227: Lean Learning by Pat Flynn

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1. 00:00:00 Okay, so I have an action item from this book that I've already implemented before we even recorded Bookworm.
2. 00:00:07 This may be a record for me.
3. 00:00:09 Me too! Me too!
4. 00:00:10 We both did an action item from this book. That's amazing.
5. 00:00:14 So mine has nothing to do with the content of the book actually.
6. 00:00:18 We'll get to this when we get into the book, but at the very end.
7. 00:00:23 The Pat talks about the he's got an accompanying course and then that got me thinking,
8. 00:00:28 "Oh, a smart passive income, he's got this community."
9. 00:00:31 I wonder what he does for pricing with his community.
10. 00:00:33 And so I looked and he's got monthly pricing that's billed quarterly.
11. 00:00:39 And I don't know why, but I had just kind of written off that model a long time ago.
12. 00:00:44 But then recently I've been thinking about what am I going to do with the library.
13. 00:00:49 And I realized that having people pay for a yearly subscription to a premium membership site
14. 00:00:57 that they don't have any experience with is kind of a big ask.
15. 00:01:01 Well, you're maybe laughing and be like, "Well, duh, Mike."
16. 00:01:04 But yeah, it just never clicked for me.
17. 00:01:06 I would have never thought about that.
18. 00:01:07 And I even went and did the exact same thing you did.
19. 00:01:10 And I went to his smart passive income site and I was like browsing around and stuff.
20. 00:01:13 And I saw the quarterly thing.
21. 00:01:15 And I still never thought, "Oh, Mike should do this."
22. 00:01:17 Right? Like, it never popped into my head.
23. 00:01:19 So no, I don't think you're dumb at all.
24. 00:01:21 Well, I have done this.
25. 00:01:23 I have implemented the change already as we are recording this.
26. 00:01:27 Whoa.
27. 00:01:28 So the library is now $49 a month or paid quarterly.
28. 00:01:34 So $147 a quarter.
29. 00:01:37 Nice.
30. 00:01:37 And then there's the VIP tier, which is more.
31. 00:01:41 But basically for that $49 a month, it's all of my courses.
32. 00:01:45 It's all the cohorts.
33. 00:01:46 It's life HQ.
34. 00:01:48 It's the monthly workshops.
35. 00:01:51 It's the weekly accountability, the personal retreat sprints.
36. 00:01:56 And I feel like you go to the sales page and you see $49 a month
37. 00:02:00 and you're like, "Oh, hey, actually, that's a good deal."
38. 00:02:03 But for whatever reason, it actually ends up being more than what I was charging annually.
39. 00:02:10 But it's just, it's much simpler and easier to grok, I feel.
40. 00:02:14 Plus you can now try it for three months.
41. 00:02:18 And you get life HQ, which, you know, that actually that's even cheaper than if you bought it directly.
42. 00:02:23 You're not going to get any of the updates outside of those three months.
43. 00:02:26 Obviously, unless you stay subscribed.
44. 00:02:28 But I don't know.
45. 00:02:29 So yeah, I'm doing that for like the standard.
46. 00:02:32 And then there's like the VIP, which has bi-weekly group, a small group coaching.
47. 00:02:36 And then a quarterly one on one hour long coaching call with me.
48. 00:02:42 So that's $149 a month, $447 a quarter.
49. 00:02:47 And I made that change to the website.
50. 00:02:50 It's live already and I feel so good about it.
51. 00:02:53 Well, I don't think you're going to lose anybody who is going to be a Europe person anyhow.
52. 00:02:58 I think you're mainly just going to gain the people who weren't willing to take that jump to the year.
53. 00:03:03 Yeah.
54. 00:03:04 And I guess, you know, if you're listening to the podcast and you are wishing that you could still get the annual one
55. 00:03:09 because it is a little bit cheaper, just reach out to me directly.
56. 00:03:11 I'm happy to send you that link.
57. 00:03:12 But I feel like this is a much lower barrier to entry for people, which is really what I'm after.
58. 00:03:17 I want to get a bunch of cool people in the library and I want to get some momentum around some of the live stuff
59. 00:03:23 that we're doing there.
60. 00:03:25 I feel like the live events are really where a lot of the magic happens.
61. 00:03:32 The more I do those, the more I enjoy them, the more I like them.
62. 00:03:35 And also, I feel like the more people get out of them than just consuming the information that's in the courses themselves.
63. 00:03:43 I wish that wasn't a thing.
64. 00:03:46 Like video courses are kind of my jam.
65. 00:03:48 I've been doing it for a while.
66. 00:03:50 Yeah.
67. 00:03:50 But the truth is people just don't go through them.
68. 00:03:53 So, yeah, it's a little bit of a pivot, I guess, with the library, but I wanted to call it out here because I'm pretty excited about it.
69. 00:04:00 And it was all inspired by looking at the web page for the smart passive income community.
70. 00:04:07 No, I think it was a good move.
71. 00:04:08 I think you should have done that.
72. 00:04:10 I mean, treat to see how it works out, right?
73. 00:04:13 So keep us updated on how that works out, but I think it was a good move.
74. 00:04:18 And then the fact that you're still saying, "Hey, if you still want the ear, just shoot me a note and I'll get you that link, too."
75. 00:04:25 Yeah.
76. 00:04:27 All right, so the other action items that we had from last time, I did not do so well.
77. 00:04:35 I mean, you were at a conference speaking, so, I mean, come on.
78. 00:04:38 Yeah, thanks for that out.
79. 00:04:40 But the truth is that I did not really make any progress on crafting a media diet.
80. 00:04:48 In fact, I may have made this worse by committing to do more live streams because as we mentioned in the Pro Show,
81. 00:04:57 there were people from e-cam at the Max.conference and I'm experimenting with shorts, I'm experimenting with these.
82. 00:05:03 We're going live on YouTube in addition to the Bookworm Live stuff that we do for Bookworm Patreon subscribers.
83. 00:05:10 And I'm kind of terrified by it.
84. 00:05:12 It's a world that I don't really understand, but also I'm convinced after talking with people specifically Doc Rock at Max stock that it's something I need to figure out.
85. 00:05:24 So I'm going to be applying lean learning with that, but that means that putting boundaries on my media was kind of a complete failure.
86. 00:05:36 I did think a little bit about the fake commute idea.
87. 00:05:41 Unfortunately, I didn't have any great ideas with it.
88. 00:05:45 As I was thinking about the fake commute, the best thing I can think of is making my coffee and bringing it with me to my desk and not drinking it until I sit down to work.
89. 00:05:59 And then at the end of the day, leaving my computer in my office and having an actual shutdown routine where I've cleared the decks and I'm disconnecting from work.
90. 00:06:15 I have a little bit of an idea of what that will look like, but I have failed miserably at it until this point.
91. 00:06:22 And I just got back from Max stock as we're recording this, there's a short turnaround on this episode because of that.
92. 00:06:30 And I feel like this is going to continue to fail as long as I feel behind like I am.
93. 00:06:38 I still just feel like I'm scrambling.
94. 00:06:41 And I know long term like I can't continue to do that.
95. 00:06:45 It's not sustainable, but it's where I'm at right now.
96. 00:06:48 And I got lots of projects that are coming up due or slightly overdue and I just got to finish them.
97. 00:06:55 So like that's that's not at me. And it means that it's hard to truly disconnect at a reasonable time every evening.
98. 00:07:03 This will be foreshadowing. And for anybody who's read the book, you'll know what I mean.
99. 00:07:07 It sounds like you're in need of a power 10 here pretty soon.
100. 00:07:11 Yes, I like that idea.
101. 00:07:14 That when you get yourself caught up. One comment on your media diet.
102. 00:07:19 I think there's a difference between you consuming media and you producing media.
103. 00:07:28 The question is how good are you at that, right?
104. 00:07:31 Because I think what you got out of Max stock is you need to produce more in different media.
105. 00:07:36 If you're good at not consuming it then or shutting it down and getting away from it, then I think that's a different thing.
106. 00:07:43 So you're right. Here's the problem.
107. 00:07:48 I'm realizing you cannot just throw stuff out into the digital ether.
108. 00:07:57 You have to engage with conversations.
109. 00:08:01 That doesn't mean that I want to constantly be checking text based social media.
110. 00:08:07 But it does mean that I do have to be going back and forth and engaging with the communities where I decide that I am actually going to hang out.
111. 00:08:15 So where am I going to hang out? I don't really know.
112. 00:08:17 The one I do know for sure is YouTube.
113. 00:08:19 But even YouTube traditionally I've gone into the YT studio app and I'll view the comments and respond that way.
114. 00:08:28 But Doc Rock was showing me how you can actually inside the YouTube app itself.
115. 00:08:33 If you are watching videos by other people and you are looking at comments that people have asked by other people,
116. 00:08:39 there's a button where you can open up the camera on your phone or you can go live and respond to that comment and stick it on the front of the video.
117. 00:08:49 That is the lowest friction way for me to make shorts.
118. 00:08:54 Is that?
119. 00:08:56 And then it takes the person that left the comment, it takes the person whose video it's on and so I need to try that.
120. 00:09:04 But that requires me to be watching YouTube videos as well as making them.
121. 00:09:08 I've never felt more disconnected from a technology in my life than I do with YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and stuff.
122. 00:09:19 And I need to hire a young person to be like, "Okay, come show me all the tricks to this."
123. 00:09:27 Because I think Pat even mentions this in this book that he hired somebody to do what, Fortnite?
124. 00:09:32 Teach him how to play Fortnite or something?
125. 00:09:34 I need to do that with the newer social medias because I don't care enough to learn it on my own.
126. 00:09:40 And to dedicate that much time to it, I need the Cliff Notes version of "I want to create things and I want people to see them."
127. 00:09:48 How do I do this?
128. 00:09:49 Tell me, oh youngster, what this looks like.
129. 00:09:53 I'm an old man, I'm an old man, Mike, I'm an old man.
130. 00:09:56 Me too.
131. 00:09:58 Okay, am I up?
132. 00:10:00 Yeah.
133. 00:10:01 How'd you do that?
134. 00:10:02 So my first one was basically think about a most goal.
135. 00:10:08 And I thought about this and I reviewed what the most goal was and all that stuff and I said, "Nope, I'm good.
136. 00:10:14 I don't want to do that right now."
137. 00:10:16 Possibly and primarily because my most goal or the idea of my most goals was superseded by stuff out of Pat Flynn's book, stuff out of lean learning.
138. 00:10:28 So I kind of let that one go and said, "You know, I'm not doing that one. I'm okay with that."
139. 00:10:33 So I don't know what you want to call that and I'd call it red.
140. 00:10:36 I didn't do it, but I also am okay with the fact that I didn't do it.
141. 00:10:39 The second one was revisit my cell phone use. Can I make it less?
142. 00:10:42 The answer is yes. And what I did was I was able to identify where I can make it less.
143. 00:10:48 So it's before bed and right before getting up, like getting out of bed.
144. 00:10:56 If I simply get rid of the phone when I'm like in the, you know, the veg chill out time before I go to sleep and I get rid of the phone anywhere near prior to coffee, I'm good.
145. 00:11:10 Like, that will get rid of a ton of my cell phone, what I'll say is a ton of my wasted cell phone use.
146. 00:11:18 Because if I'm using the cell phone productively, I don't really care. I'm okay with that.
147. 00:11:22 But it's that silly wasted cell phone use. So that's that's that.
148. 00:11:27 Then the last one that I had was reintroduce planning into my week.
149. 00:11:33 I didn't reintroduce into the week yet. I reintroduced it into the organization of the activities.
150. 00:11:41 And that was probably because I got so much, I'm going to tell you kind of where I'm at on the book a little bit early, but I got so much out of this lean learning book.
151. 00:11:52 I don't know why. I didn't like read the description and think like, oh my gosh, this is going to like change my, change my world.
152. 00:11:58 I got so much stuff out of this book that it was like so relevant so fast that it was like, no, before I do these other things I need to do this, before I do these other things I need to do this.
153. 00:12:09 So I'm going to tell you that like I did not do my follow up items and I'm totally okay with that because what I did do, like I did do proactive things.
154. 00:12:21 It was just not the follow up items and I'm okay with that for this for this round.
155. 00:12:26 Wow, did not expect this to be that impactful for you, to be honest, just based on your experience in the academic world.
156. 00:12:40 I kind of thought maybe you would hate this book.
157. 00:12:43 No, not at all, not at all, not at all, not at all.
158. 00:12:46 Cool.
159. 00:12:47 I'm excited to talk about it.
160. 00:12:49 Yeah, let's get into it. So today's book is Lean Learning by Pat Flynn.
161. 00:12:58 Now, the reason that this came on my radar was that Pat Flynn spoke at Craft & Commerce and one of the things about Pat Flynn that kind of sets the stage for this book, what he talked about in that conference talk, was that he has grown an audience from nothing to over a million YouTube subscribers, not once but twice.
162. 00:13:27 The first time, which he talks a lot about in this book was with the Smart Passive Income brand.
163. 00:13:35 He's got a podcast that I've listened to a lot back in the day and the community that inspired my pricing change with the library.
164. 00:13:45 So we'll put a link to Smart Passive Income in the show notes and that basically is the landing page for everything that Pat does with that particular brand.
165. 00:13:54 But then he decided he wanted to do something fun with his kid, I believe, so he got into Pokemon and he grew a whole other channel.
166. 00:14:04 I forget what it's called. Is it Pokemon Monster? Something like that?
167. 00:14:09 It's got Monster in it somewhere. I don't remember exactly what it is though, but Monster's in there somewhere.
168. 00:14:13 Yeah, so it's like a Pokemon channel and it's completely different and it's something that he knew nothing about at the beginning.
169. 00:14:20 He just thought it would be fun and he applied a lot of the same principles and he grew that channel and has a huge following over there now to the point where actually he was sponsored.
170. 00:14:35 I remember last Thanksgiving during the football game at the, I don't know who the Lions were playing, but at Ford Field in Detroit, he went on the field in between quarters or at halftime or something and filmed himself opening up a pack of Pokemon cards.
171. 00:14:54 No way, that's crazy, but who sponsors something like that? It doesn't, it doesn't compute in my brain.
172. 00:15:06 But anyways, like two totally different things. There's no real knowledge transfer there other than trying to grow an audience from scratch.
173. 00:15:16 So you can't say like, well, he did it once. And so a lot of the stuff that he learned the last time he can apply here. No, he's got to relearn stuff from from scratch, essentially, which is why this, this book in particular is so interesting to me.
174. 00:15:30 It's lean learning how to achieve more by learning less.
175. 00:15:34 And the format of the book, there's an introduction, which is titled, you know too much. And then there are eight chapters and then a conclusion.
176. 00:15:42 So no sections. Yeah, just straightforward, you know, this chapter is on this, this chapter is on that, but there's no, I would argue there's no real system that's tying this all together.
177. 00:15:54 It's really just, this is all the stuff that I learned, which is kind of nice that lack of structure, I think works with the material this time around. It's just over 200 pages, but it's a pretty quick 200 pages.
178. 00:16:12 Yep. Not that there's a bunch of visuals or anything like that, but it's really tight. You get a sense for Pat's personality. There's definitely some dad jokes in there as you go.
179. 00:16:24 And yeah, I guess we can take this apart chapter by chapter, anything else about the book in general before we do that.
180. 00:16:32 No, I think I'm excited to get into it. So let's just roll into the introduction.
181. 00:16:38 All right. So the introduction, you know too much. And this is personally attacking me right from the beginning. Agreed.
182. 00:16:48 I felt I felt 100% attacked, Mike. Yeah, okay, good. So it's not just me. No.
183. 00:16:55 Yeah, the basic idea here is that we tend to overdo it on gathering the information before we actually do something. And hence the whole idea behind lean learning, which is learning the right information at the right time to solve the right problem.
184. 00:17:14 He talks about how adults in general tend to overthink things instead of making the simple decisions that would help move things forward. And I definitely fall into that.
185. 00:17:25 He does kind of lay the groundwork for how lean learning works, which is identify what you want to accomplish next, learn only what you need to move forward, implement what you've learned, review and repeat to refine the process to deepen understanding and skill.
186. 00:17:40 Now that in and of itself seems pretty straightforward. And I don't think that as it's defined would really contradict maybe the approach of the university life, you know, where you live.
187. 00:17:59 You know, that's a YouTuber. So I kind of figured that in the details, he would end up saying some things that maybe you're like, well, I agree in principle, but not really sure that that's how that gets applied.
188. 00:18:11 But yeah, this introduction, I think sets the stage pretty well.
189. 00:18:16 Yeah, so where you'll see me connect with this book really well as I went through a process when I was in grad school where we were helping people start companies. We were helping kids think about starting companies or open engineers think about starting
190. 00:18:32 companies and technology folks think about starting companies. So there was what was called the lean startup methodology. So lean has been part of my vocabulary now for, I mean, almost 15 years at this point.
191. 00:18:45 So I like I'm in with the lean idea lean came from manufacturing and just in time and in those places and then it got applied to the startup industry. And now he's applying it into learning, which is, which is really, really cool.
192. 00:18:59 So this resonates with me. It's always resonate with me. Now, I don't mean that it resonates with me in terms of I do this, because like when you said you were directly attacked, I'm directly attacked too in terms of, I think, well, I need to know, know, know, know, research, research, research, research, and then once I've done enough of that, I can actually go out and make a thing or do a thing or talk about a thing.
193. 00:19:22 And the reality is, I don't ever really reach a time where I feel like I know enough of that. So therefore, I don't lean into to action. He's got a statement in here. Action without information is chaos. I agree with that.
194. 00:19:37 If you're just acting randomly, it's chaotic. But information without action is a waste. And it's like, tag on it. Tag on it, Pat. Why do you have to do that to me? Basically, what you're telling me is there's a lot of areas of what I want to do and things I want to accomplish
195. 00:19:54 that I'm just wasting right now, because I'm collecting all of this and collecting all of this. And I'll tell you how far back this goes, Mike.
196. 00:20:00 Do you know Devynthink? Are you familiar with the software Devynthink? Oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, you want to talk about like a hoarders dream. I would take this and add it into Devynthink, and this and import it into Devynthink, and this and put it into Devynthink.
197. 00:20:13 And for those of you who don't know what Devynthink is, it's basically a database type software program that you can just import anything into. And then it's got some, it had some very early AI built into it to where when you did searches, it would find and reveal things.
198. 00:20:29 I would say better than most applications could do. So I would do this with Devynthink on the order of 15, 20 years ago. Like, I mean, maybe 15 years ago is more accurate. But it's like, I would start throwing things into Devynthink and expect it to like create these beautifully amazing things.
199. 00:20:47 And I was like, I never went back to the fact of Corey, you still have to do something with this. So he hooks me from the very introduction of this book with simply the idea of action, action, action.
200. 00:20:58 I think about the lean learning process where he says implement what you've learned. And I still, Mike, I still go, like, I still take that little deep breath in and go, but have I learned enough? Like, have I done enough to be able to do that, to be able to actually implement?
201. 00:21:15 So this is not something that I can solve just by reading 200 page book. Like, this is going to take a very big mindset shift in me. But I think he's right. Like, I really do think he's right.
202. 00:21:28 I agree. I think he's right. And I think that it goes maybe against the green a little bit because when do you get to the point where you actually have enough?
203. 00:21:48 I think he would say when you know what the next step is. That's all you really have to have figured out. Now go do something with it. And I remember hearing Omar Zenholm talk about why he stepped away from his role as a professor in university to create the $100 NBA. Are you familiar with that podcast program?
204. 00:22:10 Yeah, I am familiar with that. His moment of clarity came when he was trying to get things added to the curriculum that he was teaching. And the process took years. And he was frustrated with that to the point where he realized the things that I have submitted for changes. They're not live yet. And it's changed again.
205. 00:22:37 And I feel like that you don't have to be in a university setting to feel like, well, I don't have a real clean package for all of this information yet.
206. 00:22:51 That's the thing that holds me back a lot of times. I guess if I were to apply it in my own world, it's it's like creating digital courses. You know, that's my version of that. Yeah, I can crank out a digital course whenever I want. But still, it's kind of like I got to figure out how all the pieces fit together and what's the total transformation going to look like.
207. 00:23:12 It's probably why I'm so scared about the going live thing, but also probably why it's good for me because you just show up.
208. 00:23:20 How much do you think like trying to make evergreen content plays into this mic? Because like I think about making videos and making courses and you want those to be like evergreen.
209. 00:23:30 So right now you can hit it and it's new and it's interesting six months from now, a year from now, a year and a half from now, where when you do like a live stream, there's a chance that it's going to be less evergreen.
210. 00:23:43 Like there's a chance that it's going to be more of the moment. And you're going to notice that. And then my bigger question is, how much does that really matter because you're going to update your videos.
211. 00:23:55 And you're going to do those every year, every two years, whatever. I'd be shocked if you go two years without updating the video, unless it's a really good one.
212. 00:24:04 Yeah, and so that's the rub. I mean, even with smart passive income, Pat would probably tell you there is no such thing as truly passive income where you just set something up and it continues to print money for you.
213. 00:24:18 You have to go back and tweak the systems and update things and fix things. It's a constant process. Yes. So it's not what most people think of, but I think it's probably healthy and more accurate.
214. 00:24:35 Definitely beneficial for me to just recognize that that's the thing. And so if I have to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and just, you know, force myself to start showing up live.
215. 00:24:47 I think that's probably a net win, to be honest, because nothing is truly evergreen. That's really the answer to your question. Yeah, it is the answer.
216. 00:24:57 The thought is, well, I've made this and now it's done. Now I've got an asset that I can continue to reuse. And there is some truth to that.
217. 00:25:05 I do like the idea of creating long term assets as opposed to temporal things, which Jay Claus talked about this at Craft and Commerce a couple years ago, the sawdust problem because that was one of the things that somebody said, who was pretty smart at one point was share your sawdust and not just the final creation,
218. 00:25:24 but the stuff that you make as a residual of the process. And there's some value in that, but Jay was like, we have all this sawdust all over the place.
219. 00:25:32 Like, where's the quality? Which that is completely counter to what Pat's saying, isn't it? Like, am I right in saying that? Like he would. So Pat is saying on some level, share the sawdust and Jay Claus would be saying, we have too much sawdust.
220. 00:25:49 Am I wrong? I don't know. I think it's more nuanced than that. And I don't think it's in direct competition, or they're not directly contrary.
221. 00:25:59 But yeah, I don't know. I think lean learning as Pat talks about here really isn't just make a bunch of sawdust and eventually it'll be glued together into something valuable.
222. 00:26:12 But recognizing that you have to do a lot of iterations of something before you are able to make something valuable.
223. 00:26:21 Yeah, he's getting at it. And I don't remember if he mentions it in the book or not, but minimum viable product. I'm sure you've heard of this. That's a very common thing.
224. 00:26:28 He's really saying before you produce a widget that has 100 features and people only want to produce a widget that has one feature and then produce the next feature and then let your audience give you feedback and tell you, keep that one, get rid of that one, keep that one, get rid of that one.
225. 00:26:44 That is the lean process, like without a doubt, that is the lean product development and process development process.
226. 00:26:54 Yeah, exactly. So let's get into the first chapter here, which is really about inspiration overload.
227. 00:27:04 Now he defines inspiration overload as the abundance of potentially transformative sparks, making it difficult to decide which path to pursue.
228. 00:27:12 And I definitely see this in the PKM world with people trying to collect more and more information and really you have to get to the point where you realize I have everything that I need.
229. 00:27:26 I don't need more information to get better ideas. I need to make more out of the ideas that I have.
230. 00:27:34 In this chapter, his main argument, I guess, is really this juxtaposition of passion-driven inspiration versus necessity-driven inspiration.
231. 00:27:46 So this is really where I want to spend a little bit of time defining these and probably the big thing I want to talk about from this chapter.
232. 00:27:53 Passion-driven inspiration, there's benefits and challenges to each of these.
233. 00:27:58 So the benefits of passion-driven inspiration, there's high engagement, there's sustained interest in this personal fulfillment.
234. 00:28:04 The challenges here are the resource allocation, the practicality, and the bias towards comfort, which is where I probably have a little bit of an issue with the way that he defines the word passion because I don't think it means what he's defining here.
235. 00:28:20 I think I've shared this before, but real briefly, the root of the word passion is the Latin word petite, literally means to suffer.
236. 00:28:27 So it's not what do you enjoy doing, which is at the root of what he's describing there in terms of the benefits and the challenges.
237. 00:28:35 But really, what are you willing to suffer to see come about? What's important enough to you?
238. 00:28:40 So necessity-driven inspiration, the benefits of this, our immediate application, problem-solving focus, and it builds resilience. The challenge of this is that it's high pressure, there's a steep learning curve, and there's a risk of burnout.
239. 00:28:53 And I definitely feel the challenges with this one, but also I think there are ways to do this that don't have to feel like they are going to burn you out.
240. 00:29:07 He talks about that later with the forcing functions. So it's something that I'm glad he calls out at this point, but I don't think it's something that we should be as worried about maybe as we tend to be or I tend to be.
241. 00:29:24 Yeah, what do you think about the inspiration, Matrix? I like it. I wrote it down. I've got that visual in my mind map for this book. I like how it makes it easy to see what are valuable potential sources of inspiration and maybe which ones really aren't.
242. 00:29:48 But I don't think I'm going to do anything with this. I have an action item written down to create my own inspiration Matrix, but the further I get from this chapter, the less excited I am about that one. I think I'm going to cut it actually.
243. 00:30:03 So when I was reviewing, when I was going through everything, I had originally said, "Okay, I need to do this inspiration Matrix." And then I started to do it. I actually started mapping stuff out. And it just didn't connect. It didn't do what I wanted to do. And I understood what he was trying to get at.
244. 00:30:20 I would like to try it maybe again, but I don't think I'm going to get that much out of it. I get more out of the idea of he's got these four bullet points of asking yourself, "Is it truly adding value to my life? What am I sacrificing? Does it align?"
245. 00:30:36 He's got other things where the future exercise is a much more valuable exercise for me. And basically, it's like, put yourself in a time machine, go into the future and ask yourself the following questions or reflect on the following questions.
246. 00:30:52 What does daily life look like now? Are you closer to your goals? Who are the people around you? What activities do you engage in together? How much regret do you have? What aspects of the future excite you?
247. 00:31:02 I think that's a much more valuable thing for me. And I think the reason why this is is because I think I need to be working earlier in this process than what he's describing in this chapter.
248. 00:31:16 He makes a statement here that people climb the ladder to realize they were on the wrong ladder. We've heard that before in other places. And this idea of what am I pursuing? Am I pursuing the right things? And it's like, I think that's where I'm at right now. I'm not at this matrix in mapping things out yet.
249. 00:31:36 I'm still trying to figure out, as you would put it in your PKM system, what's the life theme? What's the major goal? What's the major purpose? And Mike, I've done that four or five times. But I must be going through some weird change in my personal life, not to get too deep about me.
250. 00:31:55 But I must be going through something weird because I don't feel settled on that. I don't feel settled on that life theme, that purpose, that main true north star. And I think that impacts this first chapter pretty significantly for me.
251. 00:32:09 Yeah, so that's actually something I've jotted down to talk about in the later chapter. He brings that up. So let's definitely revisit that. But we should probably just real briefly define this inspiration matrix. So it's the standard two by two grid.
252. 00:32:24 We've got on the Y access, more exciting at the top, less exciting at the bottom, on the X access, high priority on the right, low priority on the left. So if you break these down into quadrants, the upper left, which is low priority, more exciting.
253. 00:32:42 As recreational inspirations, the one that is more exciting and high priority and the upper right, our passion pursuits, then the things that are less exciting, low priority. Those are junk sparks. Those are the ones that you could probably get rid of.
254. 00:32:57 And then in the lower right, less exciting and high priority. These are critical commitments.
255. 00:33:03 I don't know. As we're talking through it, like I think there is some value in recognizing what's the difference between the critical commitments and the passion pursuits. I feel like the critical commitments are sort of the stuff you got to do right now.
256. 00:33:17 Whereas the passion pursuits are the things that would potentially build the future, at least for me as a creative entrepreneur.
257. 00:33:25 The recreational inspirations, those are kind of like the things that are just for fun, and it's important to have some of those hobbies that don't tie to the business for me.
258. 00:33:35 Which by the way, how's your video gaming going?
259. 00:33:38 I brought my Steam Deck with me, but I didn't play it.
260. 00:33:42 Prior to that, I have been playing it pretty frequently, so I think that's actually going fairly well. Steam Deck is great. But yeah, looking at this, it's kind of interesting to see how your sources of inspiration can be divided into those buckets.
261. 00:33:58 But the further I get from reading this, the more I'm kind of like, "So what?"
262. 00:34:02 I'm in agreement. I'm in agreement. I'm debating whether I want to add the future exercise as an action item. I think I do, but I think I need to figure out that life-themed thing first.
263. 00:34:16 Because then I can say, "Okay, this thing that I'm inspired to do, and I can ask these questions for it."
264. 00:34:23 So I don't want to do it right now, but I might add it as an action item later.
265. 00:34:27 Okay. Well, we will get there. Ready to go to chapter two?
266. 00:34:32 I am.
267. 00:34:33 Okay, so chapter two is choosing action over information. And this is where he introduces "it, we, we will."
268. 00:34:44 It will, it will, it will, it will.
269. 00:34:46 If this were easy, what would it look like? And I like this a lot. This actually is not something that I first heard here from Pat Flynn.
270. 00:34:55 I think the first version of this I heard was from Ollie Abdahl when we read "I Feel Good Productivity."
271. 00:35:02 Yeah, I don't remember that at all.
272. 00:35:04 That is one of my favorite books. I like that one a lot. And Ollie frames it a little bit differently, but really just like, what would this look like if this were fun?
273. 00:35:17 So, that's, that's different for me. Most of the time I'm thinking about making things more efficient, making sure that I'm doing the right things, but really doing the things that are the most fun feels a little bit foreign to me.
274. 00:35:30 I'm so, so used to just, "Well, this needs to get done. I'm going to figure out a way to get it done."
275. 00:35:36 And I'll learn it.
276. 00:35:37 I love the process, dang it. This is really important. Kind of like, you know, you start going to the gym, you start exercising at first, it hurts, and you're like, "This is the worst thing ever."
277. 00:35:46 And then eventually, actually that feels pretty good. I like the way that I feel when I get done, so now, you know, I don't like it when I don't get to the gym or I don't get to go for the, the run.
278. 00:35:56 And this is a good reminder for me, I think, to think about things a little bit differently. There's some great quotes in this chapter.
279. 00:36:06 I like the one by John Lee Dumas. You have to be a disaster before you become the master. I am a recovering perfectionist where I don't want to put something out there unless it really is good, but that's a good reminder that you have to just get a bunch of different feedback loops.
280. 00:36:25 And then I also like the three different types of failures that he defines here, where basic failures are really where we have access to the right way of doing something, but we don't follow it.
281. 00:36:36 Complex failures are where we fail due to the combination of factors that create new complexities in other ways, and in otherwise familiar circumstances, and then intelligent failures are where we do not get the results we anticipate when attempting something new in a new context.
282. 00:36:52 So they're basically things that we, we learn from. I think there's value there recognizing, you know, why didn't this work and which bucket does this failure fall into? Is this just something that there's, there's nothing to be cleaned here?
283. 00:37:07 And it's just a stupid mistake that I made, or was it something that, you know, I tried to bite off too much or was it the result of an experiment that I was conducting and reminding myself of what is the takeaway from this?
284. 00:37:24 Yeah, that it we will will. I, I like struggled with that at first when I was reading it. I was like, what exactly does this mean? And then I had to remind myself multiple times about what it was.
285. 00:37:36 But I like it. If this were easy, I like the fun thing to it. If it's for fun, what would it look like?
286. 00:37:41 I think what I like about this is, and it sounds like you might be similar, Mike, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't, I take myself too seriously, I think sometimes, or I take projects too seriously.
287. 00:37:52 And instead of still having joy within those, I allow the seriousness of it to ruin the joy and then do I ever get the joy back, right? Like, do I ever am I ever able to reclaim the fun of making the thing?
288. 00:38:08 Because I think making things like this are really fun. I think they should be really fun. So then I don't know how I feel about it, but you know, you had the disaster one.
289. 00:38:19 There's the other one is you have to be cringe before they binge, right? And it's like, that's a good one too. It's like, okay, like, yes, everything I'm going to make is going to be a little bit cringy at first or, you know, whatever it might be.
290. 00:38:32 But I always go, no, I can, I cannot be cringe. I cannot be cringe. And then I'll make something and I'll go back and look at it and be like, boy, that was, that was kind of cringy. Like, oh, man, that was, that was rough.
291. 00:38:43 That's part of the process, though. I feel like one of the things I appreciate about Pat is he just kind of leans into it.
292. 00:38:53 Like the dad jokes that I mentioned, he calls that out specifically in a lighter chapter. He's like, I'm never one to pass up a good dad joke.
293. 00:39:02 Yeah. If you're concerned about making perfect stuff, you're not going to share stuff like that because you know that it's going to land only with some people and other people are going to hate it.
294. 00:39:12 And Pat's just like, yeah, this is who I am. Yeah, here I am. I also like the fear masquerades as rational excuses for delays in action.
295. 00:39:23 That's definitely applicable to me. And then procrastination is one of the most common symptoms of fear.
296. 00:39:31 I never really made that connection prior. I guess I viewed procrastination simply through the lens of, I haven't really thought clearly enough yet about what the small first step is for this.
297. 00:39:50 It's more of a clarity thing than it was. I'm scared of doing the thing. But as he was talking about it, the light bulb was going on. I'm like, oh, yeah, definitely, I can see how you procrastinate on something just because you're afraid of what it's actually going to look like.
298. 00:40:02 Those two things probably go hand in hand. The things that you procrastinate on are probably the things that, the things you procrastinate on because you're afraid of them are probably the things that you end up, the story you tell yourself is this is going to take, you know, four hours
299. 00:40:19 and then it ends up taking 15 minutes when you finally just sit down to do the thing and you overcome the fear and you're like, oh, that actually wasn't that bad.
300. 00:40:25 I think fear is probably the thing that multiplies how big this thing is or how long it's going to take in your head.
301. 00:40:32 Well, and I would, I mean, nothing completely psycho analytic on this, but it's like, I would love to analyze and say, okay, is this fear driven? Is my procrastination fear driven?
302. 00:40:43 And if it is, what is the thing I actually fear? And I don't know the answer to those things. Like, I actually am kind of nervous or I would be nervous to find the answer to those things.
303. 00:40:54 So overall, I mean, a really, really solid chapter in terms of making me think critically about getting out of this over information and into a more action based mentality, mindset, whatever you want to call it.
304. 00:41:11 Yep. Ready to go chapter three? Let's do it.
305. 00:41:16 All right. So chapter three is the power of champions harnessing mentorship and community. And I love any sort of conversation about community.
306. 00:41:33 I also get a little bit nervous because a lot of times when people talk about community, it's not really the type of community that I have in mind.
307. 00:41:44 However, I think this chapter is very applicable and it talks about community from different perspectives.
308. 00:41:53 So the big thing he leads with is that nobody achieves greatness, greatness alone, and then asking for help is not a sign of weakness.
309. 00:42:02 So there are people that you surround yourself with who believe in you, who he calls champions and he mentions that friends and family tend to be our earliest and most enduring champions.
310. 00:42:12 Peer champions are people who are walking a similar path facing the same challenges. And these are the ones that are found in communities aligned with your interests and aspirations.
311. 00:42:23 I like this definition a lot. There's one more, which is mentors, which are kind of like compasses, you know.
312. 00:42:31 And mentors could be people that you look up to online. It could also be people that you do coaching with people that you meet with in your real life, you know, elders at your church, whatever.
313. 00:42:45 But the peer champions, those are the ones that I feel like you have a lot of control over those types of people that you surround yourself with.
314. 00:42:53 And that's why I'm honestly continue to do the library is like, what is what is the library? I've thought about that a lot.
315. 00:43:03 And kind of what I've landed on is it's a private community for serious sense makers, people who really want to use their PKM systems to do something that's worth doing.
316. 00:43:14 They want to be more productive and creative. And it aligns with my life theme is to help people multiply their time in town, leave a bigger dent in the universe.
317. 00:43:22 So they're going to use their PKM system to allow them to do that. That's where we get into like the values based productivity workflows and stuff like that.
318. 00:43:29 So I want to build a place where people who are on that journey together can meet and talk about that kind of stuff.
319. 00:43:37 And it's great. But there are, you know, everybody's got their thing. So you can find your own peer champions for whatever it is that that you want to do.
320. 00:43:46 And you get around people who are walking that same path and it's really powerful.
321. 00:43:53 It's on the one hand, a little bit aspirational because you surround yourself with people who are professionals at whatever it makes you want to be a professional to you kind of up your game when you see other people doing things a certain way.
322. 00:44:09 But also there's like this built in accountability, even if it's not explicit in the community that you join. It's like, I don't want to let these people down.
323. 00:44:20 And it's a good thing. It's like positive peer pressure.
324. 00:44:24 And when you can voluntarily join those types of communities based off of like Pat defines that your interest and your aspirations, but I would take that even maybe a step further with like your values, the things that are really important to you.
325. 00:44:40 If you can surround yourself with other people who there are things that shared things that are important to the people that you surround yourself with, you'll kind of naturally find yourself being pulled in those directions.
326. 00:44:52 So if you're really trying to live a life of intention and meaning getting the right peer champions is probably the most important thing that you can do.
327. 00:45:01 So this is where the idea of masterminds really like just come in again and he mentions it in the book or that he's part of a mastermind group and he thanks him and the acknowledgments and all that and you've talked about masterminds a bunch of times so I've been learning through you and focused and things like that.
328. 00:45:19 But like I just can't help but think I'm missing the mastermind group that I need to be part of.
329. 00:45:29 I don't know what that is them like like I haven't been able to define it and figure out what exactly it is, but it's like I'm missing the mastermind group.
330. 00:45:36 There is a mastermind group out there that I need in my life, it doesn't exist right now and I think I need to make it like I need to create this mastermind group and invite the people to it and figure out where it goes from there because he talks about his favorite form of peer support
331. 00:45:53 comes from tight knit groups of people four to five right and he mentions, I think there were probably eight in the group that he's part of, eight in the master rank or these part of and how big are yours that you've done typically.
332. 00:46:05 I mean somewhere between there, I think five or six is probably the ideal number.
333. 00:46:11 That's the, so let's see I think there's five in the group that I'm in currently and it's funny that you bring up masterminds because this is something that I was actually thinking about adding to the library.
334. 00:46:25 I don't think that there's a like guaranteed way to ensure that they hit. You kind of have to take a leap of faith when you do one. So you kind of have to talk about lean learning be willing to say, you know, that wasn't the right version of this.
335. 00:46:45 You don't need to try again. But yeah, you'll never, you know, find it if you don't put yourself out there. But to answer your question directly. Yeah, I think anywhere between four and eight could probably work pretty well.
336. 00:46:58 So this is one of the major action ends that comes out of this book for me is I need to think about what the mastermind group is but again it ties back into that purpose, which then bleeds into the activities or the, the, the area of focus
337. 00:47:14 with this mastermind group. And I think I have it. Like, I don't know, you know, diffuse thinking diffuse learning we've talked about that in the past where you think about it hard and then you just kind of stew on it as the day goes around.
338. 00:47:26 And as I stew on it, I get these little light bulb moments of like, this is what it would look like. This would be an ideal person. This is what it would look like this would be an ideal person.
339. 00:47:35 So I want to let that sit and like stew for another, you know, week two, however, however long it takes. But I think this is one of those things that if in three months, you ask me like, Hey, did you get, did you start or get involved in a mastermind group?
340. 00:47:51 Oh, you know, I think you should just absolutely like ridicule me and just, you know, tell me, tell me about it because I really think I need this. Like I very much think I need this mastermind group.
341. 00:48:05 All right. So we got our, our first action item, first official action item here, I think from the contents of the book. I would agree. I would agree. Cool. Yeah, the thing a mastermind gives a lot is the positive accountability.
342. 00:48:20 And it's, it's a great experience when you get the right mix of people in it. It can be a little bit discouraging if not everybody is at the same commitment level. But you really don't know that until you take that first step.
343. 00:48:38 So you kind of just got to be willing to put yourself out there and see how other people respond and being willing to mix it up if you need to.
344. 00:48:46 All right. Chapter four. I'm ready when you are. Okay. So chapter four is called protect your progress. I like the first thing I jotted down from this chapter is to unsubscribe from everything that doesn't consistently add value to your learning process.
345. 00:49:07 Okay. So good. I mean, this is something that is very simple, but is something that you need to consider frequently, I feel, because there's so much information out there. You really have to ask yourself.
346. 00:49:22 Three key questions I picked up from Jim Rohn back in the day. Who am I allowing to speak into my life? What effect is that having on me? And is that okay. I would hope that everybody who listens to bookworm feels that listening to an episode definitely adds value to the learning process just the discussion of the ideas, even if you don't actively engage in them.
347. 00:49:50 Hopefully is a net win for you in terms of what you're able to to learn, but if it's not, you have my permission right now to go unsubscribe because you don't just need something in your ear for the sake of listening to something. You know, I think I speak for you to Corey with the impact that we hope that bookworm has is that people wrestle with these ideas
348. 00:50:18 and they decide what they think about them. And ultimately, that leads to making decisions which help you live a life in alignment with your vision and values.
349. 00:50:29 That's why we picked the books that we picked for this. That's why we don't really do fiction books for bookworm.
350. 00:50:38 People kind of pick on that a little bit. You can get value from fiction books. I get that. Should I read more fiction books? Yeah, probably.
351. 00:50:48 But I think the real clear application of I'm going to read this book and there's going to be something in here that I'm either going to apply and it's going to have a positive impact my life, or I'm going to decide that I disagree with and I'm going to do something else instead.
352. 00:51:03 That's really the, I was going to say transition, but that's not the word, but that's the catalyst. That's the point we want to get people to is decide what you think about this idea.
353. 00:51:18 And I would say if there's something that's in your mind, so this is to the folks listening, there's something in your mind that we could do that would allow us to do that more effectively.
354. 00:51:30 Throw it out there. Find us on social media, throw a comment to anywhere you can reach out to us and tell us because that's what we want to do.
355. 00:51:39 We want to impact folks through these discussions and through reading the books and then if you're wanting more out of this, get involved in the live stream and come in and have enjoyed the conversation with us.
356. 00:51:53 A couple other things that we should discuss from this particular chapter. He talks about time blocking and I don't really love his approach to time blocking.
357. 00:52:05 But the one thing he says here, which I think might be helpful for people, he says the key to time blocking is giving your full attention to the task at hand.
358. 00:52:13 That's a good way to think about it. If you've struggled with time blocking in the past and you feel like it's micromanaging your schedule, then I would say maybe just think about it in terms of like larger blocks and what do you actually want to focus on.
359. 00:52:29 I think the way that he frames it could be helpful for for certain people. He also talks about implementing a for later system. And my question for you is how is this different than a capture box.
360. 00:52:45 I don't know. I thought about this one too. Does he say earlier in this chapter or does he say somewhere that if you create basically the black hole, the thing that sucks in all the information and then you never look at it again, that's okay.
361. 00:53:00 I don't worry about that. Like everything, everything's fine. Because that's always been my problem within inbox or a pocket or whatever it might be, you know, those systems were read it later type system is I throw things in there and sometimes I make it back.
362. 00:53:15 So a lot of times I don't though. I mean, you know, most of the time I don't make it back to those. So I feel like they're kind of a waste.
363. 00:53:22 I continually say like, Oh, I need to read this. Oh, I need to look at this. Oh, I need to like review this later. So I think my discipline is probably the challenge with it.
364. 00:53:33 The idea of time blocking comes into this because it's like, well, why don't you schedule a block to review all those things. You don't schedule a block to review all those things. Why don't you add that into your into your thing.
365. 00:53:46 So to kind of round out the time blocking thing, he makes a comment in his book that what you value is not what you say you value what you value is what you make time for.
366. 00:53:57 And that in my mind would be the value of me time blocking is, yeah, I'll schedule my thing, but I know my personality and I'm allowing, I'm going to allow blocks to be flexible and to move around.
367. 00:54:11 But I'm going to be able to go back and look on that and say, where did I put 90% of my time? Where did I put 100% of my time? Like, was it in the things I actually value? And if not, that needs to be a catalyst for me to act in a different way and to do things in a different way.
368. 00:54:26 Yeah, I would push back a little bit, I think, on the idea of the discipline required to go through the things. I think that's my issue with this and why I think the four later system is unnecessary based on how I view the capture inbox.
369. 00:54:46 So the capture inbox for me is where I send things that I'm interested in. I'm curious about this thing is resonating right now. It's going to go into the inbox and maybe a different version of that is like a read it later system, a four later.
370. 00:55:02 Literally a four later system for reading things like you were talking about. But I don't think it's healthy in the point where we are right now.
371. 00:55:13 And just how much information we are exposed to every single day to feel like I need to get through all that stuff. I remember reading Meditations for Mortals, I think, by Oliver Berkman.
372. 00:55:25 I think it was that book and not 4,000 weeks, although they were both pretty good. Meditations for Mortals, though, was the, like, daily reflection sort of a thing.
373. 00:55:36 And I think it was that one where he talked about the RSS read it later as a river and not a bucket where you just things go past you and if something catches your eye, you pick it out.
374. 00:55:51 I think that is the right approach here. And I think it goes beyond even read it later.
375. 00:55:58 It's interesting. I'm experimenting with an AI email app called Quora. It's not truly an email app. It's really like email digests that get separate.
376. 00:56:09 They separate your email into these different buckets. And so it'll say these are the ones that need to timely replies. These are the ones that have to do with all of your payments.
377. 00:56:20 These are the ones that are important. So kind of think like Google labels times 10. The idea is that you don't have to look at your messages.
378. 00:56:31 You have somebody who's sorting through it and giving you these digests twice today and showing you what's actually important, which is completely freaky for someone who feels like they need to process every single message in their inbox.
379. 00:56:43 Because I remember those email triage flows. I was responsible for some of them.
380. 00:56:51 But there's too much email. No one keeps up with all of it. And so I feel like the more the information just gets cranked up to 11 and the hose, you can't possibly consume it all.
381. 00:57:06 So you kind of have to get to this point where you're not going to try to keep up with it all. So that is my approach to the capture inbox.
382. 00:57:13 I'm going to put all those things in there. And then I'm going to look at those after a period of time. I'm not going to give myself a set time.
383. 00:57:20 Like I have to get through this in a week and you have to go through every single one of those. But those are the things that I was excited about at one point.
384. 00:57:26 And if those things are still exciting to me when I come across them again, then I will go ahead and write that newsletter or create that video.
385. 00:57:35 But I also think it's important not to just pipe all those things into your system. Like, oh, I had this idea. I'm going to put it in the backlog.
386. 00:57:45 Put it directly in Obsidian. I think there's value in having some distance between the inspiration and then the actual development of the idea.
387. 00:57:56 So I don't know, maybe I think about this a little bit differently. But overall, I think I agree with his idea here to, again, the name of the title is to protect your progress.
388. 00:58:11 Remember why you started your learning journey in the first place? You don't have to worry about trying to make something out of every single piece of information or inspiration that you're exposed to and they give yourself permission to say no to things.
389. 00:58:25 At whatever point in the process.
390. 00:58:28 No, I agree with you. I think his general gist in this chapter is great.
391. 00:58:33 He did share a story about how you never have to worry about losing a bucket of live crabs.
392. 00:58:38 I had never heard this before. Do you remember this? I don't remember. I don't remember this at all.
393. 00:58:43 Okay, so when you have a bucket of live crabs, if one crab tries to climb out of the bucket, the other ones will pull it back down.
394. 00:58:54 I thought that was interesting. I don't know what you do with that. I guess, you know, social media, those types of places tend to be buckets like that.
395. 00:59:04 People are pulling each other down. Maybe try not to put too much stock into that sort of thing. But yeah, I don't know.
396. 00:59:12 I remember why I didn't remember it now is because I was like, I don't know what to do with that.
397. 00:59:16 Yeah, where do I go with that? Yeah, it's fair.
398. 00:59:21 Alright, ready to move chapter five? Yep, let's voluntarily force functions.
399. 00:59:26 Alright, you want to kick this one off? I mean, sure. I just said the title just for fun.
400. 00:59:31 But voluntary force functions. So basically, he's trying to describe skill acquisition and how to force himself
401. 00:59:41 or how he suggests you force yourself into doing something that you may be like a little bit hesitant on.
402. 00:59:48 So he gives a recipe for these effective force functions. So it's a leap. There's a leap of faith moment,
403. 00:59:54 a time lock commitment, it's high stakes, meaningful change, and then rewards on the other end.
404. 00:59:59 He provides a table in this chapter where he basically gives you these ideas of what you want to do.
405. 01:00:05 So what's the voluntary force function? I want to learn a new language. So what do I do?
406. 01:00:08 I book a trip to Japan for three months. That is your leap of faith.
407. 01:00:12 Then your time lock commitment is I have an arrival date in Japan. So I'm time locked to that.
408. 01:00:17 Your high stakes is the fact that you got to navigate a foreign country. So you need to know how to speak Japanese
409. 01:00:23 when you get there. Your meaningful challenge is you want to connect with other people.
410. 01:00:27 And then the rewards at the other end is can you develop business opportunities, you know, through the Japanese culture?
411. 01:00:33 Can you explore, you know, a potential move into there? So that's just an example.
412. 01:00:37 It gives another one for starting a business and another one for running a marathon.
413. 01:00:40 I mean, I don't have any reason why I can shoot holes in this idea.
414. 01:00:47 You, you know, they're voluntary, so you're creating them. No one's forcing them on you.
415. 01:00:52 And then they push you forward in something that you want to do or something that you want to learn.
416. 01:00:58 So I actually get another action item out of this chapter.
417. 01:01:02 And that other action item is he says, ask yourself, what scares me but excites me?
418. 01:01:07 What would challenge me in a meaningful way and then do just one challenge at a time?
419. 01:01:11 So my next action item is to think about this and then tie that into a voluntary force function.
420. 01:01:18 So I've got two action items now, Mike, and you have zero, but nobody's keeping track.
421. 01:01:24 I just want you to know that.
422. 01:01:26 So I get my second action item out of this is thinking about that excites me, scares me thing, and then trying to figure out a voluntary force function for this.
423. 01:01:35 Well, I may pass you by the end yet just so you know.
424. 01:01:40 Sounds good.
425. 01:01:41 Yeah, so this chapter, there's a couple of things that I really like about this.
426. 01:01:46 I'll start with something I don't like the term force function. I've always heard it forcing function.
427. 01:01:52 That bothered me to, but I tried to let my engineering brain let it go so thanks for bringing that back up.
428. 01:01:57 Yeah, thanks for bringing that back up.
429. 01:01:58 Yeah, I like the recipe for a force function that you shared.
430. 01:02:06 And I like the idea of applying these yourself as opposed to putting yourself in situations where this is going to be a lot of pressure and you'll fall on your face if you fail.
431. 01:02:18 Like, how do you do this where the stakes maybe aren't so high? That's the idea behind the voluntary force functions, maybe.
432. 01:02:25 Although one of them is high stakes, so I don't know, but like you don't want to, I would argue, consistently sign up for the keynote talk where you have to do it in a month because you don't want to let your friend down or you've never given one before.
433. 01:02:41 Like he's shared in this chapter, I believe.
434. 01:02:44 Some of that stuff, like how can you nudge yourself in that direction without freaking out about it?
435. 01:02:52 That would be the way that I would apply that.
436. 01:02:55 But there were a couple of specific research studies that he mentioned in this chapter, which I thought were great, which address something that has kind of been bugging me.
437. 01:03:06 So the first one, Peter Golwitzer, who's a professor of psychology at New York University, found that when individuals shared their goals with others, they felt closer to achieving them even though they didn't do anything.
438. 01:03:19 Now, I think there is some value in sharing your intentions, but what he's basically saying at this point is that people who do this, they tend to think that because I have talked about it, that is the same thing as making progress.
439. 01:03:42 And I've definitely seen where people talk about things and it's almost like that's good enough.
440. 01:03:50 They've mentioned this, they've gotten some positive feedback from people like, "Hey, yeah, you should totally do that."
441. 01:03:55 And it's like as long as they feel like there's a possibility that they could do this thing, then they don't actually need to take action on it.
442. 01:04:04 Just talking about it with other people makes it seem like the door is still open, and so they could do it if they wanted to, but they're not really committed to doing this thing.
443. 01:04:14 Does that make sense?
444. 01:04:16 It does.
445. 01:04:17 Are you familiar with Golwitzer at all?
446. 01:04:19 I'm not.
447. 01:04:20 No.
448. 01:04:21 So Golwitzer is in, I mean, kind of a giant in the motivation literature.
449. 01:04:26 So when I was going through my PhD work, studying motivation and things like that, Golwitzer is a name that you'll hear a lot.
450. 01:04:33 And I mean, very, very highly sighted individual.
451. 01:04:36 Gotcha.
452. 01:04:37 Very, very highly sighted.
453. 01:04:38 So I trust the research from that perspective in terms of he has done a lot of other really good research.
454. 01:04:44 This also kind of just makes sense to me face value of like, I get that like warm and fuzzy feeling by like telling you, "Hey Mike, I'm going to run a marathon.
455. 01:04:53 Hey Mike, I'm going to run a marathon."
456. 01:04:54 Do I actually run the marathon?
457. 01:04:56 But I told you I was going to run it and I feel good about it because you look at me that way.
458. 01:05:01 You know, so it's like, I get some face value out of this as well.
459. 01:05:04 And that's the thing that kind of bugs me is like, I know enough people who will just do that and never do anything else.
460. 01:05:12 So I think like calling that out is good.
461. 01:05:16 But then he also shares research from Ohio State University, which indicated that students were more likely to achieve their state of goals when they shared them with someone they perceived as higher status.
462. 01:05:27 Or whose, or whose opinion they respected.
463. 01:05:30 So the takeaway from this really is share your goals with higher ups.
464. 01:05:36 That's the phrase that he used in that chapter, I believe.
465. 01:05:40 But I think it probably could apply to the peer champions as well.
466. 01:05:45 Now people who you care what they think and they're going to not just dismiss the fact that you weren't able to do the thing that you said you were able to do.
467. 01:05:59 That's the key to the mastermind groups that you were talking about earlier, where I'm sure I'm going to do this.
468. 01:06:06 You have to be willing to call people out the next week.
469. 01:06:09 If they didn't do it, be like, dude, why did you not do this?
470. 01:06:13 Do you have a good reason?
471. 01:06:14 That's uncomfortable.
472. 01:06:16 Let me tell you.
473. 01:06:17 But it's also key, I think.
474. 01:06:20 I agree with you completely.
475. 01:06:21 And the same thing went into my brain is the mastermind groups.
476. 01:06:24 I don't know.
477. 01:06:25 I don't remember if Pat brings mastermind groups back into this conversation right here or not.
478. 01:06:28 But this is the same thing that came up to me right now.
479. 01:06:31 That's the value of the mastermind group.
480. 01:06:33 If I tell you I'm going to do a thing and you are above, the people in my group are people I respect, people that I don't want to let down, people that I look up to or have done the thing before me, I think that's huge because they're going to call me out and be like, you said you were doing a thing.
481. 01:06:52 You didn't do it.
482. 01:06:53 Did you even try, did you even care, you know what it is?
483. 01:06:58 But if I just tell random Joe Schmo off the street, he doesn't care.
484. 01:07:01 I know he doesn't care.
485. 01:07:02 So I get my little warm and fuzzy for telling Joe Schmo, but I don't ever have to do anything about it.
486. 01:07:07 That's not true in a group that I'm meeting with weekly or biweekly or whatever that might be.
487. 01:07:12 So I think you're right.
488. 01:07:13 I think you have to have both of those pieces telling them and telling the right people.
489. 01:07:19 Peer champions would probably be a really good example of who to tell.
490. 01:07:23 Yep.
491. 01:07:24 All right.
492. 01:07:25 So chapter six is persist or pivot.
493. 01:07:30 And I like this one.
494. 01:07:32 I just like the framing of this.
495. 01:07:35 And I think this is a good way of approaching what in my mind is kind of the ultimate question.
496. 01:07:44 I mean, this is just being transparent.
497. 01:07:50 This is on my mind with the creator business stuff because I'm still trying to get momentum with the business.
498. 01:07:57 And so constantly struggling with the question of like, should I just fold this up?
499. 01:08:04 Should I just go get a real job?
500. 01:08:07 Should I persist?
501. 01:08:08 Should I keep going with this thing and there's no simple answer.
502. 01:08:14 That's one of the things he calls out.
503. 01:08:15 The choice to keep going or pivot is seldom clear cut.
504. 01:08:19 So for my situation, you know, it's not enough to pay the bills yet.
505. 01:08:24 But on the other hand, there definitely is growth and you can, you can see it trending upwards.
506. 01:08:32 So it's always like, maybe it's just a simple little tweak and I'll get it figured out.
507. 01:08:37 I'm not at the point where I'm ready to fold up shop just to clarify there.
508. 01:08:43 But it makes me happy.
509. 01:08:44 But that's, you know, sharing the internal dialogue, right?
510. 01:08:48 Is this really working?
511. 01:08:50 I don't really know.
512. 01:08:51 Should I keep going?
513. 01:08:53 The quote that he shares at the beginning of this chapter, which he shares a quote at the beginning of every chapter.
514. 01:08:57 Some of my likes, some of my don't like this one I did.
515. 01:08:59 Life is not a journey you want to make on autopilot.
516. 01:09:02 I think this is kind of getting at all of the life theme stuff that I do.
517. 01:09:07 Autopilot is the enemy of progress.
518. 01:09:11 Really good.
519. 01:09:12 Your why guides your way.
520. 01:09:13 I really like that specific phrase.
521. 01:09:15 It talks about how there's power in the pivot.
522. 01:09:19 So when you decide to change and do something else that actually is very powerful, very freeing.
523. 01:09:25 There's three areas that you should be reflecting on your progress, your passion and your purpose.
524. 01:09:29 It's convenient, but I don't really know that I really like that, you know, the alliteration.
525. 01:09:35 I think it's maybe a little bit more nuanced than what he describes here.
526. 01:09:40 I do get an action item from this chapter, Corey.
527. 01:09:42 So finally, there is an action I'm here about what about.
528. 01:09:45 I want to ask what about my work gives me energy.
529. 01:09:47 That's really what he's talking about with the passion.
530. 01:09:50 But I'm not framing it as passion.
531. 01:09:52 I tweaked it a little bit.
532. 01:09:54 And then he also brings up the personal mission statements in this particular chapter.
533. 01:10:00 So this is where I'm thrilled that he's talking about the personal mission statement.
534. 01:10:04 I think that's really powerful in terms of finding your why and applying that.
535. 01:10:08 That's the whole idea behind the PKM stack, which is at the heart of all the methodologies
536. 01:10:14 and the cohorts and things that I lead.
537. 01:10:17 It's all tying the stuff that you do with your technology and your PKM system to your vision
538. 01:10:23 and your values.
539. 01:10:24 And I think it's overarching.
540. 01:10:25 I think it actually affects everything that you do in your entire life, which maybe is
541. 01:10:32 a little bit broader than a lot of people think about PKM.
542. 01:10:35 But really it is about, you know, this information is coming in.
543. 01:10:38 You're making sense of it and it's affecting what you do.
544. 01:10:42 It's changing your actions, whether those are professional projects or just the habits and
545. 01:10:48 routines and the way that you live your life.
546. 01:10:51 You know, if you want to see what people actually value, follow them around, see where they
547. 01:10:56 spend their time, see what they spend their money on, that's the reflection of it.
548. 01:11:02 And it's something that we really should be thinking more about.
549. 01:11:05 I would argue that the process that he describes briefly in this chapter is not as good as
550. 01:11:12 what I share in the life theme cohort.
551. 01:11:15 I would agree with you.
552. 01:11:17 But I'm biased.
553. 01:11:18 Yes, I would agree with you.
554. 01:11:21 I get my third action item out of this one.
555. 01:11:23 But this is the one I already have done because this was the one I thought was the most relevant
556. 01:11:28 and the most pressing.
557. 01:11:29 And this is part of the reason why I didn't get the other action I was done.
558. 01:11:32 I went through his four questions of create your own personal mission statement.
559. 01:11:38 I've done your life theme stuff.
560. 01:11:39 I've done this one now.
561. 01:11:42 I think where I'm at, Mike is like, I'm trying to refine this personal mission statement.
562. 01:11:48 I think I would have had it figured out, but there's something changing right now, like
563. 01:11:53 there's something about the season of life that I'm in, whatever it might be.
564. 01:11:57 It's changing right now.
565. 01:11:58 So it's one of those things where I feel like I'm throwing spaghetti on the wall when it
566. 01:12:02 comes to life themes and personal mission statements.
567. 01:12:04 And I'm trying to figure out what sticks.
568. 01:12:07 And I don't have a good answer for you at this point.
569. 01:12:09 I have some answers for you.
570. 01:12:11 Sometimes I feel better about it than other times.
571. 01:12:13 But I don't have like a solid definitive like, I mean, you ever since I've met you, you're
572. 01:12:18 like, this is my, this is my life theme and like, and you, you, you go for it.
573. 01:12:23 And I'm not there.
574. 01:12:24 Like I just am not there.
575. 01:12:26 And I don't know if there's a fear aspect there or if there's a lack of commitment there
576. 01:12:31 or whatever it might be, but I'm just not there.
577. 01:12:34 I don't have that thing.
578. 01:12:35 Well, I guess the, the one piece of advice I would give you is that whatever you land
579. 01:12:39 on doesn't have to be like a lifetime marriage decision, it's really just something that you're
580. 01:12:47 trying and you're trying to see if it's useful to you right now.
581. 01:12:50 So a bunch of different iterations, but yeah, I also think that you never really fully land
582. 01:12:59 on it.
583. 01:13:00 So even though I guess I put off the impression that I've got this all figured out, it's what
584. 01:13:06 I am, what I figured out up until now until I find something that causes me to think about
585. 01:13:11 it differently.
586. 01:13:12 And then I'll adapt it, but I don't think it's perfect.
587. 01:13:16 I do think it's useful.
588. 01:13:18 I am very jealous though, because you are like committed and confident and I'm like,
589. 01:13:23 Oh, I wish I could be like, Mike, I wish, I wish I had that thing that was my, my life
590. 01:13:27 theme, my mission statement.
591. 01:13:28 Yeah, I do, I do tend to go all in with whatever I do, you know, whatever I end up doing, gets
592. 01:13:36 turned up to 11.
593. 01:13:37 Yeah.
594. 01:13:38 That's great.
595. 01:13:39 I like that about your personality.
596. 01:13:41 Thanks.
597. 01:13:42 All right.
598. 01:13:43 Chapter seven is micro mastery and quantum leaps.
599. 01:13:49 I actually don't like the title of this chapter.
600. 01:13:54 The micro master is a cool idea, but the, the quantum leaps kind of feels like, I don't
601. 01:14:01 know, it kind of feels like there's, there's two different things that you have to balance
602. 01:14:05 here.
603. 01:14:06 And I actually think these are different ways of looking at the same idea.
604. 01:14:09 Okay.
605. 01:14:10 So talking about them separately in the title, I, I don't love micro mastery is basically
606. 01:14:16 taking tiny steps towards improvement that all add up to something great.
607. 01:14:21 And the key idea here is the, the progress, not perfection over time micro mastery improvements
608. 01:14:27 compound.
609. 01:14:29 And this is where the idea of the power 10 comes in.
610. 01:14:33 You brought this up earlier.
611. 01:14:34 So I'll let you know.
612. 01:14:35 I did.
613. 01:14:36 I did.
614. 01:14:37 So the power of 10 is basically it comes from crew or rowing.
615. 01:14:42 And it's when the team, you know, the, the cocks Wayne, who is the person who yells at
616. 01:14:47 the team, basically keeps them on rhythm, says, give me a power 10.
617. 01:14:51 And then you do 10 strokes as hard as you can.
618. 01:14:54 Right.
619. 01:14:55 And everybody knows to do 10 strokes as hard as you can.
620. 01:14:57 Well, he takes that idea and he rolls it into do this with your actions or with your goals
621. 01:15:03 or with what you're trying to pursue, plan your goal, organize, work, evaluate, and then
622. 01:15:10 recover.
623. 01:15:11 I didn't see this one coming, Mike.
624. 01:15:13 I don't know if you saw it coming or not.
625. 01:15:15 I didn't see coming that he was going to do P O, W, E, R, right?
626. 01:15:20 And make, you know, like, and I was like, Oh, man, I got smacked right in the face with
627. 01:15:23 that one.
628. 01:15:24 But like, that's the plan, organize, work, evaluate, and recover.
629. 01:15:27 I think this is effective.
630. 01:15:31 And I think I use this, but I don't think I would have ever thought to use it systematically.
631. 01:15:36 Like, I think I just randomly use it.
632. 01:15:39 And I don't think as hard as I should about, Oh, okay.
633. 01:15:43 This next season is, we're going to, we're going to go after it this next two weeks or
634. 01:15:47 this next week or whatever.
635. 01:15:48 And he gives a good example of writing this book and how he was struggling to get words
636. 01:15:51 on the page.
637. 01:15:52 And then, you know, he, he had a two week period where he basically said, I'm not working
638. 01:15:56 on anything else but this book.
639. 01:15:57 And that was his, that was his power 10.
640. 01:15:59 So he balances this idea of these small little tiny steps that add up over time with this
641. 01:16:05 really intense focused period, trying to, trying to figure out one thing and make as much
642. 01:16:12 progress as you can on that one thing.
643. 01:16:14 I like this idea.
644. 01:16:16 I don't necessarily like the system.
645. 01:16:19 In fact, I didn't even jot down the acronym for the power because I kind of don't care.
646. 01:16:26 Yep.
647. 01:16:27 I get it.
648. 01:16:28 I get it.
649. 01:16:29 I feel like by breaking it down into that acrostic that he's got, he makes it out to
650. 01:16:34 be more of a system.
651. 01:16:36 And at that point, you start to lose me with this idea, like the person is calling this
652. 01:16:42 out.
653. 01:16:43 I've never been involved a crew.
654. 01:16:44 So I have no idea how this actually works.
655. 01:16:47 But I'm guessing that there, this isn't real cut dry.
656. 01:16:52 Like you do 80 reps normal and then a power 10 and he's just keeping track in his head
657. 01:16:58 and then calling it out when it's time, which if you're going to break it down into those
658. 01:17:03 individual steps, especially towards the end where you're reflecting on it, it's kind
659. 01:17:08 of like that's the end of the, the, the loop.
660. 01:17:11 And so what do you do from there?
661. 01:17:13 You go and you, you loop again.
662. 01:17:14 I, I don't love that idea.
663. 01:17:17 I do like the idea of a short burst of effort significantly increasing a, a person's I wrote
664. 01:17:23 this down wrong.
665. 01:17:24 Short burst of effort can significantly increase the person's effort.
666. 01:17:28 I feel like I wrote that down wrong, but the, the big idea really is just you don't need
667. 01:17:34 to do this forever.
668. 01:17:35 You need to do this just for a little bit.
669. 01:17:36 It reminds me a lot of like tiny experiments.
670. 01:17:39 Yep.
671. 01:17:40 And that really was inspiring to me.
672. 01:17:42 I don't have a specific action item from this, but I'm already thinking about this in terms
673. 01:17:48 of like the live streams that I, I mentioned I'm going to start doing.
674. 01:17:51 It's like, just do 10 of them and then figure out if it's worth, worth continuing with.
675. 01:17:58 Just do 10 shorts and then figure out if it's worth continuing to do that.
676. 01:18:04 I think the value of the power 10 is do these 10 live streams, do these 10 shorts and then
677. 01:18:12 figure out how, where, where they fit in terms of the overall strategy.
678. 01:18:18 So I think it is a little bit different in terms of the tiny experiments, tiny experiments
679. 01:18:22 would be like, maybe these 10, you know, these things that you're, you're trying, they're
680. 01:18:26 not worth doing at all.
681. 01:18:28 Power 10 kind of feels like you're going to do this, but you're not going to do it at
682. 01:18:32 such a high clip and you're really going to go hard on this for a little bit.
683. 01:18:38 But it's not as a way of figuring out whether this is actually worth doing.
684. 01:18:41 It's kind of like you've, you've already figured out this is something that you need to do.
685. 01:18:45 So you're, you're really just going to sprint for a short period of time.
686. 01:18:49 I do like the packaging of the power 10.
687. 01:18:51 I think that's, that's really effective.
688. 01:18:54 But yeah, I, I don't know that the, the system is, there's really a whole lot to, to benefit
689. 01:19:05 me there.
690. 01:19:06 Yeah.
691. 01:19:07 That's the impression I get is, is the way you described it originally.
692. 01:19:10 So he defines a short burst of effort meant to create immediate, significant impact.
693. 01:19:14 So if you have decided that live streaming is something you're going to do, then you say,
694. 01:19:19 okay, my power 10 in this situation is for the next five days, I'm going to live stream.
695. 01:19:26 And then I'm going to reflect and see what, what that's all about.
696. 01:19:29 And, and he describes it as it's overcoming short term hurdles or making quick progress
697. 01:19:34 in a competitive situation.
698. 01:19:36 So that's where he gets into the crew, the rowing thing is they would do a power 10 to
699. 01:19:40 overcome the competition to, okay, get us in front of that, that boat that's, that's ahead
700. 01:19:45 of us.
701. 01:19:46 If you do, I could see it maybe being like, I don't want a live stream.
702. 01:19:50 I don't like the idea of it.
703. 01:19:51 It doesn't sound fun to me.
704. 01:19:53 I like making videos the way I've always made my other videos.
705. 01:19:55 I don't want a live stream.
706. 01:19:57 Okay.
707. 01:19:58 For the next week, you know, and if you combine this with Mel Robbins, you know, countdown,
708. 01:20:02 right?
709. 01:20:03 Okay.
710. 01:20:04 I do my countdown and then boom, I'm going to make videos for the next, you know, for the
711. 01:20:08 next five days, live stream videos for the next five days.
712. 01:20:11 And that's your power 10.
713. 01:20:12 And then you evaluate, you know, how it goes, how it goes from there.
714. 01:20:15 I think this could be really, really powerful in my life.
715. 01:20:20 Like, I really think that, that a power 10 scenario and in particular for me, it would
716. 01:20:25 be like procrastination or getting over that initial hurdle of a new project.
717. 01:20:30 I love the brainstorming idea, I love developing the new project, but that usually that first
718. 01:20:37 kickoff, that first launch, the, the getting the ball rolling for me tends to have, you
719. 01:20:42 know, I make a lot of excuses, it tends to like, be really slow for me to get things
720. 01:20:47 going.
721. 01:20:48 And then once I get them going, everything's fine.
722. 01:20:49 Like everything, everything goes smooth from there.
723. 01:20:52 So I think this is where this would be very, really, really valuable for me.
724. 01:20:55 It doesn't turn into an action item for me, but I want it to be one of those things in,
725. 01:20:58 in the back of my head that says, okay, when I need it, call on this power 10 idea and
726. 01:21:04 just go and just, you know, push, push the pedal down and go.
727. 01:21:07 Exactly, that's how I think it's useful too, is I know that I need to overcome the resistance
728. 01:21:14 for this thing.
729. 01:21:15 I'm really struggling with this right now, it's almost like a short temporary hustle
730. 01:21:20 mode.
731. 01:21:21 Yeah, exactly.
732. 01:21:22 Which, I mean, just in describing it that way, there's dangers with that too, because
733. 01:21:26 I feel like once you get past that initial power 10, you could be like, okay, now it's
734. 01:21:29 power 10 again.
735. 01:21:30 Now it's power 10 again.
736. 01:21:31 So you got to be careful because you can, you can burn yourself out.
737. 01:21:35 But I do think it's an effective metaphor and definitely something that I want to apply.
738. 01:21:44 Partly because I feel like I'm in a season where I do have to, I do have to push a little
739. 01:21:52 bit harder than normal in some specific areas, I want to be intentional about it.
740. 01:21:57 I don't want to do it forever, I don't want to burn myself out.
741. 01:22:00 But there are definitely certain things that I need to focus a little bit more on right
742. 01:22:06 now.
743. 01:22:07 And it doesn't mean that it has to be a priority forever, but it does require a short burst
744. 01:22:12 of effort right now to fill the hole.
745. 01:22:15 I agree.
746. 01:22:16 All right, chapter eight is from learning to leading.
747. 01:22:24 And this one, I don't have a whole lot jotted down, but I do have a couple of action items.
748. 01:22:29 Well, I was going to say the reason you don't have a whole lot jotted down over this is
749. 01:22:33 because Mike, you do this pretty much every day of your life, right?
750. 01:22:37 Like you host a workshop or webinar, you create a mini course, you write a blog article, you
751. 01:22:41 speak at a conference, you find friend or appear to help or that needs help, right?
752. 01:22:46 Like I get the impression like that all of the activities you do are this, you know,
753. 01:22:52 like all the time.
754. 01:22:54 I mean, there probably is some truth to that.
755. 01:22:59 Don't think about it, though.
756. 01:23:02 I actually was talking about this earlier today with the creative coaching group that
757. 01:23:09 I lead inside the library where we're talking about the things that the resistance that
758. 01:23:17 comes when you are going to create stuff and you feel like, who am I to talk about this?
759. 01:23:25 And I shared some specifics in terms of like the two year tests.
760. 01:23:30 So figuring out where were you two years ago?
761. 01:23:33 What did you learn?
762. 01:23:34 What experiences have you gone through that you could use to help somebody who was in
763. 01:23:40 your situation a couple of years ago?
764. 01:23:43 And through the course of the conversation, there was somebody in the group who was talking
765. 01:23:48 about how a couple of years ago, they were not in a great place and a lot has changed
766. 01:23:54 since then not in terms of their job description or they're on the outside, their life has
767. 01:23:59 completely changed, but they've learned how to navigate that stuff.
768. 01:24:02 And I shared a story about how someone reached out to me after I wrote my book, which I don't
769. 01:24:11 even want to link to because I wrote it so long ago and I'm actually like kind of ashamed
770. 01:24:15 of the quality of how we're writing today to be totally different and I honestly believe
771. 01:24:19 it would be way better.
772. 01:24:21 But it significantly impacted at least one person's life who wrote me this big long email
773. 01:24:25 about, you know, I was ready to walk out on my family and I was contemplating suicide.
774. 01:24:32 And this is the thing that just completely changed my perspective and completely turned
775. 01:24:37 my life around and like I haven't changed millions of people's lives.
776. 01:24:42 I've changed at least one life that I know from that email that I got.
777. 01:24:46 And as I was talking to these people about the things that you've learned and the things
778. 01:24:50 that you've gone through, you may not think it's like that big a deal.
779. 01:24:52 You may feel like I do about that book still being out there like I kind of don't want
780. 01:24:57 it in its current version.
781. 01:24:58 I don't want people to find that.
782. 01:24:59 That's not the first thing I want them to encounter about Mike Schmitz anymore.
783. 01:25:06 But also I can't hold that back.
784. 01:25:09 I've thought so many times about just taking that down.
785. 01:25:12 And like if it's that impactful to at least one other person, that's selfish of me to not
786. 01:25:20 share that, right?
787. 01:25:22 And really the thing that I was hitting home with with people who feel like I don't really
788. 01:25:25 have anything to share is, you know, I felt that way.
789. 01:25:29 It's easy to share something and you get all the negative feedback.
790. 01:25:33 And the thing I remember, the thing that keeps me up at night is not, you know, the warm fuzzies
791. 01:25:40 about that one email that I kept.
792. 01:25:42 It's all of the nasty YouTube comments.
793. 01:25:45 It's all of the bad reviews.
794. 01:25:48 Those are the things that I naturally just turn over and over and over again in my head.
795. 01:25:54 And that sort of thing often can keep you from sharing in the first place.
796. 01:26:00 But if you have something that can be of value to somebody else, I believe it is your responsibility
797. 01:26:07 to create something and share it publicly.
798. 01:26:10 So I was frantically searching for it because I called out one thing and I put a big exclamation
799. 01:26:15 point by it.
800. 01:26:16 You don't need to create something that changes the whole world, just somebody's world.
801. 01:26:20 Yeah.
802. 01:26:21 And I was like, man, what a, what a good statement.
803. 01:26:22 And it's exactly what you just said, right?
804. 01:26:24 Like it's exactly, it may not have changed the entire world.
805. 01:26:27 But man, you had a really, really big impact on somebody's world and, you know, that's,
806. 01:26:32 that's awesome.
807. 01:26:33 Like that, that's something to be proud of and something to take home.
808. 01:26:36 And I think it's some, it's a reason to leave it up there.
809. 01:26:39 Yeah.
810. 01:26:40 But I get, I get that the, the negative stuff hits you, hits you harder.
811. 01:26:44 It always does, you know.
812. 01:26:47 What do you think of the idea of, you know, and you and I have talked about this a little
813. 01:26:51 bit in the past, but he throws out the idea of work in public, learn out loud.
814. 01:26:57 And this idea of like doing things in a public, in a public way that way, you know, people
815. 01:27:04 are giving you feedback live and they're seeing that and you don't always have to look so
816. 01:27:08 completely clean and completely polished.
817. 01:27:11 I don't know whether it's the stage of life that I'm in or what has broken down in my
818. 01:27:16 personality, but I'm adopting this more and more and I'll give you an example.
819. 01:27:21 So I, I wanted to play around with making YouTube videos around this grant that I'm
820. 01:27:27 working on at CCU.
821. 01:27:29 So I was just like, well, heck with it.
822. 01:27:30 I'm just doing it.
823. 01:27:31 Like I, I know they're not going to be the best videos ever made.
824. 01:27:33 I'm going to edit them myself.
825. 01:27:35 I'm going to try to do lower third and I'm going to try to throw an images in there and
826. 01:27:39 like I'm going to try to do it all.
827. 01:27:40 And I'm not even going to make it like super hard for myself.
828. 01:27:43 I'm just going to do it in iMovie.
829. 01:27:45 Like I'm not even going to pick like a big complicated editing suite that's going to,
830. 01:27:49 you know, bottleneck me.
831. 01:27:51 So I end up doing this and I haven't gotten like a, gotten a ton of feedback on them.
832. 01:27:57 But like this is very much a just work in public.
833. 01:28:01 Do the thing.
834. 01:28:02 The videos will hopefully get better as you make them and see what, see what you get out
835. 01:28:06 of it.
836. 01:28:07 Like what do you think about this idea and approaching projects that way?
837. 01:28:12 I love the idea.
838. 01:28:13 I think it's really important.
839. 01:28:15 I think it's the right approach.
840. 01:28:17 The thing that, the missing piece I think for like what you're describing and I'm not
841. 01:28:24 trying to say that you're not considering this, but I think the mistake I see people
842. 01:28:28 make is thinking that if you just show up and make stuff that you will automatically
843. 01:28:36 get attention, get followers and get engagement, no one owes you anything when you make something.
844. 01:28:45 So you have to constantly be considering who am I making this for?
845. 01:28:51 How, how am I trying to help this person?
846. 01:28:54 What problem am I attempting to solve?
847. 01:28:57 And that's where you get into all of the data and the concepts of the title and the
848. 01:29:02 thumbnail and people who are getting into this and like, I don't even want to think
849. 01:29:07 about that.
850. 01:29:08 I just want to make my thing.
851. 01:29:09 I'm like, okay, fine.
852. 01:29:11 But you have to, if you want to scale your impact, at least consider these things.
853. 01:29:17 You don't need to go complete clickbait.
854. 01:29:22 You know, you don't have to optimize everything for SEO, but you want to do things that indicate
855. 01:29:29 that, hey, this is something for this type of person so that the algorithm can work in
856. 01:29:34 your favorite.
857. 01:29:35 That's why I love YouTube.
858. 01:29:36 I love YouTube is the one social media platform where the algorithm is actually in alignment
859. 01:29:42 with the content creators, like what they want out of the platform is the same.
860. 01:29:51 So yeah, I think, I think it's a good approach.
861. 01:29:54 I mean, one of my action items is to share my work on social media.
862. 01:29:58 I feel like I do share the process.
863. 01:30:01 I talk about a lot of things on podcasts, but I want to share those things in both text-based
864. 01:30:06 social media and then also shorts and then the other one here because he brings up the
865. 01:30:11 masterminds yet again, I have the action of master my groups for the library question
866. 01:30:14 mark.
867. 01:30:15 I hesitate to commit to this because I think it's going to be a little bit of a heavy left.
868. 01:30:21 I'm going to have to be pretty involved in it initially, creating the structure and the
869. 01:30:25 systems where like this is how you run these.
870. 01:30:28 But also I've done this sort of thing in the past, so maybe it's not as big a deal as I'm
871. 01:30:33 making it out to be.
872. 01:30:37 I'm ready to go to the conclusion if you are, Mike.
873. 01:30:40 Cool.
874. 01:30:41 Well, there's one other thing I jotted down from this, which I thought was brilliant.
875. 01:30:44 No action I'm associated with this, but he talked about the difference between asking
876. 01:30:48 your kids about, you know, what happened today at school and then the question that
877. 01:30:54 he asks.
878. 01:30:55 Do you remember what that question was?
879. 01:30:56 No, I don't.
880. 01:30:59 I love this.
881. 01:31:00 What did you learn today that you could teach me?
882. 01:31:02 Ah, yeah.
883. 01:31:03 That's really good.
884. 01:31:05 Yeah.
885. 01:31:06 So if you're trying to have intentional conversations around the dinner table and you have smaller
886. 01:31:12 family members who are not engaging, you may want to try that approach.
887. 01:31:15 I think that's pretty brilliant.
888. 01:31:16 That is pretty brilliant.
889. 01:31:18 Okay.
890. 01:31:19 So the conclusion you know enough to begin, it's kind of it in a nutshell, right?
891. 01:31:26 Then one of the things I jotted down from this, this particular section was that we're
892. 01:31:31 never ready for the challenges before us.
893. 01:31:35 And that's actually encouraging to me because I feel like you look at other people.
894. 01:31:43 I look at other creators online and I feel like, oh, they've got it all figured out.
895. 01:31:47 They don't have it all figured out.
896. 01:31:48 This is an encouragement that you just have to step out there and engage with the struggle
897. 01:31:55 and that no one is ready for that when they actually have to figure it out.
898. 01:32:00 Talked about how traditional education models are struggling to keep up with rapid advancements.
899. 01:32:05 And I think that's one of the things that made me a little bit nervous to discuss this
900. 01:32:09 with you today.
901. 01:32:10 No, it's true.
902. 01:32:11 It's 100% true.
903. 01:32:12 Yeah.
904. 01:32:13 And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, by the way, it's really where do we
905. 01:32:15 go from here?
906. 01:32:16 You know, are we going to adapt?
907. 01:32:19 Is the traditional post-secondary educational system in the United States going to meet
908. 01:32:24 the needs of the people that it is serving, or is it going to go the way of the dodo?
909. 01:32:29 Yes.
910. 01:32:30 Exactly.
911. 01:32:31 Yes.
912. 01:32:32 I like the encouragement that the ability to learn quick is a critical competitive advantage.
913. 01:32:39 You know, if you're trying to figure out what is the thing that's going to help you be successful,
914. 01:32:44 this maybe isn't obvious, but I think it's 100% accurate.
915. 01:32:48 And then I have one additional action item from this.
916. 01:32:51 At the end of this, he talks about that companion course.
917. 01:32:53 I want to check that out.
918. 01:32:55 I know nothing about this.
919. 01:32:56 I don't know if it's free because you bought the book.
920. 01:32:58 That would be my guess, but it would shock me also if it's a paid course because Pat
921. 01:33:04 makes quality stuff, and a lot of his courses are paid, and I've gone through them before
922. 01:33:08 and they are really, really good.
923. 01:33:10 He knows what he's talking about, so I want to check that out.
924. 01:33:14 Awesome.
925. 01:33:15 I don't have much from the conclusion other than get to work, right?
926. 01:33:18 Figure out what the thing is you want to learn and get to it, like stop procrastinating,
927. 01:33:21 but also you don't have to save the world with it.
928. 01:33:27 Take that small piece, that small action you can make today, get started and go from there.
929. 01:33:34 I was very happy with the conclusion.
930. 01:33:37 I was very happy with the entire book, honestly.
931. 01:33:39 I thought it was really well done and really well put together book, but now we're getting
932. 01:33:43 into style of ratings, so I should stop.
933. 01:33:45 Yep.
934. 01:33:46 Don't go there yet.
935. 01:33:47 We got to do action items first.
936. 01:33:51 Yes, that's the place we'll go next.
937. 01:33:54 I actually have, let's see, three, maybe, no, four, four total.
938. 01:34:01 The first one was to answer the question, "What about my work gives me energy?"
939. 01:34:07 I am not going to do the one, the first one that I jotted down about the inspiration matrix.
940. 01:34:12 The more I think about that, the more I think that's really not all that valuable to me.
941. 01:34:18 Smart move.
942. 01:34:19 I also want to share my work on social media.
943. 01:34:24 I've been doing this a little bit with the library, like I shared a newsletter not too
944. 01:34:28 long ago about the creative writing workflow.
945. 01:34:31 We may have even talked about it in the last pro show, I think.
946. 01:34:35 Some of the stuff I figured out with Obsidian.
947. 01:34:37 I wrote about that for the library first, then did a newsletter.
948. 01:34:40 I got to just take it the final 10 yards, break it up and share it on social media.
949. 01:34:48 I want to think about the mastermind groups for the library, and then the last one, I
950. 01:34:53 want to check out that companion course.
951. 01:34:56 I feel like the stuff that's in this book is really good.
952. 01:35:00 I could see Pat going deeper on this stuff in the companion course, which I think would
953. 01:35:06 be a worthwhile time investment based on what we read so far.
954. 01:35:12 Yeah, I can't commit to the companion course, but I thought the exact same thing about the
955. 01:35:16 companion course.
956. 01:35:17 I actually went to the website, looked at it, and was like, "Am I able to do this?
957. 01:35:21 Do I have time to do this right now?"
958. 01:35:24 But I don't think I can commit to it right now.
959. 01:35:26 So my three that I'm going to commit to are brainstorming creative mastermind group.
960. 01:35:33 I'm more focused on the brainstorming the creative mastermind group for the next recording.
961. 01:35:38 Can I figure out what that is, and do I feel good about that, because I think creating
962. 01:35:42 it is going to take a little longer.
963. 01:35:43 I think I might be able to reach out to people and ask them, but I don't think I'm going
964. 01:35:48 to have that nailed down by the time, the next time we record.
965. 01:35:52 I think the next action I'm going to have is what scares me and excites me.
966. 01:35:57 How can I develop a voluntary force function for this thing?
967. 01:36:01 I think I'll be able to do that one.
968. 01:36:02 I think I'll be able to figure out that thing that needs to move forward.
969. 01:36:06 I think this ties into action items later in the book of basically just getting started
970. 01:36:09 on something and doing it, so I didn't create a second action item for that.
971. 01:36:13 But I want to develop that voluntary force function for the specific thing that I want.
972. 01:36:18 Then I did already his personal mission statement activity.
973. 01:36:25 He has that personal mission statement activity.
974. 01:36:27 I'm not going to tell you I love it what I've developed, but I like it for the most part,
975. 01:36:33 so I'm trying to keep that moving.
976. 01:36:35 I've already got that one nailed in, so I'm already winning on action items for next
977. 01:36:42 time.
978. 01:36:43 Can I feel good about this?
979. 01:36:44 Well done.
980. 01:36:45 All right, style and rating.
981. 01:36:50 This was an interesting book.
982. 01:36:54 It was a little bit more, I'll say whimsical than I had anticipated.
983. 01:37:04 It's not the first Pat Flynn book that I've read.
984. 01:37:08 I've read a couple of his other books as well, and so I kind of knew what to expect I thought,
985. 01:37:15 but I guess just the fact that he worked with a publisher on this one instead of self-publishing
986. 01:37:21 and based on some of the blurbs that this one might be a little bit more formal, but
987. 01:37:28 also as we talked about the whole concept of lean learning on the surface anyways being
988. 01:37:34 a little bit at odds with the traditional post-secondary academic system.
989. 01:37:42 I don't know exactly what I expected.
990. 01:37:45 I did really enjoy this, and I think this is definitely one that I would recommend people
991. 01:37:53 read.
992. 01:37:54 I think there's some really important ideas in here.
993. 01:37:58 I think that it has the potential to be a life-changing book.
994. 01:38:03 I think I probably have an inkling of where you're going to rate this based on some of
995. 01:38:08 the comments that you made.
996. 01:38:10 I didn't have the same level of positive feeling, I think, with some of the stuff that you did,
997. 01:38:19 but there were definitely some things for me to think about.
998. 01:38:23 Definitely some things that I want to wrestle with and some things that I am going to apply.
999. 01:38:30 I'm going to rate it 4 stars.
1000. 01:38:34 I just think that there's some stuff in here that doesn't get quite enough attention.
1001. 01:38:41 There's some stuff in here that is described maybe in a way that I probably wouldn't describe
1002. 01:38:48 it.
1003. 01:38:50 Definitely some great insights and some really cool stories.
1004. 01:38:56 I think that's the thing that stands out to me about this in terms of the positives for
1005. 01:39:00 this book, is that the stories are phenomenal.
1006. 01:39:05 Just his story at the beginning, which I don't think we really even talked a whole lot about,
1007. 01:39:09 but how he got into this in the first place.
1008. 01:39:13 He was an architect who got let go, and so he's like, "What am I going to do?
1009. 01:39:17 I'm going to create a course that's going to help people pass the leads exam," and he
1010. 01:39:21 starts selling that online, and that leads to smart passive income.
1011. 01:39:26 He explicitly calls out in the later chapters, "What would my life look like if I had not
1012. 01:39:32 been let go if I didn't have to wrestle through that particular moment?"
1013. 01:39:37 That way of thinking about things, that is the valuable part of this book.
1014. 01:39:46 It's not the specific information that he shares.
1015. 01:39:50 It's not necessarily the style that the dad jokes are definitely Pat.
1016. 01:39:56 I'm indifferent, I'm a dad, so I guess I'm one level, they're kind of funny, but on the
1017. 01:40:03 other hand, I don't think that really adds a whole lot to the book.
1018. 01:40:08 I probably wouldn't have included them if I was writing it, but I don't know.
1019. 01:40:14 Pat's a great storyteller though, and I think he's probably one of the most authentic human
1020. 01:40:19 beings that I've ever met.
1021. 01:40:21 Like I've gotten to meet him a couple times at Craft & Commerce, so I think his personality
1022. 01:40:29 and his generosity definitely comes through and what he shares, and I would definitely
1023. 01:40:36 recommend that people pick this one up.
1024. 01:40:38 I just think for myself personally that there's not anything in here that is completely life-changing.
1025. 01:40:47 It's more a reinforcement of something that I've known already, but I needed the extra
1026. 01:40:53 kick in the pants to continue to move down this path.
1027. 01:40:58 For that I am thankful.
1028. 01:41:02 I really like this book.
1029. 01:41:03 I thought it was a good book, I thought it was a well-put-together read.
1030. 01:41:08 I agree with you that the dad jokes were fine.
1031. 01:41:12 They could stay, they could go, it doesn't really matter to me that much in terms of that.
1032. 01:41:17 I think from a content standpoint he outlines and describes a really good system, although
1033. 01:41:26 he doesn't package it as a system, but he outlines a really good thought process through
1034. 01:41:31 this idea of a new approach to learning.
1035. 01:41:34 He's very, very specific in terms of what he's trying to do.
1036. 01:41:37 He's trying to overcome, I think what I would say is the traditional education system.
1037. 01:41:42 He's trying to overcome this idea of pump a bunch of stuff in there, and then go out
1038. 01:41:46 and do the thing where he's more saying pump in what you need to know, do, pump more, pump
1039. 01:41:53 do, pump do, pump do.
1040. 01:41:54 He's got this new different way of thinking about it, I shouldn't say new different way
1041. 01:41:59 of thinking about it.
1042. 01:42:00 He's describing a way that most people haven't thought about it.
1043. 01:42:03 I think this isn't a brand new system that Pat Flynn developed.
1044. 01:42:07 He just packaged it in a really nice way and put it in a book that he called Lean Learning.
1045. 01:42:12 I think the one knock that I'm going to give this book is, I think it's very still, there's
1046. 01:42:19 this underlying theme of creator content and passive income content and those type of things,
1047. 01:42:28 and I actually think that's a detriment to the book.
1048. 01:42:30 I don't think it hurts the book so bad that I wouldn't recommend people reading it.
1049. 01:42:35 Read it.
1050. 01:42:36 I just think that you have to know that going in.
1051. 01:42:38 This is his bias, he's going to come in with this idea of creating things for the internet,
1052. 01:42:44 and that's what he's done, and that's what he's good at, and that's where a lot of the
1053. 01:42:48 stories are going to unfold, and maybe I'm remembering that too harshly, but at the same
1054. 01:42:55 time, that's what my takeaway is, is it's this idea of this creator content.
1055. 01:43:00 If you're not in that world, this gets really, really, it's harder to connect with the book,
1056. 01:43:06 I think.
1057. 01:43:07 I think that's one of the examples.
1058. 01:43:08 I still think the principles all make sense.
1059. 01:43:10 I really do.
1060. 01:43:11 I still think the principles all make sense.
1061. 01:43:12 I wish some of the principles would have been, like you said, flushed out a little bit more.
1062. 01:43:17 I wish some of them would have been outlined a little bit more on some suggestions about
1063. 01:43:23 how this would work in practice.
1064. 01:43:26 Very similar to the way I'm trying to remember what the table, the idea is that the table
1065. 01:43:32 described.
1066. 01:43:33 Do you remember, Mike, there you go.
1067. 01:43:36 Like the leap of faith, the time-law commitment, those type of things, I wish we would have
1068. 01:43:40 gotten a couple more of those, where he packages the ideas that he has into that table and
1069. 01:43:44 gives you two or three examples with that.
1070. 01:43:48 My overall rating on this book is going to be, I'm going to break our typical rule system
1071. 01:43:52 here.
1072. 01:43:53 My overall rating on this book is going to be a four-and-a-half.
1073. 01:43:54 I don't think it's a five-star book, but I'm not going to go as far as to say it's a
1074. 01:43:59 four-star book.
1075. 01:44:00 I'm going to give it a four-and-a-half rating on this one.
1076. 01:44:02 I would very much recommend it to other people and give them the caveat of, you know, it's
1077. 01:44:10 a little bit creator-focused, but that's okay.
1078. 01:44:12 It's a quick read.
1079. 01:44:13 It's a good read.
1080. 01:44:15 It's not very overly intellectual for the sake of being intellectual.
1081. 01:44:20 It doesn't go into a million different research studies that you have to like slog through.
1082. 01:44:25 So overall, I very much enjoyed this book.
1083. 01:44:28 I'm really glad you picked it, I'm really glad we read it, and that I'm going to learn from
1084. 01:44:33 it, because I think it's one of those ones that I'm going to think about later on down
1085. 01:44:36 the road, and I'm going to try to start applying very quickly.
1086. 01:44:39 Yeah, it definitely is approachable.
1087. 01:44:43 If you wrinkle a little bit at the traditional self-help type books, this one is a breath
1088. 01:44:50 of fresh air for sure.
1089. 01:44:54 All right, well, let's put lean learning on the shelf.
1090. 01:44:58 What's next, Corey?
1091. 01:44:59 Okay, so the next one is called AI Snake Oil.
1092. 01:45:03 This was a recommendation from the bookworm listeners, and it's what artificial intelligence
1093. 01:45:09 can do, what it can't, and how to tell the difference.
1094. 01:45:12 One of the reasons why I wanted to do this book was not only because it was a recommendation,
1095. 01:45:16 but I'm big into AI right now.
1096. 01:45:18 I'm thinking about it.
1097. 01:45:20 I want to keep thinking about it.
1098. 01:45:21 I think it's an important thing.
1099. 01:45:22 I think it's one of those technologies, however you package AI, however you think about what
1100. 01:45:28 it actually is, I think it's one of those technologies that we're going to look back
1101. 01:45:32 on in 20 years and go, "Oh man, that changed everything."
1102. 01:45:36 Nothing was the same once this thing got released onto the world.
1103. 01:45:41 So AI Snake Oil, I'm going to do my best to say these author's names.
1104. 01:45:45 I'm going to mess them up, but I'm going to do my best.
1105. 01:45:47 Why do you do this to yourself?
1106. 01:45:49 I don't know, Arvind Narayana, Narayana, Narayana, and Syash Kapoor.
1107. 01:46:00 These are the authors for this book.
1108. 01:46:01 What I'm very, very interested in is this book was published in September of 24.
1109. 01:46:07 So that means it was written, let's say, the year before that.
1110. 01:46:12 So best case scenario, they started writing it in January, very best case scenario, and
1111. 01:46:17 they were able to get it published by September.
1112. 01:46:19 I'm very intrigued to see if and how much of this has changed or what's different about
1113. 01:46:24 what they wrote compared to what's reality right now.
1114. 01:46:27 I'm very excited to see that.
1115. 01:46:30 And I almost hope that we have a lot to talk about that was like, "Well, they were wrong
1116. 01:46:35 there."
1117. 01:46:36 Well, they were wrong there.
1118. 01:46:37 Well, they were wrong there.
1119. 01:46:38 I would be totally fine if that's the case, but I'm very, very intrigued.
1120. 01:46:42 It's also from what's disclaimed on the website describing the book, "To have times 100 most
1121. 01:46:48 influential people in AI."
1122. 01:46:50 So that's pretty cool.
1123. 01:46:52 There's some validity there to who's writing this book, and I'm excited to pick it up.
1124. 01:46:57 So if you're reading with us, AI snake oil.
1125. 01:47:00 That is the thing that redeems it for me, by the way.
1126. 01:47:04 The whole premise of AI snake oil and really what AI cannot do being written even three
1127. 01:47:10 months ago.
1128. 01:47:11 I know.
1129. 01:47:12 I know.
1130. 01:47:13 You have everything has changed.
1131. 01:47:15 It's all different now, but if these people are really experts in AI, then maybe they
1132. 01:47:21 have a little bit different approach than it appears based on the title and the subtitle.
1133. 01:47:27 We're going to find out this one, I'll say.
1134. 01:47:32 We're going to find out.
1135. 01:47:33 It's going to be fun.
1136. 01:47:34 Yeah.
1137. 01:47:35 I can tell you that.
1138. 01:47:36 So after that, we're going to do another bookworm listener recommendation.
1139. 01:47:42 And that is From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks.
1140. 01:47:47 And to be honest, I have had this on my list to read for a very long time and have forgotten
1141. 01:47:55 about it multiple times.
1142. 01:47:58 I bought this book probably shortly after it came out, forgot about it, was given this
1143. 01:48:05 book by my brother at Christmas and told, "This is a great book.
1144. 01:48:09 You should totally read this.
1145. 01:48:10 You would really like it."
1146. 01:48:12 Not about it yet again until I was having a conversation with somebody who said, "Dude,
1147. 01:48:17 you should totally cover this for bookworm."
1148. 01:48:19 I was like, "Okay, third time's the charm.
1149. 01:48:23 We're going to cover this one."
1150. 01:48:25 Have you read an Arthur Brooks book before?
1151. 01:48:27 No.
1152. 01:48:28 For the bookworm?
1153. 01:48:29 Arthur Brooks, I don't think.
1154. 01:48:30 I got it confused initially with David Brooks, who wrote the second mountain.
1155. 01:48:35 I really enjoyed that one, but totally different person.
1156. 01:48:39 I've heard good things about Arthur Brooks, but I've never read any books.
1157. 01:48:42 Thanks by Arthur Brooks, so I'm excited for this.
1158. 01:48:45 Yeah.
1159. 01:48:46 Got any gap books?
1160. 01:48:48 So I do have a gap book.
1161. 01:48:50 I'm going to admit to Mike, which he will judge me hard.
1162. 01:48:54 Very, very hard.
1163. 01:48:55 I'm going to listen to this book first because I think it's going to be valuable and I need
1164. 01:48:59 something to do while I'm at the gym and running.
1165. 01:49:02 So I'm listening to this book first, so I'm counting it as a gap book.
1166. 01:49:05 Mike, you can take it off the sheet if you want to, but it's called "Scrolling Ourselves
1167. 01:49:10 to Death" and this is one of those books where every chapter is written by a different person
1168. 01:49:15 and it's meant to mimic amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman, which is a book
1169. 01:49:23 about technology and the impact of technology on society and media literacy and those type
1170. 01:49:29 of things.
1171. 01:49:30 So "Scrolling Ourselves to Death" is a book that's like that only deals with the internet
1172. 01:49:36 and social media and those type of things.
1173. 01:49:38 So I'm listening to that right now, actually, as we speak and I'm enjoying it so far.
1174. 01:49:42 I think it's fine to listen to a book in terms of I want to be entertained by this.
1175. 01:49:49 I don't think it's okay to listen to a book and say, "Well, I have gleaned everything
1176. 01:49:54 out of this book.
1177. 01:49:55 I have read the book, putting my stamp on it, taken everything I can out of this."
1178. 01:50:00 Just as a professor, like if someone were to tell you, "Oh, I listened to the chapter."
1179. 01:50:04 Is that the same thing as reading the chapter?
1180. 01:50:06 I completely agree with you, I just didn't, I was just letting you, I was giving you the
1181. 01:50:10 opportunity to just bash me for calling it a gap book even though I'm just listening.
1182. 01:50:14 No, no, no.
1183. 01:50:15 I think that's fine.
1184. 01:50:16 I want to clarify that, but yeah, so nothing against the way that you are approaching this.
1185. 01:50:21 Feel free to continue to use audio books as gap books, but I will make right clear right
1186. 01:50:26 here to the listener if you are listening to a book, you have not read the book.
1187. 01:50:31 I wrote about this in my latest newsletter when I talked about the AI in terms of using
1188. 01:50:36 these tools in the creative process.
1189. 01:50:40 There was a quote at the beginning of that from David Perrell, he has a sub stack and
1190. 01:50:45 he referenced an interview he did with Ezra Klein and Ezra Klein mentioned that he had
1191. 01:50:51 a quote in there about how he doesn't really like shortcuts and that was kind of my jumping
1192. 01:50:54 off point for the discussion in the newsletter and hitting the cognitive gym basically.
1193. 01:51:00 You don't go to the gym and have a whole bunch of AIDS, which are going to allow you to do
1194. 01:51:07 the bench press at half the effort that defeats the whole point.
1195. 01:51:11 You put the weight on the bar, you lift the weight, the resistance is the thing that causes
1196. 01:51:15 the growth.
1197. 01:51:17 It's a good point.
1198. 01:51:18 You're correct.
1199. 01:51:19 It's a good point.
1200. 01:51:20 In the newsletter, I said that listening to a book and thinking that you've read it is
1201. 01:51:26 kind of like going to the gym and not putting any weight on the bar.
1202. 01:51:32 It's good.
1203. 01:51:33 It's well done.
1204. 01:51:34 All right.
1205. 01:51:35 How about you, though, Mike?
1206. 01:51:36 Do you have any get books?
1207. 01:51:37 I do have a get book.
1208. 01:51:38 So one of the things that I like to do when we go to Woodstock for Macstock is go to this
1209. 01:51:44 bookstore, which is in the Little Woodstock Square, called Re Between the Lines, L-Y-N-E-S
1210. 01:51:48 named after the owner.
1211. 01:51:50 While we were there, they had their 20th birthday party, so they were having a celebration being
1212. 01:51:56 in business for 20 years, but every time I go there, I buy a book just to support the
1213. 01:52:02 local bookstore.
1214. 01:52:03 The one that caught my attention this time is a book called Moonshot, a NASA astronauts
1215. 01:52:12 guide to achieving the impossible by Mike Massimo.
1216. 01:52:17 I have no idea who this is.
1217. 01:52:18 I just like the framing of this.
1218. 01:52:21 One of the things I got just from the little blurb is that a one in a million shot is not
1219. 01:52:27 a zero chance, and basically the encouragement to go for the way out their Moonshot.
1220. 01:52:33 It's in the title.
1221. 01:52:36 I think this one will be interesting.
1222. 01:52:37 It's not that long.
1223. 01:52:38 I think it's like 200 pages, so I'm hoping to get this one done before AI Snake Belt,
1224. 01:52:42 which is a little bit longer if I remember, right?
1225. 01:52:46 I think it is, I don't remember exactly how long it is, but yeah, 360 AI Snake Oils 360.
1226. 01:52:53 All right.
1227. 01:52:54 Well, we'll try.
1228. 01:52:55 I'll start AI Snake, I'll see how quick that one goes, but yeah, so thank you for listening.
1229. 01:53:02 If you want to support the show, the best way to do that is to join our Patreon, patreon.com/bookwormfm.
1230. 01:53:12 It's $7 a month, and it gets you access to a couple of additional feeds.
1231. 01:53:18 One is a ProShow feed where we cover an additional topic every single episode and also remove
1232. 01:53:24 the ads when we have them.
1233. 01:53:26 There's also the bootleg feed where you hear everything because it gets published right
1234. 01:53:32 after we record it.
1235. 01:53:34 So that goes out typically about a week or two before the actual episodes hit.
1236. 01:53:41 So you get access to those, you get 4K bookworm wallpaper that I put together, you get access
1237. 01:53:47 to the live streams, so you can join the conversation when we record these episodes.
1238. 01:53:54 You can get access to all that stuff right now by going to patreon.com/bookwormfm.
1239. 01:53:59 And for those who have decided to support the show financially, thank you so much.
1240. 01:54:03 You help us keep the lights on.
1241. 01:54:05 It's the reason that we're able to keep doing this.
1242. 01:54:09 If you have a book recommendation, don't forget that you can add that in via the link in the
1243. 01:54:16 show notes.
1244. 01:54:17 So feel free to make a book recommendation.
1245. 01:54:20 And if you are reading along with us, pick up AI snake oil for next time, thanks.