00:33:49 because of all the business books that I've read.
566. 00:33:52 But I immediately was thinking about the different teams and organizations that
567. 00:33:58 I've worked with over the years where they've done the exact same thing.
568. 00:34:02 They've, they've found something to do, but it wasn't the most important thing
569. 00:34:08 for the business.
570. 00:34:09 And that was literally my job as an integrator was to kind of get people to
571. 00:34:13 focus on the most important thing for the business.
572. 00:34:15 Give everybody a number and like, that's what you are tracking.
573. 00:34:19 That's what you are building against.
574. 00:34:21 And so it was really obvious to me, like that conversation obviously never
575. 00:34:24 happened at that point anyways with the team that he was a part of.
576. 00:34:30 And I don't know, I just really like those, those stories, those examples, not
577. 00:34:35 that I'm like looking at it and, Oh, look at all the mistakes that that they
578. 00:34:39 made, but I just feel like those stories make the principles that I like to read
579. 00:34:45 about in these business books feel more human and more real.
580. 00:34:50 It when you hear about other ways that people are encountering the stuff
581. 00:34:54 and the challenges that they're, they're facing, it makes you feel better
582. 00:35:00 about going through it yourself, I guess.
583. 00:35:02 Cause it's like, Oh, I'm not alone.
584. 00:35:04 Other people are dealing with the same thing.
585. 00:35:06 I think that that particular turning point, like when he had that revelation,
586. 00:35:13 that's like the perfect, like, and again, he's really good with segues on this too.
587. 00:35:17 So he steps into part two after that part or after that section in that chapter,
588. 00:35:23 which is build your career.
589. 00:35:25 And I had a little bit of trouble at first connecting his chapters to why, why
590. 00:35:35 he's talking about building your career, because he's talking about things
591. 00:35:38 like management and when to quit dealing with difficult people, using data versus
592. 00:35:44 opinion.
593. 00:35:45 And like these are all the things that he's referring to in this part.
594. 00:35:48 And although like on the backside, it totally makes sense because those are all
595. 00:35:55 like the soft skills of sorts that come alongside your career building process
596. 00:36:01 as opposed to like, how do you actually manage promotions and how do you get to
597. 00:36:06 the right level of the organization that you want to be in, which is where my
598. 00:36:10 brain went when it's when he said build your career.
599. 00:36:13 And my head, I was thinking like, okay, how did he level up to where he needed
600. 00:36:16 to to beat?
601. 00:36:17 But that wasn't it at all.
602. 00:36:18 Really it was, he was building himself in the first part.
603. 00:36:21 He learned that his little tiny area was just one piece of a bigger puzzle.
604. 00:36:27 And you needed to step back and see the whole puzzle in order to understand
605. 00:36:30 the scheme of what you're working on.
606. 00:36:31 And that fascinated him.
607. 00:36:32 So then he started to try to learn those other skills and understand how the
608. 00:36:40 engineering side fit into the broader company.
609. 00:36:43 So he started to increase his skill set through these other pieces.
610. 00:36:49 One thing that I think is interesting is one of these chapters is talking about
611. 00:36:53 management and he makes the comment that management is there to help people
612. 00:36:57 succeed.
613. 00:36:58 And so much of what the stereotype is around management and even some of the
614. 00:37:05 managers that I've worked with and had in the past, definitely have this view
615. 00:37:09 that it's their job to micro manage and not just success manage.
616. 00:37:14 And I really wish that was not the stereotype because I feel like if people
617. 00:37:18 were to follow at least his advice here, the perception of what a manager does
618. 00:37:25 and who they are would be very, very different in the broader public's eye.
619. 00:37:31 Yeah, he says as a manager, it's a responsibility to make sure people can
620. 00:37:35 become the best version of themselves.
621. 00:37:36 And I love that term, the best version of yourself.
622. 00:37:39 I've used that myself several times.
623. 00:37:42 Unfortunately, I feel that's not what most managers, that's not their motivation.
624. 00:37:52 So yeah, but there is, I mean, that whole section on managing, there's some good
625. 00:38:04 stuff in there.
626. 00:38:05 I got a little bit depressed in that that section, because what he's advocating for,
627. 00:38:10 I 100% agree with, but that's not not most people's reality.
628. 00:38:13 I did love the data versus opinion section, though.
629. 00:38:17 Yeah, because he talks about how when you are when you're trying to make
630. 00:38:25 decisions, that's the whole idea behind data versus opinion.
631. 00:38:27 You can make a data driven decision or you can just go with your gut.
632. 00:38:29 And he talks about how every decision really has elements of data and opinion.
633. 00:38:34 And if a product is really new, there's nothing to compare it to nothing to test
634. 00:38:38 against. Now that is a dangerous statement right there, because you can use
635. 00:38:42 that as justification for, oh, just trust me, this is the right thing to do.
636. 00:38:45 And I've seen people do that.
637. 00:38:47 If you're not the CEO, you really shouldn't be doing that.
638. 00:38:49 And if you are the CEO, you got to be careful when you do that, because you
639. 00:38:54 got to play by the same rules.
640. 00:38:56 The team does, otherwise they're like, what do we actually do?
641. 00:38:58 Like what's the protocol here?
642. 00:39:00 But I like the detail in here that really I liked was he mentions that
643. 00:39:08 storytelling is important.
644. 00:39:10 There's a whole big section on storytelling later, but storytelling is
645. 00:39:13 how you get people to make a leap with something new.
646. 00:39:15 I feel like that is pretty great advice.
647. 00:39:18 And it doesn't have to just apply to Silicon Valley startups.
648. 00:39:22 If you're trying to get people on board and get them to go along with you in a
649. 00:39:28 decision or course of action, I think storytelling is one of those things that
650. 00:39:33 everybody should look to get good at.
651. 00:39:36 And it's one I think it's also one of those things that you typically are
652. 00:39:40 like, well, just, you know, some people are great storytellers and that's not
653. 00:39:43 just me, but you have the ability to develop that skill.
654. 00:39:46 I mean, Toastmasters is one thing that can help you with that, I feel.
655. 00:39:50 So I would encourage everyone to try to become a better storyteller.
656. 00:39:57 And he gives a really great example here of why that skill can be beneficial
657. 00:40:03 and maybe not in the domain that you initially think.
658. 00:40:06 Yeah, it this is and again, this is going to start stepping into the next part.
659. 00:40:11 But you start the process of storytelling even in the process of figuring out
660. 00:40:15 what you're selling.
661. 00:40:16 Like the storytelling isn't only the sales side of it in the marketing side of it.
662. 00:40:25 Yeah.
663. 00:40:26 But well, real, real quick before we before we go to part three, because there's
664. 00:40:31 one other thing that I feel like I need to address here in the I quit section.
665. 00:40:34 Because I just went through this.
666. 00:40:36 Yeah.
667. 00:40:37 He says, most people know in their gut when they should quit and they spend
668. 00:40:41 months or years talking themselves out of it.
669. 00:40:43 I liked reading this because when I quit, it felt a little bit like a pretty
670. 00:40:52 quick decision.
671. 00:40:53 It wasn't something that I was thinking about for months or years.
672. 00:40:57 And I kind of have been thinking the last six months that maybe I quit too soon.
673. 00:41:02 And I have rationalized that by I don't think I really did.
674. 00:41:09 But integrity and character are important to me.
675. 00:41:13 And I knew that if I followed the the the traditional advice, it would be
676. 00:41:17 build your side thing, you know, on the side.
677. 00:41:19 And then when that has traction, then you make the leap.
678. 00:41:23 But I couldn't fulfill that role knowing that I couldn't be a hundred
679. 00:41:28 percent in it.
680. 00:41:30 So basically once I realized that I made the decision and and made the leap.
681. 00:41:36 But if I was following traditional advice, I feel like I would probably
682. 00:41:39 still be there, still building up in university on the side and getting
683. 00:41:43 that thing as big as I can before I could just like take a step instead of
684. 00:41:47 making a leap.
685. 00:41:47 So when he's saying here, you know, when you know that it's time to move on,
686. 00:41:52 you should move on.
687. 00:41:53 I felt validated a little bit.
688. 00:41:55 Sure.
689. 00:41:56 Yeah, because he does talk about how and he has a series.
690. 00:42:01 I don't have it in front of me, but he has a series of things that you need to go
691. 00:42:03 through before you quit, which was something like ignore it and, you know,
692. 00:42:09 kill them with kindness, like some of those things.
693. 00:42:12 And he ends up like once you've tried everything, that's the time to quit.
694. 00:42:18 But yeah, there's not really a.
695. 00:42:22 He doesn't even lay out a process for like your own financial security in the midst of
696. 00:42:28 that.
697. 00:42:28 He just is going down the path of that job in itself.
698. 00:42:33 He's not really talking about doing things on the side.
699. 00:42:36 Yeah.
700. 00:42:37 Well, when you invent the iPod and the iPhone, you probably don't need to worry about that.
701. 00:42:40 Yes, correct.
702. 00:42:43 A hundred percent.
703. 00:42:44 So that that part was in the back of my head like, okay, well, you can't just, you
704. 00:42:48 know, you can, but there's like some needs and requirements you have to have built up.
705. 00:42:55 If you're able to do like what you're in the middle of, then sure, go for it.
706. 00:42:59 If you're not, this is probably a bad move in doing a little bit of the check out
707. 00:43:05 from the job and doing your side gig stuff is okay.
708. 00:43:09 If you're not willing to do that from an integrity stance, it's fine.
709. 00:43:13 But you got a hustle.
710. 00:43:15 If you're going to make it that way.
711. 00:43:18 So turns out hustle hustle.
712. 00:43:21 Okay.
713. 00:43:22 So back to the product thing, the, the sales piece and the storytelling piece.
714. 00:43:28 In part three, he talks about build your product and some of what I was getting at
715. 00:43:34 before we had a deviation there was just that the storytelling piece, and he gets
716. 00:43:39 into some of the nest conversation here where he, he knew that trying to make a
717. 00:43:48 smart thermostat would probably catch some people off guard and like, why on
718. 00:43:55 earth would you ever do this?
719. 00:43:56 But the marketing teams went through the process of making it a big deal of
720. 00:44:02 talking about the why behind a nest thermostat, not just the what.
721. 00:44:06 So because the marketing and sales teams were so big on the why being a big, like
722. 00:44:14 fundamental piece of their goals, that meant that the product had to fit that
723. 00:44:20 story as well.
724. 00:44:21 So the form factor, the packaging, all of that became a big part of the story
725. 00:44:29 that the marketing teams were, were working on.
726. 00:44:32 So it wasn't just the story behind the product and the problem you're trying to
727. 00:44:39 solve.
728. 00:44:40 It was also the, how do we help people understand that this is a problem that
729. 00:44:44 needs to be solved.
730. 00:44:45 And here's how it can make your life easier.
731. 00:44:48 So it had a very big impact, like the storytelling pieces is why it's one of
732. 00:44:54 the first things he starts off with here in in part three.
733. 00:44:57 Yeah.
734. 00:44:59 So the storytelling stuff, obviously, I like this.
735. 00:45:03 Um, and he mentions kind of before that, the making the intangible tangible
736. 00:45:08 that your product isn't just the product, it's the whole user experience.
737. 00:45:11 So there's got to be a story for that whole thing.
738. 00:45:13 Uh, one thing in this why storytelling part that I singled out was a great
739. 00:45:20 analogy, allows a customer instantly grasp a difficult feature and then
740. 00:45:23 describe the feature to others.
741. 00:45:24 And that's interesting because I feel like there's some very specific nuance
742. 00:45:34 to this being good advice or bad advice.
743. 00:45:37 The good advice, I mean, from a product perspective, and as he's talking about it
744. 00:45:41 here, helping them understand a feature makes sense.
745. 00:45:45 But I've also heard the advice and this, I agree with that you should not
746. 00:45:49 describe your product as something for X, you know, like, I don't know, Netflix
747. 00:45:56 for whatever, the minute that you have to define your product as something else
748. 00:46:04 that people understand, there's, they put you in the drawer, they identify
749. 00:46:11 you as this and you're really not, you lose the potential to be a truly
750. 00:46:16 disruptive revolutionary idea or product when you position yourself that way.
751. 00:46:22 But I don't think that's what he's talking about here.
752. 00:46:25 I think what he's talking about is describing what the product does, the
753. 00:46:30 features.
754. 00:46:31 And in that case, I do think you need something to help people cross the
755. 00:46:37 divide because the thing that is difficult to reconcile as somebody who
756. 00:46:46 makes a product is the customer wants this, but what they really need is that.
757. 00:46:52 It's kind of the famous quote by Henry Ford.
758. 00:46:57 If I gave the customers what they want, they would have faster carriages.
759. 00:47:01 And I feel like even it obviously has experience with Apple and Steve Jobs.
760. 00:47:06 So there's a lot of specific events from Apple's history that are kind of like
761. 00:47:11 that too, where it's, no, we're just going to reinvent this whole thing.
762. 00:47:14 But in order for that to be successful for people to really grab the new thing
763. 00:47:19 and be like, Oh, yeah, that is better.
764. 00:47:21 You do have to have an understanding of what are the specific problems that
765. 00:47:26 they're dealing with and the pain points that you're trying to solve before you
766. 00:47:30 can say, Oh, there's a totally new way to do that.
767. 00:47:33 So I guess, you know, I agree with the analogies in terms of helping them grasp
768. 00:47:39 a difficult feature, but don't use analogies when describing your thing.
769. 00:47:44 Be original.
770. 00:47:45 There's a, there's a chapter in here about heartbeats and handcuffs, which I
771. 00:47:50 thought was fascinating.
772. 00:47:52 And it's essentially the, the process through which you are communicating to
773. 00:47:57 your customers and the general public and the cadence of that and how often to do
774. 00:48:04 that, how the process of doing it should happen.
775. 00:48:08 And I thought he had an interesting comparison.
776. 00:48:11 He's talking a little bit about how Google does it, which is primarily
777. 00:48:15 through the annual Google IO event versus how Apple does it with three to four
778. 00:48:22 events throughout the year, because they have so much that they're announcing
779. 00:48:26 and they're just kind of keeping you informed about what they're up to.
780. 00:48:29 And how, like, if you're doing it more than once a year, you have more
781. 00:48:35 opportunities to garner feedback and continually have that conversation with
782. 00:48:40 the public.
783. 00:48:40 But when you do it once a year, you're kind of cramming it all into one space
784. 00:48:45 and people will have a tendency to, you know, reel a little bit after that.
785. 00:48:51 And then you also don't have as much direction overall.
786. 00:48:54 So those heartbeats, as he calls them, are very important.
787. 00:48:57 And he's got a whole bunch of information around that as well.
788. 00:49:02 Was it this section where he was talking about the free stuff?
789. 00:49:04 Was that later?
790. 00:49:06 I feel like they should be into the business piece.
791. 00:49:08 I don't remember.
792. 00:49:10 I don't have anything jotted down there for about free stuff.
793. 00:49:14 I just have jotted down that different teams will have different heartbeats.
794. 00:49:19 Yes.
795. 00:49:20 And you should keep your project small as long as you can.
796. 00:49:24 The part that I'm thinking of, and I think this is maybe the team piece,
797. 00:49:31 regardless, I'll get to that one a little bit later.
798. 00:49:34 I will bring up the free stuff.
799. 00:49:35 Don't forget the free stuff.
800. 00:49:37 OK, anything on product before we go to the next one.
801. 00:49:39 I have my one action item comes from this section.
802. 00:49:43 And it really has nothing to do with like the things that he was talking about.
803. 00:49:48 Most of the book.
804. 00:49:49 I feel like that happens sometimes.
805. 00:49:51 Like it gets you thinking about things and it's like, OK,
806. 00:49:53 I really want to do this.
807. 00:49:54 It's not connected to the book at all, but I want to do this thing way over here.
808. 00:49:57 It's sort of connected.
809. 00:49:59 The section is 3.4, your first adventure and your second.
810. 00:50:03 And he's basically talking about going from your first product that you built to your
811. 00:50:08 second product.
812. 00:50:09 And he says to analyze why you failed.
813. 00:50:11 If you wait for perfection, you'll never finish.
814. 00:50:13 But then kind of in the middle of that, he shares this piece of advice about when
815. 00:50:18 you start your second adventure, you should write a press release
816. 00:50:23 about the thing that you're making when you start.
817. 00:50:25 And that got me thinking.
818. 00:50:27 The reason that you would want to want to do that is by writing the press release,
819. 00:50:32 you are articulating the story behind the product that you are trying to build.
820. 00:50:37 And I want to do that for Obsidian University.
821. 00:50:41 I feel like I I kind of have a general idea of who I'm trying to help and how I'm
822. 00:50:48 going to do that.
823. 00:50:49 But I feel like the exercise of writing a succinct press release, which I've never
824. 00:50:54 ever done, that could help me kind of crystallize this and give me something
825. 00:50:59 more solid when someone asks, you know, what is this or what do you do?
826. 00:51:04 I literally experienced that at the conference I was at.
827. 00:51:07 No, I was going into these, these different Christian businessmen meetings.
828. 00:51:12 And, you know, they're these are all guys that have these, these big businesses
829. 00:51:16 are multiple businesses.
830. 00:51:17 And, you know, well, what do you do?
831. 00:51:19 And it's hard for me to describe it like content creator.
832. 00:51:23 Well, what does that mean?
833. 00:51:26 If someone who doesn't live in this space like you and I do, right?
834. 00:51:30 Ah, I got podcasts, YouTube, video courses, stuff like that.
835. 00:51:34 And the way that people would compartmentalize me after that is like, Oh, you do
836. 00:51:38 stuff with social media.
837. 00:51:39 And I'm like, no, no, not that's not it at all.
838. 00:51:44 So I realized like I got to have something a little bit more more tangible there.
839. 00:51:48 So not a content creator.
840. 00:51:52 That's a wrong term to use.
841. 00:51:54 I make videos and write online.
842. 00:51:56 Maybe you have to like spell out what it actually is.
843. 00:51:58 Yeah, but even that like they hear right online and they think social media.
844. 00:52:03 And that is, you know, not a correct characterization, but that's not their fault
845. 00:52:11 either.
846. 00:52:12 And I don't have to explain to these types of people all the time, but I
847. 00:52:16 realized that I should have something for that group.
848. 00:52:22 Someone who is not listening to bookworm or listening to focused or been following
849. 00:52:27 what I've done on the sweet setup for years and they come across Mike Schmitz,
850. 00:52:32 you know, who, who are you and what do you do?
851. 00:52:35 Obsidian University is the place I want to point people to most of them anyways.
852. 00:52:40 The life-themed thing and faith is productivity is kind of over there on the side.
853. 00:52:44 But Obsidian University is the main thing right now.
854. 00:52:48 And I've got to really nail down like, what is that?
855. 00:52:51 Who does it help and how?
856. 00:52:52 I've never really thought about the process of writing a press release beforehand
857. 00:52:57 until this, but it's it's a fascinating idea for sure.
858. 00:53:01 So let's step into where we at part four.
859. 00:53:09 Build your business.
860. 00:53:10 And so if you've kind of followed the trajectory here, so build yourself.
861. 00:53:15 So this is like internal, build your career.
862. 00:53:17 That's where he's like learning the process of having a career, essentially,
863. 00:53:21 building your product.
864. 00:53:22 And now we're building the business.
865. 00:53:23 So you're building the business around that team.
866. 00:53:27 And there's a there's a few points in here that I, at least a couple of main points
867. 00:53:32 that I wanted to talk through here.
868. 00:53:34 One is one of the chapters is called marrying for money.
869. 00:53:38 And he really gets into venture capital here
870. 00:53:41 and how you need to choose your venture capitalist very carefully,
871. 00:53:45 because they have such a strong and big influence on your company
872. 00:53:50 that you're really not going to get away from them.
873. 00:53:52 Like, even if you have a disagreement, it doesn't matter.
874. 00:53:55 You're stuck.
875. 00:53:56 Like there is no like divorce process to use that analogy in this.
876. 00:54:02 So it just doesn't exist.
877. 00:54:04 And when you take on that money, you are taking on that relationship.
878. 00:54:08 So you have to have you have to have that nailed.
879. 00:54:11 You have to do that really well.
880. 00:54:13 It just made me think through like, you know, you hear of so many startups
881. 00:54:17 and so many people, like doing the VC hunt
882. 00:54:21 and trying to raise capital for their project.
883. 00:54:26 And it always makes me like squirm a little bit.
884. 00:54:29 Because like the amount of risk that comes with that is enormous.
885. 00:54:34 Like there's so much risk involved with not seeking it out as well.
886. 00:54:38 But there's probably the same amount.
887. 00:54:41 I have not done this.
888. 00:54:42 So I'm speculating.
889. 00:54:44 Just as much risk in taking it on as there is to try to do it the heart,
890. 00:54:49 like the long hard way.
891. 00:54:51 So I don't know what my opinion on VC is.
892. 00:54:54 I just know that it just kind of scares me a little bit
893. 00:54:58 whenever I hear of people doing it or companies doing it.
894. 00:55:01 Even like brands and products companies that I support,
895. 00:55:05 whenever they mention that they've taken on VC funding,
896. 00:55:09 I always get a little bit nervous that they're going to go under because of that.
897. 00:55:14 Like they could do well and it could make it grow really well.
898. 00:55:17 But the number of times that I've seen them either get bought out, sold or
899. 00:55:22 you know, raise their price or, you know, discount the quality of the product
900. 00:55:26 and the process, like all of that tends to be a thing that can come along for the ride.
901. 00:55:32 And it just makes me nervous.
902. 00:55:34 So there is a little bit of a fear, I guess, from my side whenever I see that.
903. 00:55:40 Well, it's not all bad.
904. 00:55:44 I don't have direct experience with it, but my brother is fairly involved in
905. 00:55:51 in this space.
906. 00:55:52 He actually even started a meetup in this area called Digital Fertilizer,
907. 00:55:58 which was essentially where people who were making things could be connected with.
908. 00:56:05 I'll say venture capitalists, but also like angel investors.
909. 00:56:09 Like there's a lot of nuance there.
910. 00:56:10 And when most people hear the term venture capital, they think of ruthless
911. 00:56:16 cutthroat investors who are just trying to like hostile take over these companies.
912. 00:56:20 And that's not how most of the deals go down.
913. 00:56:24 But you're right that it is also really risky.
914. 00:56:28 I was in a mastermind group at one point with people local in the area.
915. 00:56:35 And one of the guys that was in the mastermind group wrote the first line of code at Pandora
916. 00:56:40 and has since left and is in this thing, like right around where the Packers play
917. 00:56:48 a Lambo field, they have it's kind of.
918. 00:56:51 How do I describe it?
919. 00:56:55 It's called title town tech and it's basically a bunch of.
920. 00:57:00 It's not a.
921. 00:57:03 What do you call it?
922. 00:57:06 Accelerator necessarily, but the president of Microsoft is actually from the area.
923. 00:57:11 So Microsoft is a big investor and they have a whole bunch of stuff and resources
924. 00:57:17 to kind of help technology startup companies in the Northeast, Wisconsin area,
925. 00:57:25 which is not the place that you typically think of, you know, tech startups and stuff like that.
926. 00:57:30 Right.
927. 00:57:30 So they're trying to get that that going in the area.
928. 00:57:34 And I don't know, it is it is kind of cool.
929. 00:57:37 Like I've been to the the buildings that they they created for this as
930. 00:57:43 tell town tech and it's a really cool area.
931. 00:57:45 It's like literally across the street from the Packers stadium.
932. 00:57:48 And it.
933. 00:57:49 I think it's I think it's there's a lot of I know a lot of the stories associated
934. 00:57:56 with that a lot of companies that wouldn't have had the resources that they needed
935. 00:58:01 to do the thing.
936. 00:58:03 And then at that point, what do you do?
937. 00:58:04 Pick up and move to Silicon Valley.
938. 00:58:06 That's not really as important anymore because we live in the age of the internet.
939. 00:58:11 People can connect from all over the world.
940. 00:58:13 Like you don't have to physically be in the place.
941. 00:58:15 I don't know.
942. 00:58:17 So I think it's it's kind of cool what they're they're doing there.
943. 00:58:20 And I've seen some of the success stories, but yeah, anytime you're going to take
944. 00:58:25 millions of dollars from someone, you really need to know who you're taking
945. 00:58:29 millions of dollars from.
946. 00:58:30 Yeah.
947. 00:58:31 Yeah.
948. 00:58:32 For sure.
949. 00:58:32 And I don't I don't say my like I don't verbalize my concerns
950. 00:58:38 with the intent of saying VC is bad all the time.
951. 00:58:41 Like I want to make that clear.
952. 00:58:43 It's just not a I've just seen it go wrong enough times that it makes me hesitate.
953. 00:58:49 I think is the yeah, but that's that is very likely a heavily skewed perception
954. 00:58:57 as well, because that's the problem with some of the social media world is like you
955. 00:59:00 see things that happen a lot more.
956. 00:59:03 And the the real world occurrence count of those things happening is usually not
957. 00:59:12 as high as it seems to be because the number of times that VC funds are transferred
958. 00:59:20 and the company has success is very high.
959. 00:59:24 But you don't hear those stories super often, like so many times, like those are
960. 00:59:31 just it's behind the scenes, it's not even made public at all in many situations.
961. 00:59:36 So you don't even you don't even realize how often it's happening.
962. 00:59:39 So to say that it goes bad 50% of the time is a gross exaggeration just because
963. 00:59:45 you don't really know how often that truly happens.
964. 00:59:47 Now it may happen 50% of the times that you're aware of.
965. 00:59:50 Like if you were to take the number of success stories that you hear about
966. 00:59:54 compared to the number of disastrous stories that you hear about, it might be 50%.
967. 00:59:59 But the real world is it's probably, you know, less like it's down in single
968. 01:00:04 digit percentages would be my assumption.
969. 01:00:06 So well, he mentioned that 80 80% of startups fail.
970. 01:00:10 So there you go a lot.
971. 01:00:11 And all you see, you hear the success stories and that inspires people like, Hey,
972. 01:00:17 I want to try to do what what they did, but you got to go into it realizing that
973. 01:00:21 this is really, really hard and there's a good chance you're going to fail.
974. 01:00:24 Yes.
975. 01:00:25 Yes.
976. 01:00:25 You get my point though.
977. 01:00:27 Um, the other chapter in this part that I wanted to mention just briefly is
978. 01:00:33 called killing yourself for work.
979. 01:00:35 And there's a, there's one story he mentions in here.
980. 01:00:39 It's about Steve Jobs being gone for his two week vacations twice a year and how
981. 01:00:44 they would get more calls and emails and stuff from Steve during those two weeks
982. 01:00:50 he was gone on vacation than they would when he was in the office.
983. 01:00:53 So they got more like they didn't get stuff done when he was gone,
984. 01:00:57 because he was communicating with them so much when he was quote, unquote, on
985. 01:01:01 vacation and like that's, that is not right, obviously.
986. 01:01:06 And it's not something he was recommending.
987. 01:01:09 Uh, I just thought I was fascinated.
988. 01:01:11 I didn't know that about Steve, but it does not surprise me one.
989. 01:01:15 Iota like, yep, that, that would make sense.
990. 01:01:18 That's not just Steve Jobs.
991. 01:01:20 That's a lot of visionary CEOs.
992. 01:01:24 I feel.
993. 01:01:25 Um, even if they can control themselves enough not to phone into the office,
994. 01:01:32 they're going to come back and, and say, this is what we're doing now and take
995. 01:01:37 it in a totally different direction and having been on those teams.
996. 01:01:42 It does, it still feels like the rug's being yanked, yanked up from underneath
997. 01:01:45 you.
998. 01:01:45 Obviously bigger companies it takes longer to steer that ship.
999. 01:01:48 So you're not like changing directions at the, the drop of a hat, but yeah,
1000. 01:01:53 that doesn't surprise me at all.
1001. 01:01:55 And it kind of bugs me.
1002. 01:01:57 Like he's not, he's not holding it up on a pedestal, but he's also kind of saying
1003. 01:02:05 that this is how CEOs tend to think they can't disconnect from the, the company.
1004. 01:02:12 And I don't want to be that way.
1005. 01:02:14 Yeah.
1006. 01:02:15 So does that mean that I can't be a CEO?
1007. 01:02:18 I can't run a company.
1008. 01:02:19 I don't think so.
1009. 01:02:20 I think that stigma is kind of being broken down little by little over time,
1010. 01:02:26 but yeah, very firmly rooted in the, the hustle culture, et cetera.
1011. 01:02:32 Um, the one thing that I really liked from this section is the detail that Tony
1012. 01:02:40 Fadel always took notes by hand in meetings.
1013. 01:02:45 I mean, he's working at Apple for crying out loud.
1014. 01:02:49 All these technology companies, but he always took notes by hand.
1015. 01:02:53 And I have talked to David about this on focus.
1016. 01:02:57 Like I just feel like there's something different about taking notes by hand.
1017. 01:03:00 I can't, even though I have like the books and the remarkable and I'll take notes
1018. 01:03:04 that way, it feels different because it's not an iPad.
1019. 01:03:08 And I can't really articulate what that difference is, but I feel it.
1020. 01:03:13 And I feel like Tony Fadel is on my team here.
1021. 01:03:16 Yes.
1022. 01:03:18 If, if the guy who brought us, you know, the iPod, the iPhone and Nest and worked
1023. 01:03:24 at these major companies, like these major tech companies, like it doesn't get bigger
1024. 01:03:28 than that.
1025. 01:03:29 So you know, he can afford an iPad, you know, that he can afford pretty much
1026. 01:03:33 anything he wants.
1027. 01:03:34 And he's still using pen and paper.
1028. 01:03:36 I would love to know what the pen and paper was, but I'm sure it's not a fountain pen.
1029. 01:03:41 Sorry.
1030. 01:03:41 I'm sure it's not.
1031. 01:03:43 It's probably, you know, just knowing what I know and who like the sea level
1032. 01:03:47 positions I've been around, the people who were in those roles, it's probably like
1033. 01:03:50 your standard yellow notepad with whatever hotel pen they could like whatever they
1034. 01:03:55 had from their bag.
1035. 01:03:56 Like I see that so often, but hey, people get stuff done.
1036. 01:04:02 I can't get this it.
1037. 01:04:03 I mean, it gets the job done, right?
1038. 01:04:05 So I can't argue.
1039. 01:04:07 I just don't think I could do it.
1040. 01:04:10 I don't know.
1041. 01:04:12 All right.
1042. 01:04:13 So the business is built.
1043. 01:04:15 Let's now build the team that's going to run the business, right?
1044. 01:04:19 So part five, build your team talks about hiring things, some different breakpoints
1045. 01:04:24 that happen when the organization gets to certain sizes, like how many employees
1046. 01:04:29 do you have and things change at those different levels?
1047. 01:04:31 Uh, he talks a lot, like the process of marketing, why do product managers even
1048. 01:04:36 exist?
1049. 01:04:37 Uh, one of the chapters, death of a sales culture.
1050. 01:04:40 Uh, and then his last one, and this is lawyer up and the importance of having a
1051. 01:04:44 lawyer on staff and this whole section, I feel like this is where you start to
1052. 01:04:51 get to the point where many people can kind of follow you on like when I'm
1053. 01:04:57 building my business, what does it need to look like?
1054. 01:04:59 In this section, you kind of start to cross over of like, okay, how do I put my
1055. 01:05:04 team together and make sure they are successful?
1056. 01:05:06 People probably can follow that, but now you're starting to get into like some
1057. 01:05:10 of the philosophy of sorts, that's probably the wrong term, but you get my idea
1058. 01:05:15 there is like, it's just, it's something that's higher level where you have to
1059. 01:05:18 think differently about the process of building your product and building this
1060. 01:05:25 thing out, right?
1061. 01:05:26 So this is where it starts to get to the level where I'm not sure I follow
1062. 01:05:32 quite at the level that I have previous to this.
1063. 01:05:35 Now I've worked in a lot of these situations and corporate from, you know,
1064. 01:05:39 just the person doing the widget creation and such, not the ones doing the
1065. 01:05:45 management and actual running of the business or the team.
1066. 01:05:48 So there's some of that back in the back of my mind as well.
1067. 01:05:52 So I'm not the one who's been doing the hiring.
1068. 01:05:54 I'm not the one that's had to make these big organizational decisions.
1069. 01:05:57 I'm aware of that, but it is fascinating to me just to see like the level of
1070. 01:06:02 detail that you have to process these things in order to do this well, like to
1071. 01:06:08 build out this team well and know what departments do you need?
1072. 01:06:12 How do they need to communicate?
1073. 01:06:14 When does it need to change?
1074. 01:06:16 When do you need certain departments versus when you don't need them?
1075. 01:06:19 There's a whole lot here that could take a lot of people a lot of time to
1076. 01:06:25 process, but I just know that this has been, this was a fascinating chapter that
1077. 01:06:30 I don't know what to do with it.
1078. 01:06:31 Like in my, in my world, like, I don't really deal with any of this, but it is
1079. 01:06:35 really cool to see how someone at Tony's level is, is thinking this through.
1080. 01:06:40 He's kind of thinking it through.
1081. 01:06:43 So there's, you know, specific chapters in here that entire books have been written
1082. 01:06:52 on, like, of solid hiring process.
1083. 01:06:56 And there are certain things in here that I think that it's good advice.
1084. 01:07:03 But also this is kind of where I start to see his bias and his perspective and
1085. 01:07:09 kind of like the one sidedness of some of the stuff that he's talking about.
1086. 01:07:12 And I guess just for like context here, when I say he's not really seeing the
1087. 01:07:20 whole picture regarding like hiring specific field, just call that one out.
1088. 01:07:23 Because one of the things that I did at the previous job was I revamped the
1089. 01:07:27 hiring process, because historically the hiring process had not been very
1090. 01:07:31 successful.
1091. 01:07:32 And since then I've actually helped other people during their hiring process.
1092. 01:07:38 So I actually even have like a product for this with like the questions that you
1093. 01:07:42 ask in the interview and like a whole process that you can follow, a whole
1094. 01:07:45 notion board built out.
1095. 01:07:47 Like I understand this piece of it.
1096. 01:07:49 And so there's, there's bits and pieces here, you know, little things like he says
1097. 01:07:54 that everyone starts at 100% trust or why are you hiring them?
1098. 01:07:57 I really like that.
1099. 01:07:58 That that's true. You can't hire someone you don't trust and then slowly over time,
1100. 01:08:06 like give them the work that you originally hired them to do.
1101. 01:08:09 That's kind of anchored in the belief that most of the hires aren't going to
1102. 01:08:14 work out, which historically speaking, yeah, that's true.
1103. 01:08:17 But there are better ways to hire that can alleviate some of that stuff.
1104. 01:08:21 Like one of the things, I'll just share this as a tidbit.
1105. 01:08:26 There's this thing called the threat of reference check that I encourage people
1106. 01:08:31 to build into like when someone books a call for an interview on Calendly,
1107. 01:08:36 I make this like a required question.
1108. 01:08:37 The question is it's a statement initially.
1109. 01:08:41 It says, as part of our hiring process, we require you to set up a conversation
1110. 01:08:47 with your with a previous boss or manager.
1111. 01:08:49 If asked to do so, would you be willing to arrange this call?
1112. 01:08:53 And the people who answer yes, they go through and you can do the interviews.
1113. 01:08:59 But what that does is it injects what Brad Smart calls the truth serum
1114. 01:09:03 because they know that you may have tried to verify what they're going to tell you.
1115. 01:09:07 So they're going to tell you the truth in the interview.
1116. 01:09:09 The people who say no, then you dig deeper and well, why aren't you going to let me
1117. 01:09:14 talk to your boss or manager?
1118. 01:09:15 And it's almost like you don't even have to follow through on that threat.
1119. 01:09:20 You just have to have it in have it at the beginning.
1120. 01:09:24 Sure.
1121. 01:09:24 And it changes the interaction.
1122. 01:09:26 And a lot of people think like, well, at the interview, you really just got to have
1123. 01:09:30 like these super secret, awesome questions and that's going to provide the clarity.
1124. 01:09:35 No, you just need to have different things along the way that are going to help you
1125. 01:09:43 see things for what they really are.
1126. 01:09:45 Keith Cunningham, the author of the road less stupid.
1127. 01:09:50 Says something along the lines of I don't need to make more smart decisions.
1128. 01:09:55 I need to make less dumb decisions.
1129. 01:09:57 I need to quit swinging at bad pitches.
1130. 01:09:59 That's what higher, like a bad hire.
1131. 01:10:00 That's what it is.
1132. 01:10:01 It's swinging at a bad pitch.
1133. 01:10:03 Right.
1134. 01:10:03 And there's so much cost associated with the process.
1135. 01:10:06 Like you train the person, you get them, get them ramped up.
1136. 01:10:09 They're ready to do the work and then they leave or they flame out or, you know,
1137. 01:10:14 if there's there's so much that goes into that.
1138. 01:10:17 So I don't know, like this is the part of the book where I started to feel like, okay, Tony,
1139. 01:10:22 you and I could have like an actual intellectual conversation here and you could
1140. 01:10:28 teach me some things and I could teach you some things.
1141. 01:10:30 But yeah, the death of the sales culture part also, I like that.
1142. 01:10:36 Again, there's bias here and I don't have like a solution for this one necessarily,
1143. 01:10:43 but you can see how most people view like, well, sales, just get the sales, get the sales.
1144. 01:10:48 And I've seen that perspective too.
1145. 01:10:50 It's like, well, we just need more on the input.
1146. 01:10:53 So just whatever they got to do, like go ahead sales guys.
1147. 01:10:56 You have as many resources as you want, like do whatever the heck you want.
1148. 01:11:00 Just get the sales.
1149. 01:11:01 And that's shortsighted because it doesn't take a new account that really every sale
1150. 01:11:08 involves all the different people on the team.
1151. 01:11:12 And I like his suggestion about not paying out those commissions as soon as the sale
1152. 01:11:16 comes in, the customer should have to maintain a relationship and customer
1153. 01:11:22 service should be involved.
1154. 01:11:23 Like you want all these teams to be aligned.
1155. 01:11:25 You want everybody pulling in the same direction.
1156. 01:11:28 And it's just kind of shocking to me how a lot of bigger businesses and
1157. 01:11:32 organizations, they get compartmentalized and they have these two different teams
1158. 01:11:35 that are fighting against each other all the time because their incentives are so
1159. 01:11:40 misaligned.
1160. 01:11:40 It just drives me nuts.
1161. 01:11:43 The last chapter in this part is lawyer up and he tells the story of the nest
1162. 01:11:49 cam.
1163. 01:11:49 So the camera that they put together and how it was designed to be something
1164. 01:11:55 that could be put in your home to keep an eye on pets as a baby monitor.
1165. 01:12:01 Anything in that territory.
1166. 01:12:03 The problem was that it required because it was possible for people to put this
1167. 01:12:10 in the room with a baby.
1168. 01:12:11 They had to have this required governmental.
1169. 01:12:16 What was the, what was the term for it?
1170. 01:12:18 It's a disclaimer that goes on the cord that there's possible strangulation
1171. 01:12:23 because there's a cable in the same room with a baby and it has this picture of a
1172. 01:12:29 kid being strangled with the cord and Tony was just livid and did not want that on
1173. 01:12:35 his product and the lawyers like this is a regulation like you're not going to get
1174. 01:12:40 around this.
1175. 01:12:41 But he was his point was like the lawyers are the ones there to protect you.
1176. 01:12:45 And they are not the enemy as much as many people like to say that the lawyers are
1177. 01:12:49 the problem.
1178. 01:12:50 They are not protecting you.
1179. 01:12:53 But I thought it was fascinating that, you know, his lawyer managed to help him
1180. 01:12:59 through the process.
1181. 01:13:00 They ended up making it bigger and a little bit more obnoxious.
1182. 01:13:04 But what they also did was made it very easy to remove.
1183. 01:13:10 Like they had to ship it with it on it, but they made it very easy to extract it
1184. 01:13:15 from the cable without leaving the sticky residue that is on the cable that I hate
1185. 01:13:19 whenever I take these tags off because everybody does this and they don't want it
1186. 01:13:23 there.
1187. 01:13:23 So they're going to take it off.
1188. 01:13:24 So if you just make it easy, everybody's happier.
1189. 01:13:27 So they have to have this thing there, but the lawyer helped him figure out a
1190. 01:13:31 way to get around it somewhat.
1191. 01:13:32 So I thought that was a fascinating story.
1192. 01:13:34 Yeah, me too.
1193. 01:13:36 All right.
1194. 01:13:37 Part six, B CEO, and this is how do you manage the running of a company?
1195. 01:13:45 And he talks about different types of CEOs.
1196. 01:13:48 One thing I thought was fascinating.
1197. 01:13:50 He mentions that what was the number 12% of CEOs exhibit some psychopath traits.
1198. 01:14:00 I saw that number as I want to say it was 12.
1199. 01:14:05 It was above 10%.
1200. 01:14:06 I know.
1201. 01:14:07 And I saw it.
1202. 01:14:09 Well, that's fascinating.
1203. 01:14:12 So yes, CEOs, he talks about board of directors, different types of boards,
1204. 01:14:18 like indifferent boards, dictatorial boards, inexperienced boards.
1205. 01:14:22 So he does talk about different types of board of directors.
1206. 01:14:26 I'm curious your thoughts on that one when we get there, but he also works through
1207. 01:14:30 how to buy other companies and how to be bought because he has
1208. 01:14:36 obviously worked through both of those situations.
1209. 01:14:39 He has a chapter called F massages.
1210. 01:14:43 I'll come back to that one because that's that free thing that I was talking about earlier.
1211. 01:14:47 But then he also gets into he gets into the unbecoming of a CEO.
1212. 01:14:52 But before I get into like the free thing that I have been like itching to talk
1213. 01:14:58 about for some weird reason, tell me about the board because I know you have
1214. 01:15:01 some thoughts on this board and this particular chapter you said, like changed
1215. 01:15:05 your view on this from your action item that we were talking about in the followup section.
1216. 01:15:09 Well, I guess I haven't been a part of many boards.
1217. 01:15:12 So I don't know exactly what they look like.
1218. 01:15:15 Sure.
1219. 01:15:16 But he mentions this chapter is kind of specific advice for as a CEO dealing with a board.
1220. 01:15:25 He gives some examples of the type of people that you would want on the board.
1221. 01:15:29 The big thing is that you want people who are going to be mentors on the board.
1222. 01:15:33 And then as a CEO, that there should only be good surprises in the board meetings.
1223. 01:15:39 He talks about he had a story here about Steve Jobs and the way that he dealt with boards.
1224. 01:15:44 And it sounds like as great as Steve Jobs was at like, you know, presentations, he was
1225. 01:15:49 probably even better in board meetings.
1226. 01:15:52 So I can totally see that where with Steve Jobs, specifically, the story that he shared is like, these people on the board are like starting to gain
1227. 01:16:03 momentum around, well, you could do this and you could do that.
1228. 01:16:06 And Steve, just like real calmly is like, those are great ideas, but we don't have time to talk about those today.
1229. 01:16:13 So let's move on to the next thing.
1230. 01:16:14 And I can I've been in those situations.
1231. 01:16:19 It's like, OK, this is going off the rails.
1232. 01:16:22 How do we bring this back?
1233. 01:16:24 I cannot think of a better person for that than Steve Jobs.
1234. 01:16:27 And if he's doing it nicely, like Tony Faddell is talking about because he has to, these are the board of directors, like they can fire.
1235. 01:16:33 If he's a complete jerk.
1236. 01:16:35 Yeah, I don't know.
1237. 01:16:37 I feel like it would have been cool to be a fly on that wall.
1238. 01:16:40 But the other thing that I that stood out to me from from this section is the buying and being bought, not because I'm in a place to sell a company or buy a company.
1239. 01:16:54 But he shares a lot of the stories about Nest being bought by Google and the difficulty of merging the cultures.
1240. 01:17:02 And culture is a thing that I love.
1241. 01:17:05 And I feel like this is one of the things that I am best at when it comes to my previous role as a as an integrator and like the family core values and the life theme stuff.
1242. 01:17:22 Essentially, that is like culture building type stuff.
1243. 01:17:25 And so when he's explaining how when he was at Apple, he had Steve Jobs in his back pocket whenever there was a team that wasn't giving them what they wanted.
1244. 01:17:33 He'd call Steve and Steve would yell at the people and they would get he would get what he wants.
1245. 01:17:37 He even mentions that like he tried to quit Apple a couple of times and Steve got involved.
1246. 01:17:41 He's like, no, no, you'll get the promotion.
1247. 01:17:43 So now Steve's no longer there.
1248. 01:17:47 Different CEO Google does things a different way.
1249. 01:17:50 And it's just complete friction and their their budding heads all the time.
1250. 01:17:56 But I feel like the scenario that he's describing doesn't have to be the default.
1251. 01:18:05 Like there are ways to do this, but the bigger issue is just identifying the culture at the company that you have.
1252. 01:18:13 He doesn't really talk about like core values and how they live those out and things like that.
1253. 01:18:18 I mean, he's going to talk a little bit about the F massages and the perks versus benefits, I'm sure.
1254. 01:18:24 But I feel like this is something that I see in a lot of these like startup companies where they have all this money and they're really just trying to like get some traction and get off the ground before they run out of money.
1255. 01:18:35 Is like no one really takes the time to define who are we?
1256. 01:18:40 Why are we here?
1257. 01:18:42 How do we do the things that we do?
1258. 01:18:44 It's all just like, oh, let's get together and build something fun and have fun in the process, which is why you've got the ping pong tables and the massages and the big cafes with all the meals and things like that.
1259. 01:18:57 He kind of talks through like his frustration with that.
1260. 01:19:00 And I kind of feel like, well, you shouldn't be surprised by that.
1261. 01:19:05 If you never really codified it, you know, then when something if you don't codify it, you can tell when something feels wrong.
1262. 01:19:12 But you really have nothing to fall back on.
1263. 01:19:15 I feel like if they had had that stuff and this is totally me projecting at this point, what do I know?
1264. 01:19:19 But I feel like if he had that stuff codified the way that I would tell companies to codify it, that can very easily be brought into the acquisition discussion.
1265. 01:19:32 You're like, this is who we are.
1266. 01:19:34 This is the way that we do things.
1267. 01:19:35 So these things that you do seem to being in.
1268. 01:19:41 In conflict with this, how are we going to resolve it?
1269. 01:19:44 And then you can avoid some of the missteps like the tweeted message about how they they respect people's privacy and screw ads, you know, and Google is like the ads are the thing that pay for everything.
1270. 01:19:57 So I feel like he's being vulnerable and he's sharing these cool stories and he's not saying that I've got it all figured out.
1271. 01:20:02 So I appreciate that.
1272. 01:20:03 But I feel like some of those missteps that he's sharing, like those were avoidable.
1273. 01:20:10 If you really have taken the time to dial in some of the culture stuff.
1274. 01:20:14 Yeah, in that mismatch of cultures, like the primary example of that is when Nest was bought and his Nest team was being incorporated into Google.
1275. 01:20:26 But Google had has, I think they still have a lot of this view that you can get free products at Christmas.
1276. 01:20:38 And you get free snacks and they have like this whole thing around you or to have snacks within 200 feet of your workstation at all times.
1277. 01:20:46 You have to have freely available food within 200 feet at all times.
1278. 01:20:49 And all of this free stuff and all of these free perks, like the massages and the ping pong tables and pool tables and you name it.
1279. 01:21:01 It all creates an entitlement amongst the employees and they end up focusing more on all the perks than they do on the job.
1280. 01:21:10 And that gets to be part of the issue.
1281. 01:21:13 Even like he mentions how Steve Jobs was very much against this and how he would not like he would give you a discount on Apple products, but he would never give them away for free.
1282. 01:21:24 And the reason for that was because he didn't want his employees to devalue the exact item that they were working into build.
1283. 01:21:33 He wanted him to hold it in high regard so they didn't give it away for free.
1284. 01:21:38 And that I can totally get behind that concept because the number of times like whenever something is given away for free, well, it is effectively going to become worthless because it gives it's given away for free.
1285. 01:21:53 So I get that and I understand like the draw that people have towards companies like Google who give away all this stuff and 20% of their time is for your own free projects and such because he even fought that one Tony did because his nest team wanted to take that on.
1286. 01:22:12 It's like the way we go work on these other things.
1287. 01:22:13 We don't have to work on the nest thing as much.
1288. 01:22:15 It's like, but we're in a startup type phase.
1289. 01:22:17 It's like we're trying to get things cranked out.
1290. 01:22:19 We can't deviate from our project.
1291. 01:22:23 But they had that mismatch of the nest employees were seeing the culture of Google and wanted some of that who wouldn't.
1292. 01:22:32 Right.
1293. 01:22:32 I can't fault the employees for that.
1294. 01:22:35 But because of that culture mismatch, it created a lot of tension that Tony had to deal with, which is a big part of why he ended up leaving.
1295. 01:22:44 And that takes you into the last chapter here before we get to the conclusion, unbecoming CEO.
1296. 01:22:49 Basically, when is it time to step away as CEO?
1297. 01:22:53 When is it time to go off and become like an advisor and a consultant to other companies or sit on a board versus being the one who's actually in charge?
1298. 01:23:03 So that is another like, when do you make that call?
1299. 01:23:07 And it was interesting.
1300. 01:23:09 Like as I was reading through some of those, like, yeah, I could think of a couple CEOs that I've heard stories about that should probably.
1301. 01:23:15 Unbecome a CEO like that.
1302. 01:23:18 That would be good for them to step down.
1303. 01:23:20 So it's a fascinating section, I thought.
1304. 01:23:23 Yeah.
1305. 01:23:25 I don't know what it's like to unbecome a CEO, but I can totally empathize with the scenarios that he's describing there, whereas being a CEO is not a lifetime appointment.
1306. 01:23:38 And another interesting point from that chapter, I feel, is like you can have multiple CEOs, but you only have one founder or multiple founders, I guess.
1307. 01:23:47 But the people who started the company will always be the founders.
1308. 01:23:51 And you're never going to be able to replace them.
1309. 01:23:54 Right.
1310. 01:23:55 So if you are a CEO and you're considering joining a company, I guess, I don't know, like, there's only so much you can do.
1311. 01:24:08 I feel like there's a little bit of a parallel here with choosing someone to marry, recognizing that you're not going to change them after the fact.
1312. 01:24:18 Going into it with with your eyes open, essentially.
1313. 01:24:22 If you see things in the founder that are causing you to have concerns about taking a higher level position with that company, just recognize that the.
1314. 01:24:39 To borrow a quote from Ed Cole, the characteristics of the kingdom emanate from the character of the king and the founder is the king, not you as a CEO.
1315. 01:24:49 Yes.
1316. 01:24:50 So true.
1317. 01:24:52 Which brings us to the conclusion, which he titles beyond yourself.
1318. 01:24:57 And it's a fairly concise summary of what he's been through, but there was a process here that he walks through that kind of explains the why behind the building process.
1319. 01:25:11 And it could probably this would be using mostly my words, but it summarizes in the phrase of helping other people, which is something I know that we have talked about time and time again here on the show, but helping other people.
1320. 01:25:28 And if your product, your business, your team, your career and yourself, you as CEO, like, if none of that is helping other people, then you're on a worthless endeavor.
1321. 01:25:41 Like that I thought was fascinating.
1322. 01:25:44 It's like, okay, makes sense.
1323. 01:25:45 It has to be beyond me.
1324. 01:25:46 It's not all about me.
1325. 01:25:48 It's about how I'm helping others.
1326. 01:25:50 So I love that that was kind of his summarization of the book.
1327. 01:25:53 Yeah, I like that too.
1328. 01:25:55 And a couple of other things I liked from this are things that I jotted down everything you make counts.
1329. 01:26:00 So from perspective of building a product, you may have built a product and it's a complete flop, but don't view that as time wasted.
1330. 01:26:10 And then on page 375, he says that thing holding most people back is themselves too true, Tony, too true.
1331. 01:26:18 And then the last thing, which I thought was good advice was don't stop at the finish line.
1332. 01:26:24 And this kind of harkens back to goals.
1333. 01:26:28 But when you view building a product as the goal, you can ship it and then feel like they're now I can breathe.
1334. 01:26:38 But then you just discover what the next thing that you need to do is.
1335. 01:26:41 So I feel like what's unsaid in that one single line is that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
1336. 01:26:49 And really the point is that you have to keep going.
1337. 01:26:56 You have to go further than you thought you would have to probably work harder than you thought you would have to.
1338. 01:27:03 So don't kill yourself to cross that finish line.
1339. 01:27:07 Just recognize that that finish line is kind of a milestone, but there's more race to be run once you get past that point.
1340. 01:27:17 Very generalizable advice, I think, for anybody and good advice.
1341. 01:27:22 Great way to end the book.
1342. 01:27:24 Well, I guess that brings us to action items.
1343. 01:27:28 I am very lame in this case and have none because I'm not building a product.
1344. 01:27:35 That was my justification as I was going through.
1345. 01:27:37 It's like, I'm not really building this.
1346. 01:27:39 But at the same time, it's some really interesting information to have when you're going through the process of learning.
1347. 01:27:47 And as he starts off with building yourself, maybe that's where I'm at in this process, building the career side of it, maybe.
1348. 01:27:54 So maybe it's just the point I'm just not in that space.
1349. 01:27:58 Maybe it's just I'm not in the right mindset for it, but I didn't have any actual action items for this one.
1350. 01:28:03 I know you've got the one.
1351. 01:28:04 Yeah, going to write the press release from Sydney University.
1352. 01:28:08 If you want to write one for relaunching the bookworm club, go ahead.
1353. 01:28:12 I suppose that's possible.
1354. 01:28:16 But yeah, I don't think there's a lot to be actioned in this book.
1355. 01:28:24 It's not just a story and it's not just a conceptual thing, but there really isn't any like if you're in this situation, you need to do this now.
1356. 01:28:37 It's very conceptual, I guess, instead of tactical.
1357. 01:28:42 He's not saying do these things.
1358. 01:28:43 It's more keep these things in mind when you are in this stage of the journey.
1359. 01:28:47 Yes.
1360. 01:28:49 Well, I guess, uh, style and rating.
1361. 01:28:54 I get to go first on this one.
1362. 01:28:55 The style of this book is very well, like it's very well put together.
1363. 01:29:00 Something about Shane Parrish breaking us into the 1.1 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.
1364. 01:29:08 All those things are, uh, I for some reason that kind of grew on me this time.
1365. 01:29:13 I don't know why that is.
1366. 01:29:15 Maybe that's the developer in me coming out and it reminds me of version control.
1367. 01:29:19 I don't know what it is.
1368. 01:29:21 But there is that component that I really liked this time around.
1369. 01:29:26 I don't know why, but the way that he has the structure of this, the parts leading through each into the next, I think was very well put together.
1370. 01:29:36 I think he has the structure of this absolutely spot on.
1371. 01:29:39 I love that it's not a three part book because it takes more than three parts to do all of this building.
1372. 01:29:44 And I do love that at the end, he's even walking you through the process of stepping away from what you have built and why you're building things.
1373. 01:29:54 So he has gone through the entire trajectory here of starting with himself and consequently ourselves all the way up to becoming the CEO of a major business and then stepping away from it.
1374. 01:30:10 So the fact that he's gone through that entire process, I can absolutely give him big kudos to that.
1375. 01:30:15 As far as a rating goes, like there's, I think, limited applicability here, maybe not as much as I think there is.
1376. 01:30:26 There's obviously a lot that everybody can learn from hearing his story and hearing about this process and this, uh, you know, to use his term unorthodox way of making things.
1377. 01:30:38 So you can certainly learn a lot here. And if you are in the space of wanting to build products, like physical products for people to use, I would say this is an absolute no brainer. You should read this.
1378. 01:30:50 If you're somebody who's building like soft products, like software or content and such, I think there's still a lot of value here and you can learn the process of building out a business and team to help you do that.
1379. 01:31:04 There's a lot that you can learn here as well. But if you're not somebody who wants to lead or run something like that and you're, you know, I'm thinking of a couple friends who are like electricians, like they don't want to run a business. They just want to work for another company and be an electrician.
1380. 01:31:20 And they do very well doing that. Like they're not in the business of running another business. They don't want to do that. So I think there's probably limited scope in that perspective.
1381. 01:31:31 At the same time, you can still glean some bits of value from it for sure. So for a rating, I think because of some of that limited audience that comes with it, I think I'm going to put it at 4.0.
1382. 01:31:43 I love the book, but I just don't think it quite has the reach and has the applicability that I would love it to have. So because of that, I'm going to put it at 4.0.
1383. 01:31:55 All right. Well, I will agree with you on the 4.0. I think this is a really fun book, a really good book to read. If I had to compare this to something, it's probably close to something like creativity, Inc.
1384. 01:32:14 Where it is a lot of personal story that provides the value, but it's not just the story. There are principles to be gleaned from this book.
1385. 01:32:27 I stand by my criticism of the chapter points in clear thinking. This one, it does make more sense in this book, I would say. This book is, I don't have a word count for this versus Shane's, but Shane's read pretty fast.
1386. 01:32:44 This one has got to be almost twice as long with the same number of parts. Yes. Yeah.
1387. 01:32:52 And almost probably the same number of points. So, and he is a product engineer, so it makes total sense. Now, maybe Shane has a development background. I don't know.
1388. 01:33:05 I just still think it felt a little bit weird in clear thinking, but we both rated it 5.0. It really had nothing to do with what we got out of the book.
1389. 01:33:12 For sure. It was funny, however, that the very next book also has these point chapters. For the record, I did not know I had that one. I picked it. So, there's that.
1390. 01:33:22 Yeah. But yeah, I think this is a really good book. I think it's better than I thought it was going to be. I think if it would have taken the creativity, Inc. approach and just stuck to the story, it would have been harder to relate to.
1391. 01:33:37 And I would not have enjoyed it as much. Tony really does a phenomenal job. I feel with this format. And I don't know if he's writing this as like a guide for people who are involved with startups or not.
1392. 01:33:51 I mean, it kind of sounds like that's his mission with the build creative is like, this is the world that he's in and he wants to give more than he takes. And that's great.
1393. 01:34:00 I don't think he wrote it for people like you and me necessarily, but I do think that people who listen to bookworm will probably get a lot out of it. I think it's a worthwhile read.
1394. 01:34:11 And I feel like what you get from reading this is a very good picture of who Tony Fadel is. You get you understand his personality.
1395. 01:34:25 But not in a way where like, I think there's a temptation if you are going to write these types of books where you don't share your flaws.
1396. 01:34:36 And what that does is it makes it feel real hard to relate to. I felt like I could relate to Tony. I feel like he did a great job there. He also talked about Steve Jobs in a way that I'd never heard people talk about Steve Jobs before because when people talk about Steve Jobs, they typically do one or two things.
1397. 01:34:52 Either he was an amazing visionary and this incredible CEO who saw more than anybody else did and everyone else who just gotten his way and he got mad like tough, like he just didn't have the vision or people who were like, this guy was such a psychopathic jerk that no one should have ever worked with him.
1398. 01:35:09 I feel like he does a great job being like, Steve was a really brilliant guy, but there were these a couple times, you know, when he did some things that maybe he shouldn't have done. But he's not like coming down on him either like, look at that was absolutely wrong and he's such a jerk.
1399. 01:35:22 I feel like Tony's a really nice guy and he'd be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt most of the time.
1400. 01:35:28 Until you push him too far, you ask him to do something that like, no, that's absolutely, I'm not going to do that. I mean, you can tell kind of by the some of the language he uses that there are there are lines that he's going to draw certain places, but I don't know. I feel like
1401. 01:35:44 whenever I have read books about the startup or computer industry, I feel like they're I usually walk away from those feeling like there's nobody in that world that I can relate to.
1402. 01:35:57 And I don't belong there. I don't I don't want to set foot there, but Tony's this book, I feel like some of the stories that he shares.
1403. 01:36:09 Like there are good people there and obviously you know that if you you think about it, but I don't know. I feel like this could very easily have been a very exclusive book and it's not. I don't know how exactly he did that, but
1404. 01:36:22 that makes me say, yeah, I would recommend this and I will also give it four stars.
1405. 01:36:26 Cool. Cool. All right. Time to put it on the shelf. What's next, Mike?
1406. 01:36:32 Next is Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. We have read an Adam Grant book before, but I'm blanking on the name. Was it think again? Yeah. Okay.
1407. 01:36:44 And I really enjoyed that one. So I'm excited that he's got a new one coming out and timing. You know, it just came out. So I'm going to drag you through that one with me.
1408. 01:36:56 Yeah, I had mine. Mine showed up on a day when it was raining and Amazon was brilliant and put it underneath a downspout at my house.
1409. 01:37:06 Box was completely soaked. The book was in terrible shape. So they replaced it, thankfully, but it's like, hmm, got a brand new book that was on pre-order and it was destroyed before I even knew it was delivered.
1410. 01:37:21 So great fun. Anyway, I have it now, but I got a new one. So that's in good shape. Following Hidden Potential, we're going to go through Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy.
1411. 01:37:33 This was a recommendation on the Bookworm Club by Mark Levison. So thanks, Mark, for the recommendation. So if we don't like this one, Mark is the one we're going to go after.
1412. 01:37:42 It's not going to be my fault. So I have a scapegoat. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate that.
1413. 01:37:49 How about Gap Books? I have none this time because somebody decided to pick a 400 page book. I'm not sure who that was.
1414. 01:37:56 Who does that? I don't know who does that, but they did do it.
1415. 01:37:59 Well, I started This Is Personal by Brandon Dunn before I picked up Build, and I'm about halfway through it. It's really good. So I intend to go back and finish that one.
1416. 01:38:12 And I've got a big list of Gap Books after that. So I definitely want to finish this one so I can grab one of those other Gap Books.
1417. 01:38:21 Cool, cool. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening. If you are reading along with us, pick up Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.