212: Never Play It Safe by Chase Jarvis

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1. 00:00:00 All right, Mike. Welcome back. So you had a pretty interesting weekend, huh?
2. 00:00:05 I did. I got super sick. So I'm feeling a little bit better, but my voice probably
3. 00:00:10 doesn't have the same dulcet tones and I apologize for that. Dulcet tones and dulcet tones.
4. 00:00:16 Well, I'm glad you're feeling better. I'm glad your voice is back. For those of you who
5. 00:00:22 subscribe in our pro members, this is going to come out a little bit a little bit later because
6. 00:00:28 we delayed a little bit so Mike could actually talk and not lose his voice about 10 minutes into
7. 00:00:33 the show. So in our pro show that we just did, we talked about my creative ideas. Mike gave me a
8. 00:00:41 mini coaching session. He may charge me for that. He may not charge me for that. I don't know,
9. 00:00:45 but if you're interested, you can become a bookworm pro subscriber. We'll tell you about that
10. 00:00:50 at the end of the show. But today, we need to think about follow-up items and then we think
11. 00:00:57 about playing it safe. But let's get the follow-up first. Mike, you want to hit your follow-up items
12. 00:01:02 first? I guess. So the first one, which was sort of the impromptu one, as we were talking through
13. 00:01:11 the last episode, you were doing a coaching session for me and telling me I needed to hire a video
14. 00:01:17 editor. So I have actually, I'll say I've hired one. I've started a trial with a service called
15. 00:01:26 VidProse, which I heard about, I think, in Ollie Obdell's part-time YouTuber Academy. So basically,
16. 00:01:34 it's a dedicated video editor that you get part-time and then they have a full-time option as well.
17. 00:01:40 But I started the trial for the part-time one. Then I got sick. So I'm like, hey, I'm ready to go.
18. 00:01:46 I've got this project. They said, great, your account is up hours later. I was feeling like I
19. 00:01:52 was dying. So I haven't uploaded anything yet. I just emailed them this morning and said, hey,
20. 00:01:58 can you extend the trial? I'm going to get some stuff up later today. But basically,
21. 00:02:01 the goal is like, you can do one video to see what it's like before you would commit to paying
22. 00:02:07 a thousand bucks a month or whatever it is, which sounds like a lot. But if it allows me to double
23. 00:02:12 or triple my video output on YouTube, it will very quickly be worth it since I am monetized.
24. 00:02:19 And the thing that is holding me back from making money on YouTube is simply the number of videos
25. 00:02:23 that I can get out. It's not the ideas. So that one is done. You have follow up with that?
26. 00:02:30 Can you remind me or remind everybody where they would go to follow you on YouTube?
27. 00:02:36 You've done some rebranding and I don't remember specifically what the channel is now and all that
28. 00:02:41 stuff. Yeah, so I actually have my name as the handle. So it's youtube.com/mikeshmitz. I believe
29. 00:02:50 if you search for mikeshmitz, you won't find me. You'll find a Catholic priest. That's not me.
30. 00:02:57 I'm the one that talks about obsidian. Thank you. All right. Any more?
31. 00:03:03 Yeah, I had one other one, which is to build a high ticket offer. So when you floated the idea
32. 00:03:07 of the creative coaching, I was like, well, maybe this will be a way for me to test my
33. 00:03:13 high ticket offer. And so yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this. I've texted back and forth
34. 00:03:18 with you. And let me just talk through, I guess, like everything I've got so far.
35. 00:03:24 We've got the YouTube channel that basically builds the email list because of the starter
36. 00:03:29 vault that I mentioned and people download that for free. Then product is basically life HQ that
37. 00:03:34 they've done for you vault. To upgrade from there, it's really the cohort and the community that
38. 00:03:40 goes with that. That is all like hundreds of dollars for the cohort in the community. So that's not,
39. 00:03:46 you know, small money. But when I'm talking high ticket, like, what is the thing that I can do
40. 00:03:52 better than anybody in the world that's like insanely valuable? And I feel like I'm starting
41. 00:03:57 to get there. So I have success as an integrator at a digital marketing agency. I understand
42. 00:04:04 systems. I have gone through the, you know, starting from nothing and creating stuff online.
43. 00:04:12 And I talk about, you know, the PKM stack and the creativity, flywheel frameworks.
44. 00:04:17 I think what I am going to try to do as my high ticket offer is like small group coaching.
45. 00:04:24 So there'll be a program that goes with it, but they'll also be like live group coaching calls,
46. 00:04:28 hot seats, things like kind of like what we did in the pro show. Yeah. It's like, okay, you want to,
47. 00:04:33 but it'll be more defined because specifically it's going to be people who want to make something
48. 00:04:40 online and make money from it. So I'm still trying to decide if I wanted like zero it in on writing,
49. 00:04:46 because I feel like writing is going to be the basis of it. But it could be a podcast. It could
50. 00:04:50 be a YouTube channel. But essentially what I'm going to walk people through is, okay, you need
51. 00:04:54 to figure out what's the platform that you're going to get attention on. What are you going to
52. 00:04:59 offer those people so you can start building your list? And then what are you going to create that
53. 00:05:03 you can monetize and sell as a product that those people would actually want? And I feel like I
54. 00:05:10 could help people plug in the PKM pieces with that. Obviously, like I do a lot of that through
55. 00:05:16 obsidian, but my node and capture, you know, all that kind of stuff, figuring out the nuances of
56. 00:05:22 the different platforms and how are you going to make scheduling these things easy, you know,
57. 00:05:28 all that kind of stuff. I know that I have trouble doing it myself. That's kind of the
58. 00:05:33 thing that's holding me back right now is like, well, who am I to teach this because I don't do
59. 00:05:36 it myself? I sort of do it myself. I've had success publishing online with like the ship 30 cohorts
60. 00:05:42 and stuff like that. But because I'm a one man band and I'm trying to do all these different
61. 00:05:45 things, I lose momentum. So I feel like I'm going to get there quickly now that I'm starting to get
62. 00:05:51 some help in some certain areas. I'm also looking at an assistant and delegating, delegating different
63. 00:05:57 things that just like, I shouldn't be doing not because I'm too fancy or, you know, they're not
64. 00:06:06 worth doing, you know, they're below me or anything like that. But there are things that I could easily
65. 00:06:10 delegate to somebody else so that I could lead into the things that I do really well, which is
66. 00:06:13 great stuff. So right now the focus is on getting through the next cohort. But I think I'm going to
67. 00:06:20 try to test some things in that cohort. And then after that, probably do something with this,
68. 00:06:26 this high ticket offer. I guess if you're interested in that sort of thing, I don't have like a sign
69. 00:06:30 up page or anything, but reach out to me. I'm on blue sky now as we talked about the pro show.
70. 00:06:37 So yeah, but I'm excited about that. I feel like I could really help people in that particular way.
71. 00:06:44 I think so too. I think I'm excited for this as well because it's like, it's a, I told you it via
72. 00:06:50 text, right? It's the natural next step, I think, in the work that you're already doing. Or sorry,
73. 00:06:56 not the it's a natural next step in the work that you're already doing. And I'm really, really
74. 00:07:00 intrigued to see what you're able to, you know, do with people and for people through that like real
75. 00:07:09 intentional, you know, kind of situation. And then also what you learned from it, right? Like,
76. 00:07:14 I think you're going to get a lot of really creative and like clever ideas that'll feed into the rest
77. 00:07:18 of your of your business, right? Like, and you'll be able to like get new ideas and you'll be like,
78. 00:07:22 Oh, I was working with these clients. You know, I mean, I'm going to call them clients, right?
79. 00:07:26 Like, I don't know if that's what you're going to refer to them as or not.
80. 00:07:28 I guess they are, you know, it's funny because I just had somebody reach out to me
81. 00:07:34 via like a cold DM. And I normally don't reply to those, but I noticed a bunch of the people that
82. 00:07:38 follow this person were people that I look up to. And so I started a conversation and he was talking
83. 00:07:44 about are the people that buy from you clients or customers. I'm like, they're customers. I don't
84. 00:07:48 do clients, you know, but they're you're right. This, this would be clients. I think when you get to
85. 00:07:55 this, it's much more of a client because it's more of a relationship, right? Like, that's what I think
86. 00:07:58 about as a customer is more of a transaction. Exactly. This is more of a relationship.
87. 00:08:03 And I mean, I think I think you're going to learn a ton. I think it's going to be good for for you.
88. 00:08:09 And then, you know, we'll get into our book and not to not to hit the book too early. Like,
89. 00:08:14 there isn't failure in this. There is a bunch of learning in this, even if it doesn't go the way
90. 00:08:19 you think it's going to go, which I think is a fairly valuable thing. So awesome. All right.
91. 00:08:24 So those are Mike's follow up items. Mine was to go back through the notes and pull out the visuals.
92. 00:08:28 So instead of doing this, right, I actually just went to Richie Norton's site and I got the
93. 00:08:36 anti-time management free, you know, starter kit. So from him. So in my mind,
94. 00:08:43 smarter, not harder. In my mind, check that box, right? So it check that box for me.
95. 00:08:48 And I'm feeling good about the fact that I followed up on this. I'll give you a check for that.
96. 00:08:54 Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I told you last time, like, anti-time management was like a real
97. 00:09:00 messed with my brain, my brain a lot. And it's one of those ones that
98. 00:09:04 so my, my work goes in seasons, right? So the fall season is crazy, you know,
99. 00:09:09 and the early part of the semester and the late part of the semester are particularly crazy.
100. 00:09:13 When then there's a little bit of a lull where you're prepping for next semester and, you know,
101. 00:09:17 kind of wrapping up the previous semester. And then it gets crazy again in the spring and then,
102. 00:09:22 you know, early and late is crazy again in the summer. This is one that I'll probably revisit
103. 00:09:28 in the summer, anti-time management is one. And I don't think I'll go back and read the book. I
104. 00:09:31 think I'll look at my notes and I'll compare it to his starter kit and just try to figure out,
105. 00:09:39 like, what does it mean? Like, does it mean anything for me? How does it, you know,
106. 00:09:41 how do I incorporate that into my into my daily life and existing, you know, operations and stuff.
107. 00:09:46 So cool. All right. So today's book was Never Play It Safe by Chase Jarvis.
108. 00:09:57 And it's a book that's structured in terms of an intro. You have seven different ideas that Chase
109. 00:10:06 walks you through. And then the conclusion is super tiny. So he's got a disclaimer in it,
110. 00:10:12 which I've not encountered this many, many times. And it's basically like, hey, read this first,
111. 00:10:21 right? So it's the equivalent of the you download software. And it's like, read me, right? Like,
112. 00:10:26 do the read me. But in this situation, I thought the I thought that was good. So we'll start with
113. 00:10:31 the read this first and introduction. And then I think, Mike, if you're if you're good with it,
114. 00:10:36 we'll we'll go through each of the seven levers, what he calls the levers for life and we'll work
115. 00:10:43 through the show that way. So I'm good. Sounds good. Hopefully my voice will hold out. I think it will.
116. 00:10:48 I think it will. I feel I feel confident. All right. So let's go through the read this first
117. 00:10:53 and the the introduction. One of the one of the things that I got out of this was, you know, he has
118. 00:11:00 a Helen Keller quote that security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature,
119. 00:11:06 nor do the children and men as a whole experience it. And I thought that was really, really interesting.
120. 00:11:10 It's like, we think about this safe life. We think about like trying to lead the safe life.
121. 00:11:14 And like, I don't think that is realistic. I think we try really, really hard to make that a reality.
122. 00:11:24 But like, I just I think we need to let that go and understand that like life isn't safe and that's
123. 00:11:31 okay. And there's now and then it turns, you know, safety into risk mitigation, which I think risk
124. 00:11:39 mitigation is something we've been doing for thousands of years. And we've always done is like,
125. 00:11:44 Oh, okay, the world isn't safe, but I can I can mitigate my risk. I cannot run towards the edge
126. 00:11:48 of the cliff. I cannot, you know, directly confront the, you know, the wild animal in nature. So I
127. 00:11:55 really like that idea of restructuring this idea of safe, you know, and he does that right off the
128. 00:11:59 right off the bat. Yeah, he mentions that safety is an illusion and that playing it safe is basically
129. 00:12:07 about fear, fear being optimized for survival. And the best stuff being just outside of your comfort
130. 00:12:14 zone, which is kind of all stuff that we've tangentially discussed in other books that we've
131. 00:12:19 read, but he just smacks you in the face with it right at the beginning. And makes you very
132. 00:12:26 uncomfortable, which I'm curious, you know, you mentioned that anti time management really challenged
133. 00:12:31 you in some ways. I feel like this is a follow up, probably was a little bit unfair.
134. 00:12:36 Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I mean, like, we'll talk about it later in style and rating, but like,
135. 00:12:45 where you and I are in life, and where he is, safety is a very, very different thing. And like,
136. 00:12:53 the idea of being able to take risks and what those risks look like. Now that doesn't mean I
137. 00:12:58 don't take away a bunch of stuff from this book. It just means I think the contextual scenarios
138. 00:13:05 matter in this, but we'll I'm going to pause on that and we'll we'll push that till later.
139. 00:13:08 Well, let me let me actually push back on that a little bit, because I think that's the traditional
140. 00:13:16 thinking and you're not wrong for thinking that if you're reading through this book,
141. 00:13:20 I think. But I think there's another argument to be made here where no, it's still the same,
142. 00:13:25 just maybe the stakes are higher, because you hear these stories about the people who are really
143. 00:13:29 successful. And most of them went bankrupt multiple times before they hit it big. So is it that,
144. 00:13:38 you know, they got to a point where, you know, the they can now play it. I don't want to say
145. 00:13:45 play it safe. Like, I'm struggling with terminology here. Like, it doesn't have the same amount of
146. 00:13:50 risk as somebody who's living paycheck to paycheck and trying to meet make ends meet. Like, does this
147. 00:13:57 not apply to me? Because I'm still trying to dig out of some credit card debt that we amassed
148. 00:14:01 while I was trying to get my business off the ground. I kind of think, no, at first, I was like,
149. 00:14:06 well, yeah, it probably does, because I have a very short runway to work with. And he's got,
150. 00:14:11 you know, multiple homes and talks about taking walks on the beach, like the ocean, you know,
151. 00:14:17 outside of his backyard. Like, aren't you fancy? Like, that's the easy excuse, I feel. So I would
152. 00:14:24 encourage people not to make that. Because I feel like if you accept that excuse, your world gets
153. 00:14:32 made a little bit smaller and you now have some options that are eliminated. And again,
154. 00:14:37 kind of like what's the worst thing that can happen here? All these successful people who own
155. 00:14:43 these crazy big businesses, they file bankruptcy before. So is that what I'm really afraid of?
156. 00:14:49 Like being in the position that they were, you don't want to think of that as an option. But it
157. 00:14:56 is an option. You know, if the worst thing in the world happens, that that could be something. And
158. 00:15:02 it's as evidenced by other successful people, it's not the end of the world that your head tells you
159. 00:15:09 it is. Yep. And he, so you're, yes, you're right in alignment with him because he makes a statement
160. 00:15:15 there. He's like, he's not talking about putting on sunscreen, wearing seat belts and all that stuff.
161. 00:15:18 He's talking about the things that you do. And this is a quote that keeps most people living lives
162. 00:15:25 of a fraction of their potential or to a fraction of their potential. It's playing it small, right?
163. 00:15:29 Like, so yes, exactly what you said is it's these ideas of like, oh, you're intentionally limiting
164. 00:15:35 yourself because you're not willing to take that risk and to do that thing. And I'm on board with
165. 00:15:42 that, right? Like I'm on board with that. We'll get to more of my side of the argument later on down.
166. 00:15:48 Cool. All right. So, you know, moving into the introduction, anything else kind of really
167. 00:15:53 stand out for you? I mean, he goes out and he outlines the seven levers. So I'll go through
168. 00:15:57 this real quick. Attention, time, intuition, constraints, play, failure, and practice. And then
169. 00:16:03 those are literally the seven chapters that make up the bulk or, you know, the majority of this book.
170. 00:16:10 And he basically unpacks each of those. Yeah, there, there was a term he used. I think it's
171. 00:16:18 mimesis, which is wanting the same thing. Everyone else wants because it's what we see when we look
172. 00:16:23 around. When he shared that definition, I realized that I have definitely fallen into that. And I
173. 00:16:32 kind of record immediately recognized the danger of it in a more clear way than I ever have.
174. 00:16:41 I'm, it's, it's still like something that you have to work through that you struggle through,
175. 00:16:47 because even with like my creator business, I'm starting to get some traction. And it's like,
176. 00:16:51 okay, so what is the next step? The next step can never be exactly what it was for
177. 00:16:57 somebody else. I'm realizing like my path has to be unique. And just even like some of the other
178. 00:17:05 creator circles that I run in, you know, I've noticed like, oh, this is the obvious next thing
179. 00:17:10 for me. And I get excited about it. I tell it to somebody and they're not excited about it. I'm like,
180. 00:17:14 why do they just not get it? It's like, no, they have a totally different path. And I look at their
181. 00:17:19 business and you know, what makes them successful. And I'm like, that would never work for me. So
182. 00:17:23 why am I trying to copy them? Because you know, they've reached a level of audience size that I'm
183. 00:17:31 trying to get to like. And once you get over that, I can tell you like the place I'm at right now
184. 00:17:37 is like, it's exciting because there's all sorts of options. Yeah, I can see that. I like one thing
185. 00:17:43 that I never really thought about before. I saw somebody online who I look up to, I'm actually
186. 00:17:50 coaching with this person. They have a pretty big YouTube channel. And they mentioned that they
187. 00:17:55 had a sponsor dropout. And they're trying to fill it. The ideal fit is some some sort of productivity
188. 00:18:02 tool. And I was like, Oh, well, I have a productivity tool. So I reached out and I'm like, Hey,
189. 00:18:10 I'd like to try, you know, a YouTube ad. And the more I think about it, you know, that the rates
190. 00:18:15 and things like that, it's it's an investment. Right. And I'm at this point in my career journey,
191. 00:18:20 I wasn't looking for like, well, now is the time I really got to focus on ads. But to the coaching
192. 00:18:27 call that we had in the pro show, it's a tiny experiment. I can do it once I can do it for a
193. 00:18:31 small amount of people are for a small investment. And as I'm thinking about, I'm like, you know,
194. 00:18:36 if a couple people buy it, it's worth it. Plus, you know, it gets in front of all of these other
195. 00:18:41 viewers that this person has, like, I don't know how many other opportunities are there like that
196. 00:18:47 for me, you know, that wouldn't be a good thing for a lot of the other creators that I look up to,
197. 00:18:54 like they don't have a product that that would be a good, good fit for. But it's like a great fit
198. 00:18:59 for me, like just the audience and the product. It's it's unique for the people that he's speaking
199. 00:19:05 to. You know, it's an opportunity for him because we can do an affiliate link. I'm feel very excited
200. 00:19:12 about it in a way that I haven't before. And I'm looking for those things. And the whole message
201. 00:19:17 of this book of like, don't play it safe. It's like, yeah, go do that stuff. Yeah, exactly.
202. 00:19:20 And then, you know, I mean, the third point, the third lever he brings up in here is intuition.
203. 00:19:25 It's like, I can hear it. Hear you talking about it. Like, there's an intuition here that's like,
204. 00:19:30 I'm going to learn something from this. I'm going to get something from this that's not just me
205. 00:19:35 throwing money and burning it. You know, like, there's like something's going to come out of this.
206. 00:19:39 And I think I think that's huge. Like, I think you have to trust that. And you've been doing this
207. 00:19:44 is successfully. So it's like, you got to trust that intuition. You got to go with that, that gut.
208. 00:19:50 Okay. So one last thing in the introduction, then I'm going to move us to the attention to
209. 00:19:54 chapter one. But he talks about the explorer and how if somebody's off by just a degree that thousands
210. 00:20:01 of miles later, that's significantly different, right? And I see this very much in the idea of
211. 00:20:07 safety and the idea of like, Oh, okay. So it's like, I think I need to be this safe. And like,
212. 00:20:14 you're saying, do we really need to like, what's the worst that happens? But because I made that
213. 00:20:18 decision when I was 17 or 20 or 24 or whatever it was, right? Like, now I'm in this, I'm in this
214. 00:20:27 situation. And I'm like, I'm theoretically thousands of miles away from that. And I'm
215. 00:20:32 playing it way more safe than I actually would need to, right? And I haven't reanalyzed the
216. 00:20:36 situation. I haven't reassessed where I'm actually at. I think that's a really powerful idea to think
217. 00:20:42 about like reassess. What does actual like, what are the non-negotiables, if you will, right? Like,
218. 00:20:49 and then once you figure out what the non-negotiables are, anything else, you know, is you making up
219. 00:20:56 the illusion of safety, making up the idea of like, Oh, I have to do these other things in order for
220. 00:21:00 it to be, it to be safe. So I thought that was a really good mental, like framing for what we're
221. 00:21:06 doing. Yeah, one of the things that came to mind with that section for me is that when it comes to
222. 00:21:18 safety, there is this huge unintended emphasis on the value of the sunk cost. And he doesn't
223. 00:21:28 describe it this way, but I have a economics degree. So that's where my mind went. It's like,
224. 00:21:34 Oh, sunk cost fallacy. Yeah, you should just not take that into consideration and figure out
225. 00:21:39 what the right thing to do right now is. But what you're describing is that, and I've totally
226. 00:21:44 given into that before either you I've been doing this for a while. I've got all this momentum and
227. 00:21:50 just the name sunk cost fallacy. When I thought of it that way, this time around, it was like,
228. 00:21:56 obviously, you need to chuck all that stuff. It doesn't matter.
229. 00:22:02 But I spent all this money and I got the degree and doesn't matter. If it was the right thing to do,
230. 00:22:11 then like, that's great. It's probably still going to be the right thing to do now. But if it wasn't
231. 00:22:18 the right thing to do then, just digging in is going to make you more miserable. So I say it that way,
232. 00:22:26 not to like pick on on you, because I know like where you are, like there are requirements and you
233. 00:22:31 have to have the degrees, right? You mentioned like the PhD and stuff like that. But for other
234. 00:22:36 people who are in that situation, I don't know, like I went to a private school, I assumed a whole
235. 00:22:42 bunch of of student loans that eventually I got out of, but I can see how like that sort of thing
236. 00:22:48 is like, Oh, I got to see this through. And that that could very much be the wrong decision. It
237. 00:22:53 could be the right decision to be perfectly clear. But just because you have made that decision
238. 00:23:00 previously, does not mean that is the right decision for you right now. Do your listener.
239. 00:23:04 Yeah, for sure. All right. So we're going to move on to lever one. So lever one is a tension,
240. 00:23:09 right? And he calls it a superpower. So lever one is a tension, the superpower. He hits on
241. 00:23:16 your one of your favorite favorite people, Victor Frankel, right? So I was like, Oh,
242. 00:23:22 Mike, Mike's going to be happy that he touched. Victor Frankel and Mihaly cheeks at Mihaly in the
243. 00:23:27 same chapter. I didn't remember the second one, but the first one I was a peg. So he calls out
244. 00:23:33 a bunch of different things in this chapter. But one of the things I thought was was really
245. 00:23:36 interesting is he gives you a series of ways to focus your attention, meditation, mindfulness,
246. 00:23:42 prayer, journaling, gratitude. Again, I thought you would connect really, really well with that,
247. 00:23:47 because these are things that I've heard you talk about either through, you know, the library or
248. 00:23:52 through one of your courses or focused. I like that the idea of ditch the shiny object syndrome
249. 00:24:01 and focus on the one thing. I think the reason why I like that so much is because I think that's
250. 00:24:05 where I struggle. Like I struggle a little bit with that shiny object syndrome. And then figuring
251. 00:24:10 out what is the one thing? Like what's the what's the one thing I'm going to focus on?
252. 00:24:15 And interestingly, like for me, where this is strange is it's not really with my day job.
253. 00:24:20 Like that's easy. Like I'm going to focus on the one thing and what is that? That is helping
254. 00:24:23 the students learn as much as they can and helping them grow and personally develop as much as they
255. 00:24:27 can. Boom. Easy. Done. Check. You know, it's like, but when it comes to these creative things on the
256. 00:24:32 side, my goodness, you want to talk about shiny objects and German, like not having a one thing,
257. 00:24:38 like I'm all over the place. So yeah, so attention.
258. 00:24:43 Yeah, there's a definitely a focus on attention. He gives you three ways to practice
259. 00:24:49 paying attention, paying attention to your body, paying attention to the people around you,
260. 00:24:53 paying attention to your environment, talks about the different kinds of distractions
261. 00:24:57 and what we pay attention to expands. But the quote that he shared from here that really
262. 00:25:04 stands out to me from this section is from Andy Warhol, where he says, don't think about making
263. 00:25:11 art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate
264. 00:25:16 it. And while they are deciding, make even more art, which I like that, that quote, and the emphasis
265. 00:25:22 there is on just make the thing. As I shared with you in the Pro Show, though, I think there's another
266. 00:25:29 element to this that is a little bit missing. And that's kind of like the make noise listen for
267. 00:25:34 signal. If you're going to use this, you mentioned the side, side hustle, creative pursuit.
268. 00:25:41 But I think for anybody who's testing things, recognizing what sort of impact it has is important.
269. 00:25:49 So I agree with this, focus on doing the thing and recognize that being able to direct your
270. 00:25:56 attention is kind of a superpower, but also something you're going to be practicing the rest of your
271. 00:26:02 life. It talks about how it's a lifelong practice later in this chapter. But if you're trying to make
272. 00:26:09 something online, let's say, you do need to see what resonates with with people. That's a data
273. 00:26:16 point. That's not the only data point. It's not the only thing that you pay attention to.
274. 00:26:20 Sometimes you just want to make something because it's stirring in your soul and you got to get it
275. 00:26:25 get it out there. But I want to call that out because there's a lot of emphasis on that in here.
276. 00:26:30 And then one of my action items comes from this chapter as well, which is kind of to the point
277. 00:26:36 of that quote, we tend to worry about what other people think about what we do. And maybe it's not
278. 00:26:46 the right people. So if you're trying to make something for somebody, you have an audience that
279. 00:26:52 you're trying to reach and you're trying to sell them something that solves a problem that they have,
280. 00:26:56 you do need to care what they think. But there are lots of people who will freely share their
281. 00:27:03 opinions and their IQs online. And you shouldn't necessarily listen to all of those.
282. 00:27:10 So one of my actions is to create that shortlist of people whose opinion of you really matters.
283. 00:27:14 Well, and I like to tie into that, he talks about here deciding who you will let down
284. 00:27:20 and being okay with the fact that you're going to let some people down. And you can't get away
285. 00:27:24 from that no matter what you do, no matter how you try to hit everybody with everything that
286. 00:27:30 they need, you're never going to do that. It's never going to happen. So you're going to let
287. 00:27:35 somebody down, figure out who it is, figure out who you're okay with with letting down.
288. 00:27:39 And then I think to tie to your action item, essentially like make that list and rank them
289. 00:27:46 and be like, okay, if I let these people down, I'm going to be really, really bummed. If I let
290. 00:27:50 these people down, I'm going to be bummed, but it's going to be okay. If I let these people down,
291. 00:27:54 I could really not care about that at all. And that's, that's totally fine. And I think like
292. 00:27:59 having like there's tier, you know, the tier list of people, the tier list of let downs,
293. 00:28:03 I think would be good. Like what did you think about the flashlight metaphor? Do you remember
294. 00:28:08 the flashlight metaphor? It's basically, I'm a little foggy still. Okay. So, so attention's
295. 00:28:14 like a flashlight, you can choose where to focus it, right? So you think about a flashlight not
296. 00:28:17 having a super wide beam, but having one of the more narrow, narrow beams. And it's like, oh,
297. 00:28:22 if I'm in a really dark, like completely pitch back, black room, if I shine it on that thing,
298. 00:28:27 my attention is on the thing I shined it on. And nothing else, everything else kind of goes away.
299. 00:28:32 Whereas in our world anymore, it's almost as if like everybody is, you know, lit up all the time,
300. 00:28:40 or all the things are lit up all the time. And we have a really hard time focusing
301. 00:28:43 focusing on that. Did you that resonate with you at all?
302. 00:28:47 Kinda. So when I think of a flashlight, I don't think I heard him describe it this way,
303. 00:28:50 but I've definitely heard people talk about this way. You can adjust the focus so it can cast like
304. 00:28:55 a real wide light, and then it doesn't really light up anything, or you can really focus it,
305. 00:29:00 but I actually would take that even further. In fact, I preached a message at church not too
306. 00:29:04 long ago about the power of focus and like a laser beam, you know, because that is essentially
307. 00:29:10 focused light. And it's really powerful when you can focus it on a single point. But if you can't
308. 00:29:17 focus it on a single point, like it really doesn't have much power or impact. So I like the metaphor,
309. 00:29:28 but I didn't think actually his version of it was as powerful as it could have been.
310. 00:29:31 Okay. So definitely agree with it though.
311. 00:29:36 Yeah, anything else on attention, or are you ready to move to level two,
312. 00:29:39 level two? Let's go to level two. Okay. So lever two is time, time, the magic of presence. And
313. 00:29:48 basically, you know, he is very, very similar to our last book, where it talks about the fact
314. 00:29:55 that time management is broken. It doesn't work. So try to stop doing that. He the old adage where
315. 00:30:03 time expands, you know, or contracts depending on the activity that we're doing. You know,
316. 00:30:08 you tie this into flow states and you tie this into procrastination. So you can make a bunch of
317. 00:30:14 ties there. I like the idea of infinite games versus finite games, where the finite game is like
318. 00:30:20 a game of chess and you have a clear winner, and it's over at a certain time. And essentially,
319. 00:30:25 what we want to be thinking about is infinite games. And the fact that like, really, we just
320. 00:30:31 want to keep moving forward. How are we going to keep moving forward? And where we're going to put
321. 00:30:34 our attention is going to be how we're going to keep moving forward. So there's a bunch of
322. 00:30:40 good experiments here we get in or sorry, not experiments. I was looking at my next point.
323. 00:30:43 There's a bunch of good insights in here, one of them being the tiny experiment. Like, how do I
324. 00:30:47 run the tiny, the tiny experiment? How do I do that next thing that's going to help me learn
325. 00:30:52 that's going to teach me about kind of where I want to go in this infinite game that I'm playing?
326. 00:30:58 Yeah, I can tell you there's a couple of things that were really impactful for me from this
327. 00:31:03 chapter. But I don't think they were the same things that that stood out to you.
328. 00:31:08 One of them is the concept of being a time billionaire. He said that a billion seconds is
329. 00:31:17 roughly 31 years. And he said, most of us who are reading this book are time billionaires.
330. 00:31:25 And he uses that as a point to support the point that he's making that we need to stop thinking
331. 00:31:32 about, you know, time being short. And he actually says that the saying life is short kind of implies
332. 00:31:37 we can't afford to make any mistakes. And I sort of agree with that. So he wants us to disconnect
333. 00:31:42 from that. He wants us to recognize that we have more time than we think we do. And we can
334. 00:31:50 transform our relationship with time by being deliberate about what we do and how we do it.
335. 00:31:56 So I think that's a really cool idea. It's very much like you mentioned, complimentary to the book
336. 00:32:02 that we covered last time. And then he gives in here a whole bunch of triggers, which were from
337. 00:32:11 Stephen Kotler from the Flow Research Collective, actually documented all of these in my my map
338. 00:32:16 notes. There's internal triggers, there's external triggers, creative flow triggers and group flow
339. 00:32:20 triggers. And the idea here being, you know, flow is this elusive state we're trying to get into.
340. 00:32:25 We've heard it takes so much time to get into a state of flow. And I like these as like,
341. 00:32:30 maybe you can just use these to get into flow faster and create it, you know, kind of on demand.
342. 00:32:35 But that's a cool idea. I don't know what exactly to do with that. I don't have an action I'm
343. 00:32:39 associated with that. But I do have an action item associated with the story that he told at the
344. 00:32:43 beginning with the friend that he was working with. And I forget the person's name. But there was a
345. 00:32:49 successful business person, you know, and at dinner one night, someone asked him, so what's your
346. 00:32:56 thing? And he doesn't have a good answer. He's like, well, and I forget the specifics of the story.
347. 00:33:04 Like, was he working on Wall Street or something? And he's like, live in the New York Nightlife
348. 00:33:09 or something, you know, I don't remember at all either. So, yeah, but then like he was struck
349. 00:33:14 when someone asked him, like, so what's your thing? He's like, well, basically, I don't have a thing. I
350. 00:33:17 do what all these other people do. But what I really want to do is this other thing. You know,
351. 00:33:24 so I want to have an answer for the question. What's your thing? Now, when I was in Boise
352. 00:33:33 about a month ago, maybe a little more than that, recording the videos for the creativity
353. 00:33:37 firewall course and then also the PKM stack course. I bumped into Clay Herbert. He was there with
354. 00:33:45 Nathan Berry recording like a case study thing for his his course or for his podcast episode.
355. 00:33:52 And so I was talking to him in like the little lobby thing. You know, we were both just like
356. 00:33:57 hanging out. I stepped out for a breather between my videos like, hey, you know, I'm Mike. Oh, I'm
357. 00:34:02 Clay. You know, what do you do? I didn't have a real good answer for what do I do? And it turns
358. 00:34:06 out he's the guy who teaches your perfect intro. He's got like a TED talk on it or something. But
359. 00:34:12 basically like that question of like, what do you do that he helps people answer that.
360. 00:34:16 Okay. So the thing that he gave me kind of like an impromptu coaching session in the lobby of the
361. 00:34:23 kit studios in Boise, well, because he's he uses Obsidian. He's dabbled with it. Okay. So I was like,
362. 00:34:28 Oh, well, you got this life HQ thing. He's like, okay, so, you know, you basically help people
363. 00:34:33 organize their life using an app they've probably never heard of. He gave, he gave him the perfect
364. 00:34:38 intro in the in the lobby. Yeah. I don't I don't like a hundred percent love that. But I love the
365. 00:34:44 direction that that's going. And then, you know, when like, what's your thing? That's a different
366. 00:34:49 version of that. So it's like, I really got to pay attention to that. And I got to nail that down.
367. 00:34:53 I'm already kind of thinking about it anyways. So might as well make an action item out of it.
368. 00:34:57 Yeah. So do you do you see that different than an elevator pitch?
369. 00:35:04 No, I think it probably it probably is the same sort of thing. But Clay Herbert has a
370. 00:35:12 framework for it, which is really good. And then in the podcast episode, they do Nathan Barry's
371. 00:35:17 talking about you help people verb their noun. Right. So what is the thing that you help people
372. 00:35:25 do? So was that in this book as well? Like there's I think I have it later on in my notes about,
373. 00:35:30 you know, something that was the doing the verb then allowed you to be the noun. It was like my
374. 00:35:37 Angelou writing. I'm pretty sure it was my Angelou writing. And that was the verb the
375. 00:35:44 verb to noun thing, which I thought that was a really clever turn of phrase as well. And like,
376. 00:35:47 it's really meaningful. Yeah. So I don't know, like, I'm sure that's like one piece of Clay's
377. 00:35:53 thing. Like, I haven't actually watched the video from him. I've been scrambling. It's been on my
378. 00:35:57 list. Like, I got to check this guy out, you know, follow him on whatever network he's on. I don't
379. 00:36:02 know. I think he might actually be at at Craft and Commerce this this summer. You got to come to
380. 00:36:09 that by the way. I know you you've told me that and I need to I need to figure out if I can,
381. 00:36:14 and what the plan would be. So they got dates. Let's get you there. Okay. So there's something.
382. 00:36:21 Oh, here's here's another question for you in this in this section. I'll go first, but
383. 00:36:27 what is your if you had a flow trigger, what is the one that works the most effectively for you
384. 00:36:33 if you have one? So I can tell you mine right now would be to throw my over the ear headphones on.
385. 00:36:39 It has to be over the ear headphones. It can't be it can't be in earbuds. It's got to be over
386. 00:36:43 the ear headphones. And it's to put on some sort of music with no words. So it could be like chill
387. 00:36:50 step. It could be a soundtrack. What I've actually been getting into lately is video game sound
388. 00:36:56 tracks that like there's something about them and the repetitive nature choice. Yeah, like the
389. 00:37:01 repetitive nature of them that man, I put those on and like really, really quickly, I'm doing
390. 00:37:10 meaningful work. Like I'm focused. I'm doing meaningful work. I'm not worried about if anybody's
391. 00:37:13 knocking on my door or if anybody's going to come in, like the email sent tends to disappear and
392. 00:37:19 float away. Like it's a that's a very effective flow trigger or flow state inducer, if you will,
393. 00:37:25 for me, do you have one? Um, not like that. Well, okay. So the flow triggers that he lists here.
394. 00:37:33 I think a little bit different than what you're talking about. So I have different things in my
395. 00:37:39 environment that I try to use to create flow. One of them is I go to the co-working space to do
396. 00:37:46 all my writing, because sitting in that co-working space is just a better environment for that kind
397. 00:37:54 of thing. And I'm more creative when I'm when I'm there. But in terms of the triggers that he
398. 00:38:00 listed here, I was thinking about that. Like which one am I actually going to use? And I don't know
399. 00:38:08 that there's a whole lot of these I like. Okay. Okay. A lot of them are kind of like, it's great
400. 00:38:17 when you get there, but it's it's hard to do that. Like, I don't know, I don't like to go into a task
401. 00:38:23 if I don't know exactly what it's going to be. But novelty is one of those triggers.
402. 00:38:27 So I have experienced that. Does that mean that I want to use that tactically? I don't know.
403. 00:38:34 Risk is another one. You know, kind of like impending deadlines are a version of this,
404. 00:38:40 in my opinion, where you put off a task until you absolutely have to get it done. And now there's
405. 00:38:44 a risk like you get into it, and it's more involved than you thought it was going to be. And you're
406. 00:38:48 not going to get the thing done before you have to present it on Monday as a random example.
407. 00:38:55 But but I do that sometimes, you know, I don't really know how to how to do these. I think the
408. 00:39:02 thing out of these that I really want to figure out a way to to implement is the challenge part.
409. 00:39:08 You know, what are the things where my skills are required for the task at hand? And that kind of
410. 00:39:14 gets into the delegation stuff. If I just pick the tasks that are challenging for me, I think I'll do
411. 00:39:21 better work. I'll do like higher quality work. I also think I'll probably do less of it because
412. 00:39:26 it'll be hard. Yeah. It's going to zap my energy. That makes sense. So and then if you tap if you
413. 00:39:31 tap rest into that too, you'll need to build in more rest to your schedule. Right? Like if you're
414. 00:39:35 doing really, really hard work, you got to build more rest in. You know, so that's good too. All right.
415. 00:39:41 If you're good with it, level lever three. All right. So lever three is intuition, the art of
416. 00:39:46 trusting yourself. Now, I have a love hate relationship with this chapter. And that's probably too strong.
417. 00:39:53 But you know what I mean? Like there are aspects of this chapter that I really, really like in
418. 00:39:56 their aspects of this chapter that are just too like fluffy and ethereal like for me. But that's
419. 00:40:01 okay. We'll move through. So it's it's really this idea of like, Hey, what is your intuition telling
420. 00:40:10 you? And it's like, I know this is true. I know that like there are situations where, you know,
421. 00:40:14 you get that gut feeling, you get that thing that's like, okay, hold on, something's off here,
422. 00:40:19 like something's going on. Like I can tell you this week, I have one, right? I have a strong
423. 00:40:24 one. I have one two weeks ago, right? That ended up turning out to be exactly what I thought it
424. 00:40:28 was going to be. So it's like, I know this is true. And I know this is here. So let's get into
425. 00:40:32 what the chapter actually talks about more. But so he's got these signs of intuition,
426. 00:40:37 quote unquote speaking or signs that you're that you have, you're feeling this intuition. So body
427. 00:40:42 signals, tense, looseness, gut feeling, immediate impressions, right? So he quotes the the hell yes
428. 00:40:49 or no, right? Like, I'm either going to really do that thing or nope, I'm not doing it at all.
429. 00:40:53 Past experiences, the energy alignment, what feels right, what produces your energy, emotional
430. 00:40:59 alignment, like the idea of rightness or wrongness or happy or sad, not quiet. So, you know, like,
431. 00:41:06 how am I being mindful and being quiet and just listening to what's what's going on in my subconscious,
432. 00:41:12 if you will, if you could even do that. And then like the athletic mind. And I love that he pulls
433. 00:41:17 the pulls the yoda out of here, right? Do or do not, there is no try, right? Like, I think these
434. 00:41:22 are a really like good way to to wrap your head around this. He talks about the map and the compass,
435. 00:41:28 right? And the map is the rational, non-intuitive, non-intuitive thing. The compass is then the
436. 00:41:35 intuitive. I think I should be moving in this direction. You are smiling, like ear to ear. So,
437. 00:41:40 I'm really, really intrigued at what you're going to say right now. Go ahead.
438. 00:41:44 Yeah. So every once in a while, we'll read one of these books and I'm like, this is a really good
439. 00:41:50 book. And then they'll explain something that I think I explain better. Okay. And I'm like,
440. 00:41:56 I should write a book. You know, you've said this in the last like, probably three months,
441. 00:42:02 I think you've said this at least two or three times, right? About, yeah, which is, which is
442. 00:42:06 honestly hard for me to say publicly, because I'm not that type of person who just naturally
443. 00:42:11 thinks that I'm better than other people at these things. But I have been talking about how you need
444. 00:42:16 a map and not a compass for literally years. Yes, I know you have. I've heard you say this for years.
445. 00:42:21 Yes. And in the back of my mind, you know, the thing is like, this makes sense to me, but
446. 00:42:27 is it really, you know, does it make sense to other people? And then I see other people talk
447. 00:42:32 about it. And I'm like, man, I missed my chance. Nope. That's not true. I didn't didn't actually
448. 00:42:38 miss my chance. But yes, all that to say, like the difference in a map and a compass,
449. 00:42:42 this is a really important idea. So I guess I'll just go into like my version of this for a minute,
450. 00:42:48 if that's okay. Because yeah, like you, what you really need is not to have it all planned out.
451. 00:42:56 That's his big point when he's talking about intuition is like, there's one way to approach
452. 00:43:02 things, which is you've got the Gantt charts. And you know, exactly when each part of the thing is
453. 00:43:06 going to be done. And the waterfall method of project planning, you're going to ship it by this
454. 00:43:11 date, which means that you'll probably ship it about it's going to take twice as long and cost
455. 00:43:16 about twice as much. But you know, you can think that way, or you can think, you know, I think I
456. 00:43:22 should go this direction. And so this, this metaphor has resonated with me for a long time,
457. 00:43:29 because this has been my creator path. Just the real brief version of this. I was working with
458. 00:43:36 the family business. I was basically going to take it over. And I got this itch to write a book. I
459. 00:43:44 had no idea how to write a book. I had always hated writing in English class in high school.
460. 00:43:49 But I figured, you know, if I'm going to write a book, I better start writing. So I did the thing
461. 00:43:53 that I coached, I told you to do in our coaching session, I started writing and publishing every
462. 00:43:58 day before I went to the office. I did that for two weeks. I got connected with Asian efficiency.
463. 00:44:04 They posted about a job that they were offering. And I didn't want a full time job. But I wanted
464. 00:44:08 a guest post and they said, well, we don't really do anything like that. But if you have some samples
465. 00:44:11 of your work, send it over. So I did they liked it. That led to a part time position. They offered
466. 00:44:17 me full time. Initially, I said, no, then I eventually joined that team, joined the
467. 00:44:22 blog media team. And all of that has led to where I am today. But the path has been writing. I never
468. 00:44:30 wanted to do that. Oh, I guess I want to write. And then podcasting. Oh, I don't want to do that
469. 00:44:34 because it's live and it's scary. And okay, I guess I want to podcast. And then it was video
470. 00:44:39 presentations, video courses, which is, you know, even scarier than podcasting. And then it was live
471. 00:44:44 presentations. And then it was speaking in front of people, not just over zoom like this. You know,
472. 00:44:50 at each point, you know, I was doing something that I didn't ever want to do. And when I did it,
473. 00:44:56 I realized, Oh, that's the thing that made me come alive. So I took a step. And then I looked
474. 00:45:01 around and I saw what is tangentially connected to this. What is the there's a term for this from
475. 00:45:08 one of those Stephen Johnson books? The adjacent possible. Okay. I walked into this room. And now
476. 00:45:14 what doors are open to me? Oh, that looks kind of interesting. And I guess I'll open that one.
477. 00:45:20 And you have no idea where there's where those are going to lead you. And if you are not going to
478. 00:45:25 play it safe, you absolutely cannot have the plan figured out at the beginning because you have no
479. 00:45:29 idea where it's going to end up. All you can do is know this is the next step. So yeah, you don't
480. 00:45:35 need a map. You need a compass, which is going to say this is the right direction. Take the next
481. 00:45:40 step. And as you do that, the path before you is going to come going to become clear.
482. 00:45:45 I think you need to create an action item from this book that is sit down at least twice between
483. 00:45:55 now and the next recording and think about this book and think like think hard about this because
484. 00:46:03 this thing is in you. Now, is it the right time for it to come out of you? That might be a whole
485. 00:46:08 another story. But it's like, this thing is in you, Mike, right? Like, you want to do this. Like,
486. 00:46:12 you really have this because you've talked about it. And I don't don't I don't say that in any
487. 00:46:17 negative way at all. So don't hear that as a negative thing at all. But it's like, it's one of
488. 00:46:20 those things that just like randomly finds its way to seep out of you, right? And as we're talking
489. 00:46:26 about things. Well, so this is the high ticket offer in a nutshell is like helping people do this.
490. 00:46:31 And that's why I was struggling with, do I just focus on writing? Because I don't think
491. 00:46:34 that's the version of it. I have experienced podcasting. I have experienced with YouTube.
492. 00:46:39 I think people got to start with writing, but then you find a different avenue for like the
493. 00:46:44 right way for you to express this stuff. So like, I don't want to get so defined as like
494. 00:46:51 ship 30 is for writing through social media and write a passage is writing online. Like,
495. 00:46:56 that's an element of it. But my unique version of this is really walking out because I believe
496. 00:47:03 everybody is creative. So people who want to create something and they want to make money online
497. 00:47:08 doing this thing, you know, I will help you walk this out by kind of walking the path of the compass
498. 00:47:15 and not the map with you. Yeah, you'll help them. You'll help them direct the compass, right? Like,
499. 00:47:20 so you're yeah, yeah. And there's frameworks we can use to help figure out, you know,
500. 00:47:24 what is the right thing? What is the wrong thing? You know, all that kind of stuff.
501. 00:47:27 Yeah, you're you're helping them orienteer, right? If you if you will, like, yeah, yeah,
502. 00:47:32 so I mean, I love it. Okay, so let's get back into the into the chapter. So we're into intuition.
503. 00:47:38 I have an action item coming out of this. So Chase challenges you to spend time thinking
504. 00:47:45 about an idea that excites you each day, right? And I think this is one of my action items is,
505. 00:47:51 what is my what is the thing that excites me? And then what does that mean? Like, how do like,
506. 00:47:59 what do I do about it? Do I take action on it? Why does it excite me? What's the motivation behind it?
507. 00:48:04 So I want to do this because I think it combines the previous few chapters, right? And and wraps
508. 00:48:14 this up really, really well into an actionable thing. I'm going to put my attention on it
509. 00:48:18 intentionally. It doesn't have to be the same thing, but it's going to be something that excites
510. 00:48:22 me every day, right? And then when I look back over those, when I do a review of those,
511. 00:48:25 are there commonalities, right? Like, oh, well, for the last two weeks or month or two months or
512. 00:48:30 whatever it is, I've been excited about this type of thing, whatever that type of thing is.
513. 00:48:34 What does that mean? What does that look like? Right? So you're going to put your attention on it.
514. 00:48:37 You're going to give it time, right? So I'm going to do it daily. I'm going to give it time.
515. 00:48:41 And then I'm going to through a review process or through the process. I'm going to see, like,
516. 00:48:45 what bubbles up with this intuition. So I really, really like the way I don't think he
517. 00:48:50 necessarily brought it together, tying it back to attention and time as well as he could have.
518. 00:48:54 But like, I really like the way those three, those three ideas kind of come into this one action item
519. 00:48:59 where he challenges you to spend time thinking about something. Awesome. Love it. Okay. Anything
520. 00:49:04 else on intuition or are you ready to jump to chapter four? Let's talk about constraints.
521. 00:49:11 Okay. Constraint. So constrain to retrain. That is the subline. Now he immediately,
522. 00:49:19 or very, very early in the chapter, hits on Edward DeBoto's creative ideation process.
523. 00:49:25 Okay. So, you know, we have a tie back into that from Bookworm. I think that might have been the
524. 00:49:31 first book we did. I don't remember for sure. But I remember that was like right at the beginning.
525. 00:49:36 Oh, you and I? Yeah. Yeah. The six hats. We did the different colored hats, hats book. Yes.
526. 00:49:43 So he's got other books. DeBoto's got other books. And I think his, I think what he calls
527. 00:49:48 it is lateral thinking. I think that's the phrase that he quote, unquote, coined and
528. 00:49:53 termed and kind of what made him famous was this idea of lateral thinking. But it's this creative
529. 00:49:58 ideation process. So I like that that he tied into one of the, you know, this book was really
530. 00:50:06 on target for, for bookworm and the bookworm audience. I mean, it really, really was on target.
531. 00:50:11 And for us. Yeah, for sure. So then he, he goes into these four different types of constraints,
532. 00:50:15 right? You have self-imposed constraints, externally imposed constraints, perceived
533. 00:50:19 constraints, and then environmental constraints. And each of those has sub pieces underneath it.
534. 00:50:23 I'm not going to go into the sub pieces because that'll, that'll just take too long and be boring.
535. 00:50:27 But it's like, I like these four different categories is like, how am I constraining myself?
536. 00:50:31 How am I utilizing external constraints? How am I thinking about perceived constraints and
537. 00:50:37 how am I thinking about environmental constraints? And like what, what I like about this is it's,
538. 00:50:43 oftentimes we hear the word constraint and we think bad, you know, like constraint, like we
539. 00:50:48 think it's, oh, we're not doing everything we could do or there's something that's holding us
540. 00:50:51 back or whatever it is. And I don't think that's, that's the case. He makes that,
541. 00:50:55 that statement constraint limit breath, which creates space for depth and interesting results.
542. 00:51:00 And I think reframing it that way is a great way to think about constraints is like,
543. 00:51:05 it's giving me the space to go deep in something because I'm constraining the, the outside or
544. 00:51:10 constraining things around it. I like this idea. I actually don't like this chapter a whole lot
545. 00:51:18 because I don't think he does the idea of constraints justice. The, the example here is that the four
546. 00:51:29 different types of constraints that he shares. There's the four different categories that you
547. 00:51:33 talked about and then there's a whole bunch that he describes. Some of these are just purely negative,
548. 00:51:41 like financial strain. That's not a lack of money. That is the stress that comes from
549. 00:51:49 not being able to afford things. That is something that should absolutely be removed
550. 00:51:54 when at all possible. Yeah. Right. Can you, can you think of a, a good application of financial
551. 00:52:01 strain or an unhealthy lifestyle? Okay. So that's another one that he mentions. Okay. So I don't
552. 00:52:05 know if that was rhetorical or not, but like I'm thinking about this from a business standpoint.
553. 00:52:08 And what I'll, what I'll say is there are certain situations where the, let's say we could go by this
554. 00:52:16 new fancy machine for $750,000, but the, the business right now can't afford $750,000 capital output.
555. 00:52:25 So what are we going to do? We're going to try to think and brainstorm really, really hard about
556. 00:52:28 other creative ways to solve that problem. And we end up coming to a solution that changes like
557. 00:52:34 the process, right? I'm thinking very industrial and systems engineering right now. Sure. But that
558. 00:52:38 allows us to then be more creative long term or more efficient long term than it would have been,
559. 00:52:46 which was the easy button just pushing behind that $750,000 machine that would have a lot
560. 00:52:50 us to do the thing. So it's like, but I don't know if that's getting at what you're, what you're
561. 00:52:53 getting at because you're, you went, well, I'll, I'll give you that one then. But what about like
562. 00:52:58 an unhealthy lifestyle? Like that is not a constraint. That is a problem to be solved. Right. A messy
563. 00:53:05 cluttered or uninspired living situation. That's something you should change. Yes. Yeah. And I feel
564. 00:53:11 like when you talk about constraints, I agree with the premise when you are trying to figure out
565. 00:53:16 what to do sometimes having specific constraints helps you get more creative in defining potential
566. 00:53:26 solutions. That is why I love the whole idea of mental models. Mental models are basically
567. 00:53:32 applying constraints by looking at something from a particular perspective and ignoring the other
568. 00:53:37 data points. So maybe that's what he's talking about here is like you may have these constraints
569. 00:53:42 and you recognize like you've really been leaning into the financial strain one or an unhealthy
570. 00:53:46 lifestyle one or whatever. But that's not really that big a deal. You can fix that. So discard those
571. 00:53:51 for a moment and think about the other ones. But that's not how the list is presented. And one of
572. 00:53:57 the things that I jotted down is that the self imposed constraints are a powerful point of leverage
573. 00:54:03 on the path of overcoming any challenge. Now those are self imposed constraints. That's one
574. 00:54:07 category out of the floor. So maybe he's that's the one he's telling us to look at as opposed to the
575. 00:54:12 the other ones are just kind of, you know, they are what they are. And they're they don't belong
576. 00:54:17 in the same category. But I don't know, I just feel like the message of this chapter while I
577. 00:54:23 agree with the idea and I think it's really powerful. It seemed a little bit muddy. Yeah,
578. 00:54:28 I could see that now. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't pick up on that while I was reading. But that actually
579. 00:54:34 makes sense as I look through these four different types of constraints, it's almost like the self
580. 00:54:37 imposed and the externally imposed are more positive. You know what I mean? Like, like they're going to
581. 00:54:42 help us out more and then the perceived and the environmental or those that you want to get rid
582. 00:54:46 of. Yeah, like I'm processing what you're saying out loud right now. This is, I see that.
583. 00:54:51 Yeah, that's all I got for this one though. I like the emphasis of hustle culture never ending.
584. 00:54:56 Because I feel like some of the stories that he shares. I don't know, I think it's probably not
585. 00:55:01 where he is right now. But as he shares a story, you definitely get the vibe that he was in that.
586. 00:55:08 Oh, yeah, for sure. So it's nice to hear him say, you know, that's not the ideal. Yeah, I agree.
587. 00:55:14 I agree. So I'm ready to move on to to lever five play. He titles it the most important work
588. 00:55:22 we do. So play, he describes it as the fuel of life. He talks about the fact that, you know,
589. 00:55:30 we get it essentially like driven out of us this idea of play to become more serious. And, you know,
590. 00:55:37 that happens by, you know, we shouldn't be doing those things. We should be sitting down and doing
591. 00:55:41 getting our work done. And we should be focusing and we should do all of those things. Not to go
592. 00:55:46 too far on a tangent here. But this is a big reason why we homeschool. And this is a big reason
593. 00:55:51 why I'm a proponent of homeschool is because we do a lot of actual schooling in my, like my wife,
594. 00:55:59 like does a ton of actual schooling during the day. But we are able to intermix it with the kids
595. 00:56:06 going and playing and the kids coming back and then doing more work and then going and playing.
596. 00:56:10 And I have four boys. And with boys, I mean, that's huge, right? Like especially young,
597. 00:56:15 young boys, like to try to lock them down to a chair and say, you're going to focus for the next
598. 00:56:20 six hours of the day with like a lunch break. It's just not realistic. But to say like, hey,
599. 00:56:26 we're going to take 15 minutes and we're going to learn spelling. And then you're going to get
600. 00:56:29 to go and play with Legos for, you know, 15 minutes and then you're going to come back and
601. 00:56:32 we're going to do this other thing. Like it's just so much more natural in my mind for an effective
602. 00:56:38 way. And then the other thing we don't get is I mean, they don't hate it. Like they don't hate
603. 00:56:42 the idea of of doing things and learning. So I didn't want to go down too far in a rabbit hole,
604. 00:56:46 but I know you homeschool as well. So I don't know if you have anything that you want to say on that.
605. 00:56:51 Not with the homeschooling thing in particular, but he does mention that when you were a kid,
606. 00:56:58 no one needed to tell you how to play. Yeah. And again, this is a different version of this
607. 00:57:05 is something that I've talked about for years. I remember presenting this at Macstock and saying
608. 00:57:11 that when you were a kid, no one needed to teach you how to be creative. And there were some people
609. 00:57:19 who came in and pushed back on that. But I think it is generally true that when you give a kid a
610. 00:57:27 box of crayons, they are uninhibited. So that this actually like made the connection for me,
611. 00:57:33 where creativity and play are actually connected. Why? Because when you play, you don't really care
612. 00:57:42 what comes out of it. You're just having fun in the moment. And with creativity that I think the
613. 00:57:47 thing that keeps people from being creative is not wanting to lose, not wanting to be wrong,
614. 00:57:55 not wanting to have someone look at something that you made and say, this is garbage. So there's this
615. 00:58:02 quote that I love by Hugh McLeah that goes something along the lines of when you get to,
616. 00:58:09 we're all born creative. And then when you get to school, they replace your crayons with boring
617. 00:58:15 books on algebra and history. And being struck with the creative bug years later is just a
618. 00:58:21 wee voice inside saying, I'd like my crayons back. So like, I kind of like to think of myself as an
619. 00:58:27 enabler for people to ask for their crayons back. Because I really do think like we've all got
620. 00:58:33 something in us, we have a unique way to create. And everybody should tap into that because there's
621. 00:58:39 so many benefits that come from it. And I feel like the benefits of being creative are very similar
622. 00:58:44 to the benefits of playing. And it kind of struck me as I was thinking about this. Really, if you
623. 00:58:49 were to condense it, play is really just the perspective that you should have towards your work
624. 00:58:54 and as you play with it, you are naturally creative, I think. Also, I had an action item here though,
625. 00:59:02 because I was a little bit mortified when I considered, what do I do for fun?
626. 00:59:11 Okay, okay. I'm not sure. I mean, there are things that I enjoy doing, like I enjoy going for runs
627. 00:59:18 and things like that. But at this point, I feel like I do that kind of because I want to stay
628. 00:59:24 healthy. And it feels good. It's not just something that it's like, I'm going to go do whatever the
629. 00:59:32 heck I feel like doing right now. I don't know what that would be. Yeah. I struggled with this
630. 00:59:39 actually a little bit the last couple days being sick, because I'm sick. Like, if there was ever
631. 00:59:45 a time to just lay in bed and do what you want, it would be now. But I found my mind racing is like,
632. 00:59:52 well, when am I going to get this screencast online module done? And how am I going to prep
633. 00:59:57 for the life theme cohort session that we have to do? And what am I going to do about the podcast
634. 01:00:02 recordings that I'm supposed to do on Monday and Tuesday? I had so much trouble quieting that
635. 01:00:09 down and just like watching a movie or whatever. And I think I need something that I just do for
636. 01:00:16 fun. I don't know what it is. So ask me next time. And I and Chase Jarvis would agree with you.
637. 01:00:24 Play utterly destroys anxiety, right? Like, and you're in that situation where you need some play
638. 01:00:28 so you can overcome and utterly destroy that anxiety. I didn't know and I should have, right?
639. 01:00:35 But I was taken back by the fact that there's the National Institute for play, right? I was like,
640. 01:00:40 Oh, what a cool, what a cool Institute. I mean, that's a pretty awesome Institute.
641. 01:00:49 I like the concept he has here where he says work becomes work because of our orientation towards
642. 01:00:54 it. And I think about that in my classes and I think this is it's not going to turn into a formal
643. 01:01:00 action item. But this is something that like, I want to keep stewing on. I think as I go through,
644. 01:01:05 it's like, how do I make more of my classes like play where the students are going to learn just
645. 01:01:12 as much? It's just not going to feel like work. It's going to feel like, Oh, we're playing with
646. 01:01:15 this like this problem. We're trying to solve it. We're playing the soft playing with the software
647. 01:01:19 and we're trying to we're trying to do it. And I understand I'm never going to hit every student,
648. 01:01:22 right? There's still going to be students that walk into there and they're going to be like,
649. 01:01:25 I don't like this. I never liked it. I didn't like it before I walked into this class. I read the
650. 01:01:28 description and I don't like it. But I think how can I orient my schooling, my teaching,
651. 01:01:34 and what I'm doing with my university students to be more like play? I think that's what I want
652. 01:01:39 to do because I learned a ton through that like, Oh, I want to get better at video editing. What
653. 01:01:44 am I going to do? I'm going to shoot some video. I'm going to play around with it. I don't care if
654. 01:01:47 it's any good or not. I'm just going to play around with like trying to figure out how to make
655. 01:01:51 cool transitions and put some background music behind it. So how can I do that? Like, I think
656. 01:01:56 that's something I want to do in my my formal teaching as well. Awesome. All right. So lever six,
657. 01:02:03 let's move on to failure. Failure a feature not a bug. Now, Mike, before we start this one,
658. 01:02:08 we talk about this one. Was this chapter longer and did it feel longer than the other chapters or
659. 01:02:14 did I make that up because it was an interesting part of my week? But I felt like this chapter was
660. 01:02:19 like twice as long as every other chapter. And I could have just made that up. Well,
661. 01:02:24 I feel like the beginning chapters were fairly long. I do think this one, I do have tons of notes
662. 01:02:30 for this one, not that many from the previous one. I think this is also the best chapter in the
663. 01:02:35 whole book. Okay. Okay. For reasons being that it's a unique take on failure. So it would be very
664. 01:02:46 easy to share all of the platitudes about failure, how it's necessary. And you got to go through it.
665. 01:02:54 But he kind of calls out the problem with that that I have experienced. And so when I read this,
666. 01:03:00 I really felt seen and I feel like he's probably speaking to a lot of people when he talks about
667. 01:03:06 how, yeah, it's true that without failure, there's no success. And it may be necessary for growth,
668. 01:03:13 but it still feels awful. Yes. So you're going to naturally try to avoid it. And when you just
669. 01:03:19 talk about it intellectually, words on a page, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, you know, all these
670. 01:03:22 successful people say, Jaco says, you know, even mentions extreme ownership in here, that you just
671. 01:03:29 got to just got to go through it. And it's not that easy because it still sucks. Yeah, exactly.
672. 01:03:38 So he talks about making it a frenemy. I like that framing a lot. So it's not something that's
673. 01:03:44 just going to become your buddy along the journey, which is sort of the vibe I get when I hear other
674. 01:03:50 people talk about it. He's like, it's going to have to be there and it's unfortunate, but you can
675. 01:03:56 still kind of get some good out of it. And I feel like just that framing kind of changes the whole
676. 01:04:04 discussion about it for me. So I did a lot of work in the entrepreneurship community and entrepreneurship
677. 01:04:10 education community in the past. And like one of the things that at the time everybody would say
678. 01:04:16 is fail forward fast, fail forward fast, fail forward fast, right? And he reframes this. And
679. 01:04:21 he basically is like, it's not fail fast. Try not to fail, right? Which is something that always
680. 01:04:27 bothered me. It's like, well, we're going to like, we're going to try to fail. But it's like, try not
681. 01:04:30 to fail. But it's the idea of recover quickly. And like there. Yeah. And that then he gets into the
682. 01:04:35 MVP stuff, which is always kind of bug me about that fail fast thing too, because MVP is not, you
683. 01:04:41 know, failing, shipping a bad version of something. It's finding that balance between the speed and
684. 01:04:46 the quality. Yeah. So so I really like this idea of like, instead of fail forward fast, it's
685. 01:04:52 recover quickly from inevitable failure, right? Like, like, it's going to happen.
686. 01:04:57 You don't want it to happen. If you can make it out without, you know, like without failing,
687. 01:05:01 great, like do that. Like that's what you want to do. But then when it happens, learn and recover
688. 01:05:05 quickly, learn and recover quickly. And I really like that, that reframing. Just to kind of give
689. 01:05:10 a summary or like a little bit of an overview of the chapter, he talks about three basic types
690. 01:05:14 of fail or sorry, three types of failure, basic, complex, intelligent. I'd never heard anybody
691. 01:05:18 pitch failure in that way. So yeah, like that. I think those were interesting. He gives you five
692. 01:05:23 rules for failing. Don't don't fail or quit before you actually fail. Don't don't fail to suck.
693. 01:05:30 Fail a lot. Fail fast. And then fail fail publicly. Right. So he gives you these ideas for so he he
694. 01:05:37 not only throws higher level, like meta thoughts about failure out there, but then he also like
695. 01:05:45 kind of says, okay, now when we fail, here's what we should do. Classify it as a type of failure.
696. 01:05:52 And then here are some things for that you don't want to do, you know, or that you want to do
697. 01:05:57 as it relates to failure. The the one I'll throw out here before I turn it back over to you for
698. 01:06:03 your for your thoughts, rejection therapy, try and fail 100 plus times that desensitize yourself
699. 01:06:08 from failure. Now this one I think is really, really interesting. Because again, he's not saying
700. 01:06:13 try to fail 100 times. He's saying try a bunch of things. You're going to fail a bunch of them.
701. 01:06:21 Sum that up to some big, large number of failures. And then just be like, okay,
702. 01:06:25 I'm still alive. Everything's fine. Like nothing broke majorly. And we're just going to keep
703. 01:06:30 plugging on and failure is going to be part of life. And I'm okay with it. Yeah. And he shared a
704. 01:06:35 story of I forget the person's name, but they basically were we're just going to try to get
705. 01:06:39 a whole bunch of nose. So they started asking for ridiculous things, like a ride in a cop car.
706. 01:06:45 And he walked into the donut shop, he wants five donuts in the shape of the Olympic rings. And he
707. 01:06:50 wants it for free. You know, and he was blown away that people actually started saying yes.
708. 01:06:56 Yeah, I think that I think that is that is powerful. That's sort of coupled with the one other thing
709. 01:07:05 that I got out of this is that the thing that keeps us from trying again is not failure itself.
710. 01:07:10 It's the fear of failure. It's the fear of hearing the no. And so, yeah, that's probably
711. 01:07:16 something that I could practice. I did not capture an action item from that specifically.
712. 01:07:21 But I can definitely see the benefits of that practice. Okay, so we've refamed failure. Now,
713. 01:07:28 let's go to lever seven and let's practice. So practice success leaves clues. So he's big on
714. 01:07:36 practice here. He's got three pillars of practice, the fundamentals, the process and the identity,
715. 01:07:41 10 principles of practice. And different to some of the other books we've read,
716. 01:07:47 I didn't feel like these like these principles, these lists or whatever were like listical styles,
717. 01:07:54 they were much more like just things to think about. Like as you're as you're thinking about
718. 01:07:57 this big idea of practice, or as you're thinking about this big idea of failure, here are some ways
719. 01:08:02 to, I don't know, operationalize maybe a maybe a word or just like, you know, like put a framework
720. 01:08:07 around it, which I really liked that it wasn't listically, it was more frameworky that, you know,
721. 01:08:14 it was valuable to me, but he's got these 10 principles of practice. So I'm not gonna, I don't
722. 01:08:18 want to go through them all that we can hit ones if you want to. Then I get an action item out of
723. 01:08:23 this chapter. So every day for 30 days straight, write down what you want and how you want to be
724. 01:08:31 commit to taking no longer than two minutes for this exercise. Just check your gut and spill spit
725. 01:08:36 out the answer every day, refine it, get clearer and take action towards your answer. So write down
726. 01:08:41 what you want and how you want to be. And I thought that was a really interesting,
727. 01:08:47 you know, action item to come out of, out of this chapter on practice.
728. 01:08:51 Yeah, that was the action item that he gives you at the end of the book.
729. 01:08:54 And I was kind of like, no, but when I read it, I was like, I wonder if Corey's gonna be.
730. 01:08:59 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Why didn't why didn't why'd you why'd you go now?
731. 01:09:03 Because it feels to me like a different path towards a life theme.
732. 01:09:08 Ah, okay. Okay. And I feel like I've got the clarity of that already. But I think that that's
733. 01:09:15 a cool way of framing it. And that probably feels a little bit more approachable. I don't
734. 01:09:19 think that gets you all the way there. But it definitely helps you. It helps create,
735. 01:09:24 it helps move you in the right direction. I like this, this chapter a lot. I also have
736. 01:09:30 an issue with this chapter because he talks about deliberate practice. And he mentions
737. 01:09:34 Anders Ericsson. And Anders Ericsson wrote the book Peak, which I really liked that book.
738. 01:09:41 He also kind of attributes Anders Ericsson with the idea of the 10,000 hours to become a master.
739. 01:09:49 And I didn't, you know, in the moment go back and look at this, but that feels off to me.
740. 01:09:55 Because having read Peak, the whole idea there is that how you practice matters. And I think he
741. 01:10:01 even talks about how the 10,000 hours is a myth. I think Malcolm Gladwell is the one who talked
742. 01:10:07 about that with the violinists. Now it becomes 10,000 hours to become a master. But I believe
743. 01:10:12 in that book, Anders Ericsson kind of blows that up by saying, you know, if they just go in a room
744. 01:10:16 and they practice sloppy or whatever, they're disengaged, they're not going to reach that level
745. 01:10:20 of proficiency. And actually, if you're deliberate about your practice, you can get to a level of
746. 01:10:24 mastery much quicker than the 10,000 hours. Now I could be totally off with that. I read that book
747. 01:10:29 years ago, but that's the thing that sticks with me from that. So I feel like it's a little bit
748. 01:10:34 misattributed here. And the 10,000 hours idea in general that he's talking about how you really
749. 01:10:40 need to practice is a little bit misguided. It really doesn't take away from his point.
750. 01:10:46 It really just stuck out to me because I have all of this context from other books that I've read.
751. 01:10:52 By the only person on the planet who's like, I was gonna say, like, I read it and I'm familiar
752. 01:10:59 with what you're referencing, but it didn't bother me. Like, not at all. Like, I didn't know about it.
753. 01:11:03 You know, one sounds like, all right, whatever. Yeah, so there's that. But the other thing that
754. 01:11:09 really stands out to me from this, and I love this, and is a big reason why I feel like me and
755. 01:11:15 Chase Jarvis should be friends. He mentions that imagination plus action equals identity.
756. 01:11:22 And this isn't the second time in this book where I feel like he's talking about something that I
757. 01:11:26 talk about. But I like the way that he frames this better. So I actually have my PKM stack framework.
758. 01:11:32 And when I went to Boise and I recorded those videos, I reworked that framework because the top
759. 01:11:37 level I actually changed it this time to identity. And the way that I talk about that, just real
760. 01:11:42 briefly, the PKM stack framework, you got information at the bottom level stuff you don't have to do
761. 01:11:47 anything with. Then there's the ideas. Those are things that you could potentially do something
762. 01:11:51 with you got to figure out which ones are worth taking action on above that is the actions level.
763. 01:11:54 If you live a default life, you just are exposed to all this information that people
764. 01:11:58 throw at you, you know, that determines the quantity and the quality of ideas that you have and the
765. 01:12:03 actions of projects you engage with. Not happy with the results, change the process, start from
766. 01:12:07 the top, which is the identity. And that's the vision and the values. And as I've been talking
767. 01:12:13 through this with people, I'm explaining this is like, this is anchored in who you are, but also
768. 01:12:22 who you want to become. So my life theme cohort that we're going through right now, one of the
769. 01:12:28 steps in there is help people create an image of their ideal future. What would it look like
770. 01:12:34 if you had an abundance of life? So think big and then act small, how can you start living out
771. 01:12:40 pieces of that ideal future right now and moving in that direction? And he very succinctly describes
772. 01:12:48 what I've been trying to tell people to do in that life theme cohort. Use your imagination,
773. 01:12:52 then take action on it. And then that becomes your identity. So that is the thing, you know,
774. 01:12:58 he's talking about habits in this book too. I think that's not in this chapter that might have
775. 01:13:01 been a previous chapter, the identity based habits in this chapter. It's in this chapter.
776. 01:13:06 Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Identity is an incredibly powerful alignment tool for shaping our habits.
777. 01:13:10 Yeah. So he leads to atomic habits by James Clear and great book. But I really like just that formula.
778. 01:13:17 Imagination plus action equals identity. And I feel like framed that way. It's exciting,
779. 01:13:26 at least to me, it's like my identity. Yeah, there are, you know, there's, there's, there's a history
780. 01:13:35 there. And there is decisions that I've made that have created the, the, the environment that I find
781. 01:13:43 myself in. But it's not set in stone. It's sort of like, I was watching back to the future the
782. 01:13:51 other day when I was sick. And then the third one, you know, Marty's girlfriend comes back with the
783. 01:13:57 note from the future. And he's like, it's erased. And Doc's like, of course it's erased. No one's
784. 01:14:01 future has been written. Yeah. You know, that that's the kind of picture I get with this. And it feels
785. 01:14:06 very enabling. I feel like it's exciting to me. And I hope that, you know, at the end of this book,
786. 01:14:12 this is the perfect place to give people permission to go change their future.
787. 01:14:18 Now, and he, I mean, he doubles, triples, quadruples down on that. This entire book has been in
788. 01:14:23 preparation to make you aware and give you a not so gentle nudge in the direction of your
789. 01:14:27 dreams. So he basically, I love that he like basically expresses it so clearly. He's like, I,
790. 01:14:33 the whole thing I've been doing right now is for this right here to hit you with this right here.
791. 01:14:38 The last thing I have on this chapter is the my Angelou, the noun verb thing. It is in this
792. 01:14:45 chapter in order to be the noun she my Angelou did the verb. So she wanted to be a writer. So what
793. 01:14:52 did she do? She wrote, you know, and it's like, that's a really cool succinct way for me to think
794. 01:14:58 about if I want to be, boom, I need to that thing, like I need to do that thing. I just really like
795. 01:15:06 that. So just a point of clarification on how brilliant Clay Herbert is, like that is, you know,
796. 01:15:14 what we should be thinking about as individuals, right? So Clay Herbert was talking about as a
797. 01:15:20 marketer positioning your service or your product. It's really when someone asks you,
798. 01:15:26 or comes to your sales page trying to figure out what are you doing, you know, as the trusted guide.
799. 01:15:32 I help people and you can define people. So that's like a blank that you fill in. So for me,
800. 01:15:38 maybe it's, you know, aspiring creators verb there now. Yeah. Okay. So like they want to do the verb,
801. 01:15:48 they want to be the noun and then do the verb, right? But you help these people. So you make it
802. 01:15:54 super clear. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm doing a bad job describing this, but when I heard
803. 01:15:58 them describe it, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that is so simple. Yeah. I'm writing this down right now,
804. 01:16:04 because I think it's really interesting verb there now, right? That's what you said. I help blank
805. 01:16:09 verb there now. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. That's really cool. Okay. So we have just finished the
806. 01:16:16 seven levers. Unless you have anything else, Mike, I didn't want to. Okay. So now there is a like,
807. 01:16:23 I don't know, three page, four page, something conclusion. I don't have anything to say on the
808. 01:16:29 conclusion. I don't know if you do or not. I don't know. I think two points maybe. One of the things
809. 01:16:36 he says is that the unique life that you have lived has created a unique point of view. And I
810. 01:16:42 think that when it comes to never playing it safe, that means that your career path should be unique
811. 01:16:50 as well. Doesn't mean it has to be completely original. No one's ever done this thing before,
812. 01:16:56 but how you go about it should be original and you should be creative in how you do the work that
813. 01:17:02 you do. So I guess, you know, just kind of think about about what is the unique perspective that
814. 01:17:11 that you bring to the work that you do. And then also he says that life is a game where we only
815. 01:17:17 ever play against ourselves. I think that there's a lot of temptation to compare yourself to other
816. 01:17:24 people. When you do that, you kind of enter into this scarcity mindset and view success as a zero
817. 01:17:33 sum game. I think that is not accurate. I think just because somebody else has had success doing a
818. 01:17:43 thing does not in any way diminish the amount of success that I can potentially have doing the
819. 01:17:51 exact same thing because I'm going to do it differently. If I had been there first and done the thing,
820. 01:17:58 you know, my version of success would look different than whoever I tend to compare myself to. So I
821. 01:18:05 don't know, it's a good a good exhortation at the end. But yeah, there's there's not a whole lot here,
822. 01:18:11 which I'm kind of actually glad for. I was sort of expecting here's a rehash of the seven different
823. 01:18:17 lovers and, you know, it was unnecessary and it's not there. So that's a good thing. Yeah, I remember
824. 01:18:22 reading it going, okay, that was good. And then it was done. And I was like, okay, I'm glad I'm
825. 01:18:25 glad it's done. So action items, I have three. No, I sorry, I have four that come out of this. So
826. 01:18:32 the one is the one might gave me as part of the pro show. So I need to take something that I've
827. 01:18:38 written and I need to publish it online. Now I'm going to roll this into the book and I'm going to
828. 01:18:42 say this is practice. So I'm going to do practice with this. So take something I've written and I
829. 01:18:48 have to publish it somewhere online. Okay, my next one is, what's my thing? Like, so trying to figure
830. 01:18:53 out, you know, what's what's the thing? What's the one thing that I want to, I want to talk about?
831. 01:18:59 Then, and I would say, what's the one thing not as a professor? Because that that will define that
832. 01:19:06 better. Okay, then what's the one thing that excites me? And what does that mean? So what's the
833. 01:19:10 one thing that excites me? What's that mean? And you think about that? Okay, my last one would be,
834. 01:19:13 then, every day for 30 days straight, I need to write down what I want and how I want to be.
835. 01:19:21 And that will be the hardest one for me, like, because remembering to do it every day for 30 days,
836. 01:19:27 that'll be the hardest one for me and actually doing it.
837. 01:19:30 Yeah, this, I would encourage you to, like, create a note where you collect all these. So I don't know
838. 01:19:36 where you're planning on doing it. Maybe it's just like, you got a paper journal or something,
839. 01:19:39 no card at your desk, whatever, but make sure that you save those because it'd be cool to see how
840. 01:19:42 it changes throughout the 30 days. Okay, Mike, what are your action items?
841. 01:19:47 All right, I have three action items. One is to create a short list of people whose opinion
842. 01:19:52 of me really matters. The second one is to have an answer for the question. What's your thing?
843. 01:20:01 And then the third one is to figure out what I am going to do for fun.
844. 01:20:06 And I would add to this, I think, have a plan to do this regularly. I hesitate to add that to the
845. 01:20:14 action item, but I feel like that's really where this is successful or not, is if I figure out when
846. 01:20:18 I'm going to do this. So this could be, you know, more board games, video games, whatever.
847. 01:20:27 It's toying around and buying a Steam Deck because they had a Black Friday sale. I did not,
848. 01:20:32 but I'm proud of you. Now I kind of wish maybe I would have.
849. 01:20:36 Yeah, I don't know. I got to find something though that's just like not productive in the least.
850. 01:20:41 Okay. All right. And then report back to me. I'm intrigued to see what you pick. I have no
851. 01:20:45 idea what you're going to pick. I really have no idea what you're going to tell me there.
852. 01:20:49 Okay. All right. So now let's move into style and rating my book. So I'll start with with style
853. 01:20:54 and rating. So I like the structure. I like the style of the book. I thought it laid out well.
854. 01:21:02 I think the seven levers was a good way to organize it. I like the integration of stories
855. 01:21:09 and the stories I felt like were appropriate and they weren't, you know, kind of forced or,
856. 01:21:17 you know, too long, too short, anything like that. Like I thought they did a good job supporting
857. 01:21:21 the book. I like the mix between some of the framework, theoretical, kind of like more meta
858. 01:21:27 stuff and then some of the action item type stuff. I thought you got a good balance through there.
859. 01:21:33 There wasn't really a point in this book where I was like, oh my goodness. Like I'm just so tired
860. 01:21:39 of listening to this. There was a little bit of what he calls out and we talked about this a
861. 01:21:47 little bit earlier in the show or at the beginning of the show, right? There was a little book where
862. 01:21:50 he calls out like, hey, don't immediately write yourself off. Like don't immediately say like,
863. 01:21:54 this isn't for me. And you know, blah, blah. What's interesting about that, and this is,
864. 01:21:58 I think my biggest hang up with the book or my biggest struggle with the book is the book's
865. 01:22:02 called Never Play It Safe. And he talks about safety early on, but then I don't get a ton of
866. 01:22:08 tie to like safety throughout most of the rest of the book, except for maybe the failure chapter.
867. 01:22:14 So it's like, I feel like the title of the book and then the content of the book don't really
868. 01:22:20 match up like super, super well for me. I don't think it's terrible. Like I don't think it's like
869. 01:22:26 this egregious thing where it was like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that's why I actually
870. 01:22:30 titled this book because it's not anything like the content of the book. But at the same time,
871. 01:22:34 I just don't think it does. I don't have a better title. I don't know what I would have
872. 01:22:38 titled it. I like the seven levers. I think that's fine. I like the safety chapter or like the safety
873. 01:22:46 section where he's kind of framing this. I just don't know if I think it's as clean from the title,
874. 01:22:51 the whole way through the book as it would be. So like that's that's a knock I'm going to give it
875. 01:22:56 from a from a style rating standpoint. Then now I'm going to get into the the one where
876. 01:23:01 I just think this is very, very different for someone who has four, five, you know,
877. 01:23:08 however many children, right? Like I just think it has not started and exited like multiple companies,
878. 01:23:14 right? Like I just think it's different. Like I know, Mike, you you tried to you tried to correct
879. 01:23:20 me early on in the show and you're going to probably try to correct me again and I'm totally okay with
880. 01:23:24 that. I just think it's different. Like I and I think there was there wasn't enough acknowledgement
881. 01:23:33 of that that like the where you're at in life might change the way these things work. That being
882. 01:23:38 said, I don't think it impacts any of the frameworks. I don't think it impacts any of the chapters.
883. 01:23:42 I still think you get a lot of value out of the chapters. I think this book is good for anybody
884. 01:23:46 who reads it to get good valuable things out of there about thinking about work, thinking about
885. 01:23:53 creativity, thinking about life, thinking about safety and how those things kind of blend together.
886. 01:24:00 But I wanted more of an acknowledgement of like different life phases or styles or choices and how
887. 01:24:07 that how that would play into it. So all of that being said, from from that standpoint, I give this
888. 01:24:13 book a four out of five, right? I think it was good. I think your benefit your benefit you have a
889. 01:24:19 benefit of reading it or it's beneficial to be read. I think it's good for the bookworm audience. I
890. 01:24:23 think they'll get a lot out of it. But there are a couple things there that knock it down to a four
891. 01:24:27 for me. All right. Well, I will disagree with the stage of life comment that you made at the
892. 01:24:38 beginning. I understand. Because I feel like I've gone through it myself. I think that this is an
893. 01:24:46 interesting book because the this could totally just be my own personal journey that I went through.
894. 01:24:55 But the way I read this without him explicitly saying it is whatever you have been doing up
895. 01:25:01 until this point is likely wrong and you should rethink everything. Do you think that's fair?
896. 01:25:07 Because you're in a totally different situation having read this. And I think it did not have
897. 01:25:11 that impact on you. And I don't think it necessarily has to. But I think that's fair. I think that's
898. 01:25:18 that's kind of who he's I think that's kind of who he's writing it towards. I think that's fair.
899. 01:25:21 I think it's a very fair statement. Okay. So I don't know if that's good or bad.
900. 01:25:27 On the one hand, I feel like you don't want to just tell that person, hey, you should probably
901. 01:25:35 quit your job. But also on the other hand, I feel a little bit more emboldened recently.
902. 01:25:43 And I've I've seen other people talking about this, like the one that comes to mind for me is
903. 01:25:50 Paul Millard with the pathless path and and good work was kind of alluding to that too. And
904. 01:25:55 I think he would be more direct and say it more strongly be like, hey, maybe you should just chuck
905. 01:26:00 your job. You know, I feel like Chase Jarvis is playing it safe with the wording and never play
906. 01:26:06 it safe. Interesting, very interesting. And I don't know that that is necessarily the case.
907. 01:26:15 I think that there are definitely pros and cons to that. The pro is that I feel you get a more
908. 01:26:22 general book that has seven different lovers that you can apply in a lot of a lot more broadly in
909. 01:26:29 terms of context. The negative of that, I think, is that the message loses some of its potency.
910. 01:26:40 And where he is, he's probably trying to write a book that is going to sell more copies.
911. 01:26:48 Maybe the first book that he writes, you know, that's the one where he really just
912. 01:26:52 sinks his whole heart into it. This is the message I really want to get out into the world. But it
913. 01:26:56 seems like your follow up books, those are the ones that, especially if you're going through a
914. 01:27:00 publisher, they're going to try and encourage you to make it, you know, more broadly palatable
915. 01:27:05 to more audiences. That's my not having worked with a publisher before impression of how these
916. 01:27:14 things would go. I really like his style. I really like his stories. I agree that, you know, he's
917. 01:27:23 talking about they don't have kids, but they have a dog and he says it's not the same as a kid,
918. 01:27:28 but sort of the language he uses that you can tell like he's the one that the dog parent, you know,
919. 01:27:33 they have the bumper sticker. And that makes it a little bit less relatable to me. But I don't know,
920. 01:27:41 there's some really good stuff in here. The way that he talks through it is really good. I have
921. 01:27:46 some nitpicks with some different things. And I feel like there is a different version of this
922. 01:27:52 that would have come together even more solidly to support a specific point that I'm not sure he
923. 01:27:57 wants to make. So do I hold that against him? I don't know, probably not. I don't think this is a
924. 01:28:04 five star book. I think there are some things in here that he sort of eludes to these powerful
925. 01:28:07 concepts that you can totally go much deeper in. And you know, that's, and that's where
926. 01:28:13 if he's just focused on, you know, here's how affinity based habits is going to help you transition
927. 01:28:18 from the soul sucking day job to living your passion or whatever. It's more, I don't know,
928. 01:28:26 that feels more like, well, this is a unique message. And I want to lean into every word that
929. 01:28:31 you're saying as opposed to, oh, you're talking about identity based habits now, I've already read
930. 01:28:37 something on that, that makes sense. Because he mentions a lot of other books in here that speak
931. 01:28:42 to these different topics. So I feel like the way that you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna do
932. 01:28:46 like a general book like this, where you mentioned a whole bunch of these other topics, where there
933. 01:28:50 are whole books written on them and try to bring them together, you've really got to have a really
934. 01:28:56 specific way that you are argument that you are making with this. And that's not to say that never
935. 01:29:03 play it safe is not a specific argument. I think that there's a lot of good stuff in here and it'll
936. 01:29:09 challenge anybody in any situation. But I think you're kind of exhibit A for why he should have
937. 01:29:15 maybe doubled down on some stuff. Because you're just kind of like, oh, well, yeah, maybe not for me,
938. 01:29:20 because he doesn't really get it. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. You know, force people to do something
939. 01:29:25 with it. You know, if he says, if you follow the traditional path, you have been living a lie your
940. 01:29:32 entire life. And what you really need to do is quit your job and go do whatever, because, you know,
941. 01:29:39 all the things I have listed in my notes, you have more power than you realize you can, you have more
942. 01:29:44 time and you realize just do the thing you really want to do. Now someone like you, Corey has to
943. 01:29:50 wrestle with like, do I believe him or do I not believe him? Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. And I
944. 01:29:56 feel like you should make people make that choice. You're like 90% of the way there. Yeah. Just say
945. 01:30:03 the quiet part out loud. Yeah. So yeah, I think, but I, yeah, so I was going into it at the beginning,
946. 01:30:10 like, oh man, this is totally gonna be a five star book. Start a loss of momentum and steam as we
947. 01:30:14 went. I still think it's really good. And I would encourage everybody in the bookworm audience to
948. 01:30:18 read it. If for no other reason, I mean, you may go through it and be like, yeah, totally not for me.
949. 01:30:22 But I still think it's entertaining. I still think there's some things that he'll give you to chew on,
950. 01:30:26 and I still still think it'll be, it'll be fun. And you get a lot out of the stories that he shares.
951. 01:30:31 So I'll join you at the four stars. Okay. So a double four star.
952. 01:30:37 All right. So Mike, what are you thinking about for the next book?
953. 01:30:43 The next one I'm really nervous about. We're going to read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
954. 01:30:50 And the reason I'm nervous about this one is I have a feeling I'm not going to like it.
955. 01:30:56 Okay. All right. Have you started it yet? Have you picked it up yet? I've tried.
956. 01:31:04 Yeah, I cracked it up in this morning. And just the very introduction on like who Marcus Aurelius
957. 01:31:10 was, like he's held up as this gold standard, stoic philosopher, where all of this productivity
958. 01:31:18 wisdom comes from. And I think there's probably going to be some good stuff in there. But I don't
959. 01:31:23 know, like, I just don't like that framing, even at the beginning of the version that I've got.
960. 01:31:28 I understood. I understood. Mike, I'm trying to find it right now. Which version are we reading? Ray
961. 01:31:33 something? But I can't remember the last name. No, it's a last name is Hayes. It's got like a
962. 01:31:42 picture of a burger from Gregory Hayes. Gregory Hayes. Okay. So the one that I have, I have that
963. 01:31:47 version. I also have that same translation, but I have the fancy Ryan holiday. Okay. So if you're
964. 01:31:53 reading along, we're going to be doing the Gregory Hayes version. I personally have no idea how
965. 01:31:58 different the versions are. But I know that there are like a bunch of them. Like there are a ton of
966. 01:32:02 translations of this and versions of this. So yeah, because it was written in Latin, I think. Yeah.
967. 01:32:10 So that's another reason I'm nervous about it is like, how well is this going to translate?
968. 01:32:15 I'm excited. I mean, I'm excited, even if it's a complete, like, absolute bomb. And I don't think
969. 01:32:19 it's going to be, but like, I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued for it. All right. And then I got the
970. 01:32:24 next book. So the next book is Simple Marketing for Smart People by Billy Broaz. And it's also
971. 01:32:33 got a tie to Tiago Forte. So they're actually he's Tiago's marketing guy. Okay. So they're,
972. 01:32:42 yeah, so they're co authors on this. And I mean, full disclosure, the reason why I want to read
973. 01:32:46 this one is because I want to learn more about marketing. And Mike has read this one before.
974. 01:32:52 And when I pitched it to, he's like, yes, definitely. This would be a great book for both you and
975. 01:32:57 the bookworm audience. And I was like, all right, cool, we're in. So before you completely write
976. 01:33:02 this off, and you don't want to listen to that one because it's a marketing book, I will tell you,
977. 01:33:05 this is not your standard marketing book. It's really more of a messaging and communication book.
978. 01:33:13 And he has a framework that we'll talk through for in terms of like, how do you actually help
979. 01:33:18 people? We started talked about some of those same things even today with like the Clay Herbert
980. 01:33:21 stuff. It is so much not a marketing book in that I read through the whole thing. I loved it so much.
981. 01:33:31 I wanted to know what else he has done. And he mentions very briefly, this larger like course
982. 01:33:39 that he does, but he doesn't give you the name. I spent hours trying to find the course that he
983. 01:33:46 does as a way to go deeper into this stuff. Why would he know? That's how like not pushy
984. 01:33:54 salesy it is, which is what most people will think of when it comes to marketing. All right,
985. 01:33:59 so this is, this is, yeah, you should listen to this one, probably pick this one up and read it
986. 01:34:04 too, just for the fact that it's going to be so radically different from what you are expecting.
987. 01:34:08 Okay, good, good, good. Mike, do you have any gap books for between now and next time?
988. 01:34:15 I do. I feel a little bit bad showing this as a gap book, but I shared something on a blue sky,
989. 01:34:22 which by the way, we mentioned that we're a blue sky. The reason that I shared about this gap book
990. 01:34:29 was that you are making an appearance in a screencast online video module.
991. 01:34:35 I am? Yeah, cool. I was showing how to, I was showing how to mention people using the app
992. 01:34:41 croissant. Oh, yeah. And then I searched for you because you can search for the person's name,
993. 01:34:46 and I knew your whole name wasn't going to be in there. So I was like, oh, well, let's cut it off
994. 01:34:50 and look for Hickson. Okay, that's not there now, you know, CA. And then with croissant,
995. 01:34:54 it allows you to cross post to blue sky, mastodon and threads. So it shows like all the different
996. 01:34:59 options and you like tag the, you select the options and then you can actually post it
997. 01:35:03 to three different places and have the app mentions be the correct app mentions in those three different
998. 01:35:10 places. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's real cool. Yeah, it's it's a cool app. Mac Stories just
999. 01:35:14 named it like the, the app of the year, I'm pretty sure for their Mac story selects or whatever.
1000. 01:35:20 So anyways, I mentioned this book. I, I don't want to sound fancy, but one of the benefits of having
1001. 01:35:29 podcasts is that occasionally people who write books that I want to read will reach out.
1002. 01:35:37 Anne Lour Le Comff wrote a book called Tiny Experiments and her marketing director reached out to us
1003. 01:35:44 and scheduled an interview for the focus podcast. So we had that interview and it was amazing.
1004. 01:35:50 And we're going to release that when the book comes out.
1005. 01:35:55 Prior to doing those interviews, we always ask for copies of the book because I want to read
1006. 01:35:59 through the whole thing before I talk to the author. So I did. And this book, people go pre-order
1007. 01:36:06 this book right now. Okay, let's blow this thing up and give Anne a great launch because
1008. 01:36:14 this is a phenomenal book. I think you could probably already know what I'm going to rate it when we
1009. 01:36:20 actually talk about it, but we do need to talk about this on bookworm. It's not going to be out
1010. 01:36:25 until February or March, I think. But the, basically what we got was the finished manuscript. Now they,
1011. 01:36:32 they got to get them printed and all that kind of stuff. Tiny Experiments by Anne Lour Le Comff
1012. 01:36:38 is one that everyone who listens to bookworm should read. Man, I was thinking after I read
1013. 01:36:46 this and like, I want to, I want to, because it's end of the year, I was thinking about like those
1014. 01:36:49 top books that I read this year, I want this to be the book of the year, but I can't name it the
1015. 01:36:54 book of the year. It's not out yet. It's so good. It's so good. So yeah, go pre-order this one.
1016. 01:37:02 And let's blow this up. And like, how did you learn about it again?
1017. 01:37:05 I actually have followed Anne Lour for a long time. And I went back through my email and I
1018. 01:37:10 realized that we had actually scheduled her to be on the Focus Podcast back in like episode 70 or
1019. 01:37:14 something. She got super sick. After that, she sort of got successful and we lost touch and she
1020. 01:37:20 never came on the show. I'm a paying member for her community, the Nest Labs. And so when I heard
1021. 01:37:26 she was going to write a book, I was like, this is going to be good regardless. But it's so far
1022. 01:37:31 exceeded my expectations. And she is just a super smart, super thoughtful person. Like,
1023. 01:37:39 this is a good one. And it's a productivity book, but it's a breath of fresh air in the
1024. 01:37:47 productivity space. I kind of felt a little bit bad going through this one because Chase Jarvis
1025. 01:37:50 mentions tiny experiments a couple times, right? But she's got a whole different take on it. It's
1026. 01:37:57 sort of the same idea. But you know, she does a great job of putting this one together. So.
1027. 01:38:02 All right. So I have a I got to stop pumping pumping a book that's not out. What are you
1028. 01:38:07 reading? Yeah, so my so my gap book would be a book called Praying like Months Living Like Fools
1029. 01:38:12 by Tyler Staten. As you might be able to guess, it's about prayer. So I thought that was an
1030. 01:38:18 interesting one that popped up and I'm taking taking a look at it. So that concludes our show.
1031. 01:38:24 Let's put let's put never played safe on the shelf. Let's pick up more meditations by Marcus
1032. 01:38:31 Aurelius. Okay, for those of you who are interested in more, we do a pro show before in this pro
1033. 01:38:37 show, Mike gave me a coaching session on my creative endeavors or possible creative endeavors.
1034. 01:38:43 It was a ton of fun to to see him do a tiny experiment on on coaching from a creative standpoint.
1035. 01:38:50 But you also get the bootleg version of the show, which gives you essentially the show from the
1036. 01:38:57 moment we we start the zoom call. It gives it to you early. You get a book a wallpaper, a bookworm
1037. 01:39:03 wallpaper. If you're interested in those things, you can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm. It's seven
1038. 01:39:11 dollars a month and that'll get you access to the the bootleg early and then the pro show,
1039. 01:39:16 which has the additional content where we pick a pretty random topic and we talk about it before
1040. 01:39:22 before the main show. So thanks for listening and pick up meditations by Marcus Aurelius for our
1041. 01:39:30 next episode.