247: The Way of Excellence by Brad Stulberg

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1. 00:00:00 This episode of Bookworm is brought to you by the St. Louis pen show,
2. 00:00:03 June 25th through June 28th.
3. 00:00:06 Find out more and get your ticket now at stlpenshow.com.
4. 00:00:11 All right.
5. 00:00:11 So we just have the one follow up action item from last time,
6. 00:00:16 which is a has nothing to do with this book. It's the next one.
7. 00:00:21 But did you get a chance to listen to that Nathan Barry episode with
8. 00:00:24 Bill Burnett and Dave Evans?
9. 00:00:25 No, and I'm mad because I went to look it up and here's what happened.
10. 00:00:30 I went to look it up. I'm in Apple podcasts.
11. 00:00:33 And Mike, we talked about Apple podcasts on a show.
12. 00:00:37 I don't know a while ago about how like you had made the switch into Apple podcast.
13. 00:00:41 There are some things that, by the way,
14. 00:00:43 but there are some things with Apple podcasts that just aren't as good.
15. 00:00:46 Like it really aren't as good.
16. 00:00:47 And I hit one of those barriers when I went to download this and then that
17. 00:00:51 idea flew away, like a little bird.
18. 00:00:54 And I honestly, when I told you earlier, before we started recording,
19. 00:00:58 I was like, do I need to do anything else?
20. 00:00:59 Like, is there something else that I'm missing?
21. 00:01:01 That was the one. That was the thing I needed to do.
22. 00:01:03 So no, I'm going to add it.
23. 00:01:05 I want to keep it on an action item because I don't want to listen to this.
24. 00:01:08 I think it's a good, I think it's a good thing.
25. 00:01:09 So I'm going to move it from our follow up to our action items and I'm sorry.
26. 00:01:14 No worries.
27. 00:01:15 No worries. You got another week.
28. 00:01:16 But I think it's a really cool, really cool interview.
29. 00:01:20 No, I wanted to listen to it. I just forgot.
30. 00:01:23 Awesome. Well, we don't have any other follow up.
31. 00:01:25 So just jump right into today's book.
32. 00:01:28 Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it.
33. 00:01:30 All right. Well, today's book is The Way of Excellence by Brad Stolberg.
34. 00:01:36 And we had covered one Brad Stolberg book previously, I feel like.
35. 00:01:41 Did we not before my time?
36. 00:01:43 That was before my time, if you did for your time.
37. 00:01:45 And I can't even remember which book it was.
38. 00:01:48 Yeah, he mentioned, he mentions one of them or a couple of them in the book,
39. 00:01:51 but I don't remember what they were, what they're called.
40. 00:01:55 I feel like a complete tool right now.
41. 00:01:57 I need to go look this up. I'm sorry.
42. 00:01:59 OK, there you go. Bookworm.
43. 00:02:02 While you're looking that up, one of the things I would like to know is,
44. 00:02:05 other than you having covered one of these before,
45. 00:02:09 did you have you ever seen him speak?
46. 00:02:11 Did you ever interact with him in any of the conferences you've been to?
47. 00:02:14 No, I've heard him.
48. 00:02:15 Heard him on the Cal Newport podcast because he and Cal seem to be buddies.
49. 00:02:18 It was master of change, by the way.
50. 00:02:21 Episode one hundred and eighty, and you're right, it was before your time.
51. 00:02:26 Yes, sir.
52. 00:02:28 I remember I rated that book four stars.
53. 00:02:31 There were some big ideas that I liked in there,
54. 00:02:35 but there were a lot of like little paper cuts in terms of the
55. 00:02:40 the style that I didn't really love.
56. 00:02:44 And oh, this one actually was a special guest.
57. 00:02:47 Mike Vardy recorded this one with me, so it was in between.
58. 00:02:52 Nice. Yeah, but so it was it was OK, but not one of those ones that, like,
59. 00:02:58 oh, yeah, I absolutely love this the style, this author.
60. 00:03:02 So I'm kind of not sure why I picked another Brad Stolberg book,
61. 00:03:06 other than the way of excellence sounded really intriguing.
62. 00:03:10 And he's like I said, he's buddies with Cal.
63. 00:03:12 So I heard him on Cal Newport's podcast not too long ago,
64. 00:03:15 talking about some of the ideas from this book.
65. 00:03:19 And yeah, I just thought it might be an interesting conversation,
66. 00:03:24 but it's an interesting format.
67. 00:03:28 There's an introduction, there's a conclusion.
68. 00:03:31 There are two parts.
69. 00:03:33 The first part is called foundations and there's three chapters there.
70. 00:03:37 And then the second part is mindsets, habits and practice.
71. 00:03:40 And there are lots of chapters there.
72. 00:03:45 It goes up to chapter 19, but I think what we're going to do
73. 00:03:48 for this episode is just tackle it chapter by chapter.
74. 00:03:52 Not all of these address the topic in the same amount of length.
75. 00:03:57 So some of this we can move pretty quickly through some of it.
76. 00:04:00 We can camp out and unpack a little bit, but yeah.
77. 00:04:06 Really just a deep dive into how do we live an excellent life
78. 00:04:12 or how do we become excellent in in what we do,
79. 00:04:16 which I think is kind of a fascinating topic.
80. 00:04:18 What were your your initial thoughts when you crack this one open?
81. 00:04:21 Yeah, so my my initial thoughts were, OK, like I'm interested in thinking about excellence.
82. 00:04:26 I think the premise of it, I was cautious because I was like,
83. 00:04:32 well, excellence could mean a lot of things, right?
84. 00:04:35 Like it's a very, very broad word.
85. 00:04:38 And even in that, you know, as you start off the book,
86. 00:04:42 I think and I think he does it throughout the entire book.
87. 00:04:44 Like there's this mix between excellence and success.
88. 00:04:50 And it's like kind of those two words are treated the exact same as they go through this.
89. 00:04:55 I don't remember if he caveats that in the beginning of the book
90. 00:04:57 in the introduction of the book, but I don't think I have that written down
91. 00:05:00 to where excellence means success and success means excellence.
92. 00:05:04 But I was I was very cautious because I was like,
93. 00:05:06 why wonder how he's going to operationalize excellence
94. 00:05:09 and how he's going to going to move forward through that other than that?
95. 00:05:13 I didn't really have a lot going into it.
96. 00:05:15 I mean, I think we as humans and achievers want to do things better.
97. 00:05:22 So I was intrigued by the very title of it.
98. 00:05:25 And I and I kind of came into it with an open mind.
99. 00:05:29 I had no idea who Brad Stalberg was.
100. 00:05:30 So that that wasn't even on my radar who he was.
101. 00:05:34 So I came kind of came into it open ended.
102. 00:05:37 All right, cool.
103. 00:05:39 Well, let's let's jump into it here.
104. 00:05:41 Let's start with the introduction, which is redefining excellence.
105. 00:05:48 The interesting thing about this is I'm not sure that he actually defined excellence.
106. 00:05:54 Yeah, you talked a little bit about what it is and what it's not mentioned.
107. 00:05:59 It's not perfectionism, obsession, optimization, happiness or flow.
108. 00:06:06 Talked about alienation, which is the disconnect that people experience
109. 00:06:11 from their own lives and sort of a tie back to a recent book also mentioned
110. 00:06:16 that over 75% of people feel burnout at some point every year.
111. 00:06:23 So I don't know.
112. 00:06:25 So it's kind of a weird introduction.
113. 00:06:28 I wish we would have gotten just like a two line definition for excellence.
114. 00:06:33 That was real clean, but I get what he's trying to try to do here.
115. 00:06:38 You know, we're we're not just making this, you know, excellence is not just
116. 00:06:44 for the people who are at the very, very top of their craft.
117. 00:06:47 And comparatively, they're more excellent than everybody else who does the thing.
118. 00:06:52 I think what he's going for here is that excellence is something that we can all
119. 00:06:56 strive for and achieve in our lives, regardless of how skilled we think we we are.
120. 00:07:02 Yeah, I I actually have as a as a note in here, this book
121. 00:07:07 defines excellence.
122. 00:07:09 But interestingly, I don't think it does actually with like a short statement
123. 00:07:15 that says this is the way I define excellence.
124. 00:07:17 So that's kind of ironic, but if if you're going to ask me, like if you if you
125. 00:07:21 pushed me to say, what's his definition of excellence, he does describe it here
126. 00:07:24 in the introduction.
127. 00:07:25 It's mastery that matters, right?
128. 00:07:29 It's mastery that matters.
129. 00:07:30 And I really like this framing of it.
130. 00:07:32 Like he hooked me from the very, very beginning because I like the idea
131. 00:07:37 of what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to master something.
132. 00:07:40 And it needs to matter to us.
133. 00:07:42 And if we can do that, then we can internally define that as excellence,
134. 00:07:46 where that becomes a problem is Mike, if I master something that doesn't matter
135. 00:07:54 to you, you may not consider that excellence.
136. 00:07:57 But if I master something that does matter to you, I think you would be on
137. 00:08:01 board and say, like, okay, yeah, like he's excellent at that thing.
138. 00:08:04 Why? Because he's mastered it and it matters to all of us in our in our community.
139. 00:08:08 But like, that's where my little bit of a hangup of mastery that matters is.
140. 00:08:11 But overall, I'd say 95%, I like the idea of mastery that matters.
141. 00:08:15 It it it hones things in in a good way for me.
142. 00:08:19 So I like the way he started off the book with that mastery of matters.
143. 00:08:23 Yeah, I like that too.
144. 00:08:24 And yeah, yeah, he does kind of talk loosely about it.
145. 00:08:29 But I feel like if you're going to write a book called the way of excellence,
146. 00:08:34 you should have a one liner for this is what excellence is.
147. 00:08:38 And mastery that matters, maybe that is that that's the thing that, you know,
148. 00:08:42 should be big and bold and inside of a call out.
149. 00:08:45 So people people get it.
150. 00:08:47 Maybe that's what he would say if you were having a podcast conversation about this,
151. 00:08:51 but I feel like you got to stamp that hard before getting into the rest of this.
152. 00:08:57 But that's where we're going.
153. 00:08:59 So part one foundations and chapter one here is the biology of excellence.
154. 00:09:05 Will you permit me to start on this?
155. 00:09:07 Yeah, go for it.
156. 00:09:09 Mike, I hated this chapter, like straight up hated this chapter.
157. 00:09:13 Like I did not like this chapter at all, essentially, like the whole point of this.
158. 00:09:18 And you're going to have to correct me because I don't know homeostatic self
159. 00:09:21 regulation or homeostatic upregulation.
160. 00:09:24 That was the point of this is basically as.
161. 00:09:28 Biological beings, we are trying to regulate ourselves to a better condition.
162. 00:09:33 Yeah, we're trying to regular ourselves to a better condition.
163. 00:09:37 Now he talks about a lot of other things here.
164. 00:09:40 Feeling your way into reality and inner knowing all of this stuff.
165. 00:09:46 But Mike, I just did not like the biology of excellence.
166. 00:09:52 I just didn't like any part of it.
167. 00:09:54 So yeah, there you go.
168. 00:09:55 I don't like it either, to be honest.
169. 00:09:57 I don't, I think it's a stretch to talk about how single cell.
170. 00:10:02 Organisms have excellence baked in because they're trying to survive.
171. 00:10:07 And excellence is the thing that allows them to thrive.
172. 00:10:11 Well, like, I mean, you tie it back to mastery that matters.
173. 00:10:15 And it's like, are they really trying to master?
174. 00:10:17 I don't know if they are trying to master.
175. 00:10:19 I think they're just trying to survive.
176. 00:10:20 Right.
177. 00:10:20 I maybe they're trying to master survival, but I just think it's weak.
178. 00:10:24 Like I think the arguments week in this, in this first chapter.
179. 00:10:27 Yeah, I do think the homeostatic upregulation that he mentions here and then
180. 00:10:32 carries that theme throughout the book, that works for me, but tying it back
181. 00:10:37 to the whole process of evolution, I feel like is a that that didn't work.
182. 00:10:43 But homeostatic upregulation, he defines as an innate drive toward flourishing,
183. 00:10:47 both now and in the future with feeling serving as a guide.
184. 00:10:50 I feel like you can apply that regardless of your situation personally.
185. 00:10:55 And it it fits with the rest of the stuff.
186. 00:10:58 He's going to talk about here.
187. 00:10:59 I also did.
188. 00:11:00 Oh, sorry, go ahead.
189. 00:11:01 Go ahead.
190. 00:11:02 I'm sorry, I cut you off.
191. 00:11:03 I'm sorry.
192. 00:11:03 Well, he does talk about the four phases of competence.
193. 00:11:05 And I feel like this is this is interesting and useful, but again,
194. 00:11:10 doesn't really fit very cleanly with the biology part.
195. 00:11:13 So there's unconscious incompetence.
196. 00:11:15 You don't know what you don't know.
197. 00:11:16 Conscious incompetence.
198. 00:11:17 You know what you don't know or like you can see basically how you're not
199. 00:11:21 as good at something as somebody else.
200. 00:11:23 Then there's conscious competence where you're really thinking about it
201. 00:11:26 and you're able to do the thing unconscious competence is at as the top level,
202. 00:11:29 though, and that's where you're able to just flow in this thing, do it really,
203. 00:11:33 really well and you don't have to think about it.
204. 00:11:35 So situated cognition is another term that he introduces here, which is a term
205. 00:11:39 to describe how the better someone gets at an activity, the less they think
206. 00:11:42 with their head and the more they think and feel what their entire being.
207. 00:11:46 I completely understand that I grew up playing classical violin.
208. 00:11:50 And so this is always the thing that impressed me specifically about the
209. 00:11:54 violin is when you see people playing the violin, who are really, really good.
210. 00:12:00 Their eyes are closed.
211. 00:12:01 They're not thinking about anything.
212. 00:12:02 They're swaying all over the place.
213. 00:12:03 This is probably true of most musicians, but violin specifically for me.
214. 00:12:09 First time I saw it, I thought they were like dancing on stage to accentuate
215. 00:12:14 what they wanted people to feel with the music.
216. 00:12:16 And then the more I played, the more I realized, like, no, they're just into it.
217. 00:12:20 They're not thinking about where they're putting their fingers or how fast
218. 00:12:23 they're drawn the string across the bow across the strings.
219. 00:12:27 They are just in the zone.
220. 00:12:28 And that's like required for you to get to that level of skill.
221. 00:12:32 If you are very technically good at an instrument and that's as far as it gets,
222. 00:12:37 you're not very entertaining.
223. 00:12:38 No one's going to sit there and listen to you for a very long.
224. 00:12:43 I agree with that.
225. 00:12:44 Like I like that idea of the inner knowing kind of thing that where like you just
226. 00:12:47 they're so you're such a master, you've got such excellence in this.
227. 00:12:51 You just know where to go next.
228. 00:12:53 Like and you're you're not even thinking about it.
229. 00:12:55 You're just you're just doing like you're doing the thing.
230. 00:12:57 I clearly agree with that.
231. 00:12:58 Here's where the analogy breaks down.
232. 00:13:01 And my goal is not to be like overly critical here, but my goal is like, here's
233. 00:13:04 where it breaks down.
234. 00:13:04 I think about a squirrel.
235. 00:13:06 Go with me on this, right?
236. 00:13:07 I think about a squirrel.
237. 00:13:09 I don't think a squirrel is out there going.
238. 00:13:11 I need to be the best at opening up the nut.
239. 00:13:17 To, you know, before I buried her, right?
240. 00:13:19 It's just like, I need to be good enough.
241. 00:13:21 I need to be I need to be good enough at getting the nut.
242. 00:13:24 And this is where like the biological thing brings down me.
243. 00:13:26 But the inner knowing part, like I'm I'm down and I get that he was trying to
244. 00:13:30 build, you know, he has like a rhythm here between one, two and three, right?
245. 00:13:33 Like biology of biology, psychology, et cetera, et cetera.
246. 00:13:38 Yeah, that's a that's so you hit on it.
247. 00:13:40 Yeah, chapter one's biology, chapter two, psychology, chapter three is is philosophy.
248. 00:13:45 I don't know if I would have picked these three.
249. 00:13:47 But he did.
250. 00:13:49 So you ready to go to the second one?
251. 00:13:50 I am.
252. 00:13:51 Let's do it.
253. 00:13:51 OK, so the second one is the psychology of excellence.
254. 00:13:56 And I don't know what to think about this one.
255. 00:14:00 I've got a lot of like notes in here, which are kind of.
256. 00:14:07 Anochtotes, I guess.
257. 00:14:10 So he says that we thrive over the long haul when three core needs are met.
258. 00:14:14 Autonomy, which is the ability to have some control over how we spend our time
259. 00:14:17 and energy, competence, a path toward concrete improvement in our chosen
260. 00:14:21 pursuits and belonging, a sense of connection to something beyond ourselves,
261. 00:14:25 whether that's another person, community lineage or tradition.
262. 00:14:30 I think that's useful.
263. 00:14:32 I also think it's a bit of a stretch to fit that into chapter on on psychology.
264. 00:14:39 Like I get how you get from, you know, from point A to point B there.
265. 00:14:43 But if you just talk about the psychology of excellence and you're
266. 00:14:47 going to say, you know, what is the one point that he's trying to make here?
267. 00:14:51 I'm not sure what it is.
268. 00:14:54 Um, yeah, he talks about our need for chaos, the desperate desire to feel
269. 00:14:59 live and excited.
270. 00:15:00 I guess like that sort of alludes to the whole idea of flow as people are
271. 00:15:04 familiar with it by me, Holly.
272. 00:15:07 Um, thinking allows us to stimulate how an experience might feel.
273. 00:15:12 So a lot of this, a lot of ways I can talk about in the part two is not just,
274. 00:15:18 you know, doing what feels good right now, but thinking like, what would future
275. 00:15:22 me, uh, what do I want to do to get to, you know, that ideal future or, you
276. 00:15:28 know, future me, uh, is going to, what would prefer to do the pushups than eat
277. 00:15:32 the chocolate cake.
278. 00:15:33 Yep.
279. 00:15:35 I don't know.
280. 00:15:35 There's like a lot of random stuff in here.
281. 00:15:37 And then a lot of it comes back later when he gets into it in, in more detail.
282. 00:15:41 So you got anything specific you want to call it from here?
283. 00:15:44 I mean, I think the biggest thing is, um, he talks about stress that matters
284. 00:15:50 plus, um, rest equals growth.
285. 00:15:54 I think that was the biggest thing that stood out to me.
286. 00:15:56 So this book is weird for me because like the overarching thesis of this
287. 00:16:02 book is vague to me.
288. 00:16:05 Like I, it's, it's like, I get it, it's about excellence.
289. 00:16:08 I get it's about trying to achieve excellence and the background of excellence
290. 00:16:11 and all of those other things.
291. 00:16:13 But like, I'm, I got much more out of the little tiny things
292. 00:16:18 throughout this book than I got out of that big overarching, overarching thesis.
293. 00:16:22 And this is another example of that stress that matters plus rest equals growth.
294. 00:16:26 The idea of zombie burnout.
295. 00:16:28 I think the idea of zombie burnout is spot on, right?
296. 00:16:31 Like we're half dead, half alive, right?
297. 00:16:34 We're both, we do things, but we're left just exhausted and, and, and restless
298. 00:16:39 when, when we get done with it.
299. 00:16:41 Um, he talks about values here.
300. 00:16:43 Uh, I thought it was interesting that he talked about values.
301. 00:16:46 He kicks you to his other resources to explore values.
302. 00:16:51 But again, it's like, we've talked about this before.
303. 00:16:54 So I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, beat this into the ground,
304. 00:16:56 but it's like determining your values is a really, really hard thing that
305. 00:17:00 takes a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of effort.
306. 00:17:03 And it's just, we can't do it here.
307. 00:17:06 We can't, like we can't do it justice.
308. 00:17:07 But I like the idea of the fact that excellence is value laden.
309. 00:17:10 It's that matters piece.
310. 00:17:12 If I haven't thought about what matters in my, my, my quest to be excellent
311. 00:17:16 isn't in what matters to me.
312. 00:17:19 I'm not going to be able to, to, to achieve excellence.
313. 00:17:21 So that's the psychology piece.
314. 00:17:22 So it's like, I get what he's doing here, but I find more value in the little
315. 00:17:26 pieces that I'm finding in the overarching idea of biology or psychology.
316. 00:17:32 Or as we go to see philosophy next.
317. 00:17:35 Yeah, I agree.
318. 00:17:36 And, and a lot of the stuff that you were just mentioning, the, the purpose
319. 00:17:39 and the meaning type of stuff, that's really what I think of when I think of
320. 00:17:43 philosophy.
321. 00:17:44 So let's go to that section next.
322. 00:17:47 Um, this is where he talks about the concept of RTA, which is the stoic philosophy
323. 00:17:54 of, uh, fulfilling one's purpose or function.
324. 00:17:57 And a philosophy, I guess it's philosophy.
325. 00:18:00 I don't know.
326. 00:18:00 It's a term that comes from stoic wisdom.
327. 00:18:03 There's a lot of stoic stuff in here.
328. 00:18:05 He even mentions later on in the book how he wrote for a stoic publication at one point.
329. 00:18:13 I didn't remember that.
330. 00:18:14 Yeah.
331. 00:18:15 He, uh, I think it was called lions roar or something like that.
332. 00:18:20 Yeah.
333. 00:18:20 I remember talking about lines, or I didn't remember a stoic.
334. 00:18:22 Yeah.
335. 00:18:23 And, uh, you know how I feel about stoicism.
336. 00:18:26 So I feel like, uh, that stuff is a little bit off putting to me, but also the way he
337. 00:18:34 weaves it in, it's kind of hard to, to argue with it fits really well.
338. 00:18:38 The way that he, uh, he uses it to support some of these, these arguments.
339. 00:18:43 There was nothing in here where I was like, Oh, that's completely a stretch.
340. 00:18:46 And I'm not sure I agree with that approach.
341. 00:18:49 So it's a very tempered, uh, approach to, uh, stoicism, I'll say.
342. 00:18:56 Um, yeah, the philosophy piece though, I don't know.
343. 00:19:00 I mean, there's some weird random stuff in here as well.
344. 00:19:04 Like the more you hurry, the longer it takes.
345. 00:19:08 There's, uh, when we're overloaded, we give up on, on quality, uh, I think this
346. 00:19:13 might be where he first brings in Robert Piersig.
347. 00:19:16 And that I can tell you, I was not a fan of.
348. 00:19:19 I, I worried because I was like, Oh no, I was like, he's talked about values.
349. 00:19:25 He, uh, I don't know if he did it here or not.
350. 00:19:26 Has he talked about smart goals yet?
351. 00:19:28 Cause he talks about smart goals.
352. 00:19:29 He does bring in smart goals later.
353. 00:19:31 Yeah.
354. 00:19:31 And then he talked about, um, personally, and I was like, Oh no, Mike's done.
355. 00:19:35 I was like, can Mike even make it through the rest of this book?
356. 00:19:37 The trifecta.
357. 00:19:41 I don't, I don't need it.
358. 00:19:43 Sorry.
359. 00:19:43 If only he had to talk about survey development, like then, well, your
360. 00:19:46 head would have just exploded in the middle of the day.
361. 00:19:50 That is true.
362. 00:19:50 That is true.
363. 00:19:52 Uh, yeah, so I guess, you know, that's, that's worth calling out just
364. 00:19:57 to mention that, um, with the Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance,
365. 00:20:02 it seems like there are two camps of people when it comes to that book,
366. 00:20:06 those who absolutely love it.
367. 00:20:07 This is most brilliant book ever written and those who absolutely hated it.
368. 00:20:11 I was in that absolutely hated it camp.
369. 00:20:13 I thought it was a complete waste of time.
370. 00:20:16 I mean, I'm in the have it read it camp.
371. 00:20:18 So that was, well, you may want to stay there.
372. 00:20:21 Exactly.
373. 00:20:22 Based on your recommendation, I'm not really motivated to go read it.
374. 00:20:25 Yeah.
375. 00:20:26 So I guess, you know, if you do like that sort of thing, um, there's a
376. 00:20:31 lot of stuff in here that maybe hits you a little bit different than it, it hit me.
377. 00:20:35 And I think I did a, I was able to, to separate, you know, he's using this
378. 00:20:40 argument from this book that I don't really like to support this idea.
379. 00:20:45 But even though I don't like the argument, he's using to support it.
380. 00:20:49 Sometimes those ideas, I'm like, Oh, yeah, actually, there is something there.
381. 00:20:54 But, uh, yeah, philosophy, like, I don't, again, I don't know what the, the
382. 00:20:58 major through line is with this chapter either.
383. 00:21:02 I agree.
384. 00:21:03 You said it best a little bit ago where you were like, he covers things and he covers
385. 00:21:09 them in a way that you can't like refute.
386. 00:21:11 It's like, Oh, this isn't bad.
387. 00:21:13 Like you're not saying anything that's terrible or, or anything that I like vehemently
388. 00:21:18 disagree with, but like you're also not, I want it to be more focused.
389. 00:21:25 I want it to be more like stick to the thesis kind of a thing.
390. 00:21:29 And it's much more of like lay the gigantic foundation that we're then
391. 00:21:34 going to build on, uh, in part two, almost as if like a, I wrote this book as part
392. 00:21:40 two and then somebody told me or I thought about it and I was like, I should
393. 00:21:44 probably go put some like underpinnings behind this stuff.
394. 00:21:46 So therefore here comes part one, you know, and I'm going to figure out part one.
395. 00:21:50 Yeah.
396. 00:21:50 So I will say right now at the end of part one, this is two stars, maybe even a one
397. 00:21:58 star book for me at this point.
398. 00:22:01 I would agree with you.
399. 00:22:02 I mean, I'd give it to yep, I'd agree with you.
400. 00:22:04 But we are about to enter into a whole new world.
401. 00:22:12 It takes a turn for sure.
402. 00:22:13 It definitely takes a turn.
403. 00:22:14 So part two, yeah, mindsets, habits and practices.
404. 00:22:16 Yep.
405. 00:22:17 Part two, as you mentioned, mindsets habits and practice.
406. 00:22:20 And this is the, I think this part is great.
407. 00:22:25 So this is where the majority of the content is here and he's breaking this down
408. 00:22:28 into these different chapters, different characteristics, I guess that tie to the
409. 00:22:35 idea of excellence.
410. 00:22:36 And so I think it's a lot cleaner how you would, uh, use the discussion from these
411. 00:22:43 chapters in order to live a more excellent life.
412. 00:22:46 Yep.
413. 00:22:46 So the first chapter here is chapter four and that is care.
414. 00:22:54 So, uh, essentially you really have to be invested in the thing that you're
415. 00:22:59 trying to be excellent at says that all the knowledge and talent in the world
416. 00:23:02 doesn't matter if you don't care.
417. 00:23:03 Exactly.
418. 00:23:05 I really like the, uh, he has a description here for cultivating care and he calls it
419. 00:23:10 the, the interplay of quit, fit and grit.
420. 00:23:13 Uh huh.
421. 00:23:14 I love that too.
422. 00:23:14 Yep.
423. 00:23:15 Yep.
424. 00:23:15 So the idea of quit, you know, a lot of people think of excellence and resiliency.
425. 00:23:22 So you shouldn't ever quit something, but that's not necessarily it.
426. 00:23:27 You know, you want to have that when you need it in terms of following through
427. 00:23:30 on something that is worth doing, but also you need to be able to cut ties when
428. 00:23:36 it's not something that you should be doing.
429. 00:23:39 And so this order is very important, quit, fit and grit, because fit is all,
430. 00:23:44 is this something that I should be doing?
431. 00:23:46 And he calls out in this section, not to focus on grit, which is what can keep
432. 00:23:51 you sticking with something before you have, uh, before you, you decide whether
433. 00:23:59 this is something that is, is, uh, is worth doing.
434. 00:24:02 So no grit before fit and quit.
435. 00:24:06 Um, and it gets a little bit messy.
436. 00:24:08 You know, all those, these rhyming words, but, uh, the biggest barrier to caring
437. 00:24:12 about the thing that you're doing is fear.
438. 00:24:14 I think that's pretty profound.
439. 00:24:16 I, he talks about faith at some point in this, this book and it's not a, a
440. 00:24:21 chapter per se, but, um, right here, when he brings up fear, I'm reminded of this,
441. 00:24:27 this quote that, uh, I really like from Ed Cole, who said that faith and fear
442. 00:24:32 have the same definition.
443. 00:24:33 It's belief that what you cannot see will come to pass.
444. 00:24:37 So I, I can totally see how that applies to what he's talking about here with,
445. 00:24:42 with care, where if you are, uh, worried that you're not going to be able to do
446. 00:24:48 the thing, you're, you're going to not invest yourself into it fully because
447. 00:24:54 you don't want to find out that you're not good at it or something.
448. 00:24:57 Um, so yeah, I think, think, uh, this is a great place to, to start here in part two.
449. 00:25:04 Yeah.
450. 00:25:04 You hit, you hit on a lot of the stuff that, that I was going to hit on, I'll
451. 00:25:07 add one, one thing that I grabbed as well.
452. 00:25:11 The idea that he starts talking about balance, which you and I've talked about
453. 00:25:13 on other conversations through other books and the idea of like actually being
454. 00:25:17 perfectly balanced is a myth.
455. 00:25:19 Like, like we're not, we're not really trying to be perfectly balanced here.
456. 00:25:22 We're trying to be intentionally unbalanced.
457. 00:25:25 And he calls itself complexity here that like we want to be unbalanced in the
458. 00:25:30 right ways and the way like tying back into what he's talked about before, we
459. 00:25:33 want to be unbalanced in the things that matter.
460. 00:25:36 And I like this framing.
461. 00:25:37 I really like what he's doing here in terms of, we're going to be unbalanced
462. 00:25:41 in the things that we care about.
463. 00:25:42 So that's really the only other other thing I had, other than what you mentioned
464. 00:25:45 in terms of goodness out of chapter four.
465. 00:25:48 Yeah.
466. 00:25:48 I agree completely with the idea of the, uh, the intentional imbalance.
467. 00:25:51 Um, one of the related ideas to that, he says that when your identity is tied up
468. 00:25:55 into a single thing, it can upend your sense of self.
469. 00:25:58 So I feel like the intentional imbalance is good, but you also kind of have to
470. 00:26:04 temper it.
471. 00:26:05 So with intentional imbalance, you want to focus on something that's worth doing,
472. 00:26:10 but you don't want to put all your stock in that thing.
473. 00:26:12 And you want to give yourself permission to change your mind about things and not
474. 00:26:16 have it up, but your entire identity.
475. 00:26:18 I, I can see where, where that's a definite possibility.
476. 00:26:21 Yeah, for sure.
477. 00:26:24 All right.
478. 00:26:24 Uh, next chapter is goals.
479. 00:26:26 Oh, goody.
480. 00:26:27 We get to talk about goals, uh, starts talking about smart goals.
481. 00:26:33 And doesn't say that they're amazing, but also doesn't discredit them.
482. 00:26:37 Like one of the most recent books that we read did.
483. 00:26:41 So I think I am ruined for smart goals forever.
484. 00:26:44 Now, uh, are you that you feel the same?
485. 00:26:47 So I did like the nuance that he put into this to where basically like smart
486. 00:26:51 goals can get you started.
487. 00:26:52 Okay.
488. 00:26:53 And then you grow out of smart goals.
489. 00:26:55 I was like, Oh, I've never heard anybody approach it that way.
490. 00:26:57 Before that's a pretty cool nuance.
491. 00:26:59 I kind of like that, but otherwise, yeah, I'm kind of done with smart goals.
492. 00:27:03 Uh, I've kind of passed them.
493. 00:27:06 Yeah.
494. 00:27:06 So there, uh, let's just pull that out.
495. 00:27:09 There's still some good stuff in here.
496. 00:27:12 So the, the very first thing he mentions in this chapter is a couple of questions.
497. 00:27:15 Will your contemplated goal allow you to practice your values or will it hinder
498. 00:27:19 them?
499. 00:27:19 I think that's a really important, uh, question or those two questions to ask.
500. 00:27:25 Then there's a lot of like traditional goal setting stuff in here.
501. 00:27:27 Like the best goals push us outside of our comfort zone.
502. 00:27:31 He's got this, I guess, five step process for focusing on process over
503. 00:27:36 outcomes, which I think again is really important when it comes to setting goals.
504. 00:27:41 So it's set a goal, figure out the discrete steps to achieve that goal
505. 00:27:45 that are within your control.
506. 00:27:46 Mostly forget about the goal and focus on executing the steps instead.
507. 00:27:51 If you catch yourself obsessing about the goal, use that as a cue to ask
508. 00:27:56 yourself what you could be doing right now to help you move forward.
509. 00:27:59 And whether you succeed or fail, learn from the outcome,
510. 00:28:02 refine your process of necessary and move forward.
511. 00:28:06 I feel like that's great advice.
512. 00:28:08 And this is the type of stuff that I find insanely valuable.
513. 00:28:13 It's also what was completely missing from part one.
514. 00:28:15 Yeah.
515. 00:28:16 Yeah.
516. 00:28:16 Um, there was also a story here, which I really liked about Ray Allen.
517. 00:28:22 And Ray Allen was a professional basketball player.
518. 00:28:25 I played for the Milwaukee Bucks for a really long time.
519. 00:28:27 One of the best shooters in the NBA.
520. 00:28:29 And he talked about how at the end of his career, he finally won an NBA title.
521. 00:28:35 And he shared about how empty he felt after finally winning an NBA championship.
522. 00:28:43 I can relate to that.
523. 00:28:44 I've shared this story many times before.
524. 00:28:46 So I won't share it again, but my first half marathon hurt myself.
525. 00:28:49 Well, I was training, ran it anyways.
526. 00:28:52 And when I crossed the finish line, it was like, Oh my gosh, I did it.
527. 00:28:56 And then immediately afterwards, it's like, Oh, now.
528. 00:29:02 So, um, the thing we remember is the climb he mentions here.
529. 00:29:07 Uh, the thing that I just described that he defines that as the arrival fallacy.
530. 00:29:11 It's that false hope that once we make it, then we'll be happy.
531. 00:29:13 And it doesn't have to be winning an NBA championship or running a half marathon,
532. 00:29:17 but that sort of thing, uh, gets applied to.
533. 00:29:20 I think there's a lot of stuff in our regular day-to-day life where it's like,
534. 00:29:23 well, I'll just got to make it through to this point.
535. 00:29:25 And then things are going to click.
536. 00:29:26 It's not how it works.
537. 00:29:27 Yeah, I liked how he called out cheap thrills, come from talking and thinking about a goal.
538. 00:29:33 And satisfaction actually comes from the pursuit of the goal.
539. 00:29:36 I think this is a big thing that a lot of people get tripped up on and including myself, right?
540. 00:29:41 So I'll put myself in that same camp is, and I'll actually go as far, like,
541. 00:29:45 I'll swing the pendulum so far to say, like, I don't even want to talk about a goal publicly
542. 00:29:49 because I get such a positive feeling about talking about that goal.
543. 00:29:54 I actually want, I don't want to talk about it till it's done or till it's in progress or till
544. 00:29:58 it's far enough along.
545. 00:30:00 Almost it was a way to try to trick myself, right?
546. 00:30:02 Like that's really what I'm doing is it's not that I'm trying to hold anything back.
547. 00:30:05 It's like, if I talk about it too early, uh, okay, cool.
548. 00:30:08 Like I got, I got the feel good from that.
549. 00:30:10 I don't, I don't need to pursue that anymore.
550. 00:30:12 I like the way, I like the way he described the fact that we all want to talk about being
551. 00:30:17 at the mountain top, but like really we spend most of our time on the side of the mountain,
552. 00:30:21 and we need to start to love the side of the mountain.
553. 00:30:24 Now we're getting into it.
554. 00:30:25 So you brought up the Ray Allen thing.
555. 00:30:27 We're getting into it here because we're going to use a lot more examples.
556. 00:30:31 And he spends the introduction saying, everybody needs excellence.
557. 00:30:36 Excellence, everybody, everybody, excellence, everybody, excellence.
558. 00:30:40 Did you notice anything interesting about all the examples that he uses, Mike?
559. 00:30:43 Oh, yeah.
560. 00:30:44 They're all world class performance.
561. 00:30:45 They're all world class, right?
562. 00:30:46 Like they're world class performers.
563. 00:30:47 They're world class athletes.
564. 00:30:48 They're world, they're world.
565. 00:30:49 And I understand it's aspirational.
566. 00:30:51 We're trying to drive forward, but like I, I think I would have resonated a lot better
567. 00:30:56 if we had some people who showed excellence that were just normal people.
568. 00:31:01 And it's like, look at how excellent this is.
569. 00:31:03 Like if it was a combination of the two, you know, like essentially if we mixed the way he,
570. 00:31:07 he grabs a bunch of all these like expert top level people and then like dirty jobs.
571. 00:31:13 Like we did a micro dirty jobs thing where it's like, he just goes out and talks to normal
572. 00:31:16 people and is like, look how excellent you are at, you know, cleaning toilets.
573. 00:31:19 Look how excellent you are at whatever this other thing is.
574. 00:31:21 So I would have liked a better balance there.
575. 00:31:24 Well, I don't fault him for using people that are aspirational.
576. 00:31:27 I feel like that's a lot of people that resonates with them because that's what I want to become.
577. 00:31:35 The thing that was weird to me is we hear about a lot of the same people over and over again.
578. 00:31:42 Every time we get introduced to them, it's like he's introducing them for the first time.
579. 00:31:49 The full title, you know, world class, violinist, Hannah, whatever.
580. 00:31:55 And then this Varan, I think was her last name.
581. 00:31:57 Yeah, and it felt weird to me that the whole big description appeared every chapter that he did that.
582. 00:32:07 It's almost like these were individual blog posts that were put together.
583. 00:32:13 And that was, you know, they forgot to eliminate some of that stuff so that it ties together more
584. 00:32:18 cleanly. But I don't know, it was not a big deal, but that did stick out to me.
585. 00:32:23 I agree. And what I'll tell you is, do you follow him on social media at all?
586. 00:32:28 No. So the social media is a lot better when you use these big names and use all the stuff,
587. 00:32:33 because then you can put out that blurb, you can put out that little Instagram post or whatever it is,
588. 00:32:38 where when you're putting out an Instagram post about Frank, you know, whoever, Frank,
589. 00:32:42 what's his name in Milwaukee, nobody cares about that post.
590. 00:32:45 So I get-- I'm sure about Frank and Milwaukee, he's my neighbor.
591. 00:32:48 Yeah, I get it, but like, it also rubs me the wrong way. It's like, hold on, there's a lot of
592. 00:32:53 really normal people out there that are excellent. Can we acknowledge some of those people as well?
593. 00:32:57 And this is just, I don't think it's the medium for it. So I won't hold it too much against him.
594. 00:33:01 Everyday excellence, that's the book that you--
595. 00:33:03 Oh, there you go. There you go. I like that title. Look at you.
596. 00:33:07 All right, let's go to the next one. Next chapter is chapter six, consistency. And this is probably
597. 00:33:16 exactly what you'd expect. So excellence comes from consistency, not intensity. So he defines
598. 00:33:24 consistency versus intensity, but every time I hear somebody describe the difference here,
599. 00:33:30 I hear Simon Sinek's voice in my head. Because he talks about how consistency is brushing your
600. 00:33:38 teeth every day, intensity is going to the dentist and getting the professional cleaning.
601. 00:33:43 You cannot beat that analogy. That's a good analogy, yeah.
602. 00:33:46 So I'm always left disappointed when people are talking about consistency versus intensity.
603. 00:33:53 That being said, I think what he shares here is good. He talks about prioritizing progress,
604. 00:33:58 not perfection. Progress isn't linear. You may not see the progress every day, but you need to
605. 00:34:05 keep putting in the effort. Eventually, it'll come. And a couple things, real important here,
606. 00:34:11 though. So he mentions the real game isn't the one you hoped or planned for. It's the one that's
607. 00:34:15 in front of you. So that, I think, is important. And you have to figure out how to apply that to
608. 00:34:23 your own situation. The term game isn't, I don't know, like you're thinking about probably sports
609. 00:34:31 at that point. And Steve Kerr is one of the people who blurb the book is his blurb is on the cover.
610. 00:34:38 And that's the one, because I'm a basketball fan, it's easy for me to see, oh, well, we expected
611. 00:34:43 the team to double team, Janis, whatever. And they ended up with a totally different
612. 00:34:48 defense. And we have to now adapt based on what they're doing. And you may not think about going
613. 00:34:54 to work as encountering the opposition like that, but I think it could be valuable to do that.
614. 00:35:02 The other one is that the idea of getting 1% better. He kind of rails against us a little bit.
615. 00:35:08 And I think there's some truth to this. I'd never thought about it this way before, but we've all
616. 00:35:12 heard that you get 1% better, you do that every day, compounds. I've used that analogy before when
617. 00:35:18 I've done workshops and things. And there is truth to that. And maybe this is coupled with the fact
618. 00:35:24 that he's interviewing all these really, really high achievers. That's maybe where the emphasis
619. 00:35:28 on this comes in. But if you keep getting 1% better, you eventually reach a point of diminishing
620. 00:35:35 returns. And 1% better is not feasible. So if you keep striving for 1% better, it will actually
621. 00:35:43 destroy you after a certain point. I don't think that matters for most people who are not at the
622. 00:35:48 very, very, very top of their chosen field or profession, though. Yeah, I think that gets to
623. 00:35:55 his idea of these plateaus is these plateaus are natural in your process, but stay consistent
624. 00:36:00 through those plateaus. And then you'll be able to break out of that plateau. The other one that
625. 00:36:08 got me out of this, out of the chapter was basically make the bad days a little better.
626. 00:36:13 And I was like, oh, that's a really cool way to think about that. It's like, you're going to have
627. 00:36:16 bad days. How do I make this less focused day a little less unfocused? Like, how do I make this
628. 00:36:25 frustrated day? A little less frustrated, you know, kind of a thing. It's like, I really like
629. 00:36:31 the way he pitches those two things. So I thought this chapter was good. I didn't like write down
630. 00:36:36 a lot of stuff out of this chapter, but I really thought, you know, consistency is key. If I'm
631. 00:36:41 going to be excellent at something, I do need to be consistent. So I'm ready to move if you are.
632. 00:36:46 Absolutely. All right. So the next chapter, chapter seven trade-offs. This actually
633. 00:36:52 is a really important topic, I feel. He mentions at the beginning that the time when people are at
634. 00:36:57 their best and feel most alive are also the time when they feel the least balanced. And this is where
635. 00:37:05 I think we get important context for balance versus intentional imbalance. He says that when
636. 00:37:13 Guru's talk about being balanced, it basically means that you never go all in. And then he talks
637. 00:37:20 about obsession, which is when you recklessly go all in. And prioritization is the term that he
638. 00:37:28 uses for like the in-between. That's when you go all in, but not on autopilot, not in ways that
639. 00:37:32 ruin your physical, emotional, or relational health. That's, that's pretty, pretty important.
640. 00:37:39 Also says that being a mature adult means acknowledging that trade-offs exist and being willing to make
641. 00:37:45 them. And the way that he said that feels a little bit challenging in a good way, I think.
642. 00:37:56 Yeah, I think that's basically, basically what I got out of here, but he does talk about, you know,
643. 00:38:00 two types of prioritization, which are critical to excellence where you're prioritizing within
644. 00:38:06 the broader context of your life, which you focus, and then the other one is when you focus on,
645. 00:38:10 what you focus on within your primary pursuit. But I think the big message is really just you
646. 00:38:16 can't recognize you can't do everything and make intelligent and informed decisions about what
647. 00:38:21 you're going to focus on. Mike, can I tell you something and have you not psychoanalyze me?
648. 00:38:26 Because there's, he says a thing in here. He says a thing in here that like actually,
649. 00:38:31 I don't want to say pains me, but like it makes me like really question a lot of things.
650. 00:38:36 Pick two or three things and pour into those with all you have, say no to everything else.
651. 00:38:41 I have a negative reaction to that. I think he's absolutely right, but I have a negative
652. 00:38:48 reaction to that. Now, like I think those two or three things can change throughout the seasons
653. 00:38:53 or the chapters of your life. So I don't think it's like, oh, pick these two or three things when
654. 00:38:57 you're 20 and never think about anything else until you're 80 or whatever it is. I don't think
655. 00:39:02 that's what he's trying to say here. I completely agree. And I just don't like it. Like, I really
656. 00:39:08 just don't like it. It's like, that is so hard. Like that is so hard. And we've heard it before,
657. 00:39:14 like we heard it in the Buffett book where basically it's like, pick your 25 things,
658. 00:39:18 narrow them down to five, cut them down even further. And then that's the thing you should
659. 00:39:21 focus on. It's like, I know that this is the way to do it. This is the way to be excellent at
660. 00:39:27 things. This is what you have to do. And my internal gut reaction does not like this.
661. 00:39:35 And that's it. That's a problem. So I think that's an interesting one that he brought out of here
662. 00:39:40 that really made me do some kind of internal reflections on this. And then I like the fact
663. 00:39:46 that he ties into fundamentals. You know, I'm coaching. I'm coaching flag football right now.
664. 00:39:51 And I tell this to the kids all the time. It's like, focus on the fundamentals. Focus on the
665. 00:39:56 fundamentals. If you're good at the fundamentals, then the plays, the complicated plays are much
666. 00:40:01 easier. If you're good at the fundamentals, then the nuanced tricks that you want to do are so
667. 00:40:06 much easier because you don't have to worry about the fundamentals. You're really good at those.
668. 00:40:09 And I really like the way he brings that into excellence as well. So we've got to be good at
669. 00:40:14 this fundamentals or else we're never going to achieve excellence. Yeah, interesting to hear you
670. 00:40:19 bring up the term focus there because that's the title of the next chapter. But it's a different
671. 00:40:24 type of focus. You know, so what you're talking about here is focusing on the broader
672. 00:40:31 pursuits. But then chapter, let's see, this is chapter eight on focus. This is really about,
673. 00:40:40 I'll say the ability to focus on something and not have your mind be pulled in a million
674. 00:40:46 different directions in the moment based on the digital culture that we live in.
675. 00:40:51 Yep. Is that fair? Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's absolutely fair.
676. 00:40:54 Yeah. So he talks about algorithmic mass distraction in this chapter, which is a great term.
677. 00:41:00 It's the experience of being served up an interruption engineered to capture your attention
678. 00:41:04 for a short period of time before being served up the next interruption engineered to capture
679. 00:41:07 your attention for a short period of time at Infinitum. Well, welcome to modern day life.
680. 00:41:12 Unfortunately, if you're not insanely proactive about countering this.
681. 00:41:19 Yeah, but I like the way that he defines that. I thought that was pretty brilliant,
682. 00:41:24 actually. I've heard a lot of people talk about this and I feel like he described it better than
683. 00:41:30 just about anybody ever talk about it. Defines focus here as concentrated and enduring effort
684. 00:41:37 pointed toward a specific game. He defines so many terms in this book. I know. There are so many
685. 00:41:42 things in my mind map where it's like, this term equals, it's weird to me that I did not have that
686. 00:41:47 for excellence. I agree. I completely agree with you. It's just kind of a thing that it's like you
687. 00:41:52 almost wonder, like, did he just not think he had to do it? Or did he just not realize he didn't do it?
688. 00:42:00 I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah.
689. 00:42:02 But this is a really good chapter and there's some new stuff here, even though this is something
690. 00:42:08 that I've kind of studied out myself, mentions that as of 2023, the attention economy is worth
691. 00:42:15 trillions of dollars with AT. Yep. That is crazy to me. Yeah.
692. 00:42:20 But also, I feel like as a content creator, a YouTuber, I feel like this is only going to become
693. 00:42:31 a bigger deal. I don't know. I feel like there's more and more opportunity for what I am, the type
694. 00:42:41 of thing that I'm trying to do. I don't think if you're wanting to become a creator, I don't think
695. 00:42:48 in any way you have missed the moment. I feel like it's just beginning. But that's kind of a
696. 00:42:53 little bit of a side note. He also mentions the MRI scans that have been done, which show that it
697. 00:43:00 is impossible to do two things at once with a high level quality. And that is the best definition
698. 00:43:06 slash argument against multitasking. Again, I think I've ever heard. He mentions the King's
699. 00:43:12 college study, which I was not familiar with, that found that persistent interruptions in our
700. 00:43:16 attention lead to a 10 point drop in our IQ, which is the same effect as staying up all night.
701. 00:43:24 So why would anybody do this? I don't know. But we do it all the time. But we do it all the time.
702. 00:43:30 Exactly. I have an action item from this, this chapter. See if you can guess what it is.
703. 00:43:37 Well, you already focus your time. So you're not going to develop focus blocks because you
704. 00:43:42 already do that, I think. You're going to do something with your phone. So you're going to
705. 00:43:50 lock down your phone in a different way, or you're going to put your phone aside,
706. 00:43:55 or you're going to throw it into the pool or the bathtub or something. No, I do think it's
707. 00:44:00 a member. Do you remember the thing that he mentioned is the most effective way to develop
708. 00:44:04 your focus muscle? Not at all. Mindfulness meditation.
709. 00:44:10 I did not think we were going back there. I thought you would take that down the road.
710. 00:44:15 Are you really going to try to do this again? I'm going to try it again.
711. 00:44:20 This is what, like, 150th time? Yeah, at least. So I think he's right that that is a really
712. 00:44:27 valuable tool. I think that this has become a bigger issue than it ever has been.
713. 00:44:33 And the last time I looked at this, there were tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of
714. 00:44:38 mindfulness meditation apps. The problem for me was I found something that was pretty basic
715. 00:44:44 that I liked. And then it got abandoned. It was the Do Nothing app. And then he was like,
716. 00:44:51 well, I'm not going to use this app because I'm not going to get updated anymore. And eventually
717. 00:44:55 it's going to break. So I just walked away from it. I think I actually still even have an active
718. 00:45:03 headspace subscription. But I don't want to use that. I want to find something good and basic.
719. 00:45:11 And I'm going to go through the app store and I'm going to look at those again and see if I can
720. 00:45:14 find something. All right. So I'm not promising that I'm going to mindfully meditate for a week,
721. 00:45:23 even a day. I'm going to explore the topic of mindfulness meditation again,
722. 00:45:30 because there's probably even more options. And maybe I can find a good one than there was
723. 00:45:36 the last time that I looked. Mike, may I make a suggestion here? Oh, I think I know where you're
724. 00:45:41 going to go. Hold on. What about you just take the short walks? The five to 15 minute walks
725. 00:45:48 that he describes to instead of instead of going down this mindfulness meditation rat hole again.
726. 00:45:53 Why don't you just take the walks? I mean, he gives you a lot of good evidence too that the
727. 00:45:57 walks are effective. That is true. Okay. So I will do the walks. Well, I do the runs that that
728. 00:46:02 actually is with my version of that. Okay, but this is where I thought you were going because in
729. 00:46:06 the pro show, we talked about Claude and Claude code. It just occurred to me just now. I could
730. 00:46:14 totally vibe code my perfect mindfulness meditation app. Do you listen to MacPrick weekly?
731. 00:46:21 Occasionally. So this past week, they were talking about how the glut of vibe coded apps that have
732. 00:46:28 appeared on the on the app store and how like how GitHub is like overloaded with people having
733. 00:46:33 developed these apps. There you go, Mike, you're contributing to the problem. All right. That's
734. 00:46:39 my action item. That is actually my action item vibe code, a mindfulness meditation. That's beautiful.
735. 00:46:44 That's beautiful. What talk about bringing it full circle, folks? Talk about being a circle. All
736. 00:46:51 right. Anything else from this chapter? Nope. I'm ready to rock. Okay. This episode of Bookworm
737. 00:46:57 is brought to you by the St. Louis Pen Show. If you love the field of cursive writing with a fountain
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758. 00:48:52 So next chapter is discipline. And this one, I have a love-hate relationship with discipline.
759. 00:49:04 So when most people think of discipline, they think of willpower. I don't think that's actually
760. 00:49:10 something that he mentions in these chapters. But that's really what people think of. And I just
761. 00:49:17 got done with the first session in the Life theme cohort where I talked about how don't focus on
762. 00:49:22 willpower, focus on motivation. And then he comes out and he's like, motivation is crap,
763. 00:49:27 don't use it. Develop the discipline. I think we're both right. I get where he's coming from.
764. 00:49:35 And basically what he's saying is you don't want to completely rely on your motivation
765. 00:49:40 to show up and consistently do the thing that is important. I will tell you, though, if you're
766. 00:49:45 trying to brute force, just do the thing that you want to do. The best way to get yourself to want
767. 00:49:52 to do it is to figure out a way to hack your motivation. So I think you got to use both
768. 00:49:58 of these. But I think the whole chapter of discipline is it's an important topic.
769. 00:50:05 It's weird to hear Brad talk about it instead of like when I think of discipline, I think of
770. 00:50:11 Jackel Willink. And discipline is freedom, I think is the name of his book.
771. 00:50:16 The reason why I'm laughing right now is because he makes a statement in here, Brad does. And it says
772. 00:50:21 be disciplined and kind. And I put the word kind in capital letters and I wrote underneath it,
773. 00:50:27 this is the issue I have with Jackel and Goggins. Because like Jackel Willink and David Goggins,
774. 00:50:34 they come with this whole idea of discipline, discipline, discipline. But there is like zero
775. 00:50:39 kindness. There's zero, like you don't take a day off, you know, like suck it up, buttercup,
776. 00:50:44 like kind of a thing. And like Goggins even goes like, I mean, he turns the dial up way, way higher than
777. 00:50:49 that in his books with like cursing and all that other stuff. So it's like, but I think about this
778. 00:50:54 is I thought the exact same thing. I did not expect discipline in this way. I always think
779. 00:51:01 great and grut and all that stuff. So I'm so glad you brought it up because I thought the
780. 00:51:06 exact same thing. Other than that, I don't have anything else to talk about in discipline.
781. 00:51:09 I feel like we've talked about this a million times. I'm good to go. I'm good to move on.
782. 00:51:13 Well, he does mention that discipline bridges the gap between motivation and action. And I
783. 00:51:18 like the thing he shared about how many people who are committed to excellence live relatively
784. 00:51:23 structured lives. That is challenging to me, not that I have an action item associated with
785. 00:51:27 simplify my life. But that has definitely been a I'm not going to say a focus. I'm not going to
786. 00:51:32 say a pursuit. It's a little bit of a hobby maybe. I've been thinking about how I could simplify
787. 00:51:40 for a very long time. I could probably make more progress there. But yeah, good, good.
788. 00:51:45 Okay, next chapter is renewal. And this where we'll talk about sleep, not just sleep, but
789. 00:51:53 there is a little bit of emphasis here on sleep. Now, I'm not sure we've read a book on sleep.
790. 00:51:59 Haven't we have we read Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep.
791. 00:52:04 Okay, yeah, so I this is the area I have a lot of discipline, let's say, because I have to.
792. 00:52:14 I when I was a freshman in college was diagnosed with epilepsy. And I haven't had a seizure in
793. 00:52:22 20 something years. And that is because I do everything I can to protect the quantity and
794. 00:52:28 the quality of my sleep. A lot of people when it comes to sleep, they just do whatever the heck
795. 00:52:34 they want. And then they don't ever consider like, maybe there were things that I did that
796. 00:52:38 contributed to the fact that I didn't sleep well. They're just like, Oh, I didn't sleep well. Oh,
797. 00:52:42 well. And so I think that's that's important to consider. But also he makes a point here where I
798. 00:52:49 think it's it's important that you, in fact, let's just go through the three essential rules for
799. 00:52:54 sleep. I think these are pretty, pretty great. Do everything you can to prioritize sleeping seven
800. 00:52:58 to nine hours. I would say eight hours. Let's not give it that range. Let's just say eight.
801. 00:53:04 Second one, though, do not freak out if for some reason you can't sleep seven to nine hours.
802. 00:53:10 And then the third one, do not let rule two become an ongoing excuse for rule number one.
803. 00:53:15 I think that's that's pretty great. But I think the whole reason that there are books like the
804. 00:53:21 why we sleep book that people should read is because we don't really consider what goes into
805. 00:53:28 getting our body to, you know, ramp down and get a prepare for a good night sleep. A lot of this is
806. 00:53:35 like systematic. We got, you know, blackout curtains in our room, the way to blink it.
807. 00:53:41 We bought this stuff, you know, 15, 20 years ago, I never thought about it again and sleep
808. 00:53:45 better because of it. You know, so just I think, you know, you look at it once you dial it in,
809. 00:53:49 and then you don't have to like constantly be worrying about it. But it's absolutely something
810. 00:53:52 people should think about. I agree. He ties back into here. This stress plus rest equals growth.
811. 00:53:59 And this idea that if we don't rest, growth is hard. You know, like we if we're constantly in
812. 00:54:05 the state of stress, then growth is hard. And this is true across disciplines, which I think is
813. 00:54:11 really, really interesting. I mean, he talks about weightlifting a good bit here, but like in
814. 00:54:14 physiology, like you hear this all the time, you can't push your body to the max all the time and
815. 00:54:19 expect to gain, like expect to be faster or to be a better athlete or to lift heavier weights,
816. 00:54:26 you have to let it rest because that's where it rebuilds itself. Your brain's the exact same way.
817. 00:54:31 Like if you're going full till all the time and you don't ever give it a chance to do that
818. 00:54:36 diffuse thinking or you don't ever give it a chance to let down and like kind of make those
819. 00:54:41 connections, it's just not going to work. So he, he hits the nail on the head here. And like,
820. 00:54:47 I think he gets a really good topic here about like, don't forget this, like don't don't sleep on
821. 00:54:52 rest, right? Like don't, you know, don't ignore it. I also like the way he calls out different ways
822. 00:54:58 to rest. He gives you suggestions on different ways to rest, walk, swim, jog, hike, run, yoga,
823. 00:55:03 you know, rock, whatever it might be, hang out with a friend, spend time in nature,
824. 00:55:08 actually sleep, spend, you know, spend some time getting seven to eight, nine hours of sleep.
825. 00:55:12 And then he calls out something I know that you've talked about a bunch of different times, but
826. 00:55:16 take a Sabbath, take a vacation, plan those into your routine, because you come back better than
827. 00:55:24 you were before, you have the ability to take all of that intense effort that you've been doing,
828. 00:55:30 rest on it for a minute, and then you come back in rejuvenated, you come back in more motivated.
829. 00:55:34 Like I just think, I think this chapter hits a nail on the head and I completely agree with him.
830. 00:55:40 Nice. All right, next one is confidence. And this one, I don't have a lot to say about,
831. 00:55:48 but there's one particular phrase in here that I really liked, and that is to own your seat.
832. 00:55:56 I don't even know how to describe why this resonates with me. I guess the thing is
833. 00:56:02 that I'm a little bit of a, I struggle with imposter syndrome. Like I see other people doing
834. 00:56:08 stuff and I can totally do that stuff, but I don't think I can do that stuff. Got it.
835. 00:56:12 So it's like, oh, well, yeah, you know, that person is speaking at that conference, they deserve it,
836. 00:56:18 but I can't do that when honestly, like I have the skill to do that sort of stuff. I just don't
837. 00:56:24 think I do. So sometimes I'll put myself out there and I'll get into a position like that and I,
838. 00:56:31 the imposter syndrome really hits and it's like, you should not be here. And it's like, no, you're,
839. 00:56:37 you're here, you were chosen for a reason. Now just own it and do the best that you can.
840. 00:56:44 I think one of the things this one made me really think about hard is the difference between arrogance
841. 00:56:49 and confidence, because he talks about like arrogant people are allowed because they're insecure,
842. 00:56:54 confident people tend to be more quiet or more reserved in that. And I think about this all the
843. 00:57:00 time too, because kind of Katie and I will talk about this and they'll be like, well,
844. 00:57:04 the boys are being kind of like, they're being kind of arrogant, they're being kind of cocky.
845. 00:57:08 And I'm like, no, they just know they can do the thing. And they don't have the like,
846. 00:57:12 anybody like having told them for 10 years that they can't do the thing. So it's like,
847. 00:57:16 they're just going into it thinking, oh, yeah, like I can go do that thing. I do like what he says
848. 00:57:22 about if you don't feel like you own your seat, go get it, go figure out the thing you need to do,
849. 00:57:29 go figure out the thing you need to then feel like you do own that seat. And I like the fact that he
850. 00:57:36 encourages people because I think in that imposter syndrome situation, right, like
851. 00:57:42 encouragement is what you need. Like you're you're there for a reason, like there you didn't get there
852. 00:57:47 accidentally. You talked about late or earlier in the chapter, I guess it would be putting in the
853. 00:57:51 reps to do the thing. Well, you've put in the reps that are that have gotten you either close or
854. 00:57:56 in there. What do you need to do to like figure out a way to own that seat? So I think he does
855. 00:58:02 a good job balancing here. This idea of arrogance and humility and encouragement. Like I think he
856. 00:58:08 he again just does a really good job in this in this chapter, agreed. All right, next chapter,
857. 00:58:15 chapter 12 is on patience. And this might be the one that I have the most notes for any of the
858. 00:58:22 sections in the entire hour. Okay, okay. But I think I just want to summarize this
859. 00:58:30 because basically there's the main ideas. There's no such thing as an overnight breakthrough.
860. 00:58:36 And if you are really trying to become excellent, you're going to have periods where it's clicking
861. 00:58:41 and you're growing and you can see how you're getting better. But then there'll be times where
862. 00:58:46 you're just wondering, is this doing anything? Am I making any progress? And so I think again,
863. 00:58:54 it kind of ties back to that idea of falling in love with the process. In fact, there's a quote
864. 00:58:58 by Matt Campbell, who I think is the Iowa State Basketball Coach. No, he's the new Penn State
865. 00:59:05 Head football coach. Oh, okay. He was the Iowa State Football Coach. Now he's the new
866. 00:59:10 football coach. Of course, you would know that. I would know that. Yes, I would know that. Yeah,
867. 00:59:15 that quote was good about if you fall in love with the process, eventually the process loves you
868. 00:59:19 back. I like that quote. I also like the list here for the actual secret to greatness. Pick your
869. 00:59:26 thing, pick a good system for your thing. Surround yourself with people who support you doing your
870. 00:59:31 thing and then do your thing for a decade or more. You know, the last couple years have been tough
871. 00:59:37 for me as an independent creator trying to grow my business. But every time I encounter something
872. 00:59:43 like this, you know, there have been several, several moments, I guess, in the last couple,
873. 00:59:48 couple months, even where I recognize, you know, people who I look up to have been doing this thing
874. 00:59:53 for a really long time. They've been doing it for years, right? And then he talks about how
875. 00:59:57 you got to do the thing for a decade or more. Yep. Yep. And I know that it's not going to come
876. 01:00:01 quick, but then I get frustrated when it doesn't come quick. No, I know. I'm the same exactly.
877. 01:00:06 Yeah, but if I can like force myself to take that long view, it's like, hey, yeah, actually,
878. 01:00:10 it's working. It's growing, you know, so yeah, good reminder for me.
879. 01:00:15 Yeah, I in addition to what you're talking about. So you and I are on the same page in a lot of
880. 01:00:20 this stuff. Like we're calling out the exact same things. But he talks about the fact that middle
881. 01:00:24 age individuals tend to start high growth businesses and things like that. Average age is 45. He talks
882. 01:00:32 about middle age researchers making discoveries and those kinds of things. It's so true if you go
883. 01:00:38 and look at it, right? From when I was doing entrepreneurship work in grad school and stuff,
884. 01:00:45 I mean, you looked at these and everybody talks about the unicorn. Everybody talks about the young
885. 01:00:48 the young person who goes out there and they start this thing. And next thing, you know,
886. 01:00:51 it's a billion dollar business and all that stuff. And not everybody wants to talk about the person
887. 01:00:56 who is boring and is 45 or 50. And they've been making $300 million every year for the last 30
888. 01:01:06 year, you know, last 10 years or less 20 years or whatever it is. Like, which one is success there,
889. 01:01:11 right? Like, is it is it the unicorn that like goes out and kills it for a year or two? Or is it
890. 01:01:17 the person who goes out there and just absolutely crushes it for a sustained period of time? And
891. 01:01:23 I'm like, man, what an interesting way to reframe that. He gives a Bruce Lee quote here that patience
892. 01:01:31 is not passive. It's concentrated strength. And I like this quote a lot because it's like,
893. 01:01:37 if you it's one of the things that comes out of martial arts, right, if you've ever taken martial
894. 01:01:40 arts before is martial arts is training you to be a very, very skilled technician at inflicting
895. 01:01:49 damage. Let's just say that like you you are able to inflict damage very, very effectively.
896. 01:01:54 And at the same time, they're telling you to do that or they're teaching you how to do that.
897. 01:01:57 They're teaching you, oh, by the way, you should never do this. Like, there's a there's a million
898. 01:02:01 other ways to resolve the conflict. You only should really do this if you have no other opportunity.
899. 01:02:08 And like, I like the idea of thinking about patience as knowing when to apply concentrated
900. 01:02:14 strength, having the wisdom and being proactive in making that decision. And then I tie that to
901. 01:02:20 excellence. And I say, Oh, that's actually a lot of what excellence is. Excellence is waiting and
902. 01:02:24 waiting and waiting and waiting, but not in a passive way, like waiting in a analyze analyze,
903. 01:02:29 analyze, analyze opportunity. Boom, I'm going to go and I'm going to seize opportunity. And I
904. 01:02:34 just think it's a really it's a good way to frame that too. So I'm good to move to to routine though.
905. 01:02:42 All right. Yeah, the next one is routine, as you mentioned. And at the beginning of this chapter
906. 01:02:48 mentions that not nearly everyone who attains excellence relies on routines, which provides
907. 01:02:53 structure to our days. And then there is a single phrase here, which is great routines can be magical,
908. 01:02:58 but there is no magic routine. mentions the book daily rituals by Mason Curry. Have you read that
909. 01:03:04 one? I've not. It's a bunch of routines from really famous and productive creative people. And there's
910. 01:03:13 a huge variety of routines in there, which is kind of kind of interesting. So I guess I kind of kind
911. 01:03:20 of knew this, but again, a good reminder, he talks about how to find your chronotype,
912. 01:03:24 which is go seven days without setting an alarm clock or compensating for fatigue with caffeine
913. 01:03:29 or other stimulants. I don't know who's actually going to do that. I agree. But interesting idea,
914. 01:03:35 three rules for routines, developer teens and do everything you can uphold them. Release your
915. 01:03:39 routines, release from your routines when life demands it. And again, do not let rule two become
916. 01:03:48 a chronic excuse for rule one. Let's do that one a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I pretty much standard routine
917. 01:03:55 stuff here. I didn't get anything. Any kind of major, major outcomes out of this one. I know I'm
918. 01:04:01 a lark. That's clear. Like I've known that for, you know, I'm 40 now I've known that for probably
919. 01:04:07 30 years at this point that I'm a lark. But I thought routines was a routine chapter.
920. 01:04:14 Sorry for doing that. Yeah, sorry for doing that. You know, I have a sound pad on my
921. 01:04:20 roadcaster here. I should figure out which one is the boom. No, I know I've got that
922. 01:04:26 in here somewhere, but that's okay. Welcome to dad's. Yeah. I do have another action item
923. 01:04:32 from this chapter, though, which is to consider the transitional routines, transitional routines,
924. 01:04:37 where you're going from one thing to another, like a commute from leaving the workplace to now I'm
925. 01:04:43 home and going to be with my family. I work from home, so got to figure out other transitional
926. 01:04:49 routines. And I've tried like a shutdown routine, still trying to get that really click. And yeah,
927. 01:04:56 I want to consider all of those transitional routines again, whether that's morning, afternoon,
928. 01:05:02 evening, whatever. I feel like I could do a little bit better job of, okay, I'm closing the book on
929. 01:05:06 this thing going into the next thing. Yeah, that's good. That's real good. All right. Next one
930. 01:05:13 is Gumption. And this one, let's see, Gumption, he does define this one, a sense of progress
931. 01:05:21 and possibility that creates forward inertia. There's a lot of Gumption traps he talks about here
932. 01:05:27 that fall into both external and internal categories. He mentions the 48 hour rule,
933. 01:05:34 which is where you give yourself 48 hours to sit with victory to feet, but then return to the work.
934. 01:05:38 I like this idea. I hate that time frame. I think it should be like 20 minutes.
935. 01:05:47 Yeah, I don't know. There's some other stuff in here about like flexibility and strength,
936. 01:05:52 you know, strength without flexibility leads to rigidity, flexibility without strength leads
937. 01:05:56 to instability. But I don't know what you actually do with this chapter. Yeah, so I actually resonated
938. 01:06:05 with this chapter a lot in terms of I, it's an area I need to work on because he also describes
939. 01:06:12 Gumption as strong yet measured enthusiasm for something. And it's the measured part. So I'm really
940. 01:06:20 good at having strong enthusiasm for something. I'm not good at having strong yet measured enthusiasm,
941. 01:06:27 right? Like, so the way I think about that, the way I process that is, okay, strong enthusiasm
942. 01:06:32 comes in. The measured part of it says, how do we continue this enthusiasm longer than 48 hours or
943. 01:06:40 a week or two weeks or three weeks or whatever it might be? And this is where I get my second
944. 01:06:46 action item from the episode. But my first from the book is the idea of what is the free throw or
945. 01:06:51 the layup of the things I care about. So I've got a project, I've got a goal, I've got whatever it is.
946. 01:06:59 And I think at the very, very beginning of it, you establish the free throw or the layup that says,
947. 01:07:05 when I'm losing steam, when I'm losing Gumption, when I'm losing that forward inertia, what's that
948. 01:07:12 thing that gets me moving again? What's that thing that gets me, gets me going again? So for
949. 01:07:16 instance, I would say like writers, it's the like writing every day. Oh, I just sit down and start
950. 01:07:22 typing. And am I typing anything about the thing I actually want to write about? No. But that's the
951. 01:07:27 layup. That's the, that's the thing that'll just make me move forward and help me move forward. I
952. 01:07:33 want to think about my projects that I have going on that I'm not able to move forward right now,
953. 01:07:39 or that I'm struggling to carry that forward inertia with. And I'm thinking about what is the
954. 01:07:44 layup that I can do? And then tie that into how do I plan that into my routine? Ah, first five
955. 01:07:50 minutes is this. Don't think about it. Just do it. And then see if that propels me forward. So that's
956. 01:07:56 that's like my big takeaway out here. And I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna help a lot.
957. 01:08:01 Nice. So Corey is going to find his Gumption.
958. 01:08:03 Gumption. All right. Cool. Next one is curiosity. I like this one a lot. I feel like
959. 01:08:15 this one, maybe the topic resonates with me the most, because it's so important
960. 01:08:23 for a lot of the stuff that I do. And even a lot of the stuff that I teach with PKM.
961. 01:08:30 Curiosity is essential for growth. Talks about the difference between like seeking
962. 01:08:35 in play pathways as opposed to the panic and rage pathways. The fear of failure often overrides
963. 01:08:41 the joy of exploration as a recovering perfectionist. I get that. And then the big thing though, I think
964. 01:08:50 is right at the beginning where curiosity doesn't disappear from our lives, but our focus shifts
965. 01:08:55 to achieving specific outcomes, avoiding failure and safeguarding our egos, which is why a lot of
966. 01:09:00 people don't consider themselves to be creative. And they don't think that they have that curiosity.
967. 01:09:05 So I guess if I had a, I don't have an action, I'm associated with this, but it's almost more
968. 01:09:12 like an internal mission, which is, which is reinforced by this chapter. It's to help people
969. 01:09:19 find this. Yeah, that's good. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. This chapter to me, I think, is titled
970. 01:09:26 incorrectly. So he calls it curiosity. And I know he does talk about curiosity in here. But I think
971. 01:09:31 this chapter is really about fear and nervousness. Yeah, I think you're right. Like, I think if he
972. 01:09:36 detitled this like overcoming fear, overcoming anxiety, something like that, it's not as catchy,
973. 01:09:41 and it doesn't fit with the theme of the way he's been titling all the chapters. So I totally
974. 01:09:45 understand why you didn't do it. But like, really, that's what he's talking about here is reframing fear,
975. 01:09:52 reframing discomfort, being curious about your fear and anxiety and discomfort and reframing those.
976. 01:10:00 Overall, I thought the content was, was fine. You know, get curious about it. You'll, you'll end up
977. 01:10:05 discovering some things and you'll learn some things about it. But I just, I thought he, I thought he
978. 01:10:09 framed it a little bit poorly. I'll give you that. Next chapter. You ready to go there?
979. 01:10:17 Yeah, it's short. It's like, it is very short. It's like, yeah, this one is barely a page and a half.
980. 01:10:25 And it's on failure. And that's really because he acknowledges that he can tell you exactly what
981. 01:10:31 you need to know about failure, but you're still going to try to avoid it as much as possible because
982. 01:10:35 it hurts. So the admonition is not new. Failure is inevitable. Keep going. But he also acknowledges,
983. 01:10:43 you know, you can know failure is coming, still is going to hurt. And the things that you care about
984. 01:10:47 are the things that are going to break your heart. So it doesn't waste a whole lot of time trying to
985. 01:10:52 psyche you up just like, yeah, this is it. Deal with it. Yep. Well said. Well said, that's it.
986. 01:10:58 Like that's chapter 16. Now we go to 17 because there's nothing else.
987. 01:11:03 Yeah. All right. So 17 is on community. And this is again, a huge topic. And I don't think you can
988. 01:11:12 possibly do it justice in a tiny little chapter like this. But succeed or failure, the journey is
989. 01:11:18 almost always better when you have the right climbing partners, I would reframe that and say
990. 01:11:21 the journey is better when you have partners. Yeah, for sure. He mentions that a lot of soldiers
991. 01:11:27 are more satisfied at war than at home because of a strong sense of belonging and meaning.
992. 01:11:32 I'm not a have no experience with the armed forces. So couldn't verify that. But I can see that that
993. 01:11:41 would that would potentially be true. He says that an uncomfortable truth is that the deeper
994. 01:11:46 your dedication is to a specific pursuit, the more likely it is you won't have much time or energy
995. 01:11:52 for people outside of it. What do you make of that? And what do you do with this?
996. 01:11:58 Yeah, I mean, I would say you have to be more specific or more strategic about where you allow
997. 01:12:05 this to happen. And I think this ties back into his mattering thing. If it's the thing that really
998. 01:12:10 really matters, you're you're willing to do that. You're willing to make those sacrifices and make
999. 01:12:14 those make those trade offs, if you would like to tie a bunch of themes together throughout the book.
1000. 01:12:21 So I agree with this. I think that like this is where this is where being an adult and having
1001. 01:12:29 like friends and communities gets hard because like you're involved in something and you're super
1002. 01:12:34 involved in something and then you personally shift and you personally change. And it's hard to tell
1003. 01:12:40 those people like, Hey, I love you. You're wonderful. But like our like my role in this community is
1004. 01:12:48 changing. And that probably means I'm not going to see you anymore, because we really only had
1005. 01:12:53 this community. You know what I mean? Like that was our connection. So I think this is a really
1006. 01:12:58 hard one, but it's a it's I think he's right in terms of you're going to spend more time with the
1007. 01:13:03 communities that matter in the communities that you care about. But that means to me, think critically
1008. 01:13:08 about those, you know, like think really, really critically about those. Yeah, and I think he even
1009. 01:13:14 calls out exclusively here, like the exception would be your your family. I think your immediate
1010. 01:13:23 family, yes, but I think even culturally extended family, there's been an emphasis on finding the
1011. 01:13:32 communities. I don't want to say to replace the extended family, but that's something I think is
1012. 01:13:41 worth considering. And I don't know that there's necessarily a right or wrong way to define that,
1013. 01:13:49 like where you draw those lines. But the the the core issue he hits on, it's like there are all
1014. 01:13:59 these people you want to stay in touch with. And if you had unlimited time, you're like, yeah,
1015. 01:14:06 this is important. Let's set aside all this this time for all these different things that we're
1016. 01:14:10 going to do together. But it doesn't happen. And so you have to really identify what is the
1017. 01:14:18 the core group, right? And prioritize that. And it feels weird sometimes when you do that and
1018. 01:14:25 you're going to tick people off sometimes when you do that, but just recognize like,
1019. 01:14:31 this is the thing. He mentions in this chapter, happiness equals love. Like if you want to,
1020. 01:14:39 man, I got to be careful how I talk about this stuff, but because I don't want to make it sound
1021. 01:14:44 like, well, I'm not getting any love because I'm not happy. Or I don't know, like your family,
1022. 01:14:52 I think a lot of times the people that you're closest to, like, they can make you the happiest,
1023. 01:14:57 they can also tick you off the the most. So I don't know, like, I think I think this is
1024. 01:15:06 one of the more difficult things to figure out, but it's okay to prioritize your own happiness.
1025. 01:15:14 When you're figuring out who are the people that you're really going to surround yourself with,
1026. 01:15:18 really going to be close and are going to speak into your life, that makes sense.
1027. 01:15:22 And I think, and I think a way to look at this, not necessarily from the family
1028. 01:15:25 standpoint, but from the more general community standpoint is, think about the time when you
1029. 01:15:30 want to excel in something, but you know you're in the wrong community. And like in that community,
1030. 01:15:36 and you just feel it, like you feel it's kind of like an anchor that's like attached to you,
1031. 01:15:41 and like you're not trying to be mean or you're not trying to be critical, but it's like, okay,
1032. 01:15:44 I'm trying to improve. No one else around me is like everyone else around me is just trying to get
1033. 01:15:50 by or take the easy way out or whatever it is. And you feel it from that counter, that opposite
1034. 01:15:56 viewpoint. We looked at this a lot different people in my doctoral program about communities
1035. 01:16:03 of practice within engineering. Because when you come into school for engineering, the major is
1036. 01:16:09 so different than other majors. It's like, it's not like other things that like the people who tend
1037. 01:16:15 to thrive or the people who tend to be excellent in it, embrace that. And they say, I'm going to
1038. 01:16:20 join that community. And I mean, for a crass way to say it, like, I'm going to be a nerd for the
1039. 01:16:26 next four years, like I'm going to do a lot more homework than everybody else for the next four
1040. 01:16:30 years. I'm going to commit to this technical discipline for the next four years. And the people
1041. 01:16:35 who try to stay on the fringe of that, and like they try to balance multiple communities or they
1042. 01:16:40 prioritize other communities over that. I mean, they just tend to really struggle. Like they
1043. 01:16:44 actually tend to really, really struggle. So it's like, I see this all the time in terms of you don't
1044. 01:16:49 have to like, engineering doesn't have to be your only community, but you really need to buy in. And
1045. 01:16:55 if you buy in, the whole process is so much smoother. It's so much different. And I think
1046. 01:16:59 another area of this would be like the startup community, or like you with the creator community.
1047. 01:17:05 Like, if you want to excel in the thing, I mean, you talk about going to these conferences and you
1048. 01:17:09 talk about going to these workshops, you talk about going to all these things, and how much joy
1049. 01:17:12 you get coming back from them, or how much experience you gain from other people and talking to them.
1050. 01:17:18 And I think it's just so true that you're trying to excel in the creator community,
1051. 01:17:22 being around other creators who are trying to excel as well, is just immensely beneficial.
1052. 01:17:28 It's immensely beneficial on so many different levels.
1053. 01:17:31 Yeah. And so that's the thing is like, the point I'm trying to make,
1054. 01:17:36 the larger point is like anytime you're going to go into one of these communities,
1055. 01:17:40 surround yourself with the aspirational people you want to be around, there is built-in exclusivity,
1056. 01:17:47 and that challenges a lot of the traditional norms that you are probably surrounded by.
1057. 01:17:55 So the creator thing that you're talking about, my wife, by the way, is completely in support of
1058. 01:18:00 this, but like Crafts and Commerce is my jam. I go there every year. I love it. So I'm, I've been
1059. 01:18:07 signed up for months. We have a family member who's coming back from Hawaii for a couple of weeks,
1060. 01:18:12 and it happens to overlap with that conference. And my initial thought is, oh, I should not go,
1061. 01:18:17 because I don't get a chance to see this family member all that often. But this is really important.
1062. 01:18:23 Yeah. And there are some people who may be ticked off by that, right? But everybody's got their own
1063. 01:18:29 version of that. That's the thing is like, people are constantly trying to impose their norms
1064. 01:18:37 on you and the rules that you should play by regardless of where you live, regardless of the
1065. 01:18:42 communities that you're involved in. And life gets a whole lot better when you decide, I am going to
1066. 01:18:49 draw the lines where I want to draw them in support of the things that are really important to me.
1067. 01:18:53 I don't remember our rating on this book, and I don't think mine was overwhelmingly high,
1068. 01:18:58 but like the first thing that went through my head when you said about how some people might
1069. 01:19:02 get upset about that, my answer was, let them. It's the let them book it. It's like, because you
1070. 01:19:08 can't control that. You know that that community is super important to you, and you need to go be
1071. 01:19:12 part of that community because of what it does for you the rest of the year. Right. Like, it
1072. 01:19:17 launches the rest of the year. By the way, just like not to, so people aren't like thinking that
1073. 01:19:23 I'm talking about family members, like we've talked through it, and everybody in my circle
1074. 01:19:28 understands. Right. But I guarantee you that there are some people who they maybe understand
1075. 01:19:34 that it's important to me, but they don't really understand why I'm making that choice. And I don't
1076. 01:19:39 expect them to. That's the thing. Like, I don't want to change everybody else's mind. That's exhausting.
1077. 01:19:45 I've tried that before. You have to be, you have to be willing to say let them.
1078. 01:19:50 Exactly. Exactly. I can't believe I can't believe I brought I brought the let them book back in.
1079. 01:19:55 Man, talk about it. Talk about a win for the day. Everybody win for the day.
1080. 01:19:59 All right. Next chapter is joy. Getting down there. This is number 18. Joy is actually doesn't
1081. 01:20:08 have a definition for this one, but he talks about it being a clean and renewable source of
1082. 01:20:11 energy, which I'd like this metaphor, by the way, relying predominantly on negative emotions for
1083. 01:20:16 energies like burning dirty fuel, something that he says at the beginning. This destructor for the
1084. 01:20:22 long term health of the engine, and it's not sustainable. And yeah, I don't think I do that.
1085. 01:20:31 And the whole idea of that is repulsive to me. It sounds horrible, but I get it that it's a thing
1086. 01:20:38 for other people. It uses the example, I think of Michael Jordan in this chapter, right? And
1087. 01:20:43 kind of like he was fuel. I got to show everybody. Everybody wrong. And I do think that at some point,
1088. 01:20:49 you know, he got as good as he did, not because that was the only thing driving him.
1089. 01:20:53 I think at some point, yeah, he did fall in love with the game. But anyways,
1090. 01:20:59 do the work with the outcome, take care of itself, find joy in the process. That's basically
1091. 01:21:04 this chapter in nutshell. Yeah, his, his, uh, concepts of harmonious passion and obsessive passion,
1092. 01:21:11 I thought were really, really important here. So passion is suffering, right? Like you've talked
1093. 01:21:16 about that in many, many times. So it's like harmonious, you know, passion. You love how the
1094. 01:21:22 activity makes you feel joy, curiosity, process, happiness. And I'll even go as far as to say like,
1095. 01:21:28 if my goal, let's say I'm going to run an ultra marathon, right? Like I may not love
1096. 01:21:35 like every aspect of running that, but I love that runner's high that he kicks in at mile,
1097. 01:21:39 you know, it's an ultra marathon. So mile 77 or whatever it might be. And does he use
1098. 01:21:44 Courtney de Walther? I don't know if he uses her in this chapter or not, but like she's an
1099. 01:21:49 ultra yeah, she's an ultra marathoner who like basically peaked later on in her, in her life.
1100. 01:21:55 But like that's a great example. It's like you're, you're doing this because you just
1101. 01:22:01 get this immense joy from it. Like I like to solve really hard problems. Why? I don't know.
1102. 01:22:07 It just brings me some level of joy. Am I happy the entire time I'm doing it? No,
1103. 01:22:12 because I'm beating my head off this really hard problem. But I really like the idea of the joy.
1104. 01:22:16 The obsessive passion says really all I care about is the result. And I'm going to be
1105. 01:22:21 anxious about it. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to cut corners and I'm going to be unhappy,
1106. 01:22:25 but I want to get to that result. I want to get that result. And I think these are two
1107. 01:22:28 like really interesting things to analyze is or my activities, my projects, my goals,
1108. 01:22:35 whatever I'm working on. Do they bring me harmonious or do I do I utilize harmonious passion when
1109. 01:22:40 pursuing those? Or is it really? I just, I want the result. Like I just want to be at the end of
1110. 01:22:46 that. And I don't want to go through the process of doing that. And I think these two concepts,
1111. 01:22:50 if you reflect on them well, I think they're, they're very valuable. Agreed. All right. Last
1112. 01:22:58 chapter before the conclusion is completion. Basic idea here. You need to finish stuff.
1113. 01:23:10 Um, one of my action items comes from this chapter, which is how can I add milestones to my life?
1114. 01:23:17 The inspiration for this comes, uh, comes from the, the story of Greg Popovich is a
1115. 01:23:22 elaborate team dinners for the San Antonio Spurs. So Greg Popovich is maybe the greatest basketball
1116. 01:23:30 coach ever. And, uh, what's interesting about this is that there's maybe a season is along 82 games
1117. 01:23:38 or something like that. So what Greg Popovich would do is anytime there was a major milestone,
1118. 01:23:46 not just like 500th win, whatever, but a significant event in the, the team's season. He would say,
1119. 01:23:57 okay, we're all going out for dinner. And it would be like a three hour multi course meal.
1120. 01:24:02 Everyone's locked in that room. They're going to have really deep conversations with each other.
1121. 01:24:07 And pretty much everybody who has been a part of those teams was like, yeah, that's the reason
1122. 01:24:11 why we were so close. That's the reason why we were so great. And I think that's pretty brilliant.
1123. 01:24:18 Yeah. I'm not going to, you know, throw these big elaborate meals whenever I feel like something
1124. 01:24:23 significant happened. But a small version of this, just as an example for me was, um, for a while,
1125. 01:24:30 every time I published a YouTube video, I would go get myself a Boba T. That's only time I would
1126. 01:24:35 drink it. Because it's a little bit out of the way to go get it. I really, really like it.
1127. 01:24:39 And so that was sort of like a treat for me when I actually followed through and did the hard thing.
1128. 01:24:45 But this is the way I'm viewing viewing this is sort of like that on steroids. So more significant.
1129. 01:24:51 And I don't want it to be, I'm going to go buy something. I don't think that's the most effective
1130. 01:24:56 version of this. But I want to think through, you know, how can I incorporate these sorts of
1131. 01:24:59 milestones? Because I think they're really important. Yeah, ironically, or not,
1132. 01:25:04 that's one of my action items too. And here's the way, here's the way I worded it is.
1133. 01:25:08 What's at least one intentional milestone between now and the end of 2026? And, and I,
1134. 01:25:14 I'm going to have to actually think hard about this one because it's like, what area do I want
1135. 01:25:18 it to be in? I don't care. Like I, I want it to be at least one intentional milestone
1136. 01:25:23 between now and the end of 26. And I want to intentionally take that time to reflect on it.
1137. 01:25:28 So I've got some ideas in my head, but I want to, I want to spend some time thinking about this
1138. 01:25:32 one because I think it's important, like you described. Solid. All right, the very last part
1139. 01:25:39 of the book is a very brief conclusion where just kind of reiterates very succinctly, but very
1140. 01:25:47 effectively, I think the, the overall message of the book excellence is not perfection or
1141. 01:25:52 winning at all costs. It's a process of becoming the best performer and person that you can be
1142. 01:25:58 answering the questions about excellence in your own life is a lifetime of work. The future of
1143. 01:26:07 will be uncertain, but one thing will stay the same. And that is the value of excellence.
1144. 01:26:11 And when we reclaim excellence, we reclaim our humanity.
1145. 01:26:16 That last line, there's a lot in that. And I feel like in the air moment that we find ourselves in,
1146. 01:26:20 we could spend hours talking about that specifically. But yeah, that's basically the conclusion. I think
1147. 01:26:25 it's a pretty effective way to close the book. Yeah, like my only note out of this whole section
1148. 01:26:29 was give your life to what you care the most about. Like that was my whole, my whole
1149. 01:26:36 conclusion out of coming out of this. So now we made it through Mike, we made it through 19
1150. 01:26:42 chapters plus an intro and a conclusion. Yeah, let's go. We did. Okay, so now action items,
1151. 01:26:48 what are we going to do about this? I've got a couple, I'm going to my first one was to consider
1152. 01:26:56 mindfulness meditation again. But you have convinced me that I should actually just
1153. 01:27:02 or I convinced me I should vibe code this thing. I want to consider transitional routines. And
1154. 01:27:09 I want to consider how I can add milestones to my life. What do you got? So one of mine is a
1155. 01:27:14 carryover from last time. Listen to the Nathan Berry episode because it's related to the next
1156. 01:27:20 book. My next one out of this book is what are the free throws or layups for my gumption or for
1157. 01:27:27 keeping things moving? And then how can I put these into my routine? So think through that.
1158. 01:27:32 And then the last one would be what is at least one intentional milestone between now and the end
1159. 01:27:36 of 2026. Nice. All right, style and rating. My book, I go first. This is a tale of two halves for me.
1160. 01:27:48 Not even know that they're halves. The second section where you get into the specifics. I love
1161. 01:27:53 that part. There's so many different chapters and I have so many different notes on that.
1162. 01:27:57 The first part, the foundations where we talk about the biology, the psychology and the philosophy
1163. 01:28:02 of excellence did not care for that at all. Even though those were pretty lengthy, I feel like,
1164. 01:28:08 at least in my recollection, there's not a whole lot of notes that I have for there.
1165. 01:28:13 So as I mentioned, at the break, after part one, at that point, I'm ready to put the book down,
1166. 01:28:20 like two, maybe one star. I don't think I've ever given a one star rating. That's how much I disliked
1167. 01:28:26 the beginning part of this. Not that what he's saying is that's only wrong, but I was not doing
1168. 01:28:31 it for me. The second half of this book, I absolutely love this. So I, if I were to give this section
1169. 01:28:40 of the book a rating, easy five stars. Even though there are some things in here that I don't necessarily
1170. 01:28:48 agree 100% with, it's very well put together, very well packaged, very, the arguments are very
1171. 01:28:56 straightforward, very easy to understand. And that's the whole purpose of reading is you understand
1172. 01:29:00 the author's arguments and you decide for yourself what about these things that they're saying.
1173. 01:29:06 So I was able to do that very effectively. Very, some of these were very inspiring.
1174. 01:29:11 Some of these were giving me a lot more context to things that I'd already kind of read and understood,
1175. 01:29:17 but now I feel like I understand them in another more deeper way. So I think this is great. The
1176. 01:29:23 conclusion, you know, I'm going to cut out the introduction and the conclusion basically all
1177. 01:29:27 together from this book. I don't think there's a whole lot there. But these two sections, right,
1178. 01:29:31 this is what we're left with. This is the meat of the book. And as much as I didn't like the
1179. 01:29:36 the first part, the second part is so good. Now I'm going to rate this four stars, I think overall,
1180. 01:29:43 and maybe it's the order, you know, maybe it's because we started off slow and then we hit the
1181. 01:29:46 good stuff that it feels like a little bit leaves a good taste in my mouth. I don't know. You could
1182. 01:29:51 make the argument, I think maybe that I should rate this a three star book based on how much I
1183. 01:29:55 disliked that first part of the book. But I'm going to chalk that up to, let's say philosophical
1184. 01:30:01 differences. There's a lot of stoic stuff in there. And there even, you know, he brings it up
1185. 01:30:06 throughout the book. But there's some things in there that just, you know, just didn't land. It
1186. 01:30:10 wasn't even like, Oh, I disagree completely with what he's saying. It just feels like,
1187. 01:30:15 I don't know why we're having this conversation. Like, I don't think whoever set up this blind
1188. 01:30:21 date really knew what they were doing. But the second part of it, I really, really enjoyed.
1189. 01:30:27 There's so much good stuff here. Any one of these topics, I feel like you absolutely could write
1190. 01:30:32 an entire book in any of these. So the argument could be made also that, well, you're not really
1191. 01:30:36 going very in depth with any of these things. But I feel like the brilliance of this section
1192. 01:30:41 is that he does a really good job of succinctly defining specific things about these broad topics.
1193. 01:30:48 And it's not just the regurgitating, the same arguments and the same studies and the same stories
1194. 01:30:53 that you've always heard. There's new stuff here. There's different ways of looking at the
1195. 01:30:57 at things here. There's stories I've never heard before that are really impactful and very
1196. 01:31:01 effective in communicating his points, like the Greg Popovich, uh, team dinner thing.
1197. 01:31:07 So much good stuff in here. So yeah, I'm going to write this four stars. And I think I would
1198. 01:31:12 generally recommend that anyone in the bookworm audience not pick this one up. I think there
1199. 01:31:17 probably is something here for people. I guess the only reason not to pick this one up is that if
1200. 01:31:24 you are even more put off by anything stoic than I am, then maybe you aren't going to want to read
1201. 01:31:34 that first section in particular. But even if you just picked it up and jumped straight to part two,
1202. 01:31:38 which by the way, he mentions in the introduction, you can do that. He says, you know, if you're not
1203. 01:31:44 interested in the foundation stuff, go straight to part two. He does. So maybe I'm my own worst enemy
1204. 01:31:50 forcing myself to read every word because that's what we do for bookworm, but maybe a different
1205. 01:31:55 experience for that sort of thing. But there's definitely some good stuff in that second part.
1206. 01:31:58 So yeah, four stars. Mike, I wouldn't have judged you if you would have said, Hey, that first part,
1207. 01:32:03 not a big fan of it, but the second part's so good. I'm rated five stars still. Like that
1208. 01:32:06 that totally makes sense to me because I agree with you. I think the second part is really, really
1209. 01:32:11 good. And here's the way I'm going to describe it. That second part helped me think about all of
1210. 01:32:17 those broad topics. You call them like broad ideas, care, discipline, curiosity, right? These
1211. 01:32:23 are broad topics, but I was thinking about it from a excellence success get better. And the nature of
1212. 01:32:31 the book focusing my attention on how does this topic apply to excellence? How does it apply to
1213. 01:32:38 excellence? How does it apply to excellence? That was valuable. That was an incredibly valuable use
1214. 01:32:44 of my time. That was an incredibly valuable like thought experiment to work through all the ideas
1215. 01:32:50 he was throwing at and which ones that I resonate with and which ones didn't. I actually resonated
1216. 01:32:54 with way more ideas than I didn't resonate with the first three chapters or the part one of the book.
1217. 01:33:04 Again, it wasn't terrible. I just didn't get as much out of that. I didn't think those
1218. 01:33:09 connections were as clear. I didn't think that tied to excellence quite as well. So I can freely
1219. 01:33:15 say that if I go back and look at this book again or I need to pull something out of this book,
1220. 01:33:20 it's not coming from chapters one through three. It's definitely coming from four through 19
1221. 01:33:26 because that's where I think the meat and the crux of the value for me of this book was. It was
1222. 01:33:33 in four through 19. I think about it too. When I think about my rating, I think about what I
1223. 01:33:39 recommend this book to somebody. Somebody comes to me and they say, "Hey, I'm thinking about getting
1224. 01:33:43 better. I'm thinking about leveling up my game. I feel like I'm just going through the motions.
1225. 01:33:48 What are some tactics? What are some tricks to do that?" Trix is probably the wrong word,
1226. 01:33:53 but what are some tactics, habits, mindsets to do that? I would say, "Hey, we read this book
1227. 01:33:59 for Bookworm. Go look at chapters four through 19 of this." Or skim chapters four through 19 first.
1228. 01:34:06 Is there an area that you think you need to pay more attention to? Read that section. Read that section.
1229. 01:34:13 Not like a reference book, but almost like a pick and choose your adventure kind of a thing,
1230. 01:34:17 because I don't think it ties together so cleanly that you've got to start with word one and then
1231. 01:34:23 read through to wherever you care about. I think you can pick up in whatever chapter you want to
1232. 01:34:28 pick up in and go from there. A long way to say, "I think this is a four star book as well."
1233. 01:34:35 I think giving it a three star is not doing it justice for how good part two is. I definitely
1234. 01:34:42 don't think it's a five star. I don't think it's going to be one of those ones where I'm going to go,
1235. 01:34:46 "Oh my gosh, friend, you have to go read this book right now. I don't care if you care about the topic
1236. 01:34:51 or not." It's not that. You have to be in the mindset of wanting to get better or wanting to
1237. 01:34:56 think about success. I think this is a four star book. Before I finish my time on style and rating,
1238. 01:35:02 Mike, did you go find the supplemental materials? I did not. Just so you know, if you're listening
1239. 01:35:10 to this book and this really resonated with you and you want the supplemental materials,
1240. 01:35:14 if you do a Google search for the title of this book and like, "Man, what is an interactive guide?
1241. 01:35:20 I think is what I had to get to." His promo page from when he launched the book is still active,
1242. 01:35:27 and if you go and fill out the form and say you bought the book and all that stuff,
1243. 01:35:32 it'll send you the email with all the links to all the extra stuff as well. It's still accessible
1244. 01:35:41 from a, "You can get access to those interactive guides too if this book really resonated with you
1245. 01:35:45 and you want to work through those activities as well." Awesome. All right. Let's put the way of
1246. 01:35:50 excellence on the shelf. What is next, Corey? The next book is by some folks that we've read before,
1247. 01:35:58 Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It's called, "How to Live a Meaningful Life Using Design Thinking to
1248. 01:36:04 Unlock Purpose, Joy and Flow Every Day." I am a huge proponent of design thinking. I found out
1249. 01:36:10 about design thinking. I don't even know how long ago, but it was a long time ago, probably 15
1250. 01:36:15 years ago. I've bought into this idea. I really like this concept. Really, we're going to think about
1251. 01:36:22 how design thinking can impact our idea of a meaningful life. We're kind of on a consistent
1252. 01:36:30 theme here. We're talking about excellence and success here. Now we're thinking about meaning,
1253. 01:36:34 thinking about what matters, which I like this. It's a fairly new book. It came out in, if I'm
1254. 01:36:40 remembering, February of 2026 is when this one came out. I'm excited to see what Bill Burnett and
1255. 01:36:48 Dave Evans have to say about this one. If you're interested in this book, one of my action items
1256. 01:36:53 is to listen to the Nathan Berry episode, where he interviews Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I didn't
1257. 01:36:58 know about that until Mike told me about that. I want to make sure that you know about that too.
1258. 01:37:02 Do you remember the name of Nathan Berry's podcast, Mike? It is literally just the Nathan
1259. 01:37:07 Berry show. The Nathan Berry show. Go check it out, the Nathan Berry show for the Bill Burnett and
1260. 01:37:11 Dave Evans. It'll give you a primer on, I guess, what they're going to talk about. I'm going to be
1261. 01:37:15 doing that too. After that, Mike, what are we doing? After that, I have to say, I almost picked a new
1262. 01:37:25 book, which is very much something that I want to read, but is almost the exact same topic as the
1263. 01:37:35 one that you picked. I'm going to hold off on that one. There is a book, a new book by Arthur Brooks
1264. 01:37:42 called The Meaning of Your Life or something like that, which looks really good. I didn't want to do
1265. 01:37:49 two meaning books back to back to back. I've got another one which I haven't read yet,
1266. 01:37:55 but I've heard really good things about. That is what you're made for, powerful life lessons from
1267. 01:38:02 my career in sports by George Raveling and co-written by Ryan Holiday. This was a guy who coached
1268. 01:38:10 professional athletes and Ryan wanted to help him create this memoir style book. It's pretty short.
1269. 01:38:18 I think it will be a fairly easy read. The forward is by Michael Jordan.
1270. 01:38:22 Good follow-up, maybe, to the one that we just read, but also probably a totally different
1271. 01:38:29 approach to it. Great. Sounds good. All right. Got any gap books?
1272. 01:38:34 No. I have gapped papers. I will be writing a lot of papers between now and the end of...
1273. 01:38:41 I'm actually not reading a lot of papers. I'm actually writing a lot of papers for me
1274. 01:38:46 for this thing that I'm doing. Between now and the end of April, I am knee-deep in the world of
1275. 01:38:51 writing and getting my ideas on paper. No book got books for me. How about you?
1276. 01:38:56 No. I do not have one. Hopefully I can read that Arthur Brooks one because I'm super excited
1277. 01:39:02 about that one. I really like Arthur Brooks. We covered from strength to strength. That was Arthur
1278. 01:39:05 Brooks. That was our last Arthur Brooks. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for listening.
1279. 01:39:11 Thank you specifically to the pro members who helped us keep the lights on here at
1280. 01:39:17 @bookworm. If you want to become a pro member, you can go to bookworm.bookworm.fm/pro. It's $7
1281. 01:39:25 a month. You get longer ad-free episodes with a pre-show. Today, we talked about how Claude helped
1282. 01:39:33 me launch a new YouTube channel. We've also got a bootleg recording. When we record these live,
1283. 01:39:39 Corey uploads the bootleg right after we get done. Those go out typically one to two weeks before
1284. 01:39:44 the episodes get published. There's a 4K reading wallpaper. There's a replay of my reading master
1285. 01:39:49 class that I did last summer. As I said, it's $7 a month. If you want to throw a couple bucks
1286. 01:39:55 our way to help us keep the lights on, that would be very much appreciated. Bookworm.fm/pro.
1287. 01:40:02 If you're reading along with us, pick up how to live a meaningful life. We'll talk to you next time.