208: Good Work by Paul Millerd

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1. 00:00:00 Well, Mike, we're going to talk today about good work and there was a lot in this book that made me think about you.
2. 00:00:09 So I thought that was interesting. There were a couple different times I'm reading this book and I'm thinking, "Man, Mike kind of did that.
3. 00:00:17 Hey, Mike kind of did that. Mike kind of did that. And I was like, "Wow, this is a really interesting book."
4. 00:00:24 But before we get into that, let's go ahead and get rolling with follow-up.
5. 00:00:29 Mike, you had some follow-up that was start logging your stories. Have you done that?
6. 00:00:36 It's half done, I'll say, because I have created the quick-add macro that I was going to use to add these things and I have adjusted the daily notes template.
7. 00:00:48 However, I have not captured a story to the daily notes template yet.
8. 00:00:52 To be honest, I was a little bit behind on preparing for this episode, so I didn't finish the book until last night and the action items kind of slipped my mind until just a couple of days ago.
9. 00:01:06 So I just adjusted the daily notes template and added the quick-add macro today.
10. 00:01:12 So I do think this is going to work, but I don't think I'm going to get a bunch of stories from this and that's okay.
11. 00:01:20 I'm just hoping to have a couple of stories every once in a while.
12. 00:01:24 And the quick-add macro basically pops up and it says, "Tell me a story, dot, dot, dot, and then there's a text field and then you just write down some text, hit enter, and then it depends a hashtag story tag to that entry in the daily note so that I can click on that tag and I can see all of the stories that I've captured there."
13. 00:01:43 Again, these are the seeds of the stories, they're not the stories themselves, and then the intention is that I will bring those over into the story file and develop them further from there.
14. 00:01:53 Remind me again, Mike, if you're doing this and you're going to then take them and evolve them into actual stories, why?
15. 00:02:00 What's your goal with capturing the stories and moving the stories forward again?
16. 00:02:05 Well, I think capturing the stories is just recognizing what's going on that might be good content for a story.
17. 00:02:14 And then developing those stories, I mentioned, I think, last time how I was doing coaching for a little bit with Aaron Beverly and he was encouraging me to build this story file because basically you never know when you're going to need these stories.
18. 00:02:26 So, I think there's value just in the act of creating the stories and sort of processing some of the more significant moments of your life and codifying it down into short snippets that you can use to explain it to somebody else, kind of cements it in your brain as well.
19. 00:02:41 So, even if I never tell these stories, having a bank of them, I think is going to be valuable and I want to do that more regularly, hopefully the story section in the daily note, being able to capture those quickly, we'll sort of spare that.
20. 00:02:54 Got you. Alright, so my follow up items were log stories from the family to a story file. That was number one. And then number two was brainstorm around a creative project that I have that's around storytelling.
21. 00:03:07 I didn't do any either of these specifically, but what I did was I refined like the why I would want to do these, which is why kind of I asked you the question that I just asked you.
22. 00:03:17 Because I was like, I was thinking about doing these and I was like, what's my goal? Like, what am I trying to accomplish with these? And that was actually the big value of me having these follow up items from last time we recorded to this time.
23. 00:03:30 The log the key stories of my family to the story file. It's really so 20, 30 years down the road, I can look at the story file and go, I remember when I remember when and like have the details written down there.
24. 00:03:45 So this was like a really a historic document that I could use later on in life and that maybe somebody would find later on down in life and be like, Oh, wow, that's really interesting. That's really cool.
25. 00:03:57 So like, that was fun to think about like, Oh, I don't really want to tell these stories to anybody. Like, I don't, I don't care to like, you know, create any kind of, you know, media with this.
26. 00:04:07 I just really want to capture these for the historical archive of the Hickson family kind of a thing. The creative project around specific storytelling.
27. 00:04:16 I think this one comes from the fact that like, I really just like to hear people's really interesting stories and the project would be to have other people tell their stories for my own personal edification and then maybe there's somebody in the world that would like want to hear those as well.
28. 00:04:33 But that was like a fun thing for me to do. I didn't move on like actually setting up a system to capture them for the family one.
29. 00:04:41 I think big part of the reason why that one is is because I want my wife and I to do this together because we often will remember things very differently and like the banter around us trying to solidify the details of the story would be like a crazy fun time.
30. 00:04:56 So I think like that's like a, I think that's like a side project for my wife and I to do that would be really like enjoyable of like, let's think back however long we can think back and like let's remember those stories.
31. 00:05:09 And then the creative project around specific storytelling I think would be, I think it would be a fun one.
32. 00:05:15 Would it turn into anything? I don't know. And that like ties into like good work. Like, is that something I would put into that good work bucket of like, it's worth the time of me doing it.
33. 00:05:25 Me doing for, you know, good work, feel good purposes. So, all right, cool. So that was good.
34. 00:05:32 Recapping our follow up items. Let's move into into the book. As we've mentioned, we are reading Paul Millard's good work text.
35. 00:05:43 And this is a second book. This is the second book of Paul Millard's The Pathless Path was the first one, which you've read.
36. 00:05:52 Give us a two second, like take away from that. Was it worth reading? Would you read it again? What do you think, Mike?
37. 00:06:01 It's worth reading. I'm not sure if I would read it again. The two second action item from it essentially is quit your job.
38. 00:06:10 Okay. All right. So, so maybe similar, maybe not. All right. So the full title of this one is good work reclaiming your inner ambition. Like I said, it's Paul's second book.
39. 00:06:22 And it's made up into 13 chapters. So you have an introduction, you have 13 chapters, and then there's a call to action at the end where it kind of recaps everything.
40. 00:06:33 And really, Mike, is it too far to say that this is a memoir? Like this is like him kind of telling his story about like how he made this switch and how he made this gigantic transition from the consulting world into his good work and him doing good work.
41. 00:06:51 And then it transitions out of the, what I would consider like the memoir type book into this, like, have you ever thought about these things? And how would you move? How would you do these things in your life? Like, is that is that doing it justice?
42. 00:07:05 Yeah. For the most part, I think it's very reminiscent of the Pathless Path. The Pathless Path, the first part, if I'm remembering correctly, was really just his story.
43. 00:07:16 And the second part was sort of about embracing your Pathless Path. And really, that was just a book that was intended to get people to think about pushing back against the status quo and trying to figure out different ways to do things, which has very much been part of
44. 00:07:34 our family fabric for a long time. We have one of our core values determined to be different, don't settle for average. So that was interesting to me. I think the difference here is that in good work, it's more focused on once you are on the Pathless Path.
45. 00:07:52 What are the types of things that you are doing there? But it very much is like the Pathless Path 2.0. These are two books that are meant to be read together.
46. 00:08:03 I don't know that you need to read the Pathless Path before you read this. I'm kind of interested to see where this discussion goes because you have read this one and not the Pathless Path. That's kind of the ideal scenario, I think, for me in this situation.
47. 00:08:16 Because you can do good work, I think, without just blowing everything up and moving to a crazy country like we talked about in the Pro Show. Well, mine wasn't moved to a crazy country. Actually, yours wasn't really either, but we did talk about what we would do if we could press the imaginary reset button. So if you're interested in that, you can join the Pro Show at patreon.com/bookworm if I'm $7 a month.
48. 00:08:41 But this book is, I think, really important, and I feel like anybody, even if you've got a normal 9 to 5, this will probably get you thinking about the work that you are choosing to do differently.
49. 00:08:56 And I don't think you need to blow everything up in order for this book to have a positive impact.
50. 00:09:00 Sometimes, you know, I've seen this with the life-themed stuff that my wife and I teach. People go into it thinking, "Oh, this is going to be scary. It's going to cause me to just completely destroy everything and put it all back together."
51. 00:09:10 And a lot of times, the people realize, "You know what? I'm actually really happy with what I'm doing. It's just now they've got clarity and motivation to lean into the things that are important and cut the things that aren't."
52. 00:09:21 Yeah. I'm glad you brought up what you did about the Pathless Path because I actually felt a little bit like I was missing out because I hadn't read the Pathless Path.
53. 00:09:30 He does lean on that, and he mentions it a couple different times where he's referring to something back in the Pathless Path, but he doesn't go back and describe it.
54. 00:09:40 And I was kind of like, "Oh, I want him to unpack that more. I wonder what that's all about."
55. 00:09:45 And I would like to kind of have more information or have more knowledge in that area.
56. 00:09:50 That doesn't mean I didn't get a lot out of this. It just meant he refers back to it quite a bit.
57. 00:09:58 The second thing that I'm glad you brought up was, I don't think this book is only good if you're thinking about quitting your 9-5 and figuring out what that thing is.
58. 00:10:12 So your point is very, very well made in terms of, "I don't have any plans to quit my 9-5, and I still got a lot out of this book in terms of evaluating things and thinking critically about what I'm doing and whether that fits into the, quote, unquote, unquote.
59. 00:10:27 Good work bucket." So that transitions us into kind of the intro section and maybe a little bit into part one.
60. 00:10:34 I found it odd that he did not define good work early on in this book.
61. 00:10:40 I don't exactly remember as we get through it, but it were good ways into it before he actually tells you the definition of good work.
62. 00:10:48 And I didn't actually capture where it is, so did you capture where he actually first defines good work?
63. 00:10:54 I did. I'm looking through my notes here. Actually, I can just search for this.
64. 00:11:01 Is it where he does good work, good enough work? Is that the first place he does it?
65. 00:11:07 Yes. So in the introduction, he does have a couple of anecdotes about good work, but the definitions, there's good work, there's good enough work, and then there is bad work.
66. 00:11:21 I've got those definitions in here somewhere, but they're kind of sprinkled throughout.
67. 00:11:27 Oh, good work right here. Activities that give me energy and fuel my journey.
68. 00:11:31 Okay. That was actually from chapter eight.
69. 00:11:34 Chapter eight. Okay. Because I knew it was far into the book, but I couldn't remember.
70. 00:11:38 He does talk about good enough work in chapter two, but then he doesn't really define everything until way later in the book.
71. 00:11:46 And I was surprised by that. I was like, my goodness, that's a really long time to go before you actually tell me what you mean by good work.
72. 00:11:54 So activities that give energy and fuel my journey, just around that out, because we'll hit this again in chapter eight.
73. 00:11:59 Good enough work or tasks that I enjoyed, some degree, help pay the bills, but are not my core good work.
74. 00:12:05 And then he's got supporting activities that are complimentary, and then bad work is what you try to avoid.
75. 00:12:10 I thought that was really, really interesting.
76. 00:12:12 Okay. So part one is like, we're kind of setting up the stage, but part one is awakening to good work.
77. 00:12:17 And he's basically getting used to think about this idea of good work, but he doesn't define it until way later.
78. 00:12:22 He does talk about it in terms of, you know, it's hard to define, makes it difficult to explain.
79. 00:12:28 He is kind of interweaving this, like I said, with the memoir of like him basically taking off, quitting his consulting job and moving to Taiwan.
80. 00:12:38 And like, he's mixing these two things together.
81. 00:12:42 So chapter one, he gets into embrace the unknown, right?
82. 00:12:45 And he's thinking about, okay, what if I just stop thinking about money?
83. 00:12:50 What if I stop thinking about doing work for money?
84. 00:12:52 So here is a, what I'll call a bias in his, in his book.
85. 00:12:56 And I'm not going to say it's a good bias or a bad bias, but it's definitely a bias in it.
86. 00:13:00 Is he, he directly addresses and he directly attacks this idea of, all right, most people work for money.
87. 00:13:07 They work for that paycheck.
88. 00:13:09 They work for the status that goes along with their title and that paycheck in, in those type of things.
89. 00:13:15 So he gets in there.
90. 00:13:16 What if I literally do anything else other than money?
91. 00:13:19 Some people will think that's reckless.
92. 00:13:21 What do you think about that Mike?
93. 00:13:22 Like I, I would agree that this is the way my, I was taught to think about this is like, oh, why do I work?
94. 00:13:28 I work because I need to provide for my family.
95. 00:13:30 I work for any, because I need income.
96. 00:13:31 What's my goal?
97. 00:13:32 My goal is to get the best job I can doing the thing I'm interested in, but it also will pay me the most money.
98. 00:13:36 That way I can do all the things.
99. 00:13:38 Buy a house, raise a family, eat, buy cars, yada, yada, yada.
100. 00:13:42 Like that was 100% the way I was brought up and the way I was raised.
101. 00:13:45 How about you?
102. 00:13:46 I was raised the same way, even though my dad is a entrepreneur and started his own business.
103. 00:13:52 I think it's just kind of inherent for parents to want the best for their kids.
104. 00:13:58 But sometimes that means don't do the risky thing because it might not work.
105. 00:14:04 So I don't think it was ever articulated explicitly, but that's definitely the vibe that I picked up.
106. 00:14:11 And as the oldest in our family, I've got two younger brothers.
107. 00:14:15 There have been times when, as the oldest, my dad would come to me be like, hey, talk some sense into your younger brother.
108. 00:14:21 You know, he's thinking of doing this thing.
109. 00:14:23 So that's definitely what I picked up on.
110. 00:14:26 I think this, okay, so this is going to be a very different conversation than if we would have covered this.
111. 00:14:33 We would have covered this book even a month or six weeks ago.
112. 00:14:38 Okay.
113. 00:14:39 Because having gone through the Life HQ launch now, I feel like I'm on the other side and I can see the promised land that he is talking about here.
114. 00:14:49 Okay.
115. 00:14:50 And I feel like if I had read this before getting there, I would have been like, well, that worked for you, but I don't know if it's going to work for me.
116. 00:14:58 Because Pathless Path got me to quit my job a year and a half ago, and it's been a struggle for a long time.
117. 00:15:06 And if you would have told me or asked me four to six weeks ago, are you going to make it?
118. 00:15:10 I'd be like, I don't know. I sure hope so.
119. 00:15:14 But I have a different perspective now having gone through the launch because the launch went great.
120. 00:15:20 That I look back at what he is saying in this book. Now, as I read it, I'm like, I see what you're really saying. You're not just trying to.
121. 00:15:30 I don't know if it adds more validity to the arguments that he's making, I feel, because I can see what that looks like for me.
122. 00:15:38 I don't think you can really see what that looks like prior to, however, so I think until you do just leap out into the unknown at some point, there's always going to be a little bit of, well, you're a crazy guy.
123. 00:15:49 You live in Taiwan. I'm not listening to you.
124. 00:15:52 Okay, so this is good. I mean, it's almost like we scripted this before, but I promise you, we did not talk about this at all before.
125. 00:15:59 I'm reading this book, and I can't tell you the number of times I went, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, you know, like, I'm reading this thing and he'll make this statement.
126. 00:16:08 I'm like, yeah, but, and then like, and it just happened so many times. So to hear you say that, having gone through this similar process, you know, released a product, you know, being on the other side of that thing.
127. 00:16:22 And like, that's a really good feeling for me. Like, it's a really good thing to say, like, okay, I've got at least two data points now to where this is possible.
128. 00:16:32 And this is not some far-fetched idea that some random guy just wrote and self-published, you know what I mean? Like that, because that was my bias going into this book.
129. 00:16:42 I was like, you're just some random guy that's self-published in this book. Why should I listen to you? Like, why should I listen to you at all?
130. 00:16:48 So that's really, really good feedback.
131. 00:16:50 So the thing is, you're right, it is a self-published book and there is a little bit of that. Well, you're a special snowflake and it worked out for you, but it's not going to work out for the majority of people who follow your advice.
132. 00:17:03 I don't think that's necessarily true, but you have to be able to see yourself in that story, in the story that he's telling in order for it to work.
133. 00:17:11 So I don't think it's just follow these steps and absolutely everybody is going to make it. You have to have a belief that you can make it, but I also think you won't really know what the next steps are until you are out there.
134. 00:17:24 So when I was reading the Pathless Path and that was one of the things that gave me the guts to walk away from the day job at the Digital Marketing Agency and tried to do this thing that I had wanted to do on my own for a while.
135. 00:17:34 I didn't really know what that looked like and I kind of stumbled around for about six months trying a bunch of different things and I finally kind of landed on the practical PKM stuff and started making YouTube videos on Obsidian and that's really when things started to click for me.
136. 00:17:49 But even then, I was making stuff, but I didn't know what the signature product was going to be. Life HQ wasn't a thing in the back of my mind until maybe three, four months ago when I really started going hard.
137. 00:18:04 Okay, now I have clarity. This is the thing that I want to make. And even until the launch, I didn't really know that it was going to work.
138. 00:18:12 So the thing that got me going down this path, though, was not, I stumbled onto the Pathless Path by Paul Miller and I'm like, "Oh, this looks like an interesting book."
139. 00:18:20 It was, I had seen other people who I respected their opinions talk about how this was a life-changing book.
140. 00:18:29 Specifically, I remember an Ali Abdahl YouTube video where he was talking about some of the key concepts from it and Ali Abdahl is somebody that I look up to.
141. 00:18:37 I mean, he had a good job. He was a doctor and he walked away from that to become a YouTuber and some people think that's crazy.
142. 00:18:44 And I don't think it was actually as risky as maybe it sounds because he had amassed a bunch of success on YouTube prior to making that.
143. 00:18:53 That was a pretty easy transition, I think, in terms of, "Am I going to be able to pay my bills?"
144. 00:18:59 Now, he talks in his book about how there was a lot of other stuff, family stuff, the prestige that comes with, "Oh, there's a doctor in the family."
145. 00:19:07 His parents thought it was crazy, that kind of stuff that goes along with that.
146. 00:19:11 But, I don't know, there has to be somebody in your circle, I think, who's sort of pushing you that way in order for you to really feel, "Yeah, I can do this."
147. 00:19:24 Otherwise, anybody can write whatever the heck they want, throw it out on the internet. Who's this guy?
148. 00:19:31 Exactly.
149. 00:19:32 I don't have very much on chapter one. Chapter one was fine, and I didn't capture very much on it.
150. 00:19:38 The other thing I captured here was that he says, "Experience in the 14 years on the default path of success."
151. 00:19:46 I would consider myself on the default path of success.
152. 00:19:49 If you look at the way my life is gone, maybe my one nuance would be that I went back to get a doctorate, which not everybody goes back to get a doctorate,
153. 00:19:57 but because my default path of success was teaching at the university, essentially, I had to do that.
154. 00:20:04 Or it was a much easier path if I went back and got that doctorate, compared to trying to get into the university without having a doctorate.
155. 00:20:13 For me, in my world, that's the default path of success. I'm okay with that.
156. 00:20:18 I actually don't have a problem with the fact that I've spent a bunch of years on the default path of success, and I feel pretty good about that.
157. 00:20:25 Thinking back to when you were, before you broke free and went independent, I say broke free. It was a bad thing, but you know what I mean.
158. 00:20:35 Did you consider yourself on the default path of success?
159. 00:20:39 Kinda. I think I sort of broke away a little bit from the default path when I said I don't want to take over the family business anymore, and I started writing online.
160. 00:20:50 But then I sort of went back into playing it safe mode where I was making stuff for other people who had large audiences because they'll pay me to make stuff, and I like making stuff.
161. 00:21:04 So this is safe. And then the digital marketing agency job, that was trying something different that I thought maybe I could be good at, but I wasn't really sure it was going to work.
162. 00:21:19 However, what I was promised in terms of compensation would have been very comfortable.
163. 00:21:25 Never quite got there, but ultimately I decided that this really isn't the thing for me anyways, and then it was like, "Okay, I'm telling my kids they can do anything. I really need to model this for them."
164. 00:21:38 And just got to the point where I have to make the leap. If I don't do this, I know it's going to be something that I will look back on at the end of my life and regret never having tried.
165. 00:21:47 And then floundered for quite a while, honestly. And just now, last couple weeks with Life HQ feel like I have a sustainable path again.
166. 00:22:01 And maybe that'll change again in the future. Maybe there'll be a default path that I can fall into with Life HQ, and I have to constantly be looking for the alternative path.
167. 00:22:10 But I think I've stepped off the default path a couple of times throughout my working life, but also there are ways where I sort of naturally gravitate towards that default path because I've got a family of five kids at home.
168. 00:22:24 I've got to provide for them all that kind of stuff, which makes it hard.
169. 00:22:29 Yeah. Okay, let's move into chapter two. This is where I probably had the most restraint with the book. So chapter two is called Follow Your Energy.
170. 00:22:39 And do you know Mike Rowe? If I say the name Mike Rowe?
171. 00:22:43 Yes.
172. 00:22:44 The dirty jobs guy. So he does a talk where he goes into this whole big spiel and follow your passion and how he thinks...
173. 00:22:54 Oh, I know this. I know this. I referenced this often. Yeah.
174. 00:22:57 How he thinks Follow Your Passion is like the worst advice ever. And he has this connection where this reference to basically the port-a-potty people or the sewage guys where it's like, do you think they're following their passion?
175. 00:23:12 No, they're not following their passion. They're finding a job that people need done that they get paid really, really well for, and that's how they're doing it.
176. 00:23:19 And I got the same vibe or I got the same feel for this while I was reading Follow Your Energy because I was like, okay, follow your energy.
177. 00:23:27 Now, he talks a couple of different places in here. So one of the quotes he'll make is coming alive over getting ahead.
178. 00:23:32 So it's like, I want to do good work. His work that brings you alive, brings you joy. You feel energized from doing it.
179. 00:23:39 That's where the energy piece ties into it. He'd also talk about good enough work, doesn't drain your energy and enables you to do things that actually move you forward.
180. 00:23:48 That he talks about this never-ending competition. That when you're on this normal path or the default path, you find yourself in a situation where you're competing with everybody else to do similar stuff.
181. 00:24:01 And that when you find something that's uniquely yours or that taps into your unique energy, you don't have any competitors.
182. 00:24:08 Okay, I get it. Like, I understand what he's doing. It took me a while, though, before I understood, like, this Follow Your Passion idea is not this willy-nilly thing.
183. 00:24:16 It's actually more tangible than that because it's following the thing that, like, you don't feel like you have to work to do it.
184. 00:24:24 So, okay, you wake up in the morning and you start doing this thing. And next thing, you know, it's four hours later, but you don't feel drained.
185. 00:24:31 Like, you don't feel like, "Oh, my gosh, I just had to do that." So, for instance, for me, the one that paperwork drains the life out of me.
186. 00:24:40 Right? So, it's like any kind of work that I have to do where I feel like I'm just filling out useless paperwork drains the life out of me.
187. 00:24:46 But, like, prepping for a class doesn't do that to me. Right? Like, if I'm prepping to teach a subjector to learn something in order to communicate it well, doesn't do that to me.
188. 00:24:55 So, I understood what he was getting at here, that this idea of we're trying to look for those things that give us energy, don't suck the energy from us, and we want to do more of those things.
189. 00:25:07 What do you think of chapter two?
190. 00:25:10 I agree. Let me back up a little bit with the micro-passion thing. I think we talked about this not too long ago, but one of the things that I got out of that video was don't follow your passion, but always bring it with you.
191. 00:25:21 So, I think passion is maybe different than, and you didn't exactly say this, but this is kind of the vibe of, like, follow your passion. It doesn't just mean do what you love.
192. 00:25:31 The root word for passion is the Latin word "pati" literally means to suffer. So, what is worth going through some stuff in order to see it come about?
193. 00:25:39 And I think Paul Miller would agree totally with that definition. As you get further through the book, you realize that he's leaving money on the table, that's the price he's willing to pay for the lifestyle that he wants to embrace right now.
194. 00:25:51 So, that's important context with just the title of follow your energy. But I think that it's impossible to always do the things that are fun, the things that you really enjoy doing, the good work.
195. 00:26:06 There's going to be some good enough work that always comes with it. However, I can tell you haven't gone through it. It's totally different when it's your good enough work versus somebody else's good enough.
196. 00:26:21 And I don't really know how else to elaborate on that. I've heard people say I'm not at this point yet, where the day that you pay off your mortgage, the grass feels different beneath your toes. It's your grass now.
197. 00:26:36 I think Abraham Z is the one who talks about that. I don't really know what that looks like, but that's sort of the same approach here, I think. It just feels different when you are in control. Now, being in control, this is kind of interesting. I hadn't really planned on going this way.
198. 00:26:52 But control is one of the three aspects of motivation going back to master your motivation by Susan Fowler, and we actually talk a little bit about that in the life theme stuff. The thing about control is that you don't necessarily need to have four other options available to you.
199. 00:27:10 You just have to believe that you have the ability to change your situation if you wanted to. So, I have the ability to walk away from the day job if I decide this isn't the thing for me. That totally changes the relationship with the day job sometimes.
200. 00:27:29 So, I think that the seed of the idea here, of look for the things that make you come alive, that is good. I don't think packaged as the, you know, just follow your energy. And that's not exactly what he's saying. That's the title of the chapter.
201. 00:27:46 That isn't really all that great. I really liked the quote on page 46 where he says, "People think that the moment you quit your job, your new path begins, but for me it wasn't immediate. That resonated with me." As I mentioned, I kind of tried a bunch of different things and didn't really land on the thing for quite a while.
202. 00:28:02 So, that was, I guess, validation that I'm not abnormal with that. And then the other thing, I didn't have the guts to turn the gig down referring to a $7,500 consulting project he didn't want to take.
203. 00:28:19 I know what that feels like, too, where there are some projects where you're just, "I know this is going to be a pain, but I really need the money, so I'm going to do it." My version of that for the last, I don't know, six months has been trying to balance doing the freelance stuff where I can get paid per article or I get paid per video
204. 00:28:41 versus building the Life HQ stuff that I didn't know people were going to buy. I had no idea, I thought it was cool, but I didn't know if anyone was going to be interested in it once I put it out into the world.
205. 00:28:52 But there was this constant tension between do stuff that I get paid for and build the thing for the future. So, it's kind of like now versus the future. And if you're following the energy, then you just continually build for the future. But I don't think it's that simple either. You've got to kind of find that balance.
206. 00:29:09 Yeah. Okay, so another big point he starts to get into in this section is basically the way other people view the work that we do.
207. 00:29:20 And he references it all through the book, but basically it's like how are other, what's success in other people's eyes and whether it's your parents or your spouse or your friends or whatever it might be.
208. 00:29:31 And the fact that at times they're going to look at you like you're crazy and you have to be able to be okay with being okay with them saying those things or being okay with them thinking that you're unsuccessful and kind of powering through that.
209. 00:29:45 Well, this was an interesting thing because maybe it's just because something I wrestle with a good bit is this idea of, well okay what would so and so say. Like if I went and just randomly quit my job and moved to the middle of nowhere and whatever it is, what would so and so say.
210. 00:30:00 And I like that he brings this idea of like you can't do that. I mean I tell my kids this all the time like you can't you can't overvalue what other people are going to say or what other people are going to think.
211. 00:30:11 If you know it's the right thing to do, you should do that thing right like if if you've talked to your trusted sources and you know it's the right thing to do or you've processed it and worked through it.
212. 00:30:21 You got to you got to go with that. So I like that he starts that here like he starts that process of essentially countering what other people think and really go in internal and thinking about like what matters to me kind of a thing like I really like that he starts to stress that here.
213. 00:30:37 So you got to decide for yourself. Yeah. Alright so so now this ties into something at the very very end of the book that I want to start like touching on as we go through these chapters.
214. 00:30:47 So there's a call to action section at the end of the book where he basically takes each of these chapters and Mike and I we talked about a little bit before the show.
215. 00:30:56 We think that it's it's basically is one sentence summary or is few word summary of each of the chapters so for chapter one which was titled embrace the unknown.
216. 00:31:05 He's really talking about your interests and he's really talking about resisting that idea of the normal default path of success and really tying that back into what interest you what are you passionate about.
217. 00:31:18 What is the thing that you know is different than than the normal or different than the default that that keeps you engaged.
218. 00:31:27 In the second chapter, you know, follow your energy, he doesn't get to it till the end of the chapter but he makes a statement.
219. 00:31:34 Once I stopped trying to be successful in other people's eyes I was able to slow down pay attention and notice the things I did naturally.
220. 00:31:39 So in this situation his call to action is slow down to move forward.
221. 00:31:43 So if I'm going to move forward for myself, I need to slow down and just stop thinking about what everybody else thinks success is.
222. 00:31:50 I need to stop caring about what everybody thinks success is and I need to think about what I think about success to be.
223. 00:31:56 I think these call to actions are really interesting in the way that they summarize or make his key points more concise.
224. 00:32:05 So let's move to the third one, commit to the journey.
225. 00:32:09 So in this third one, he's really talking about the fact that he takes this kind of treats it about kind of like a sabbatical if you will,
226. 00:32:19 which Mike, I love the fact that you've talked about sabbatical and your retreats and these kind of breakaways quite a bit.
227. 00:32:26 But he uses those to get clarity. He uses those to figure out what the good work is and to constantly review and to constantly think about what that good work is.
228. 00:32:36 And in order for you to really zone in on what am I going to commit my time to? What am I going to really double down on, if you will?
229. 00:32:49 He makes a statement here. I was terrified to admit that I did not fit into this world. I had worked so hard to enter.
230. 00:32:54 And I was scared to find my own way out, which I love that because it's so raw and so honest about I worked so hard to get here.
231. 00:33:03 I've gotten here. I'm so successful. And now I have to convince myself, hey, this isn't it.
232. 00:33:10 And I have to be okay with the fact that I've just committed 20-something years of my life to get to this point and it's not it.
233. 00:33:18 And that's a really, really hard thing for anybody to do. I think that's a really, really difficult thing for people to kind of make that hard pivot of, yeah, I'm going to...
234. 00:33:29 Like, some cost fallacy. I think about some cost fallacy. It's like, oh, I'm just going to stay in this thing. Why?
235. 00:33:34 Well, because I just spent the last 20-something years of my life preparing for it and getting here and getting to the point where I can reap the benefits of this and then going, whoa, nope, that's not it.
236. 00:33:45 And I got to pivot and turn hard. So commit to the journey is chapter three.
237. 00:33:52 Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff in here. You mentioned the sabbaticals. One of the things that he does, it was kind of cool to hear about this because I've heard about it other places.
238. 00:34:00 But every seventh week he takes off the seventh week sabbatical idea. I love that. Now that Life HQ is out the door, I'm going to do this.
239. 00:34:09 I actually have these on my calendar. It's just that I have blown right through them over the last several months because I need to get to the point where the business is sustainable.
240. 00:34:19 And you could make an argument that that actually slowed me down because you mentioned it part or chapter two, slow down and move forward.
241. 00:34:27 But just didn't feel like it was something that I could do. I really like that idea, though. The other thing mentioned, you know, you have to fully commit having gone through the transition.
242. 00:34:40 I'm bringing this up because I think this would have been helpful for me to hear from somebody that I looked up to when I was going through it. So if someone else is in that situation, you know, this is me telling you that you've got this, I guess.
243. 00:34:55 You do have to fully commit the longer that you are trying to go between a couple of different things, the longer it's going to take to figure out if this is really going to work. I feel like I could have shortened the amount of time I spent in the messy middle.
244. 00:35:12 If I had fully committed earlier, that being said, I also don't think that you should just quit your job and figure it out. I think you should dabble on the side. And then when you've got an inkling that this is the direction that you want to go, you know, prepare ahead of time so you've
245. 00:35:30 run away and then make the leap. You know, there's a balance between all of this stuff. But I do think that you have to commit to the journey if it's really going to work. Now, one of the things he calls in this chapter is that most of us have been in steady motion since childhood.
246. 00:35:47 And this, I thought, was really interesting because that's the whole idea of the sabbatical is that you really have to wrestle with who are you without the work.
247. 00:35:56 When you're not working, what do you do? Who are you? And this is just kind of ingrained in our culture. You go to a fancy dinner party. You meet somebody new. Well, what do you do? Like, that's the first question you ask.
248. 00:36:13 So you have to figure out this sort of stuff for your own. And one of the things he mentions at the beginning of this chapter that I really liked is once you leave home, the old maps no longer work.
249. 00:36:21 So you got to figure out how to build your own maps, kind of alluding back to the map is not the territory, the mental model idea.
250. 00:36:28 But don't be scared of figuring that stuff out for yourself. The longer you put that off, the longer you're following somebody else's map, the longer you're not really on the, potentially you're not on the true path.
251. 00:36:42 And I think at least getting clarity on that is super important.
252. 00:36:46 He ties back into the chapter two call to action, you know, where he talks about the fact that good work in order to find it, you really have to slow down. You have to experiment. You have to reflect.
253. 00:36:57 You have to like do this really, I would say it's an intense process, right? That a lot of people avoid where it's this slowing down an introspection type of a thing.
254. 00:37:09 Now, what I also think is interesting is in his call to action for what I think is associated with this one, it's appreciate the non-monetary benefits of good work.
255. 00:37:17 So if you think about slowing down, if you think about taking a sabbatical, what's the primary thing you're giving up?
256. 00:37:23 You're primarily giving up monetary, immediate monetary gains, right? So, okay, if I take a sabbatical, I'm probably not going to make money during that period of time, or I'm going to make money differently than the guaranteed steady income that I was making.
257. 00:37:37 So this makes me think of one of my buddies. He's an author, and he's doing it for a couple different reasons, but he is taking his family on like an RV tour, a grand tour of the whole United States.
258. 00:37:51 And as he's doing it, he's tying it into speaking gigs at local schools and at different, you know, at different events.
259. 00:37:58 And part of it, I think, he's never told me this, but part of it, I think he's doing it as like a promo gig, but he's also doing it because that's part of his good work, right?
260. 00:38:08 Like, yes, being an author is part of the good work, but also speaking and helping other people, you know, think about being author, authors is part of his good work.
261. 00:38:15 And I really like that idea of like, he's taking the sabbatical from the day job, but he's not just not doing anything.
262. 00:38:24 Like, he's not like, you know, I think about a sabbatical and I think, oh, we're just going to go and we're going to sit around and we're going to do nothing.
263. 00:38:29 But that isn't necessarily what a sabbatical is. A sabbatical is, in my mind, it's a difference from what the normal would be.
264. 00:38:35 You know, it's like we're intentionally going to be different in more introspective, more experimentation sense.
265. 00:38:41 So I like, I like this good idea.
266. 00:38:43 Mike, anything else to wrap up on chapter three?
267. 00:38:46 Nope.
268. 00:38:47 All right, so let's move into chapter four.
269. 00:38:49 So have faith in good work is the title for chapter four.
270. 00:38:54 In this situation, he, he's kind of, you know, doubling down on the fact that, like, what he really wants you to do is he wants you to get the idea that it's personal.
271. 00:39:06 He wants you to get the idea that, like, once you find this good work, that once you experience the joy within this good work, you know, you can protect it and you can have faith that that's going to continue to provide you,
272. 00:39:18 that energy, it's going to continue to provide you this feeling of, this is the thing you should be doing, and this is the thing you should be doing.
273. 00:39:25 And then this is where, at least at some point here, up until now, he's also tied into his wife's story.
274. 00:39:32 Right, so he meets his wife in, like, her story of trying to find good work.
275. 00:39:36 So now we have two different stories.
276. 00:39:37 We have his story of trying to find good work, and we have her story of trying to find good work, and we're kind of kind of run those throughout the rest of the book.
277. 00:39:45 Basically, this overall searching and finding for, you know, this, whatever this good work meant for them.
278. 00:39:54 And this is where I kind of had a little bit of trouble with the book because I was like, we still haven't defined good work.
279. 00:39:58 We still haven't thought about, like, what this good work is.
280. 00:40:01 So I kind of struggled in chapter four to be like, I need to know what good work is, that way I can have faith in it.
281. 00:40:07 Yeah, I guess that's fair. I think he talks, you know, all the back in the introduction about how good work can reshape what you desire.
282. 00:40:15 Good work doesn't happen on a factory schedule, has a natural seasonality, so he's kind of dropping hits of it.
283. 00:40:20 But I think it's okay not to really define it just yet because I do think good work is one of those things that you have to discover for yourself.
284. 00:40:28 It's going to be different for every person.
285. 00:40:30 He mentions in this section that once you've experienced the joy of good work, not experiencing it makes you take it more seriously.
286. 00:40:38 And I think I can resonate with that.
287. 00:40:41 It's sort of like life HQ is my good work.
288. 00:40:44 And so the thought of not being able to work on that anymore at this point is appalling to me.
289. 00:40:50 If you would have said six weeks ago, I'd be like, yeah, good, I'm done anyways.
290. 00:40:53 But I don't know, it's sort of like you know it when you see it.
291. 00:41:02 But the other thing that I thought was interesting in this section is the importance of writing.
292. 00:41:07 I talk about this in the Creativity Flywheel framework where I mentioned that the big problem people have with personal knowledge management, my opinion, is they have a whole bunch of input, but they never have an output.
293. 00:41:20 And that doesn't mean that you have to have a blog or you have to be recording a podcast, YouTube, you can, like that is an output.
294. 00:41:28 But there needs to be some sort of output because that is the process in which you synthesize the ideas and you make them your own.
295. 00:41:38 So he mentions that writing is his good work kind of throughout this whole first part.
296. 00:41:43 But then in this chapter talks about writing is what helped his wife Angie to see herself right and she actually went through write a passage, which I am going through right now, which was kind of interesting.
297. 00:41:56 And I guess if there's a common thread here, that would be the thing that I would call out is don't underestimate the value of the writing process in terms of figuring this stuff out for yourself.
298. 00:42:06 All right, so we get into part two now. So part one was awakened to good work. Part two is going to be rewrite your work story.
299. 00:42:15 So the first chapter in rewrite your work story is find this positive edge.
300. 00:42:19 And he says in here, I relied on a formula, follow the successful path, get good grades, do what seems impressive.
301. 00:42:26 And that's his old path.
302. 00:42:28 So he relied on that formula and then he ties that into the fact that he created this trap for himself. So, oh, why was following this formula this get good grades do what seems impressive.
303. 00:42:38 All of those things essentially with this others focused on my where I am.
304. 00:42:43 And then he said I was playing this never ending game, right, that I couldn't move forward because I constantly had to do this thing that everybody else would think highly of me, you know, for that.
305. 00:42:57 And then he refers to it as basically being anesthetized right like so I'm numb to this idea and I'm really, you know, you always talk about the creative flywheel right the creativity flywheel.
306. 00:43:07 Well, I think this is another kind of a flywheel right it's like you're on this thing and I think the other word that we would always think about this one is I'm on this treadmill.
307. 00:43:15 I have to keep running on this treadmill because I've created this scenario for myself where I have to keep running on this treadmill.
308. 00:43:21 Right, and then he gets into this Robert for Robert Frost quote the best way out is through right and he gets this idea of like okay well let's shed that former identity.
309. 00:43:31 And let's go with this idea of you know the only so here's a quote from him.
310. 00:43:37 The only true and worthwhile edge is deeply caring about what you do. So this is where he talks about find the positive edge.
311. 00:43:44 So this thing that is deeply associated with you and the thing you care about the most I need to do the thing I care about the most for him.
312. 00:43:54 It was writing right and he's talked about this a lot up into this point so we're in chapter five now he's talked about how writing is that thing when he wakes up in the morning that's what he wants to do.
313. 00:44:04 So this is where I will probably identify my first action item of the book. Right, so as we as we get to action items later but it's like one of my first action items is what is that thing that I care so deeply about that I have to do it.
314. 00:44:17 If I'm not doing it, I don't feel like I'm on this edge right this positive edge of what he talks about so I'll tell you mine right now what I think mine is but I want to reflect on this more.
315. 00:44:28 Right teaching, educating, helping people learn different things like I think that is the thing that I care more about in anything that I do.
316. 00:44:37 It's like I want to educate I want to teach I want to help people get better than they were the day before in some specific context.
317. 00:44:44 Mike what about you like I'm going to turn it to you as a question right then then you can unpack whatever else you want to unpack from chapter five.
318. 00:44:51 I know you have your life theme I'm guessing it's going to be tied to your life theme but what's your positive edge that you care so deeply about you have to do it.
319. 00:45:01 Well that is the the life theme which my life theme is I help people multiply their time and time leave a bigger dent in the universe if I can do that I'm happy.
320. 00:45:10 And I use the life theme as a filter so everything that I do has to has to connect or at least I have to think that it will connect.
321. 00:45:21 There's a good chance that it will connect if I'm going to do it and sometimes I think it's going to connect and it doesn't turn out quite that way.
322. 00:45:29 And I know what the digital marketing agency job was I saw a scenario where that allowed me to live up my life theme in in different different exciting ways but it didn't work out exactly the way that I thought that's that's fine.
323. 00:45:44 So then try to try to find something else.
324. 00:45:48 I don't have a specific thing like the living out that life theme helping people multiply their time in town leave a bigger dent in the universe looks exactly this way because I've discovered that the way that that manifests changes over time.
325. 00:46:01 So I think that's that's a good enough direction for me at the moment that's my my true north.
326. 00:46:07 In this chapter though this is where I think sort of related to this you get hints of or clues as to how he really thinks about passion because he talks about find something that is worth fighting for.
327. 00:46:22 He explicitly says the journey might suck but it might also be worth it.
328. 00:46:26 That is passion right there. According to the definition that I shared earlier but the other thing that really just kind of I got to chew on this a little bit more.
329. 00:46:37 He says make decisions with your emotions understanding they will always be with you on your journey.
330. 00:46:42 And I feel like for somebody who is maybe considering making the leap but it seems scary.
331. 00:46:47 You kind of don't want to think about the scary stuff but if you just got to the point where I'm always going to have a little bit of fear and just learning to deal with that and make decisions in spite of feeling that.
332. 00:46:59 I feel like that could be very transformational for people.
333. 00:47:02 Not using your emotions as a signal that this is the wrong path but it's like one data point.
334. 00:47:08 It's not that it's good or bad or bad you can ascribe the meaning to it that you want but recognizing that it's never going to go away.
335. 00:47:18 If you make a decision because you don't want to feel fear it's going to manifest in a different form somewhere else.
336. 00:47:28 So I don't know I think there's a whole lot to unpack in that and I don't even know exactly what I want to do with that yet.
337. 00:47:38 But I think it's important to learn how to work through that stuff as opposed to just shove it under the carpet and maybe it'll go away once I get to the other side.
338. 00:47:48 So let's move on to chapter six because I like he starts out part two with a Steve Jobs quote that kind of gets into this and then he kind of unpacks it here in this chapter six.
339. 00:47:59 So chapter six is don't mistake a good job for good work.
340. 00:48:03 I personally really resonated with this chapter in terms of I think we do that too often.
341. 00:48:10 There is the work that I do and then there's the job that I have and I think we often will conflate these two things to say either one they need to be the same thing that the good work that I do must be the job that I have.
342. 00:48:23 Or we try to say the job that I have is the good work that I do and it's like hold on no they don't have to be and those things can be completely separate from each other.
343. 00:48:36 So this was a thing that was like there were new parts to it and then there was also like kind of reaffirming different things for me.
344. 00:48:46 So he makes a quote in here that the life built around good work requires you to be brutally honest about what you truly want and what is actually possible.
345. 00:48:53 So I really like that quote it's like okay I need to be brutally honest about like what do I truly want like do I truly want this do I truly want this do I truly want this and then whatever those answers are that will lead us to thinking about our good work
346. 00:49:06 and lead us to thinking about how we get to good work.
347. 00:49:11 Well that specifically I mentioned before we hit record that I was listening to a podcast by Jay Klaus where he interviewed Chase Jarvis on his new book.
348. 00:49:23 And one of the takeaways for me from that podcast episode was number one Chase Jarvis really is leaning into the whole idea of mindfulness meditation he's done all of the research and basically everybody who's successful
349. 00:49:38 they credit some sort of mindfulness practice.
350. 00:49:42 So that's kind of like a common denominator and it's really got me thinking about what that means for me but then he and Jay started nerding out a little bit about specifically what is that that look like and they both were talking about the importance of this question.
351. 00:49:57 What do I really want.
352. 00:49:59 And this is something that I don't really think about.
353. 00:50:02 Yeah so I want to I want to to think about that more and I don't have an action I'm necessarily associated with this yet but it's interesting because I had written down that that same quote that that you just that you just mentioned from this chapter and I think
354. 00:50:15 identifying what you really want out of your life and work is maybe something that you just kind of gloss over for for a while.
355. 00:50:23 Well especially once you make it make the decision and once you get out of college this is just the path that I've chosen I'm going to continue to walk down this path and never really think about the alternatives but interesting.
356. 00:50:34 He quickly after that you know starts talking about the fact that there's this idea of skill market fit and then there's the idea of person interest fit and I thought this was a really good distinction.
357. 00:50:49 He makes a statement here what are the activities you absolutely must do.
358. 00:50:54 What do you truly care about.
359. 00:50:56 And what I think is really interesting here and as it ties to skill market fit and person interest fit is like.
360. 00:51:02 Okay the things that might get me paid easily readily that's a skill interest fit there's somebody has an interest in the skills that I have they're willing to pay me a certain amount of money to do those skills or accomplish that thing.
361. 00:51:15 Personally may not be that interested in those things right like I may be like oh yeah that's fine like whatever but somebody's willing to pay me for it so therefore that's my job that's how I make money.
362. 00:51:25 Then there's the okay like this is the thing that I like need to do this is the thing that I wake up in the morning and I'm like if I don't do this thing.
363. 00:51:33 There is a gigantic activity size hole in my life right like that I I missed out on the opportunity to do that thing.
364. 00:51:39 I think it's a really interesting thing that often gets smushed together and conflated with each other of like.
365. 00:51:46 Oh well the interest I have must be the thing that somebody pays me money for.
366. 00:51:50 No I don't think that's true at all.
367. 00:51:53 I think it can be true but I don't think it has to be true.
368. 00:51:56 So he then he then makes a say I decoupled the idea of work from the idea of job and I think that is like the summary statement of this of this thing.
369. 00:52:06 Decoupled the idea of work from job if they overlap cool if they don't that's okay and I and he wants us to go to work in particular good work and stop thinking about stop thinking about job.
370. 00:52:20 So that's kind of my summary for for chapter six but go ahead Mike.
371. 00:52:24 I mean that's that's the main idea I do think it he also says life cannot be partitioned into neat little boxes which is at the heart of the my issue with the term work life balance.
372. 00:52:36 There is no work in life is just your life you have to figure out how to make it all work.
373. 00:52:40 Yeah exactly.
374. 00:52:41 Yeah exactly.
375. 00:52:42 But he also says this is an important question I think what's lighting a fire in your soul and you should look for ways to do more of that if at all possible.
376. 00:52:51 Okay so let's go to chapter seven chapter seven is question your work script.
377. 00:52:57 So he said good work is an attempt is my attempt to reclaim the word work.
378. 00:53:02 It's a it's something that makes us feel good now.
379. 00:53:06 There are a lot of times Mike in this book where I feel like I don't know if this is the wrong way to say this so correct me if you think this is the wrong way says he gets kind of hippie dippy sometimes right.
380. 00:53:16 And I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it but it's like there are times when I go it's just too like it's too fluffy it's too hippie dippy it's too you know it's not tangible enough for me and again this is probably a problem with me.
381. 00:53:29 But like I think in this chapter you know he does that it's like he gets in this idea of ambitious and he's you know stop doing the busy work and start doing the ambitious thing and I like the way he you know kind of refines the word embedded.
382. 00:53:45 And I can't remember if he does it in chapter seven or if he does it in in part three and some of the next chapters.
383. 00:53:52 But he reframes this idea of ambition where ambition is not like kind of the challenging thing for work but it's that it's a thing that challenges me it helps me create connect to that thing that lights my soul.
384. 00:54:06 That's really the the true ambitious thing to do. So he ends this chapter with like what's the most ambitious path for you.
385. 00:54:13 But he has redefined the ambitious the you know the word ambitious for us in the situation.
386. 00:54:19 So I don't know if I got a lot out of chapter seven hopefully you got more out of chapter seven than I did but but like I didn't get a clear takeaway here.
387. 00:54:29 Well I think the the big takeaway is to question the the work scripts.
388. 00:54:36 So basically how does work get done and the question he asked at the beginning what are the stories and scripts you've believed about work.
389. 00:54:44 That was interesting to me because I have believed many different stories and scripts about work and he hits on a bunch of them.
390. 00:54:51 So there's the traditional nine to five I'm going to an office and I think maybe everybody listening to this at least at this point post COVID recognizes that you don't actually have to be in an office to get done.
391. 00:55:04 So we've rethought that maybe even a little bit but then he talks about being on the beach this is interesting because I've totally done this being on the beach and he describes this as I've got this project for this person.
392. 00:55:20 And they're paying me good money and most of the time I'm just sitting around I can do whatever I want I can be wherever I want doesn't that sound great.
393. 00:55:28 And he says being on the beach sounds great until you realize that when you're working on that plant project is super seeds everything else.
394. 00:55:35 I have been here. I remember specifically when I first started working for Asian efficiency I was writing an article on the on the pontoon boat at the lake like my family was on vacation.
395. 00:55:52 I was sort of on vacation. I was not officially on vacation but I was getting my work done I remember posting a picture on Instagram like this is great I can get my work done while sitting on this boat.
396. 00:56:03 And I'm living the life right this is amazing I'm I'm the entrepreneur guy on the beach.
397. 00:56:09 Except I wasn't an entrepreneur and I was working for somebody else and then reality hit at some point where it's like hey you need to fix this and I had to drop everything that I was doing it didn't matter that I was on a pontoon boat at the lake.
398. 00:56:21 And that wasn't the moment that that realization came that was just the moment that I realized I had bought into that script that's the movie that played back in my mind as I was reading through this.
399. 00:56:31 That was my version of on the beach.
400. 00:56:33 And then I realized you know when they decided that this thing needed to be done right now I needed to be available I needed to be on call and I realized not in that moment but now I can look back and realize being on call is the thing that I resent the most.
401. 00:56:50 I don't care about scheduling a meeting like I will give you my time but I do not like the fact that someone can take it from me at their whim.
402. 00:56:59 That's where I'm drawing the line.
403. 00:57:02 And so I had a pretty you know I'm getting emotional and kind of worked up about it as I'm talking about it here.
404. 00:57:09 But I had that same sort of reaction when I was reading the book it's like that's the thing that just drives me nuts.
405. 00:57:16 So when he's talking about redefining ambition doesn't have to be facing outward you can have ambition in terms of things internally that made sense to me.
406. 00:57:26 And again maybe because I've kind of worked through that a little bit.
407. 00:57:30 But I think this is a if there was an action item associated with this about you know you need to think different about the way work gets done I think that's a really positive action even if you don't do anything with it just considering the options of what's possible.
408. 00:57:44 Yeah I like that I like that a lot.
409. 00:57:46 Alright so we're working into part three now so if part one was awakened to good work part two was rewrite your work story.
410. 00:57:52 Part three is embrace the challenges.
411. 00:57:55 Chapter eight launches us out into that with solve the puzzle of good work.
412. 00:57:59 Like Mike and I talked about before this is where he breaks into the definitions now he so he formalizes the definitions of what good work is what good enough work is what supporting activities and what bad work is so just to recap real quick.
413. 00:58:13 Good work is activities that give you energy and fuel your journey.
414. 00:58:16 Good enough work or basically you enjoy these tasks they pay the bills but they're not considered good work supporting activities or complimentary good work.
415. 00:58:24 There's sometimes a distraction so this would be like submitting an invoice for the good work that you do like it's a supplementary activity it's not any of the other categories.
416. 00:58:31 And then bad work is basically stuff you should avoid it drains your energy.
417. 00:58:35 It's sometimes necessary but really only in those those rare instances you want to avoid bad work.
418. 00:58:41 I like here what he says and this is something I've struggled with and had trouble with in the past that rushing to monetize good work can be a mistake that like you need to like essentially gets back to his idea of the slow this down.
419. 00:58:56 Really be introspective here before you take what you think is your good work so in his situation is writing and he's going to constantly refer back to his his writing process that if you rush into this monetization.
420. 00:59:08 You may not be protecting your good work well enough which I really like that idea of like there is a time to monetize there is a time to think about like the good work that I'm doing does it even lend to monetization.
421. 00:59:22 But like don't do it too fast and I think that's an old work script bleeding into his new idea of good work where oh the work that I do should always make money.
422. 00:59:32 Hold on no it no it shouldn't is it great if it does yes but like we need to think about this a little bit differently.
423. 00:59:40 Yeah this trade offs with everything which is why I like the framing of this as a puzzle and then he also says later on the puzzle of good work will never be solved so really you're just taking your best guess at this.
424. 00:59:53 And you are optimizing things in a specific way which he didn't say this specifically but this is something that I had picked up I don't even know how long ago but it's one of the filtering questions that I always ask is what am I optimizing for.
425. 01:00:07 And I feel like you can apply that in any situation and you come up with an answer and it's not right or wrong but just recognizing I am optimizing for this thing right now and then you give yourself permission to optimize for something else differently.
426. 01:00:19 He does say in this chapter optimize your energy not your time.
427. 01:00:24 I think that that is a different way of thinking about how you get work done which is important.
428. 01:00:30 I don't think it's the only way to think about it.
429. 01:00:33 But the other thing really that I like from this is the phrase you are the conductor of your life so you get to figure out how all these pieces fit together.
430. 01:00:44 And ideally they're all in service of one unifying thing that I grew up playing violence I played in orchestras and there's a conductor who's trying to get all the instruments on the same page so that they can produce something that sounds pleasing to the audience.
431. 01:00:58 Right.
432. 01:00:59 That's really what you're trying to do with all of the different resources that are available to you.
433. 01:01:04 He does give three filtering questions in this section which I thought are really good.
434. 01:01:08 So I'll just share those quickly looking back what chunks of time feel satisfying and seem to be more important as time progresses.
435. 01:01:14 What am I drawn to right now.
436. 01:01:16 This is the second question.
437. 01:01:17 What am I drawn to right now.
438. 01:01:18 What am I doing already that feels good.
439. 01:01:21 And then the third filtering question at the end of my life what will I definitely not regret having done.
440. 01:01:26 Which is a little bit different way of thinking about thinking about things.
441. 01:01:31 I like that at the end of my life what will I definitely not regret having done because I think the flip side of that is something I've thought about before.
442. 01:01:37 What will I regret not having done.
443. 01:01:41 Something.
444. 01:01:42 One word difference there but totally different meaning and I even mentioned that earlier when I made the decision to quit the digital marketing agency job.
445. 01:01:49 I recognized if I got to the end of my life I had not done this.
446. 01:01:52 I would regret it forever.
447. 01:01:54 So he's taking a positive spin on that.
448. 01:01:56 What are the things that you're doing right now that you absolutely at the end of your life you're going to feel good about having done those things.
449. 01:02:02 I think that's kind of interesting and again there's no right answer to any of this stuff you have to figure it out for yourself.
450. 01:02:08 But asking these kinds of questions can help you move in the right direction for the way you want to optimize right now.
451. 01:02:15 Perfect.
452. 01:02:16 So that was the last thing I wanted to get to is the idea of those three questions.
453. 01:02:20 I really like those three questions.
454. 01:02:21 We move into chapter nine.
455. 01:02:22 Chapter nine is called do what feels right.
456. 01:02:25 Didn't I didn't capture a lot of stuff out of here so if you have more make sure you throw those out there.
457. 01:02:32 But basically it's this idea of we want to stay connected to the good work that we're doing.
458. 01:02:38 So based on feeling based on energy we want to stay connected to that and committed to that good work.
459. 01:02:45 He doubles down maybe triples down.
460. 01:02:48 I don't know how many times we've brought up the same idea but that sometimes slowing down and doing nothing or really pumping the brakes on that is what we need to do in order to move forward.
461. 01:03:04 So he actually makes the statement the most productive thing is to do nothing at all.
462. 01:03:08 And I think the old work script would say like no no no no I constantly have to be working like I constantly have to be making progress and it's like well hold on maybe you need to take that sabbatical maybe you need to break down so he ties in these old concepts.
463. 01:03:21 And what I like about the way Paul writes is like he doesn't heavy hand it like he doesn't overdo it but at the same time when you when you start to look back over this you see these threads come through.
464. 01:03:32 He then continues like I think one of the ways that you might get annoyed by this book is this his constant example of writing.
465. 01:03:40 Right because if you're if you don't resonate with writing then you might not be able to resonate as much with with his good work and in the way he frames good work but he really is like writing is my good work.
466. 01:03:50 I'm going to focus and prioritize writing at all cost.
467. 01:03:53 That's what feels right to me so like I don't know if you had anything else for chapter nine.
468. 01:03:57 Yeah well a couple things but first I want to double click on that so I agree with you that if you don't identify writing as your good work or an important aspect of your good work that maybe some of this gets lost but I kind of think maybe this
469. 01:04:14 is a bigger deal to a larger audience than I initially thought so I think it's taken me a while to recognize that yeah writing is the fundamental skill for a lot of things that I do online.
470. 01:04:29 I don't consider myself primarily a writer but I think over the last several months I'm leaning more that way.
471. 01:04:36 Prior to that I would have said I'm a youtuber I'm a podcaster I make video courses stuff like that and writing is a part of that but it's not the primary thing.
472. 01:04:45 However you look at like write a passage we mentioned already there's ship 30 for 30 there are so many cohorts out there that are geared to get people to write online.
473. 01:04:59 I think maybe this is a bigger deal than I realized at the beginning so I don't know if you find yourself in that scenario where well I'm just not a writer maybe dig a little bit deeper and see if really you are.
474. 01:05:16 The other thing which I thought was awesome in this section he tells the story of actually turning down a $200,000 book deal.
475. 01:05:26 So after the pathless path had blown up I'll be able to talk about it Penguin House I think was the publisher I think to him and so we want to redo or republish pathless path under our umbrella and we want you to write this second book and a $200,000
476. 01:05:46 the way I read this oh sorry go ahead it was a two book deal for 200 with a $200,000 advance but one of the books was republishing the pathless path.
477. 01:05:56 Okay so it was really like that one plus one additional one and they were going to be under Penguin Penguin Random House yeah and the way I read this was that was a $200,000 advance now I know people who have gotten book deals.
478. 01:06:12 Chris, Chris Bailey is a friend of mine I know a couple other people who I won't share their names just yet because I don't think it's public that their books are being published but I've seen them go through the whole process of getting an agent and
479. 01:06:27 getting the pitch and securing the deal and I can tell you $200,000 is a pretty big advance that's what I thought to yep they have to really believe that you're going to just crush it in order to front you that much because the way it works is they give you that that money up front
480. 01:06:47 and then basically you have to pay back that advance it's called earning out once the book has sold enough copies that you have paid back the advance then you start earning the royalties on top of that is how the traditional book publishing
481. 01:07:04 works so that that's not a small thing that they are willing to advance you $200,000 and he's in Taiwan he's in Bali his cost of living he shares some specific numbers is pretty low that could feed your family for a very long time
482. 01:07:22 that seems like a very good deal and I have so much respect for him saying no I am going to do it my way and I'm going to tell the stories I want to tell and I'm going to self publish this thing
483. 01:07:37 I think self publishing doesn't take quite as much guts as it did a while back because it's easier to get your material in front of your target audience with the tools that are available to us internet changed a bunch of that
484. 01:07:54 and I honestly have been thinking about because I actually want to write a book on the whole PKM stack framework do I want to get a book deal or do I want to self publish I've been leaning more towards the self publish route recently just because
485. 01:08:09 I kind of don't want to do all the work and try to pitch people on this sale ability of this idea I just want to write about it and see if it resonates with people which is exactly what Paul Miller did but then to double down on that essentially with this second book instead of taking the book deal
486. 01:08:27 and instead of going the traditional route I feel like that just adds so much more credibility to his message and I'm glad that he included that story yeah I don't think I could have done that like I really don't think
487. 01:08:40 you know I mean that's a that's just a huge sum of money to do the thing that you're that you're liking to do like I was just I was blown away by that
488. 01:08:49 yep all right so chapter 10 goes in to find the zeal I'm gonna soapbox here on on an aspect of chapter 10 so
489. 01:08:59 Jensen Hong who is the founder of Nvidia he puts a quote in here and he refers to he's referring to his employees he said it is so vital that we create conditions where they can do their life's work and they're not making sacrifices to be here
490. 01:09:13 what you're doing at the time and not the outcome so he said focusing on the what you're doing and not the outcome the outcome is the result of amazing people doing their life's work working together
491. 01:09:23 to do something the world's never okay I know that was a big goal and quote I could not agree with this more and I think this is where I get so frustrated with the standard working world
492. 01:09:35 the standard working world brings really good really smart people in and then forces them to do certain things that they're that's not it's not their life's work it's not what they're passionate about
493. 01:09:48 it's like we're gonna smush you into this box and make you do this thing when really if we brought a bunch of people in and we gave them a good mission and we said okay as long as you're doing stuff that advances this mission go be creative
494. 01:10:03 you know make progress like do these things and then ever so often we check and we just make sure you're doing things that advance this mission but we don't micromanage and we don't
495. 01:10:11 I could not and this is where the idea of zeal comes in right like we want to work with this idea of where we're doing the thing that is like the important thing for our life
496. 01:10:21 I could not agree with this more I think if every organization if every company if every individual was able to find this I think we'd make significant more significantly more progress in a bunch of different areas and the productivity would just go through the roof
497. 01:10:35 but instead we implement all this bureaucracy and we micromanage people and it's like then they get burned out and then they just like they they wilt like a flower and they're like okay I'm gonna quit and go do something else
498. 01:10:48 and it drives me insane soapbox ended mic tick over that's good yeah a couple things that stood out to me from this chapter the first thing is the idea of busyness and sloth where he actually says busyness can be defined as sloth which is the opposite
499. 01:11:08 of enthusiasm I thought that was really interesting and then goes a step further the opposite of sloth is deep and active engagement with our work now there's there's a whole big tangent here as to why people are not engaged with their work
500. 01:11:23 and that's one of the fascinating things about business organization and culture that was really the itch that I wanted to scratch in my role as the integrator previously because I love that that's the connection I saw with the life theme
501. 01:11:39 helping people multiply their time and talent and leave a bigger dent in the universe if you could create an awesome company culture where people really just buy in and they're thriving in their work that's a cool way that you could do that
502. 01:11:54 turns out agency world life is just not for me which someone would who knows me well could have looked at that and be like well I would have told you that that's fine I had to find it out on my own yep yep
503. 01:12:09 but I like this idea of figuring out what it is that really charges your batteries makes you come alive that moments of impact is what we call it in the life theme and then trying to figure out a way to do more of that in your your day to day
504. 01:12:27 and I think that is a really important concept one of the things I liked here in the end of this chapter when you're disconnected from the work that you do it's a constant struggle
505. 01:12:41 that is that is true you should be paying attention to the things that you tend to procrastinate on because if you look at why you tend to procrastinate on those things you may discover I just really hate this thing
506. 01:12:56 it's something hard and it's you know the good enough work the admin stuff that you have to do that accompanies the stuff that really does make you come alive in which case that's fine but if it's constantly stuff that you're like why do I have to do this
507. 01:13:11 you know maybe you got to dig a little bit deeper then yeah I like that that point at the end instead of thinking what you should be doing notice what you're already doing why don't do more of that so it's it's exactly to the point you're you're making Mike
508. 01:13:26 see your work as it is he breaks down the two selves he said self one is the teller self to is the doer he then quickly moves to this idea that the doer is that intuitive nature that intuitive self that guides us towards towards what matters
509. 01:13:43 the teller is basically we should do this we should do this right so that teller is constantly using the word should the doer is constantly like what do I intuitively think matters and how am I going to work in that
510. 01:13:57 so I really like his I his breakdown of that I also really like this he makes a quote from a person named Taggart there are two basic ways to solve a problem get rid of it or give it an upgrade and he said these are wrong right so that well sorry that one half of this is more wrong than the other one the give it an upgrade one
511. 01:14:17 in terms of he was constantly is seduced by this idea and his 20s that I could give my job an upgrade I could give my job an upgrade and as I gave my job these upgrades they would it would get better and it would get better and what he realizes that wasn't the right approach for him
512. 01:14:30 he actually needed to get rid of that traditional working life and he needed to move more towards this idea of what is my good work and I need to be putting more of my time into that good work that gives me energy that I have this zeal over
513. 01:14:44 so what he what I like is that he's trying to help you clarify in this chapter he's trying to help you say like okay what are these things where you're constantly saying like I'm telling myself I should be doing this but really internally
514. 01:14:58 I'm saying these other things the doer in me is saying these other things and then how do I keep lying to myself and saying I'm going to give this an upgrade I'm going to be able to fix this I'm going to be able to fix this one really are you able to to actually fix it
515. 01:15:10 so I resonated a lot with with this chapter in the in those two ideas
516. 01:15:16 interesting most of the notes that I got from this particular chapter were around the inner game and he talks about the two different selves you touched on this the teller in the door but the place that this originally comes from is another book
517. 01:15:34 called the inner game of tennis have you ever heard of that book I'm assuming you haven't read it yet never okay so I grew up playing tennis I played college tennis D3 so not like super great at it or anything but tennis was a big deal to me and this was a book that was handed
518. 01:15:51 to me probably in high school how about that and yeah so it's it's interesting the reason that it's called the inner game of of tennis is that tennis is a very mental game and there's two different ways to play tennis I guess you know singles
519. 01:16:07 are doubles I always preferred singles because you're in complete control of the entire point you're not relying on somebody else but then also that tennis is a very mental game and often the difference between winning and losing is not your skill level
520. 01:16:22 it's what's going on between your ears you double fault on a big point and then you just got to keep going so you have to figure out how to work through that and not double fault again and I think that my dad specifically and probably some of my coaches
521. 01:16:40 and I was in in high school were frustrated with my inner game of tennis because I would beat myself up and I would just focus on the mistakes that I had made and then it would sort of snowball
522. 01:16:55 I would skill wise like in practice I could hit all of the shots but then when I got into the games I would choke sometimes not all the time but like I remember specifically when I was in high school I was state ranked so I would go around
523. 01:17:12 and play these different tournaments and there was this one kid who I would always see at these tournaments who I could never beat it wasn't because he was better than me it was because I just had in my head that I could not beat him
524. 01:17:26 and I had a single time I'd run into him in one of the draws and then on the way home you know my dad tell me what's the deal like you could totally beat that guy I don't know just so I resonate with the whole inner game that he's talking about here
525. 01:17:43 the aspect of this which is really interesting in that if you look for problems you will find them so that's what the inner game manifested for me as a lot of times is I would focus on the mistakes that I had made and it would prevent me from playing to my full potential going forward
526. 01:18:00 and then the moment you miss an easy shot and you're like ah you idiot and then you lose the game and you're like ah well that was the turning point and then we'll tennis you've got games and then sets and then that's the match so it's easy for that stuff to snowball if you can't turn the page
527. 01:18:14 and move on play the next point like you're sabotaging yourself so really what he's talking about here seeing your work for where it is or for what it is this resonates with me because if you look for the problems you will find them
528. 01:18:30 and if all you're doing is looking for the problems that's what you get fixated on you see the negative and then I believe you end up attracting more of the negative you've got to replace that with something positive
529. 01:18:46 and when you don't think about it that's when this is really insidious so I like the fact that he's calling this out in chapter 11 because one of the things that he mentions at the very end of this chapter is that without an inner game you end up playing the outer game
530. 01:19:00 and this I think is the default path where he defines the outer game as trying to bend the world to your will which is a losing proposition from the very beginning and I feel like if you were to look at the path that he's taken and really the success
531. 01:19:17 that he's had and you can look at his life and be like that sounds pretty cool like I would love to be able to do that but the reason that he's been he's able to do that is he's just decided this is what I want and then he's worked towards it
532. 01:19:30 so it's not a zero sum game and because Paul did did did did did this you can't do this he's trying to encourage you to take this path and figure it out for yourself but I feel like the default is kinda the scarcity mindset was like well I gotta get mine because if I don't somebody else is is gonna get it and I think that's the
533. 01:19:52 wrong way to approach this yeah it's almost as if he's like I'm going to live this way and I'll figure out all the other details you know like it's almost like the mentality has gone into which is a very different mentality than I've had most of life
534. 01:20:09 yep me too okay so part one was awakened a good work part to rewrite your story work story part three embrace the challenges we were round in the bend here we're making into part four and in the end of the book commit to good work so 12 is all about money
535. 01:20:24 so the chapter title is leave money on the table and I mean essentially the nature of this is you know we often go into this thinking about like money money money and my job needs to be about making it and making money and doing
536. 01:20:39 all these things and you need to think about it differently you need to think about good work differently and there are other benefits to good work right like that you need to find those other benefits to doing the good work the one that you know the aspect of this
537. 01:20:55 that really really resonated with me is every time I think I hear the stories of entrepreneurs and then I hear the sacrifices they made to make it big it's like wow like what a what a really interesting and these aren't necessarily the stories of normal
538. 01:21:10 entrepreneurs right like so there are the stories of like the lifestyle entrepreneurs right the people who go out and they start the business and they're it's a lifestyle business they're not going to be billionaires they're not even going to be multimillionaires right like they're really just they wanted to go out and start a thing
539. 01:21:24 and there was a there was a need there and they did it it's not those stories as much it's the ones that like are often you know glamorized and told you know and oh so and so started this big unicorn company and they made billions of dollars
540. 01:21:37 and then you find out like well their life was in shambles and you know they they didn't like anything about what they were doing and you know all this stuff I should have I could have I would have kind of a situation that really really resonated with me so this idea of you know embrace the life path not the money path
541. 01:21:53 and like look for the other benefits of doing good work I resonate with all of that all of that aspect and then he kind of sealed the deal at the very end where he was like and then there's all these stories about entrepreneurs who have these regrets
542. 01:22:08 and they wish they would have done these other things so that's the gist of chapter 12
543. 01:22:12 yeah I like this chapter a lot couple things that stand out to me from this number one he talks about how he had these savings and how as he's watching his savings go down he was starting to freak out about it
544. 01:22:28 and then someone says well why don't you just think of the savings as a gift from your former self I thought that was interesting because I didn't have the savings when I made the leap
545. 01:22:39 so we actually have accumulated a little bit of debt which I hate however with the life HQ launch we're able to pay off some of that and I realized that like that framing was just interesting to me
546. 01:22:53 it's like oh well my former self didn't give me that gift but that doesn't matter like I can still make this work which side note I guess with the life HQ launch and I've kind of used that as the catalyst for a different way of thinking about this book
547. 01:23:11 I mentioned that at the beginning. There was actually a moment on launch day as I'm watching some of those orders come in and I was super nervous I didn't know what it was going to end up
548. 01:23:21 but I'm watching some of the orders come in Rachel is at we do classical conversations with our kids so they had an in-person day and I'm at home alone I get out of the shower and I see the orders start to come in
549. 01:23:36 and I realize like at that moment I'm going to be able to make it it sounds kind of corny and stupid but it was that specific moment in my bedroom I tried to call Rachel she was teaching so she wasn't able to answer the phone
550. 01:23:55 but I was like getting choked up and I just needed to tell her we're going to be okay not that she needed to hear it but I needed to hear it
551. 01:24:08 yeah so that's sort of like the tipping point for me with all of this now having said that the whole gist of this chapter is that you can't make life decisions based on a spreadsheet I think I understand what that looks like now
552. 01:24:28 leaving money on the table he mentions in this chapter will make you feel like a fool but it doesn't mean that you're not making money which is an important distinction here when he says leave money on the table sort of like well you're walking away from this stuff
553. 01:24:42 not necessarily there's trade-offs here for everything so when he said leaving money on the table means doesn't mean you're not making money it actually might mean you're making more money later that kind of changes the conversation about this it's no longer well I'm not going to make money
554. 01:24:59 because I'm going to optimize for something else sort of not explicitly but in the back of my mind the question that comes up is why not both yeah and I don't know I think that question is at least worth asking
555. 01:25:15 maybe you can't have both whatever the situation is that you're trying to figure out how do I choose between these different things how do I optimize these different things but I think it's at least worth asking and considering
556. 01:25:30 all right good so let's go to the final chapter of the book chapter 13 reclaim your ambition and Mike I know somewhere he defined the way he defined ambition but I didn't capture it did you capture the way he defined ambition is it in chapter 13
557. 01:25:48 I don't have an exact definition but back in chapter 70 talks about how it doesn't have to be facing outwards so I don't I don't have the exact definition written but I think really if I were to have to define it
558. 01:26:04 it's more tied to what is the what it you know we talk about passion a lot and the thing that you're you're willing to to suffer to see it come about like what are you chasing that you're willing to pay a price for
559. 01:26:21 it's like the best thing I could grab from it is it's the fire that burns inside of you which I think is very like I like that yeah you know it's like this big who kind of idea
560. 01:26:33 but like I like that you said it's that it's not that external thing it's more of that internal thing which I like I like a lot because I think he's culminating a point here he's getting to the climax of a point here you know with money and with
561. 01:26:46 basically the the works grips and these definitions that everybody is you know projected onto you and the should and you should be doing these kind of things he's basically saying hold on you don't have to do that right like you
562. 01:27:01 need to do work that matters to you you need to do work that provides you energy you need to do work that you consider to be good work that you get into a state of flow with and
563. 01:27:13 that you can do this thing and then also there's this other idea of this job and this making money in this you know these this gig work and good enough work and I think he's just really putting a nice bow on the idea of
564. 01:27:26 essentially I guess if you will telling people it's okay to do that stuff that like that you dry or that has that passion inside of you or that has that fire that burns inside of you it's okay to do that and proceed
565. 01:27:40 and pursue that moving forward so it's really just his you know tying a bow on on the book chapter I think.
566. 01:27:47 Yeah so also remember the world that he's coming from he kind of eludes to it a little bit I think he talks about it more in the pathless path but he was going hard down the default path and was and everybody's eyes successful because he was hustling
567. 01:28:04 and killing it and yada yada yada so that's kind of how he's anchoring the old definition of ambition is you're putting in 60 hour weeks working the overtime climbing the ladder because once you get to a certain point you've made it
568. 01:28:23 and when you think about what it takes to buy into that vision and be willing to pay that big a price that's really the same sort of motivation he wants you to have towards this new definition of good work
569. 01:28:41 that's really powerful it's a really cool way to end it and then like the last thing I jotted down in my outline don't ever let the flame go out is a good reminder you know I can be really excited about life HQ because I just had this launch and it went well but am I still going to be excited about it
570. 01:28:55 I hope so and the kind of call to action for me from all of this is how you are feeling about this and how important it is to you right now do what you can to maintain that
571. 01:29:14 but I didn't tie back into those for every chapter just for the sake of time but it'll kind of highlight it's like the parrot
572. 01:29:21 So actually let me correct you real quick because you said call to action and I know what you're talking about but actually the call to action if I remember correctly is just a paragraph
573. 01:29:33 so this is on page 170 where it's just a short little thing that he's telling you to embark on the search for good work it's most ambitious thing you can do then there is the final reflections
574. 01:29:44 that's the thing which I wanted to point out something from this too so self publishing pros and cons I guess he mentions at the very what does yours say on page 181 in order to help you on your path of finding a committing to good work I wanted to leave you with how many thoughts from this book
575. 01:30:01 did you say ten I'm looking give me a second do you have the digital or the analog version always digital okay so yeah I thought maybe you did so maybe you can tell me if this has been fixed but it says ten thoughts from this book and then
576. 01:30:17 he goes on to list 13 different things as you mentioned earlier one from mine is 13 I want to leave you with 13 thoughts for this book so so yeah his his print his sending in for the print edition didn't yeah didn't get changed
577. 01:30:32 so okay so so to wrap up we have the call to action we have the final reflection which then he breaks down the 13 he has a quote book in here which basically he gives you some of the ideas of quotes that inspired the work
578. 01:30:45 and then he does an epilogue which is basically you know a fisherman and a guy like himself feel like you would have to think it's it's him right there they have this dialogue between you know what's good work and
579. 01:30:59 you know and he influences this other this fisherman guy to you know embrace this idea of of good work and then and then move it on so that kind of wraps up the whole book that's the epilogue not for the whole book
580. 01:31:10 so at this point Mike unless you have anything else we can move into action items now let's do it okay so action items I'll start so I want to think about what's my positive edge you know if it is teaching why is it teaching
581. 01:31:25 right like why why do I think that is my positive edge or what is my positive edge and then the other one that I want to do is this idea of like what is the thing I can't not do
582. 01:31:37 right like what what's that thing where I don't have to think about it I'm naturally doing it like what is that thing that I cannot do so mine my two action items are 100% reflection this time
583. 01:31:48 I don't actually need to produce anything but their reflection on like what and how does that influence me like what is that thing I cannot do and how does that influence me moving forward
584. 01:31:56 so Mike what are your action items if any
585. 01:31:59 good question I actually don't have any action items okay I think the action item from this for me is to keep doing what I am doing okay I think I have a long term action item with the seven week sabbaticals
586. 01:32:18 but that's probably not happening until 2025 okay so I don't have anything specific that I want to take away from this book however if I were to just like kind of chart this out for where I'm at right now the path was path
587. 01:32:35 that was one of the major things that changed my my perspective and got me to make the decision to go out on my own good work it's interesting that we're reading this right after the life HQ launch
588. 01:32:48 and this is a big push to keep doing what I am doing and I think a lot of the stuff that's in here well we're kind of getting to style and rating now so I'll put a pin in that it sounds good
589. 01:33:05 to go into style and rating then my book I'll do it first I really like this book I like the style that it was written in I like the way he shared a lot of good examples from his personal story
590. 01:33:20 I like the mix between you know like I said it's like a kind of like a memoir that has these core principles underneath it and he's trying to teach you the core principles as he's telling you a story
591. 01:33:29 I think they're relevant I think they were connected very very well I thought it was organized really really well overall I don't have very many negatives I think if I'm nitpicking like the biggest negative I have is
592. 01:33:42 I wanted his definition of things sooner so it's like I wanted it clearer and sooner but I mean I'm being really nitpicky at this point like that is not because he gives you the definition
593. 01:33:54 he just doesn't give it when I would specifically want it so overall my style and rating I'm given this book a five like I would definitely recommend this book to other people and I'm given people I'm given it to people as a as a recommended read
594. 01:34:07 interesting I honestly did not see a 5.0 coming from you on this one but wait wait like before the conversation or like after we've just talked about it I'm curious probably before the conversation but the so the thing I'm wrestling with is there's a whole bunch of personal story in here
595. 01:34:28 and I think you kind of hit on this at the beginning where it's a little bit hard to put yourself in his shoes it's hard to relate sometimes to the guy who walked away from not the Wall Street job but essentially
596. 01:34:47 yeah and then moved across the world to be independent nomad like even with me in what I've done that seems like a bridge too far like I don't want to do that
597. 01:35:03 I have to get I to put in a little bit more work to get to the the essence of what he's saying and then figure out what that looks like for me and I don't think that diminishes the quality of the book at all
598. 01:35:18 but it was interesting to hear from like I guess just how easily you were able to translate that because if you look at what this book is on the tin and where you're at with your career be like well this doesn't this doesn't match
599. 01:35:39 so that was kind of the back of my head was how easily are people going to be able to generalize the concepts that are in here so I got to be honest I was thinking this one is going to be a little bit harder for people to
600. 01:35:55 apply than the pathless path and I was ready to give it a four however however I think this is a great book that hits on some very important concepts that are very relevant in the world of work today and I think that everybody should read this
601. 01:36:18 I think that a lot of the things that he talks about with the inner game and putting the puzzle together just he challenges a whole bunch of norms in the world of work that I was trying to think through you know had he taken that $200,000 advance and done a book deal
602. 01:36:37 what would have been different about this I don't think he would have been quite as pointed or said some things quite as strongly as he did if there was an editor that was kind of pushing on him to tamp it down so it would be more applicable to a broader audience
603. 01:36:54 I think your score is basically kind of challenged that assumption like well this is applicable to a broader audience anyways so I think I'll join you at the five stars.
604. 01:37:07 I think yeah again like I don't think that there's a single person listening to bookworm right now that I would say don't read this.
605. 01:37:14 And you're not doing quote unquote work anymore but even then I feel like the conversation and the concepts that he's talking about here, you could still apply this to the things that you choose to do whether or not you're getting paid for him.
606. 01:37:27 So yep I agree completely. All right Mike so we're going to go ahead and put good work on the shelf. Can you tell us what the next book we're going to read is.
607. 01:37:39 Yes the next book is Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Berkman author of 4000 Weeks which I absolutely loved haven't started this book yet but really looking forward to it.
608. 01:37:50 And after that outstanding so after that we're going to do one free time lose the busy busy work love your business.
609. 01:37:58 So I'm looking forward to digging into the idea of getting rid of busy work. I like getting rid of busy work so doesn't everybody give any gap books.
610. 01:38:08 So I mentioned the J Klaus podcast episode with Chase Jarvis previously. So I have bought Never Play It Safe by Chase Jarvis which just looking at the the bold text in the Amazon description discover the bold path to your most authentic life.
611. 01:38:28 Sounds like a great follow up to what we just read. Yes it does. My gap book and hopefully I can get there. I'm hoping I can get there really hoping it's called Just Do Something.
612. 01:38:44 It's by Kevin DeYoung and I'm looking forward to it's kind of a faith book so I'm looking forward to digging into this one and basically it's getting rid of that idea of like oh I have to do the right thing.
613. 01:38:58 It's like no just do do something and this one will help me guide students as they graduate from our program.
614. 01:39:04 So just just do something by Kevin DeYoung. Looks cool. All righty. So that wraps up another one. If folks are interested in the pro show reminder that we have pro show it's got added content to it in this one we talked about.
615. 01:39:20 Basically if we were going to hit the reset button where would we go and what would we do and why would we do that.
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619. 01:39:54 Everybody who supports the show financially really do appreciate it. Thank you to you whether you support the show or not for listening and if you're reading along with us pick up meditations for mortals by Oliver Berkman and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.