203: Hidden Genius by Polina Marinova Pompliano

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1. 00:00:00 So Corey, how did you do on your action items?
2. 00:00:03 - Ah, pretty terrible.
3. 00:00:05 So Mike, I'm trying to diagnose why I'm so bad
4. 00:00:08 at action items.
5. 00:00:09 And I think it's because I have these like grand visions
6. 00:00:13 for these action items.
7. 00:00:14 And then I roll into, we stop recording
8. 00:00:18 and the rest of life hits me like a gigantic wave
9. 00:00:22 crashing into me, be that family or the next book
10. 00:00:26 or my job or whatever it might be, right?
11. 00:00:28 I get crashed on this.
12. 00:00:29 And then I go, I didn't even know I had action items.
13. 00:00:33 And they just go away.
14. 00:00:35 So I need a better system.
15. 00:00:37 And this is not just for bookworm action items.
16. 00:00:39 This is for life more generally.
17. 00:00:42 I need a better system, but not,
18. 00:00:45 it isn't the tool, right?
19. 00:00:48 I know you talk about this all the time,
20. 00:00:49 I'm focused in different places.
21. 00:00:51 Like the tool doesn't matter.
22. 00:00:52 I've tried paper, I've tried this app,
23. 00:00:54 I've tried that app, I've tried this other thing.
24. 00:00:56 So that's why I say I need a better system.
25. 00:00:58 And where it comes down to it is I need a system
26. 00:01:01 that I actually care about.
27. 00:01:02 And like when I write something in there
28. 00:01:04 and then it pops up a reminder or notification,
29. 00:01:07 I actually pay attention to it.
30. 00:01:09 And it's like, so there is a fundamental disconnect
31. 00:01:12 and it's not that I don't care,
32. 00:01:13 it's not that I don't want to map out
33. 00:01:16 a strategic listening plan,
34. 00:01:17 or it's not that I don't want to ask
35. 00:01:19 how do I put others first today.
36. 00:01:21 It's a matter of, I need a better system
37. 00:01:24 that actually encourages me to do that
38. 00:01:27 and to stay on top of it.
39. 00:01:28 And to continually stay on top of it.
40. 00:01:30 So how did I do on mapping out a strategic listening plan?
41. 00:01:33 I did not map out a strategic listening pin.
42. 00:01:35 How did I do on, how did I put others first?
43. 00:01:38 I'll tell you, I probably thought about this two times,
44. 00:01:42 maybe three times, but I definitely did not think
45. 00:01:46 like about it every day or regularly enough
46. 00:01:50 as I wanted to in there.
47. 00:01:52 So that is my mini little die tribe on actual items.
48. 00:01:57 How did you do Mike?
49. 00:01:58 50%, but let me back up just a second here
50. 00:02:03 because you mentioned a system.
51. 00:02:05 And I guess this is a good spot to mention
52. 00:02:10 that I am working on a system,
53. 00:02:14 not just for action items,
54. 00:02:15 for running your entire life out of obsidian.
55. 00:02:19 So happy to give you a beta version of that
56. 00:02:22 if you think it could be helpful
57. 00:02:23 for anyone who is interested in this sort of thing.
58. 00:02:26 I will create a landing page
59. 00:02:28 where you can go put in your email
60. 00:02:31 and I'm getting ready to launch it
61. 00:02:32 in the next month or so.
62. 00:02:34 So if you fill out that form,
63. 00:02:35 I'll make sure that you get the email
64. 00:02:38 as soon as it's available
65. 00:02:40 and you get the option at the best price.
66. 00:02:42 But basically what I'm doing is I'm taking everything I do
67. 00:02:45 inside of obsidian,
68. 00:02:47 making a pre-made vault with pre-configured plugins
69. 00:02:50 and a whole bunch of dashboards.
70. 00:02:51 That's the thing that really stands out to me
71. 00:02:52 is like the way that my action items get done
72. 00:02:55 is I put those into obsidian
73. 00:02:57 and then they show up on these lists
74. 00:02:59 in this canvas dashboard that I've created.
75. 00:03:01 I think I probably showed you a screenshot of this
76. 00:03:02 at one point.
77. 00:03:03 - I saw a screenshot,
78. 00:03:04 I think in one of your newsletters.
79. 00:03:07 - Okay.
80. 00:03:08 - And before you keep going,
81. 00:03:09 let me tell everybody,
82. 00:03:10 I did not do this on purpose.
83. 00:03:11 I made the statement that I made
84. 00:03:13 knowing that Mike is the focused guy.
85. 00:03:15 I had no idea that he had this whole,
86. 00:03:18 well, I have this canned system
87. 00:03:19 that's gonna come right at you.
88. 00:03:21 I mean, I've heard him talk about it before,
89. 00:03:22 but I was not,
90. 00:03:23 this was not like some sneaky mechanism
91. 00:03:25 for him to talk about his thing.
92. 00:03:26 So, but I'm interested, keep going.
93. 00:03:28 - Okay, I'm terrible at self-promotion.
94. 00:03:30 So I don't like talking about it.
95. 00:03:32 But basically, yeah, so I have in,
96. 00:03:35 it started with me building my task dashboard in obsidian
97. 00:03:38 where I've got all these colored lists
98. 00:03:39 for things that I do today,
99. 00:03:40 things that are on the back burner,
100. 00:03:41 things that I'm waiting for someone to get back to me on,
101. 00:03:43 things that need to clarify,
102. 00:03:45 things that I do the next week,
103. 00:03:46 I have an inbox,
104. 00:03:47 which is basically things that haven't been processed
105. 00:03:50 so they don't have a date, they don't have a tag.
106. 00:03:52 And I basically just kind of thought through,
107. 00:03:54 how does this system work?
108. 00:03:55 What are the rules that I'm playing by
109. 00:03:57 as I'm putting things in here?
110. 00:03:58 And then I found that if you just capture tasks
111. 00:04:01 to a single list, it'll show up in these,
112. 00:04:03 in a single note,
113. 00:04:04 it'll show up on these lists
114. 00:04:05 if it has the right metadata.
115. 00:04:07 So I started building more dashboards
116. 00:04:09 and now I've got them for all of my daily questions,
117. 00:04:13 all of my journal entries.
118. 00:04:15 I mean, if you've been following my YouTube channel
119. 00:04:17 at all, I've been talking a lot about this stuff,
120. 00:04:19 the quote books thing where it's got a special beta plugin
121. 00:04:24 formats, the query a certain way.
122. 00:04:25 So you can see the source and also command app,
123. 00:04:27 you can find whatever quote you're looking for.
124. 00:04:30 I started showing that to people in my community
125. 00:04:32 and they're like, "Hey, this is cool,
126. 00:04:33 "I'll be interested in trying this."
127. 00:04:34 And so I've been working on this Pro Vault
128. 00:04:36 for several months now.
129. 00:04:38 And I'm building all the documentation.
130. 00:04:40 So it's the dashboards and things,
131. 00:04:42 but also a whole bunch of lessons.
132. 00:04:44 This is how you use it.
133. 00:04:46 At the, there's 40 different workflows
134. 00:04:49 that I've built into it.
135. 00:04:50 And each one has a summary at the top
136. 00:04:52 where if you don't care about the philosophy,
137. 00:04:54 just press this keyboard shortcut to do this,
138. 00:04:57 then do this, then do this.
139. 00:04:59 But I want people to understand how it works
140. 00:05:01 and I don't want it to be like a turnkey system.
141. 00:05:04 I want people to like customize it and make it their own.
142. 00:05:07 So below that screenshots and I'm working on videos
143. 00:05:10 where it's like, this is everything that goes into
144. 00:05:13 why I'm doing it this way.
145. 00:05:15 So it's essentially a PKM course,
146. 00:05:19 but also a done for, inside of a done for you vault
147. 00:05:22 that has all of the stuff reconfigured.
148. 00:05:24 And there'll be two versions.
149. 00:05:24 One will have all the how to's.
150. 00:05:26 One will just be the blank one.
151. 00:05:27 So you can just open it up and you're off to the races.
152. 00:05:32 So yeah, I think maybe this could help you
153. 00:05:35 with your action item problem.
154. 00:05:36 If you're interested in city,
155. 00:05:38 I know you've been like obsidian curious in the past.
156. 00:05:40 I don't know how invested you are into it.
157. 00:05:44 - Not so.
158. 00:05:45 - I mean, not enough to like say I don't like it,
159. 00:05:48 but it's just not also not enough to say I use it
160. 00:05:50 like every day.
161. 00:05:51 It's not definitely not the first thing I open them
162. 00:05:52 when I open a computer.
163. 00:05:54 - Well, I mean, if you're not doing task management
164. 00:05:56 in obsidian already, then maybe it's not gonna work for you,
165. 00:05:59 but I don't know.
166. 00:06:01 If you want it, let me know.
167. 00:06:03 (laughs)
168. 00:06:04 - Well, I think if nothing else would be fun to play around
169. 00:06:06 with it and talk about in a pro show, right?
170. 00:06:08 I mean, it's like, like I messed around with your vault
171. 00:06:11 and let me tell you all the things that I liked
172. 00:06:13 and all the things that I didn't like.
173. 00:06:14 (laughs)
174. 00:06:15 - That's fair.
175. 00:06:16 All right, so yeah, there's that.
176. 00:06:19 And then as far as my action items go,
177. 00:06:22 I had two of them.
178. 00:06:25 So one was find something hard to do.
179. 00:06:28 I survived a trip to London.
180. 00:06:29 Does that count?
181. 00:06:30 - That does count.
182. 00:06:31 (laughs)
183. 00:06:32 - That does count.
184. 00:06:32 That was not the intention.
185. 00:06:34 I joke about that because we just talked about
186. 00:06:36 that for the pro show.
187. 00:06:37 So if you want to find out more about the,
188. 00:06:39 my trip to London, then we talked about it
189. 00:06:42 for about 20 minutes before this.
190. 00:06:44 And you can find out more about the pro show
191. 00:06:47 at patreon.com/bookwormfm.
192. 00:06:51 The one I did succeed at was finding someone to praise weekly.
193. 00:06:54 And I guess you could say that this isn't really done.
194. 00:06:57 Like I don't have a system for this,
195. 00:06:58 but I have been doing it.
196. 00:07:00 And it really hasn't been specifically,
197. 00:07:04 I'm picking someone to praise them
198. 00:07:07 for something specific that they did.
199. 00:07:09 It's more just sending an encouraging note to somebody,
200. 00:07:12 which I think is the way I framed it last time
201. 00:07:15 my memory serves.
202. 00:07:16 That's really what I was after.
203. 00:07:18 And that part has stuck so far.
204. 00:07:21 So not enough to say that,
205. 00:07:23 oh yeah, this is ingrained in it's now a habit,
206. 00:07:25 but at least enough to give it a green check mark
207. 00:07:28 instead of a red X.
208. 00:07:29 - Okay, so I'm in this show enough now.
209. 00:07:33 And I don't know if I've asked this question
210. 00:07:34 or not before, so if I've asked this question,
211. 00:07:36 just tell me to tell me something.
212. 00:07:38 What is the point of action items
213. 00:07:40 and what was the original point of action items
214. 00:07:43 and what should the future of action items look like?
215. 00:07:46 Or is this something we should talk about?
216. 00:07:50 Is this something we should talk about
217. 00:07:51 and on a different thing?
218. 00:07:52 And we should get to the book because we're already
219. 00:07:54 a bunch of minutes into recording.
220. 00:07:56 - Well, I don't know.
221. 00:07:58 I mean, I guess if you have feedback
222. 00:08:00 for the action items and what you think we should do with them,
223. 00:08:02 then let us know.
224. 00:08:03 But the original intention was we read these books
225. 00:08:08 and what's the point of reading the books?
226. 00:08:10 It's to do something with what we have read.
227. 00:08:13 So jot down the things that we wanna do
228. 00:08:16 based on the books that we have read.
229. 00:08:18 And then in theory, because we have shared these publicly,
230. 00:08:23 we don't want to look like a fool next episode.
231. 00:08:27 (laughs)
232. 00:08:27 Not do them, but.
233. 00:08:30 (laughs)
234. 00:08:30 - So that's where I fall down is because
235. 00:08:32 I don't take me not doing it as looking like a fool,
236. 00:08:35 which maybe I should.
237. 00:08:36 Maybe that's a me problem.
238. 00:08:39 - Well, I don't know.
239. 00:08:40 I mean, I've failed at this too.
240. 00:08:43 You mentioned, you had a phrase,
241. 00:08:45 I forget how you set it.
242. 00:08:48 But what I heard in my head was that life has life to you.
243. 00:08:51 Which happens.
244. 00:08:55 And I think it's finding.
245. 00:08:58 If you're consistently finding, you know,
246. 00:09:01 behind the scenes in front of everybody, I guess here.
247. 00:09:03 If you are finding Corey,
248. 00:09:05 that you think the action items are not serving
249. 00:09:08 the purpose in the future,
250. 00:09:10 we can definitely think about getting rid of them.
251. 00:09:13 - No, it's more a matter of like,
252. 00:09:14 I want a longer term way to track.
253. 00:09:18 - That's fair.
254. 00:09:18 - You know what I mean?
255. 00:09:19 So, okay, I write them down.
256. 00:09:20 And I mean, I think maybe it's just,
257. 00:09:22 I need to go back through the episodes
258. 00:09:23 and write down all my action items.
259. 00:09:24 And then I don't need to follow up on them
260. 00:09:27 by the next show.
261. 00:09:28 But it's like, if I can say within six months,
262. 00:09:30 I'm at 80%, right?
263. 00:09:32 I've hit 80% of my action items.
264. 00:09:33 Okay, like I like that metric.
265. 00:09:35 That seems like a realistic metric for me.
266. 00:09:37 I don't know if it's true or not,
267. 00:09:39 but it's like that's almost what I want.
268. 00:09:41 Because when I make them,
269. 00:09:42 when I make the action items, I want to do them,
270. 00:09:45 but then life life's me.
271. 00:09:47 And it's like, will I ever get back to that?
272. 00:09:50 Because if not, I mean, what do we read
273. 00:09:51 in all these books for?
274. 00:09:52 Like what do we, other than just the general,
275. 00:09:54 general like lifting up your base knowledge,
276. 00:09:56 which we're gonna talk about that later
277. 00:09:58 with a David Brooks quote.
278. 00:09:59 Okay, so maybe that's something I need to do
279. 00:10:01 with your vault system that you share with me.
280. 00:10:04 I need to figure out a way to track all the action items.
281. 00:10:07 Could be.
282. 00:10:08 We'll work on this.
283. 00:10:10 We've done different things in the past
284. 00:10:13 where we've tried to, for example,
285. 00:10:17 share the action items publicly.
286. 00:10:20 That just ended up being too much maintenance.
287. 00:10:23 But I don't mind pinging you and being like,
288. 00:10:25 "Hey, just so you know, recording on this a couple of days,
289. 00:10:28 "and you said you were gonna do this."
290. 00:10:30 So.
291. 00:10:31 Well, and what it might be is you and I schedule, right?
292. 00:10:34 We calendar like a follow up show
293. 00:10:37 or something like every six months,
294. 00:10:39 and we're like, okay, let's look back at our action items
295. 00:10:41 and how many of them have we actually tried to do
296. 00:10:44 and tried to do, and that'd be a fun additional show.
297. 00:10:49 All right, I'm game.
298. 00:10:50 All right, cool.
299. 00:10:51 Man, that was fun.
300. 00:10:52 Okay.
301. 00:10:53 (laughs)
302. 00:10:54 All right, let's talk about today's book.
303. 00:10:56 Today's book is Hidden Genius by Paulina Miranova-Pompliano.
304. 00:11:03 I believe is how you say it.
305. 00:11:05 And to be honest, I had not heard of this book
306. 00:11:10 prior to hearing her as a guest
307. 00:11:14 on one of my new favorite podcasts, which is Good Work
308. 00:11:19 by Bear Brooks.
309. 00:11:22 Do you know who Bear Brooks is?
310. 00:11:23 I know of Bear Brooks.
311. 00:11:25 I don't know much about.
312. 00:11:26 Okay.
313. 00:11:27 So Bear Brooks is the former second-in-command
314. 00:11:30 at ConvertKit and was basically the operations guy
315. 00:11:35 when he was there, and he left a couple of years ago.
316. 00:11:39 He's still a part owner in the company,
317. 00:11:42 but now he is basically a consultant
318. 00:11:45 for smaller businesses to help them dial in there,
319. 00:11:49 their business operations.
320. 00:11:50 And he started a podcast called Good Work,
321. 00:11:55 which has quickly become one of my favorites,
322. 00:11:57 in part because I find the whole concept
323. 00:12:01 of business operations to be fascinating.
324. 00:12:04 So if you're hearing me describe that
325. 00:12:07 and you think that sounds boring,
326. 00:12:08 like don't bother with this podcast, you're not gonna like it.
327. 00:12:11 But I think he does a really good job.
328. 00:12:14 He interviews a lot of interesting people,
329. 00:12:16 and he's one of the best interviewers that I've heard.
330. 00:12:19 It's not your standard interviews.
331. 00:12:21 He is very articulate, very intelligent
332. 00:12:24 in the way that he frames his questions,
333. 00:12:26 the conversations that come up as a result
334. 00:12:31 end up always being great, in my opinion.
335. 00:12:34 So he was interviewing Paulina Miranova Pompiano
336. 00:12:38 on his podcast, and that's how I found out about this book,
337. 00:12:42 Hidden Genius, which I'm not quite sure
338. 00:12:44 how to classify this book.
339. 00:12:47 There's an introduction and a conclusion
340. 00:12:50 and then 10 separate chapters.
341. 00:12:51 So there's not like sections associated with this,
342. 00:12:55 which is kind of nice actually.
343. 00:12:57 The first chapter, Unleashing Your Creative Potential,
344. 00:13:00 second chapter, Mastering Mental Toughness.
345. 00:13:02 And then as you go, you get into leadership type topics,
346. 00:13:06 taking risk in times of uncertainty,
347. 00:13:08 clarifying your thinking, optimizing your content diet.
348. 00:13:12 It has an arc to it, but it's very wide ranging.
349. 00:13:18 And also, I guess just about the book in general here
350. 00:13:22 before we get into the specifics.
351. 00:13:24 It is definitely not written as an I am the guru
352. 00:13:28 and you should listen to what I say type of narrative.
353. 00:13:33 A lot of the chapters are constructed
354. 00:13:37 of a lot of the ideas that she has picked up
355. 00:13:40 from other people, other places.
356. 00:13:43 But it's also not just a restating of other people's ideas.
357. 00:13:47 She does a great job sprinkling, in my opinion,
358. 00:13:49 sprinkling in her own experiences and stories,
359. 00:13:53 along with what she shares.
360. 00:13:55 But all that to say, it's a little bit different type of book.
361. 00:13:59 There's still a lot of great information in here,
362. 00:14:02 but it's packaged in the form of like a lot of profiles
363. 00:14:06 and quotes.
364. 00:14:07 Several of the pages are just a giant quote
365. 00:14:10 by one of the people in the profiles that she talks about.
366. 00:14:14 And yeah, what was your first impressions
367. 00:14:17 when you picked this one up?
368. 00:14:19 Yeah, so you did a good job given the overview.
369. 00:14:21 It's a tough book like you were doing
370. 00:14:24 to try to wrap your head around
371. 00:14:27 until you've thought about it a little while.
372. 00:14:28 I think the tagline or like the,
373. 00:14:31 what is it after the colon, right?
374. 00:14:32 So you have a title, it's hidden genius and then colon,
375. 00:14:35 whatever that the subtitle is
376. 00:14:37 or whatever you wanna call that it.
377. 00:14:38 The secret ways of thinking
378. 00:14:39 that power the world's most successful people.
379. 00:14:41 I think that actually does a really good job.
380. 00:14:43 In this book that what it's gonna give you
381. 00:14:45 is it's gonna give you these 10 different ways of thinking
382. 00:14:48 or 10 different ideas that power,
383. 00:14:52 I don't like the world's most, but I like successful people.
384. 00:14:56 Like if you would have just gone,
385. 00:14:58 the secret ways of thinking that power successful people,
386. 00:15:00 I think that would be good.
387. 00:15:01 And that's the way I broke down the 10 chapters is like,
388. 00:15:03 here's an idea, it's a really interesting idea.
389. 00:15:07 Here's another idea, it's a really interesting idea.
390. 00:15:08 And where does it come from?
391. 00:15:10 I think she does a good job explaining how
392. 00:15:15 her writing trajectory, in 2020,
393. 00:15:18 she quits her job and then starts the profile,
394. 00:15:22 which is this newsletter about,
395. 00:15:24 it's like profiling people.
396. 00:15:26 And you can easily see how she goes from there
397. 00:15:28 to writing this book.
398. 00:15:29 This book is not just,
399. 00:15:31 she could have written this book in terms of like,
400. 00:15:33 here are the 10 best profiles
401. 00:15:36 and what I learned from those profiles.
402. 00:15:37 And she didn't do that, she kinda did what
403. 00:15:40 in the research world, she did all these profiles
404. 00:15:44 and then said, what is the key theme?
405. 00:15:46 And then like, so you can see how she created this book.
406. 00:15:50 I thought that was a good way to do it.
407. 00:15:52 And we'll talk about the 10 different things,
408. 00:15:55 but overall, like I think she organized it.
409. 00:15:58 It's organized well and it's clear, very clear.
410. 00:16:01 - Yeah, you were talking about the world's
411. 00:16:06 most successful people.
412. 00:16:07 And I actually don't mind that descriptor there.
413. 00:16:13 I get why just taken out of context
414. 00:16:16 that sounds kind of grandiose and maybe sets a,
415. 00:16:21 creates a picture of a tone for this book
416. 00:16:23 that's not really there in my opinion.
417. 00:16:25 But also one of the things that gave some credibility
418. 00:16:30 to this book when I was looking at it before I bought it,
419. 00:16:33 is that there's a blurb on the front cover by James Clear.
420. 00:16:37 - I knew you were good.
421. 00:16:38 I knew you were gonna be excited
422. 00:16:40 about the James Clear stuff that's in here.
423. 00:16:42 - Yeah, to be honest,
424. 00:16:43 Atomic Habits is a great book,
425. 00:16:47 but I don't think it's even my favorite book
426. 00:16:50 on the topic of habits.
427. 00:16:51 That would probably be Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg.
428. 00:16:56 But I do think that James Clear does a great job
429. 00:17:02 in Atomic Habits.
430. 00:17:04 And I also think that it's kind of cool
431. 00:17:07 to see his career trajectory,
432. 00:17:10 because I knew of him.
433. 00:17:11 I never actually met him,
434. 00:17:13 but I knew of him when I was working with Asian efficiency.
435. 00:17:17 And that was obviously long before he wrote the book
436. 00:17:20 and he was starting a blog and trying to write consistently
437. 00:17:25 and build this email newsletter,
438. 00:17:27 which now he's probably got one of the biggest newsletters
439. 00:17:29 on the planet, but before he was a big deal,
440. 00:17:34 he was the guy who was hungry to learn and get better.
441. 00:17:38 And I appreciate that about him.
442. 00:17:42 I actually got to interview him
443. 00:17:43 for the productivity show back in the day.
444. 00:17:45 That was a fun interview.
445. 00:17:48 Just seems like a very genuine authentic person,
446. 00:17:53 in my opinion.
447. 00:17:55 And those are the people that I like to surround myself with
448. 00:17:58 and the people I like to listen to.
449. 00:17:59 So if he is saying that this is a good book,
450. 00:18:03 that does carry a little bit of weight for me,
451. 00:18:05 but not just because it's atomic habits
452. 00:18:09 and that's been at the top of the bestsellers list
453. 00:18:11 for so long.
454. 00:18:13 - Well, and if you like the books that are covered
455. 00:18:15 on Bookworm, this book fits right in the center of that.
456. 00:18:19 Like a lot of the referenced people in this book
457. 00:18:23 are authors that have either been previously talked about,
458. 00:18:26 right, their books have been read
459. 00:18:28 and we've talked about them previously on the podcast.
460. 00:18:31 So I'm talking James Clear, Morgan Haussel.
461. 00:18:34 I mean, there's quite a few,
462. 00:18:37 I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of other ones,
463. 00:18:39 but it's like, there's quite a few here
464. 00:18:40 that we've covered their books or Mike and Joe covered
465. 00:18:43 their books before I came on the show.
466. 00:18:44 So this fits right in the wheelhouse of, you know,
467. 00:18:48 what we do, you know, basically every other week.
468. 00:18:52 - Yep, absolutely.
469. 00:18:54 You will find as you go through it,
470. 00:18:57 that some of the ideas that she's referencing
471. 00:18:59 in these other books, there's a whole lot more to them,
472. 00:19:02 obviously, than she's going to be able to get into
473. 00:19:05 in the context that she has,
474. 00:19:07 but we should probably just dive into the book here.
475. 00:19:10 So let's start with the introduction,
476. 00:19:13 which is the first section here.
477. 00:19:15 And a couple of things to call out in this first section,
478. 00:19:20 for me, she kind of frames it
479. 00:19:24 through the lens of people focused learning
480. 00:19:27 and she's got this emphasis on storytelling,
481. 00:19:30 which I think is really cool.
482. 00:19:32 And essentially what she's saying is that
483. 00:19:35 you can pick up information,
484. 00:19:38 but you remember it more,
485. 00:19:39 and it has more impact a lot of times
486. 00:19:41 when there's a story attached to it.
487. 00:19:43 So people focus learning specifically,
488. 00:19:45 is a notion that people and their stories are at the center
489. 00:19:48 of any learning pursuit.
490. 00:19:50 And I've heard about the power of story
491. 00:19:52 and why stories are important previously,
492. 00:19:55 but something about the way that she framed it here
493. 00:19:57 at the introduction made it click for me.
494. 00:20:01 So this isn't laying the foundation
495. 00:20:04 for the whole concept of hidden genius.
496. 00:20:06 She's just kind of talking about,
497. 00:20:08 this is what I'm going to do throughout the rest of the book,
498. 00:20:11 which I thought was kind of interesting.
499. 00:20:13 - Yeah, and I like how she frames it
500. 00:20:16 in terms of we're not idolizing these people.
501. 00:20:18 So we're not putting them on this overly grandiose pedestal.
502. 00:20:21 What we're doing is basically we're trying to say,
503. 00:20:23 there's something about them or some way that they think
504. 00:20:26 or something they've talked about at some point,
505. 00:20:27 and that's interesting, and let's learn from that,
506. 00:20:30 which I like a lot.
507. 00:20:31 I can also tell you that from the educator in me
508. 00:20:35 says it's very, very true in terms of stories
509. 00:20:40 have a huge impact when you're trying to teach somebody something.
510. 00:20:43 So you'll have a class where what we do,
511. 00:20:46 we came in all day and we just delivered content.
512. 00:20:49 It's fact, fact, definition, fact, equation,
513. 00:20:52 try an example, whatever it is.
514. 00:20:54 And then you'll have other classes
515. 00:20:55 where it's story this, story that, add fact, add definition,
516. 00:21:00 add a show, like I showed use of the formula
517. 00:21:02 within a context.
518. 00:21:04 And the students get way more out of it
519. 00:21:07 if you put it into context through stories,
520. 00:21:09 if you put it into context through design problems
521. 00:21:11 and this type of thing.
522. 00:21:12 So I was on board, right?
523. 00:21:14 When I read the introduction, I was like,
524. 00:21:16 yep, this is gonna be a good way to think about this.
525. 00:21:20 And I'm also a social psychologist,
526. 00:21:23 a social science researcher.
527. 00:21:25 So I was in, right when she said about,
528. 00:21:26 we're gonna learn from other people,
529. 00:21:28 I was like, yeah, let's do this.
530. 00:21:30 - Cool.
531. 00:21:31 All right, so the first chapter,
532. 00:21:33 chapter one is unleashing your creative potential.
533. 00:21:38 She's starting off with a topic
534. 00:21:41 that is very important, inspiring,
535. 00:21:46 and intriguing to me.
536. 00:21:49 The whole idea of creativity
537. 00:21:52 is always kind of fascinated me.
538. 00:21:54 For those who know my story,
539. 00:21:56 at one point I said, I guess I'm just not creative.
540. 00:21:59 I thought I didn't have the gene,
541. 00:22:02 and I looked at what other people could make,
542. 00:22:04 and I was like, that's amazing.
543. 00:22:06 They make it look so easy and effortless.
544. 00:22:09 I obviously can't do what they do.
545. 00:22:12 And I had to kind of learn
546. 00:22:15 that creativity is a process, it's a system,
547. 00:22:20 and kind of started with steel like an artist
548. 00:22:23 by Austin Cleon, where he's talking about,
549. 00:22:27 if you create something new,
550. 00:22:28 you're really just connecting dots
551. 00:22:29 in ways that haven't been connected before.
552. 00:22:32 And that really stuck with me,
553. 00:22:35 and I've been trying to collect better dots for years.
554. 00:22:39 I've noticed through the process
555. 00:22:41 that when I collect better dots,
556. 00:22:43 it's easier to create things.
557. 00:22:45 So just get better inputs,
558. 00:22:47 the outputs get better regardless.
559. 00:22:48 But then as you continue to think about this,
560. 00:22:51 obviously the next step is the process.
561. 00:22:54 And that I think is kind of what she's talking about here.
562. 00:22:57 Creativity is a skill, it can be learned.
563. 00:23:00 There's different ways to approach this.
564. 00:23:04 I just wrote a newsletter as we record this
565. 00:23:06 on my framework for this,
566. 00:23:08 just trying to make sense of it in my own
567. 00:23:10 had on the creativity flywheel.
568. 00:23:12 So I'll put a link to that in the show notes
569. 00:23:14 for people who are interested in that sort of thing.
570. 00:23:16 We don't need to talk through all that.
571. 00:23:18 Today we'll focus on the book here.
572. 00:23:20 But all that to say that I think she has a good job
573. 00:23:24 of talking about the key elements of creativity.
574. 00:23:27 One of the things that I liked that she brought up
575. 00:23:30 was that in the 1500s,
576. 00:23:31 Leonardo Vinci used a process called connecting the unconnected,
577. 00:23:35 which ties into what I was talking about
578. 00:23:37 with Steelick and Artists and connecting these dots.
579. 00:23:40 I mean, they're using a little bit different terminology
580. 00:23:43 to describe this,
581. 00:23:45 but also they're talking about the same things.
582. 00:23:48 And by describing it a different way,
583. 00:23:49 it clicks in my head a little bit better.
584. 00:23:52 I understand it a little bit more fully.
585. 00:23:56 And the story that she shares with this,
586. 00:23:58 which I'd never heard before was kind of interesting,
587. 00:24:01 how Leonardo was standing by a well.
588. 00:24:04 And then he noticed that when a stone hit the water
589. 00:24:06 at the moment, he noticed a stone hitting the water,
590. 00:24:10 the moment that a bell went off at a nearby church tower.
591. 00:24:14 And he saw that the stone caused these circles
592. 00:24:16 that spread until they disappeared.
593. 00:24:18 And then he kind of translated the context and he's like,
594. 00:24:21 "Oh, that's probably what's happening
595. 00:24:23 with the sound waves from the bell,"
596. 00:24:25 which I think is kind of cool.
597. 00:24:28 I mean, there's so much we could talk about with this.
598. 00:24:31 Just one highlight, I guess,
599. 00:24:34 from all the places my brain is racing right now.
600. 00:24:36 I talk about connecting notes in Obsidian a lot
601. 00:24:42 and the videos that I make and stuff like that.
602. 00:24:45 And one of the questions I get asked all the time is,
603. 00:24:47 "Well, should I have separate vaults for this,
604. 00:24:48 that other thing?"
605. 00:24:50 And I'm always like, "No, because I like the fact
606. 00:24:52 that I can take something from one domain
607. 00:24:54 and connect it and apply the concept
608. 00:24:56 to something in a totally different domain."
609. 00:24:58 So I can see a lot of overlap with some of the stories
610. 00:25:03 that she shares with us and my whole approach to creativity.
611. 00:25:08 She also talks about the chef and the cook.
612. 00:25:10 Maybe this is a place for some conversation here
613. 00:25:14 where a chef is someone who creates recipes.
614. 00:25:16 A cook is someone who follows them.
615. 00:25:18 And I think that there's probably a different times
616. 00:25:23 that we should be in cook versus chef modes,
617. 00:25:28 regardless of how creative we think we are,
618. 00:25:31 the type of work that we do.
619. 00:25:33 - I recently got to interact with a guy
620. 00:25:35 who is the chef as she would describe it.
621. 00:25:38 And his job is to create the menu
622. 00:25:41 for different restaurants, right?
623. 00:25:42 And like, so what's he do?
624. 00:25:44 He basically thinks about what flavor combinations
625. 00:25:47 would go together well,
626. 00:25:48 and then what would people want to buy
627. 00:25:49 and how would they want to put plates together.
628. 00:25:53 And then he develops that for like three different restaurants.
629. 00:25:55 And it's like, that's his job.
630. 00:25:56 He doesn't actually cook any of the food
631. 00:25:58 on the nightly basis.
632. 00:26:01 His job is to make the new cool dish at the menu
633. 00:26:05 or on the menu and to develop that new thing.
634. 00:26:08 You talked about kind of making the connections
635. 00:26:12 within Obsidian.
636. 00:26:14 Your episode, I'm not the whole way through it right now,
637. 00:26:16 but your episode interviewing Bob Dotto on Focused
638. 00:26:20 was really, really good.
639. 00:26:21 Like, 'cause that's, I forget whether it was
640. 00:26:23 the second or the third layer,
641. 00:26:24 so you can correct me where it was, but, okay,
642. 00:26:26 we put in these notes and they're just single ideas.
643. 00:26:29 And if we don't go back in
644. 00:26:30 and we don't think about how these notes
645. 00:26:32 connect to the other notes, we're missing it.
646. 00:26:34 Like we're actually missing what we're doing.
647. 00:26:36 It's not the, it's almost like the ingestion of ideas
648. 00:26:42 is table stakes.
649. 00:26:43 We have to do that.
650. 00:26:45 But if we do that and we don't do the second layer
651. 00:26:48 where we try to connect things and, you know,
652. 00:26:50 write these maps of content or I forget what,
653. 00:26:53 what it was called in Dotto's system.
654. 00:26:55 What did he call the one where you try
655. 00:26:57 to put things together?
656. 00:26:59 - Well, he's got a very Zettelkasten approach.
657. 00:27:02 I forget the specific terms that he uses.
658. 00:27:05 I've got a mine node for this.
659. 00:27:08 I'd be actually, I almost picked that book
660. 00:27:10 as the next book for Bookworm,
661. 00:27:12 but I wasn't sure you would actually be interested in it.
662. 00:27:14 So if you're a game.
663. 00:27:17 - I'm totally interested in it.
664. 00:27:18 - All right.
665. 00:27:19 - So, yeah, so, but it's like that, that's that idea.
666. 00:27:21 This creativity isn't, it's, isn't just the capturing
667. 00:27:26 of things or the coming up with the good idea.
668. 00:27:29 It's also the combining different things.
669. 00:27:31 When we, when we teach different entrepreneurship classes,
670. 00:27:35 one of the activities we'd take them through is
671. 00:27:37 we would give them like 15 or 20 different existing things
672. 00:27:42 and we'd say, okay, you're only allowed to create ideas
673. 00:27:45 with these 15 or 20 things, but you have to smoosh them
674. 00:27:47 together and you can smoosh two of them together.
675. 00:27:49 You can smoosh 15 of them together, whatever it is.
676. 00:27:53 And we had some really cool ideas come out of it.
677. 00:27:56 Like one of them that I believe is still a company,
678. 00:28:00 but it's called Cardile and they were like,
679. 00:28:02 we wanna be like the red box of greeting cards.
680. 00:28:06 So what they did was they smoosh together this idea
681. 00:28:09 of red box having this little kiosk that sits
682. 00:28:11 in the middle of your store and then the greeting card aisle
683. 00:28:14 and it's like, how can we smoosh those two things together?
684. 00:28:17 So I really liked that idea of this idea of combinatorials
685. 00:28:21 or combining different things into ideas.
686. 00:28:24 The key takeaway I have from this chapter,
687. 00:28:27 basically these three characteristics, right?
688. 00:28:29 Original creators have three characteristics.
689. 00:28:31 They have a unique point of view.
690. 00:28:32 They're confident they can achieve their goal
691. 00:28:34 and then they're willing to fail spectacularly.
692. 00:28:36 And I was like, man, that's a really good way to do this
693. 00:28:39 because if you think about it,
694. 00:28:41 like that's a lot of the people I like to watch on YouTube
695. 00:28:45 or I like to listen to, it's like they do have a good idea,
696. 00:28:48 a good point of view, that's why I cared about listening to them.
697. 00:28:51 Two, they do it well or they've done the work
698. 00:28:54 or they've practiced to do it well.
699. 00:28:56 And then three, right?
700. 00:28:58 There's a good chance that it's gonna fail.
701. 00:28:59 I kinda wish that more of them would be willing to fail more
702. 00:29:03 and to throw those things out there and be like, hey,
703. 00:29:07 that thing we did two weeks ago, it was not good.
704. 00:29:10 And we learned a lot from the fact that it wasn't good
705. 00:29:12 and we're not gonna do that anymore.
706. 00:29:14 Because I just think there's a creative honesty in that.
707. 00:29:17 That we were trying to think and it just didn't go
708. 00:29:19 the way we thought it was gonna go.
709. 00:29:20 So that was kind of my big takeaway from that section
710. 00:29:25 was that were those three points,
711. 00:29:26 those three unique characteristics.
712. 00:29:28 - I like that term creative honesty.
713. 00:29:31 Never heard it framed that way,
714. 00:29:32 but yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
715. 00:29:34 - You do something with your YouTube channel
716. 00:29:36 and then come back the next video and we're like, nope,
717. 00:29:39 just didn't work.
718. 00:29:40 Like that was not very good.
719. 00:29:42 And I put it out there and feedback says it's not very good
720. 00:29:45 and I don't think it's very good and everybody would just go,
721. 00:29:47 oh yeah, okay, that makes sense.
722. 00:29:48 Now if you do that a lot, right?
723. 00:29:50 We're gonna stop watching, right?
724. 00:29:52 Like, you know, people are gonna stop caring
725. 00:29:53 and stop paying attention.
726. 00:29:54 But if you do it every so often
727. 00:29:55 'cause you were trying that new thing on the front edge,
728. 00:29:58 I think it's awesome.
729. 00:30:00 - Yeah, you're kind of hitting on one of the struggles I have
730. 00:30:04 with making the stuff for YouTube
731. 00:30:06 and I mentioned the Pro Vault earlier,
732. 00:30:09 but I don't wanna put something out there
733. 00:30:11 that isn't tested that I haven't used for a long time.
734. 00:30:16 And so it's hard for me to do that
735. 00:30:19 because I feel like, well, I've only been using this
736. 00:30:21 for three months, six months, 12 months, two years,
737. 00:30:23 but at this point, you know, at some point,
738. 00:30:28 it is battle tested enough,
739. 00:30:29 but I have trouble saying that publicly
740. 00:30:31 'cause I feel like the minute that you put it out there,
741. 00:30:34 you are endorsing this as essentially a bulletproof system
742. 00:30:37 even if you're not really saying that.
743. 00:30:40 So interesting.
744. 00:30:42 All right, ready to go on to the next one?
745. 00:30:44 - I am.
746. 00:30:45 - All right, so chapter two is Mastering Mental Toughness
747. 00:30:50 and the main character from the story of this one
748. 00:30:54 is David Goggins, excellent choice.
749. 00:30:57 Do you know? - It was an excellent choice.
750. 00:30:58 - Yeah, so you're familiar with David Goggins,
751. 00:31:00 it sounds like-- - Have you read
752. 00:31:01 many of his books?
753. 00:31:02 - Not many, I've read, can't hurt me,
754. 00:31:05 and that's enough. - Yeah.
755. 00:31:08 - Okay.
756. 00:31:09 That was difficult to get through.
757. 00:31:11 (laughs)
758. 00:31:12 Number one, it's a very emotional
759. 00:31:16 and somewhat disturbing story that he tells from his life.
760. 00:31:21 And then the other thing is just,
761. 00:31:22 there is so much language.
762. 00:31:24 (laughs)
763. 00:31:25 - Yeah.
764. 00:31:26 - The other thing, or the thing that gets me is
765. 00:31:29 what you said, but additionally,
766. 00:31:31 his mindset is so radical.
767. 00:31:34 - Yes.
768. 00:31:35 - It is so different than most of the world.
769. 00:31:37 And he'll say that.
770. 00:31:38 Like he will 100% say that to you.
771. 00:31:41 And if you ever listened to him be interviewed by anybody,
772. 00:31:44 like he knows that he is not like other people
773. 00:31:47 and that for him to live the life he wants to live,
774. 00:31:49 he cannot be like other people.
775. 00:31:51 So, but if you're gonna pick a mental toughness
776. 00:31:56 example, man, Goggins is no.
777. 00:31:59 It's not a bad choice, let's just put it that way.
778. 00:32:02 - Yeah, probably him and Jaco are the other one
779. 00:32:05 that would fit here.
780. 00:32:06 And just by using those two names,
781. 00:32:08 there's gonna be people who are familiar with them
782. 00:32:11 as characters and instantly bristle at the message.
783. 00:32:16 And what I wanna call out in this book is that
784. 00:32:19 you don't have to be as crazy as the Goggins are Jaco willing
785. 00:32:23 in order to benefit from some elements of the message
786. 00:32:27 that they share.
787. 00:32:28 So what Palina is doing a great job of in this chapter
788. 00:32:33 is distilling the core principles
789. 00:32:37 that just about anybody can apply.
790. 00:32:39 So if you were to summarize what the big takeaway is
791. 00:32:44 from David Goggins story, essentially it's
792. 00:32:46 you're tougher than you think.
793. 00:32:48 And there's a couple things specifically that she calls out
794. 00:32:51 that he talks about. One is the 40% rule.
795. 00:32:54 And according to David Goggins, this is when your mind
796. 00:32:57 is telling you that you're done, you can't go any further,
797. 00:32:59 you've actually only, you're only about 40% done.
798. 00:33:02 I get the number mixed up, but it's below 50%.
799. 00:33:05 That's what I wanna just clarify here.
800. 00:33:08 You've got a whole lot more in the tank
801. 00:33:10 than what you think you do.
802. 00:33:12 And then the other thing which I think is maybe less useful
803. 00:33:16 is the accountability mirror, which is something David
804. 00:33:19 Goggins uses where you face your insecurities
805. 00:33:21 in order to overcome them.
806. 00:33:23 And it makes sense if you know his story
807. 00:33:26 because he grew up in a terrible situation,
808. 00:33:30 ran away from an abusive father
809. 00:33:32 and was just struggling.
810. 00:33:34 Was way overweight, was spraying cockroaches
811. 00:33:40 as like a pest control thing.
812. 00:33:42 And one day it was like, what am I doing with my life?
813. 00:33:44 And so the way that he got himself to change
814. 00:33:47 was look in the mirror, say you're fat, you're lazy,
815. 00:33:50 you're a liar, what are you gonna do about it?
816. 00:33:52 (laughs)
817. 00:33:54 I don't think I'm gonna practice that,
818. 00:33:57 but I do have an action item from this though.
819. 00:34:01 So one of the things that David Goggins
820. 00:34:04 has made a career of doing is finding something
821. 00:34:08 that in his words sucks and do it every day.
822. 00:34:12 So that's one of my action items,
823. 00:34:14 is do something that sucks every day.
824. 00:34:16 Yeah, see, and as we were talking earlier,
825. 00:34:18 six months from now, I would love to follow up on that
826. 00:34:21 and be like, Mike, what are the sucky things
827. 00:34:25 that you've done every day?
828. 00:34:27 So just to kind of bring that around, that'd be fun.
829. 00:34:29 Yeah, well, to be honest, if I knew that I was gonna
830. 00:34:34 be reporting on the six months from now,
831. 00:34:36 I may not do it.
832. 00:34:37 (laughs)
833. 00:34:39 So I kind of selfishly like the fact
834. 00:34:42 that I can find something sucky and do that
835. 00:34:47 and check this as done,
836. 00:34:49 is like I've at least moved in that direction.
837. 00:34:50 Now it's not the intention, I set it in the action item.
838. 00:34:53 I want to do something that sucks every day.
839. 00:34:56 But this could, this doesn't have to be something
840. 00:34:59 that I really, really am not looking forward to doing
841. 00:35:02 and have been procrastinating on for months.
842. 00:35:05 I view this as just doing something difficult,
843. 00:35:10 when I'm hungry and I forgot to pack a lunch,
844. 00:35:14 instead of going to get food, maybe I decide,
845. 00:35:19 no, you're just gonna fast today
846. 00:35:20 'cause I do that occasionally.
847. 00:35:22 That's really not that big a deal,
848. 00:35:25 but that's what this looks like for me.
849. 00:35:27 And it's really just small doses of this self-discipline
850. 00:35:33 or self-control maybe.
851. 00:35:36 She talks about the four pillars of mental toughness here,
852. 00:35:38 which maybe we should talk about these
853. 00:35:40 before we get too far.
854. 00:35:41 Goal setting, mental visualization, positive self-talk,
855. 00:35:44 and then arousal control.
856. 00:35:46 So essentially when you feel like doing something,
857. 00:35:48 you don't have to follow through and do that,
858. 00:35:51 you can actually control that.
859. 00:35:53 And for me, I think that applies a lot of different ways.
860. 00:35:58 It could be, like I said, with food.
861. 00:36:01 It could be, I'm just feeling tired
862. 00:36:02 and I don't really want to go work out
863. 00:36:04 or go for a run today,
864. 00:36:05 but I'm gonna force myself to do it.
865. 00:36:09 I don't have a specific use case in mind for this,
866. 00:36:13 but I can totally get on board with the benefit
867. 00:36:15 of practicing this regularly.
868. 00:36:18 - Yeah.
869. 00:36:19 - One of the ways that she talks about people
870. 00:36:23 being able to do this is through the act of referring
871. 00:36:28 to oneself in a third person or Iliism.
872. 00:36:31 And one way of doing this is to create an alter ego.
873. 00:36:34 And David Goggins calls it Goggins,
874. 00:36:37 so he'll refer to Goggins when you're talking to him
875. 00:36:40 and it sounds kind of weird.
876. 00:36:41 But she shared some other examples
877. 00:36:43 which I thought were kind of cool.
878. 00:36:44 Beyonce has one called Sasha Fierce,
879. 00:36:48 which is her stage personality
880. 00:36:49 and it was her way of overcoming her own personality
881. 00:36:54 when she was nervous to perform.
882. 00:36:57 Kobe Bryant had one where he referred to it
883. 00:36:59 as the black mamba, right?
884. 00:37:02 And I like the way that she explained this
885. 00:37:05 because I've heard different versions
886. 00:37:07 of this sort of thing in the past.
887. 00:37:09 And it always kind of seemed halfway between
888. 00:37:13 this person is delusional and maybe they're possessed.
889. 00:37:17 (laughs)
890. 00:37:19 The way that they referred to it.
891. 00:37:21 But the way that Palino was describing it in this book,
892. 00:37:25 it's recognizing that your default personality
893. 00:37:31 is not going to embrace some of these hard things
894. 00:37:35 that are worth doing.
895. 00:37:37 And so by changing your identity a little bit,
896. 00:37:42 you can make it easier to do that
897. 00:37:44 because the black mamba has hit the game-winning shot
898. 00:37:48 so many times.
899. 00:37:49 So when Kobe Bryant is sitting in the timeout
900. 00:37:53 in the drawn up the play, he can say,
901. 00:37:56 "Get me the ball," because he's been there before,
902. 00:37:58 even if it feels like that wasn't actually him
903. 00:38:02 that was doing it.
904. 00:38:03 We've all kind of been in those situations
905. 00:38:04 probably where we were pushed beyond our limits
906. 00:38:07 and we did things we didn't think we could do.
907. 00:38:09 That's the picture I get with these alter egos.
908. 00:38:13 - And this is where I think she could have done
909. 00:38:15 a little bit of a better job tying this whole chapter together.
910. 00:38:19 It felt like a couple of different pieces
911. 00:38:21 that weren't tied together or I didn't tie it together.
912. 00:38:25 Like I didn't listen to her tie together well enough.
913. 00:38:27 Like I got distracted during that point when I was reading it.
914. 00:38:30 But you get this idea of listening
915. 00:38:32 versus talking to yourself, self-distraction,
916. 00:38:34 and then the identity piece.
917. 00:38:36 And I think these are the three core things
918. 00:38:38 that really, really tie together.
919. 00:38:39 So she has a clear, James Clear reference
920. 00:38:43 that says your current behaviors
921. 00:38:44 are simply a reflection of your current identity.
922. 00:38:46 Well, okay, so if we think about that, right?
923. 00:38:47 My current behaviors are a reflection of my current identity.
924. 00:38:51 So you've ever do talk about this before of like,
925. 00:38:53 "I am a runner."
926. 00:38:54 So what do runners do?
927. 00:38:55 Runners run.
928. 00:38:56 So therefore like, my behaviors running
929. 00:38:59 is tied to my identity.
930. 00:39:00 I'm a runner, right?
931. 00:39:01 Like so, and when we do this all over the place,
932. 00:39:03 like I am a father, I am a professor,
933. 00:39:05 I am whatever, you know, whatever it might be.
934. 00:39:07 So therefore my behaviors tie into that.
935. 00:39:09 Well, when my behaviors don't tie into that
936. 00:39:12 the way I want them to,
937. 00:39:14 then there's this idea of self-distancing.
938. 00:39:15 Well, if I self-distance and I create this alter ego
939. 00:39:19 or I create this other thing that says,
940. 00:39:21 "This is the behavior I wanna have,"
941. 00:39:22 no, sorry, this would be the identity I wanna have,
942. 00:39:25 which then would lead to these other behaviors,
943. 00:39:27 that self-distancing allows me to do that.
944. 00:39:29 So for instance, Beyonce,
945. 00:39:31 I wanna go on stage and just command the stage,
946. 00:39:34 but my current identity does not lead me to do that.
947. 00:39:38 So what do I do?
948. 00:39:38 I create this self-distanced, you know, alter ego
949. 00:39:43 that then is allowed or enables me to go on stage
950. 00:39:47 and command that stage.
951. 00:39:49 And the way that is enacted,
952. 00:39:50 I think is a lot of times by talking to yourself, right?
953. 00:39:53 Like so, who am I?
954. 00:39:54 Like I just switched into, you know, Kobe Bryant.
955. 00:39:56 I just switched into Black Mamba mode.
956. 00:39:58 So what am I gonna do?
957. 00:39:59 I'm gonna go out there and I'm just gonna,
958. 00:40:00 I'm gonna own the court, right?
959. 00:40:01 I'm gonna absolutely own the court.
960. 00:40:02 I'm gonna hit the game, winning shot.
961. 00:40:03 I'm gonna do all those things.
962. 00:40:05 Would Kobe Bryant do those things?
963. 00:40:07 Maybe, maybe not.
964. 00:40:08 Would Black Mamba, yes.
965. 00:40:09 Like without a doubt, 100%.
966. 00:40:10 And it's like, when you put those three pieces together,
967. 00:40:14 this is like a really interesting framework
968. 00:40:17 or a really interesting, you know,
969. 00:40:18 system for lack of a better word,
970. 00:40:20 to get yourself, sorry, to encourage yourself
971. 00:40:23 to do things that you wouldn't normally do.
972. 00:40:26 And then how does that turn into the next point
973. 00:40:29 she brings up in this chapter
974. 00:40:30 of this idea of like metamorphosis?
975. 00:40:32 Like, okay, so now we're gonna actually change my identity.
976. 00:40:35 We're gonna change who I am.
977. 00:40:37 And then she says about Beyonce
978. 00:40:39 being able to drop the Sasha Fierce at some point
979. 00:40:42 where it's like, oh, I didn't need her anymore.
980. 00:40:44 Like that alter ego went away.
981. 00:40:46 And now this is just who I am.
982. 00:40:48 Like I go out there and I run the show.
983. 00:40:50 Like I control the stage and it's my show
984. 00:40:54 and it's my concert and I'm gonna just captivate the audience.
985. 00:40:57 And it's like, wow, I could actually see
986. 00:40:59 that being an effective thing.
987. 00:41:01 My challenge with this, you know,
988. 00:41:03 as I think about like doing this, it's like,
989. 00:41:05 well, what the heck do I want that like identity to be?
990. 00:41:07 Right?
991. 00:41:08 You know, so the point, like, you know,
992. 00:41:10 I lose it on the, well, what identity do I want it to be?
993. 00:41:12 And then how do I alter ego down to behaviors
994. 00:41:15 and talk to myself and it's like,
995. 00:41:16 "What?"
996. 00:41:17 It's like, oh, that gets a little jumbled in my head.
997. 00:41:19 But I like the framework, like I like the system.
998. 00:41:23 - Yeah, I agree.
999. 00:41:24 I don't know exactly what it would look like for me either.
1000. 00:41:27 And maybe that means I don't necessarily need it.
1001. 00:41:32 But I don't think it needs to be like a crazy thing.
1002. 00:41:35 Like one of the ways I could see this being played out
1003. 00:41:40 is if you're an author and you've got a pen name.
1004. 00:41:43 That's another identity that you're publishing under.
1005. 00:41:47 People are familiar with that person.
1006. 00:41:50 And it could be just a way for sharing things
1007. 00:41:53 that you have trouble verbalizing
1008. 00:41:58 in your everyday identity.
1009. 00:42:01 I don't know, I can see value in flipping that switch
1010. 00:42:03 and being like, oh, well, Mike is this way.
1011. 00:42:07 And I hesitate to even say this
1012. 00:42:09 because I've done hard things for long enough
1013. 00:42:12 that I've seen my preferences change.
1014. 00:42:14 I was the one who never wanted to be on the stage.
1015. 00:42:18 And then I started doing podcasts and then webinars
1016. 00:42:22 and then public speaking.
1017. 00:42:23 And I realized that holy cow, while this is still terrifying,
1018. 00:42:26 it's also very rewarding.
1019. 00:42:27 - Yeah.
1020. 00:42:28 - So, yeah.
1021. 00:42:30 But if you're trying to get to that point,
1022. 00:42:33 and you're wrestling with the story
1023. 00:42:34 that you're telling yourself,
1024. 00:42:35 well, I'm just this shy, quiet, whatever.
1025. 00:42:39 Embracing an alter ego is a quick way to,
1026. 00:42:42 no, I don't have to act that way.
1027. 00:42:45 - So, I think we're gonna transition into chapter three.
1028. 00:42:48 - Let's do it.
1029. 00:42:49 - But like, this is where the book is a little bit strange to me
1030. 00:42:54 because I'm used to books having like a thread
1031. 00:42:57 that ties one section to the other.
1032. 00:42:59 But like the thread here is mainly just like a,
1033. 00:43:02 well, it's like a two sentence thing
1034. 00:43:05 at the end of every chapter that says,
1035. 00:43:07 and now if you've thought about mental toughness,
1036. 00:43:10 let's move into healthy relationships
1037. 00:43:11 and you're like, wait, what?
1038. 00:43:13 Like, what?
1039. 00:43:14 Like creativity, mental toughness,
1040. 00:43:17 unlocking healthy relationships?
1041. 00:43:18 Like, yes, this is a good thing.
1042. 00:43:20 We should be thinking about this,
1043. 00:43:22 but it really had nothing to do with creativity
1044. 00:43:23 or, you know, mental toughness.
1045. 00:43:26 So, I think this is one of those things
1046. 00:43:28 that caught me off guard,
1047. 00:43:29 and I had to like think about that tagline of the book
1048. 00:43:31 and be like, no, no, we're just talking about principles here,
1049. 00:43:34 and every chapter's gonna be a principle,
1050. 00:43:35 and we don't have to weave them together super well.
1051. 00:43:38 Yeah, it does feel a little bit weird that they aren't
1052. 00:43:41 woven together, but I'm also not sure how you would do that.
1053. 00:43:44 Agreed.
1054. 00:43:45 And I don't think it's necessary.
1055. 00:43:48 I mean, see the last episode where we had issues with,
1056. 00:43:52 where they tried to do that forcefully,
1057. 00:43:55 but yeah, unlocking healthy relationships
1058. 00:43:57 is kind of weird following mastering mental toughness,
1059. 00:44:00 maybe just because you don't, I don't know,
1060. 00:44:04 David Goggins to, now for something completely different.
1061. 00:44:08 Yeah, exactly, exactly.
1062. 00:44:10 But let's just tackle the content of this chapter.
1063. 00:44:13 I do think it's actually really good.
1064. 00:44:16 One of the things that she talks about in this chapter
1065. 00:44:18 is a trust battery, where when you enter into a personal
1066. 00:44:22 or a professional relationship with someone,
1067. 00:44:25 visualizing the trust that you have with that person
1068. 00:44:28 as being roughly 50%, and then every interaction,
1069. 00:44:32 either charging or discharging that battery a little bit.
1070. 00:44:36 I had never thought about this in terms of a battery,
1071. 00:44:39 but it definitely reminded me of an idea from,
1072. 00:44:43 I think it was Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits
1073. 00:44:45 of How They Affected People, the relational bank account,
1074. 00:44:48 where you are either making deposits or withdrawals all the time.
1075. 00:44:53 And the other thing with the battery metaphor
1076. 00:44:56 was it reminded me of an article/podcast
1077. 00:45:02 that I came across by Michael Hyatt a long time ago
1078. 00:45:06 in terms of emotional intelligence
1079. 00:45:09 and working with other people saying,
1080. 00:45:12 don't hire people unless the batteries are included.
1081. 00:45:15 So it's a little bit different approach here,
1082. 00:45:17 but essentially his point was there are two types of people,
1083. 00:45:20 when it comes to work teams, the ones where you feel
1084. 00:45:22 like you're dragging them along all the time
1085. 00:45:24 and their life taking, or the ones who are go-getters
1086. 00:45:28 and they're a joy to work with and their life giving.
1087. 00:45:30 So they either have their own energy source
1088. 00:45:32 or they don't in the words of that blog post by Michael Hyatt.
1089. 00:45:36 And this was several years ago,
1090. 00:45:37 so I'm not even sure if this blog post is still on the web,
1091. 00:45:39 I'll see if I can find it,
1092. 00:45:41 put it in the show notes if it's there.
1093. 00:45:43 But all of these things are bouncing around in my brain
1094. 00:45:46 as I go through this and then she mentions the ratio,
1095. 00:45:49 the five to one ratio,
1096. 00:45:51 where happy couples have five positive interactions
1097. 00:45:54 for each negative interaction.
1098. 00:45:56 I don't have a specific action item associated with this,
1099. 00:45:58 but I have to admit that I am thinking about this.
1100. 00:46:00 And not in terms of, well, what am I getting,
1101. 00:46:04 but what am I giving?
1102. 00:46:06 When my wife has an interaction with me,
1103. 00:46:08 is it a positive one or is it a negative one?
1104. 00:46:11 And that's kind of spilling over
1105. 00:46:12 into other relationships as well.
1106. 00:46:14 I'm not necessarily keeping score.
1107. 00:46:16 That could be a valid action item.
1108. 00:46:18 I don't really wanna do that though,
1109. 00:46:20 I just wanna be aware of this.
1110. 00:46:21 And I wanna do my part in terms of the interactions
1111. 00:46:24 that I have with other people.
1112. 00:46:27 I can't control what other people are going to do
1113. 00:46:29 or what other people are going to say,
1114. 00:46:32 but I can control how I make somebody else feel.
1115. 00:46:36 And if I'm in control of that,
1116. 00:46:38 then there's the chance of me getting thrown off
1117. 00:46:42 and upset by something small,
1118. 00:46:44 because when that stuff happens,
1119. 00:46:46 I tend to brew on it and it just kind of permeates everything.
1120. 00:46:50 That's what I wanna avoid.
1121. 00:46:52 And I feel like by controlling what I can control
1122. 00:46:56 and trying to make a positive interaction for somebody else,
1123. 00:47:00 I'm significantly and exponentially increasing
1124. 00:47:02 the likelihood of that interaction
1125. 00:47:04 being positive for me as well.
1126. 00:47:06 - The five to one ratio was definitely something
1127. 00:47:09 that stood out to me.
1128. 00:47:10 And I've thought about that multiple times since I read it.
1129. 00:47:13 The other one was the bids.
1130. 00:47:15 And bids are random requests for connection made
1131. 00:47:17 throughout the day.
1132. 00:47:19 And I was like, oh my goodness,
1133. 00:47:20 I see this all the time, right?
1134. 00:47:22 I see where somebody throws that thing out there.
1135. 00:47:25 And it isn't intense.
1136. 00:47:27 It isn't like, what am I starting to say?
1137. 00:47:29 Like grandiose or I don't know what word.
1138. 00:47:31 Like it's not this huge thing.
1139. 00:47:32 It's more a matter of,
1140. 00:47:33 I wanna talk to you and connect with you.
1141. 00:47:37 Are you going to respond to me about this thing, right?
1142. 00:47:40 Like are you going to engage with me about this thing?
1143. 00:47:42 And this is one of those things that I tie
1144. 00:47:45 into the problem with cell phones and social media.
1145. 00:47:48 And our distraction is like,
1146. 00:47:50 I think people throw these bids out all the time,
1147. 00:47:52 but we're too distracted by other things
1148. 00:47:56 that we don't acknowledge the bid and engage
1149. 00:47:59 where before we used to acknowledge the bid and engage.
1150. 00:48:02 Why? 'Cause we weren't distracted 24 hours a day.
1151. 00:48:04 Like we weren't, it's like, oh yeah, okay.
1152. 00:48:05 Like I'll entertain this thing.
1153. 00:48:07 And I think it's a potential area
1154. 00:48:10 where emotional connection is not happening.
1155. 00:48:15 It's not being achieved where it was before.
1156. 00:48:17 Like it was before we had so many distractions.
1157. 00:48:20 So that was another big one I took away from this.
1158. 00:48:24 The last one I took away from this chapter
1159. 00:48:25 was the Charlie Munger's Invert Always Invert
1160. 00:48:29 where you flip the problem by asking,
1161. 00:48:32 "What would ruin or be the worst action for this thing?"
1162. 00:48:35 And I think about this one from like a work
1163. 00:48:38 or a family standpoint.
1164. 00:48:39 It's like, okay, instead of thinking,
1165. 00:48:41 what would the best trip to whatever mountain town be?
1166. 00:48:45 And it's like, okay, that's an idea.
1167. 00:48:47 And then what would be the worst experience?
1168. 00:48:49 How do we avoid the worst experience for that trip?
1169. 00:48:54 I really like that Invert Always Invert idea.
1170. 00:48:57 - Yeah, I like the trust formula that she has
1171. 00:49:01 where trust equals consistency plus time.
1172. 00:49:05 And she hits on the fact that both negative
1173. 00:49:08 and positive actions compound to build or destroy trust.
1174. 00:49:12 And the more consistent the action is,
1175. 00:49:14 the faster the compounding.
1176. 00:49:17 I don't have anything specific associated with that,
1177. 00:49:19 but it definitely has my wheels turning.
1178. 00:49:21 - Yeah, this chapter, I mean, they've all been good so far,
1179. 00:49:25 but this chapter was the one that really kind of sunk in.
1180. 00:49:29 It's the one I remember probably the most out of the book.
1181. 00:49:32 - Nice.
1182. 00:49:33 All right, ready for chapter four?
1183. 00:49:35 - I am.
1184. 00:49:36 - All right, chapter four is telling better stories.
1185. 00:49:41 This one I think I probably expected a little bit sooner
1186. 00:49:45 based off of the introduction.
1187. 00:49:48 But I don't think that there's a whole lot in here
1188. 00:49:52 that was life changing either.
1189. 00:49:55 My big takeaway from this is that we are all unreliable
1190. 00:49:59 narrators of our own lives.
1191. 00:50:02 And there are three sides to every story,
1192. 00:50:05 which I never thought about it this way,
1193. 00:50:06 but there's your side, there's my side,
1194. 00:50:09 and then there's the truth.
1195. 00:50:11 So typically you would think about that
1196. 00:50:12 as there are two sides to every story
1197. 00:50:15 as a way to think about what does the other person
1198. 00:50:18 think about this, but by framing it this way,
1199. 00:50:21 there are three sides to every story.
1200. 00:50:22 Essentially what you're saying is that
1201. 00:50:25 even when you compare notes, my perspective
1202. 00:50:29 and your perspective, each of those is going to be colored
1203. 00:50:34 in some way, and it's not gonna be the canonical
1204. 00:50:38 truthful version of what actually happened.
1205. 00:50:42 So I think that's valuable.
1206. 00:50:44 Again, not necessarily an action item associated with it,
1207. 00:50:47 but just recognize that because I have my own version
1208. 00:50:50 of the story I'm telling myself,
1209. 00:50:51 this is what happened, that doesn't mean
1210. 00:50:54 that that's actually what happened.
1211. 00:50:56 And I know this, one of my favorite quotes by Ed Cole
1212. 00:51:01 is that we tend to judge others by their actions
1213. 00:51:04 and ourselves by our intentions.
1214. 00:51:07 So what does that mean?
1215. 00:51:08 It means that if I do something jerky to Corey,
1216. 00:51:13 I feel like, well, he understands that I didn't mean
1217. 00:51:17 to do that, and he's actually thinking,
1218. 00:51:20 Mike's a jerk because he did this,
1219. 00:51:21 and he knows that I hate this, but if we're flip-flopped,
1220. 00:51:26 then it would be the other way around.
1221. 00:51:28 I wouldn't be thinking about, well,
1222. 00:51:30 what did Corey actually intend to do?
1223. 00:51:32 And you can flip these scripts,
1224. 00:51:34 but that's just kind of the default pathways in our brains.
1225. 00:51:39 So, yeah, just recognizing that there are multiple versions
1226. 00:51:44 to what's going in or what actually happened.
1227. 00:51:48 And then when there is uncertainty,
1228. 00:51:51 we tend to fill in the blanks with things
1229. 00:51:53 that are terrifying instead of positive.
1230. 00:51:55 I used to think that maybe you are generally more positive,
1231. 00:51:59 optimistic or generally more negative or pessimistic.
1232. 00:52:02 And because my brain would always fill in those blanks
1233. 00:52:05 with the negative stuff,
1234. 00:52:06 therefore I was a pessimistic individual,
1235. 00:52:08 I actually think that's not really the case anymore.
1236. 00:52:13 I think she's right that even if you are an optimist,
1237. 00:52:17 there is an element of this.
1238. 00:52:19 Maybe I'm wrong and you can add some more context to this.
1239. 00:52:23 Do you consider yourself to be generally optimistic
1240. 00:52:25 or pessimistic, Corey?
1241. 00:52:27 - I'm optimistic.
1242. 00:52:28 Yeah, I'm optimistic.
1243. 00:52:29 And then the other one I would put in there is realistic.
1244. 00:52:33 So there's optimistic, there's pessimistic,
1245. 00:52:35 and then there's realistic, right?
1246. 00:52:36 Where I tend to be more on the optimistic side,
1247. 00:52:38 my wife would tend to be on the more realistic side.
1248. 00:52:40 So she's definitely very optimistic,
1249. 00:52:42 but she leans way more realistic than I do.
1250. 00:52:44 Like I like to get out there and be like,
1251. 00:52:46 what if, and she's like, no, Corey,
1252. 00:52:48 that's just not gonna work.
1253. 00:52:49 - Do you still struggle with this?
1254. 00:52:51 Do you fill in the blanks with terrifying things
1255. 00:52:54 or is that just not something that you deal with?
1256. 00:52:57 - No, I don't fill in blanks with terrifying things
1257. 00:53:00 'cause I've done enough work now to know that,
1258. 00:53:03 if I just don't know something,
1259. 00:53:04 I just let it sit there as a black box
1260. 00:53:06 and say, I don't know this,
1261. 00:53:08 we'd have to find more information out about this
1262. 00:53:10 before we would make any kind of decision.
1263. 00:53:13 - Okay.
1264. 00:53:14 Well, maybe I am a little bit more pessimistic than I do.
1265. 00:53:16 - I don't know.
1266. 00:53:17 (laughs)
1267. 00:53:19 - Yeah.
1268. 00:53:21 We're gonna do this chapter fast
1269. 00:53:22 because there weren't a huge number of takeaways from me
1270. 00:53:26 on this one, but I did get an action item out of this one.
1271. 00:53:28 And it was the exercise where she starts
1272. 00:53:30 and has tried this exercise.
1273. 00:53:32 So start with a blank sheet right about a situation
1274. 00:53:34 that's making you anxious from your perspective.
1275. 00:53:35 And the word anxious there isn't relevant to me,
1276. 00:53:38 but it's like something that you're thinking about,
1277. 00:53:41 something that's bothering you,
1278. 00:53:42 something that's on your mind, right?
1279. 00:53:43 Like, so write it out from your perspective
1280. 00:53:47 and then write about it from someone else's perspective
1281. 00:53:50 or a different character in the situation.
1282. 00:53:53 So, you know, I could think about it
1283. 00:53:55 in a bunch of different ways.
1284. 00:53:56 There's a bunch of different contexts for this,
1285. 00:53:58 but I wanna try this one
1286. 00:54:00 and see what comes out of it.
1287. 00:54:02 Like, okay, here's this thing.
1288. 00:54:04 I'm thinking about it a lot.
1289. 00:54:05 It's really on my mind.
1290. 00:54:07 How is so-and-so thinking about it?
1291. 00:54:10 Are they even thinking about it?
1292. 00:54:11 You know, like it may not be,
1293. 00:54:12 it may just be a blip on their radar,
1294. 00:54:14 and I wanna see what it does to my own perspective of it.
1295. 00:54:17 So basically tell the story from another perspective,
1296. 00:54:20 and I wanna see how that goes.
1297. 00:54:22 - Nice, I like that.
1298. 00:54:24 All right, the fifth chapter
1299. 00:54:28 is becoming a more effective leader.
1300. 00:54:32 And to be honest, I don't think that
1301. 00:54:37 I wanna talk a whole lot about the stuff that's in this chapter
1302. 00:54:42 because this is a really big topic
1303. 00:54:47 and it's a surface level discussion
1304. 00:54:50 of some real important leadership stuff.
1305. 00:54:52 The big takeaways for me from this
1306. 00:54:57 are to make new mistakes every day,
1307. 00:54:59 don't just make the same ones over and over,
1308. 00:55:02 which I guess in a weird way,
1309. 00:55:05 I need permission to do that.
1310. 00:55:08 Starting a creator business,
1311. 00:55:12 I put a lot of pressure on myself,
1312. 00:55:14 gotta make this work,
1313. 00:55:15 and I feel like there's not really room for error.
1314. 00:55:18 I feel like any mistake that I make
1315. 00:55:20 could very negatively impact not just the business,
1316. 00:55:24 but also my family.
1317. 00:55:25 So this framing is kind of like,
1318. 00:55:27 well, you're gonna make mistakes,
1319. 00:55:29 so it just makes different mistakes.
1320. 00:55:31 So it's a different way of thinking about it,
1321. 00:55:33 it takes a little bit of pressure off, I think.
1322. 00:55:36 And then there's also a big emphasis in here about systems,
1323. 00:55:38 which obviously I like,
1324. 00:55:41 focus on the system, not the outcome.
1325. 00:55:43 We've heard different versions of that
1326. 00:55:45 in different books that we've read,
1327. 00:55:48 but essentially what that means is you can't judge
1328. 00:55:50 whether a system is working or not working
1329. 00:55:52 simply by an isolated outcome.
1330. 00:55:55 Well, one of the things that stands out to me as an example,
1331. 00:55:58 not from this book, but from Grit, I think,
1332. 00:56:01 about making good decisions was when Pete Carroll,
1333. 00:56:06 the coach of the Seattle Seahawks,
1334. 00:56:07 decided to go for it on fourth down in the Super Bowl,
1335. 00:56:10 and they threw a pass,
1336. 00:56:11 and it was picked off as opposed to running the ball.
1337. 00:56:15 And you can look at the outcome,
1338. 00:56:16 be like, well, obviously that was the wrong decision,
1339. 00:56:19 but you can always look at the outcome and say,
1340. 00:56:20 well, maybe that was the wrong decision.
1341. 00:56:23 Based on the percentages,
1342. 00:56:25 all the analytics would say that was the right decision,
1343. 00:56:30 it just wasn't the right outcome.
1344. 00:56:32 So disconnecting those two, I think, is important.
1345. 00:56:37 And then always understand the system
1346. 00:56:39 of how you got where you are.
1347. 00:56:42 I don't know exactly how you do this.
1348. 00:56:44 I think it's an important encouragement
1349. 00:56:47 to be considering that, but again,
1350. 00:56:49 I think it's necessarily simple.
1351. 00:56:52 There's a lot of depth to that statement,
1352. 00:56:55 but it's something that I want to keep in mind.
1353. 00:56:57 And then the very last thing,
1354. 00:56:59 this is all kind of related in my head,
1355. 00:57:00 but there's a quote from Nick Saban,
1356. 00:57:02 don't look at the scoreboard, play the next play.
1357. 00:57:05 - Yeah.
1358. 00:57:06 - I think that is a very good encouragement,
1359. 00:57:10 especially when you're trying to do something big,
1360. 00:57:12 you can get paralyzed by how big something is.
1361. 00:57:17 And I've been in that place myself
1362. 00:57:20 where it's hard to wake up in the morning
1363. 00:57:23 and do the thing because it just feels
1364. 00:57:26 like such a monumental, heavy lift.
1365. 00:57:29 But when you break it down and you are just focused on
1366. 00:57:33 run the next play, that feels a lot more feasible.
1367. 00:57:38 - Yeah, this is probably the chapter
1368. 00:57:42 that I was left wanting.
1369. 00:57:44 I was like, "Ah, I just want more.
1370. 00:57:46 "I just want more.
1371. 00:57:46 "I just want more."
1372. 00:57:48 Not that what's in here is bad or not good,
1373. 00:57:50 but it's more a matter of just,
1374. 00:57:52 there's so much here to talk about.
1375. 00:57:53 It's such a deep and wide topic, right?
1376. 00:57:57 I mean, leadership is all over the place.
1377. 00:58:00 But the main takeaway that I got out of here is
1378. 00:58:04 that the leaders should invert the pyramid
1379. 00:58:07 and try to be the very bottom.
1380. 00:58:09 And I was like, wow, that's a really interesting way
1381. 00:58:12 to think about that.
1382. 00:58:13 It's like, you aren't trying to be the top,
1383. 00:58:15 the pinnacle, the ideal person in the organization.
1384. 00:58:19 You're basically trying to be the person
1385. 00:58:21 who enables everything else to get done
1386. 00:58:23 and gives everyone else the ability to do their job better.
1387. 00:58:29 And then there's another thing in here
1388. 00:58:31 where the best leaders are those that become invisible.
1389. 00:58:34 And it's like, man, what a counterintuitive way
1390. 00:58:36 to think about leadership?
1391. 00:58:38 'Cause that's not what you see in the media,
1392. 00:58:40 that's not what you see anywhere else.
1393. 00:58:41 It's like, oh, this person's out there and they're loud
1394. 00:58:43 and they're doing this thing and they're doing that thing.
1395. 00:58:45 And it's like, but there's a lot of leadership,
1396. 00:58:47 sorry, there's a lot of leaders who practice
1397. 00:58:49 this leadership where it's like, my whole job
1398. 00:58:51 is to just make you be the best that you can be
1399. 00:58:53 or help you be the best that you can be.
1400. 00:58:56 And then enable all of that stuff.
1401. 00:58:58 And I'm like, man, what a good way to think about leadership
1402. 00:59:02 is it's a very, she ties it into servant leadership
1403. 00:59:05 and the idea of servant leadership.
1404. 00:59:07 But just take the focus off myself
1405. 00:59:10 and put it more on you all and the people
1406. 00:59:14 that I am leading and how can I enable them
1407. 00:59:17 to be the best that they can be.
1408. 00:59:19 So I think that was my big takeaway.
1409. 00:59:23 I was underwhelmed by the systems discussion.
1410. 00:59:28 Like, I liked that it was there.
1411. 00:59:31 I really was excited that it was there.
1412. 00:59:34 And I think that's definitely the mindset to have,
1413. 00:59:37 but man, I just wanted more.
1414. 00:59:38 Like I just wanted so much more on the practical nature
1415. 00:59:42 of it, but I don't think that's the nature of this book.
1416. 00:59:44 Like I don't think she was trying to be,
1417. 00:59:46 give us all the practical stuff out of it.
1418. 00:59:48 But that's what I wanted.
1419. 00:59:49 Like when I was reading it, I was like,
1420. 00:59:50 oh, more, more, more, more on the systems.
1421. 00:59:53 - Yeah, we'll have to read a systems book together
1422. 00:59:55 at some point. - Yeah.
1423. 00:59:56 - And just thing to hear you talk about
1424. 00:59:58 the inverted pyramid, I jotted that down in my notes,
1425. 01:00:02 but it didn't really hit me.
1426. 01:00:05 I think because I had read a different version of this
1427. 01:00:10 a long time ago within the five levels of leadership
1428. 01:00:13 by John Maxwell.
1429. 01:00:15 And that did hit me when I read it,
1430. 01:00:17 because essentially that was saying
1431. 01:00:19 that the higher you go in the pyramid,
1432. 01:00:22 the less it's about you and the more it's about the people
1433. 01:00:27 that you're helping people that you're serving,
1434. 01:00:30 which was a radical idea to me at the time,
1435. 01:00:33 because you tend to think of like the leaders
1436. 01:00:35 being the people at the top of the pyramid
1437. 01:00:38 and they've earned the right to demand all these things
1438. 01:00:42 and the people that are following them.
1439. 01:00:44 And he was basically saying like,
1440. 01:00:44 no, the more that you ascend that pyramid,
1441. 01:00:48 the less selfish you can afford to be,
1442. 01:00:52 and the more it's about the people that you're serving.
1443. 01:00:57 So I guess if you're interested in that topic
1444. 01:00:59 and wanna go deeper,
1445. 01:01:00 five levels of leadership by John Maxwell.
1446. 01:01:02 Great next step. - Oh, and the other one,
1447. 01:01:04 which I know you've read, and I haven't read it yet,
1448. 01:01:06 but leaders eat last, right?
1449. 01:01:07 Like how would that tie into,
1450. 01:01:09 how would that tie into this concept?
1451. 01:01:12 - That's a good question.
1452. 01:01:15 I read that book a long time ago,
1453. 01:01:18 so I'm not,
1454. 01:01:20 I'm a little bit fuzzy on all the details
1455. 01:01:22 without pulling up the notes in front of me.
1456. 01:01:25 I do remember the big idea being there,
1457. 01:01:28 that the story from that book essentially was
1458. 01:01:31 they've got these mess halls
1459. 01:01:32 and in the army or the Air Force
1460. 01:01:35 and the higher up you were in the food chain
1461. 01:01:41 the longer you waited to eat everyone ate before you,
1462. 01:01:44 hence the name of the book, leaders eat last.
1463. 01:01:47 So I think there's probably a lot of parallels there,
1464. 01:01:52 but John Maxwell just has a great way
1465. 01:01:54 of creating these frameworks
1466. 01:01:56 that help you understand things.
1467. 01:01:59 So Simon Cinex's book was really good.
1468. 01:02:00 It was one of my favorite books that I've ever read.
1469. 01:02:03 Some of those stories still stick with me,
1470. 01:02:05 including the one about how we arrived
1471. 01:02:08 at the divisive political atmosphere
1472. 01:02:13 that we find ourselves in.
1473. 01:02:15 He actually traces it back to this decision
1474. 01:02:17 that New Gingrich made in like 1990 something
1475. 01:02:20 where they changed a rule that allowed
1476. 01:02:22 Republicans and Democrats to go back
1477. 01:02:24 to their home districts during the week.
1478. 01:02:27 Before that everybody lived in the same neighborhoods.
1479. 01:02:31 Their kids went to the same school,
1480. 01:02:32 so you humanize the other side.
1481. 01:02:34 Now it's very us against them, very tribal.
1482. 01:02:38 So interesting.
1483. 01:02:40 Yeah, I think it's probably a different perspective
1484. 01:02:43 on a lot of the same stuff, same ideas.
1485. 01:02:47 All right, let's talk about taking risks.
1486. 01:02:49 So this is chapter six,
1487. 01:02:52 taking risks in times of uncertainty
1488. 01:02:56 and the idea behind this one,
1489. 01:03:01 I think is that we tend to make a big deal of things.
1490. 01:03:05 At least that was the message that I heard.
1491. 01:03:08 Our anxiety elevates whenever we see a problem
1492. 01:03:11 as a life or death situation that needs to be solved.
1493. 01:03:14 And that's kind of like the fight versus flight scenario
1494. 01:03:19 that you probably heard described a million different times.
1495. 01:03:22 The problem is that we feel that when we're in a meeting
1496. 01:03:26 in the conference room, as opposed to being out
1497. 01:03:30 in the Savannah and hearing a saber to tiger
1498. 01:03:33 behind the bush.
1499. 01:03:34 So our brain can't differentiate between those.
1500. 01:03:39 And yeah, I think that there's a big encouragement
1501. 01:03:44 to maybe just chill a little bit,
1502. 01:03:45 but then also make a decision.
1503. 01:03:48 One of the big things that I jotted down from this,
1504. 01:03:52 a quote by Tony Schneider,
1505. 01:03:53 "Make reversible decisions quickly
1506. 01:03:54 "and irreversible ones deliberately."
1507. 01:03:57 I've heard that framed before, again,
1508. 01:03:59 you can go deeper on any of these topics.
1509. 01:04:01 There's books written on all this stuff,
1510. 01:04:03 but I like that framing of reversible versus irreversible
1511. 01:04:07 decision.
1512. 01:04:07 I kind of heard it described before as like a door
1513. 01:04:10 that you would go through.
1514. 01:04:11 And if it locks from the other side,
1515. 01:04:13 then you got to be a little bit more careful about it.
1516. 01:04:15 But I tend to just overthink everything
1517. 01:04:18 before I even go through the door.
1518. 01:04:20 So it's helpful to me to think about,
1519. 01:04:22 is this a reversible decision?
1520. 01:04:24 Oh, it is.
1521. 01:04:25 Well, no big deal then.
1522. 01:04:26 Just make a decision and do something,
1523. 01:04:28 which I've done enough reading about business operating systems
1524. 01:04:32 and business strategy that this is the thing
1525. 01:04:35 that paralyzes a lot of businesses.
1526. 01:04:37 It's not that they make wrong decisions,
1527. 01:04:38 it's that they take so stinking long to make any decision.
1528. 01:04:41 And then once they make the decision,
1529. 01:04:42 there's new information,
1530. 01:04:43 all let's get back together,
1531. 01:04:44 let's have another meeting,
1532. 01:04:46 'cause it's different now.
1533. 01:04:47 And you arrive at the same decision
1534. 01:04:49 and you've just wasted a week of everybody's time.
1535. 01:04:51 Just do the thing.
1536. 01:04:53 - Yeah, just do the thing.
1537. 01:04:54 Is it reversible?
1538. 01:04:55 Just do the thing.
1539. 01:04:56 - Yeah, and that ties into Hausle's aspects of risk.
1540. 01:05:01 Right, what are the odds you get hit?
1541. 01:05:03 What is the consequence of getting hit?
1542. 01:05:04 Then what's the tail end,
1543. 01:05:05 the consequence of getting hit?
1544. 01:05:06 And it's like, okay,
1545. 01:05:07 and getting hit in this situation
1546. 01:05:08 is like the bad thing happened.
1547. 01:05:09 So it's like, what are the odds of bad things gonna happen?
1548. 01:05:12 What is the average expectation?
1549. 01:05:14 Which, if you've done any kind of risk work,
1550. 01:05:16 any kind of risk analysis,
1551. 01:05:17 this is the way you think about it.
1552. 01:05:18 It's like, what's the probability of the bad thing happening?
1553. 01:05:21 And then what's the impact of the bad thing happening?
1554. 01:05:23 And that's, I mean, really all you're doing in risk analysis.
1555. 01:05:26 I liked Franklin Chang Diaz's quote here,
1556. 01:05:30 "Take small risks frequently rather than huge risks seldom."
1557. 01:05:34 So I like that idea,
1558. 01:05:36 and I like to think about that,
1559. 01:05:37 it's like, okay, how do I take this risky thing
1560. 01:05:41 and break it down into smaller risks
1561. 01:05:43 that I can reassess, and I can reassess,
1562. 01:05:45 and I can reassess, so it's like,
1563. 01:05:47 oh, okay, well, I could do this,
1564. 01:05:48 and then do this, and then do this.
1565. 01:05:49 And if at any point, I decide we're gonna bail,
1566. 01:05:52 we're gonna pull the rip cord on that.
1567. 01:05:54 Like, I like that way of thinking about it.
1568. 01:05:56 That's kind of what I took out of there,
1569. 01:05:57 is the smaller risks more often
1570. 01:06:00 will put me in a better place than, all right,
1571. 01:06:04 we're just gonna punt, like we're just gonna sell the house
1572. 01:06:06 and move to London and blah, blah, blah, it's like,
1573. 01:06:09 no, no, no, like, let's explore some things.
1574. 01:06:12 I heard somebody else talking about on a podcast,
1575. 01:06:16 about people who make job transitions,
1576. 01:06:17 and before you make those crazy job transitions,
1577. 01:06:21 why don't you try it out first, right?
1578. 01:06:23 Or go talk to a bunch of people, shadow people.
1579. 01:06:26 And I think about this from a advising and counseling
1580. 01:06:29 students who are gonna go into the job market,
1581. 01:06:31 and it's like, well, go interview a bunch of people
1582. 01:06:33 that are gonna do the job you think you wanna do,
1583. 01:06:34 or go intern there, or just try to shadow somebody
1584. 01:06:38 for a couple of days, to see if you even like that idea,
1585. 01:06:42 and it's like, those are small risks,
1586. 01:06:44 'cause what are you risking?
1587. 01:06:45 You're risking time.
1588. 01:06:45 You're risking attention, you're risking time,
1589. 01:06:48 versus, okay, I'm gonna go get that job,
1590. 01:06:50 and then realize I don't like it,
1591. 01:06:51 and now, six months in, I gotta read into a whole
1592. 01:06:54 another shuffle and possibly move.
1593. 01:06:56 So I like that idea.
1594. 01:06:57 My whole long-winded thing is that I like that idea
1595. 01:07:00 of the small risks frequently,
1596. 01:07:02 rather than the big ones seldomly.
1597. 01:07:04 - I like that too.
1598. 01:07:06 And kind of along those same lines towards the end,
1599. 01:07:09 she mentions that you're a master.
1600. 01:07:11 When you think you know nothing,
1601. 01:07:14 kind of reminds me of, is it the Dunning-Kruger effect,
1602. 01:07:18 where you've got that chart,
1603. 01:07:20 where you think you're really smart,
1604. 01:07:22 and then immediately after that,
1605. 01:07:24 you think you know nothing,
1606. 01:07:25 and then it slowly, you build up that confidence over time,
1607. 01:07:29 as you continue to go and learn things.
1608. 01:07:32 And along those same lines,
1609. 01:07:33 if your experiment works perfectly,
1610. 01:07:35 then you've learned nothing.
1611. 01:07:36 So failure is not the worst thing,
1612. 01:07:38 at least you learn something.
1613. 01:07:39 In fact, if you do an experiment,
1614. 01:07:41 and it works perfectly,
1615. 01:07:42 what was the point of the experiment?
1616. 01:07:45 - So.
1617. 01:07:46 - And there was a tie back to something you say,
1618. 01:07:49 quite a bit, where this dress-rehearsed catastrophic events,
1619. 01:07:54 I won't go as far as that,
1620. 01:07:55 but it's like thinking about,
1621. 01:07:56 what's the worst case scenario in this situation?
1622. 01:07:58 So we go and we try this thing,
1623. 01:08:01 and if everything goes wrong,
1624. 01:08:03 what does that look like?
1625. 01:08:04 Like what does that mean?
1626. 01:08:05 Oh well, this would have to happen,
1627. 01:08:07 and this would have to happen,
1628. 01:08:08 and this would have to happen.
1629. 01:08:09 And I remember you talking about doing this
1630. 01:08:11 when you quit the day job.
1631. 01:08:14 - Fear setting, yeah.
1632. 01:08:16 - Yeah, the fear setting exercise,
1633. 01:08:17 I couldn't think of it, thank you.
1634. 01:08:18 But it's like, I love that idea,
1635. 01:08:19 it's like, okay, what's the worst that happens?
1636. 01:08:21 And most of the time,
1637. 01:08:22 the worst that happens is like,
1638. 01:08:24 I'm inconvenient and slightly annoyed.
1639. 01:08:27 And it's like, that's not that bad, right?
1640. 01:08:29 Like, you know, okay, that's really not that bad.
1641. 01:08:32 We can figure it out from there.
1642. 01:08:34 - All right, the next one is,
1643. 01:08:36 clarify your thinking,
1644. 01:08:38 and the big thing from this, for me,
1645. 01:08:43 is the Soldier vs Scout mindset,
1646. 01:08:46 where the Soldier mindset is,
1647. 01:08:49 I'm gonna go learn about this,
1648. 01:08:52 but I'm doing so through a perspective
1649. 01:08:55 of a motivated mindset,
1650. 01:08:59 reasoning to defend one particular side,
1651. 01:09:01 because I want that side to win,
1652. 01:09:04 whereas a Scout mindset is seeing what's actually there
1653. 01:09:07 as accurately as you can,
1654. 01:09:09 even if it's not pleasant.
1655. 01:09:11 So seeing things the way that they actually are,
1656. 01:09:15 instead of through rose-colored glasses, I guess.
1657. 01:09:18 And I'm kind of curious,
1658. 01:09:19 you know, I have my pessimistic approach to this,
1659. 01:09:22 you're the optimist.
1660. 01:09:23 What do you think about the Soldier vs Scout mindset,
1661. 01:09:26 and how do you see this playing out?
1662. 01:09:28 - I was a huge fan of this separation, right?
1663. 01:09:31 Like, so clarifying your thinking is the title of chapter.
1664. 01:09:36 And I think this is a really good way
1665. 01:09:38 to be smart about the way you approach situations.
1666. 01:09:42 So there are situations,
1667. 01:09:43 and I don't think it's a one or another always.
1668. 01:09:47 I think it's a, you use them strategically.
1669. 01:09:49 Like, there are situations where I'm gonna walk in
1670. 01:09:51 and I'm in Scout mode.
1671. 01:09:53 I don't have a, you know,
1672. 01:09:55 I don't have a stake in this battle.
1673. 01:09:58 I'm just gonna go in there and just assess the land
1674. 01:10:00 and see where everybody's at,
1675. 01:10:01 and then I'll make my decision,
1676. 01:10:03 you know, when I need to make my decision.
1677. 01:10:04 And then there are times when it's like, no, no,
1678. 01:10:06 I'm a motivated player,
1679. 01:10:09 and I want a certain result to happen out of the situation.
1680. 01:10:12 And I think thinking about these two different perspectives
1681. 01:10:16 or views on the world,
1682. 01:10:19 and how do you use them strategically?
1683. 01:10:22 I think that's a whole fun conversation that you could have.
1684. 01:10:25 Yeah, it's like, okay, how do I go into this situation?
1685. 01:10:28 But I think that leans then into coaching, right?
1686. 01:10:30 Like, okay, now you have a coach and you say,
1687. 01:10:34 all right, this is the scenario.
1688. 01:10:35 I'm gonna go into it in Scout mode.
1689. 01:10:38 What would that look like?
1690. 01:10:39 And then you run through the scenarios of like,
1691. 01:10:41 what it would look like to go into Scout mode.
1692. 01:10:42 Here's another scenario.
1693. 01:10:43 I'm gonna go into this into soldier mode.
1694. 01:10:44 And, you know, like, oh, okay,
1695. 01:10:46 so this is the way you could probably
1696. 01:10:48 make your tie into there, make your tie into there.
1697. 01:10:51 I liked this framework a lot.
1698. 01:10:54 Yeah, I think it's a useful framework.
1699. 01:10:58 I think the big thing for me to take away from this,
1700. 01:11:03 because I generally don't want to be wrong.
1701. 01:11:06 But I also recognize that
1702. 01:11:09 you're gonna be wrong frequently.
1703. 01:11:12 So I guess this kind of gets into growth versus fixed mindset,
1704. 01:11:17 where a growth mindset is willing to change your mind
1705. 01:11:20 about things in order to overcome the obstacle,
1706. 01:11:23 whereas a fixed mindset is gonna fight
1707. 01:11:25 to protect a specific worldview
1708. 01:11:28 and everything that's a threat against that
1709. 01:11:30 kind of feels a little bit like the picture I get
1710. 01:11:33 with a fixed mindset is sort of conspiracy theory
1711. 01:11:39 where I have this version of truth
1712. 01:11:43 and I don't want anyone to tell me otherwise.
1713. 01:11:45 And so I'll just make up these stories
1714. 01:11:48 and yeah, make up is a strong word,
1715. 01:11:50 but I think it's probably pretty accurate
1716. 01:11:53 to support the reality in my head
1717. 01:11:55 as opposed to being willing to change my mind about stuff.
1718. 01:11:58 I have this framing for my life
1719. 01:12:02 of being impermanent beta,
1720. 01:12:04 where you're constantly being willing to rewrite things
1721. 01:12:09 and take things away, add other things.
1722. 01:12:13 Nothing is really set in stone, nothing is really released.
1723. 01:12:17 And she says in this chapter
1724. 01:12:19 that changing your mind is a feature, not a bug.
1725. 01:12:22 I really liked that specific phrase.
1726. 01:12:25 Also, Daniel Borstein was one of the quotes
1727. 01:12:28 that I jotted down here,
1728. 01:12:29 the greatest obstacle discovery is not ignorance,
1729. 01:12:31 it is the illusion of knowledge.
1730. 01:12:33 And obviously that has me thinking about
1731. 01:12:36 where are all the things where I think I know things
1732. 01:12:39 and I actually don't have an answer to that,
1733. 01:12:42 but something I'll brew on.
1734. 01:12:44 - I had the exact same thought
1735. 01:12:47 and I flagged the exact same quote
1736. 01:12:48 'cause it was like,
1737. 01:12:50 it's a big difference between undergraduate
1738. 01:12:52 and graduate school, right?
1739. 01:12:54 When you're an undergraduate,
1740. 01:12:56 you're learning all this new stuff,
1741. 01:12:57 but a lot of it's new
1742. 01:12:59 and you're experiencing it for the first time.
1743. 01:13:01 And then when you get into graduate school,
1744. 01:13:04 you think you know a lot.
1745. 01:13:06 And the whole first, I don't know,
1746. 01:13:08 it depends on the person,
1747. 01:13:09 but the whole first like six, 12, 18 months
1748. 01:13:14 is really just teaching you everything you don't know.
1749. 01:13:17 And it's like, okay,
1750. 01:13:18 here are all the other ways to think about that same thing.
1751. 01:13:22 And we're not gonna tell you necessarily
1752. 01:13:24 the right way to think about it.
1753. 01:13:25 We're just gonna show you all the different ways
1754. 01:13:27 that people think about it.
1755. 01:13:28 And then we'll give you our perspective
1756. 01:13:30 or we'll give you our opinion on it if you ask.
1757. 01:13:33 But really, it's just looking at all the different ways
1758. 01:13:36 to think about that.
1759. 01:13:36 And it really ties in this idea of like
1760. 01:13:40 the illusion of knowledge and the illusion of,
1761. 01:13:42 you know, oh wow, I really knew what that was.
1762. 01:13:46 And I like that.
1763. 01:13:48 Like I like that way of thinking about it
1764. 01:13:49 because it really makes you check and recheck
1765. 01:13:52 and check and recheck.
1766. 01:13:53 And I think that makes you stronger
1767. 01:13:56 going out on the other side.
1768. 01:13:58 The whole latter part of this section
1769. 01:14:02 tied into this idea of social norms and conformism
1770. 01:14:05 and those type of things.
1771. 01:14:07 And my big takeaway from that was really like
1772. 01:14:11 how easy it is to one,
1773. 01:14:15 think the thing I wanna think
1774. 01:14:17 because there's a group of people out there
1775. 01:14:19 who also think that thing, right?
1776. 01:14:21 Like welcome to the problem of the internet, right?
1777. 01:14:22 Like, oh, I want to think this thing.
1778. 01:14:24 So what do I do?
1779. 01:14:25 I go and find all the resources that tell me that I'm right.
1780. 01:14:28 Okay, like that's a problem.
1781. 01:14:30 But then there's also the sneaky,
1782. 01:14:32 like the more sneaky way where you watch a series of videos
1783. 01:14:37 or TikToks or, you know, you read a series of articles
1784. 01:14:41 and they kind of start to get that,
1785. 01:14:43 oh, well, that's a decent idea.
1786. 01:14:45 Okay, I kind of like that idea
1787. 01:14:47 or that idea resonates with me.
1788. 01:14:48 So then you click on the links there
1789. 01:14:50 and it keeps going and it keeps going
1790. 01:14:52 and it keeps going.
1791. 01:14:53 But you never break out to then think
1792. 01:14:56 about other perspectives on it.
1793. 01:14:58 And you never break out to think about like,
1794. 01:15:00 well, what are the other 10 plausible arguments
1795. 01:15:04 for this thing?
1796. 01:15:05 You know, it's like there are 10 other plausible arguments,
1797. 01:15:07 but I really liked this one.
1798. 01:15:09 And I've been reading about that one for four weeks, right?
1799. 01:15:11 And I've been watching videos on that one for four weeks.
1800. 01:15:13 It's like, hold on, pump the brakes, you know.
1801. 01:15:16 But I think this is where it's really hard
1802. 01:15:19 to do that on our own.
1803. 01:15:20 And we have to really like have a team of people
1804. 01:15:24 and I tie this into like your mastermind group
1805. 01:15:27 or, you know, there are these groups of people
1806. 01:15:30 that you get together with that are very different from you,
1807. 01:15:32 but like everybody has the same goal of being better
1808. 01:15:36 than they were, you know, the day before.
1809. 01:15:38 So you come in and like you're talking about a topic
1810. 01:15:40 and somebody's like, well, did you think about it
1811. 01:15:41 from this perspective?
1812. 01:15:42 And you're like, dang, I didn't think about it
1813. 01:15:45 from that perspective.
1814. 01:15:46 I'm just gonna go stew on that for a little while.
1815. 01:15:48 And it may not change, it may strengthen, it may,
1816. 01:15:51 you know, like it may, it may not change anything
1817. 01:15:54 or it may change everything.
1818. 01:15:55 And it's like, man, that's why I think surrounding yourself
1819. 01:15:58 with, I'm gonna say it this way just for the sake of time,
1820. 01:16:01 the right people, you know, like surrounding yourself
1821. 01:16:04 with the right people who are gonna encourage you
1822. 01:16:05 to think clearly and to think in ways that edify everyone.
1823. 01:16:10 Man, I think that's just so valuable.
1824. 01:16:14 And I think we underestimate that.
1825. 01:16:16 - Well, that is probably the right place
1826. 01:16:19 to go into the next chapter,
1827. 01:16:21 speaking of surrounding yourself with the right people.
1828. 01:16:24 - Wow, didn't even do that.
1829. 01:16:26 I didn't even know when we did that.
1830. 01:16:28 - Nice segue.
1831. 01:16:29 So chapter eight is building an engaged community.
1832. 01:16:32 And this one, I appreciated this chapter,
1833. 01:16:37 but to be honest, it was a little bit weird being
1834. 01:16:41 in the book, I thought, because it seems very specific.
1835. 01:16:45 Now it's relevant to me because I am trying to build
1836. 01:16:50 an online community, but that's kinda the framing
1837. 01:16:54 for everything that's in this chapter
1838. 01:16:56 is building an online community.
1839. 01:16:59 - I agree.
1840. 01:16:59 - So the big idea is there's a difference
1841. 01:17:04 between solitude and loneliness.
1842. 01:17:06 Solitude actually helps us regulate our emotions,
1843. 01:17:08 but loneliness will just dull them.
1844. 01:17:10 And loneliness is perceived social isolation,
1845. 01:17:13 the gap between what you want your social relationships
1846. 01:17:16 to be like and how you perceive them to be.
1847. 01:17:18 That, I think, drives a lot of people
1848. 01:17:20 to find communities online.
1849. 01:17:24 She talks about the difference between a community
1850. 01:17:26 and an audience.
1851. 01:17:27 An audience is a group of people who may be interested
1852. 01:17:30 in the content that you produce,
1853. 01:17:31 but a community is like-minded people
1854. 01:17:33 who are driven by a mutual purpose or interest.
1855. 01:17:36 And I think what you were talking about
1856. 01:17:37 with surrounding yourself with the right people,
1857. 01:17:39 those are people who are driven by a mutual purpose
1858. 01:17:41 or interest, the mutual purpose or interest
1859. 01:17:44 being personal development, growth-minded individuals
1860. 01:17:48 who want to make the most of the resources
1861. 01:17:52 that they have to work with.
1862. 01:17:53 It's not to necessarily to achieve a specific outcome.
1863. 01:17:56 We're not all trying to become millionaires.
1864. 01:17:58 We're not all trying to grow our companies to a certain size.
1865. 01:18:02 What we do for a living, where we live,
1866. 01:18:05 that could all be very, very different.
1867. 01:18:08 But the beautiful thing about these online communities,
1868. 01:18:10 I feel, is like you can get around the people
1869. 01:18:13 who have that perspective and are gonna encourage you
1870. 01:18:16 to become the best version of yourself.
1871. 01:18:19 That is 100% what I am trying to do with the library,
1872. 01:18:24 which happens to be my online community.
1873. 01:18:27 And I've struggled with this.
1874. 01:18:28 Like, what is the library?
1875. 01:18:30 Who is it for?
1876. 01:18:32 And I guess as I think about that,
1877. 01:18:35 really it is just these people who have a growth mindset
1878. 01:18:38 and are trying to make sense of all of these things.
1879. 01:18:43 One of the phrases that she used in this chapter
1880. 01:18:47 was to create an environment that facilitates
1881. 01:18:50 falling into intellectual rabbit holes.
1882. 01:18:52 And I was like, yes, that's the perfect description.
1883. 01:18:56 Like we're all just trying to learn here.
1884. 01:18:57 We're trying to make sense of the information
1885. 01:19:00 and apply it to our lives in a way that is actually useful.
1886. 01:19:04 So I don't really have anything specific
1887. 01:19:06 that I'm gonna do from this.
1888. 01:19:09 I do think that there are other books and resources
1889. 01:19:12 that speak more directly, yet again,
1890. 01:19:14 to how do you actually build a good online community?
1891. 01:19:18 But there are some good stuff here in the big takeaway,
1892. 01:19:20 essentially, is that the bedrock or community building
1893. 01:19:23 is forming an emotional connection with your members.
1894. 01:19:25 Again, I had heard this before,
1895. 01:19:27 but as a good reminder,
1896. 01:19:28 when I'm trying to build my community,
1897. 01:19:30 I'm trying to build the library.
1898. 01:19:32 The thing I should be doing is not trying to get a message out
1899. 01:19:36 and have a certain number of people read it.
1900. 01:19:38 But how can I really just provide those moments
1901. 01:19:42 for people where they're just over the moon
1902. 01:19:46 because I went out of my way to do something specific for them?
1903. 01:19:50 Do the things that don't scale, I guess,
1904. 01:19:52 is another way to say it with the intention
1905. 01:19:55 of eliminating loneliness.
1906. 01:19:57 - Yeah, I think this chapter comes into
1907. 01:20:02 what is your definition of successful?
1908. 01:20:05 And I think that really ties into,
1909. 01:20:07 and I'm not trying to say,
1910. 01:20:09 "I understand Paulina's definition of successful."
1911. 01:20:14 I'm saying, "You can write this chapter
1912. 01:20:16 "a bunch of different ways."
1913. 01:20:17 This chapter was written from the perspective
1914. 01:20:19 of large audience, big community,
1915. 01:20:24 very highly engaged community.
1916. 01:20:25 And that's by the examples that she gave.
1917. 01:20:27 So the examples that she gave were multi-million dollars,
1918. 01:20:32 not multi-million dollar,
1919. 01:20:33 multi-million people communities.
1920. 01:20:35 They're huge communities,
1921. 01:20:36 and people that are incredibly popular and successful
1922. 01:20:40 and all those things.
1923. 01:20:42 But I don't think that is everyone's definition
1924. 01:20:45 of a successful community.
1925. 01:20:46 My successful community might be
1926. 01:20:48 the 40 or 50 people I engage with every week.
1927. 01:20:51 And am I developing that community well,
1928. 01:20:54 and is it what I want it to be in terms of my success?
1929. 01:20:59 That said, I think all of the stuff she talked about
1930. 01:21:01 still applies.
1931. 01:21:02 The audience versus community,
1932. 01:21:05 I really like the difference between there.
1933. 01:21:07 So as someone who's dabbled around
1934. 01:21:09 creating stuff on the internet,
1935. 01:21:11 it's like, "Oh man, that's a really good distinction
1936. 01:21:13 "between the two.
1937. 01:21:14 "And what do I want?
1938. 01:21:15 "Do I want an audience or do I want a community?"
1939. 01:21:17 Because these are two very different things,
1940. 01:21:20 and my interaction with them is very different.
1941. 01:21:23 My engagement with those two groups is very, very different.
1942. 01:21:28 I think the three points she lays out
1943. 01:21:30 for building a community from scratch,
1944. 01:21:32 over-serve, build goodwill,
1945. 01:21:35 and then create moments of serendipity.
1946. 01:21:36 Man, I think those are true no matter what you're doing.
1947. 01:21:40 I think those are really, really strong.
1948. 01:21:41 It's like, "Oh, they went above and beyond."
1949. 01:21:44 Oh man, I'm really connected with that person.
1950. 01:21:46 And then, wow, that was surprising and really cool.
1951. 01:21:50 I think if you can do those three things,
1952. 01:21:52 you're probably going to serve your audience
1953. 01:21:55 and your community really, really well.
1954. 01:21:58 And I think about the creators that I follow,
1955. 01:22:01 and it's like they do those three things.
1956. 01:22:04 Some of them do certain ones better than other ones,
1957. 01:22:06 but they all do that.
1958. 01:22:07 So I think this shed a little bit more light
1959. 01:22:12 into the people and the communities
1960. 01:22:17 and her little bit of an understanding
1961. 01:22:21 of what success looks like.
1962. 01:22:22 And I think this is where it might distance itself
1963. 01:22:25 from the reader a little bit,
1964. 01:22:26 depending on what your definition of success
1965. 01:22:29 is and how that relates to community.
1966. 01:22:32 - Sure, yeah, that makes sense.
1967. 01:22:33 All right, let's talk about chapter nine.
1968. 01:22:37 I've been wanting to talk about this one for a long time.
1969. 01:22:40 - I loved it, I loved it.
1970. 01:22:41 - Chapter nine is optimizing your content diet,
1971. 01:22:45 which again, this could probably be the whole conversation.
1972. 01:22:49 I know there's a book, Rachel read it,
1973. 01:22:52 called The Information Diet,
1974. 01:22:54 and the cover looks like one of those nutritional labels.
1975. 01:22:58 And she really liked it, I haven't read it yet,
1976. 01:23:03 but I think it's a topic we maybe should dive
1977. 01:23:07 a little bit deeper into.
1978. 01:23:07 We don't have time to get into it too in depth here,
1979. 01:23:12 but I like this idea of thinking about the information
1980. 01:23:15 that you're consuming in terms of quality nutrition.
1981. 01:23:19 Is this the vegetables?
1982. 01:23:21 Is this meat and potatoes?
1983. 01:23:23 Is this junk food?
1984. 01:23:25 - Yep, yep.
1985. 01:23:25 - And I think that's the big takeaway,
1986. 01:23:29 like that's the action item, is to do a content audit
1987. 01:23:31 and to think about what is the nutritional value,
1988. 01:23:35 what are the things that I'm consuming,
1989. 01:23:37 the information that I'm consuming,
1990. 01:23:38 what is it doing in my life?
1991. 01:23:41 Set a different way, Jim Rohn had these three questions,
1992. 01:23:44 which I liked, who am I allowing to speak into my life?
1993. 01:23:46 What effect is that having on me and is that okay?
1994. 01:23:50 So essentially you have the ability to change
1995. 01:23:53 who you're allowing to speak into your life,
1996. 01:23:55 and I really just want people to think about that.
1997. 01:23:58 She talks about how the mind is our mental hardware,
1998. 01:24:03 but our beliefs are our mental software,
1999. 01:24:05 and those beliefs are directly created
2000. 01:24:08 by the information that we consume.
2001. 01:24:11 So, yeah, it's important,
2002. 01:24:16 and it's something that we don't think enough about,
2003. 01:24:18 case in point being one of the statistics that she shared,
2004. 01:24:21 is that people check their phones
2005. 01:24:22 three hundred forty four times per day,
2006. 01:24:24 or once every four minutes.
2007. 01:24:25 I've heard different versions of this statistic,
2008. 01:24:28 and every once in a while I go look like searching
2009. 01:24:30 for this stat, and every time I do,
2010. 01:24:33 I find a webpage that's like two years old,
2011. 01:24:36 and it's like 189 times or something.
2012. 01:24:39 So, this was like double, and I was like,
2013. 01:24:43 whoa, just something we need to pay attention to.
2014. 01:24:47 - Yeah, I have the least notes on this section,
2015. 01:24:50 and it was the most meaningful,
2016. 01:24:51 like it was the most.
2017. 01:24:52 - Yeah.
2018. 01:24:53 - Like I just read it, and it's probably
2019. 01:24:55 because I was so engaged that I took less notes
2020. 01:24:57 while I was reading it,
2021. 01:24:59 but I get two actions, action items out of this.
2022. 01:25:01 The first one is look up the MBSR.
2023. 01:25:03 So, MBSR is mindfulness-based stress reduction.
2024. 01:25:07 - Oh, okay.
2025. 01:25:08 - And I just wanna look it up and read about it, right?
2026. 01:25:10 I don't think I'm gonna do anything with it.
2027. 01:25:11 I don't know if I'm gonna do anything with it,
2028. 01:25:12 but I wanna look it up,
2029. 01:25:13 'cause it sounded intriguing and interesting,
2030. 01:25:15 and she didn't talk about it a ton.
2031. 01:25:18 The next one though is like a multi-part.
2032. 01:25:20 I wanna do a content on it,
2033. 01:25:22 I wanna develop a content strategy,
2034. 01:25:23 and then I wanna rearrange my physical environment.
2035. 01:25:26 Like I can tell you right now what I need to do, right?
2036. 01:25:30 (laughing)
2037. 01:25:31 I need to get rid of the TV in our main room.
2038. 01:25:36 I need it to go away, right?
2039. 01:25:39 Because the fact that it's there,
2040. 01:25:42 I will sit down and watch a dumb movie
2041. 01:25:44 or a TV show that doesn't matter, right?
2042. 01:25:47 Instead of doing something way more productive.
2043. 01:25:49 I know that I need to rearrange the physical environment,
2044. 01:25:52 but I also know that that's not going to happen in my house.
2045. 01:25:56 So it's like, I don't know how to resolve
2046. 01:25:58 those two different things,
2047. 01:26:00 and I get why, right?
2048. 01:26:02 Like during the day,
2049. 01:26:04 the kids will watch a new show, right?
2050. 01:26:07 As part of their homeschool,
2051. 01:26:09 and it's like the TV being where it is,
2052. 01:26:11 it makes the most sense.
2053. 01:26:12 So I need to change my behavior
2054. 01:26:14 or not be in that physical environment in the evening,
2055. 01:26:17 but man, that ties back into the do something
2056. 01:26:20 that sucks every day.
2057. 01:26:22 I gotta figure out a way to do that.
2058. 01:26:24 But overall, I mean, absolutely loved chapter nine.
2059. 01:26:28 Loved chapter nine, I thought it was really, really good.
2060. 01:26:30 And I would tie that into a hidden genius tip
2061. 01:26:35 for successful people.
2062. 01:26:36 - Yeah, 100%.
2063. 01:26:38 Before we get into chapter 10,
2064. 01:26:40 I just wanna call it one other thing here.
2065. 01:26:42 'Cause she mentions James Clear again
2066. 01:26:44 and mentions that he has books all over his house.
2067. 01:26:48 And I feel vindicated.
2068. 01:26:50 (laughs)
2069. 01:26:52 Because I have physical books,
2070. 01:26:54 and I have a giant bookshelf in my office, which is full.
2071. 01:26:57 I have an Ikea, what do they call it?
2072. 01:27:02 The Cubes, against the other wall with books that is full.
2073. 01:27:06 We have this tree-shaped bookshelf in our bedroom,
2074. 01:27:10 which is full.
2075. 01:27:11 Like there are books everywhere in our house.
2076. 01:27:12 We even have them in the windowsill in the living room.
2077. 01:27:16 In fact, I grabbed a book to take it to London
2078. 01:27:18 and I realized that the cover of it
2079. 01:27:20 because of where it was in the window,
2080. 01:27:23 the part that had stuck up higher
2081. 01:27:25 was all bleached out from the sun.
2082. 01:27:27 Like, what happened to this cover?
2083. 01:27:28 Oh, it's been sitting up in the sun.
2084. 01:27:31 - You are a publisher's dream, Mike.
2085. 01:27:33 (laughs)
2086. 01:27:36 So I said I would talk about this later,
2087. 01:27:38 and we're finally to later, I didn't remember it.
2088. 01:27:41 But David Brooks' theory of maximum taste.
2089. 01:27:44 - Oh yeah, yeah.
2090. 01:27:45 - I had never heard of this before,
2091. 01:27:46 and I think this is a really interesting,
2092. 01:27:48 like basically what you're doing is your,
2093. 01:27:50 help me if I'm wrong,
2094. 01:27:52 you're setting the upper limit.
2095. 01:27:54 - I've got the definition here, yeah.
2096. 01:27:56 So each person's mind is defined by its upper limit,
2097. 01:27:59 which is the best content that it habitually consumes
2098. 01:28:03 and is capable of consuming.
2099. 01:28:05 This is the argument to read more non-fiction books
2100. 01:28:08 because it's hard, but it's quality information,
2101. 01:28:11 and the more that you do it, the easier it gets,
2102. 01:28:13 and it does expand your mind
2103. 01:28:15 and it increases the maximum taste level
2104. 01:28:20 is how he would put it.
2105. 01:28:21 - And I really like the way that's framed.
2106. 01:28:25 I really think that if you're on a continual basis,
2107. 01:28:28 remember habitually, it doesn't mean
2108. 01:28:29 that you don't ever do the other stuff, right?
2109. 01:28:31 You don't ever watch this silly movie
2110. 01:28:32 or you don't ever do the other stuff.
2111. 01:28:33 But it means like if it's 80/20 rule, right?
2112. 01:28:36 Like 80% of your content is non-fiction books
2113. 01:28:40 or really thought-provoking fiction books
2114. 01:28:44 or long-form articles from trusted sources
2115. 01:28:48 and places that you're getting good,
2116. 01:28:51 high quality content from.
2117. 01:28:53 It just has to, it sounds so pretentious,
2118. 01:28:56 but it's like it just has to elevate the way you think
2119. 01:28:59 in terms of you just don't get that
2120. 01:29:02 from watching slapstick comedy
2121. 01:29:05 and you don't get that from watching these silly movies,
2122. 01:29:08 adventure movies and different things.
2123. 01:29:10 So I just have to think that that's true.
2124. 01:29:13 100%.
2125. 01:29:14 All right, ready for the last chapter?
2126. 01:29:17 I am.
2127. 01:29:18 Okay, so chapter 10,
2128. 01:29:20 "Discovering Your Hidden Genius."
2129. 01:29:23 And this is kind of an encapsulation
2130. 01:29:27 of a lot of the things that she's talked about.
2131. 01:29:30 The big idea or the story that she really uses
2132. 01:29:34 as the framing for this chapter is the ship of Theseus.
2133. 01:29:37 Are you familiar with this story?
2134. 01:29:38 - I am, yes.
2135. 01:29:40 - Yeah, so I actually wrote a newsletter
2136. 01:29:41 about this long time ago.
2137. 01:29:42 I've been fascinated by this concept.
2138. 01:29:43 Essentially, the thought experiment goes,
2139. 01:29:47 the Thesis was the guy from Greek mythology
2140. 01:29:49 that went to the labyrinth,
2141. 01:29:51 slew the minotaur, came back,
2142. 01:29:53 boats in the museum,
2143. 01:29:55 and slowly over time,
2144. 01:29:56 each piece of the boat wears out and has been replaced.
2145. 01:29:59 So after a while,
2146. 01:30:01 none of the pieces are original
2147. 01:30:03 and the thought experiment is,
2148. 01:30:04 is that still Theseus's ship?
2149. 01:30:07 And you can apply this to yourself as a human.
2150. 01:30:10 I've never really dug into the specifics of how,
2151. 01:30:15 and how quickly which types of cells regenerate,
2152. 01:30:21 but the general idea is that your cells
2153. 01:30:23 are replacing themselves all the time.
2154. 01:30:25 So who you are today is not the person who you were yesterday.
2155. 01:30:30 And even if you go back further,
2156. 01:30:32 to some point in history,
2157. 01:30:34 every cell of your body is now different from some point
2158. 01:30:38 in different organs, you know, reproduce cells more quickly
2159. 01:30:42 than others.
2160. 01:30:42 She shared some specifics,
2161. 01:30:44 which I thought was kind of interesting.
2162. 01:30:46 But the big takeaway essentially is that we're always,
2163. 01:30:48 these works in progress,
2164. 01:30:49 we're always changing.
2165. 01:30:50 And just an encouragement to embrace that growth mindset,
2166. 01:30:53 resist the fixed mindset
2167. 01:30:55 and try to protect the status quo.
2168. 01:30:57 And this is the way things are.
2169. 01:30:59 I guess a different way to frame this would be
2170. 01:31:01 to develop a curiosity filter,
2171. 01:31:03 which I really liked that word curiosity.
2172. 01:31:07 I try to apply that in my own life.
2173. 01:31:11 I was actually recording focused earlier today.
2174. 01:31:13 I was talking to David about this
2175. 01:31:15 and talking about our media consumption habits.
2176. 01:31:18 Going back to your content diet,
2177. 01:31:20 what I mentioned,
2178. 01:31:21 and I'm taking notes on books that I read.
2179. 01:31:24 I'm looking for things that are resonating,
2180. 01:31:26 things that are like pinging off the inside,
2181. 01:31:31 the reverberating in my soul.
2182. 01:31:34 And really what does that mean?
2183. 01:31:35 I'm interested in this thing.
2184. 01:31:37 I'm curious about it.
2185. 01:31:38 I want to know more about it.
2186. 01:31:41 And that really is this last chapter in a nutshell.
2187. 01:31:46 There is one more thing in here that was inspiring to me,
2188. 01:31:50 that successful people are willing to bet on themselves.
2189. 01:31:53 I feel like I'm in the middle of betting on myself.
2190. 01:31:55 It feels sometimes like it's not gonna work.
2191. 01:31:57 But also, and I read that,
2192. 01:32:00 it was like, yeah, this is the right path.
2193. 01:32:03 Even if this isn't the right thing,
2194. 01:32:05 going back to the growth mindset,
2195. 01:32:06 I want to be willing to say,
2196. 01:32:08 well, I made a mistake,
2197. 01:32:09 I'm gonna do things differently,
2198. 01:32:11 change things, et cetera.
2199. 01:32:14 But the approach is still,
2200. 01:32:17 I'm not going to try to do things
2201. 01:32:19 the way that everybody else does them.
2202. 01:32:20 One of the quotes I jotted down is by Lily Tomlin.
2203. 01:32:22 If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.
2204. 01:32:24 Never really thought about it that way.
2205. 01:32:26 But yeah, it makes sense.
2206. 01:32:29 - Yeah.
2207. 01:32:30 So this chapter, like you said,
2208. 01:32:33 is trying to wrap everything up.
2209. 01:32:35 It's trying to give us a take home.
2210. 01:32:38 Here you go.
2211. 01:32:39 There is a conclusion.
2212. 01:32:41 The conclusion we'll talk about here in a second,
2213. 01:32:43 but it's written in a very specific way.
2214. 01:32:45 This one's trying to wrap it up
2215. 01:32:46 and trying to just hit a couple other key points
2216. 01:32:48 and tie some things together.
2217. 01:32:51 I can't tell you that I really got anything major
2218. 01:32:53 out of discovering your hidden genius.
2219. 01:32:55 I can't even tell you that I'm gonna walk away
2220. 01:32:57 and go like, oh, I get what hidden genius is in her mind.
2221. 01:33:02 And I know-- - Sure.
2222. 01:33:03 - No, I can't do that.
2223. 01:33:05 I can say that this book had some interesting ideas
2224. 01:33:08 and some things that I think I could do better.
2225. 01:33:11 One of the things she lists as an exercise to do,
2226. 01:33:14 who is the person living my dream life?
2227. 01:33:17 Well, my biggest problem with that is like,
2228. 01:33:19 I don't know what my dream life is.
2229. 01:33:20 So therefore, if I'm gonna know who the person
2230. 01:33:22 living my dream life is,
2231. 01:33:23 I gotta figure out what my dream life is.
2232. 01:33:25 And it's like, that is the value of this book in my mind.
2233. 01:33:29 It's like, it isn't the thing she recommends you do.
2234. 01:33:33 'Cause that came from like, Kobe Bryant, I think,
2235. 01:33:35 was like, well, who's the person living your dream?
2236. 01:33:37 Well, go mimic them and go like,
2237. 01:33:40 figure out what they're doing and try to do that.
2238. 01:33:42 And my thing is like, it's the deeper level of like,
2239. 01:33:44 well, have I even thought about like what that is?
2240. 01:33:47 And what does that mean?
2241. 01:33:49 And like, how do I do that?
2242. 01:33:51 You had said about the Lily Tomlin,
2243. 01:33:53 if you win the Rat Race, you're still a rat, quote.
2244. 01:33:55 I actually screen grabbed the whole Anna Quinlan's
2245. 01:34:00 commencement speech,
2246. 01:34:01 because I think that whole speech,
2247. 01:34:03 I'm not gonna read it here 'cause it's too long.
2248. 01:34:05 But I think that whole speech is really, really good
2249. 01:34:08 in terms of like, just reframing and rethinking about like,
2250. 01:34:13 just like not redoing things,
2251. 01:34:17 but like being okay with going and getting after it.
2252. 01:34:21 And like, you know, set aside old traditions.
2253. 01:34:24 You know, it's like, it's, I just really like,
2254. 01:34:26 it's kind of like a motivational like,
2255. 01:34:28 go out and get 'em, you know?
2256. 01:34:31 Kind of a thing.
2257. 01:34:32 So I really, I really like that.
2258. 01:34:34 But overall, this chapter just felt like,
2259. 01:34:37 all right, let's button some things up
2260. 01:34:38 in nine seemingly disparate chapters.
2261. 01:34:42 - Which I think is really the intention.
2262. 01:34:45 Let's talk about the conclusion.
2263. 01:34:48 But the thing about the conclusion is,
2264. 01:34:52 well, there's a couple, I guess,
2265. 01:34:54 ideas associated with this that success is personal
2266. 01:34:57 and that overnight success is a myth.
2267. 01:34:59 But the big takeaway here are 10 key questions that she asks
2268. 01:35:03 that pertain to each of the topics
2269. 01:35:05 in the 10 different chapters.
2270. 01:35:06 So for example, chapter one,
2271. 01:35:08 what is the biggest, boldest, most original endeavor
2272. 01:35:10 that you can conceive of?
2273. 01:35:12 Chapter nine, how can you improve your content diet this year?
2274. 01:35:15 So I think these questions are great.
2275. 01:35:18 Some of the biggest aha moments I've gotten
2276. 01:35:22 have been from considering questions like these
2277. 01:35:25 that you wouldn't normally think about.
2278. 01:35:28 So I think this is pretty brilliant
2279. 01:35:31 as you're wrapping up a book like this
2280. 01:35:33 to ask these questions, not that you're gonna take
2281. 01:35:35 an entire day and think through all of these
2282. 01:35:37 and come up with answers to all of these,
2283. 01:35:39 but maybe there's just one that gets you to think
2284. 01:35:41 about things in a different way.
2285. 01:35:42 Therefore reading the book is worth it.
2286. 01:35:45 - Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
2287. 01:35:47 Like these are the, okay, I just talked about a lot
2288. 01:35:49 of things for 10 chapters.
2289. 01:35:52 Here are some action items or here's a way
2290. 01:35:53 to make it a little bit more tangible
2291. 01:35:56 as you think through moving forward with this.
2292. 01:36:00 I would like to tell you that I'm gonna go through these 10
2293. 01:36:02 and actually think about them.
2294. 01:36:03 I think this would be a fun reflection,
2295. 01:36:08 like a journal prompting where you get one of these
2296. 01:36:11 every day for the next 10 days.
2297. 01:36:13 And I think you'd get some value out of that.
2298. 01:36:16 I'm not gonna do that, but I think that would be
2299. 01:36:19 a good, useful way to do that.
2300. 01:36:20 Or if you're reading this book in a group discussion,
2301. 01:36:23 you talk about these with the group
2302. 01:36:26 and your answers.
2303. 01:36:27 - That's true, yeah, group discussion.
2304. 01:36:29 I never, I didn't think about that,
2305. 01:36:30 but that's the perfect application of this.
2306. 01:36:33 All right, action items.
2307. 01:36:36 Got a couple, you've got a couple.
2308. 01:36:40 I guess I'll go through mine first as my book.
2309. 01:36:45 I want to, as mentioned previously,
2310. 01:36:48 do something that sucks every day.
2311. 01:36:49 Yet to be determined what that is.
2312. 01:36:53 And then I want to do a content audit.
2313. 01:36:56 I sorta already did this because David and I
2314. 01:36:58 were talking about, we're focused.
2315. 01:37:00 And that episode will actually be out before this one.
2316. 01:37:02 So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
2317. 01:37:04 But we talked through our content consumption strategies,
2318. 01:37:08 our philosophy behind it.
2319. 01:37:10 So I'm sorta cheating in that I've done this already
2320. 01:37:12 for another podcast, but definitely was inspired
2321. 01:37:15 as I was reading chapter nine for optimizing
2322. 01:37:19 your content diet from this book.
2323. 01:37:20 So full credit for the action item goes to this book.
2324. 01:37:25 How about you?
2325. 01:37:26 - So I've got three.
2326. 01:37:29 I want to think about something that's anxious or bothering,
2327. 01:37:32 or on my mind, I should say.
2328. 01:37:33 So think about anxious bothering or on my mind.
2329. 01:37:37 And I want to write about it from somebody else's perspective.
2330. 01:37:39 So there are a lot of things that I could do this for.
2331. 01:37:43 So one time between now and then,
2332. 01:37:45 or one thing between now and then I want to do that.
2333. 01:37:47 I want to look up the mindfulness based reflection.
2334. 01:37:52 I forget what that, it's MBSR.
2335. 01:37:54 - Stress reduction.
2336. 01:37:54 Yeah, I've heard that acronym before.
2337. 01:37:56 I forgot what it meant till you brought it up again.
2338. 01:37:59 - Yeah, so I want to look that up and just read more about it.
2339. 01:38:01 And then I do want to do a content audit.
2340. 01:38:04 I want to do a content audit and develop content audit
2341. 01:38:07 and then develop a content strategy.
2342. 01:38:09 I'm not going to commit to rearranging my physical environment,
2343. 01:38:11 although I'm already kind of doing that
2344. 01:38:13 because I'm setting up a new office at work
2345. 01:38:16 and therefore that is rearranging my physical environment
2346. 01:38:19 to not be distracted and actually get more work done
2347. 01:38:24 during the day.
2348. 01:38:25 So I'm going to already check that one as done.
2349. 01:38:26 - Yes.
2350. 01:38:28 - There you go.
2351. 01:38:29 - Yeah.
2352. 01:38:29 - Get in the hang of it.
2353. 01:38:30 - All right.
2354. 01:38:31 - Style and rating, it's your turn, your book.
2355. 01:38:34 - That is true.
2356. 01:38:35 All right, so this is a little bit of a different style.
2357. 01:38:39 As mentioned at the beginning, I personally really liked it.
2358. 01:38:45 I liked it so much that when I got done,
2359. 01:38:49 I felt a little bit ripped off
2360. 01:38:52 because it's, I don't have the book in front of me.
2361. 01:38:55 I forget how many pages it is.
2362. 01:38:57 It's kind of your standard self-help link.
2363. 01:39:00 But like I said, there are lots of pages
2364. 01:39:02 that just have like a single quote.
2365. 01:39:04 And I was like, "Aw, if you hadn't done that,
2366. 01:39:06 "you could have written a longer book."
2367. 01:39:08 (laughs)
2368. 01:39:09 - 252, by the way, is the hardcover.
2369. 01:39:12 - 252, it doesn't feel like 252 pages.
2370. 01:39:15 - I agree completely.
2371. 01:39:17 I agree completely.
2372. 01:39:18 - Yeah, which is probably overall a good thing.
2373. 01:39:21 I mean, it's better to be short than it is to be long,
2374. 01:39:25 I think, when you're writing about this sort of stuff.
2375. 01:39:29 However, there was lots of opportunities
2376. 01:39:31 to go deeper with some of these things.
2377. 01:39:34 And I'm not saying she should have,
2378. 01:39:35 I think actually she took the right approach.
2379. 01:39:38 I think she struck a great balance
2380. 01:39:40 between telling stories and incorporating
2381. 01:39:43 her own personal experience into the stuff.
2382. 01:39:47 The examples that she used were great.
2383. 01:39:49 At this point, I've read enough books
2384. 01:39:53 and I've heard enough of these stories familiar
2385. 01:39:55 with enough of these people
2386. 01:39:56 that frequently when stories get told,
2387. 01:39:59 something goes off and I'm like,
2388. 01:40:01 that's not quite right. (laughs)
2389. 01:40:04 Because the tendency when you're telling stories
2390. 01:40:06 can be to adapt what happened
2391. 01:40:07 to fit the narrative you wanna tell.
2392. 01:40:10 And she did not do that with these.
2393. 01:40:13 At least it didn't hit me that way.
2394. 01:40:15 Everything that she was sharing,
2395. 01:40:17 there was additional information,
2396. 01:40:18 additional context, it's like,
2397. 01:40:19 oh, I didn't know that about that story.
2398. 01:40:21 That's interesting.
2399. 01:40:22 Now I understand that story a little bit better.
2400. 01:40:25 So, I don't know.
2401. 01:40:27 I think the only thing that is kind of holding this book back
2402. 01:40:31 is kind of what you said, the hidden genius.
2403. 01:40:33 What exactly does that mean?
2404. 01:40:35 How do we do that?
2405. 01:40:36 Why should we do that, et cetera?
2406. 01:40:38 I think if you're just looking for a bookworm style book
2407. 01:40:42 about bookworm style topics,
2408. 01:40:44 this is a great one to pick up and read.
2409. 01:40:47 But I really am struggling for a lot of times,
2410. 01:40:50 I'll pick up a book to solve a problem that I'm facing
2411. 01:40:53 or I wanna really master this particular thing.
2412. 01:40:56 What exactly is that that this book is gonna solve?
2413. 01:40:59 I don't think it has that strong hook.
2414. 01:41:04 I think it's a very entertaining, useful,
2415. 01:41:08 helpful productivity book
2416. 01:41:11 that covers a lot of different things
2417. 01:41:13 from personal productivity, mental toughness,
2418. 01:41:16 creative potential, all the way up
2419. 01:41:17 to some pretty heavy leadership stuff.
2420. 01:41:20 And just that in a loan, being able to speak
2421. 01:41:22 to those two ends of the self-help market
2422. 01:41:26 and tie them together is an amazing feat.
2423. 01:41:31 But when I think about the five star books,
2424. 01:41:33 I think of something that is just like,
2425. 01:41:36 this is the definitive work on X
2426. 01:41:39 and this doesn't get to that.
2427. 01:41:41 So I think I'm gonna rate it four stars,
2428. 01:41:43 but I would absolutely recommend this one
2429. 01:41:46 to anybody who listens to the bookworm podcast.
2430. 01:41:50 And if you want my notes, as I normally do,
2431. 01:41:53 I'll put them together and put a link in the show notes.
2432. 01:41:56 But I think this one is worth picking up.
2433. 01:41:58 - I agree with you more.
2434. 01:42:00 So I'll put the rating first.
2435. 01:42:01 It's a four star book for me.
2436. 01:42:03 I definitely would recommend people read this one.
2437. 01:42:06 If you're interested in kind of, you know,
2438. 01:42:10 self-help productivity, success, like those type of things,
2439. 01:42:15 I agree that there is not a like,
2440. 01:42:19 here is the thread or the takeaway of this book, right?
2441. 01:42:21 Like here it is, you know, boom, you're gonna,
2442. 01:42:24 this is the one thing that you're gonna
2443. 01:42:27 wanna get out of this book, I guess.
2444. 01:42:29 But what I'll tell you is,
2445. 01:42:30 I think there is something for everyone in this book.
2446. 01:42:33 Like if you read it, you're gonna walk away with something.
2447. 01:42:35 And I think that is the sign for a successful book for me.
2448. 01:42:39 So I like the way you framed it in terms of,
2449. 01:42:42 a five star book would be like the go to like, okay,
2450. 01:42:46 if you wanna read about this thing, boom,
2451. 01:42:47 here's this five star book, go read about this thing.
2452. 01:42:50 I think this one is much more of a generalist.
2453. 01:42:53 If you wanna read about success and ways to think
2454. 01:42:56 about different things that will maybe make you
2455. 01:42:58 more productive or increase your ability
2456. 01:43:03 to do certain things or be successful,
2457. 01:43:05 well, hey, check this one out.
2458. 01:43:06 This one seems well written.
2459. 01:43:08 I think for 252 pages, it flew by.
2460. 01:43:12 Like I had no trouble easily reading this one
2461. 01:43:17 and staying engaged in, I think this was a really good
2462. 01:43:21 recommendation, so I'm grateful to you for finding this one
2463. 01:43:24 and suggesting it to us.
2464. 01:43:27 So yeah, overall four stars.
2465. 01:43:29 Awesome.
2466. 01:43:31 All right, let's put potential on the shelf.
2467. 01:43:33 What's next, Corey?
2468. 01:43:34 All right, so my book is next and it's called
2469. 01:43:36 The Ritual Effect from Habit to Ritual Harness,
2470. 01:43:39 The Surprising Power of Everyday Actions.
2471. 01:43:42 This is a book by a guy named Michael Norton
2472. 01:43:46 and Michael Norton is a behavioral scientist.
2473. 01:43:51 I'm trying to remember that exactly
2474. 01:43:55 what is blanking on it right now.
2475. 01:43:57 But he's a prof and he's done a bunch of studies.
2476. 01:44:00 So this is, when you start reading this book,
2477. 01:44:02 it's going to be based off of research studies
2478. 01:44:05 where he started to look at rituals
2479. 01:44:09 and what he calls legacy rituals
2480. 01:44:11 and then how those converted into more everyday rituals
2481. 01:44:15 that we develop.
2482. 01:44:17 I picked this one up because I like the idea
2483. 01:44:19 of not thinking about habits,
2484. 01:44:22 but thinking about systems and rituals
2485. 01:44:24 and ways that we can trick,
2486. 01:44:27 I guess is the lack of a better word
2487. 01:44:28 or lack of a better word or design into our day,
2488. 01:44:32 ways to get ourselves to do the things we want to do
2489. 01:44:35 and then turn those into consistent things.
2490. 01:44:38 So pick it up, The Ritual Effect,
2491. 01:44:40 if you're reading along, we'll talk about that one next.
2492. 01:44:43 How about you, Mike?
2493. 01:44:44 What's the book after The Ritual Effect?
2494. 01:44:47 Well, as I mentioned earlier,
2495. 01:44:48 I was a little bit hesitant to pick this one,
2496. 01:44:50 but now knowing that you're interested in the topic,
2497. 01:44:54 I want to cover a system for writing by Bob Dotto.
2498. 01:44:58 We interviewed him for the Focus Podcast
2499. 01:45:00 and spoiler alert, I like this one.
2500. 01:45:02 I mean, you listened to the podcast already,
2501. 01:45:03 so you knew that.
2502. 01:45:04 No pressure or anything.
2503. 01:45:06 - Well, I don't feel any pressure at all,
2504. 01:45:08 but I'm excited to read it.
2505. 01:45:09 Like you, I actually picked up that episode on purpose
2506. 01:45:14 'cause I was like, I wanna hear what they have to say
2507. 01:45:16 about this book 'cause I think that book was interesting.
2508. 01:45:19 - Yeah, so a long time ago, we read a book
2509. 01:45:22 called How to Take Smart Notes by Sanki Arons.
2510. 01:45:25 And when we first read it, I rated it pretty low.
2511. 01:45:29 I didn't really care for the book,
2512. 01:45:31 but it was the one that everybody held up
2513. 01:45:32 as the book about settle costume
2514. 01:45:35 that everyone needs to read.
2515. 01:45:36 And I was kind of disappointed by it.
2516. 01:45:39 And then I went back and I reread it again later
2517. 01:45:41 and I realized that, oh, some of the ideas in here
2518. 01:45:44 are actually kind of powerful,
2519. 01:45:46 so maybe I should have rated it a little bit higher.
2520. 01:45:48 And at one point, Joe and I had an episode,
2521. 01:45:51 maybe it was like a episode 100 or whatever.
2522. 01:45:54 We could go back and we could change
2523. 01:45:55 a couple of our ratings.
2524. 01:45:56 So I bumped it up a little bit,
2525. 01:45:58 but I've never really liked the book.
2526. 01:45:59 And I always was like, there's gotta be a better
2527. 01:46:01 Zetal custom book out there.
2528. 01:46:03 That's what a system for writing is.
2529. 01:46:05 It's about Zetal custom.
2530. 01:46:07 So it'll be a really interesting conversation.
2531. 01:46:10 I'm curious to hear what you think
2532. 01:46:12 about the Zetal custom system
2533. 01:46:13 and then also how you might apply elements of that
2534. 01:46:17 to what you do.
2535. 01:46:18 - Good, good, good.
2536. 01:46:21 - Any gap books?
2537. 01:46:22 - So I just finished one.
2538. 01:46:24 Now you're gonna say this is cheating,
2539. 01:46:26 so don't yell at me, right?
2540. 01:46:28 Like, not that you would yell at me,
2541. 01:46:29 but don't ridicule me or whatever.
2542. 01:46:31 I have been doing more running.
2543. 01:46:34 And a lot of times I will preview a book while I'm running.
2544. 01:46:38 So I'll like listen to it.
2545. 01:46:39 I'll get the audio book and I'll listen to it
2546. 01:46:41 and just be like, okay, is this worth me?
2547. 01:46:42 Is this worth my time?
2548. 01:46:44 Because I'm running anyhow, right?
2549. 01:46:45 Like I like to listen to something while I'm running.
2550. 01:46:48 So I'll throw a book in there as I go.
2551. 01:46:50 So I just finished one that I'm gonna count as a gap book.
2552. 01:46:55 And it's called Good and Angry.
2553. 01:46:57 And it's basically thinking about anger
2554. 01:46:58 and thinking about it in a different way.
2555. 01:47:00 So yeah, so Good and Angry was the gap book.
2556. 01:47:05 I'm intentionally not choosing a gap book
2557. 01:47:07 between now and our next recording
2558. 01:47:09 because I'm doing some travel
2559. 01:47:11 and I just won't have a lot of time
2560. 01:47:13 to read extra during this period of time.
2561. 01:47:17 - Got you. - How about you?
2562. 01:47:20 - I don't have a gap book, but I need one
2563. 01:47:22 because my next book is one that we have covered already.
2564. 01:47:27 So...
2565. 01:47:29 - Fiction, fiction, fiction, fiction.
2566. 01:47:32 - Well, I'm still working on the third body problem.
2567. 01:47:35 I did finish the alchemist.
2568. 01:47:37 So I have read a fiction book since the last time
2569. 01:47:39 that we have recorded.
2570. 01:47:40 - Nice.
2571. 01:47:42 - I'll continue to work on the third body problem
2572. 01:47:44 but also I have this one that I picked up
2573. 01:47:48 called The Elements of Eliquents,
2574. 01:47:51 Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase.
2575. 01:47:54 - Ooh.
2576. 01:47:55 - This came again by a podcast episode.
2577. 01:47:59 I was listening to How I Write by David Pirel
2578. 01:48:01 and I forget the author that he was interviewing
2579. 01:48:04 but they were talking about different parts of speech
2580. 01:48:06 and making writing that was more interesting to read.
2581. 01:48:10 And this was the book that came up.
2582. 01:48:14 So I'll grab a link to that.
2583. 01:48:15 I'll put it in the show notes that people are interested
2584. 01:48:17 in that but I'm working on writing things.
2585. 01:48:21 Figured, can't hurt to work on the craft a little bit.
2586. 01:48:25 - I'm excited.
2587. 01:48:26 I won't remember to ask you about this book
2588. 01:48:28 but I would really love to hear like a report back
2589. 01:48:30 after you read this book.
2590. 01:48:32 I'm not gonna give away my cards
2591. 01:48:35 even though my face probably shows it right now
2592. 01:48:37 but I'm very intrigued.
2593. 01:48:39 - Nice.
2594. 01:48:41 - For each 39 figures he explains
2595. 01:48:43 a well-known hyperbole paradox rhetorical question.
2596. 01:48:45 Interesting, very interesting.
2597. 01:48:47 All right, well, thank you for listening.
2598. 01:48:50 If you want to support the show
2599. 01:48:52 there is a way that you can do that.
2600. 01:48:54 patreon.com/bookwormfm.
2601. 01:48:57 Seven bucks a month gets you access to a 4K wallpaper.
2602. 01:49:01 Couple of bonus feeds including a bootleg feed
2603. 01:49:05 which is unedited and gets uploaded
2604. 01:49:07 as soon as we get done recording.
2605. 01:49:08 Usually about two weeks before the show gets released.
2606. 01:49:11 A pro show which has an extended ad-free version.
2607. 01:49:16 So that has an extra segment today in the pro show.
2608. 01:49:20 We talked about my trip to London.
2609. 01:49:22 And yeah, if you are willing to support the show financially,
2610. 01:49:27 if you're already doing that, thank you so much.
2611. 01:49:30 If you're willing to do that
2612. 01:49:30 it would really help out a lot.
2613. 01:49:32 We are just trying to figure out a way
2614. 01:49:34 to pay the bookworm bills
2615. 01:49:36 and this is the primary way that we can do that.
2616. 01:49:38 We don't have a ton of ads.
2617. 01:49:39 So if you get a lot out of bookworm
2618. 01:49:41 and would like to support the show
2619. 01:49:42 you can do so at patreon.com/bookwormfm.
2620. 01:49:46 If you are reading along with us,
2621. 01:49:48 pick up The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton
2622. 01:49:51 and we will talk to you in a couple of weeks.