237: Toxic Grit by Amanda Goetz

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1. 00:00:00 Okay, so quick announcement before we get into the meat of the book today.
2. 00:00:07 I mentioned last time right at the end.
3. 00:00:09 So maybe people stop listening by the time I mentioned this.
4. 00:00:12 But if you did, you missed the good stuff.
5. 00:00:15 So don't do that again.
6. 00:00:17 I added my reading masterclass to the Patreon for bookworm.
7. 00:00:23 So that was a workshop that I did last summer.
8. 00:00:27 Charged 50 bucks for the recording is two and a half hours of me talking about books and reading.
9. 00:00:34 And I Patreon has some cool stuff for how you can set this up.
10. 00:00:40 So if you are a Patreon member already, you pay the seven bucks a month, you actually get this for free.
11. 00:00:47 If you don't get it for free, then something went wrong.
12. 00:00:49 Please email me and let me know.
13. 00:00:51 But with Patreon, you can actually create these post, paid posts, and you can set a price for people who are not members.
14. 00:01:01 So if you want to buy just the workshop, you can actually do that through the Patreon page now for 50 bucks.
15. 00:01:08 But you should totally just become a member, pay seven bucks a month, and get to it that way.
16. 00:01:14 I agree.
17. 00:01:16 All right.
18. 00:01:17 And then the other thing, well, let's get to action items.
19. 00:01:19 I do have one other thing I wanted to talk to you about.
20. 00:01:22 But what scene makes sense for you to join Corey?
21. 00:01:25 Did you decide?
22. 00:01:26 Okay.
23. 00:01:27 So it's interesting that this was my action item from the last book and then what we're going to get to today and talks at grid as she talks about the third place.
24. 00:01:37 And these two things come together and I don't know what it is.
25. 00:01:41 But what I'll tell you is I know that like there is a scene, there is a third place.
26. 00:01:48 There is something that does not exist right now for me.
27. 00:01:53 And I think I'm going to have to create it.
28. 00:01:56 And the challenge I have is I don't know if I want to create it.
29. 00:02:00 I don't know if I want to take on the administrative burden of creating that thing.
30. 00:02:07 And then I go into the mindset of I need to lower the bar, like I need to lower the bar and what that third place is what that scene is and make it a thing where people just like come and hang out and not.
31. 00:02:18 It's not this intense, you know, because my brain immediately goes to like, well, it's got to be organized.
32. 00:02:22 It's going to be planned and we've got to have a calendar and we've got to, you know, all these other things.
33. 00:02:26 And I'm like, wait a minute, Corey, pause, take a minute, like breathe and let's not make it that intense.
34. 00:02:32 So this is where I'm in the process right now as I'm thinking about what's that third scene look like.
35. 00:02:38 Does it involve my children?
36. 00:02:40 And that's a big question as well because if it involves my children, it's probably going to involve about 35 other children.
37. 00:02:48 And once you add, you know, all those children into the mix, the administrative barrier gets harder.
38. 00:02:57 So there you go.
39. 00:02:58 That's my follow up for my action item.
40. 00:03:01 I'm thinking about the scene.
41. 00:03:02 It needs to happen.
42. 00:03:03 I'm trying to figure out what it is and I'm trying to answer the most important question is, are my children involved?
43. 00:03:09 All right.
44. 00:03:10 Yeah, the third the third place is an interesting idea, which we will definitely talk about, but that actually triggered something in me that I wanted to ask you about.
45. 00:03:18 So I'm going to put you on the spot here because she talks about getting around the right people also, which isn't directly connected to the third place, but kind of is.
46. 00:03:26 Oh, it is.
47. 00:03:28 Are you finally going to come to craft and commerce with me this year?
48. 00:03:34 So for those of you who don't know, I did this big dramatic lift my head in the air side away from the microphone like, okay, Mike, you need, you know, we need to have an intervention here about our relationship.
49. 00:03:49 I want to come to all of these things like I really do.
50. 00:03:54 I have to temper my level of wanting to come to them because most of them happen in a time that is not conducive to me to be doing it.
51. 00:04:03 And the real question is, Mike, is there ever a time that's conducive to me doing it?
52. 00:04:07 Or am I just going to have to like pull, you know, say, bite the.
53. 00:04:09 That is the question that is the question because the sponsorship games, sponsor games.
54. 00:04:16 There you go.
55. 00:04:17 I was saying I'm saying that wrong, sponsor games.
56. 00:04:19 I really want to go to that, but it is at the worst time of the semester.
57. 00:04:23 Like there's no way I can do that.
58. 00:04:25 So it's like, if I could figure out a way to do that or, you know, ease the burden on the university or like my work there.
59. 00:04:31 Okay.
60. 00:04:32 Craft and commerce is in the summer, isn't it?
61. 00:04:34 June 10 to the 13th.
62. 00:04:35 So the real question is, and I haven't looked this up yet, the real question is, does it thread between vacations and these other like trips that we have planned and, you know, Mike, sometimes I forget to look at that stuff.
63. 00:04:47 So do I, you have trips planned already?
64. 00:04:49 Oh, my gosh, you have no idea, man.
65. 00:04:51 Like you have no idea.
66. 00:04:52 Like there are so many weeks of my summer that are already booked and like they've been booked for months.
67. 00:04:58 They've been booked for months.
68. 00:04:59 Part of that is because we will do a lot of like national park type stuff in the summer and you have to book those six to nine to 12 months in advance.
69. 00:05:08 So the reason why I'm not going to answer this question and I'm going to continue to evade and resist answering this.
70. 00:05:16 Question is because I don't know the answer and I have to talk to my wife and I have to ask her, hey, you know, can I do this thing in June?
71. 00:05:24 Not that she needs to give me permission, but it's like, is there anything on our calendar right now?
72. 00:05:27 Because I don't remember if there is.
73. 00:05:28 So I'm adding an action item right now.
74. 00:05:30 Talk to Katie about.
75. 00:05:34 Nice.
76. 00:05:35 Yeah, if you're going to pick one event to go to, this is the one.
77. 00:05:38 Okay.
78. 00:05:39 All right.
79. 00:05:40 I will do everything in my power to make it to crafting commerce this year.
80. 00:05:44 Nice. And the reason I put you on the spot now is exactly.
81. 00:05:46 So what just happened could happen.
82. 00:05:49 Sponsored games was kind of like, Hey, let's do this now.
83. 00:05:52 You know, I tend to be fairly last minute with this stuff, but now you've got like eight months to figure it out.
84. 00:05:57 In my heart, I want to be you, Mike.
85. 00:06:00 Like I want to just be like, there's this thing.
86. 00:06:02 It's going to add value.
87. 00:06:03 Boom, I'm doing it.
88. 00:06:04 I'm going to go do that and then life just comes down.
89. 00:06:09 It's like, no, can't do it.
90. 00:06:10 So I probably do that a little too much, to be honest, but I like it.
91. 00:06:14 I think, I think you have a good balance.
92. 00:06:15 Um, so I'm going to talk to Katie.
93. 00:06:17 It's an action item.
94. 00:06:17 Good job.
95. 00:06:18 You got an action item already.
96. 00:06:21 Success.
97. 00:06:22 Yeah.
98. 00:06:22 So Mike, you have in here under our follow up section, the pathless path.
99. 00:06:26 Yeah.
100. 00:06:27 What are you thinking with that?
101. 00:06:29 So I sent you a text message this week saying, I know who I want to print my book through.
102. 00:06:37 And that is auto pine press.
103. 00:06:40 I need to contact somebody at auto pine, but, uh, the reason I that they came on my radar
104. 00:06:47 was because I saw somebody post about Paul Millard had redone this premium hard cover version of the pathless path.
105. 00:06:55 So if you go to the website, you can actually see this book.
106. 00:06:58 It is amazing.
107. 00:07:00 It's got this cool slide cover.
108. 00:07:02 It's one of those like woven covers.
109. 00:07:06 So if you're familiar with the Derek Sivers books, have you, do you have any of the Derek Sivers books?
110. 00:07:10 I don't have any, but I'm familiar with them.
111. 00:07:12 Okay.
112. 00:07:12 So those have the same type of hardcover material on them.
113. 00:07:17 If you've actually held one and, um, I go to the auto pine press website because that's who this book came from.
114. 00:07:24 And I look on their, you know, their main homepage and that's Derek Sivers book.
115. 00:07:28 Oh, they printed Derek Sivers books too.
116. 00:07:31 But this book is beautiful and it's got all of these illustrations in it.
117. 00:07:37 It's got this, uh, this quote on the, the back.
118. 00:07:41 I mean, it's just so well done.
119. 00:07:44 Like if I could have picked a, uh, if I, if I could pick the type of book that I would want to make, like the material and the design and the picking special fonts and things like that.
120. 00:07:57 It was always like, I really love the way that Derek Sivers books have been put together.
121. 00:08:01 This one just took the ideal book format to a whole nother level.
122. 00:08:06 The only thing that's close is like the Baron Fig books, like personal Socrates and laws of creativity.
123. 00:08:13 Those are kind of the same thing, but this, uh, this, this hardcover edition, it is $95.
124. 00:08:18 I'll tell you that right now, but it comes with the book, the slipcase, a bunch of like postcards with images that were done for the book, a pathless notebook, which unfortunately is line rules.
125. 00:08:31 Otherwise it would be amazing.
126. 00:08:36 Yeah, I'm such a big fan of, uh, of, of this, this format.
127. 00:08:40 The previous version I had bought off of Kindle, I think, or Amazon and it was a hardcover version, but it was this really weird hardcover is like a chipboard sort of a thing.
128. 00:08:51 I'm like, I'd never seen a book like this.
129. 00:08:53 It feels weird to hold this one is an absolute joy and, uh, I know the first run of these, he's got them all signed.
130. 00:09:01 So if you, uh, want to sign copy of the pathless path, this is, uh, this is really cool.
131. 00:09:06 And Otter Pine Press is the, are the people who made it.
132. 00:09:09 Um, I looked up Otter Pine Press.
133. 00:09:11 It is in Asheville, North Carolina.
134. 00:09:14 And it turns out that like the day I discovered it was in Asheville, North Carolina, Joshua came up and asked if he could go to this young writer's workshop, uh, retreat, which happens to be in Asheville, North Carolina.
135. 00:09:27 So he and I are going to go and hopefully I will get to visit Otter Pine Press.
136. 00:09:30 Nice. Look at that coming around full circle.
137. 00:09:32 And what, uh, what kind of writing retreat, like what do you want to do with that?
138. 00:09:37 Uh, to be honest, I don't know.
139. 00:09:38 He's part of this young writer's workshop, which is put on by the author of the Green Ember series.
140. 00:09:43 Okay.
141. 00:09:44 So that's like his favorite author and, um, they've really helped him, uh, helped him a lot in terms of developing his writing skills.
142. 00:09:52 So he writes all the time.
143. 00:09:54 He wants to write some sort of a fiction novel.
144. 00:09:57 And so this is like a bunch of people who are part of that program.
145. 00:10:00 They show up, they stay.
146. 00:10:02 Well, you can, there's a hotel attached to the place.
147. 00:10:04 So you can either get a hotel room or stay in the dorms, the bunks, you know, with, with everybody else, all the other campers.
148. 00:10:11 And it's like a three, four day, you know, writing retreat, which I think is super cool.
149. 00:10:15 Yeah, that's really cool.
150. 00:10:16 It's really cool.
151. 00:10:17 Good job, dad.
152. 00:10:18 We didn't encourage that.
153. 00:10:20 It wasn't something that, you know, I was always should totally do this.
154. 00:10:23 They just kind of like came on our radar and when it showed up, he was kind of curious about it.
155. 00:10:28 I'm like, you should totally check it out.
156. 00:10:31 Uh, and there have been two times that that has happened with Joshua specifically.
157. 00:10:34 One of them was with drama, although that one we probably pushed him a little bit because, um, we told him he should try it.
158. 00:10:40 He was kind of hesitant at the beginning, but now he's, uh, he's done it and, uh, he absolutely loves it.
159. 00:10:46 He was just Gavrash for the fall drama production of Les Mis.
160. 00:10:51 Nice.
161. 00:10:51 And he crushed it is amazing.
162. 00:10:55 Toby did all the tech, of course.
163. 00:10:58 But yeah, the drama program that we're part of, by the way, it's called Valley Troubadours.
164. 00:11:01 Okay.
165. 00:11:02 It's the largest homeschool drama and music program in the country.
166. 00:11:06 That's pretty cool.
167. 00:11:07 Happens to be in Appleton, Wisconsin.
168. 00:11:09 So like it's all all very, uh, very well done.
169. 00:11:12 That's kind of a kind of a maze every time I go to a production.
170. 00:11:15 You're going to get a production.
171. 00:11:16 It's like, wow, this is crazy.
172. 00:11:18 Like, wow, you guys are good.
173. 00:11:22 But Pathless Path, I wanted to bring a spotlight on this too because I read this book a long time ago and it was very influential.
174. 00:11:28 I definitely think people should read this book.
175. 00:11:32 It's kind of thinking about all defining your own path in life and you don't have to just settle for the, the status quo, which, uh, I think, uh, people need to consider that.
176. 00:11:44 So it's, it's Paul Millard, right?
177. 00:11:46 Yep.
178. 00:11:47 I think you read this one before I joined the show.
179. 00:11:50 Um, cause I don't, is it a bookworm?
180. 00:11:52 Did we do, did you do it on a bookworm?
181. 00:11:54 We did do it on a bookworm, I think, but it was a, it was before you joined the show because we and, um, I think, yes, yes, that was the other one.
182. 00:12:04 Right.
183. 00:12:04 And that one is also very good, but the pathless path is sort of Paul's signature book.
184. 00:12:11 Okay.
185. 00:12:11 You want to think of it that way?
186. 00:12:13 So one that caught Ali Abdall's attention.
187. 00:12:15 He talked about it on the YouTube channel and blew up.
188. 00:12:20 Got it.
189. 00:12:20 All right, cool.
190. 00:12:23 Let's move it on up.
191. 00:12:26 All right.
192. 00:12:26 So we're going to talk about toxic grit today.
193. 00:12:29 Uh, this is by Amanda gets and I picked this book because I heard her speak at crafting commerce.
194. 00:12:37 She gave a, a great, uh, they have like the 20 minute talks or something.
195. 00:12:43 They're, they're pretty short, uh, the keynote talks.
196. 00:12:46 They're just like one right after the other.
197. 00:12:47 So her session was great and as she mentioned the book at the very end, I was like, oh, I totally got to get that book.
198. 00:12:54 The book is nothing like her talk.
199. 00:12:56 Okay.
200. 00:12:58 Totally unrelated.
201. 00:13:00 I feel, um, but, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's not written for us.
202. 00:13:06 I'll say that.
203. 00:13:07 Um, and I mentioned this before, this is written for women.
204. 00:13:12 And I think that is overall a good thing in the productivity space.
205. 00:13:16 Cause we need more of that perspective.
206. 00:13:21 Um, however, it's going to make talking about it really interesting.
207. 00:13:24 And I'm very nervous about this one.
208. 00:13:26 Yeah.
209. 00:13:26 Uh, so just to echo Mike and kind of agree with him on this.
210. 00:13:32 I mean, this, we are not the target audience for this book by any means, which is why I actually like that we read it.
211. 00:13:39 Um, I, I like that idea that there's a book in here that's not normal for us.
212. 00:13:45 And it's going to challenge us to think in different ways, but like freely speaking and we'll get to this in style and rating later.
213. 00:13:51 But it's like freely, freely speaking.
214. 00:13:52 There were parts of this that I was just like, I don't connect with that at all.
215. 00:13:56 Like I've never been pregnant.
216. 00:13:58 Like I have no idea what you're talking about.
217. 00:14:00 You know, like, so there are just different things in here.
218. 00:14:03 But one of the things I think it helped me think through is it helped me like kind of empathize with something that I have very little experience with.
219. 00:14:13 Like I have no experience with certain aspects of this.
220. 00:14:16 Um, but it helped me think about it from a perspective that I don't normally think about it from.
221. 00:14:19 So, um, I'm glad that we read it.
222. 00:14:22 I'll say that at the front end.
223. 00:14:23 Like I'm really glad that we read it.
224. 00:14:24 Um, and even though it wasn't written for us, like for, um, you know, men, really, it's, it's as flat as you could say it wasn't written for men.
225. 00:14:33 There's a lot of stuff that I think you can get out of this book.
226. 00:14:36 So I'm excited to talk about it with you and we'll manage it.
227. 00:14:40 Like we're pretty, pretty okay people.
228. 00:14:43 So we'll manage the company.
229. 00:14:46 Yeah.
230. 00:14:46 So there's an introduction in this book and then three parts.
231. 00:14:51 Part one is character theory.
232. 00:14:52 Part two is honor the imbalance.
233. 00:14:54 Part three is master the multiverse.
234. 00:14:58 And then there is a conclusion, but it is actually underneath the part three heading.
235. 00:15:04 I kind of had to go back and double check that in the table of contents when I got done.
236. 00:15:09 Like, wait, should this be broken out?
237. 00:15:11 Cause every other book we read is broken out as its own thing.
238. 00:15:14 But obviously I didn't pick that up when I, when I threw those, those notes in there.
239. 00:15:17 So it's like, I didn't remember that at all.
240. 00:15:19 Um, it's like 350 pages.
241. 00:15:25 It's a, it's a big one.
242. 00:15:27 There's lots of visuals and the whole idea of toxic grid, I think, uh, is something that everybody needs to consider.
243. 00:15:36 The subtitle is how to have it all and actually love what you have.
244. 00:15:41 And with that, I think we should probably just get into it.
245. 00:15:46 All right.
246. 00:15:46 So the introduction is the first section.
247. 00:15:50 This is where she defines toxic grit.
248. 00:15:54 And the definition is a feeling that we are supposed to handle it all and smile through pain and suffering.
249. 00:16:00 I think that is a pretty great definition.
250. 00:16:04 Sets the foundation for everything else that she's going to talk about and the, the big problem that she's identifying here that's related to this is this idea of balance, balances.
251. 00:16:13 Everything's weighted equal.
252. 00:16:15 That is not a great idea.
253. 00:16:17 And this kind of already gets into one of my, I'm not going to say issues with the, the book, but she, uh, brings up the idea of intentional imbalance.
254. 00:16:27 That's definitely not original, right?
255. 00:16:29 She doesn't try to claim it is.
256. 00:16:31 But there's lots of like things that she talks about that I have pieced together from other books that we've, we've read.
257. 00:16:38 So it's sort of like a patchwork.
258. 00:16:42 Um, you know, she's, she's grabbing all these different things from other places and putting them together under the label of toxic grit, which toxic grit feels like I've not heard that term before that feels trademarkable.
259. 00:16:57 Like, okay, this is something unique.
260. 00:16:59 But then underneath it, it's a remix of a lot of different things.
261. 00:17:04 And it's not even the fact that it's a remix that kind of bugs me, but it's sort of the way that they're presented, even at the beginning here with balance or she's going into intentional amounts.
262. 00:17:12 It's like, Oh, I know where you're going with this.
263. 00:17:15 And so maybe, you know, in addition to being a male, uh, maybe I'm not the, the target audience in this in terms of how familiar you are with books in the productivity realm.
264. 00:17:29 Like if this is the first productivity book you read, I feel like the first time you come across some of these ideas, this hits very differently than it did for me.
265. 00:17:38 And I call it out now just because that's the tone right from the introduction for me.
266. 00:17:41 Yeah.
267. 00:17:42 And I think, and I think if we look at the chain of logic here, because I had to, I had to kind of go through this is, okay, you have these ideas.
268. 00:17:51 You have this idea of toxic, toxic grit, this idea of intentional imbalance.
269. 00:17:54 Um, and then where does this come from?
270. 00:17:55 So this could have been a book written that just basically is like she had an experience and she wants to tell about that experience and how she worked through that experience, except for the fact that she's coached a lot of people.
271. 00:18:06 So she transitioned out of her marketing roles and into coaching women, right?
272. 00:18:10 So in thinking through these types of things, which means I think there's, uh, it's a logical argument to say like, okay, this also came out, not only have her experience, but out of the fact that she was coaching women through similar experiences.
273. 00:18:22 When you put those things together with the idea of, there are all these ideas out there that I've used in my coaching that have come from other things, add to the fact that I don't think a lot of the productivity self help books.
274. 00:18:38 They're either written to a neutral audience or they're written to men.
275. 00:18:42 Like, I mean, I think that's a fairly safe, safe, logical argument to make, right?
276. 00:18:47 So therefore she's writing a book that says, nope, I'm doing the exact opposite of that.
277. 00:18:52 I'm writing to women and in this situation, bringing these ideas together that if you've read a bunch of productivity books, they're not like super brand new or crazy.
278. 00:19:01 Although I do think character theory is an exception to that role, which we'll get to later.
279. 00:19:06 I mean, that's a whole part one.
280. 00:19:07 So I think she is hitting a hole or a gap in the market right now.
281. 00:19:13 And I think that that makes a lot of sense for her to try to do that and for her too.
282. 00:19:18 I don't know how successful the book is.
283. 00:19:20 I didn't look at the ratings on Amazon or whatever real quick.
284. 00:19:23 So I mean, it's growing, I think, the book in popularity.
285. 00:19:28 So I think there's an interesting niche in the market that she's trying to address.
286. 00:19:33 And to be honest, the book doesn't need to be successful for her.
287. 00:19:40 She is very successful.
288. 00:19:41 She has had multiple successful businesses.
289. 00:19:47 And just to tell a little bit of her story, kind of the thing that got her to this point was she had a marriage that failed.
290. 00:19:55 She had three kids within five years and she all of a sudden finds herself being a single mom.
291. 00:20:02 I think that was right before the pandemic, she said.
292. 00:20:05 Yeah, right around it, right before it sounded like that.
293. 00:20:07 And she's this highly ambitious CEO of all these big things, like planning weddings for A-list celebrities.
294. 00:20:17 And on the surface, she talks about how it looks like she's got it all, right?
295. 00:20:28 And she was sort of chasing other people's definitions of success for her life for a long time.
296. 00:20:35 And then kind of just came to the realization that, hey, this is not what I want and takes back control of her life
297. 00:20:44 and makes intentional decisions about how she's going to live.
298. 00:20:50 And yeah, the character theory thing, that's kind of where the rest of the book comes in and balancing the roles between the different characters.
299. 00:20:56 So we probably should go there.
300. 00:21:02 I am not sure how this discussion will go.
301. 00:21:07 I think character theory, there's a lot in here, but it isn't broken real cleanly into the chapters.
302. 00:21:16 So maybe we just talk about this as parts at least for now.
303. 00:21:21 So in part one, character theory, there's chapter one, how we got here, which is a little bit more about the emphasis on balance and things like that, then there's chapter two, which is meet your characters.
304. 00:21:33 Chapter three talks about toxic characters, and then chapter four is character compatibility.
305. 00:21:39 So the power to summarize this whole section, basically what she's doing here is she's saying that we need to reprogram our operating system.
306. 00:21:52 A lot of our expectations were programmed from previous generations.
307. 00:21:57 And balance isn't something that you achieve at the micro level, it's on a much larger time horizon.
308. 00:22:04 The key here is this intentional imbalance where you're switching back and forth between these things.
309. 00:22:09 And she introduces the concept of character theory, which there are five laws of character theory, you write the script, characters vary by person, characters vary by season, characters evolve, and not all characters are created equal.
310. 00:22:21 I think that's kind of the foundation you need to consider the rest of this.
311. 00:22:26 But then my issue, I guess, not issue, whatever, the thing that kind of makes me feel like this book is not for me is when she says meet your characters.
312. 00:22:36 And she lists the 10 different characters.
313. 00:22:39 I guess we should talk about these.
314. 00:22:41 The first one is the CEO, they're focused on accomplishment.
315. 00:22:44 The second one is the partner focused on companionship.
316. 00:22:47 The third one is the soloist focused on personal growth.
317. 00:22:50 Fourth one is the caregiver focused on taking care of those around them. So at this point, you would think, well, this maybe resonates a little bit more with the traditional female audience than the male audience, but I'm okay with this one.
318. 00:23:01 Like men should be more concerned about taking care of the family than they are.
319. 00:23:06 I agree.
320. 00:23:07 But then the goddess focused on being desired, you completely lost me there.
321. 00:23:11 The lazy girl focused on comfort.
322. 00:23:14 Again, like weird label, but yeah, whatever.
323. 00:23:17 The social light focused on connection, the creative focused on, well, creating.
324. 00:23:22 And then the doctor focused on feeling healthy.
325. 00:23:25 Oh, and the last one, the explorer where you're focused on new experiences.
326. 00:23:28 So let's talk about these characters.
327. 00:23:32 Can I back up one second and then, and then roles of the characters.
328. 00:23:35 So the first time, I think I had ever thought about the character theory idea and it was not pitched as character theory idea was David Sparks talking about it on focus to where he would organize it.
329. 00:23:46 To where he would organize different systems in terms of his roles, like his major roles.
330. 00:23:51 And like that idea stuck with me and I said, oh, that's a really interesting idea.
331. 00:23:55 What I liked about what she did here in the first chapter is like she unpacks that more.
332. 00:23:59 It's like, oh, there's this character theory, right?
333. 00:24:01 Like, and if we think about this like a movie plot line or like a stage plot, like there are these different characters and they have their roles and it varies and it varies by season and, you know, they're going to ebb and flow kind of a thing.
334. 00:24:12 And I really like the packaging of this. Like, I think that is a really interesting way to frame everything.
335. 00:24:18 You know, she bases it on Vladimir props, seven architectural characters in like a storyline or in a plot line kind of a thing and then she rolls into here into the actual 10 characters.
336. 00:24:30 I agree with you in terms of it says, meet your characters.
337. 00:24:36 Like, I think we're nitpicking a little bit, but it's like, meet some characters.
338. 00:24:42 And I think this, well, I think this would have been a different chapter to me.
339. 00:24:47 If it would have been presented as here are characters.
340. 00:24:51 Here are some example characters.
341. 00:24:53 Your action item is to go figure out what are your top five characters? What are your top 10 characters? Like, what are these characters and what do they mean to you to where it's, it's less of a prescriptive thing.
342. 00:25:05 Or of a, like, emergent thing, right, where people have to go out and figure out what their characters are.
343. 00:25:11 That changes the nature of this. I actually don't have really any problems with the 10 that she outlines here.
344. 00:25:19 And I fairly easily could translate those to me, right? Like, I mean, I'm obviously not a goddess, right?
345. 00:25:25 But like, I get what she's getting at there, right? Like this idea of being desired and being, you know, whatever it is.
346. 00:25:30 I'm obviously not a lazy girl, but I can tell you right now, like, there are times when I want to binge watch movies and TV shows.
347. 00:25:36 So I get what she's going at here. I just kind of wish she would have pitched it in terms of let me or help me.
348. 00:25:43 There, that's a bit where I should sit. Help me figure out what my characters are.
349. 00:25:48 And then think about how those become toxic and think about those, how they're compatible with each other kind of rolling through.
350. 00:25:54 So that's my take on the character thing. I don't know where you want us to go with this, but it's like, I don't really need to talk about any of the 10 in detail.
351. 00:26:03 I think they're fairly straightforward to understand, but I'm happy to talk about any of them that you want to.
352. 00:26:09 Well, I think the thing I want to highlight here is, well, okay, a couple things. First of all, these are these may be her characters and that's great as an example.
353. 00:26:27 But these are used as the foundation for the entire book.
354. 00:26:33 Oh, I agree. You're right. You're right. And so it does feel prescriptive at this point. These are the characters that you are that are in your, that you're working with.
355. 00:26:44 And I have two minds on that. On the one hand, asking someone at this point in the book to identify their own characters is a heavy lift that they're probably not going to do.
356. 00:26:55 But on the other hand, I think some of these are just wrong. Okay. The one that specifically I have, like, I disagree with is the whole idea of the lazy girl, or if you want to change it to the lazy guy, whatever, but having a whole character focused on comfort.
357. 00:27:14 I feel is the wrong approach here. And I get why she has this one because she is just based off of what she shares in this book.
358. 00:27:28 It seems like the CEO is the one that drives or has traditionally driven her like she has accomplished a whole heck of a lot. So maybe it's helpful to say I have a character that is tied to the idea of you're not going to do the thing.
359. 00:27:47 And you have to make sure that you budget time for that character. But I feel like the whole idea of don't push yourself too hard actually applies to all of these characters. It's not a separate character.
360. 00:28:00 See, and I interpreted that I interpreted that differently. Like, and maybe this is a difference between you and I, I have a character in my world that says, Hey, you know what you're going to do tonight.
361. 00:28:11 Absolutely nothing. Right, like, I'm not kidding. Like, I don't know where it comes from. I don't know why it is. But it's like, you know what your best night is right now.
362. 00:28:20 Watching Harry Potter. How many times have you watched Harry Potter? A million times. Why are you going to watch it again? I don't know, because that's just what you're going to do. So it's like, I somewhat resonate with this. So that's, that's the way I took it is like, I saw that character in my brain that was like, what are you going to do tonight?
363. 00:28:35 Absolutely nothing, because that's what you're going to do tonight. And it's like, so that that was just a different perspective.
364. 00:28:41 Yeah, I think maybe there's a different labeling that makes a little bit more sense. And so she defines this as focused on comfort. Another way to say this is, you just want to have fun, right?
365. 00:28:53 But I think that there's elements of comfort and fun that are associated with all of these other roles. It feels weird to strip it out to me and I get where you're coming from.
366. 00:29:04 Because that's one of my issues is I have trouble finding things that I just do for fun that aren't tied to accomplishing a goal in some other area.
367. 00:29:15 But yeah, just the whole framing of the lazy girl and the way that it shows up throughout the rest of the book, it feels like that one doesn't really belong.
368. 00:29:31 There's a thing at the end, I forget where it is because I didn't take notes on all of the examples that she has for every single one of these characters.
369. 00:29:41 But there was one where she's going through all these different sections about this is what this looks like for this character. This is what this looks like for this character.
370. 00:29:50 And then she gets to the lazy girl and she's like, yeah, you already know what this is. There's no application of it. It's just part of the name or something. I wish I had that example.
371. 00:30:02 I didn't know that we were going to go this direction with the conversation to be honest. But I like the idea of the characters for sure.
372. 00:30:10 I would say that the thing for me thinking through this book would be, I don't have this as an action item, but if I did, if I was going to do something based on the characters that she presented here, it would be to identify my own characters and then apply everything else that she talks about.
373. 00:30:26 I actually think that is a fundamental way to get more out of this book is like, okay, she presented me these example characters. What are my characters? And then how does honor the imbalance master, the multiverse? How does that play into my set of characters?
374. 00:30:43 Or how are my characters toxic? So I could not agree with you more that like, I think that would have resonated more with me than being presented the 10 characters and following that guide.
375. 00:30:55 Yeah. And then even with the the toxic characters too, like every single one of these has a dark side, toxic CEO, you're recurring subscription to hustle culture, toxic partner, losing yourself in a relationship, toxic soloist, hyper independence.
376. 00:31:11 The toxic goddess, or I'm sorry, the toxic lazy girl, it's right below the toxic goddess, is basically you did too much of it.
377. 00:31:26 Again, like, Mike, I'm going to give you maybe a different perspective, right? I can't say that that's wrong, right? Like, when I, like, let's say back in the day, right? That would never do this today. Like, I would never do this in my current life, right? But let's say back in the day, I would watch like too much football on a Saturday.
378. 00:31:44 I can tell you that, like, I would not feel good about that. Like, I get to the end of the day and I'm like, what did I do? I just watched four football games that I do anything else today. No, I just watched four football games. And I'm like, and what do I get for it? Like, what comes out of that? Nothing.
379. 00:31:57 I don't even remember like the first game because I've already watched three after that. And so I, again, I can't argue with what she's doing here. I think it, I think it lays out pretty well.
380. 00:32:08 Yeah, I don't know. I'm not quite aligned with her at this point, but there's lots of stuff that's in these sections that is really good and definitely has me thinking like the whole cycle of ambition.
381. 00:32:22 This is totally me. Phase one is the spark. Phase two is the setback. Phase three is the Phoenix where you rise up from the ashes. Phase four is the burnout and phase five is the rebalance.
382. 00:32:36 Right. So I've definitely fallen into, into this cycle. And this is really the, the thing that is in this chapter three toxic characters where you need to consider what you are doing with each one of these different roles in your, your life.
383. 00:32:54 I also like the visual she has of the school bus and how the adult you should be driving at all times. Yup, because she's, she's got, let me see if I can identify those you.
384. 00:33:08 Yeah, go ahead. So you're the driver of the bus. Life in your past has filled up the seats of the bus. Sometimes one of the passengers, typically from your past who can't drive the bus tries to drive the bus.
385. 00:33:18 And then you have, you have to calmly tell that passenger to get back into the back of the bus or get out of the seat and get back into the back of the bus.
386. 00:33:24 I think that's incredible. Like I really do think that's incredible. Can I, can I stand us on a little bit of a tangent for a second? That as a, that as a practical PM tangent.
387. 00:33:35 Okay. I don't know what happened, Mike. But for some reason, this book, atomic notes clicked for me.
388. 00:33:43 Okay. I have no idea why. There's two ideas that clicked for me in this book, atomic notes and Transclusion.
389. 00:33:50 So, Transclusion, for those of you who don't, who've never used Obsidian, Transclusion is the idea that you can basically show the contents of a note inside of another note. So you just put this little flag.
390. 00:33:59 I hate that term. Let's just say embedded note. Embedded note. Yeah. Okay. But it, but it lets you see the embedded note, like within, within thing.
391. 00:34:05 And for some reason, after all the books we've read, after all the notes we've taken, after all the obsidian stuff that I've done through your stuff and through mine, it clicked this, this time for me.
392. 00:34:14 Like the emotional bus is now an embedded note because I think that's a cool idea and needs to be an atomic note, right? Like, but it never worked for me before.
393. 00:34:23 So sorry for my tangent, but yes, I love that example of the emotional bus.
394. 00:34:28 And there are lots of those, lots of potential atomic notes in here.
395. 00:34:32 Yeah, there are, like, and maybe that's why it clicked is because she, she stacks one after another after another, which is like, that's a cool idea.
396. 00:34:38 That's a cool idea. Yep. That's a cool idea.
397. 00:34:41 And there are cool visuals associated with lots of these. There's quite a few images in the, the mind map.
398. 00:34:49 I'm sure we'll talk about a few more of them, but.
399. 00:34:52 Yeah, I think one of the things I want to stay here is between getting presented with the characters, getting presented with the toxic idea of the characters.
400. 00:35:01 Nothing here, like, really stood out to me as I was, as I was reading this theory, like, nothing jumped out at me that was like, oh my gosh.
401. 00:35:08 And for better or worse, I think about it was like, I have to talk about that on bookworm. Like, I absolutely have to talk about that.
402. 00:35:14 Like, that's, that's an idea that's so new and so novel and so crazy that I have to talk about that.
403. 00:35:19 But at the same time, I don't say that in a negative way. I say that in a way that says all of these resonated.
404. 00:35:24 I was like, oh, yeah, I see that. Oh, yeah, I see that. Oh, yeah, I see that.
405. 00:35:27 It's just nothing here out of these two chapters.
406. 00:35:29 So chapter two and chapter three really, like, jumped out and was like, oh, like, gotta, gotta talk about that with Mike, kind of a thing.
407. 00:35:35 So just, just a note, just a note as we think through these chapters.
408. 00:35:40 Yeah. The only other thing from this section, which could potentially talk about, is the, the character compatibility stuff, where she talks about the different combinations.
409. 00:35:52 You know, when you lose your CEO, you should focus on your creative and your socialite, etc.
410. 00:35:57 But to the point that you were just making, I feel like she's gotten a whole lot of mileage out of this basic idea.
411. 00:36:10 So she talks about these things from every conceivable angle.
412. 00:36:14 That is neither good nor bad.
413. 00:36:16 But there is a version of this book that is 150 pages instead of 350.
414. 00:36:20 Yeah, I agree. And if the characters that she lists here resonate with you, you're probably glad that it's 350 pages.
415. 00:36:30 And if they don't resonate with you, you probably wish it was 150 pages.
416. 00:36:34 Okay, I'm going to tangent us all day, I guess, just who I am today.
417. 00:36:39 This, when you combine with, oh my gosh, Mike, what's the book where it kind of talked to us about developing your listserv and your mailing list and those kinds of things?
418. 00:36:50 It was just a couple books ago.
419. 00:36:52 Oh man.
420. 00:36:53 Do you know what I'm talking about though?
421. 00:36:54 Like the simple marketing for smart people or like those type of books.
422. 00:36:58 Just a couple books ago, I can look it up, but yeah, nothing.
423. 00:37:02 It doesn't ring a bell off top my head.
424. 00:37:04 Anyhow, so the idea that she could have taken a lot of this stuff, I think, and she could have linked it to a website and more resources.
425. 00:37:17 Was it published?
426. 00:37:19 It might have been published.
427. 00:37:20 Actually, yeah, so it was published, yes, for sure.
428. 00:37:22 She could have linked this to the funnel in different parts of the funnel and taken the book and made it 200 pages, 225 pages.
429. 00:37:33 And this other extra stuff became part of that funnel where she builds this listserv.
430. 00:37:38 Like, I really think this book and seeing it after a couple authors that have done this, right?
431. 00:37:43 So Justin Moore did it, published did it, you know, like, I'm forgetting who wrote published right now, but Chandler Bolt, there you go.
432. 00:37:51 And like when I think about that, it's really interesting to see the stark comparison of 300 and something pages versus less pages, but then we're going to kick you out to this extra resource, extra resource, extra resource.
433. 00:38:05 I can't tell you, I like one better than the other.
434. 00:38:07 It's just really interesting to see the difference between those styles of writing a book.
435. 00:38:12 Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like if you get a book and you're like, heck yeah, this is for me, you kind of don't want to have to go find the additional resources.
436. 00:38:21 Just give me the stuff.
437. 00:38:22 I agree.
438. 00:38:23 I agree.
439. 00:38:24 Yeah.
440. 00:38:25 All right, you ready to go to part two?
441. 00:38:26 I am.
442. 00:38:27 All right.
443. 00:38:28 So part two is honor the imbalance and this is where we switch into productivity mode, I guess.
444. 00:38:39 Chapter five is imbalanced, I'm balanced.
445. 00:38:42 Chapter six is the big three.
446. 00:38:45 Chapter seven is a bigger role.
447. 00:38:48 Chapter eight is the spin cycle and chapter nine is lost and found.
448. 00:38:53 What I like about this section is there is a very clear distinction of a big idea associated with each one of these chapters.
449. 00:39:02 So this one, we probably do go chapter by chapter to be honest.
450. 00:39:06 So in the first chapter in this section where she's talking about imbalance, she's got this visual of the stove top and the different roles that are on the different size burners.
451. 00:39:18 So the ones that she uses in the visual is CEO.
452. 00:39:21 That's the big one in the middle and then partner and caregiver are on the front burners and then lazy girl and doctor are on the back burners.
453. 00:39:30 But wait a minute, there's only five burners here.
454. 00:39:32 There's 10 characters. That's kind of the point. You have all these different characters.
455. 00:39:36 You really can't pay attention to all of them at the same time.
456. 00:39:39 And so she's basically advocating for each month.
457. 00:39:42 You choose five roles and you arrange them on this stove, which I think is an interesting idea.
458. 00:39:49 I don't think I would follow her format, but I think that she's talking about a lot of things that I do agree with and resonate with.
459. 00:39:59 She actually talks about the perfect day exercise in here as well.
460. 00:40:03 So I've got my own version of that. That's part of a life-themed process where you describe a day in the life of a future you and as much detail as you can.
461. 00:40:14 But I, again, don't really feel the need to break that down into the different characters and make sure that the goddess gets some attention.
462. 00:40:24 One of the things that I like about her is her commitment to the idea of character, story, and plot.
463. 00:40:32 Because she keeps that consistent the entire book, so she talks about the character plot equation.
464. 00:40:37 You have your vision, perfect day exercise, you have your values, which is the lens that we use to make that best decision.
465. 00:40:42 You have your season, which is the stovetop exercise, and we have goals, which is the reasons for goal failure and overcoming those reasons for goal failure.
466. 00:40:50 But she calls it that character plot equation, and it's like, I think that's a really good way to remember what you're doing.
467. 00:40:56 In this first chapter, this imbalance, I really like the premise of this idea.
468. 00:41:02 No matter how many characters you have, the reality is you can't do them all, and if you're trying to do them all, you're not doing them all well, or you're not doing most of them well, probably.
469. 00:41:14 And I just really think that's a wise way to frame that.
470. 00:41:20 And what I like about it is that not that you need permission, but it almost gives you permission.
471. 00:41:25 It's like, hey, this season, I'm not even worried about that character.
472. 00:41:29 It's just going out the window, and I'm okay with that.
473. 00:41:32 And it's like, yeah, that's all right, because I'm not trying to say that character's gone forever.
474. 00:41:38 I'm just trying to say, in this season, you get less emphasis, and that's okay.
475. 00:41:44 So it's like, I really like this idea.
476. 00:41:45 I mean, I really do, and I know it's not like the imbalance ideas or intentional imbalance is not a brand new idea.
477. 00:41:51 But I really like the way she pitches it, and I really like how it connects with the character idea.
478. 00:41:57 Now, we get into this idea where you say we talk about another places, and it's brought into this book.
479. 00:42:04 It's like the idea of OKRs, right, objectives and key results, or KPIs or whatever you want to talk about.
480. 00:42:10 I mean, these are talked about all over the place, and this is where I think the audience she's trying to reach at
481. 00:42:15 has probably not heard of OKRs before.
482. 00:42:18 So like, for me, when I read this, I'm like, oh, yeah, obviously, OKRs, right?
483. 00:42:22 Like, they're there.
484. 00:42:23 But like, there's probably a decent portion of the audience she's talking to.
485. 00:42:26 If she's not talking to like the chief marketing people, if she's more talking to just, you know, like general women out there,
486. 00:42:33 you probably haven't heard of OKRs all that much, or PKIs all that much, right?
487. 00:42:38 Did I say it on KPIs?
488. 00:42:39 I was like, I said that wrong, or KPIs that much.
489. 00:42:42 So I'm OK with her including in here, but it just didn't resonate at all, you know, because we've heard it so much.
490. 00:42:47 Yeah, so I kind of think based on the language she uses and how much she leans into her story,
491. 00:42:57 that there's a very specific type of woman that this book is geared towards.
492. 00:43:04 And what is that?
493. 00:43:05 Because I didn't have that in my head.
494. 00:43:07 It is the woman who wants to run a company, have a successful career, do all of the things and not sacrifice anything.
495. 00:43:21 Now, those themes I feel like are broadly applicable, but I think what's the term girl boss?
496. 00:43:31 There's like a whole book on that I saw in the bookstore.
497. 00:43:34 I think that's who she's going after here.
498. 00:43:37 And that's totally fine.
499. 00:43:39 Character OKRs, objective key results for selecting a character, creating objectives, setting the key results,
500. 00:43:45 schedule and delegate your opinion review, I think it's fine to assume that the audience is a right match for that
501. 00:43:53 and that they are familiar with OKRs.
502. 00:43:56 Having a lot of experience with OKRs, I would disagree with setting them for your characters.
503. 00:44:03 Interesting.
504. 00:44:05 So this is where I feel like to focus on five characters for the month.
505. 00:44:11 If you're going to apply these OKRs for these five characters, that's too much.
506. 00:44:17 And this is just my opinion, but I've taken a different approach with the personal retreat process,
507. 00:44:24 which is sort of like an alternate version of pay attention to the characters because I've got the wheel of life
508. 00:44:30 and there's nine different slices there, which you could map to characters.
509. 00:44:35 So I like the analogy that she's making there, like that approach, but let's assume you've got the nine different slices of the pie.
510. 00:44:42 Those are nine different characters.
511. 00:44:44 What you do with those different characters is important though.
512. 00:44:48 So every quarter you fill that out on a scale of one to ten, how happy are you with this particular character?
513. 00:44:54 I'll borrow her terminology.
514. 00:44:56 Then you take the lowest area and you set some intentions.
515. 00:45:01 So that's really where the OKRs come in.
516. 00:45:04 What am I going to do to try to bolster this area?
517. 00:45:08 And I've gone back and forth between one or two points of emphasis in a quarterly plan.
518. 00:45:15 But even two, I feel like with all the people that I've worked with, that's too much sometimes.
519. 00:45:21 And so I feel like that's the trap here if you set the OKRs for all five areas.
520. 00:45:28 Because you're going to bite off more than you can chew and you're going to fail miserably and you're going to feel bad about the fact that you have failed miserably and you haven't made as much progress as you wanted to in these different areas.
521. 00:45:41 Even if you've had success with the one that's on the main burner, you know, you're going to think, "Well, I never got something on the back burner."
522. 00:45:48 And that really bugs me.
523. 00:45:50 I feel like that's kind of the natural outcome of setting all those OKRs.
524. 00:45:55 You would have just added only do this for one or two most.
525. 00:45:59 And maybe she did.
526. 00:46:00 Maybe I missed it.
527. 00:46:01 I don't know.
528. 00:46:02 But kind of the tone of the book, it feels like this is coming out of the toxic grit, hustle culture type stuff.
529. 00:46:09 But there's still, in my opinion, points like this where there's elements of it still.
530. 00:46:15 Yeah.
531. 00:46:16 Yeah.
532. 00:46:17 And I think the closest thing that she comes to that and her argument might be the fact that it's the to-do matrix in chapter six.
533. 00:46:24 So we go into the to-do chapter.
534. 00:46:26 Every day, choose only two things to do for the characters that matter.
535. 00:46:30 Consider it a success when you do those two things.
536. 00:46:33 So she would say two things.
537. 00:46:34 Now, the question is, and I don't remember this when I was reading, is it two for the five things that are on the stove?
538. 00:46:40 Because if it's two for the five things that are on the stove, I mean, ten things a day.
539. 00:46:46 That's crazy to me.
540. 00:46:47 I don't think that's what she meant.
541. 00:46:48 I don't ever remember her saying that.
542. 00:46:51 But like, okay, I think about the quarter now.
543. 00:46:54 And if I would say like, what are the two major things for the five things that are on the stove right now?
544. 00:46:59 I think that's a heavy lift, but I also don't think it's impossible.
545. 00:47:04 Like, I think if you're managing those two items well and you're not trying to make those all like gigantic milestone items,
546. 00:47:12 I think that can be doable.
547. 00:47:16 I'll talk about the two do matrix, so the number two do matrix right now.
548. 00:47:21 I like what she does with to-dos.
549. 00:47:24 And she said, hey, acknowledge that you have this gigantic parking lot of to-dos.
550. 00:47:29 And that parking lot is going to just keep filling up and keep filling up and keep filling up.
551. 00:47:34 Your job is to go figure out the important things from those and pull those over and put those on a tighter timeline.
552. 00:47:41 A week, a month, a quarter, whatever it might be, and that framing of that I think is really, really valuable.
553. 00:47:48 Like, just allow that parking lot to just keep digging or keep piling up and you pull out the ones that are relevant.
554. 00:47:54 You pull out the ones that are relevant.
555. 00:47:56 And we've talked about this at other places before, but I like the way she frames that, where I am challenged, right?
556. 00:48:04 Or one of the things that I would want to think through is picking out multiple of those for these different characters.
557. 00:48:10 I think it would help my, like, creative brain.
558. 00:48:14 I just don't know how good I'd be at doing it.
559. 00:48:16 Like, I don't know how good I would be at actually achieving those for the different characters at the same time.
560. 00:48:20 So, that's kind of my, I like what she's thinking about here.
561. 00:48:23 It's just how would I put it into practice is what I'm asking.
562. 00:48:26 I can't find the to-do matrix in this chapter.
563. 00:48:30 I remember her five or six.
564. 00:48:33 It's a chapter six.
565. 00:48:35 Okay, well, I can't find the visual anyways.
566. 00:48:40 If it's in chapter six, maybe it's two things for each of the big three.
567. 00:48:45 Because it's kind of the underlying idea here is don't just assume the status quo.
568. 00:48:53 So, the big three are the three characters that often get written into the script by default,
569. 00:48:58 which she defines as the CEO, the partner, and the caregiver.
570. 00:49:02 I think as males, maybe ours is a little bit different,
571. 00:49:07 but I totally understand how those three can be the default for someone in her position.
572. 00:49:14 And I think it's worth considering, you know, what comes along with those and absolutely don't just blindly accept those.
573. 00:49:22 The larger strategy here is the intentional imbalance.
574. 00:49:28 And she mentions in this chapter six, by the way, the two reasons to feel resentment in an intense season of life is unintentional imbalance
575. 00:49:37 or character, autopilot, and absence, which I think the unintentional imbalance is a big idea that we could probably talk at length about.
576. 00:49:53 But I'm not sure it's really, really necessary.
577. 00:49:58 Essentially, what you want to do is you want to make sure that you are picking the things that you are engaging with.
578. 00:50:05 And I totally agree with that idea.
579. 00:50:08 I think the frameworks that she uses for some of this stuff just don't really work for me.
580. 00:50:15 But yeah, you have to set boundaries, you have to have context, you have to make sure that you are setting aside the time for the things that matter most.
581. 00:50:26 So she talks about in chapter six, about the five to nine.
582. 00:50:31 So the four hours before you go to work and the burnout cycle that is typically associated with that,
583. 00:50:38 but then devoting your five to nine to the other characters because work takes up enough of those hours.
584. 00:50:46 These are worth considering.
585. 00:50:49 I got five that I'm as PM, not before you go to work, but it's when you get home.
586. 00:50:53 Yeah, okay.
587. 00:50:54 I mean, you're right.
588. 00:50:55 I stated that wrong, but I think it could be either.
589. 00:50:59 It could be either.
590. 00:51:00 It could be either.
591. 00:51:01 My action item here is to create new pre and post work routines because the five to nine after work, that is definitely the one where, you know, if my kids have something going on a basketball game or drama production, I'm going to be there work will not get done during those times.
592. 00:51:17 But basically all the other hours are fair game.
593. 00:51:20 I think one of the things I liked about, and I debate this because I'm like, do I like the routine or what she's describing here more is she has a table at some point or somewhere in there.
594. 00:51:32 It's that each night of the week has a different five to nine priority.
595. 00:51:36 And I was like, I've never thought about doing that.
596. 00:51:39 Like I've never thought about like Mondays are this character, Tuesdays are this character, Wednesdays are this character Thursdays.
597. 00:51:46 I don't know how well that would work with my life because, I mean, really, it's driven by the family, right?
598. 00:51:53 Like, so like, I don't have a ton of control over that, but I could have more agency and more control over that.
599. 00:51:58 I just think it was interesting to think about.
600. 00:52:00 I've never thought about having different roles emphasized on those different nights, which is an interesting thought to me.
601. 00:52:07 I've tried to theme my days like that before, not just for the work stuff, but there's too much variability for it to really stick with me.
602. 00:52:15 I mean, if I really, really wanted to do nothing but manage a calendar, I could make sure it all aligns.
603. 00:52:20 But five kids doing different stuff.
604. 00:52:23 At some point, you're just like, ah, whatever.
605. 00:52:26 Exactly.
606. 00:52:27 Are you ready to go to seven?
607. 00:52:30 I'm not sure there's a whole lot in seven that I really want to talk about.
608. 00:52:35 It talks about a bigger role here.
609. 00:52:37 So limiting beliefs are the stories each character tells themselves that prevent them from getting what they want out of life.
610. 00:52:44 They come from things beneath the surface.
611. 00:52:48 And this is where she talks about like confidence versus competence, and she's got that grid.
612. 00:52:57 But I think the big idea from this chapter that probably warrants the most discussion is the spin cycle idea.
613. 00:53:06 That's chapter eight though.
614. 00:53:07 Let me throw one thing out for chapter seven.
615. 00:53:09 I liked her method acting conversation or where she says, recognize the patterns or loops, cast the future of what you want the character to look like right down concrete stories and examples, reframe the things and then repeat over and over and over again.
616. 00:53:22 And I just think that's a good way.
617. 00:53:24 Because I think it would be easy to read this book.
618. 00:53:26 And I think even for me, it's easy to read this book and go like, man, I just wish that character was different.
619. 00:53:32 The guy just really wished that character was different. So I like that she gives you a way to say like, hey, look at that character and let's put that into action.
620. 00:53:41 And let's use the example of a method actor where they basically get into that role.
621. 00:53:45 And everything they do is from that role's perspective.
622. 00:53:48 And when you really dig into there, it allows you to see the nuances of that role.
623. 00:53:52 It allows you to make tweaks and make changes and then tell yourself what that role is.
624. 00:53:55 I just thought that was a good one.
625. 00:53:57 I'm good to go to spin cycle now.
626. 00:53:59 Okay.
627. 00:54:00 Cool.
628. 00:54:01 So in spin cycle, talks about how taking a pause isn't a reward for the work.
629. 00:54:07 It's part of the work.
630. 00:54:09 Proactive rest is more effective than reactive rest.
631. 00:54:13 We become addicted to stress because if we aren't stressed, we feel we're not pushing hard enough.
632. 00:54:18 I can definitely relate to that.
633. 00:54:21 She talks about five different kinds of rest.
634. 00:54:23 I'm not sure how I feel about these physical rest, sensory rest, mental rest, emotional rest, social rest.
635. 00:54:30 I guess a case could be made for those, but I kind of feel like, I don't know.
636. 00:54:35 I guess it's valuable to define those types of things because on the one hand, like I've
637. 00:54:42 heard it said, if you work with your head, you rest with your hands.
638. 00:54:46 There's definitely truth to that.
639. 00:54:48 Whenever I feel burnt out from creating, that's when I go for a run.
640. 00:54:52 So like that mode switching, but having five different kinds of rest, it feels like I have
641. 00:54:59 to do more management of this instead of just asking myself, what do I need right now?
642. 00:55:04 The whole idea that's been cycle though is where you have a two to one ratio for periods of
643. 00:55:12 proactive rest.
644. 00:55:13 And she gives a couple examples of these.
645. 00:55:15 So two hours of hard work, then a one hour break or two weeks doing and then one week creating.
646. 00:55:22 Two months heads down and then one month exploring and then the example four, she doesn't actually
647. 00:55:29 give an example here, but she raises the question, what about taking years off?
648. 00:55:35 This reminded me of the seventh week sabbatical idea that Sean McCabe came up with a long
649. 00:55:41 time ago and the eight week work cycles that Sean Blanc does at Blanc Media, which I worked
650. 00:55:47 with him when he was implementing those.
651. 00:55:49 I'm a big fan of that approach.
652. 00:55:52 Two to one feels like a completely arbitrary number.
653. 00:55:56 And I feel like it doesn't work with some of these time frames.
654. 00:56:00 I would agree with you that two to one was weird.
655. 00:56:04 Why two to one?
656. 00:56:06 That doesn't make any sense.
657. 00:56:07 For the hours when it actually makes the most sense, two hours of focused work, one hour
658. 00:56:11 off, I don't know if it makes sense for any of the other ones.
659. 00:56:14 And this is, I think, a situation where she's confident on this number, just like she's
660. 00:56:22 confident on the characters, but I would have enjoyed the book more to say, what is that
661. 00:56:26 ratio for you?
662. 00:56:28 Is the ratio two to one, three to one, like whatever it might be, you know, a years example
663. 00:56:33 would be the sabbatical process in academia.
664. 00:56:36 Oh, okay.
665. 00:56:37 So like every six or seven years, you get to go on a sabbatical, right?
666. 00:56:41 Like you get to go do something different to refresh your brain or have you do more
667. 00:56:44 creative thinking.
668. 00:56:45 And it's like, that's a good example, but that's not a two to one ratio.
669. 00:56:49 A two to one ratio doesn't even make sense in certain context.
670. 00:56:53 So I agree with you.
671. 00:56:54 These are, these should all be different ratios.
672. 00:56:56 Like the whole idea has been cycled minus the ratio and makes way more sense.
673. 00:57:00 Yeah, I agree.
674. 00:57:01 I agree.
675. 00:57:02 And I don't agree that two to one works for hours worked.
676. 00:57:06 I mean, look at the Pomodoro method, 25 minutes on, five minutes off.
677. 00:57:11 That's five to one.
678. 00:57:14 And the weeks with the seventh week sabbaticals, and I know the term sabbatical is not really
679. 00:57:21 like an academic sabbatical, but if you're just going to go, you know, seven weeks on
680. 00:57:24 or six weeks on and then one off, still that's six to one or seven to one.
681. 00:57:29 There are different ratios for each of these.
682. 00:57:31 So the idea, I think that that's an interesting, interesting idea, but I don't think the framing
683. 00:57:38 of this and the application of it is anything that I'm interested in.
684. 00:57:43 Okay.
685. 00:57:44 She does talk about the second mountain in chapter eight by David Brooks.
686. 00:57:48 Have you read this book?
687. 00:57:49 I don't think I have.
688. 00:57:51 Okay.
689. 00:57:52 So this is a really good book.
690. 00:57:54 And she's again, talking about like the actors, right, and the play that you are in it.
691. 00:58:02 And the whole idea behind the second mountain, she does a pretty good job of summarizing that
692. 00:58:07 book in this book.
693. 00:58:10 But it's you work really hard for something.
694. 00:58:13 You make it to the top of the mountain.
695. 00:58:15 You have summited the peak, you get to the top, and you instantly feel let down and you're
696. 00:58:21 like, is this it?
697. 00:58:23 Then you look around and then you realize, oh, there's a second mountain over there.
698. 00:58:27 And that's the one I should have been climbing the whole time kind of missing from this or
699. 00:58:33 from that book, as it applies to this context, though, and a very important piece of that
700. 00:58:38 is that the first mountain is all about you and what you're going to accomplish.
701. 00:58:44 The second mountain is always about others and what impact you are going to make to the
702. 00:58:49 societal good.
703. 00:58:52 I don't think that is convenient to the narrative, which is why, you know, she doesn't really
704. 00:58:56 hit on that piece.
705. 00:58:57 But I think it's an important piece of context if you're going to talk about that idea here.
706. 00:59:02 Yeah, I'm not sure I have much else from this section.
707. 00:59:09 Anything else you want to talk about in like chapter nine?
708. 00:59:12 The only one that really stood out to me in chapter nine was she has a figure where she
709. 00:59:18 puts together goals, actions, thoughts, and then relates it to kind of what it would be.
710. 00:59:24 So goals plus actions, minus thoughts, are you're just hustling thoughts.
711. 00:59:30 This was a cool visual too for all these thoughts plus goals, minus actions is daydreaming,
712. 00:59:35 and then actions plus thoughts without goals is stagnation.
713. 00:59:39 And I was like, that is a really clever way to frame those ideas.
714. 00:59:43 And you can see it happening like, Oh, I think I set these goals.
715. 00:59:46 I don't do anything.
716. 00:59:47 I'm really just daydreaming about the about whatever it is, or I do these goal, I develop
717. 00:59:52 these goals and I put action to them, but I didn't really think about what they were.
718. 00:59:56 I'm just doing busy work.
719. 00:59:57 I'm just hustling for no, for no real reason.
720. 00:59:59 So I liked that at a chapter nine, otherwise I'm good to go to the next section.
721. 01:00:05 So that I would actually reframe a couple of these.
722. 01:00:11 So I agree with the general idea here.
723. 01:00:15 Let me say that at the beginning, but the goals I would reframe as in maybe direction
724. 01:00:26 and then thoughts I would reframe as intention and actions is really just work, right?
725. 01:00:35 Are you doing anything?
726. 01:00:37 But I don't think the fact that you set a goal, according to the smart goal methodology,
727. 01:00:48 I think there is it's possible that that goal actually does nothing for you in the first
728. 01:00:54 two of these.
729. 01:00:57 So again, her story, her context, she is obviously a very driven individual.
730. 01:01:04 So she has no issue setting goals and achieving them.
731. 01:01:09 And I relate to that a little bit, but I've had enough experience creating stuff for people
732. 01:01:16 and talking about goals in the different work that I've done over the last 10 years that
733. 01:01:23 I recognize that that's not really going to work for everybody.
734. 01:01:27 And I do think you don't need to have a formal goal.
735. 01:01:32 What you need to know is this is the direction we should be going, right?
736. 01:01:36 The way I say it is you need a compass, not a blueprint.
737. 01:01:41 And so that's what goes in my head is like, if I have that compass and then I take action
738. 01:01:45 on it, but I don't reflect and figure and ask, is this still the right direction to be walking?
739. 01:01:51 That's the first one.
740. 01:01:52 If I'm wrestling, if I'm reflective and I have the goal set, I don't actually do anything
741. 01:01:57 with them.
742. 01:01:58 Yeah.
743. 01:01:59 That's daydreaming.
744. 01:02:00 And if I am taking action and I'm reflecting, but I'm really not sure where the heck I'm
745. 01:02:03 going.
746. 01:02:04 I'm not making progress in any direction.
747. 01:02:07 So I'm just kind of all over the place, then yeah, no progress is being made.
748. 01:02:11 Yeah.
749. 01:02:12 All right.
750. 01:02:13 Part three.
751. 01:02:14 Part three.
752. 01:02:15 I can enter a part three for us.
753. 01:02:18 If you're right with that, go for it.
754. 01:02:19 Part three is master the multiverse.
755. 01:02:22 There are four chapters plus the conclusion in part three.
756. 01:02:26 There's welcome to the multiverse character collision supporting cast going off script.
757. 01:02:31 Seven steps to master the middle is the is the conclusion.
758. 01:02:34 So those are the four chapters within here.
759. 01:02:37 When I'll start us off with, she connects it directly to the Marvel cinematic universe
760. 01:02:42 and the idea of the multiverse within Dr. Strange and, you know, Spiderman and how like
761. 01:02:47 they play into these things where you can get on these different timelines and thinking
762. 01:02:52 about these different characters.
763. 01:02:53 And on this timeline, the character is acting one way and on this time, the character is
764. 01:02:56 acting another way and the timeline plays into that.
765. 01:03:01 And then.
766. 01:03:02 So have you seen any of those movies?
767. 01:03:03 I have seen most of them.
768. 01:03:04 Okay.
769. 01:03:05 Yeah.
770. 01:03:06 They're great.
771. 01:03:07 But yeah, that's the place to go for context here.
772. 01:03:08 Absolutely.
773. 01:03:09 So Spiderman movies specifically are amazing.
774. 01:03:10 And then this ties into chapter 11 as well.
775. 01:03:12 So we'll end up going back to chapter 10.
776. 01:03:14 It ties into chapter 11 where there are times when the characters collide with each other.
777. 01:03:18 So for instance, Spiderman into the spider verse, right?
778. 01:03:23 They're multiple Spiderman characters, right?
779. 01:03:26 When these different universes come together and they actually have to like kind of work
780. 01:03:30 together.
781. 01:03:31 And at one point, they're all fighting each other and it's kind of, it's kind of crazy.
782. 01:03:34 So there's this idea of how do these characters inevitably collide with each other?
783. 01:03:39 I'll stop there, Mike.
784. 01:03:41 I don't know.
785. 01:03:42 I don't want to go any space specific with chapter 12, which is welcome to the multiverse.
786. 01:03:45 Sorry.
787. 01:03:46 Chapter 10.
788. 01:03:47 Excuse me.
789. 01:03:48 I don't know that I have anything specific here.
790. 01:03:51 Really just the point is that each of the 10 characters exist in their own storylines
791. 01:03:58 simultaneously.
792. 01:03:59 I think that's a really powerful idea.
793. 01:04:03 It took, I don't even know, but this is part three, right?
794. 01:04:06 So we've lots of pages to get to this point.
795. 01:04:10 But I think this is the unique value proposition of the book right here.
796. 01:04:16 And this has nothing to do with the 10 specific roles that she identified at the beginning.
797. 01:04:23 You've got these different characters across all these different timelines.
798. 01:04:27 And really the question I always ask is, what are you optimizing for?
799. 01:04:31 Because at any given moment, you could be prioritizing one of these characters over another.
800. 01:04:38 And you could extrapolate that out if I really prioritize this character, what does my life
801. 01:04:42 look like in five years or vice versa?
802. 01:04:46 So I think that's a neat thought experiment.
803. 01:04:50 It's a cool way to think about it.
804. 01:04:53 I don't know having watched.
805. 01:04:56 I wasn't familiar with Dr. who I haven't watched that, but I've watched those two Spider-Man
806. 01:05:01 movies where they enter the multiverse and forget what the second one is.
807. 01:05:06 I think you meant Dr. Strange, you said Dr. Who.
808. 01:05:08 Dr. Strange.
809. 01:05:09 Yeah, sorry.
810. 01:05:10 Sorry.
811. 01:05:11 You're good.
812. 01:05:12 Yeah.
813. 01:05:13 But so like it feels like something you maybe shouldn't be jumping back and forth through
814. 01:05:18 all the time.
815. 01:05:21 But I think that is nitpicking it a bit.
816. 01:05:25 And I props to her for using this as the metaphor here.
817. 01:05:29 I think this is pretty cool.
818. 01:05:31 I think the biggest thing that comes out of chapter 10 for me is the transition piece
819. 01:05:36 that she talks about with, and she gives it art, assess routine, and then transition.
820. 01:05:42 And this idea of transitioning between these characters and the fact that it's common and
821. 01:05:47 you need to do it and it's better if there's a routine, I really, really like this idea.
822. 01:05:53 So the simplest, simplest example of this, and she kind of mentions it is this idea of
823. 01:05:58 a commute, that like from my workplace to my home, it's a routine that happens every time
824. 01:06:05 almost, right, and it allows me to make this transition from faculty member, mentor, academic
825. 01:06:12 into dad, right, or into whatever that next role is.
826. 01:06:16 And she's saying, think about this, assess what needs to happen and then run that routine.
827. 01:06:22 And it's going to help you transition between these characters.
828. 01:06:24 I think this idea is genius, right?
829. 01:06:27 Like, I actually think this is a great idea that we need to be doing a lot more as we
830. 01:06:31 think about transitioning.
831. 01:06:33 Yeah, she even used an example of her kids recognize this transition period now.
832. 01:06:40 So when she comes home from work or whatever, she goes and takes a bath before she enters
833. 01:06:47 into caregiver mode, and they have this phrase where, are you going into the bathroom to
834. 01:06:53 become a mommy now?
835. 01:06:54 Do you come home, mommy, right, like, which, I mean, yeah, like, and I think about it
836. 01:06:59 with your, with your sleepy time t-routine, right, like, like, what are we doing?
837. 01:07:02 We're intentionally doing a transition to move into a different role.
838. 01:07:06 My brain can turn off.
839. 01:07:07 I can now go rest.
840. 01:07:08 Like, I can actually go into that rest mode.
841. 01:07:11 So I thought that idea out of chapter 10 was great.
842. 01:07:15 It might be, it might be the most important idea that I got out of this book.
843. 01:07:18 All right.
844. 01:07:19 Well, you just gave me another action.
845. 01:07:21 I know, I give, that's, that's one of mine, I just didn't call it out.
846. 01:07:27 All right, let's see, what else in here.
847. 01:07:30 So she talks about the ABCs of character collision, analyze importance and urgency that's A, B
848. 01:07:37 is setting boundaries, C is communicate expectations.
849. 01:07:41 That's a kind of cool idea, I think, or maybe not a cool idea because we've probably heard
850. 01:07:46 it before, but a way of simplifying it so it doesn't seem so scary when it comes to
851. 01:07:51 come time to actually do it because it can be difficult to have those conversations with
852. 01:07:55 people and set those boundaries.
853. 01:07:58 But really that is a nice, non-threatening framework there.
854. 01:08:02 She talks about the Eisenhower matrix in this book, which I jotted down because she's got
855. 01:08:07 a cool visual with this.
856. 01:08:09 She does have a cool visual.
857. 01:08:10 That was the same thing I got out of it.
858. 01:08:11 I was like, I mean, that visual is pretty cool.
859. 01:08:13 Yeah, obviously not original, but yeah, I don't know, we probably don't have to talk
860. 01:08:19 about that.
861. 01:08:20 We're here with Eisenhower matrix, right?
862. 01:08:22 Yep.
863. 01:08:23 Okay.
864. 01:08:24 She did share this study by the Association for Talent Development that found the following
865. 01:08:28 probabilities of completing a goal, though, which I thought was pretty great.
866. 01:08:32 So again, I have specific issues with some of this stuff, but having an idea or goal,
867. 01:08:37 those two are not the same thing.
868. 01:08:41 But anyways, they're grouped together.
869. 01:08:43 If you have an idea or a goal, you're 10% likely to hit it consciously deciding you will
870. 01:08:48 do it.
871. 01:08:49 That's 25% deciding when you will do it, 40% success rate planning, how to do it, 50%.
872. 01:08:55 This is actually where you have the goal probably right there committing to someone that you
873. 01:09:01 will do at 65% and then having a specific accountability appointment with someone that
874. 01:09:06 you've committed to 95%.
875. 01:09:08 This is where bookworm comes in, in my opinion, like this is evidence of this.
876. 01:09:15 And for us, actually, it's probably closer to, well, I guess you can't say 100% because
877. 01:09:20 there are times when I didn't get it done, can we move this?
878. 01:09:23 So I guess you can mark that as a failure.
879. 01:09:25 But there is no way I can tell you with 100% certainty, there is no way I would actually
880. 01:09:31 be able to follow through and read all of these books.
881. 01:09:34 Some of these books, yes, the ones that I'm really excited about.
882. 01:09:38 But there is a lot of value I've gotten from forcing myself to complete bad books and talk
883. 01:09:43 about them with people.
884. 01:09:45 So I feel like you don't have to necessarily create a podcast and show up every two weeks
885. 01:09:52 to do the thing that you want to do.
886. 01:09:55 But hey, it does work.
887. 01:09:58 It absolutely does.
888. 01:10:00 I got one of the things I got under this was the Sunday 6, do you remember the Sunday
889. 01:10:05 6?
890. 01:10:06 Oh, yeah, yeah.
891. 01:10:07 Which again, I like this idea, but I don't like the specifics here.
892. 01:10:10 I just think it's great, right?
893. 01:10:11 What are the questions that you should ask every Sunday?
894. 01:10:13 And the ones that she outlines here is what's the work schedule?
895. 01:10:16 What's the family schedule?
896. 01:10:18 What does everyone need to feel supported?
897. 01:10:20 Is date night confirmed?
898. 01:10:21 Is family time blocked?
899. 01:10:22 And is workout time blocked?
900. 01:10:23 And granted, you can tweak those like Mike just said.
901. 01:10:26 You can figure out what those are for you, but this idea of we communicate these however
902. 01:10:32 many things at a routine time once a week or whatever it needs to be, I like that idea.
903. 01:10:39 That's a very healthy, stable idea.
904. 01:10:42 And that's one of the ones that I think my wife and I need to work on, right?
905. 01:10:46 It's just because we do this, it's just we do it haphazardly and having it more organized
906. 01:10:50 would make sense.
907. 01:10:52 So we just had somebody on the Focus podcast, his name is Tom Gibson.
908. 01:10:56 I met him when I was aircraft and commerce actually.
909. 01:11:02 He worked for Kit and went for a run with him.
910. 01:11:09 He has a Sunday meeting.
911. 01:11:13 He calls it with his wife where they get on the same page regarding the different things
912. 01:11:19 that need to happen.
913. 01:11:20 And that episode is great because it talks about the give and take that has to happen.
914. 01:11:24 And then also, Tom is a social media strategist and his wife is totally analog.
915. 01:11:30 She refuses to use any calendar except the one that's printed off and hanging on the
916. 01:11:34 fridge.
917. 01:11:35 That's awesome.
918. 01:11:36 So, but he was talking about how this meeting that she's describing here, she's doing it
919. 01:11:41 with one other person and getting clear on who's got to be where, you know, okay, so
920. 01:11:46 Tom's going to go to Jiu Jitsu on this night.
921. 01:11:48 So when is his wife going to do the thing that she wants to do, all that kind of stuff?
922. 01:11:53 I think there's a lot of practical advice in that episode from someone who is not running
923. 01:12:04 crazy successful companies.
924. 01:12:07 That's the thing with this kind of stuff is I feel like, do you talk about these important
925. 01:12:14 meetings and like OKRs and things like that?
926. 01:12:18 Because you view it through the successful CEO lens, it feels a little bit disconnected
927. 01:12:24 and well, how can the normal person mean actually, actually do this?
928. 01:12:28 So you got to wrestle through that, but yeah, I agree that the whole idea here, not specifically
929. 01:12:32 the Sunday six, but the Sunday meeting.
930. 01:12:35 That's a very good idea.
931. 01:12:36 I'm ready to go to 12, supported cast.
932. 01:12:41 Yeah, so 12 talks about mirrors versus telescopes, which I really liked.
933. 01:12:47 And then there's the eight circles of character influence.
934. 01:12:50 So those are probably the two big ideas worth talking about here.
935. 01:12:53 Mirrors versus telescopes mirrors.
936. 01:12:54 We hold up a reflection of who the person is or is not telescope.
937. 01:12:59 You expand the other person's horizon.
938. 01:13:00 The example that she shared with this was her first marriage and the fact that she recognized
939. 01:13:09 that she's going through all this thing and trying to, you know, get some help, will you
940. 01:13:14 go to counseling with me and he wasn't willing to do it?
941. 01:13:19 And then when she goes to counseling and grows and changes and heals, she becomes a different
942. 01:13:28 person.
943. 01:13:29 And at some point in the divorce proceedings, he makes the comment when did you become different
944. 01:13:37 than the girl that I married or something like that?
945. 01:13:40 And her point was, well, that was a 21 year old girl from Iowa.
946. 01:13:45 She's long gone.
947. 01:13:47 I think there's a lot of truth in that.
948. 01:13:49 But the mirrors versus telescopes idea, this is framed a different way.
949. 01:13:53 Who is actually going to join you on the journey instead of just look at you and either judge
950. 01:13:59 your or themselves based on what they see?
951. 01:14:02 Do you want the people who are going to journey with you and to keep growing and developing?
952. 01:14:08 Yeah, I really liked in addition to that, the eight circles of character influence.
953. 01:14:13 Again, whether it's eight or not or, you know, what we would decide to be the final number,
954. 01:14:17 I like the eight that she throws out here.
955. 01:14:20 So it's found family.
956. 01:14:21 So she's acknowledging that like you essentially can consider family members who weren't part
957. 01:14:26 of your blood family.
958. 01:14:29 And I agree with that completely.
959. 01:14:30 Like I think that's very true.
960. 01:14:32 And then there's the winter friends and she gets this from George RR Martin and the idea
961. 01:14:37 of like there are friends who are there when the sun is shining and everything's beautiful
962. 01:14:41 and wonderful.
963. 01:14:42 And the next one is she calls those summer friends.
964. 01:14:44 But like then there are the winter friends who are like through the thick of it.
965. 01:14:47 The worst season of your life, you know, whatever it might be, they're there, like they're going
966. 01:14:51 to be with you.
967. 01:14:52 So you got your family, you've got your winter friends, you got your summer friends, coaches,
968. 01:14:55 category friends, social networkers, and then the audience, and I just like thinking about
969. 01:15:01 your concentric circles of friendships and then having realistic expectations about what
970. 01:15:07 you should want from those friendships.
971. 01:15:09 Because I think we mix that up too and she acknowledges it in the digital and social media
972. 01:15:14 world.
973. 01:15:15 I think we get some of those wires crossed that it's like, listen, you're really not one
974. 01:15:19 of these friends.
975. 01:15:20 You're just somebody who's trying to make content and get me to click on it.
976. 01:15:23 So I really like that idea.
977. 01:15:25 I also get the third place out of this chapter, which we talked a little bit about before,
978. 01:15:29 but the third place is basically this other space with people that you want to connect
979. 01:15:35 with, that you want to have relationship with, that you want to live life with and you want
980. 01:15:38 them to pour into your life and you want to be able to pour into their life.
981. 01:15:42 And she calls out here that virtual communities do provide a psychological benefit, but not
982. 01:15:47 nearly as much as actually in person.
983. 01:15:50 And I think this is something that we're wrestling through right now as a society that we think
984. 01:15:55 that we can replace all these with virtual communities and we just can't.
985. 01:15:58 It's just not true.
986. 01:15:59 We need the extra effort.
987. 01:16:00 We need the face-to-face relationship.
988. 01:16:02 We need the sacrifice that comes with actually committing physical presence in a place.
989. 01:16:09 So I think these are two really good points that come out of this chapter.
990. 01:16:17 So I agree with you, however, I think maybe I would disagree, not specifically with something
991. 01:16:23 you said, but something that you alluded to that you didn't say.
992. 01:16:28 So the way that you get to the in-person piece, I think is important.
993. 01:16:38 Because if you start with just who's around me in my physical location?
994. 01:16:44 Your people are there or they're not, and if they're not, what are you going to do about
995. 01:16:48 it?
996. 01:16:49 You could uproot your family and move.
997. 01:16:52 I could take the schmitzes and go to Boise.
998. 01:16:55 That's not going to happen for lots of reasons, even though that would be the way that I could
999. 01:17:00 get around my people.
1000. 01:17:03 So the alternative version of this, I feel, is to use the online communities as the starting
1001. 01:17:09 point.
1002. 01:17:10 Unless they're not going to replace the in-person, but the best version of this is you have the
1003. 01:17:16 connection from people or with the people who are your people online, and then you get
1004. 01:17:23 together in person as well.
1005. 01:17:27 And that's why I go to so many conferences.
1006. 01:17:29 That's why I go to so many events.
1007. 01:17:31 I schedule them all out there on my calendar for next year already.
1008. 01:17:35 I think I am taking seven trips that I know of currently.
1009. 01:17:41 And that is because I need to be around people who are going to create.
1010. 01:17:46 Do you want to know my starchy answer to that?
1011. 01:17:48 That's because you live in Appleton, Wisconsin.
1012. 01:17:52 That's fair.
1013. 01:17:53 You know, I've thought about that.
1014. 01:17:55 There are trade-offs with all of this stuff.
1015. 01:17:57 There are.
1016. 01:17:58 Absolutely.
1017. 01:17:59 Yeah.
1018. 01:18:00 You know, Boise's not the place for that necessarily either.
1019. 01:18:01 I mean, Boise's not that much bigger than Appleton.
1020. 01:18:05 If you're going to really going to pick the place for online creators, it's probably like
1021. 01:18:10 Austin, Texas.
1022. 01:18:11 You know, there's pockets of people around.
1023. 01:18:15 But the thing is, most of the time, I don't want to be in that place.
1024. 01:18:20 I need to be in that place periodically.
1025. 01:18:22 That is what I have realized.
1026. 01:18:24 About every six to eight weeks, I start to feel it.
1027. 01:18:28 You know, we can connect and I can see you on Zoom and we can record this podcast.
1028. 01:18:32 And that's great.
1029. 01:18:33 But every once in a while, it's like, man, I just want to hang out with Corey.
1030. 01:18:37 For sure.
1031. 01:18:38 I agree.
1032. 01:18:39 I agree completely.
1033. 01:18:40 Right.
1034. 01:18:41 Which is why I'm trying to get you to come to these events with me because then we've
1035. 01:18:42 got, you know, a central period where, you know, all these people are going to be and
1036. 01:18:48 it can happen.
1037. 01:18:49 You know, when I go to craft and commerce, I don't go for Thursday through Saturday when
1038. 01:18:55 the conference is.
1039. 01:18:57 I show up on Monday morning and I run into people at coffee shops and hey, are you here?
1040. 01:19:04 Let's get together and have a meal.
1041. 01:19:06 You know, when you first show up, you don't know anybody.
1042. 01:19:10 It's a little bit harder.
1043. 01:19:11 You got to put yourself out there.
1044. 01:19:12 You got to build those those connections.
1045. 01:19:14 But at this point, at this point in my creator career, my digital Rolodex is big enough that
1046. 01:19:21 I can, I can do that, that sort of thing.
1047. 01:19:24 And also side note, I guess, you know, I've had people who have done that for me.
1048. 01:19:29 And so I try to pay that forward and do that for other people too is like, hey, you should
1049. 01:19:33 meet this person.
1050. 01:19:34 Like last summer, when we were there, Nick Milo was there.
1051. 01:19:37 So we were hanging out and I'm like, Oh, dude, you got to meet Jay Klaus.
1052. 01:19:40 Right.
1053. 01:19:41 So yeah, I've always wanted to meet Jay.
1054. 01:19:42 Well, I'm in Jay's lab, you know, let me text them.
1055. 01:19:45 Hey, Jay, can you meet this guy?
1056. 01:19:46 I love doing that, that, that kind of stuff.
1057. 01:19:50 So yeah, I think like it's important to consider where are, you know, the people in your life.
1058. 01:19:57 Where do they fall in this, this, these eight rings that she uses here?
1059. 01:20:02 And you do got to make sure that you've got people, especially at the closer rings.
1060. 01:20:08 You recognize who those people are and you sow into those relationships.
1061. 01:20:13 But yeah, I just want to encourage people that some of my closest friends.
1062. 01:20:20 I have met on the Internet first.
1063. 01:20:22 Yeah, that makes sense.
1064. 01:20:24 Yeah, that makes sense.
1065. 01:20:26 I mean, you literally had a podcast called talking to the Internet.
1066. 01:20:29 I know.
1067. 01:20:30 It's still out there, by the way, if anybody wants to listen to it.
1068. 01:20:32 And I mean, it's ever, it's kind of evergreen, like people can learn about other people.
1069. 01:20:37 So that's where Mike and I met, by the way, everybody is through that, through that podcast.
1070. 01:20:42 Talking to the Internet.
1071. 01:20:43 Yep.
1072. 01:20:44 All right.
1073. 01:20:45 So can I lead us off on chapter 13?
1074. 01:20:46 Do it.
1075. 01:20:47 I did not like chapter 13, sorry to be as blunt as I am.
1076. 01:20:54 I felt like it was just a grab bag of like random ideas that I didn't think connected
1077. 01:21:00 that well.
1078. 01:21:01 I mean, we go to go deeper with people, qualities of successful people, biases, you know, common
1079. 01:21:09 types of biases, bad habits, like I did not really understand how it fit with the thread
1080. 01:21:17 of, of the rest of the book.
1081. 01:21:19 I'm not going to say that I think it's bad stuff that's in there.
1082. 01:21:22 It's just I didn't see the, the strong connection with that.
1083. 01:21:27 So I didn't get a ton out of, of this, the one, the uprooting story that the uprooting
1084. 01:21:35 bad habits story was I think the, the best part of chapter 13 for me.
1085. 01:21:39 And basically it's like, Hey, this wise person tells you, go pull that weed.
1086. 01:21:44 And then they tell you, go pull the bigger weed.
1087. 01:21:45 Oh, yeah.
1088. 01:21:46 That story was great.
1089. 01:21:47 And like every time it gets harder and harder to pull out the thing and then they're, they
1090. 01:21:50 say, go, go up route that tree with just your hands.
1091. 01:21:53 And it's the idea that like bad habits, if you let them fester or if you let them go,
1092. 01:21:58 they get to the point where it's really, really, really hard to get rid of them.
1093. 01:22:02 And I think that's a really good story.
1094. 01:22:03 Like I think it's a great story.
1095. 01:22:05 So that's, that's my chapter 13 take.
1096. 01:22:10 That is a great story, but also kind of like, what do you do with that?
1097. 01:22:14 Agreed, like I don't know how it fits in the, the thread of the rest of the book, but it
1098. 01:22:18 was a great story.
1099. 01:22:19 Okay.
1100. 01:22:20 So I've recognized that my, my habits are strongly entrenched.
1101. 01:22:26 What do I do to chop down the, the tree?
1102. 01:22:29 Yeah.
1103. 01:22:30 Yeah.
1104. 01:22:31 I kind of feel like that's the natural next step is, well, it's not hopeless.
1105. 01:22:34 Here's what you can do.
1106. 01:22:35 Nope.
1107. 01:22:36 Just moving on.
1108. 01:22:37 Yeah.
1109. 01:22:38 Yeah.
1110. 01:22:39 So the theme of this one, I think is imposter syndrome.
1111. 01:22:44 She talks about the three qualities of successful people.
1112. 01:22:47 They feel there is something greater for them.
1113. 01:22:48 They believe they can achieve it.
1114. 01:22:52 And then number three, they fear they won't live up to their potential or will be found
1115. 01:22:57 out as an imposter.
1116. 01:22:59 So as someone who deals with imposter syndrome regularly, this one kind of, kind of spoke
1117. 01:23:04 to me, but maybe that's just because, so maybe that's just me, like attaching to that
1118. 01:23:09 theme.
1119. 01:23:10 But that was kind of the thing I think this whole chapter is about.
1120. 01:23:13 She mentions the cure for imposter syndrome at the very beginning is proximity to those
1121. 01:23:17 you look up to and admire.
1122. 01:23:18 You have to fake it till you make it.
1123. 01:23:20 You have to get in the room.
1124. 01:23:23 You have to be in the place.
1125. 01:23:27 And that's why I say it's easier to do that online.
1126. 01:23:29 And then you meet, you know, in person, but it's kind of what I've done with J Klaus's
1127. 01:23:34 lab community.
1128. 01:23:35 It's a super expensive community.
1129. 01:23:37 When I first joined it, I don't even think I met the recommended, you know, you're making
1130. 01:23:42 this much with your creator business or you have this many email subscribers.
1131. 01:23:46 Like I wasn't there yet, but I was just like, these are the people I got to be around.
1132. 01:23:50 They're going to help me do it.
1133. 01:23:54 She talks about the seven common types of BS that we live in.
1134. 01:23:58 I don't know if these are worth running through working more equals success.
1135. 01:24:02 Our hard traditions equals to do positions of power equals respect.
1136. 01:24:07 There is a right way to do this.
1137. 01:24:08 There is a deadline and be a good girl.
1138. 01:24:13 I don't know.
1139. 01:24:14 Like the whole phrasing of that good girl, lazy girl, like those two terms specifically,
1140. 01:24:21 I don't really like and I get where she's coming from.
1141. 01:24:24 You probably if I'm in her position, you know, I don't have to deal with the sexism that comes
1142. 01:24:29 with the parties that she attends.
1143. 01:24:32 She tells some stories.
1144. 01:24:33 You know, she's there and everybody there thinks that she's just hired by this guy to
1145. 01:24:38 be there.
1146. 01:24:39 She's like, no, I'm a founder.
1147. 01:24:42 I've had multiple exits, you know, I'm more successful than you are probably and having
1148. 01:24:49 to deal with that.
1149. 01:24:50 Like, I don't have to do that, but yeah, I also would like to think though that you
1150. 01:24:56 don't have to be a jerk to get what you want.
1151. 01:24:58 And I connect with this because I interact with female faculty members all the time and
1152. 01:25:04 students will come up to them and say, oh, like Mrs. so-and-so and it's like, hold up.
1153. 01:25:09 Why do you call everybody else Dr. so-and-so, but I'm Mrs. so-and-so and it's like so I get
1154. 01:25:14 where she's coming from and I've never been in that situation, but I mean, I understand
1155. 01:25:19 where she's coming from in a lot of these cases.
1156. 01:25:21 Yeah, I think the only other thing that's worth calling out here right at the end of my
1157. 01:25:26 notes for this chapter is she says life is happening for us, not to us.
1158. 01:25:29 So it's not, I think that's powerful and you can obviously unpack that much more than she
1159. 01:25:35 did at the very end of the book.
1160. 01:25:37 But the whole idea there is like taking agency and control over, you can't control necessarily
1161. 01:25:43 what happens that you control what you do with what happens.
1162. 01:25:47 And she says in, and she says in here, so that she does connect it back towards the end
1163. 01:25:50 of the chapter where she basically says you have the agency rewrite the script.
1164. 01:25:53 So she connects it back to the script idea, I just lost the thread on the other stuff.
1165. 01:25:58 So yes, I agree with you to that point.
1166. 01:26:00 And that whole idea of I guess another term for it would be self-determination is something
1167. 01:26:09 that people who are comfortable in their victim thinking mindset don't like to talk about.
1168. 01:26:18 Well this thing happened to me and it was unfair.
1169. 01:26:21 But it could very well be true, but as long as you are just upset that this isn't fair,
1170. 01:26:27 it's not going to change.
1171. 01:26:29 And the best way to change your situation for the better is to recognize that you have
1172. 01:26:33 the power to do something about it and start taking consistent intentional action.
1173. 01:26:39 I have yet to find the book that really dives into that topic in the way that I like, but
1174. 01:26:47 I would love to find it.
1175. 01:26:49 I think that is really important and every time it comes up in these books that we read,
1176. 01:26:56 I feel like I kind of have to tip toe into talking about it.
1177. 01:27:03 Because a book written like, "Hey, it's your fault, no one's going to want to read that."
1178. 01:27:07 That's really the point where your life starts to turn around.
1179. 01:27:11 Hey, Jim, actually think about like, "This is your fault."
1180. 01:27:14 Yeah, that's a number one seller right there.
1181. 01:27:20 Well, I mean, I guess there is a book that talks about that with extreme ownership by
1182. 01:27:23 Jocko.
1183. 01:27:24 Jocko, but again, can we have that book written by a normal person?
1184. 01:27:31 Yeah, exactly.
1185. 01:27:33 Yep, yep, yep.
1186. 01:27:35 All right, and then the conclusion is in this section two.
1187. 01:27:38 The conclusion she says in the conclusion that this is really just a summary of everything
1188. 01:27:44 else that's in the book.
1189. 01:27:46 So interestingly, there are seven steps here, even though there are 13 chapters before the
1190. 01:27:53 conclusion.
1191. 01:27:55 Your perfect day, set the plot, right size your characters, honor the transition, plan
1192. 01:28:00 a spin cycle, assess your supporting cast, and then own your script.
1193. 01:28:04 I think these are pretty solid.
1194. 01:28:06 I have issues with the spin cycle still, but I think the general idea makes sense to include
1195. 01:28:12 in this checklist.
1196. 01:28:14 Yep, I don't have much to say here.
1197. 01:28:18 The conclusion didn't jump out at me, so we're good.
1198. 01:28:23 Okay, and then there is the letter to the reader at the very end.
1199. 01:28:26 You put this in the outline.
1200. 01:28:27 Actually, it wasn't going to talk about this.
1201. 01:28:29 So anything you wanted to say about this?
1202. 01:28:30 No, not at all.
1203. 01:28:31 It was just part of the outline.
1204. 01:28:32 So I just added in the part of the outline, that's all.
1205. 01:28:36 Gotcha.
1206. 01:28:37 Alright, well, I guess we can go to action items then.
1207. 01:28:42 So I ended up with three of them.
1208. 01:28:46 The first one was to create new pre-post work routines, because I recognize that I get
1209. 01:28:52 up, I do my morning routine, but then I kind of, even in the middle of the morning routine,
1210. 01:28:56 I'm already thinking about all the work that needs to be done.
1211. 01:29:01 And then the post-work routine, this is kind of like a shutdown routine, is kind of the
1212. 01:29:05 thing that triggered this for me in my shutdown routine is I have terrible consistency with
1213. 01:29:13 that.
1214. 01:29:14 But I think it's not just a shutdown routine, really, it's just what all happens as I go
1215. 01:29:20 from work to something else.
1216. 01:29:21 So sort of related to this, but I think a little bit broader, so I've marked it as a
1217. 01:29:26 separate action item, is to rethink my transitions, because I'm sure that there are many other
1218. 01:29:32 transitions in my life and in my day, which are worth recognizing and then kind of planning
1219. 01:29:39 for.
1220. 01:29:41 And then the last one I had was set boundaries for how many hours I work.
1221. 01:29:50 I'm terrible at this currently.
1222. 01:29:54 The Creator Business Accelerator is certainly not helping with this, because I'm building
1223. 01:29:57 all the material from scratch as we present it.
1224. 01:30:01 But that will be over in four weeks, and I will have a lot of awesome material that
1225. 01:30:05 I can turn into a course or use for another cohort, things like that.
1226. 01:30:09 But yeah, after this, the CBA wraps up, I really need to put those boundaries in place, because
1227. 01:30:16 I'll have these chunks of time now.
1228. 01:30:19 So the tendency will be, well, what could I fill that with, right?
1229. 01:30:22 So I'm going to be a little bit more intentional about making sure I shut off.
1230. 01:30:27 Good.
1231. 01:30:28 Good, good, good.
1232. 01:30:29 So I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1233. 01:30:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1234. 01:30:33 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1235. 01:30:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1236. 01:30:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1237. 01:30:40 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1238. 01:30:43 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1239. 01:30:46 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1240. 01:30:48 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1241. 01:30:50 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1242. 01:30:52 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1243. 01:30:54 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1244. 01:30:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1245. 01:30:59 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1246. 01:31:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1247. 01:31:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1248. 01:31:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1249. 01:31:07 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1250. 01:31:09 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1251. 01:31:11 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1252. 01:31:13 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1253. 01:31:15 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1254. 01:31:17 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1255. 01:31:19 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1256. 01:31:21 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1257. 01:31:25 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1258. 01:31:27 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1259. 01:31:29 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1260. 01:31:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1261. 01:31:33 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1262. 01:31:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1263. 01:31:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1264. 01:31:39 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1265. 01:31:41 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1266. 01:31:43 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1267. 01:31:45 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1268. 01:31:47 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1269. 01:31:51 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1270. 01:31:53 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1271. 01:31:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1272. 01:31:57 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1273. 01:31:59 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1274. 01:32:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1275. 01:32:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1276. 01:32:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1277. 01:32:07 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1278. 01:32:09 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1279. 01:32:11 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1280. 01:32:13 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1281. 01:32:17 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1282. 01:32:19 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1283. 01:32:21 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1284. 01:32:23 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1285. 01:32:25 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1286. 01:32:27 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1287. 01:32:29 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1288. 01:32:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1289. 01:32:33 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1290. 01:32:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1291. 01:32:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1292. 01:32:39 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1293. 01:32:43 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1294. 01:32:45 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1295. 01:32:47 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1296. 01:32:49 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1297. 01:32:51 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1298. 01:32:53 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1299. 01:32:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1300. 01:32:57 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1301. 01:32:59 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1302. 01:33:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1303. 01:33:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1304. 01:33:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1305. 01:33:09 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1306. 01:33:11 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1307. 01:33:13 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1308. 01:33:15 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1309. 01:33:17 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1310. 01:33:19 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1311. 01:33:21 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1312. 01:33:23 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1313. 01:33:25 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1314. 01:33:27 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1315. 01:33:29 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1316. 01:33:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1317. 01:33:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1318. 01:33:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1319. 01:33:39 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1320. 01:33:41 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1321. 01:33:43 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1322. 01:33:45 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1323. 01:33:47 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1324. 01:33:49 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1325. 01:33:51 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1326. 01:33:53 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1327. 01:33:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1328. 01:33:57 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1329. 01:34:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1330. 01:34:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1331. 01:34:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1332. 01:34:07 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1333. 01:34:09 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1334. 01:34:11 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1335. 01:34:13 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1336. 01:34:15 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1337. 01:34:17 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1338. 01:34:19 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1339. 01:34:21 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1340. 01:34:23 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1341. 01:34:27 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1342. 01:34:29 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1343. 01:34:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1344. 01:34:33 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1345. 01:34:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1346. 01:34:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1347. 01:34:39 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1348. 01:34:41 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1349. 01:34:43 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1350. 01:34:45 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1351. 01:34:47 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1352. 01:34:49 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1353. 01:34:53 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1354. 01:34:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1355. 01:34:57 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1356. 01:34:59 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1357. 01:35:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1358. 01:35:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1359. 01:35:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1360. 01:35:07 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1361. 01:35:09 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1362. 01:35:11 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1363. 01:35:13 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1364. 01:35:15 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1365. 01:35:19 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1366. 01:35:21 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1367. 01:35:23 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1368. 01:35:25 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1369. 01:35:27 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1370. 01:35:29 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1371. 01:35:31 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1372. 01:35:33 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1373. 01:35:35 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1374. 01:35:37 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1375. 01:35:39 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1376. 01:35:41 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1377. 01:35:45 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1378. 01:35:47 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1379. 01:35:49 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1380. 01:35:51 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1381. 01:35:53 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1382. 01:35:55 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1383. 01:35:57 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1384. 01:35:59 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1385. 01:36:01 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1386. 01:36:03 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1387. 01:36:05 I'm going to be a little bit more careful about the next one.
1388. 01:36:07 Here's how this applies to the goddess.
1389. 01:36:11 I skipped it, just to be honest.
1390. 01:36:13 I read the first couple and then I'm like, no.
1391. 01:36:17 I kind of don't know what to rate this.
1392. 01:36:21 I think I'm going to land on three stars, though, because I do think
1393. 01:36:25 she's a pretty good writer.
1394. 01:36:27 The visual style is amazing.
1395. 01:36:29 The hand-drawn visuals.
1396. 01:36:31 This is kind of the style I want to do for the visuals in my book
1397. 01:36:35 because I can do the sketch-noting stuff.
1398. 01:36:37 It's not fancy illustrations, but very clearly communicates the idea.
1399. 01:36:43 I feel like these are kind of fun and whimsical.
1400. 01:36:45 I really like that.
1401. 01:36:47 There's tons of visuals in here.
1402. 01:36:51 I also think that in addition to the character theory and the multiverse concepts,
1403. 01:36:59 a lot of this is rehashed productivity advice.
1404. 01:37:03 I don't love that.
1405. 01:37:07 There are many times where I felt like, okay, I don't really agree
1406. 01:37:11 with the direction that you're taking this thing.
1407. 01:37:13 It's not even just like this is the first time
1408. 01:37:17 maybe somebody has come across this idea of the second mountain,
1409. 01:37:21 but what's the thing from the Princess Bride?
1410. 01:37:27 You keep using that phrase.
1411. 01:37:29 I do not think it means what you think it means.
1412. 01:37:31 Yeah, something like that.
1413. 01:37:35 There were a couple moments like that for me,
1414. 01:37:39 but I don't know, I guess going into it,
1415. 01:37:43 if you recognize that this is written
1416. 01:37:47 for ambitious women and
1417. 01:37:51 that resonates with you, this is a great book.
1418. 01:37:55 If you are looking for something
1419. 01:37:59 around the general idea of toxic grit,
1420. 01:38:03 I'm not sure that this is the resource I would recommend.
1421. 01:38:07 I don't have another one off the top of my head, unfortunately,
1422. 01:38:11 but I think if that angle doesn't resonate with you,
1423. 01:38:15 you're left with basically
1424. 01:38:19 the definition of toxic grit, which is really just push back on the status quo
1425. 01:38:23 and the whole idea of the multiverse and figuring out how you're going to pay attention
1426. 01:38:27 to the different characters.
1427. 01:38:29 That's what's here for you,
1428. 01:38:31 in which case this is way too long.
1429. 01:38:35 So, yeah, all that to say, I'm going to rate it at three stars.
1430. 01:38:39 I think it is a well-written book.
1431. 01:38:43 Not for me, if it is your cup of tea,
1432. 01:38:47 you'll like it. Just know what you're getting into before you pick this one up.
1433. 01:38:51 So, I think this is two books in one book,
1434. 01:38:57 and I think that's the biggest problem I have with it,
1435. 01:38:59 is I think this is a memoir book about Amanda
1436. 01:39:03 and her life. At the same time, it's a
1437. 01:39:07 productivity book for ambitious women. And I think that is what
1438. 01:39:11 causes the confusion in my brain,
1439. 01:39:15 because I generally speaking
1440. 01:39:19 I enjoyed 99% of the
1441. 01:39:23 productivity book for ambitious women side of it.
1442. 01:39:27 Like, I thought it was good. I could glean a lot of stuff out of that. Some of the stuff I will directly
1443. 01:39:31 apply. Like, I'm in for that. The memoir side of it,
1444. 01:39:35 I just wasn't interested in. Now, I don't think I'd be interested in that for anybody.
1445. 01:39:39 You know, like, or that much. Like, I'm going to go read the memoir or the biography books
1446. 01:39:43 of the people that I really, really want to go read. And it's nothing, I mean, against Amanda.
1447. 01:39:47 Like, I just don't know her. I never knew her before. You know what I mean? Like,
1448. 01:39:51 I can tell you that if in reading the description, if Mike had not pitched this book
1449. 01:39:55 for Bookworm and we had not decided to do this book for Bookworm, I would not have read this book.
1450. 01:39:59 Like, this would not have been one that I would have ever picked up in red.
1451. 01:40:03 That said, I'm happy that I did in terms of I think I gleaned
1452. 01:40:07 a lot of the stuff out of it. If nothing else, the idea of character theory alone.
1453. 01:40:11 Boom, right there. Like, that was worth reading
1454. 01:40:15 not 300 plus pages, but that was worth reading this book
1455. 01:40:19 to get the idea or reading a version of this book to get the idea. So, like, my biggest
1456. 01:40:23 challenge with this book and the thing that's going to knock the rating for me
1457. 01:40:27 more than anything is I think it's two books that
1458. 01:40:31 were smushed into one book. And I actually think
1459. 01:40:35 based on what we talked about earlier, I think this book sits a lot
1460. 01:40:39 better the productivity side of the book. Let's just talk about that. I think this
1461. 01:40:43 productivity side of the book sits a lot better as a shorter book that kicks me out
1462. 01:40:47 to resources. And it kicks me out to, if you want to learn more about it, go
1463. 01:40:51 sign up here. If you want to go learn more about it, download this thing here. If you want to go, I just think it would
1464. 01:40:55 it would be a cleaner book.
1465. 01:40:59 I say all that at the same time I want to fully acknowledge
1466. 01:41:03 I mean, I'm gleaning some really good stuff out of this book. Like, my notes
1467. 01:41:07 in different sections were good. Like, I mean, they're stuff that
1468. 01:41:11 I'm going to, I told you, as I was what, I made the sidebar on this,
1469. 01:41:15 I pulled more atomic notes out of this book than I've ever
1470. 01:41:19 even thought about pulling out of the other books that we've read. And I don't know
1471. 01:41:23 what clicked. I don't know if it was her writing style or what it was. But it was like, oh, that's a nugget.
1472. 01:41:27 Like, that's a good nugget. That's a good nugget. That's a good nugget. And there
1473. 01:41:31 was more of that in this book than I've gotten out of maybe any other book that we've
1474. 01:41:35 read for Bookworm. So that was cool. Like, I really like that.
1475. 01:41:39 So all of that being said, I'm at a three star as well.
1476. 01:41:43 Right? Like, I think that there were some really, really positive things
1477. 01:41:47 that come out of this. I think I'm going to use some of these concepts and some of these principles before.
1478. 01:41:51 I do not think this is the book that I will go to recommend
1479. 01:41:55 to other people. Like, that, that, you've probably heard it now in all the episodes
1480. 01:41:59 we've done. That weighs big into my rating. What I, what I send this book
1481. 01:42:03 and what I give it to other people. Like, how, how quickly would I hand it to them? I would not
1482. 01:42:07 hand this book to a lot of other people except ambitious
1483. 01:42:11 women who are struggling with burnout or
1484. 01:42:15 this idea of like toxic, you know, relationships or toxic characters or those
1485. 01:42:19 kinds of things. I would hand it to them tomorrow. Like, boom, it's a five star book for you. Go.
1486. 01:42:23 Take it, run. Yep. But for normal, like people
1487. 01:42:27 that, normal is the wrong word. I'm sorry that I said that. But for people that aren't in that category,
1488. 01:42:31 right? Like the average general person who's not the CEO of a company or is not
1489. 01:42:35 like leading something like that, I probably would not recommend
1490. 01:42:39 this to them in that way. So, that's where I sit for the
1491. 01:42:43 for the three star rating. So, let me just double click
1492. 01:42:47 on something that you just mentioned there because you said normal and then you apologize
1493. 01:42:51 for it. So, I want to just say here, I think nobody is normal.
1494. 01:42:55 That's valid. Yeah. Every book that we read is for
1495. 01:42:59 a specific type of nerd. And there are people in my life that I can think of
1496. 01:43:03 that I'm like, they would love toxic grit and I would
1497. 01:43:07 recommend it to them. But, yeah,
1498. 01:43:11 we're not the ideal audience. When I said normal,
1499. 01:43:15 when I said normal, when I said normal, I meant average and I just, I mixed
1500. 01:43:19 my words incorrectly, right? I meant average person, which I don't think this
1501. 01:43:23 resonates as well with the average person. I think it resonates with that super ambitious female
1502. 01:43:27 role. Which, to be honest, like, that's the best type
1503. 01:43:31 of book is, you know, very clearly who you're speaking to and you write the
1504. 01:43:35 best resource for them. But, yeah, just, it wasn't a great
1505. 01:43:39 match up for me. And then the other thing with this is when I saw her talk at
1506. 01:43:43 at Craft & Commerce, she talks about building in public, being a relatable hero.
1507. 01:43:47 Now, obviously, she's speaking to creators. But she has this analogy
1508. 01:43:51 porch, which is present your reality, open the door, reflect, don't just
1509. 01:43:55 report, connect the story and help others. So, when I came across that, I was like,
1510. 01:43:59 is amazing. She talked about being a porch light, you know, shining your light
1511. 01:44:03 and the right way to do it. And I was like, whatever book she's writing,
1512. 01:44:07 it's gotta be based on that because it's so good. And so, I was looking
1513. 01:44:11 for that in the whole length of the book. That's her next
1514. 01:44:15 book. Like, that's the book she's writing right now. I hope so.
1515. 01:44:19 Yeah. Oh, man. Alright, so let's put toxic grit
1516. 01:44:23 on the shelf. What's next? So, the next book is Sketch Your
1517. 01:44:27 Mind, by Zolt Vixian. That's how I'm gonna say his name.
1518. 01:44:31 I have to go watch his YouTube videos to confirm how you say
1519. 01:44:35 his last name. But he is the individual or one of
1520. 01:44:39 the individuals behind Excalidra for Obsidian. And this idea
1521. 01:44:43 of sketching in my notes, or sorry, my
1522. 01:44:47 node and mind maps and sketch notes and all of these things. I'm mixing up all my words
1523. 01:44:51 right now. But he talks about, so the full title of the book is Sketch Your Mind,
1524. 01:44:55 Nurture, a playful and creative brain. Unlock your ideas with visual
1525. 01:44:59 systems. So, Mike, you referred to it in a conversation we had
1526. 01:45:03 last time about, it's almost like the Bob Dotto version,
1527. 01:45:07 but for thinking, you know, so thinking. Visual thinking. Yeah, visual thinking.
1528. 01:45:11 So, I really like the idea of thinking about that. He says, "Who's it for?
1529. 01:45:15 Writers, Sketchers, and anyone?" Which I, okay. Like, let's see how it goes.
1530. 01:45:19 246 pages was just published in
1531. 01:45:23 June of 25. So, it's a new book. So, I'm excited
1532. 01:45:27 to give it a shot and see what we think. How about you? What's after that?
1533. 01:45:31 After that, I want to take you
1534. 01:45:35 on a journey to meet Mary Ann Wolf. I feel like this is necessary
1535. 01:45:39 for Bookwork. You've talked about her many, many times, so I'm interested
1536. 01:45:43 in this journey. Yeah, so her first book, The Prowst and the Squid.
1537. 01:45:47 I have it, but I haven't read it. And it's kind of like the science behind
1538. 01:45:51 reading. So, I feel like that would be a great
1539. 01:45:55 episode just to have in the Bookworm canon.
1540. 01:45:59 And yeah, after that, I'll probably get back
1541. 01:46:03 to listener recommendations.
1542. 01:46:07 Sounds good. Got any gap books? No.
1543. 01:46:11 No way, no way, no way. I'm not taking on a gap book right now.
1544. 01:46:15 No way, Mike. Don't you dare try to tell me that I need a gap book. No.
1545. 01:46:19 Come on, Corey. Do it, do it. No, I'm just kidding. And if I did read a gap book, it would be
1546. 01:46:23 digital. There. Okay, fine.
1547. 01:46:27 I'm going to try and reread the pathless path
1548. 01:46:31 since I got that very pretty hardcover version of it,
1549. 01:46:35 but I'm not sure that I'll actually get through that. I think Sketch Your Mind
1550. 01:46:39 will be a little bit shorter. And we're going to be traveling next week,
1551. 01:46:43 which usually I end up reading a lot when we travel, so. It's 250 pages,
1552. 01:46:47 and I would be shocked if it doesn't have a bunch of visuals in it.
1553. 01:46:51 Yeah, exactly. So I'm thinking it is going to read a little shorter than normal.
1554. 01:46:55 All right. Well, thanks for listening.
1555. 01:46:59 Thank you specifically to our Bookworm Pro Patreon
1556. 01:47:03 members, people who are willing to throw some money our way to keep the show going.
1557. 01:47:07 Really appreciate all your support. If you want to become one of those amazing
1558. 01:47:11 people, you can go to patreon.com/bookwormfm.
1559. 01:47:15 You get a longer ad-free pro show. You get
1560. 01:47:19 a bootleg episode that gets released right after we record. So this is actually
1561. 01:47:23 going to be released in two weeks from our recording date, but you can get it
1562. 01:47:27 right away if you're a Bookworm Pro Patreon member. There's also a
1563. 01:47:31 4K wallpaper that I put together. And as I mentioned at the beginning,
1564. 01:47:35 I've added the 2.5 hour video replay from the reading master class
1565. 01:47:39 that I did. So you get all of that for $7 a month.
1566. 01:47:43 You can sign up now, patreon.com/bookwormfm.
1567. 01:47:47 And if you're reading along with us,
1568. 01:47:51 pick up Sketch Your Mind by Zolt Vixen.
1569. 01:47:55 And we'll talk to you next time.