233: Time Anxiety by Chris Guillebeau

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1. 00:00:00 It is time to talk about time anxiety, Corey.
2. 00:00:03 And I have to admit, I'm a little bit anxious about this one.
3. 00:00:05 Nice, nicely done.
4. 00:00:06 Nicely done with your, with your intro there, time to talk about time anxiety.
5. 00:00:14 Yeah, this is an interesting topic.
6. 00:00:15 Uh, I'm excited to, to talk about the book.
7. 00:00:17 We've got a couple items here for, uh, follow up and, uh, they're both yours since
8. 00:00:24 you made me commit publicly to writing a book last time, which I think is only fair.
9. 00:00:29 Yeah, so I don't, I don't feel bad about that for one second.
10. 00:00:33 I don't feel bad about that for one second.
11. 00:00:34 So, so the first thing was I need to talk to you about accountability.
12. 00:00:37 I did not do this, right.
13. 00:00:38 Um, and the reason why I didn't do this is because you were working on the launch
14. 00:00:42 of the, um, help me, like the Chris overcoming procrastination.
15. 00:00:47 Yeah, but it, but it's Chris Bailey, right?
16. 00:00:49 In my, the name, right?
17. 00:00:50 Okay.
18. 00:00:50 So you're working on the launch and I was like, okay, I can't pile on to him right now.
19. 00:00:54 So now that I know that that has happened and you are on the tail end, I don't know
20. 00:00:59 how much you're on the tail end of that, but I know that I know that that's happened.
21. 00:01:02 I actually may carry this one forward and say, even though it has nothing to do with
22. 00:01:06 the time anxiety book, I'm going to carry this one forward because I think we do need
23. 00:01:09 to establish what the plan is.
24. 00:01:12 Um, you might be surprised not really that the next one was maybe start the process.
25. 00:01:18 And no, I didn't even hold you accountable to like talking about it.
26. 00:01:20 So I hope we start the process, but I will say I did start the process on my own
27. 00:01:27 journey here and okay, so here's one of the, here's been one of the things.
28. 00:01:32 So I've, I think I've mentioned this before.
29. 00:01:34 It's a children's chapter book that's related to like STEM ideas.
30. 00:01:39 Um, and a big piece of that is an illustrator.
31. 00:01:43 You know, like the pictures go hand in hand with the text and if they don't go
32. 00:01:48 together well, you know, it makes kind of a not very good kids chapter book, right?
33. 00:01:53 Cause kids love the images and they love the cover and they love the like little
34. 00:01:55 line drawings that are inside of it.
35. 00:01:57 I have secured a partner to do the illustrations on this book and I am jazzed.
36. 00:02:04 Right.
37. 00:02:04 Like I reached out to her and I said, Hey, would you be interested in doing this?
38. 00:02:08 You're a really cool artist, blah, blah, blah.
39. 00:02:09 She came back to me and said, okay, let's talk.
40. 00:02:11 So we had a meeting about that.
41. 00:02:13 Um, and then after that meeting, she actually produced a couple of different
42. 00:02:16 like test drawings for, here's what I'm thinking.
43. 00:02:19 Here's the idea.
44. 00:02:20 Here's what the line art would look like.
45. 00:02:22 And like it came back and I was like, yes, I was like, this is awesome.
46. 00:02:25 And I'm in.
47. 00:02:26 So there is a good chance that we will now have illustrations that go with the
48. 00:02:32 text that I've written.
49. 00:02:33 And we are one step closer to figuring out how to actually publish this thing,
50. 00:02:38 which I'm like, I'm jazzed about.
51. 00:02:40 Like I'm really, really excited about it.
52. 00:02:42 Very cool.
53. 00:02:43 Congratulations.
54. 00:02:44 Yeah.
55. 00:02:44 So that's, that's my follow up.
56. 00:02:46 I, I think I actually made progress on this too, although a little bit accidental.
57. 00:02:51 So we talked last time, the topic of my book that I'm going to write is on personal
58. 00:02:56 retreats, I have shipped the personal retreat planner and I'm very happy with
59. 00:03:02 the way that it turned out.
60. 00:03:03 I'm using it right now to take notes and a log as we record, because I don't
61. 00:03:08 want the clicky keyboard to come through in the background.
62. 00:03:13 I also, by the time this goes live on the podcast feed will have an epic personal
63. 00:03:20 retreat video on the YouTube channel.
64. 00:03:23 Okay.
65. 00:03:24 I've, I'm going to get the first edit back today as we're recording this.
66. 00:03:29 But I talked to my editor yesterday and he said it is at 32 minutes.
67. 00:03:37 Okay.
68. 00:03:37 What do you, how do you feel about that?
69. 00:03:38 Is that good, bad?
70. 00:03:39 Like, do you shoot for?
71. 00:03:41 I think, no, I, I, so basically what I did is I condensed my entire personal
72. 00:03:47 retreat and book course down into a very tight 32 minute video.
73. 00:03:53 I wasn't thinking of it like that.
74. 00:03:54 There's no, yeah, there's no fluff in this thing.
75. 00:03:58 I scripted the whole thing word for word and it ended up being over 6,000 words.
76. 00:04:04 So if I took that script and incorporated that into the manuscript for the book,
77. 00:04:12 I'm like an eighth to a fourth of the way there.
78. 00:04:17 We go, there we go.
79. 00:04:20 Yeah, I don't, I don't actually intend to do that, but, um, yeah, I've, I'm starting
80. 00:04:24 to distill these, these ideas.
81. 00:04:26 I want to start sharing it in more bite size pieces on LinkedIn is the tech space
82. 00:04:32 social media platform.
83. 00:04:33 I'm going to, I'm going to use for this.
84. 00:04:35 And, um, yeah, I feel like those two things though, the, the planner and then this,
85. 00:04:41 this video, I want this video to be something that I can continue to share for like.
86. 00:04:46 Five years and I think it will be.
87. 00:04:49 Um, so yeah, I feel like I've got the foundation now to really just start talking
88. 00:04:57 about this every chance that, uh, that I get.
89. 00:05:00 That's awesome.
90. 00:05:00 What, what you're anticipated.
91. 00:05:02 I don't remember if you said it or not.
92. 00:05:03 When do you think that video will be out by the time we release this?
93. 00:05:07 Yeah, um, it should be out within the next week if you're watching this live.
94. 00:05:13 I guess we should mention that we are, uh, we talked very briefly about this last
95. 00:05:17 time, but we're ripping out the, the live stream from behind the paywall just
96. 00:05:22 because we realize this is more valuable when more people can attend and more
97. 00:05:25 people can attend if we talk about it publicly.
98. 00:05:28 So we're going to start doing that, uh, more often and, uh, we're going to try to
99. 00:05:33 mention it on, on all the socials before we, we go live, but we're also going to try
100. 00:05:37 and get these scheduled and share the links to the, you know, the, the, the stream is,
101. 00:05:42 is coming page basically so you can RSVP for it and, uh, be notified when, when
102. 00:05:48 we go live.
103. 00:05:48 Yeah.
104. 00:05:49 Uh, the other, the other plug out, I'll throw out there, um, for everybody is if,
105. 00:05:53 if you're liking the show, uh, can you like share it on social media, tell people
106. 00:05:57 about it, uh, help us out in terms of getting the word out because, you know,
107. 00:06:00 we just want to help more people with distilling down ideas and books and
108. 00:06:04 talking about them and those kinds of things.
109. 00:06:06 So if you're willing to do that, that would help us out a ton.
110. 00:06:08 So thanks.
111. 00:06:10 Indeed.
112. 00:06:12 And, uh, we are going to, I think, start getting more sponsors for the show.
113. 00:06:15 Thanks to the book that you chose for next time.
114. 00:06:18 You have sponsored magnet.
115. 00:06:19 Yep.
116. 00:06:20 Yep.
117. 00:06:21 I'm looking forward to, uh, to that one.
118. 00:06:22 Me too.
119. 00:06:23 Uh, I don't think we have any more follow up though.
120. 00:06:25 You're ready to talk about today's book.
121. 00:06:27 I am.
122. 00:06:27 I am.
123. 00:06:29 All right.
124. 00:06:29 So today's book is Time Anxiety by Chris Gillibo, who is the person behind the now
125. 00:06:38 defunct world domination summit conference.
126. 00:06:42 Hey, had you ever heard of that or had a chance to go to it per chance?
127. 00:06:45 Only because you've talked about it somewhere.
128. 00:06:48 And it wasn't just in relation to this book.
129. 00:06:50 Like I've heard you talk about it somewhere in your past of producing content.
130. 00:06:55 Um, but other than that, because I'm reading the book thinking, I don't
131. 00:06:57 remember what big event he's talking about.
132. 00:07:00 I don't remember what big event is talking about.
133. 00:07:01 And I kept going, forgetting to go look it up.
134. 00:07:04 So, um, no, that's, that's all.
135. 00:07:05 That was it.
136. 00:07:07 The world domination summit, it was the, the conference that when I started
137. 00:07:11 getting into the productivity world, that was the one that everybody would go to.
138. 00:07:17 And I never got a chance to go.
139. 00:07:19 And I kind of regret that.
140. 00:07:20 I really wish that I would have, uh, would have bought a ticket.
141. 00:07:24 I think the last one was actually the one where Tiago Forte was the keynote
142. 00:07:29 speaker and he talked about building a second brain right before his, his book
143. 00:07:33 came out.
144. 00:07:34 But it seemed like a really cool conference.
145. 00:07:37 And I know several people who have been to it and they said that they really enjoyed it.
146. 00:07:41 So that's how I know Chris Gilbow.
147. 00:07:43 Okay.
148. 00:07:43 I think there's another place that people may have heard of Chris Gilbow.
149. 00:07:46 And that is kind of as like the bootstrap startup guy.
150. 00:07:49 Mm, hundred dollars.
151. 00:07:50 I think probably his, his most successful book, uh, historically and just, you know,
152. 00:07:58 the, based on the data is, is the $100 startup, which I think I actually own, but
153. 00:08:03 have never read, okay.
154. 00:08:05 I have lots of startup type books like that.
155. 00:08:08 And I just never really got into them.
156. 00:08:09 I like the business books, but for some reason, the startup stuff, that's like
157. 00:08:14 that whole world just feels a little bit weird to me.
158. 00:08:19 Like, I don't know, uh, get it.
159. 00:08:22 So I had no frame of reference for Chris's writing when I went into this,
160. 00:08:27 but I was familiar with the, uh, that, the topic basic or familiar with, uh, with
161. 00:08:32 him as a person, cause he's been around for a long time.
162. 00:08:35 Um, the subtitle of this book, the illusion of urgency and a better way to live.
163. 00:08:40 I feel like, uh, this book maybe would not have been, I was going to say appropriate,
164. 00:08:47 but I don't think that's the right word.
165. 00:08:48 I don't think it would have been received the same way.
166. 00:08:51 Maybe 10 years ago pre, pre COVID, let's say, um, I feel like the, the world really
167. 00:08:58 changed at that point with people working from home and just people were thinking
168. 00:09:02 about time management productivity differently after that.
169. 00:09:05 And he kind of references that in the, the book a little bit, but it's sort of a time
170. 00:09:10 management book, although he would say you really can't manage time.
171. 00:09:13 We'll get into that when we get into the, the, the meat of the book here.
172. 00:09:17 And, um, I think it's really interesting.
173. 00:09:19 You were talking about, uh, working with an illustrator, uh, this is a very visual
174. 00:09:24 book, which I kind of like it's broken down into three different parts.
175. 00:09:28 There's an introduction and then part one is breaking the stress cycle.
176. 00:09:32 Part two is rewriting time rules and part three is owning your time.
177. 00:09:37 Then at the very end, there's a one page afterward and a whole thing is about
178. 00:09:42 250 something pages, uh, lots of chapters.
179. 00:09:47 So we're not going to go chapter by chapter.
180. 00:09:49 There's 26 different chapters.
181. 00:09:50 I think we'll take it part by part, but what were your first impressions of time
182. 00:09:55 anxiety?
183. 00:09:56 Yeah, so my, my gut impression was like, well, I don't have to worry about
184. 00:10:01 time anxiety.
185. 00:10:01 Like I don't have time anxiety.
186. 00:10:03 Like this isn't something that I'm even, it's on my radar.
187. 00:10:06 Like I'm always up for whatever book you're going to offer, right?
188. 00:10:09 Because I mean, even if, even if I don't like it, like even if I really, really
189. 00:10:12 don't like it, it makes for a fun conversation.
190. 00:10:14 So I'm always up for whatever, whatever book, uh, but as I looked through this, I
191. 00:10:18 was like, well, I don't really think this book is meant for me.
192. 00:10:21 Like I don't really think this is a book that I'm going to really, you know, dig
193. 00:10:25 into and kind of get a lot out of.
194. 00:10:29 Uh, we'll talk about, you know, what I got out of it and kind of how
195. 00:10:32 things broke down, but that was my first reaction is, you know, the illusion of
196. 00:10:35 urgency and a better way to live.
197. 00:10:36 That's like the subtitle of it, the illusion of urgency and a better way to live.
198. 00:10:40 I think I, I resonated more with the better way to live side than the illusion
199. 00:10:43 of urgency, um, only because like where I'm at in life right now, it's, it's a grind
200. 00:10:49 but in a good way.
201. 00:10:50 Like so don't, don't read that as it's a grind is in a bad way.
202. 00:10:53 It's like, I've got a bunch of kids. I've got a full time job.
203. 00:10:56 You know, like it's just once the schedule rolls, like it kind of just rolls.
204. 00:11:00 Like there is no, you know, like, I mean, it's just going.
205. 00:11:03 And it's not that I'm passive in it.
206. 00:11:05 It's a matter of right now.
207. 00:11:07 It's, it's a very kind of like externally dictated schedule, um, which is just
208. 00:11:12 a season of life that I'm in.
209. 00:11:13 So that's, that's my take on what I thought about the book coming in.
210. 00:11:17 Corey is just living the dream.
211. 00:11:19 Uh, no, no, by no means am I, I told you, I was
212. 00:11:22 interested in the, a better way of life.
213. 00:11:26 Well, I, I joke when I say that, but I think that that's actually
214. 00:11:30 worth unpacking a little bit.
215. 00:11:31 Like the goal is to be in my words, I would say content, but not complacent.
216. 00:11:37 Yeah.
217. 00:11:37 You know, you can't constantly be striving for one day.
218. 00:11:40 Things are going to change for the better and then I'll be happy.
219. 00:11:45 But also you, uh, can't be satisfied.
220. 00:11:49 I think with just the way things things are.
221. 00:11:53 So I think I probably, the word anxiety here is pretty strong, but.
222. 00:12:00 I mean, I shared a couple of episodes ago, kind of a season for me right now.
223. 00:12:05 So I, though I wouldn't say I was actually drawn to the book by that word.
224. 00:12:12 However, I think as we get into the book and his definition of this, um, I get where
225. 00:12:19 he's coming from, maybe in a way that I, I wouldn't have a couple of years ago.
226. 00:12:24 Uh, you want to jump into the introduction.
227. 00:12:27 That's kind of where he talks about some of the big ideas here.
228. 00:12:31 Yeah.
229. 00:12:31 Absolutely.
230. 00:12:32 Okay.
231. 00:12:33 So the introduction is where he defines time anxiety, which is the fear
232. 00:12:38 of time running out.
233. 00:12:40 And I think this is something that everybody can relate to.
234. 00:12:45 He talks about the two kinds of time anxiety, existential, which is time
235. 00:12:49 is running out in my life.
236. 00:12:50 And then the daily routine where there's not enough time in the day.
237. 00:12:55 And I have sort of come to peace with the existential part of this.
238. 00:13:01 Okay.
239. 00:13:01 So good.
240. 00:13:01 I just, uh, for those of you who aren't watching the live stream, I just did a fist
241. 00:13:04 pump because I'm in the same boat.
242. 00:13:05 Like I'm okay with the existential part of it, the day to day stuff, but go
243. 00:13:09 ahead, I cut you off.
244. 00:13:10 Yeah.
245. 00:13:10 Yeah.
246. 00:13:11 So we talked, uh, you know, that, that's sort of the whole idea
247. 00:13:15 behind the personal retreat stuff is to create the alignment between these
248. 00:13:20 things so we can make the most progress in the day to day for the things
249. 00:13:24 that really matter.
250. 00:13:26 But I do think that there is, um, there's, there's still a lot of noise in
251. 00:13:31 my day to day.
252. 00:13:33 So I think that's the one out of those two that speaks to me the most.
253. 00:13:37 He talks about the three different dimensions, which is the past.
254. 00:13:41 I wish I'd done things differently.
255. 00:13:42 The present, I don't know what to do right now.
256. 00:13:44 And then the future, I'm worried about what will happen in the days and years
257. 00:13:47 to come.
258. 00:13:49 Uh, I don't know that there's, I mean, it's kind of interesting to think
259. 00:13:54 about that from the three different perspectives, but I kind of don't know
260. 00:13:56 what you do with that either.
261. 00:13:57 It's not like, okay, well, the present daily, that's the one I really got to
262. 00:14:00 focus on.
263. 00:14:01 Um, I think he's just trying to help you understand the different facets of this.
264. 00:14:06 And then the other thing that's really important, I think, from this introduction
265. 00:14:09 is a quote that he shares that it's hard to overstate how deeply rooted the gospel
266. 00:14:14 of efficiency is in Western culture.
267. 00:14:16 I saw you message about this.
268. 00:14:18 You actually grabbed like the little highlight shared this on social.
269. 00:14:21 So I know this resonated with you.
270. 00:14:23 What do you think of this?
271. 00:14:24 Yeah.
272. 00:14:24 So, uh, I've read a different, um, individual, uh, who wrote a book called
273. 00:14:30 The Technological Society and, um, Jacques Alul.
274. 00:14:34 And it's basically about this idea of efficiency and how we've gone into this
275. 00:14:38 mode where we're really just all about efficiency.
276. 00:14:41 We're really all about like, how do we increase in productivity?
277. 00:14:46 How do we do more?
278. 00:14:47 How do we, you know, achieve more?
279. 00:14:48 How do we do all this stuff?
280. 00:14:50 And we like miss the trees through the forest, right?
281. 00:14:52 Like we're all about that thing.
282. 00:14:54 And we don't like experience the internal moment.
283. 00:14:57 And this is where like you talk about the daily versus the existential thing.
284. 00:15:01 Like I will get so laser focused on not even like a specific thing.
285. 00:15:08 Like, but like doing more, the idea of doing more, the idea of achieving more,
286. 00:15:12 the idea to where it's like, I miss the wonderful, beautiful moments of the day
287. 00:15:17 today.
288. 00:15:18 And like, this is a problem that I have, uh, that I've known that I had.
289. 00:15:22 I mean, I, I used to struggle with it in terms of like, what is the next plan
290. 00:15:27 for the next three years?
291. 00:15:28 What is the next plan for the next five years?
292. 00:15:30 You know, and, and I was always focused on the next, the next, the next, the next.
293. 00:15:33 And now it's more a matter of like, I'm, I find myself, I don't want to say, not enjoying.
294. 00:15:39 That sounds too negative, right?
295. 00:15:40 But I find myself getting to the end of the day and kind of like going, what, what just happened?
296. 00:15:44 Like where did, where did the day go?
297. 00:15:46 But all I focused on is like, but I didn't do enough.
298. 00:15:49 Like there, there should have been more that I accomplished today.
299. 00:15:51 And I didn't do enough.
300. 00:15:52 So that's, that's like the underlying, if you have, I'm packing all of that.
301. 00:15:56 The other one that I want to call out here is like, I felt so seen in this introductory chapter.
302. 00:16:01 So I told you I wasn't like super jazzed about this book.
303. 00:16:04 But I felt so seen in this introductory chapter.
304. 00:16:06 If you're like me is how he starts this paragraph.
305. 00:16:09 If you're like me, you tend to get excited about a new habit or a method and try it out for a while.
306. 00:16:14 But it doesn't really stick.
307. 00:16:16 So you try something else.
308. 00:16:17 And the same thing happens.
309. 00:16:18 More apps, more journals, more promises to fix everything once and for all.
310. 00:16:23 A promise that sets itself up for inevitable failure.
311. 00:16:25 And I was like, Oh my gosh.
312. 00:16:27 Welcome into the window of me and the idea of tools and tips and tricks and productivity.
313. 00:16:34 And I was just like, like I felt seen at the same time.
314. 00:16:38 I felt incredibly, incredibly bad dirt reading that paragraph.
315. 00:16:42 So I really like the way he sets this up.
316. 00:16:45 You know, I'm in the boat that you are in not really worried about the existential piece as much as the day to day.
317. 00:16:51 And then the trying, trying, trying, but for what reason, like do I know what I'm trying for?
318. 00:16:58 And that's the, that was the challenge of this intro for me.
319. 00:17:02 Yep.
320. 00:17:03 Cool.
321. 00:17:04 Well, let's go into part one, which is breaking the stress cycle.
322. 00:17:10 There are nine chapters here.
323. 00:17:14 So I want to just real briefly mention these.
324. 00:17:19 And then I, like I said, I don't want to go through all of them.
325. 00:17:22 I got a couple, a couple ideas I want to unpack.
326. 00:17:26 Chapter one is start by giving yourself more time.
327. 00:17:28 I think that's actually a great place to start.
328. 00:17:30 It's like a quick win.
329. 00:17:32 Chapter two is cognitive distortions.
330. 00:17:34 That's one that's interesting.
331. 00:17:35 And I want to talk about chapter three is time blindness hinders your sense of time.
332. 00:17:39 Chapter four, unlearning.
333. 00:17:40 Chapter five, time rules exist to serve you.
334. 00:17:42 You don't exist to serve time rules.
335. 00:17:44 Chapter six, the inbox of shame.
336. 00:17:46 Chapter seven, the magical thinking of time management.
337. 00:17:49 Chapter eight, what is enough?
338. 00:17:50 Chapter nine, do things poorly.
339. 00:17:52 So I mean, there's, these chapters are short and there's essentially one big idea from each of
340. 00:17:59 these, which is, is good.
341. 00:18:01 You know, I, I mentioned the chapter one is a good place to start because it gives you
342. 00:18:06 some quick wins you talks about before you can make big decisions about your life.
343. 00:18:10 Need to reduce the immediate pressure you feel.
344. 00:18:12 And he talks about anxiety actually here.
345. 00:18:14 So I guess maybe I do want to talk about this one.
346. 00:18:16 Anxiety inhibits your ability to think clearly in the moment.
347. 00:18:19 So that's important to recognize.
348. 00:18:21 And I think it actually strengthens the title of this, this book in the case that he's
349. 00:18:26 making for this concept called time anxiety.
350. 00:18:29 But chapter two, the cognitive distortions.
351. 00:18:31 This is the one that I feel like I am currently struggling with the most.
352. 00:18:36 He talks about these cognitive distortions as irrational or exaggerated thought patterns
353. 00:18:40 that can perpetuate the state of time anxiety.
354. 00:18:43 And one of them specifically that he calls out, now there's, there's lots of these
355. 00:18:48 that we could be talking about, but catastrophizing.
356. 00:18:51 This is the one that I jotted down, which is expecting the worst possible outcome in a
357. 00:18:58 situation or viewing an event as more dangerous than it really is.
358. 00:19:02 I mean, I just went through a launch.
359. 00:19:06 So there are definitely things that happen during a launch, not just a specific launch.
360. 00:19:12 It's part of the launch process where you're like, I hadn't planned on dropping
361. 00:19:19 everything and putting out this urgent fire.
362. 00:19:22 But here we are, we need to do this.
363. 00:19:25 So I have to deal with that stuff.
364. 00:19:29 But then I also noticed as I was reading this book, going through this stuff at
365. 00:19:33 the same time, I have a tendency to let that bleed over.
366. 00:19:38 So just because that happened as part of the launch, which again is not an unknown
367. 00:19:43 problem.
368. 00:19:44 That's part of the launch process.
369. 00:19:45 I get that.
370. 00:19:46 But now I'm applying it to other things and I have to catch myself.
371. 00:19:51 And it's like, what are you doing?
372. 00:19:53 Because every single, you know, text message that comes in then is like, Oh, my gosh,
373. 00:19:58 what do we got to do with this?
374. 00:19:59 You know, and going from zero to 60 real fast.
375. 00:20:03 Yeah, I think mine coming out of this, this first part were unlearning.
376. 00:20:09 And I think what happened is when I was younger and in my like 20s or whatever,
377. 00:20:14 I would do certain things based on necessity.
378. 00:20:17 So it's like, I would procrastinate based on necessity.
379. 00:20:22 And then I got into this habit of like, Oh, okay, well, I need that pressure to in
380. 00:20:27 order to get things done.
381. 00:20:28 And it's like, no, you would actually do much better if you didn't have that
382. 00:20:32 pressure and you actually did things more weeks and ahead and slowly kind of
383. 00:20:37 pick that up and put it together.
384. 00:20:39 But I need to unlearn that idea.
385. 00:20:41 Like I need to unlearn the kind of the behavioral habit of doing that.
386. 00:20:46 So like that was a big one that came out of this for me.
387. 00:20:48 Another one is the idea.
388. 00:20:50 What is enough?
389. 00:20:51 And like what I struggle with on this one is I have this cognitive dissonance
390. 00:20:54 of like, Oh, yeah, but I could do more.
391. 00:20:56 And the answer is like, yes, you could.
392. 00:20:58 You can always do more.
393. 00:21:00 But is it enough?
394. 00:21:01 Like, is it good enough to then push and go forward?
395. 00:21:04 And is it gold plating?
396. 00:21:08 Like, so we're in the project management where we would call this gold plating,
397. 00:21:11 right?
398. 00:21:12 Where you've met the objective or you've met your scope of work.
399. 00:21:15 And then you add on to that, right?
400. 00:21:17 You, you played the thing in gold when really the client didn't ask you to play
401. 00:21:21 it in gold.
402. 00:21:22 Like they don't, they don't care that it was plated in gold because that doesn't
403. 00:21:24 add any value to them.
404. 00:21:25 And this is what I struggle with is like the, I don't know, perfectionism is
405. 00:21:29 probably not the right word because I do not think I'm a perfectionist by any
406. 00:21:32 means, but it's like this idea of, Oh, it needs to be a little bit better.
407. 00:21:35 And it's like, no, it probably doesn't.
408. 00:21:37 So I think unlearning and that what is enough tie together for me is like
409. 00:21:41 there, there are some of those things that I have to unlearn.
410. 00:21:44 But it's hard, right?
411. 00:21:46 Like it's hard to unlearn some of those things.
412. 00:21:49 There's another section.
413. 00:21:50 I don't remember exactly where it is, but he talks about suffering.
414. 00:21:53 Do you remember where this is?
415. 00:21:55 Yeah, but before we go on to that, though, I want to, you mentioned the what
416. 00:22:00 is enough piece.
417. 00:22:01 Yeah.
418. 00:22:02 And that also spoke to me.
419. 00:22:04 One of my action items from this section comes from that chapter where he talks
420. 00:22:10 about deciding that that's enough work for today and building in fun time.
421. 00:22:16 And this specific action item is don't save all your fun time for the weekend.
422. 00:22:20 Yeah.
423. 00:22:21 Yeah.
424. 00:22:22 That was, I mean, that's not the first time I've heard that.
425. 00:22:25 But when I read it, I was like, Oh, yeah, I could, I could totally do that.
426. 00:22:30 And then the unlearning piece, I agree.
427. 00:22:32 This is also an important thing.
428. 00:22:34 He describes or defines unlearning as a deliberate process of discarding
429. 00:22:38 previously acquired knowledge, beliefs or behaviors.
430. 00:22:41 So it's not the same thing as forgetting that's passive unlearning is active.
431. 00:22:47 There is a quote that he has in this book, though, which is relevant to a discussion
432. 00:22:52 that we had already earlier.
433. 00:22:54 Okay.
434. 00:22:55 And that is that there is nothing wrong with audiobooks.
435. 00:22:58 We brought this up in the Pro Show.
436. 00:23:01 We were talking about working with ideas, essentially.
437. 00:23:05 I think I agree with him on this.
438. 00:23:08 And I wanted to just call us out real quickly, but he's not viewing audiobooks
439. 00:23:12 as I'm going to complete this book in order to mine as much potential idea seeds as
440. 00:23:23 possible.
441. 00:23:24 It's he makes a other point in this chapter, but there's so many books out there.
442. 00:23:28 So many good books.
443. 00:23:29 You'll never read all the ones that you really want to read.
444. 00:23:31 So if something's not doing it for you, you should feel free to just chuck it.
445. 00:23:35 And so I think if you are viewing a book that way as I'm not going to not going to
446. 00:23:39 read it unless I listen to it, then go ahead and listen to it.
447. 00:23:41 That's totally fine.
448. 00:23:43 I don't think I would read and read quote unquote an audiobook for bookworm because
449. 00:23:50 I personally would not retain nearly as much information from it.
450. 00:23:55 But I think it's interesting, you know, picking the things that you want to
451. 00:23:59 actually invest in and then recognizing that there are going to be things that
452. 00:24:05 you were useful at one point and you no longer need them.
453. 00:24:09 And being active about the process of, okay, that was useful for a time, but
454. 00:24:14 I'm going to change my thinking about something and I'm going to go find
455. 00:24:17 something that is going to help me think about the current state of my life in
456. 00:24:22 a new and potentially better and more useful way.
457. 00:24:26 Yeah, you talked about the audio thing.
458. 00:24:30 I think unless you're doing something in addition to that, where you're really
459. 00:24:34 gleaning things out of that, but I've found, I mean, without a doubt, if I'm
460. 00:24:39 just like passively just letting it run in the background.
461. 00:24:43 Oh man, I'm not retaining any of that.
462. 00:24:46 Like there might be like one or two things I get out of the entire book.
463. 00:24:49 And I think to myself like, why?
464. 00:24:50 And that's why I'll do a lot of audiobooks with fiction.
465. 00:24:53 But if I'm like listening and reading or listening and taking notes, like
466. 00:24:56 actually detailed notes while I'm doing it, then I get more out of it.
467. 00:25:00 One of the last things I want to do out of this first part is I loved
468. 00:25:05 the Sylvia Plath fig tree story.
469. 00:25:10 So basically it's your, the narrator sitting under a fig tree and
470. 00:25:17 there are all these juicy, delicious figs.
471. 00:25:20 And he describes like what they might be for you.
472. 00:25:23 Like they're this thing, they're this thing, this thing.
473. 00:25:25 And overwhelm the narrators.
474. 00:25:26 I'm able to unable to choose which one to pick, right?
475. 00:25:30 So they don't pick any of them.
476. 00:25:31 So they don't, they don't.
477. 00:25:32 And then finally when they realize like, I'm going to pick one, they realize
478. 00:25:36 that all of the figs have gone bad and they fall into the ground.
479. 00:25:39 And like again, this one just hit, hit home.
480. 00:25:42 It's like in my brain, there's all these different ideas that are like
481. 00:25:46 rolling around that I think would be cool and I think would be good.
482. 00:25:48 And I think would be cool.
483. 00:25:49 And I'm like, no, not yet.
484. 00:25:50 No, don't do that.
485. 00:25:51 No, that's going to be too much work.
486. 00:25:52 No, it's not the right time.
487. 00:25:53 And like, I'm worried.
488. 00:25:56 So this is where like, again, I don't know if it's time anxiety or it's
489. 00:25:59 some sort of anxiety.
490. 00:26:00 I'm worried that I'm going to get 10 years down the road and go, well,
491. 00:26:03 you didn't do any of that.
492. 00:26:04 Like you had these really cool ideas and you didn't do any of it because
493. 00:26:07 you just sat on your hands too long.
494. 00:26:09 And all of these possible options were there.
495. 00:26:12 And I don't know what to do with that.
496. 00:26:14 Like I don't know how to resolve that.
497. 00:26:16 And I know like, essentially the rest of this book is trying to help you
498. 00:26:19 with that.
499. 00:26:20 But I didn't come out of the book going, Oh,
500. 00:26:22 I have that one thing I need to do to resolve that.
501. 00:26:25 And I feel like frustrated, I guess, if I'm, if I'm, you know, if I'm,
502. 00:26:30 it felt more like little pieces that might help that, but there's not
503. 00:26:33 this one thing that's like, this is what you do to help that out.
504. 00:26:36 So, but I really like the analogy because I think it's,
505. 00:26:38 it's a very apt analogy.
506. 00:26:40 Yeah.
507. 00:26:41 It would be easier for sure if someone would just tell you,
508. 00:26:44 this is the most important thing that this is in life.
509. 00:26:47 Just go do this.
510. 00:26:48 Here's your thing.
511. 00:26:49 Like, like go.
512. 00:26:50 There's your fake.
513. 00:26:52 Go get it.
514. 00:26:53 Yeah.
515. 00:26:54 I get it.
516. 00:26:55 He mentions the time rules.
517. 00:26:58 I think we should real briefly describe what these are.
518. 00:27:02 They're basically cultural rules that are implicit.
519. 00:27:08 And we just sort of assume and apply to our lives.
520. 00:27:13 So one of the time rules that he mentions is punctuality.
521. 00:27:19 And that is a western time rule.
522. 00:27:24 And I have an example of that.
523. 00:27:27 I don't know that this is really exactly what he was talking about,
524. 00:27:30 but I remember when I went to the, on the mission trip that I went
525. 00:27:36 to Costa Rica, I was kind of shocked at how they don't really pay
526. 00:27:43 attention to time.
527. 00:27:45 It's like, we're going to go do this thing at this place this
528. 00:27:50 morning.
529. 00:27:51 Yep.
530. 00:27:52 People will just slowly show up.
531. 00:27:54 Very fuzzy.
532. 00:27:55 Yes.
533. 00:27:56 It's very fuzzy time.
534. 00:27:57 Yep.
535. 00:27:58 Yeah.
536. 00:27:59 So that's what I thought of when he mentioned the time rule of
537. 00:28:01 punctuality, but totally this applies to me and I recognize that.
538. 00:28:04 And I kind of don't really love it.
539. 00:28:08 I think there's even pockets of this within like where we live.
540. 00:28:14 So I recognize I'm recording this currently.
541. 00:28:17 I'm up in Door County with my mom and dad for the weekend.
542. 00:28:22 And I like coming up here because, especially in the winter,
543. 00:28:25 because everything just kind of shuts down and it feels like it
544. 00:28:29 just moves at a slower pace.
545. 00:28:32 And when I go back home, you know, it's only two hours away,
546. 00:28:36 but it just feels much different when you are in that setting.
547. 00:28:42 And we don't live in a big city where there's, you know, it's not
548. 00:28:47 New York City where people are moving a mile a minute all the
549. 00:28:52 time.
550. 00:28:53 But even in that scenario, I noticed the difference.
551. 00:28:57 And I think the real important thing here is we should apply
552. 00:29:03 these time rules in a way that help us.
553. 00:29:06 He talks about time rules work well with habit stacking, but just
554. 00:29:10 really just I don't have an action.
555. 00:29:12 I'm specifically associated with this, but I think the general
556. 00:29:14 advice is to consider what sort of time rules you've been playing
557. 00:29:17 by either intentionally or intentionally and then figure out
558. 00:29:21 if you want to change the rules of engagement with those.
559. 00:29:24 Yeah.
560. 00:29:25 Mike, what's your take on in chapter nine, he talks about
561. 00:29:28 doing things poorly and the goal, I think it's a bad title for
562. 00:29:31 the chapter because he's basically not saying do things
563. 00:29:34 poorly.
564. 00:29:35 He's saying, don't let greatness prevent you from doing a
565. 00:29:40 thing.
566. 00:29:41 Like, that's the way I, you know, process at the end of that
567. 00:29:43 chapter.
568. 00:29:44 It's like, just get some stuff done, which we've talked about this
569. 00:29:46 with daily pages, you know, or morning, what are the morning
570. 00:29:49 pages or whatever they call them where like the goal is to just
571. 00:29:51 get words on paper.
572. 00:29:52 The goal is not to make the best, most beautiful prose in the
573. 00:29:55 world.
574. 00:29:56 I, I like this, right?
575. 00:29:58 I think this is a good, a good thing.
576. 00:30:01 But at the same time that, as I've heard people talk about it
577. 00:30:05 and as you and I have talked about it in the past, there
578. 00:30:07 does become a point where like you have to cross the Rubicon
579. 00:30:11 of like, okay, I've done things poorly for so long and now I
580. 00:30:15 actually need to start thinking about quality.
581. 00:30:17 I need to start thinking about like making it better and I need
582. 00:30:19 to start thinking about improving.
583. 00:30:21 So that, I kind of gave you my, my take on it.
584. 00:30:25 It's like, yes, that's good when you're first getting started.
585. 00:30:28 But then if you're serious about it, like I think, I do think
586. 00:30:31 we need to move beyond that somewhat quickly.
587. 00:30:34 Well, this, this chapter, I actually did really enjoy.
588. 00:30:38 I recently published a newsletter slash blog post to put a link
589. 00:30:42 in the show notes called Cranking versus Creating.
590. 00:30:45 Okay.
591. 00:30:46 And it's really about overcoming perfectionism, which is the
592. 00:30:49 topic of this chapter as well.
593. 00:30:51 And he makes the point that many things are perfectly fine if
594. 00:30:54 they're good enough, right?
595. 00:30:56 So that is really the, the thing to keep in mind is, is it
596. 00:31:02 really worth stressing about how good this thing could really be?
597. 00:31:05 But even if you really want something to be really good over
598. 00:31:08 a period of time, I would argue the way to get there is actually
599. 00:31:12 by shipping a bunch of stuff.
600. 00:31:14 So the quantity actually produces the quality.
601. 00:31:16 So I think actually the do things poorly.
602. 00:31:19 There's a lot of ways that you can apply this, but I think you
603. 00:31:23 should actually create a bunch of stuff.
604. 00:31:26 If you really want to do something well.
605. 00:31:28 My first podcast episode that I released, it was Zach and I
606. 00:31:31 talking, it was an episode of the productivity show.
607. 00:31:33 It was a 15 minute episode.
608. 00:31:35 And I think I spent like eight hours editing it because I was
609. 00:31:38 editing out every hour and every, and I realized how bad I was at
610. 00:31:42 public speaking.
611. 00:31:43 And I joined a Toastmasters group as a result of that.
612. 00:31:46 I never would have gotten to that point though until I stepped out
613. 00:31:50 there and did it.
614. 00:31:51 And then even after I published the episode or not after I
615. 00:31:54 published it because I got done editing and I remember thinking
616. 00:31:56 this sounds bland and sterile because I made it perfect.
617. 00:32:00 I spent all this time and effort making this thing perfect and
618. 00:32:03 really you have to put in a bunch of reps.
619. 00:32:05 Now that I've published thousands of podcast episodes, I know I have
620. 00:32:08 a much better picture of what a good one looks like.
621. 00:32:10 Yeah.
622. 00:32:11 So there's differences though, but between cranking and
623. 00:32:15 creating and I think if you're just going to do things poorly to
624. 00:32:17 ship it, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get to
625. 00:32:20 start where you are meeting the quality bar.
626. 00:32:23 So in the blog post, I kind of break these apart.
627. 00:32:27 You know, they both have the attitude of, well, let's just
628. 00:32:30 ship it, but 10,000 hours of practice doesn't necessarily make
629. 00:32:35 you a master.
630. 00:32:36 It's the deliberate practice.
631. 00:32:37 You got to be intentional about it.
632. 00:32:39 So when you are cranking, it's simply, I got to get this thing
633. 00:32:42 done.
634. 00:32:43 And I think that could apply to what Chris is talking about in this
635. 00:32:45 chapter.
636. 00:32:46 Let's just get this thing done.
637. 00:32:47 It's not worth worrying about.
638. 00:32:48 But if you are wanting to create something really, you're not
639. 00:32:52 focused on just clear the task and get to the next item on the
640. 00:32:55 list, but it's throw the thing out there and then get the feedback.
641. 00:32:58 And then you incorporate that feedback.
642. 00:32:59 You don't even have to have a formal process for it, but you have
643. 00:33:02 to have those feedback loops and you have to learn something from
644. 00:33:06 the thing.
645. 00:33:07 And that real question to be answered there is, do I care enough
646. 00:33:10 about this to put in the time to learn from it?
647. 00:33:13 That's where I think the do things poorly, you know, could go
648. 00:33:16 a couple of different directions.
649. 00:33:18 I think if you look at, you talked at the very beginning of there's
650. 00:33:23 26 chapters in this book, you know, so there's a lot of like
651. 00:33:26 small little chunks.
652. 00:33:28 I typically don't like books that are like this.
653. 00:33:30 I'm learning that.
654. 00:33:31 Like this is something I've learned from doing bookworm is like, I
655. 00:33:33 don't like the little bit of chunks, you know, kind of books.
656. 00:33:37 But if you look back at his part one, right, and you remember the
657. 00:33:40 title of part one, it's breaking the stress cycle.
658. 00:33:42 And then you look down through here.
659. 00:33:44 I actually think he does a really good job at like identifying,
660. 00:33:48 I won't say all, but a lot of these really key components that
661. 00:33:52 cause stress when we think about time, right?
662. 00:33:54 Like in the one that like kind of stands out because it's so
663. 00:33:58 specific, like compared to the other ones is the email one.
664. 00:34:01 But like I understand why you put it in there because I think for
665. 00:34:05 a lot of people that one is a huge stressor and you think about,
666. 00:34:08 I mean, I can go into the email and just burn three, four, five,
667. 00:34:11 six hours, just clicking and doing silly things.
668. 00:34:15 But otherwise, like if you look at the core concepts I think he has
669. 00:34:18 in here, I think he did a really good job thinking about essential
670. 00:34:23 ones that cause us to stress out in the idea of time.
671. 00:34:26 So I think Kudos to him on part one, even though it has nine
672. 00:34:31 chapters being irrelevant.
673. 00:34:33 You know, there's nine chapters irrelevant.
674. 00:34:35 Yeah, absolutely.
675. 00:34:37 One other big idea, which we just need to mention here is that
676. 00:34:40 time keeps advancing.
677. 00:34:41 It cannot be managed.
678. 00:34:42 That comes from chapter seven, the magical thinking of time
679. 00:34:45 management.
680. 00:34:46 I think, I think this is a hundred percent true.
681. 00:34:49 So he actually says, you know, there's no such thing as time
682. 00:34:53 management, which sounds contradictory on the surface.
683. 00:34:55 What do you mean?
684. 00:34:56 There's so many books that have been written on the concept of time
685. 00:34:59 management, but since time keeps advancing really what we should
686. 00:35:02 be managing is our energy and our attention.
687. 00:35:04 You can't boss time around.
688. 00:35:06 I think that is the way that he frames it, I think, is really
689. 00:35:11 powerful.
690. 00:35:12 I think it's a revolutionary idea.
691. 00:35:15 If you really grok what he's saying there.
692. 00:35:20 And that kind of leads into the next part.
693. 00:35:22 So I just want to mention that for a move on.
694. 00:35:24 Anything else from part one?
695. 00:35:25 Nope.
696. 00:35:26 Nope.
697. 00:35:27 I'm feeling good.
698. 00:35:28 All right.
699. 00:35:29 So let's go to part two, which is rewriting time rules.
700. 00:35:35 And again, a bunch of chapters here.
701. 00:35:37 Chapter 10, our perception of time changes as we age.
702. 00:35:40 Chapter 11, use rules of engagement to decide between
703. 00:35:43 competing requests.
704. 00:35:44 Chapter 12, be right back.
705. 00:35:45 I'm just going to disappear in every turn.
706. 00:35:47 Chapter 13, move on quickly.
707. 00:35:50 Chapter 14, not finishing things is one of the great joys in life.
708. 00:35:53 Chapter 15, knitting is good for you.
709. 00:35:55 Chapter 16, the traffic light model of focus and fatigue.
710. 00:35:58 And chapter 17, sometimes a light schedule is harder than a full one.
711. 00:36:03 There's a lot of stuff in here.
712. 00:36:08 I guess I'll just jump straight to chapter 15.
713. 00:36:13 And then we can go wherever you want with this.
714. 00:36:16 We're on the same page today, Mike, because that's where I wanted
715. 00:36:18 to start too.
716. 00:36:19 So I'm really happy you started there.
717. 00:36:20 Go ahead.
718. 00:36:21 Yeah.
719. 00:36:22 Well, it's weird because this is kind of a minor thing.
720. 00:36:24 But the knitting is good for you.
721. 00:36:26 He talks about cozy hobbies and how they can lower your anxiety,
722. 00:36:29 getting crafting, mentions board games.
723. 00:36:33 Granny hobbies.
724. 00:36:34 He calls them granny hobbies, which is such a weird way to name it.
725. 00:36:37 That's the next thing.
726. 00:36:39 So first he says cozy hobbies, but then cozy granny hobbies are low
727. 00:36:44 intensity, easy to pick up or put down.
728. 00:36:48 He kind of uses them interchangeably.
729. 00:36:50 So yeah, I kind of was looking for, I want to make a single note
730. 00:36:54 here with the definition, but I really couldn't because he defined
731. 00:36:58 it as cozy hobbies a specific way.
732. 00:37:00 Then he talked about cozy granny hobbies.
733. 00:37:02 And I think granny hobbies is really the place that he's trying
734. 00:37:04 to get to at the end there.
735. 00:37:06 But the thing that really stands out to me from this is a quote
736. 00:37:11 about the different modes.
737. 00:37:14 Okay.
738. 00:37:15 And it reminded me of something that Sean Blanc said a long time ago,
739. 00:37:20 which I thought was brilliant.
740. 00:37:22 And I wanted to bring it up here and use this as a jumping off
741. 00:37:24 point for our granny hobbies.
742. 00:37:26 Okay.
743. 00:37:27 He said that if you work with your head, you should rest with
744. 00:37:30 your hands.
745. 00:37:31 Now that is kind of hard for me because I'm not a, not a very
746. 00:37:36 handy guy.
747. 00:37:37 Like Sean creates stuff.
748. 00:37:39 He creates stuff.
749. 00:37:40 He writes.
750. 00:37:41 And then he goes into the wood shop and he planes a board or
751. 00:37:45 something.
752. 00:37:46 David Sparks does the same thing.
753. 00:37:47 You're surrounded by these wood shop people.
754. 00:37:49 Like what's wrong?
755. 00:37:50 I know.
756. 00:37:51 I know.
757. 00:37:52 I don't mess with the word a wood shop.
758. 00:37:53 So you're good, Mike.
759. 00:37:54 Like you're good.
760. 00:37:55 I have zero interest in it.
761. 00:37:57 I remember we even actually looked at a house, which was, I mean,
762. 00:38:02 we were moving to the town that we live in at the time and we had
763. 00:38:06 a small family.
764. 00:38:07 We didn't have a ton of money.
765. 00:38:08 So it was like a $150,000 house.
766. 00:38:11 But it had this wood shop with this vacuum system and the guy
767. 00:38:14 who's for sale by owners showing it to us.
768. 00:38:16 He's all proud of this.
769. 00:38:17 And I'm like, I, sorry, cool, but I don't care.
770. 00:38:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
771. 00:38:25 I think I have different versions of this.
772. 00:38:27 I think this is where running comes in for me.
773. 00:38:29 Okay.
774. 00:38:30 But that's not really a cozy granny hobby.
775. 00:38:32 No, no, no, no, no.
776. 00:38:34 So I would agree with you on this too.
777. 00:38:36 I love the idea and what I wanted to call out the fact that granny
778. 00:38:41 hobbies.
779. 00:38:42 I just think the phrasing of it is hilarious, right?
780. 00:38:44 But I get what he's saying.
781. 00:38:46 And where you hit the nail on the head is the idea of when we work
782. 00:38:50 with our minds, we rest with our hands.
783. 00:38:53 And I would say bodies.
784. 00:38:55 I would generalize that out to bodies is something more physical,
785. 00:38:59 something more tangible is the wrong way to put it because
786. 00:39:02 you're producing tangible things when you're writing and, you know,
787. 00:39:05 all and making videos and all that other stuff.
788. 00:39:07 But like, I mean, I teach.
789. 00:39:09 So mostly what I do is I figure out ways to communicate knowledge
790. 00:39:13 and ways to help students learn knowledge.
791. 00:39:15 Well, that's not a very tangible thing.
792. 00:39:17 It's a, it's a very mental exercise.
793. 00:39:20 So I need to then balance that out with, and I'm like you.
794. 00:39:25 Like my, my balance out is I go for a run.
795. 00:39:28 I climb a mountain.
796. 00:39:29 I lift something heavy.
797. 00:39:31 And it's only because there's this weird energy that like dissipates
798. 00:39:36 when I do those things that I like, I can't dissipate it in any
799. 00:39:39 other way.
800. 00:39:40 I think if I was going to pick, again, it's not a granny hobby,
801. 00:39:43 but if I was going to pick one of those hobbies that he's describing,
802. 00:39:46 I wouldn't be knitting.
803. 00:39:47 It wouldn't be woodworking.
804. 00:39:48 The closest thing I could get to that would be like leather work.
805. 00:39:51 I think that would be cool.
806. 00:39:53 But then I look at like what's produced in the leather work world
807. 00:39:55 and I'm like, eh, it's okay.
808. 00:39:56 Like I'm not really that jazzed about it.
809. 00:39:58 So I do like some 3D printing type stuff and I like to play around
810. 00:40:01 with that.
811. 00:40:02 But I think mine would be the idea of having a car.
812. 00:40:07 Like, or like, okay, so here's one that I've wanted to do, right?
813. 00:40:11 I really think this would be a fun thing to do.
814. 00:40:13 I want to convert some old car into an electric vehicle.
815. 00:40:18 I don't know why.
816. 00:40:19 Okay.
817. 00:40:20 Like it just seems like a fun, use your hands, make a tangible thing
818. 00:40:25 hobby.
819. 00:40:26 Do you know why I don't do it like?
820. 00:40:28 It's like the most cost wasting thing that you've ever done in your
821. 00:40:33 life because old cars weren't meant to be electric cars.
822. 00:40:36 So you're going to pay like triple quadruple what you would be if
823. 00:40:39 you just went out and bought an electric car.
824. 00:40:41 Like just go buy the electric car.
825. 00:40:43 But like the idea of the project is what excites me.
826. 00:40:45 Like me going out with the boys and just kind of cranking on making
827. 00:40:50 that old car electric.
828. 00:40:53 But it's like, I like this idea and I think there's something there.
829. 00:40:57 It's just figuring out what it is.
830. 00:40:58 So this is where my first action item comes in.
831. 00:41:00 My first action item is basically what is going to be or what might
832. 00:41:07 be my go to physical body thing that is not just random working
833. 00:41:15 out.
834. 00:41:16 I'm okay with random working out, but I think I want something
835. 00:41:18 else.
836. 00:41:19 Is it playing a guitar?
837. 00:41:20 Is it learning the piano?
838. 00:41:21 Like there's got to be something else that is there.
839. 00:41:24 And I just don't know what that is.
840. 00:41:25 So that's going to be my first action.
841. 00:41:26 I'm out of this book is to think about that.
842. 00:41:28 All right.
843. 00:41:29 I like it.
844. 00:41:30 I don't know what my granny hobby is going to be.
845. 00:41:34 He mentioned board games specifically, I kind of do that, but not
846. 00:41:38 as much as we used to when everything got shut down for COVID,
847. 00:41:42 we bought a board game table because we were playing board games
848. 00:41:46 every single night.
849. 00:41:47 I kind of like to get back into a rhythm like that, but I just don't
850. 00:41:50 know how feasible that is with kids being older.
851. 00:41:54 I mean, it's soccer season for us.
852. 00:41:56 I coach middle school and we frequently have to be in three
853. 00:42:03 different places at the same time.
854. 00:42:05 Yeah, that makes three different teams.
855. 00:42:09 So yeah, I don't really know.
856. 00:42:11 I don't really know what to do with that.
857. 00:42:14 But I'm going to continue to think about it.
858. 00:42:16 I think I can probably land on something.
859. 00:42:19 It's definitely not going to be knitting.
860. 00:42:21 I have no idea what it's going to be.
861. 00:42:23 I'm going to continue running.
862. 00:42:24 I do love running.
863. 00:42:25 That is my escape mechanism, I guess.
864. 00:42:29 So one of the things that stood out to me from this section is
865. 00:42:33 chapter 12.
866. 00:42:34 The title we laughed at be right back.
867. 00:42:36 I'm just going to disappear and never return.
868. 00:42:38 But I have felt this recently.
869. 00:42:42 He says that logically illogical human behaviors are responses
870. 00:42:47 to cognitive distortions.
871. 00:42:49 And I can totally see how those play out.
872. 00:42:53 Mentioned that avoiding hard things doesn't help, but it feels good.
873. 00:42:57 And then he has the flip side of that, which is that staying
874. 00:43:01 busy often is a form of avoidance.
875. 00:43:04 So I think there's a lot of self reflection that needs to happen
876. 00:43:09 for really anybody who reads this.
877. 00:43:11 But I'm going to say that for me specifically and figure out
878. 00:43:15 where am I avoiding doing the things that really matter.
879. 00:43:19 Because it could be, you know, this thing I really should do
880. 00:43:22 and I keep putting it off because it feels like a heavy lift.
881. 00:43:26 But also it could be, you know, that there are things that I am
882. 00:43:29 doing, which are distractions from the thing that I should really be
883. 00:43:32 doing.
884. 00:43:33 And I'm doing all those things to make myself feel better.
885. 00:43:36 That's uncomfortable.
886. 00:43:37 But I think I got to think about that.
887. 00:43:40 And the action item specifically here is to make a list of the
888. 00:43:43 things that I am putting off.
889. 00:43:45 Okay.
890. 00:43:46 I think that's a good first step.
891. 00:43:48 I'm a little bit worried at how long this list might be.
892. 00:43:51 But.
893. 00:43:52 Yeah, I really like this section too.
894. 00:43:57 And it's especially when he brings in the point that like the
895. 00:44:00 amount of mental and emotional energy that avoiding something
896. 00:44:04 takes, I think is way bigger than we think it is.
897. 00:44:07 You know, like I, I don't want to have that talk with important
898. 00:44:12 person X, whoever it might be.
899. 00:44:14 So like I'll go to all of these great lengths to not do that.
900. 00:44:19 Mike, do you know what, do you want to want my avoidance
901. 00:44:21 activities is one of my key avoidance activities?
902. 00:44:23 I'll check my email and I'll like, I'll organize my email inbox.
903. 00:44:28 Right.
904. 00:44:29 Because it feels like I'm.
905. 00:44:30 Organizing the deck chairs on the Titanic because because it
906. 00:44:33 feels like I'm doing something.
907. 00:44:35 Right.
908. 00:44:36 Valuable.
909. 00:44:37 Really, I know in my heart of hearts, I am not doing anything
910. 00:44:41 valuable.
911. 00:44:42 All I'm doing is avoiding the thing that I don't want to do that I
912. 00:44:45 should be doing and that I don't want to do.
913. 00:44:47 And I just think that this is a very, very like a nail on the
914. 00:44:53 head kind of a point.
915. 00:44:54 Like I think it's a nail on the head.
916. 00:44:56 Like what are you doing to avoid the thing you should be doing?
917. 00:45:00 But I like your action.
918. 00:45:01 Right.
919. 00:45:02 Like make a list of the things I'm putting off.
920. 00:45:04 And then I think your extension of this would be what do I do to
921. 00:45:08 avoid doing that thing?
922. 00:45:10 Like what is, what does my default go to?
923. 00:45:12 And this is where I think social media bites people.
924. 00:45:14 So like you feel like you're learning.
925. 00:45:17 You feel like you're engaging with people.
926. 00:45:19 You feel like you're having these relationships via social media.
927. 00:45:21 And it's like you're not.
928. 00:45:22 You're really just avoiding all the things you don't want to do.
929. 00:45:25 And it's just easy to flip, flip, flip, flip, flip and scroll.
930. 00:45:28 So I really thought this was a valuable chapter as you think
931. 00:45:34 through this.
932. 00:45:36 Yeah.
933. 00:45:37 So the topic of social media, by the way, I really don't like the
934. 00:45:41 term social media because it's in a lot of ways very anti-social.
935. 00:45:46 Yeah.
936. 00:45:47 Yeah.
937. 00:45:48 Yeah.
938. 00:45:49 But I also find myself being drawn more to it from a business perspective.
939. 00:45:52 So I mentioned LinkedIn and I want to show up more there, but it has
940. 00:45:59 nothing to do with scratching a social itch.
941. 00:46:02 It's really just because I want to use it to build my business.
942. 00:46:06 It's where everybody is, right?
943. 00:46:08 Like if I'm going to make a message that I want people to see,
944. 00:46:12 there's two places I should do that.
945. 00:46:14 An email list that I've developed and I've grown in social media.
946. 00:46:18 Those are the two places at this point.
947. 00:46:20 You don't send a flyer anymore.
948. 00:46:22 You don't put a sign up in the sky.
949. 00:46:26 Those are the two places.
950. 00:46:28 So it's like a love/hate thing for me.
951. 00:46:30 I know the value of it and I hate engaging with it.
952. 00:46:35 I don't want to be part of it.
953. 00:46:39 The other big idea, I think, from this chapter or this section,
954. 00:46:43 chapter 17 about the light schedule being harder than a full one,
955. 00:46:47 that sounds ridiculous when you just read it.
956. 00:46:49 But I think it is true because the point is that if you have a light
957. 00:46:54 schedule, you sometimes feel bad about not being productive.
958. 00:46:58 You're not getting everything done that you think you can get done or
959. 00:47:02 you should get done.
960. 00:47:03 And you mentioned especially if you are newly self-employed.
961. 00:47:06 So I definitely have fallen into this.
962. 00:47:08 But he also talks about we have a natural limit for our daily
963. 00:47:12 productive hours.
964. 00:47:13 You can't simply ramp up your productive time.
965. 00:47:15 We've mentioned this before, but I think it's worth calling out again.
966. 00:47:17 Most people can only do three or four hours of focused work per day.
967. 00:47:23 So if you're starting your own business and you're like,
968. 00:47:27 finally, I don't have any of these meetings.
969. 00:47:29 I'm going to crush it.
970. 00:47:30 You are going to be crushed to find out that you can't crush it.
971. 00:47:33 You're going to hit a wall.
972. 00:47:35 But the big point here is to learn to manage yourself and not your
973. 00:47:41 time.
974. 00:47:42 I think this is a very simple idea that is very, very powerful.
975. 00:47:50 And essentially it's diluted throughout the rest of the book.
976. 00:47:58 Like he really, I think, could hammer that message home a lot harder
977. 00:48:03 and stronger than he does.
978. 00:48:05 And it's really potentially life changing if you understand it.
979. 00:48:09 But it's not in your face.
980. 00:48:11 We'll talk about that when we get to Stalin rating, I think.
981. 00:48:15 But I want to call it out here because I think this is the thing that
982. 00:48:19 could totally change your life if you really applied this idea or
983. 00:48:24 this principle.
984. 00:48:25 Yeah, I get an action item out of this section.
985. 00:48:28 Basically, I don't get to control my schedule.
986. 00:48:32 I mean, I do a little bit, but I don't get to control my schedule
987. 00:48:35 during the semester.
988. 00:48:36 So at any given time, you know, it's like, oh, you're going to
989. 00:48:39 teach this class, then this class, then this class, then.
990. 00:48:41 And it's balanced with a bunch of the other schedule requirements
991. 00:48:45 and classroom openings and all these things.
992. 00:48:47 So it's not uncommon for me to have like an 8 a.m. class,
993. 00:48:51 a two hour break and then, you know, another class and then an
994. 00:48:55 hour break and then another class.
995. 00:48:57 And what I find is I'm really not good, I guess, for lack of a
996. 00:49:03 more formal way to say that.
997. 00:49:04 I'm not good at being productive in those.
998. 00:49:07 Those pockets, like those pockets for me.
999. 00:49:10 And by no means do I think I need to like wall to wall make that 100%
1000. 00:49:15 productive time.
1001. 00:49:16 But like I find myself at the end of the day looking back and going
1002. 00:49:19 like, oh, I should have worked on this thing during that time.
1003. 00:49:22 And I've tried, you know, the block scheduling where it's like, oh,
1004. 00:49:27 you know, I get done with that class and I'm going to work on this
1005. 00:49:29 project and I get done with that class and I work on this thing.
1006. 00:49:31 But like that, I mean, it barely ever stays true, right?
1007. 00:49:35 Like it barely ever where it's like I get done with that.
1008. 00:49:37 And sometimes it's like, I don't feel like working on that.
1009. 00:49:39 Like I don't have the brain power right now.
1010. 00:49:41 Something happened in my first class or I don't have the brain power.
1011. 00:49:44 Sometimes it's a matter of something gets in the way and a student
1012. 00:49:47 wants to meet for an extra half hour or and then talk about something.
1013. 00:49:50 And I, so I'm getting to my action item.
1014. 00:49:54 The action item is like, how do I adjust myself and or something to
1015. 00:50:00 actually make those pockets productive?
1016. 00:50:02 Like I would love it.
1017. 00:50:04 If I could control my schedule and the first four hours of the
1018. 00:50:07 morning is like, nope, you're not getting that.
1019. 00:50:09 Like that's mine.
1020. 00:50:10 I'm going to do what I want to do when my brain is the most fresh.
1021. 00:50:13 I can't do that though, like that's not realistic.
1022. 00:50:17 I have to work in the schedule or these pockets of time.
1023. 00:50:20 And how do I do that?
1024. 00:50:22 And like that's what I need to figure out.
1025. 00:50:24 So my, my official action item is how do I make the pockets in my
1026. 00:50:27 schedule more productive?
1027. 00:50:28 And then I put in parentheses with the things I want to do.
1028. 00:50:32 Not just productive for the like the raw sense of productivity,
1029. 00:50:35 but with the things I actually want to accomplish.
1030. 00:50:38 And that's a hard one for me to think through.
1031. 00:50:40 What do you think about the traffic light strategy for focus?
1032. 00:50:45 I was not a fan.
1033. 00:50:46 I was not a fan of the traffic light thing.
1034. 00:50:48 He could have gotten rid of that chapter and I'd have been
1035. 00:50:50 totally fine.
1036. 00:50:51 Yeah.
1037. 00:50:52 So real, real briefly, the traffic light strategy green is your
1038. 00:50:55 state of flow or hyper focus.
1039. 00:50:57 Yellow is approaching a danger zone showing signs of fatigue or
1040. 00:51:00 overwork.
1041. 00:51:01 And then red is you've got, you've reached your limit.
1042. 00:51:03 You need to stop.
1043. 00:51:04 You need to rest.
1044. 00:51:05 Need to recover.
1045. 00:51:06 It talks about the link between hyper focus and burnout.
1046. 00:51:09 I feel like there's a compelling argument and an important
1047. 00:51:13 point to be made here.
1048. 00:51:15 But I agree that the framework of the traffic light doesn't really
1049. 00:51:18 make a whole lot of sense.
1050. 00:51:21 I feel like the, the, the flow or the hyper focus that he's talking
1051. 00:51:25 about, that is ideal.
1052. 00:51:28 But that's not something that you're in for three, four hours a day.
1053. 00:51:33 And then there's got to be something in between there for,
1054. 00:51:36 I'm still being productive, but I'm not just absolutely
1055. 00:51:39 crushing it.
1056. 00:51:40 Gary V-style.
1057. 00:51:41 And yellow, like that makes sense, you know, slow down.
1058. 00:51:45 And you have to recognize that your energy is going to ebb and
1059. 00:51:48 flow.
1060. 00:51:49 You know, I agree with, with that.
1061. 00:51:50 He mentions here that we overestimate what we can get done
1062. 00:51:52 in the short term underestimate.
1063. 00:51:53 We get done in the long term.
1064. 00:51:54 I agree with that.
1065. 00:51:55 But the application of it feels a little bit fuzzy.
1066. 00:51:58 Yeah.
1067. 00:51:59 And you know, I agree with that.
1068. 00:52:01 It feels a little bit fuzzy.
1069. 00:52:03 Yeah.
1070. 00:52:04 And if I'm, if I'm remembering correctly, didn't he get this
1071. 00:52:06 analogy from somebody else?
1072. 00:52:07 And he was like, Oh, it's a good one.
1073. 00:52:08 We're going to use this.
1074. 00:52:09 I'm possibly.
1075. 00:52:10 I'm pretty sure I don't know.
1076. 00:52:12 But I just, I like the idea of, you know, focus burnout, like these
1077. 00:52:17 kinds of things.
1078. 00:52:18 I think it's a good way to talk about it.
1079. 00:52:20 I did not like the packaging of the, of the red, yellow, green at
1080. 00:52:23 all.
1081. 00:52:24 It just didn't resonate with me at all.
1082. 00:52:25 So I'll stop there.
1083. 00:52:26 But.
1084. 00:52:27 Yeah.
1085. 00:52:28 I agree.
1086. 00:52:29 One other thing that did resonate with me all the way back at the
1087. 00:52:32 beginning chapter was how we plan our days is how we plan our
1088. 00:52:37 lives.
1089. 00:52:38 And our perception of that's the chapter about our perception of
1090. 00:52:41 time change changes as we age.
1091. 00:52:43 But there was a description of a time free zone that he used here,
1092. 00:52:48 which I think is really interesting.
1093. 00:52:50 It's basically a portion of your day where you are not thinking
1094. 00:52:53 about what time it is.
1095. 00:52:55 I think this is fascinating.
1096. 00:52:56 I have an action to create a time free zone where I don't care
1097. 00:52:59 about time.
1098. 00:53:00 I have no idea how in the world I'm going to be able to do that.
1099. 00:53:03 But I think it's a really cool concept and I can definitely see
1100. 00:53:07 it being valuable if I'm able to pull it off.
1101. 00:53:09 Well, it's almost like what you're, what you're describing about
1102. 00:53:12 when you go to Door County, right?
1103. 00:53:14 Is there's this, it's essentially your time free zone.
1104. 00:53:17 So it's like that physical removal allows you to exist in a
1105. 00:53:20 world where you don't care quite as much about the individual time
1106. 00:53:24 and the individual schedule.
1107. 00:53:27 Kinda.
1108. 00:53:28 Yeah.
1109. 00:53:29 So I want to be able to hopefully create that in my day to day.
1110. 00:53:33 We will see.
1111. 00:53:35 Yep.
1112. 00:53:36 Let me see if there's anything else.
1113. 00:53:38 I don't think I have anything else on this, in this part two.
1114. 00:53:42 Okay.
1115. 00:53:43 So part three is owning your time.
1116. 00:53:48 This is just based on the title, kind of where the payoff is.
1117. 00:53:53 Again, a bunch of chapters.
1118. 00:53:55 Chapter 18, the movie of your life.
1119. 00:53:57 That's an interesting idea.
1120. 00:53:59 Chapter 19, the real problem is we're going to die.
1121. 00:54:01 Chapter 12, hold on to that feeling.
1122. 00:54:04 Sorry.
1123. 00:54:05 Chapter 20.
1124. 00:54:06 Chapter 21, how we respond to regret is more important than avoiding it.
1125. 00:54:09 Chapter 22, the eighth day of the week.
1126. 00:54:11 Chapter 23, planning for a year is easier than planning for a day.
1127. 00:54:14 Chapter 24, weddings, holidays and other depressing events.
1128. 00:54:17 Chapter 25, pay yourself first.
1129. 00:54:19 Chapter 26, instead of leaving a legacy, learn to live well.
1130. 00:54:24 There's a couple really interesting things in this chapter.
1131. 00:54:27 I think maybe let's start with Chapter 24.
1132. 00:54:29 Weddings, holidays and other depressing events.
1133. 00:54:31 I don't know how you feel about these, but I actually have experienced this.
1134. 00:54:36 I think he's on to something with this chapter.
1135. 00:54:41 I guess I'm curious what you think about this.
1136. 00:54:44 His big idea really is just like we're expected to feel happy about these big
1137. 00:54:48 life events.
1138. 00:54:49 And then we get to these holidays and these events that we're like, oh, I finally have
1139. 00:54:54 time off and it's going to be great.
1140. 00:54:56 And then it doesn't go the way we think it will and we get frustrated.
1141. 00:55:00 Yeah.
1142. 00:55:01 So I'm going to let you down here, Mike.
1143. 00:55:03 I did not resonate with this chapter at all.
1144. 00:55:06 Right.
1145. 00:55:07 And I don't know if I'm just like completely disconnected from this idea, you know, of
1146. 00:55:13 basically, I would agree with you that time.
1147. 00:55:16 He says in here, he says in your time is weird during the holiday season.
1148. 00:55:20 It's like we're in a time warp.
1149. 00:55:22 I agree with that, but I think that's a positive.
1150. 00:55:24 Like I like that.
1151. 00:55:25 Like when I go to the holiday season, like everything is like different.
1152. 00:55:28 The routine is different.
1153. 00:55:29 I don't know what's wrong with my brain, but I'm like, yeah, like we're in a, we're
1154. 00:55:33 in a weird time where like, no, like it's just nice.
1155. 00:55:36 It's just, it's different.
1156. 00:55:38 So like that doesn't.
1157. 00:55:39 I think there's a, I think there's a couple of things here, which you can, you can, uh,
1158. 00:55:43 we're chiming in and I want to know if these factors maybe go into your feeling
1159. 00:55:47 that way.
1160. 00:55:48 So college professor, right?
1161. 00:55:49 You have an extended break over the holidays.
1162. 00:55:52 What is it?
1163. 00:55:53 Like a month?
1164. 00:55:54 Yeah.
1165. 00:55:55 For us, it's about a month, three weeks to a month, depending on the year.
1166. 00:55:57 Yep.
1167. 00:55:58 Okay.
1168. 00:55:59 So I think most people probably take off the week between Christmas and New Year's.
1169. 00:56:03 And the months leading up to that, I'm speaking generally, but I think most people are like,
1170. 00:56:11 oh yeah, let's just get together, you know, during the break.
1171. 00:56:14 And so you sort of make all these commitments about these things that you're going to do
1172. 00:56:17 over the break.
1173. 00:56:18 And then you get to the break and you just need a break and you feel like, I just need
1174. 00:56:23 to stop and not do anything for several days.
1175. 00:56:26 Ding, ding, ding, ding.
1176. 00:56:27 So, uh, for those of you who aren't teachers and or college professors, one of the crazy
1177. 00:56:33 things that is hard to explain to somebody until you go through it.
1178. 00:56:37 And the reason why I know that most people would experience this is because we'll get
1179. 00:56:40 affiliate faculty members and they'll run the semester and they'll like get to the end
1180. 00:56:43 of the semester and they'll be like, oh my gosh, I'm absolutely fried.
1181. 00:56:47 Like I am toast.
1182. 00:56:48 I've got nothing left, you know, kind of a thing.
1183. 00:56:51 Well, they're usually teaching like one class, right?
1184. 00:56:54 So most of the teachers and or faculty, like full time faculty bars, we're teaching like
1185. 00:56:58 four or five, right?
1186. 00:56:59 So like, I mean, turn that dial up to 11.
1187. 00:57:02 And that's what we're feeling.
1188. 00:57:03 So by the time we hit the first week of December, I am gone.
1189. 00:57:07 Like I am like totally fried, totally toast.
1190. 00:57:10 And when that time war happens, it's such a relief.
1191. 00:57:13 So yes, Mike, my whole point in saying all that is you're absolutely right.
1192. 00:57:17 The context of my everyday life is very different, which changes my view of this chapter.
1193. 00:57:22 Yeah.
1194. 00:57:23 But also, I don't know that I 100% agree with this chapter.
1195. 00:57:26 I think the feeling that he's calling out there is actually important to recognize.
1196. 00:57:30 But he mentions that projects during the holidays can keep you grounded.
1197. 00:57:33 I'm not sure I want to do a project over the break.
1198. 00:57:38 At first, I was, oh, yeah, that's brilliant.
1199. 00:57:40 I'm totally going to do that.
1200. 00:57:42 And the more I think about it, I'm like, nah.
1201. 00:57:45 I think the bigger point and the one I want to think about is he mentions that many of
1202. 00:57:48 life's truly special events are ordinary or unexpected.
1203. 00:57:51 So I don't want to keep putting off, oh, we're going to make these memories or we're going
1204. 00:57:54 to do these things at these specific times at the end of the year or during these these
1205. 00:57:59 holidays, like Christmas and Easter, et cetera.
1206. 00:58:02 I want to figure out how to build that into the regular rhythms, but not necessarily having
1207. 00:58:08 a, what you call it, action item associated with that.
1208. 00:58:14 Another one I want to talk about though is chapter 20, hold on to that feeling because
1209. 00:58:18 he's talking about aliveness in this chapter and how things don't need to have utility
1210. 00:58:24 in order to make you happy and he kind of admonishes us to pay close attention to the
1211. 00:58:29 moments when you feel more alive than usual.
1212. 00:58:33 Do you know where I'm going to go with this?
1213. 00:58:35 I don't.
1214. 00:58:36 So I'm very intrigued.
1215. 00:58:38 I'm very intrigued.
1216. 00:58:39 Okay.
1217. 00:58:40 Well, I like this because this is essentially the first part of the life theme process.
1218. 00:58:45 Okay.
1219. 00:58:46 The first step that I walk people through in that cohort is identifying your moments of
1220. 00:58:51 impact is what I call them.
1221. 00:58:54 So I, I think I maybe bristle a little bit at the term happy because when I think about
1222. 00:59:00 moments of impact, I'm thinking about things where you really just feel that made a difference.
1223. 00:59:06 Yeah.
1224. 00:59:07 Right.
1225. 00:59:08 And sometimes those are, those are the most difficult things that you're, you go through
1226. 00:59:11 and you go through them and you're just like, Oh my gosh, I made it through.
1227. 00:59:13 That was awesome.
1228. 00:59:14 Like I remember public speaking was that for me, I was terrified of it at the, the beginning
1229. 00:59:18 but the very first time I, I spoke in front of an audience and I could see the feedback
1230. 00:59:23 I was getting from people as I was speaking and like, Oh, this is so much better.
1231. 00:59:26 Yeah.
1232. 00:59:27 So, so let me, let me encourage you here.
1233. 00:59:30 I think the phrase is the alive language that he uses is much, much better than the
1234. 00:59:35 happy language that he uses because there are these experiences where you walk out of
1235. 00:59:39 it and you're just like, Oh my gosh, like, yeah, like I'm, I'm going to go run through
1236. 00:59:42 a brick wall.
1237. 00:59:43 Right.
1238. 00:59:44 Like this, this was amazing.
1239. 00:59:45 And I agree with that.
1240. 00:59:46 I do not agree with the happy, like if, if we're going to go with the times when I felt
1241. 00:59:50 most happy, I think that's too fickle and it gets really too, too fickle.
1242. 00:59:54 So I want to encourage you there.
1243. 00:59:55 No, I, I agree with that.
1244. 00:59:57 And I also think, you know, is it the whole point of the chapter is not just to do the
1245. 01:00:01 things that, that make you happy, but basically he's, he's saying that you don't have to always
1246. 01:00:06 do the things that you think are quote unquote productive.
1247. 01:00:10 There doesn't have to be utility associated with the things that you do.
1248. 01:00:15 You don't have to get to the end of the day and feel like there, I have cranked so many
1249. 01:00:18 widgets, therefore it has been a good day, like sometimes just do the things that bring
1250. 01:00:25 you life.
1251. 01:00:26 So I really do like that term, aliveness, because that's one of the clarifying questions
1252. 01:00:29 I give people is when did you feel most alive?
1253. 01:00:33 Yeah.
1254. 01:00:34 And that's the first time I've heard somebody talk about that piece of the life theme process,
1255. 01:00:39 I think, read a lot of books and we've talked about the personal mission statements and distilling
1256. 01:00:45 things down, personal core values, like those themes appear a lot of different places.
1257. 01:00:49 But those moments of aliveness, I like the way that he described those.
1258. 01:00:54 And this is where I like what he where his distinction between feel good productivity,
1259. 01:00:59 right?
1260. 01:01:00 Like there's a difference because feel good productivity is still like the idea of being
1261. 01:01:03 productive, you know, and feeling good or being alive, like while you're doing that.
1262. 01:01:07 But like, I like what he says here is like, there's going to be some things where it's
1263. 01:01:10 like, you're not productive and you leave that feeling like alive.
1264. 01:01:14 Like you and I'm like, we're going to go get coffee.
1265. 01:01:17 And the whole point of that is for us to sit in the room and just drink coffee.
1266. 01:01:21 We're not productive on any level.
1267. 01:01:23 We are just hanging out, talking about stuff.
1268. 01:01:26 It might be important stuff.
1269. 01:01:27 It might not be important stuff.
1270. 01:01:28 And like that, give yourself the space or give yourself the permission.
1271. 01:01:34 I don't know what word you want to say to do that stuff.
1272. 01:01:36 Now, granted, you can't do it all the time.
1273. 01:01:39 But like giving yourself the permission or the space to do that is I think a really, really
1274. 01:01:44 valuable thing.
1275. 01:01:46 I think where this chapter goes wrong is when people interpret it, like when they read it
1276. 01:01:51 and they go, well, the only things I should do are the things that make me feel alive.
1277. 01:01:56 And I'm like, yeah, like, like, let me know how that goes for you because there's a lot
1278. 01:02:00 of stuff I have to do in daily life where I do not feel alive.
1279. 01:02:04 Like I am not excited.
1280. 01:02:05 I am not jazzed about that, I walk out exhausted, but I had to do that because I'm a dad.
1281. 01:02:12 I'm a husband.
1282. 01:02:13 I have to make, you know, like money, like I have to, I just have to do some stuff, you
1283. 01:02:16 know, to.
1284. 01:02:17 So I think that's where this chapter potentially goes wrong, but I don't think he let us there
1285. 01:02:20 at all.
1286. 01:02:21 I think it's potentially in the interpretation of the way you, of the way you use it.
1287. 01:02:25 Yeah.
1288. 01:02:26 I mean, the, the larger point here I think is kind of what you're talking about with things
1289. 01:02:32 you don't want to do, right?
1290. 01:02:34 So those aren't things that make you happy and kind of the traditional description of
1291. 01:02:39 that would be like follow your passion, which is a terrible idea, right?
1292. 01:02:43 Until you realize what passion really means, which is just the root of the word passion
1293. 01:02:48 is petite, yeah, it means to suffer.
1294. 01:02:50 So really what's so important that you're willing to go through some stuff in order to
1295. 01:02:53 see it come about kind of changes the, the equation there.
1296. 01:02:57 He sort of hints on that in this, this section, I think the first two chapters kind of go
1297. 01:03:01 together.
1298. 01:03:02 The movie of your life, this is really just recognizing that your life is like a movie
1299. 01:03:07 and in a movie, you've got story arcs and different things, it's conflict that's happening
1300. 01:03:11 and recognizing that you're going to get through it.
1301. 01:03:14 I think that's really important.
1302. 01:03:16 He uses the phrase the best is yet to come.
1303. 01:03:17 I mean, simple phrase, but that really spoke to me when I, when I read that.
1304. 01:03:22 And then chapter 19, the real problem is we're going to die.
1305. 01:03:25 This is sort of getting at the idea of a mental mori, but there's a very specific strategy
1306. 01:03:30 in here that I actually kind of liked.
1307. 01:03:33 The mental mori, by the way, this is the, the Roman thing where when a war general came
1308. 01:03:37 back, they had someone who was, as he's going through the parades, through the, the city
1309. 01:03:42 streets as someone whispering in his, his ear, remember, you're going to die someday.
1310. 01:03:46 So that's essentially my mental mori.
1311. 01:03:47 I built that into my city and daily note.
1312. 01:03:49 I actually have like a little progress bar for my life based on the average 80 year lifespan,
1313. 01:03:55 which some people think is depressing, but I actually think it helps you redeem the time
1314. 01:03:59 and make, make the best use of it.
1315. 01:04:02 So remember we're going to die really is an encouragement not to do stuff you really
1316. 01:04:08 don't want to do.
1317. 01:04:10 And he uses a couple of examples in the book, which are really great.
1318. 01:04:14 I feel someone asks, ask them to do something and he's like, no, thanks.
1319. 01:04:18 I'm going to die someday.
1320. 01:04:20 There's like no other context.
1321. 01:04:22 I totally want to try that out.
1322. 01:04:24 I don't think I'm going to, but that would be, that would be a lot of fun.
1323. 01:04:26 Yeah, I thought that was, I thought that was very like flippant, but at the same time,
1324. 01:04:30 very good.
1325. 01:04:31 It's like, ah, sorry, I'm going to die really someday.
1326. 01:04:33 So I can't do that.
1327. 01:04:35 One of the things is he describes that as a problem.
1328. 01:04:39 And again, this is a worldview thing.
1329. 01:04:40 So I think about this like, I don't worry about the fact that I'm going to die.
1330. 01:04:44 And it's maybe like the engineer completely like black and white section of my brain
1331. 01:04:49 and where I go, yeah, so at some point I'm going to die.
1332. 01:04:52 Like I'm a human.
1333. 01:04:53 I'm going to die.
1334. 01:04:54 Like, nobody gets out of this thing alive, right?
1335. 01:04:57 That's the phrase that I've heard somebody say and like, no, no human gets out of this
1336. 01:05:01 thing alive.
1337. 01:05:02 And it's like, okay, that's fine where I, where I like what he brings into this chapter
1338. 01:05:06 is the idea of how do you do more of the things that you want to do and less of the
1339. 01:05:12 things that have been projected onto you or that somebody else's expectations are saying,
1340. 01:05:18 these are the things you should do.
1341. 01:05:20 And like, that's really where I like that.
1342. 01:05:22 And that's really where I like the idea of Memento Mori and I like what he's talking
1343. 01:05:25 about here and seeing your soul, seeing your life as a movie is like, if I look back and
1344. 01:05:29 I watch the movie of my life, am I happy?
1345. 01:05:32 Like, and I don't mean happy in like a, you know, that kind of thing.
1346. 01:05:34 It's like, am I satisfied?
1347. 01:05:36 Do I like the trajectory it's going in or is there, is there a need to be a change?
1348. 01:05:40 Like have I realized I've been living the life of somebody else that's put, that's put that
1349. 01:05:44 on me?
1350. 01:05:45 And I really like this.
1351. 01:05:46 And then when you tie this with chapter 22, which is the eighth day of the week, I think
1352. 01:05:53 it becomes even more practical.
1353. 01:05:55 Because in chapter 22, where he says the eighth day of the week, he's like, imagine that you
1354. 01:05:58 have an extra day of the week, there's zero expectations, time stands still.
1355. 01:06:04 What are the things you do on that eighth day of the week?
1356. 01:06:07 And how do you do more of those things?
1357. 01:06:09 And when I think you put these two things together, like it gives you a really good, creative
1358. 01:06:15 way to do this, is imagining that eighth day of the week and the activities I'm going to
1359. 01:06:20 do in that and then saying, am I doing those in the movie of my life?
1360. 01:06:25 If I get to the end of my life and I haven't done those things that I wanted to do in that
1361. 01:06:29 eighth day, am I disappointed?
1362. 01:06:31 Am I okay with it?
1363. 01:06:32 Like, where do I sit with that?
1364. 01:06:34 I think it's a really good, like, just mental, like, just thought exercise to think through
1365. 01:06:40 how am I living the day to day in comparison to the scale of life?
1366. 01:06:44 I just really liked it and how those came together.
1367. 01:06:48 Interesting that you connected that with chapter 22, because I connected that with chapter
1368. 01:06:51 23.
1369. 01:06:52 Okay.
1370. 01:06:53 All right, cool.
1371. 01:06:54 Chapter 23 talks about, we have access to lots of time if we choose to use it well and
1372. 01:06:57 the goal is not to pack more in, but to pay attention and make those deliberate choices
1373. 01:07:02 that you were talking about.
1374. 01:07:04 And then there's a quote in here while key idea, chances are most of us, most of what
1375. 01:07:10 you are preoccupied with today, will not be important at the end of your life, which
1376. 01:07:18 I think is a pretty profound statement and easy to lose sight of, especially when you've
1377. 01:07:24 got 12 things on your to do list that you're not going to complete.
1378. 01:07:28 Yep.
1379. 01:07:29 Yeah.
1380. 01:07:30 Mike, do you think, so this is from chapter 23 as well, do you think you're more of a
1381. 01:07:33 dreamer or a doer?
1382. 01:07:35 So let me give you while you're thinking about it, dreamers, he say, suffer from big ideas
1383. 01:07:40 that seldom come to fruition and doers tend to be good at doing the wrong things, right?
1384. 01:07:46 So they do all the stuff, but they don't think about whether or not it's the right thing
1385. 01:07:49 to do.
1386. 01:07:50 And I know I'm putting you on a scale that has two ends, but do you think you're more
1387. 01:07:55 of one or more of the other?
1388. 01:07:58 Well, I'm not quite sure how to answer this.
1389. 01:08:02 I think there's a path to answering this, which is very obvious.
1390. 01:08:06 So I'll describe that one.
1391. 01:08:08 So the dreamer, that's essentially the visionary in the EOS world and the yin to the yang of
1392. 01:08:16 the visionary is the integrator.
1393. 01:08:18 I literally was an integrator here now.
1394. 01:08:23 So that's probably my natural bent, however, I don't know that that is necessarily true
1395. 01:08:33 as I am running my own business.
1396. 01:08:37 I think it's possible that I'm sort of a doer with dreamer tendencies.
1397. 01:08:46 Okay.
1398. 01:08:47 So I say that not because occasionally I can operate as an effective dreamer, but I think
1399. 01:08:53 occasionally I will fall into the traps that the dreamer will fall into.
1400. 01:08:59 But for the most part, I think I'm focused on let's create the systems and let's just
1401. 01:09:04 do the thing.
1402. 01:09:05 See, I'm a I'm the other way, I'm the other way, like ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas,
1403. 01:09:11 and then do they actually come to fruition maybe?
1404. 01:09:15 Like sometimes they do and I know that like that's a problem that I have.
1405. 01:09:20 So I need a good right hand person or other person who's like, okay, this is what we said
1406. 01:09:27 we're going to do.
1407. 01:09:28 And now they outline that list.
1408. 01:09:30 Yeah, I definitely know them the other way around.
1409. 01:09:35 All right.
1410. 01:09:37 Anything else from this part before we get to the afterword?
1411. 01:09:39 I don't think so.
1412. 01:09:40 I think we covered all the stuff I wanted to hit on.
1413. 01:09:43 So yeah, we can go the afterword.
1414. 01:09:45 Okay.
1415. 01:09:46 Well, the afterword is a single page.
1416. 01:09:50 So there's not a ton here, but actually there are a couple important things that he mentions
1417. 01:09:56 in this this afterward.
1418. 01:09:58 It's written kind of like a letter.
1419. 01:10:00 He signs it at the bottom, talks about how time anxiety is shared by many others around
1420. 01:10:04 the world.
1421. 01:10:05 There's no magic solutions, but this is the key.
1422. 01:10:07 I think you are not powerless.
1423. 01:10:10 There are things that you can do to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better
1424. 01:10:14 than today.
1425. 01:10:15 I really like that phrasing or that framing.
1426. 01:10:19 And really it's an encouragement to do something with what you have read.
1427. 01:10:23 And then at the very end, there is a specific piece of advice, which is great advice for
1428. 01:10:28 every book that has ever been written and every person who ever picks one up.
1429. 01:10:32 Okay.
1430. 01:10:33 Do you know what I'm going to say?
1431. 01:10:34 No, but this is bold.
1432. 01:10:35 Like I'm intrigued.
1433. 01:10:37 Feel free to modify the suggestions.
1434. 01:10:41 He actually says that in the afterword.
1435. 01:10:44 And this is something that passed me needed to hear.
1436. 01:10:47 I mentioned earlier in this episode about how when I started taking notes on books, I was
1437. 01:10:52 like, they're the guru.
1438. 01:10:53 They're the experts.
1439. 01:10:54 I just have to adopt their system and I would feel overwhelmed because it wasn't working
1440. 01:10:57 for me and I'd figure there must be something wrong with me.
1441. 01:11:01 And I go back and I'd take copious notes and I'd reread it again and I'm way past that
1442. 01:11:06 now.
1443. 01:11:07 And now it's just like, take what's useful, spit out the rest.
1444. 01:11:10 You don't have to, every time you pick up a book, regardless of how many copies it has
1445. 01:11:14 been sold, you don't have to make sure that that is the book that completely transforms
1446. 01:11:21 your life.
1447. 01:11:22 And how to read a book by Mortimer Adler kind of speaks to this, you know, you got to wrestle
1448. 01:11:26 with the, the arguments the author is making, you got to decide for yourself what you're
1449. 01:11:29 actually going to do with it.
1450. 01:11:32 And I feel like that's a really good way to end the book.
1451. 01:11:35 I feel like a lot of people need to be given that permission to change the change things
1452. 01:11:41 about the advice that they just read.
1453. 01:11:43 And I think that makes it actually much more potentially beneficial and applicable to a
1454. 01:11:47 lot more people.
1455. 01:11:48 Yeah.
1456. 01:11:49 I am hoping I got this right because I actually didn't capture whether this was in the afterward
1457. 01:11:54 or whether it was the latter part of 26.
1458. 01:11:57 But I like the manifesto at the end.
1459. 01:11:59 I'm pretty sure that was in the afterward.
1460. 01:12:02 And I like that, you know, he basically summarizes, you know, here are some things to just keep
1461. 01:12:08 in mind as you're, as you're closing out this book, you've noticed, Mike, at this point
1462. 01:12:12 that I like it when they do that, like here's a wrap up of what like the key, the key ideas
1463. 01:12:19 are.
1464. 01:12:20 And again, I like it here.
1465. 01:12:21 I like that he, that he did it and he leaves you with that.
1466. 01:12:25 Nice.
1467. 01:12:26 All right.
1468. 01:12:27 So that's the book, let's talk about action items.
1469. 01:12:33 And I have a couple of them.
1470. 01:12:36 I just want to make sure I didn't miss one from the notes that I grabbed here.
1471. 01:12:43 Okay.
1472. 01:12:44 Yep.
1473. 01:12:45 So I've got, don't save all your fun time for the weekend.
1474. 01:12:49 This is out of necessity because weekend is quickly turning into the time when I catch
1475. 01:12:55 up on the things that I didn't get done.
1476. 01:12:59 Also got the create a time free zone where I don't care about time.
1477. 01:13:04 I'm nervous about that one.
1478. 01:13:06 I have a feeling I'm going to struggle with that, but give a shot and then make a list
1479. 01:13:10 of the things that I am putting off.
1480. 01:13:14 So those are my three.
1481. 01:13:17 What action items do you have from this Corey?
1482. 01:13:20 So I have two coming out of this is the first one is think about your, your granny hobby,
1483. 01:13:24 which I've then immediately turned into my physical hobby.
1484. 01:13:28 Like the thing that's not just all brain, brain activity.
1485. 01:13:32 And then the second one I have is how do I make pockets in my schedule?
1486. 01:13:38 How do I make the pockets more productive?
1487. 01:13:39 Right.
1488. 01:13:40 So how do I take those and do the things I actually want to do?
1489. 01:13:43 Like I can tell you have a running list of those things.
1490. 01:13:46 How do I inject those into those pockets and get some stuff done on the things that I want
1491. 01:13:50 to do?
1492. 01:13:51 Not for the sake of productivity, but because I want to do those things.
1493. 01:13:54 Like I want more time to do those things.
1494. 01:13:57 Yeah.
1495. 01:13:58 All right.
1496. 01:14:00 So style and rating.
1497. 01:14:03 This one's tricky for me because I actually really like the style.
1498. 01:14:09 However, I don't think I love the tiny chapters.
1499. 01:14:13 You mentioned that as we're going through the episode and I think I'm the same way.
1500. 01:14:19 I would rather have 8 to 10 chapters, give me some meat to chew on and then I'll decide
1501. 01:14:25 what to do with it.
1502. 01:14:26 Okay.
1503. 01:14:27 Can I interrupt you for one second?
1504. 01:14:29 We didn't say this at the beginning and I meant to say it and I just totally forgot.
1505. 01:14:32 So the chapter had like basically the core concept that he was going to talk about and
1506. 01:14:36 then it had a practice section at the end of everyone.
1507. 01:14:39 Like did you find the practice sections valuable?
1508. 01:14:44 Sometimes.
1509. 01:14:45 Okay.
1510. 01:14:46 All tactics basically for how to apply something, but sometimes they had different and more
1511. 01:14:52 interesting ideas than the chapter itself.
1512. 01:14:55 So I thought they were very hit or miss too, which I, which I think is interesting, like
1513. 01:14:58 I kind of led the witness with the question, but at the same time, some of them were, I
1514. 01:15:02 was just like, this is pointless.
1515. 01:15:04 Like what, like we didn't need this here.
1516. 01:15:05 And then other ones, I was like, Oh man, this is actually better than what you wrote
1517. 01:15:08 in the last 10 pages.
1518. 01:15:11 So I thought that was an interesting takeaway as well.
1519. 01:15:14 So sorry, I'll let you continue on with your style and rating.
1520. 01:15:17 No, that is important.
1521. 01:15:18 And that actually affects the, the rating, I think, because I would argue if you're going
1522. 01:15:23 to have those practice sessions, they really should be insanely valuable.
1523. 01:15:29 Maybe that's not the approach he was taking with the book.
1524. 01:15:31 Maybe that's not his intention.
1525. 01:15:34 Maybe it's more, you know, grab whichever ones really speak to you and try them out.
1526. 01:15:39 He does give you permission to change them.
1527. 01:15:41 So I can't really fault him for taking the approach that, that he did, but my ideal version
1528. 01:15:47 of, I was going to say this book, but really just a book, like in this genre, the bookworm
1529. 01:15:54 type of book would be, give me some big ideas to wrestle with and give me some recommendations
1530. 01:16:00 for how you think I should apply those.
1531. 01:16:02 I don't need a bunch of options for productivity tactics.
1532. 01:16:07 Yeah.
1533. 01:16:08 It makes you feel a little bit more overwhelmed and kind of maybe even potentially works against
1534. 01:16:14 the idea of overcoming the problem of time anxiety, because it's like, I've got how many
1535. 01:16:22 different chapters here, let me look at 26, they've all got a practice piece.
1536. 01:16:27 So 26 different things I have to try out before I can really find what works.
1537. 01:16:32 No thanks.
1538. 01:16:33 Yeah.
1539. 01:16:34 Yeah.
1540. 01:16:35 I do like his writing style though.
1541. 01:16:37 I think he's a very good storyteller.
1542. 01:16:40 I think he's a really interesting guy.
1543. 01:16:42 By the way, the, I think the inspiration behind the world domination summit is this internal
1544. 01:16:48 goal he has of being in every country, which is kind of a cool goal.
1545. 01:16:55 Like I don't want to do that, but it'd be neat to be able to say that you, you accomplished
1546. 01:17:00 that.
1547. 01:17:01 And he's got lots of interesting stories from lots of interesting people, like the, the
1548. 01:17:05 guy who literally just flew to somewhere in Europe every, every week and never left
1549. 01:17:09 the airport.
1550. 01:17:10 I can't believe we made it here.
1551. 01:17:11 And we didn't talk about that story because I was just like, wait, what?
1552. 01:17:14 You just flew around and then would hang out in the airport for a little bit and then fly
1553. 01:17:18 home.
1554. 01:17:19 Okay.
1555. 01:17:20 Like, I mean, that's cool.
1556. 01:17:21 I guess.
1557. 01:17:22 Yeah.
1558. 01:17:23 And that's, I think that was the, the one about, you know, what do you really want to
1559. 01:17:26 do?
1560. 01:17:27 Just do it.
1561. 01:17:28 You don't need reasons.
1562. 01:17:29 You don't need justifications.
1563. 01:17:30 But yeah, there was literally a guy who would book a cheap flight somewhere in somewhere
1564. 01:17:35 in Europe.
1565. 01:17:36 Once a week, he would fly there, hang out in the airport for two hours, get back on the
1566. 01:17:39 plane to fly home.
1567. 01:17:41 Again, not for me, but I think that those types of things culminate in a book that feels
1568. 01:17:52 very original.
1569. 01:17:54 You know, I don't think just my perspective having, having read this, a lot of the books
1570. 01:18:00 that we read, you get done and you're like, well, this actually is very similar to this
1571. 01:18:04 other book.
1572. 01:18:05 And I like the way that the other book spoke about these things a little bit differently.
1573. 01:18:08 I think the whole framing, the title, time anxiety, just the weird, quirky way that this
1574. 01:18:15 is put together feels very unique.
1575. 01:18:19 And I think there's some really good stuff in here.
1576. 01:18:22 I think Chris Gillabow is a good writer.
1577. 01:18:24 And I think this one is one I would generally recommend, especially to people who are a little
1578. 01:18:30 bit skeptical maybe about productivity books or I don't know, they don't, they have sort
1579. 01:18:40 of like a negative visceral reaction to something like the seven habits of how they affected
1580. 01:18:47 people or how to win friends and influence people.
1581. 01:18:50 Those are great books, but you just take the title and you're like, you know, if you're
1582. 01:18:54 with that type of person, this is probably a great one.
1583. 01:19:00 Chris's style feels very approachable and does a great job of making the author seem
1584. 01:19:07 like someone who is just a fellow traveler on this journey that you're going on.
1585. 01:19:13 So he's sharing his own stories, his own struggles.
1586. 01:19:17 He shared, I wish I appreciated how he used to think this way and now he thinks a different
1587. 01:19:22 way.
1588. 01:19:23 You know, so you can kind of see how he's changed his mind about things over time.
1589. 01:19:28 I wish more people would would do that.
1590. 01:19:30 I think there's some things in here that are potentially life changing.
1591. 01:19:33 I don't think he goes into them long enough for them to actually be life changing, which
1592. 01:19:38 is why I'm going to rate this a four star book.
1593. 01:19:40 I think there's a version of this, which is a five star book, but didn't get there for
1594. 01:19:47 me.
1595. 01:19:48 I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
1596. 01:19:49 I don't know, you know, who he's trying to reach with this.
1597. 01:19:51 And it feels like a little bit of a departure based on the previous books that he's read.
1598. 01:19:55 But I do hope that he writes more books in this vein.
1599. 01:19:58 I think he's, he's kind of onto something here, but yeah, four stars.
1600. 01:20:04 Okay.
1601. 01:20:05 So I came into this one being like, I don't know how I feel about this book, you know,
1602. 01:20:09 time anxiety.
1603. 01:20:10 I don't really feel like I struggle with that kind of a thing.
1604. 01:20:12 I've talked to you about the fact that the practices were kind of like hit or miss, very,
1605. 01:20:18 very hit or miss for me, we've worked through all the stuff.
1606. 01:20:22 I agree with you completely on the fact that I liked his writing style.
1607. 01:20:26 Like it was just, I don't want to say it was a fun book to read, but it was one of those
1608. 01:20:29 books that was just like it flowed well.
1609. 01:20:32 It was natural.
1610. 01:20:34 He gave good.
1611. 01:20:35 He told good stories.
1612. 01:20:36 He brought in enough personal, but not too much personal to where it was like, okay, like
1613. 01:20:41 we're not writing a, you know, a biography, we're actually talking about concepts here.
1614. 01:20:46 I think some of the chapters had more value than others.
1615. 01:20:50 I think a place where I would a little bit disagree with you is the idea of like, I probably
1616. 01:20:56 wouldn't recommend this book to very many people unless they are anxious about time,
1617. 01:21:02 right?
1618. 01:21:03 Like unless I can tell like, oh, you are just stressed out about like daily routine and
1619. 01:21:07 life and not feeling productive enough or you're going to die one day or something like that.
1620. 01:21:12 I think for me to really recommend this book to somebody, they're going to have to have
1621. 01:21:15 a very specific need that I can't fully describe right now, but it's going to be around the
1622. 01:21:21 idea of time and productivity and being anxious around not being able to get enough done.
1623. 01:21:26 So that really drops my rating a little bit lower, I would say is the fact that, you know,
1624. 01:21:33 some of the things were a little bit hit or miss.
1625. 01:21:34 I think there's some good nuggets in this book, but I don't know if reading the entire
1626. 01:21:40 book is worth it for the nuggets that pull out because like you said, which I do agree
1627. 01:21:44 with, I don't think the concepts are talked about enough to be like life changing, like
1628. 01:21:50 it's just that, oh, there's a good nugget.
1629. 01:21:52 I wonder what to do with that.
1630. 01:21:53 There's a good nugget.
1631. 01:21:54 I wonder what to do with that.
1632. 01:21:55 So I am actually going to be a little bit more negative than you and by no means negative,
1633. 01:22:02 but it's like I'm going to be more negative than you.
1634. 01:22:04 I'm debating you had made a comment that for some reason has left my brain.
1635. 01:22:08 So I can't, I can't blank on that, but you made a comment that I thought was, that was
1636. 01:22:10 good and it brought me up to a three and a half.
1637. 01:22:14 So coming into this, it was a three.
1638. 01:22:16 This was a three book, not great, not terrible, kind of sat right there in the middle of everything.
1639. 01:22:22 Wouldn't really recommend it to that many people.
1640. 01:22:24 They'd have to be in a very specific situations.
1641. 01:22:26 There's a million books I'd recommend before this one.
1642. 01:22:29 So I was sitting at a three, but then you made a comment.
1643. 01:22:30 I wish I remembered what it was, but you made a comment that was like, oh, yeah, that does
1644. 01:22:34 bump this up to a three and a half.
1645. 01:22:36 So I'm going to rate this one a three and a half star book.
1646. 01:22:40 And yeah, and I think it's okay, like there's some good stuff in it and I don't think it's
1647. 01:22:44 life changing.
1648. 01:22:45 All right.
1649. 01:22:46 Well, let's put time anxiety on the shelf.
1650. 01:22:50 What's next, Corey?
1651. 01:22:51 All right.
1652. 01:22:52 So the next book is mine.
1653. 01:22:53 It is called sponsor magnet by Justin Moore.
1654. 01:22:57 The subtitle is how to attract price and execute your dream brand partnerships.
1655. 01:23:03 One of the things I want to disclaim on this is by no means is this book a directly apply
1656. 01:23:09 this to bookworm and how do we build sponsors for bookworm that was not the goal of this.
1657. 01:23:16 Mike told me about this book.
1658. 01:23:17 I looked into it like I looked at it and I was like, oh, this would be actually a really
1659. 01:23:19 cool book to think about partnerships because that's really what I like I'm interested in
1660. 01:23:25 thinking about is with the day job at CCU with bookworm with some of the other projects
1661. 01:23:32 that like Mike and I work at work on sponsors or a type of partnership.
1662. 01:23:37 Like we need resources to do the work that we do.
1663. 01:23:41 Sponsors want to give resources to support the work, but like everybody needs to think
1664. 01:23:46 about like what that looks like to come together and what it looks like for them to sponsor
1665. 01:23:51 you and then for you to take on a sponsor.
1666. 01:23:54 So I'm hoping that Justin goes into these ideas around not just how to get people to
1667. 01:24:01 give you money, but I'm hoping that he goes in and it's like, how do you actually develop
1668. 01:24:05 these really strong partnerships that can propel both organizations or however many
1669. 01:24:11 organizations there are forward.
1670. 01:24:13 That's my hope out of this book.
1671. 01:24:15 I also like too that it's a recent book.
1672. 01:24:17 So this was published on January 21st to 25.
1673. 01:24:21 So it's a relevant book for sponsorships.
1674. 01:24:24 So I'm hoping that's what we get out of it and that's that's why I'm excited about it.
1675. 01:24:29 How about you?
1676. 01:24:30 All right.
1677. 01:24:31 Well, I want to maybe temper your expectations a little bit.
1678. 01:24:36 So the person who designed the website for sponsor magnet is actually the person who designed
1679. 01:24:43 my sales pages for like Life HQ and Practical PKM.
1680. 01:24:47 So if you go to sponsor magnet.com, you can actually see a little bit more about the book.
1681. 01:24:53 I think there's definitely going to be some stuff that is applicable for you, but this
1682. 01:24:58 is really about turning the stuff that you make into sponsored content.
1683. 01:25:03 So if you want to call an audible and change it, that's fine.
1684. 01:25:07 But okay.
1685. 01:25:08 I'm good.
1686. 01:25:09 I'm good.
1687. 01:25:10 Yeah.
1688. 01:25:11 And as I mentioned last time, Justin is a great guy.
1689. 01:25:14 So I am happy to shine a light on his book.
1690. 01:25:20 I think with sponsorships in general, I want to encourage people not to think that this
1691. 01:25:25 doesn't apply to me.
1692. 01:25:28 I think that's even for a creator like me, it's easy to think like, Oh, well, this doesn't
1693. 01:25:34 apply to me because I'm not big enough yet.
1694. 01:25:35 I don't have a big enough audience.
1695. 01:25:38 And I think this book is going to speak to to that and help help maybe overcome those,
1696. 01:25:45 those limiting beliefs.
1697. 01:25:48 But we will see after that, I have a listener recommendation, which is made to stick by Chip
1698. 01:25:55 and Dan Heath.
1699. 01:25:56 So thank you, Andrew, for recommending this.
1700. 01:25:58 I love Chip and Dan Heath's books.
1701. 01:26:01 I forget which ones we've covered for bookworm.
1702. 01:26:03 I know for sure, decisive back in the day, and I really enjoyed that one.
1703. 01:26:07 So made to stick as on my bookshelf, but I have not read it yet.
1704. 01:26:13 And if you want to recommend a book for bookworm, we would love to have you do that.
1705. 01:26:18 There will be a link to make a recommendation in the show notes for this episode.
1706. 01:26:25 All right.
1707. 01:26:26 You got any gap books, Corey?
1708. 01:26:28 Okay.
1709. 01:26:29 So I do.
1710. 01:26:31 It's called, Oh my gosh, why am I blanking on it right now?
1711. 01:26:35 Oh, I'm totally blanking on the name of this book.
1712. 01:26:38 Like I feel like such a dud.
1713. 01:26:40 Hold on a second.
1714. 01:26:43 Words of life there.
1715. 01:26:44 Oh my gosh.
1716. 01:26:45 I can't believe it took me that long to get it.
1717. 01:26:46 It's called words of life, and it's a book for, I told you about that little mini seminary
1718. 01:26:51 thing I'm doing.
1719. 01:26:52 So I have to have words of life finished for next week, and I'm in the process of reading
1720. 01:26:57 that.
1721. 01:26:58 Oh my goodness.
1722. 01:26:59 I feel so silly that it took me that long to figure that out, a book that I'm actively
1723. 01:27:01 reading right now.
1724. 01:27:02 But no, it's basically about scripture and it's kind of about how scripture impacts us
1725. 01:27:09 as Christians.
1726. 01:27:10 So how about you?
1727. 01:27:11 Any, any gap books?
1728. 01:27:13 I do not have a gap book.
1729. 01:27:15 Maybe I'll have one that I can share from next time around, but I'm just going to get
1730. 01:27:23 through sponsor magnet first.
1731. 01:27:26 Okay.
1732. 01:27:27 Makes sense.
1733. 01:27:28 All right.
1734. 01:27:29 Well, if you're following along with us, pick up sponsor magnet.
1735. 01:27:34 We want to tell you about the pro show that we did.
1736. 01:27:36 Today we talked about visual thinking and visual kind of connections between different
1737. 01:27:41 things, Excala draw, my node, those type of things that if you're interested in the in
1738. 01:27:46 the pro show, you can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm, you get a longer ad free show.
1739. 01:27:52 You get the bootleg, which is released faster than the normal show.
1740. 01:27:56 We've got a wallpaper there.
1741. 01:27:58 It's $7 a month, and it would just help support the show and keep things moving forward.
1742. 01:28:04 All right.
1743. 01:28:06 So if you are reading along with us, pick up sponsor magnet, and we'll talk to you in
1744. 01:28:10 In a couple of weeks.