6: The More Of Less by Joshua Becker

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1. 00:00:00 I love the clicky keyboard. I hear it every time. I love it.
2. 00:00:03 Sweet.
3. 00:00:05 I'm going to get one. I am going to get one. I just don't know when.
4. 00:00:10 So I had the same predicament, but what I did is I went to a pawn shop and found a
5. 00:00:22 DOS keyboard for like 40 bucks. Nice. And then replaced all the keycaps, which was like an additional 15 bucks, I think.
6. 00:00:31 Okay.
7. 00:00:32 And I spent less than probably like a third of what the keyboard would have been new. But yeah, it works great.
8. 00:00:41 And plus I was able to customize it to every show you a picture of my.
9. 00:00:45 Yeah, you sent me a picture of this. It doesn't have any letters on it. So it's just a blank, which is just absurd to me.
10. 00:00:51 Like it's true. It took a little bit to get you stupe. But yeah, it's doesn't have any key. Well, yeah, no markings on the keycaps, but it is color coded.
11. 00:01:01 So like all the modifier keys are red. The actual keys are white. The number keys are gray. So I think it looks pretty sweet.
12. 00:01:08 Well, I will say that it looks cool. I just don't know how practical it is for me.
13. 00:01:14 So practical, unless you have to actually manually type passwords.
14. 00:01:19 Yeah, I could see that coming from the Devorak side of things. It just seems I could see the benefit of doing it, but I'm still new enough to Devorak that I would still look down quite a bit.
15. 00:01:35 Now, I know that on Cortex gray and Mike talked about Devorak here recently, what was that? Three episodes ago? I don't know how long ago it was, but they were talking about it.
16. 00:01:47 Gray recommended like putting a little diagram of the keyboard on your screen itself because I don't think he uses a cover because he's a big Devorak fan.
17. 00:01:56 He doesn't promote it, it seems, but he's a fan of it at least, but I actually do put a cover on mine, but I'm just using the Apple keyboard, like the wireless keyboard for mine.
18. 00:02:07 Okay. But I'm not a huge fan of that. I don't know why I can't put my finger on why. Put my finger on it. I can't quite nail down why I think that.
19. 00:02:22 It's weird. So what are we talking about today, Mike?
20. 00:02:27 We are talking about The More of Less by Joshua Becker.
21. 00:02:32 Awesome. And why are we talking about it?
22. 00:02:37 Well, it was my choice, so I guess that's why we're talking about it. But if you're asking why I chose it, don't really have a solid reason other than I had heard a lot of good things about Joshua Becker through Asian efficiency.
23. 00:02:51 He was on the podcast, which I found that episode pretty interesting. And then I also know that he was at the Think Better Live Better event last January, I believe.
24. 00:03:01 So he kind of runs in a lot of the same circles. And I've heard of him, but I never really read his material, but I heard nothing but awesome things about his book.
25. 00:03:10 So it's been on my list to check out for a while. And now that we have a podcast where we talk about books, it seemed like the natural place to do that.
26. 00:03:19 Awesome. And Think Better Live Better. Was that, I feel like that was up here in the Twin Cities area. I think that was in my neck of the woods. Am I right about that?
27. 00:03:29 No, you're thinking of the minimalism conference. Think Better Live Better was actually in Austin, Texas.
28. 00:03:34 Okay. So no, no word near Twin Cities, Minnesota. I've learned that I have to say Twin Cities, Minnesota. I don't know where the other, there's some other Twin Cities that people talk about.
29. 00:03:44 I don't know where this is. Do you know where this is? No idea. Okay. I've had some people talk that I've had conversations with over the phone lately.
30. 00:03:55 And I say I'm from the Twin Cities and they ask me where. And I've not had that ever before. Usually I just say I'm from the Twin Cities and people immediately know where that's at.
31. 00:04:08 It's big area. I mean, people know where the Twin Cities is. But apparently there are more of more than one of them.
32. 00:04:15 Midwestern mindset. I think. Yes. Growing up in Wisconsin. There was only one Twin Cities.
33. 00:04:22 It's like if I said Quad Cities, a lot of people know where that's at. They know I'm talking about the southeastern corner of, or not southeastern corner, but the south, south of Cedar Rapids, Iowa area.
34. 00:04:36 And I'm not even going to be able to play small, but it's the Iowa, Illinois border. There's a little area there around I-80 where there's four cities that wrap all together across two states.
35. 00:04:46 It's kind of kind of messy down there. Anyway, long story short, Quad Cities, Twin Cities. I don't know why I have to keep clarifying that.
36. 00:04:54 So the more of less. One thing that jumped out at me about this, Mike, the title. It just seems weird. Am I weird in that? The more of less. It seems like she should be more of less.
37. 00:05:09 But the more of less. I would love to talk to Josh and ask why the more of less. Unless you get it. Do you get it?
38. 00:05:16 I know it's a play on words. In fact, if you look at the back cover, he has a saying that says don't settle for more, which is obviously a play on the saying don't settle for less. A lot of marketers would use.
39. 00:05:30 So he's basically taking the approach with this book that everything that we hear in our society and culture about consumerism is wrong.
40. 00:05:39 Yeah, and I suppose for the listeners, we should explain the concept of the book. So the more of less. Essentially, it's minimalism.
41. 00:05:49 I'm not essentially. It is minimalism that Joshua is talking about. Joshua Becker. And he talks through not just the idea of consumerism and buying things and having a lot of stuff.
42. 00:06:05 He talks way more than just that. He gets into the details around your time and how you can get to be too busy. You can get to be.
43. 00:06:15 You just have your calendar filled up. You have your mental space filled up. He covers a lot more than just stuff, which I think is really interesting because I've always thought of minimalism as because it's something I've kind of stayed away from for reasons of I don't want to give up my stuff.
44. 00:06:34 Which is probably really good that you're making me read this. But he does get into more than just things, which is really interesting.
45. 00:06:44 Totally. And this book, the way he defined minimalism was very different than I've heard it defined before, which is one of the reasons that I really liked it.
46. 00:06:53 He says at the very beginning that the goal of minimalism is not just to own less stuff. The goal of minimalism is to unburden our lives so that we can accomplish more.
47. 00:07:03 And very, very in line with the previous book that we did, which was essentialism, which was less but better.
48. 00:07:12 So the whole idea of alignment basically is kind of what I got out of this from a 50,000 foot view of borrowing the David Allen analogy.
49. 00:07:26 From the top level, what is this book about? It's about minimalism, but it's not just about, like you said, owning less stuff.
50. 00:07:32 It is about making sure that the things that you have are contributing towards you moving in the right direction and actually accomplishing your goals.
51. 00:07:39 So minimalism is a kind of interesting approach to achieving those ends. I never really thought about it that way, that minimalism could be used as almost like an accelerant in terms of goal achievement.
52. 00:07:53 But I actually really liked that.
53. 00:07:56 Yeah, this is one that, because naturally, as we read books and because we're going through them so fast, my wife is a reader as well.
54. 00:08:06 I don't read the books that she reads. She reads like historical novels or historical fiction and I can't do it.
55. 00:08:15 I have tried. I cannot do those.
56. 00:08:19 But reading about the pilgrims as like diaries from the pilgrims, I cannot do it. It's way too old English for me.
57. 00:08:30 You can get the translated versions of it. It's just, it's not for me. I can't do it. She loves that stuff, not for me. Anyway, whenever we go through these books, I end up talking to them, talking to her about them.
58. 00:08:42 And it's interesting to see her perspective because in her mind, life just is minimalism.
59. 00:08:50 And that's just the way that she always thinks, which would explain why so much of what we're going to talk about today.
60. 00:09:01 There's a lot of things that I've already been doing, not because of my own mindset, but because my wife has rubbed off on me from that.
61. 00:09:11 So it's interesting to get her perspective on it as well. I almost tried to convince her to jump on the mic with us here today, just because she has an interesting view on some of the things that I've already been doing.
62. 00:09:19 It's an interesting view on some of this, but she has quite often tried to challenge me with, do you really need that? Does it really, like, what's your purpose in having that thing around? No matter what it is, if it's something, honestly, if it's something she thinks I should get rid of?
63. 00:09:36 That's always an interesting thing whenever you try to get someone else to get rid of something. But usually if there's something she wants me to get rid of, how much does it really need that thing?
64. 00:09:48 I don't know, but it's fun to have around.
65. 00:09:51 Yeah, Joshua Beckett talked a little bit about that. And I think it could be summed up as "Happy wife, happy life."
66. 00:09:57 Yes, that's kind of what he was getting at, but he also talks about how you can't project your own minimalism on other people. Kind of going out of order here, but since he brought it up, that was a big takeaway for me as well, because like we talked about in the last podcast about the
67. 00:10:12 two-horse rule and the power of being in alignment, that's really important. And it's really important when it comes to minimalism as well. You have to realize, like he said, owning more stuff is not better, owning better stuff is better.
68. 00:10:30 And then when you're aware of that shared mindset and you're able to get rid of all the things that you don't need, that's really the point where you can start crafting the life that you want and moving in the direction that you want.
69. 00:10:46 When all of the distractions and all of the stuff that's pulling you in the directions that you don't want to go are gone, that's when you can really make some progress in the right direction.
70. 00:10:57 I like his story of how he got into minimalism. So Joshua was, he was reorganizing his garage and moving boxes around doing the whole spring cleaning thing. And he, I don't remember what it was, what was it that he found? His son was helping him.
71. 00:11:17 Was it like a wiffleball or something? I don't know, he found his son found something in the process of cleaning and he went to the backyard to play with it. And Josh was continuing to clean out the garage and he kept saying, you know, I'll be right there. I'm almost done.
72. 00:11:33 You know how this goes. And you end up doing it all day. And the next thing you know, you spent the whole day moving boxes around. And he had a conversation with his neighbor and his neighbor was talking about her daughter who was going to be in the house.
73. 00:11:46 And he was a daughter who basically has decided that she didn't need all this stuff. And that was just a trigger for him that you don't have to have all of this stuff. All the things that he had in boxes really didn't matter.
74. 00:11:59 And ultimately it was keeping him away from playing with his son, which he valued. And it didn't make sense that he had to move all this stuff around in boxes. And I totally can resonate with that.
75. 00:12:09 You know, we've got kind of an attic space above our garage. And of course it has all the things like Christmas stuff and decorations and bikes for the future when our kids get a little older.
76. 00:12:21 I mean, there's just a bunch of things that we just hold on to. And honestly, I move that stuff around quite a bit simply because we're trying to make space for other stuff or I'm trying to find something that we're specifically looking for.
77. 00:12:35 And it really does add up. This is one of the things I know you put down is how much does it really cost to own your stuff? And I would say that it's more than just the financial piece because there's a lot of time involved there, which I think is what you're getting at with that point.
78. 00:12:52 Yeah, there is a different components to it, but really the thing that jumped out at me was the financial stuff. How much does it actually cost to maintain all of this stuff?
79. 00:13:05 Because he is an example of, I forget what year the statistic was from, but he said that it costs $8,698 a year to own a car. And where I am, it's pretty standard that people would, if you can afford it, you have two cars.
80. 00:13:24 And so right away, that hits me as like, that's $17,000 a year. Do we really need two cars?
81. 00:13:31 Right. And that's when it kind of clicked for me when he's talking about how minimalism is freeing you to do the things that you want to do to create the experiences that you want to create.
82. 00:13:43 Like you have to choose between, are you going to maintain all of this stuff or are you going to go out and live your life sort of a thing? And that was the moment for me where I was like, oh yeah, that really makes sense.
83. 00:13:53 And there's a whole bunch of stuff I'm sure that's in my house right now that, yeah, it's consuming not only mental energy because I have to constantly be up keeping these things.
84. 00:14:03 But also, there's an actual physical monetary cost to maintaining these things. And what is that preventing me from actually doing? Because everybody wants more money.
85. 00:14:16 He talks about that mindset, the when and then thinking. So when I have this, then I'm going to do this.
86. 00:14:23 Which is something, yeah, I know I've done that a lot. But my wife and I talk about it a lot. It's like, oh well, when this business deal goes through, that means we could do this.
87. 00:14:33 And it sounds fun. It's fun to dream. But I going through this, it makes me wonder how much do we lose by dreaming like that?
88. 00:14:44 And how much do we actually end up spending time? It's all over.
89. 00:14:47 Exactly. There's a quote in there, not from Joshua Becker, he quotes, I think it was Will Rogers. He said that too many people spend money, they don't have to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.
90. 00:14:59 So that's a lot of time. And then, there are a lot of money, but then also a lot of time to maintain all of that stuff. And if you really boil it down, why did I buy this thing in the first place?
91. 00:15:10 I guess after I read this book and I haven't gone through everything, like the book is kind of written where he walks you step by step through applying a minimalist mindset and approach to going through everything that you own.
92. 00:15:23 And I have not done all of those individual steps because of the timeline that we had to read the book. But I get that concept.
93. 00:15:31 As I'm looking at the things that I have, I'm like, yeah, what was I thinking when I bought that?
94. 00:15:36 Right. Why do I still have this? Going back to essentialism last week in the sunk cost fallacy. If I didn't already own this thing, would I buy it today?
95. 00:15:47 And a lot of times the answer is no. Right. It made me, and this pains me to say this, Mike, but it made me think about, because I'm a fountain pin guy.
96. 00:15:58 So I like pins. And I actually, I got Mike to use one of my fountain pins when we were at Max-Doc.
97. 00:16:05 So I don't know if I've converted you or not, Mike, but I'm a fan of my fountain pins. And I currently have three that I use.
98. 00:16:15 Well, two that I use all the time. And one that I just kind of keep around for a little beat on it type scenarios.
99. 00:16:23 But I rarely use that one. And it actually made me stop and consider giving that away simply because, so if you want to pin, Mike, it was just one of those things like, oh, now I, maybe I need to, maybe I don't need that.
100. 00:16:37 And, oh, I hate to ask that question. So this is what I love this book, and I hate it at the same time.
101. 00:16:44 Yeah, I definitely had the same, same feeling when I read it. And I know you have something on here about the story of the woodworker.
102. 00:16:54 Oh, yes. That I, he tells this story of a guy by the name of Dave. I don't remember if that was his real name or if it was his given name in the book, but he tells the story about Dave starts his journey of minimalism.
103. 00:17:12 Does the, the typical, he has his methods that he gives you for how to get started and how to get into it. And Dave eventually gets to a point where he, he wants to travel or he wanted to start to give a little more.
104. 00:17:25 And he made him reconsider. He had a, a shop full of woodworking tools. And this was very painful for me because I have a shop full of woodworking tools.
105. 00:17:35 And I love using those, but the, the difference here is Dave ended up selling his entire woodshop worth of equipment because he was giving up the dream and the idealism of being a master woodworker and being a craftsman because he just didn't do it. He just didn't take the time for it.
106. 00:17:54 And in, in my scenario, I'm probably not going to give those up because I actually do put those to use fairly frequently. I'm probably out in that shop at least once a week building or working on something. So you're not going to convince me to sell my woodshop tools. Just saying.
107. 00:18:08 But yes, whenever I read that's, oh, don't sell them. Come on. Just hold on to them.
108. 00:18:13 Yeah, there's a quote that I wrote down here that goes along with that story. It says, "Sometimes parting with our possessions means giving up an image that we've created in our mind of the person we would like to become. Sometimes minimizing possessions means a dream must die."
109. 00:18:29 And when I read that, like I can totally relate to this because I've gone through this in my own life. And I know that it can be painful to let those things go.
110. 00:18:40 For me, it was guitars. I sing and I play on the worship team in my church. So I have a reason to own a guitar, but I don't play it enough to own several guitars, which is what I did on at one point.
111. 00:18:53 And actually, even before I read this book, I had to sell one of them, which was a very nice guitar. It was worth a couple thousand dollars, to be honest. It was the nicest guitar I've ever owned.
112. 00:19:05 But what I came down to was I can only play one of them at a time. And this is not the one that I enjoy playing the most. So I had to go.
113. 00:19:16 And for a long time, pretty much since I've been in college, I have been collecting guitars with the projection of this image that someday I'm going to become a phenomenal guitarist.
114. 00:19:28 But in reality, I don't carve out the time to practice as much as I need to in order to become a phenomenal guitarist.
115. 00:19:34 So that was a dream that had to die, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad thing.
116. 00:19:44 The letting go of those dreams can actually be a really good thing. Joshua Becker says that the definition of minimalism that he uses is the intentional promotion of the things that we most value,
117. 00:19:56 and the removal of anything that distracts us from them. So all its, the fact that dream died is not negative because all it's saying is that that dream is no longer as important as some of the other dreams that have taken its place.
118. 00:20:10 Like I recently, I recently became the coordinator for the men's ministry in our church. That is something that really brings me life.
119. 00:20:20 That is like the thing that I was made to do, so to speak. And that brings more joy, more happiness, more fulfillment, than becoming a great guitarist ever would have.
120. 00:20:32 So that's not a bad thing, but it took some rejiggering, it took some redefinition, and it took me saying that, yes, this is never going to happen.
121. 00:20:40 Yeah, and he talks about how nature abhors a vacuum, and to kind of decode that a little bit. So in nature, just in the world of biology and everything in the science realm, any time there's an absence in a place, something fills it.
122. 00:21:01 So if you remove a tree from the back backyard, grass is going to fill in weeds will come in like plants can take that place, but it's not just going to stay bare, something will eventually fill that space.
123. 00:21:14 So whenever we think about removing things from our lives, it's the same thing, it's the same mechanic. Whenever you remove something, it gives it a place for something else.
124. 00:21:23 We talked about this last time, we're saying no to something allows you to say yes to something else. And the more of that that happens in this particular case with stuff, or with your time, the more that you're able to say no and remove things that are taking up that time and space, it opens up the door for some good things.
125. 00:21:41 So killing a dream can be a very good thing, even though it might be a little painful up front.
126. 00:21:47 Yeah, it's definitely a good thing and it is painful up front, but it absolutely must be done. And for me, where the rubber hits the road is in the area of time, because when I read that, you have to have the time to, you have to have a buffer, you have to have a margin in order to go after these other things.
127. 00:22:08 I recognize in myself, and I'm sure other people can identify with this as well, where the default is to maintain the status quo, to maintain the things that we've been doing.
128. 00:22:21 So this book was great, especially on the heels of essentialism. I feel like they're kind of bookends of this concept and this revelation that I'm getting through the last several weeks.
129. 00:22:34 But they're complimentary, they're different, but they're complimentary. They support each other in that.
130. 00:22:41 Even maybe I wasn't fully persuaded at the end of essentialism. I completely am now that I need to make sure, because my tendency is to always be doing something productive quote unquote, always be doing something that is going to be checking some boxes in terms of, is this actually helping me accomplish a goal.
131. 00:23:01 And what I'm realizing is that I need to create time on my calendar. I need to have time in my day where there is nothing there, so that if another opportunity were to come up, something that is better, something that is more aligned, then I have the capacity to say yes to those things.
132. 00:23:23 If you do not have that margin, you will not even see those things when they are presented to you, because you'll be head down, focused on the tasks that you're going through.
133. 00:23:36 Does that make sense?
134. 00:23:37 Yes, this plays into, we kind of skipped over the follow up piece, because we got excited.
135. 00:23:45 But I think this plays into, because we were a little bit nervous about the essentialism playing into the more of less back to back. It seemed like they were close to the same topic, at least on the surface, it seemed that way.
136. 00:23:58 But I think you're right, having the two together in succession like that really plays it nicely. If you're wanting to read books in a certain order, I would actually recommend that simply because when you go through essentialism, and you're talking about how do you decide where you're hiding,
137. 00:24:14 how do you decide where your highest level of contribution is, how do you decide where that is, and get the mechanics in place, the daily routines in place, the time for play, evaluating what it is that you're doing, how do you take those things and decide which ones are the right ones to be working on?
138. 00:24:33 It's like I've been talking about, essentialism is a decision framework. It helps you make up your mind as far as what to do. And minimalism and through the more of less, Josh does a very good job of explaining how cutting back, like what you're saying, doing the reevaluation process can be extremely helpful.
139. 00:24:54 I did a little bit of that. I messed with my daily routine a little bit over this past week, and then I did a little bit. And I kind of did it while we were reading essentialism of the reevaluation process on a lot of the projects that I've got going on.
140. 00:25:09 I know you were talking about doing that. Did you get a chance to do it, or is it still on your list of, take the time to say yes or no to projects?
141. 00:25:17 Well, one of the things specifically that you challenged me to on the air. And I left it in too.
142. 00:25:24 You did. Was to go through my list of commitments with my wife, and I did do that. And we identified some things that I need to say no to. And it was interesting because right after we had that conversation, I got a call.
143. 00:25:39 Well, because one of the things that I've been doing a little bit here and there is because I have the ability and I have the tools to build, especially WordPress-based websites pretty easily.
144. 00:25:50 It's kind of easy money. So I do it occasionally. And there was somebody who called me about a month ago, said, "Hey, I got your name from this person."
145. 00:26:02 They said that if you need a website, you're the guy. So I called the guy back the next day and left him a message.
146. 00:26:10 In the meantime, totally forgot about the conversation that I had with him, went through this exercise with my wife, realized that, yeah, the web stuff, while it's not a lot, it's definitely not essential.
147. 00:26:23 It's not part of the less but better vision. So that's got to go. And then literally the day after that, this guy calls me back.
148. 00:26:30 It's the way it works, isn't it? Because I had already made that decision with my wife, this was easy. But he left me a message and he says, "Hey, yeah, I guess we've been playing phone tag, but this is so-and-so called you about a month ago, wanted a website."
149. 00:26:46 And instantly, because I've made that decision, the answer is easy. I'm not going to do it. But as I was thinking about it, why would I have ever said yes to this guy in the first place?
150. 00:26:56 I probably would have if I hadn't resolved that in my head, just because, like I said, it tends to be easy money.
151. 00:27:01 But this is the type of person that I absolutely do not want to work with. An unresponsive client. He calls me, I call him back the next day, and then I wait a month for him to return the phone call.
152. 00:27:12 If I had taken that job, that would have been nothing but frustrating, and there would have been no way it would have been worth the cost of the money that I would have gotten from that particular job.
153. 00:27:22 So I have seen instant benefits to this more of less and the less but better mentality as it applies to the projects that I undertake.
154. 00:27:34 It's absolutely amazing how when you make decisions like that, I don't know how many times it happens when I have...we talked a little bit last time about specific code languages that I work with.
155. 00:27:46 And if someone...if a project comes up and it's in one, I don't know. Right now, I have enough business that I just say no to clients quite a bit.
156. 00:27:54 And it's really nice to be able to just say, okay, that's in a language that I'm not 100% comfortable with. I can do it, but I'm just not...not super excited about it. No, I'm not going to do that.
157. 00:28:06 So it's just really nice to know exactly where your stakes are planted in the ground and then use those as your boundaries whenever you're making decisions. It's super awesome.
158. 00:28:16 But here's the thing. Here's why it's different to me now. You mentioned nature of horse of vacuum. Well, mike of horse of vacuum, especially when it comes to things that I could be doing as I'm looking at the amount of time that I have to devote to things.
159. 00:28:32 But what I got from this book was that just because there is an open space and I can do a thing does not mean that I should be doing the thing.
160. 00:28:42 And so saying no is not based off of, can I squeeze this in? Or even is this a good thing? But is this the best thing? And if it's not the best thing, go ahead and say no.
161. 00:28:53 Even if that means that there is some time that's open there because again, coupling it with the last book that we read, essentialism, one of my takeaways was more time for play.
162. 00:29:03 I am learning to...I'm not there yet. I'm learning to become okay with not having anything to do. And I believe I am hoping that this gets easier and that I'm going to see some tangible benefits from it.
163. 00:29:17 I believe that I will. But I need to get to the point where I am just okay with not doing anything. I am okay with quote unquote "wasting time" because what it's really doing, it's not wasting it.
164. 00:29:31 It's investing it. It's letting my system, my mind, my body, my willpower, my emotions recharge so that whatever I do next is going to be more effective.
165. 00:29:42 And I have seen that. I have seen that where I've carved out a little bit of time to play and just to wind down and relax.
166. 00:29:50 And I've noticed that when I come back and I work on something, it actually happens so much quicker, so much easier.
167. 00:29:57 It's like I don't even really have to try. My body just naturally does it much, much more efficiently because I've given it a chance to recuperate.
168. 00:30:06 Absolutely. And I know that with so much of the stuff that we do, I take this podcast for example right before we jump on the mic and we start recording.
169. 00:30:20 In my calendar, I always make sure I have 30 minutes before the call starts, before we jump on Skype.
170. 00:30:28 I always make sure I've got 30 minutes to just sit down, look at our notes, flip through the book and just kind of get my thoughts collected on it.
171. 00:30:36 And a lot of times what I'll do is grab the book and just walk around to my office. So I work from home. My office is in our family room.
172. 00:30:44 I'm very blessed to have my desk and then I've got our sectional. It doubles as our family room.
173. 00:30:52 And we've got the TV, there's a fireplace, there's a bathroom. I'm set up really, really well here.
174. 00:30:58 And I just kind of walk around, grab the whiteboard for a while, write some notes on it.
175. 00:31:03 So I've always got that walking around in that buffer time before we record.
176. 00:31:08 And honestly, that process is one of the best ones I've developed to process my thoughts about what we're getting ready to talk about.
177. 00:31:15 And it's really helpful anytime I've had something that I need to be creative. We talked a little bit about writing blog posts last time.
178. 00:31:23 Whenever I do that, I do a lot of the same thing. Anytime I need to create, I've just learned that if I give myself even just 15 minutes before I'm going to sit down and write about a topic,
179. 00:31:34 that if I just take a little bit of time to process my thoughts on it, it's way better. It comes out way, way more advanced than what I would have if I just sat down and done it immediately.
180. 00:31:44 So I think that's what you're talking about with creating that buffer to give yourself the space to let those thoughts come.
181. 00:31:51 Because I think there's also a level of whenever you, like when we get done recording here, you've got a lot of new information about a topic.
182. 00:31:59 Or like take for example, if you listen to another podcast, you're listening to Cortex, you're listening to the accidental tech podcast.
183. 00:32:07 Like if you listen to some of those, usually if you were to just take some time afterwards and just let your, like, turn off the radio, turn everything off and then just sit and think about it,
184. 00:32:18 that's where a lot of really cool ideas come from. So it's incredibly helpful, at least for me, to process things, to give myself a little bit of buffer before and after something that brings a lot of new information in at all.
185. 00:32:32 Does that make sense? I'm kind of rambling.
186. 00:32:35 Yes, absolutely. What you're talking about is decluttering.
187. 00:32:38 And it's not just the stuff that's in your house.
188. 00:32:41 What I am realizing based on my experience after essentialism and then also reading this book is that the area of my life, in particular, that needs to be decluttered is my time.
189. 00:32:53 And I need to make sure that I have those large, uninterrupted blocks of time where I can just wind down.
190. 00:33:02 And if I work around those, if those are my big rocks going back to the famous Stephen Covey analogy of the jar and you put in the big rocks and you put in the smaller rocks and you put in the pebbles and you put in the sand,
191. 00:33:15 if you prioritize the downtime and then work around that, what I'm finding is that I can actually get a lot more done that way in less time.
192. 00:33:27 So I can still get done everything that I need to do, but I can also have that buffer period, that margin where I can recharge.
193. 00:33:39 And that helps me not only in terms of moving things forward, in terms of my projects and business building and creating and stuff like that, but it has benefits across the board.
194. 00:33:53 In my family, spiritually, emotionally, you can't overstate the importance of that and I think I have been undervaluing it for far too long.
195. 00:34:08 One of the things that he does in this book, because the crux of the whole thing is stuff and the items that we buy.
196. 00:34:18 And when he jumps into the piece of how to actually start doing this, because he's awesome and actually gives you practical tips for how to minimize, which is amazing.
197. 00:34:28 One of the things he talks about is the most common areas that need to be decluttered or cut back.
198. 00:34:35 And the ones that he starts with are books, paper, technology, keepsakes, your house.
199. 00:34:43 You're not touching my books, sorry, Josh.
200. 00:34:45 See, that's what I was saying. You're not... I have a bookcase and I've cut back a lot on the books that I have held onto that I've never read,
201. 00:34:57 that I actually don't really want to read. I had a lot of those from college and I did cut those back, but that was like two years ago.
202. 00:35:06 But I'm sitting here looking at the pile of books that we've read just for this show and another pile of books that are coming up for this show.
203. 00:35:18 And those aren't going anywhere.
204. 00:35:23 But it's interesting because I think that Joshua Becker would be completely okay with that.
205. 00:35:30 That's one of the things I really liked. At the beginning when he's talking about minimalism, he makes a very important statement which honestly kept me interested in the rest of the book because he talks about how minimalism is not just getting your stuff down to a certain number of possessions.
206. 00:35:44 Minimalism is literally getting rid of the clutter in any way, shape, or form.
207. 00:35:52 So even if it's just a little bit in this one specific area, you are embracing a minimalism lifestyle.
208. 00:35:59 And so I think he would be completely fine with saying like, you know, books are your thing. That's fine.
209. 00:36:04 You've identified those as important.
210. 00:36:07 So as long as they are not detracting from what is most important to you, then yeah, absolutely keep your books.
211. 00:36:16 He was very un...
212. 00:36:19 What's the word I want to use here?
213. 00:36:22 It's a very approachable definition of minimalism. It's very unthreatening, very in stark contrast to if you've ever read the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo.
214. 00:36:35 It's almost the exact opposite of that.
215. 00:36:38 Where she's just like, you got to get rid of stuff. She actually has a business where she goes in and she just packs things up.
216. 00:36:43 She's like, okay, you're getting rid of this, this, this, and this.
217. 00:36:45 And people are like, no, that's not Joshua's approach at all.
218. 00:36:49 Yeah, I don't think I would do well with that at all.
219. 00:36:52 There may be a cop car out front.
220. 00:36:56 Yeah, and kind of, you know, her results speak for themselves.
221. 00:36:59 So I'm sure that they're definitely... her approach definitely works.
222. 00:37:04 But as I'm reading this book from myself and I'm weighing for myself, do I really want to go down this road?
223. 00:37:13 I found Joshua's definition of minimalism and then his examples that he's in the book very inviting.
224. 00:37:19 And I'm like, yeah, I can get on board with that.
225. 00:37:22 I definitely want to escape as he put it, the carnival of consumerism, where we just keep going around the merry-go-round, looking for more stuff to try to fill that void that is there.
226. 00:37:32 That stuff is never going to fill in the first place.
227. 00:37:35 Yeah, it's very interesting how... because he has a lot of the stories and there are...
228. 00:37:42 there's a lot of motivation in seeing how other people have approached minimalism because it's very, very different for every single person that he refers to and every story that he tells.
229. 00:37:53 And when I think about things like our books that we have, because you and I, obviously, we have a podcast called Bookworm.
230. 00:38:01 We like books.
231. 00:38:02 So we're going to have books around.
232. 00:38:05 And I know that for me, having those things there, because I mark them up, I've got my own little personal index in the back.
233. 00:38:12 Again, we need to do a podcast about how we read books.
234. 00:38:15 But I've got my own methods of marking them up and I want those notes around.
235. 00:38:20 Now, you could say the whole split the spine and scan them in.
236. 00:38:25 Like, you could do all of that.
237. 00:38:27 It just feels different to me.
238. 00:38:28 I read all of my books with paper and I really enjoy that.
239. 00:38:32 So I like having them on the bookcase.
240. 00:38:34 The other side of this is that whenever people come over and we're having conversations, it's amazing how often the books that we're reading come up.
241. 00:38:44 It's just nature.
242. 00:38:46 I mean, that's just how we... it's the things that we're doing.
243. 00:38:48 It's the information that we're taking into our brains.
244. 00:38:50 As you're bringing in the new information, you just naturally want to talk about it.
245. 00:38:53 So whenever I'm talking about this stuff, I'm talking about the books and it's nice to be able to just go grab it off the shelf, say this is what I'm talking about, put it in their hands, let them read it, let them borrow it, or I'll buy them one.
246. 00:39:05 It doesn't matter.
247. 00:39:06 But it's really nice for me to be able to just go grab it off the shelf.
248. 00:39:10 It just has a really different feel whenever I do that.
249. 00:39:13 So I'm holding on to them.
250. 00:39:14 And the feeling is the important part.
251. 00:39:17 I think that Joshua Becker said somewhere in there.
252. 00:39:20 I don't remember exactly how he said it, but the things that you hang on to, you want them to be the things that bring you joy.
253. 00:39:27 And I think it's perfectly okay to say that my books bring me joy.
254. 00:39:31 One of my dreams or visions is to have a library in my house.
255. 00:39:36 I don't even care how big my house is, but I want that bookcase on the wall with the ladder that goes back and forth.
256. 00:39:42 I've wanted that since I was like five years old.
257. 00:39:45 It's like the beauty and the beast.
258. 00:39:50 That was, I think, the first time I was ever introduced to that.
259. 00:39:53 Right, right.
260. 00:39:54 It's like, I'm with you.
261. 00:39:55 I want one of those.
262. 00:39:56 Maybe that's just the nature of readers.
263. 00:39:59 Maybe that.
264. 00:40:00 So, okay, for the listeners, if you're listening to this and you have a bookcase or you have a ton of books, do you want one of these?
265. 00:40:09 You know what we're talking about, the ladder that rolls along the bookcase.
266. 00:40:12 I want to know, do you want one of these?
267. 00:40:14 Because I don't know that anybody would say no.
268. 00:40:16 [laughter]
269. 00:40:18 How can you say no to that seriously?
270. 00:40:20 Exactly, exactly.
271. 00:40:21 Now, one thing that Joshua brings up that's a very big caveat and a very important caveat to this whole thing is whenever you're clearing out clutter, when you're minimizing, do it on your own stuff, not someone else's.
272. 00:40:39 [laughter]
273. 00:40:40 Yep.
274. 00:40:41 It can go very, very badly.
275. 00:40:44 If you start, you know, I think about my wife and I have very traditional roles that we carry out in our house.
276. 00:40:51 She does a lot of the cooking and the cleaning in the house and I tend to manage a lot of the other stuff that you would expect.
277. 00:40:57 Cars, lawnmowers, lawn, all that stuff.
278. 00:40:59 And if I were to go into her area in the kitchen and just say, "Man, you don't need that many pots and pans."
279. 00:41:06 That's too many knives.
280. 00:41:08 If I were to do that, very, very loud yelling and swear words might come out of that kitchen, which would be very abnormal for her.
281. 00:41:17 [laughter]
282. 00:41:19 Yeah.
283. 00:41:20 Joshua actually tells a little bit of a similar story where he got rid of some jello molds that he was planning to use for their son's birthday.
284. 00:41:31 And she was pretty ticked.
285. 00:41:34 [laughter]
286. 00:41:36 Yeah.
287. 00:41:37 Don't minimize for somebody else.
288. 00:41:38 Minimize on your own.
289. 00:41:39 And if you want them to join you, just set the example and do it for yourself and explain it if they ask questions.
290. 00:41:46 Yeah.
291. 00:41:47 So this is really interesting because that was one of the things that I listed out to me about the book too was if you're going to do this, you have to do it in the context of your team, your organization, or in my specific scenario, my family.
292. 00:42:00 So number one, how do you get everybody on board with it, not just your wife or your significant other, but your children if you have them?
293. 00:42:11 And then number two, as he was telling us that story in the book about how he had done that without talking to his wife, it occurred to me that we tend to have a different view of what things are important whenever there is somebody else.
294. 00:42:29 And it reminded me of a quote, I think it was by Ed Cole, who said that we tend to judge our other people by their actions, but ourselves by our intentions.
295. 00:42:41 And I could totally see parallels with that in the story that he was telling about minimalism because it's two very different ways of looking at the exact same thing.
296. 00:42:51 And you have to recognize, I have to recognize that my view of whether this thing is important is not the only view. There is another just as valid view that I am completely not seeing, and I have to do my best to try to see from, in my case, my wife's perspective.
297. 00:43:10 Yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed his whole section on how to get others on board.
298. 00:43:16 It just made a lot of sense. And again, this comes back to his methods of making this approachable, because it's going to lead you. And I know even for me just jumping into it, it makes you want to do more and it makes you want to see where you can cut back.
299. 00:43:34 And there's a whole, like he explains how to experiment in order to learn if you can cut back in an area. Sometimes you can't, but most of the time you can.
300. 00:43:43 But trying these things out and then talking about them with others is an awesome way to try to influence them into making the decision to minimize as well, but it's not forceful and it's not intrusive.
301. 00:43:59 Right. And there was a very important point that he made when he was talking about as you're trying to convince other people that minimalism is the way to go. Obviously, he would agree with you, but he explicitly says that if you're significant other, if the person that you're talking to does not, is not an agreement with this minimalist lifestyle that you are trying to communicate to them, that relationship is more important than minimalism.
302. 00:44:25 He said, people are not the same as possessions. Relationships are not transactions, don't love things or even the absence of things. Love people.
303. 00:44:36 That is really, really important, especially because I know myself and I tend to latch onto an idea. And I'm like, this idea is amazing. Everybody needs to know this and apply this right now.
304. 00:44:48 And I get really frustrated when I'm trying to tell people about this thing and they're just not getting it and they're not interested in it. And sometimes it can frustrate me to the point where I actually get angry.
305. 00:45:00 And I'm like, well, if you have no interest in helping yourself, then I'm not going to, I'm not going to waste this on you, so to speak.
306. 00:45:07 And so that was a reality check for me is like, you have to value the people first. People are the most important things in my life, not things.
307. 00:45:17 And even the absence of things, it would be great to have all that clutter gone and have all that extra space, all that extra margin to make sure that what I'm doing is the right thing.
308. 00:45:28 But if I've lost all the relationships along the way, then it's completely not worth it.
309. 00:45:35 He talks about this experimentation process and he gives the example that him and his wife did with cars. So they had two cars, they moved to a new area.
310. 00:45:47 They wanted to cut down to a single car. Kind of like what you were talking about. Can you get away with one car?
311. 00:45:53 So what they did was they sold one when they did the move and they quickly learned that, well, not quickly, I think they took it three months.
312. 00:46:01 They managed to go with just a single car and just decided it wasn't for them.
313. 00:46:06 But the idea was try something, take something, box it up, put it in the basement and see how long you can go without it or if you even feel like you need it.
314. 00:46:16 Now, I recently, well, not recently, about a year ago I had this happen to me unintentionally.
315. 00:46:23 So it's about a year ago now that I went out on my own and started my own business.
316. 00:46:28 And when I did that, the company that I left, I had a company issue iPad. That was the iPad that I was using at the time and I had to return that.
317. 00:46:39 And due to finances and the way that the whole thing went down, I just didn't feel comfortable replacing that iPad right away.
318. 00:46:46 Well, in somebody in our line of business, it's a bit absurd to not have an iPad. It's just weird.
319. 00:46:55 So everybody has an iPad, everybody has an Apple watch, everybody has, it's just the way that it is.
320. 00:47:01 And I don't. And to be honest, I don't miss it simply because so much of the power user stuff that I do, I do it on the Mac and all the consumption stuff that I do, I do it on my phone.
321. 00:47:14 And the device that's in the middle of the iPad, I just don't, I don't have it. And I didn't, I didn't even realize that I would potentially have a use for it until we went to Mac stock.
322. 00:47:25 And people, everybody has one, everybody's using it for either notes or just referring to things. There's a whole talks on them.
323. 00:47:32 And I'm just sitting there thinking that, yes, it would be cool. It would be fun to have one, but I don't know what I would use it for.
324. 00:47:41 I don't write on any, I mean, I write on paper. So I don't know what purpose it would serve. And that's, that's, I think, a lot of what that experimentation process is about.
325. 00:47:53 If can you go without something? And if you end up in a spot where you don't miss it, why replace it? And that's, that's, I think, where I've landed on the iPad is.
326. 00:48:01 It's interesting that I would like to have it, but I don't. And I don't really see where buying one is worth it, which is a bit like blasphemy in our world.
327. 00:48:16 Yes, definitely. I had the same revelation. I didn't have the exact same story or situation happened to me, but he tells a story about the guy who packed up all of his belongings into boxes and then just opened them whenever he needed something.
328. 00:48:31 And at the end of 30 days, most of the boxes were still packed. And so that has kind of challenged me to take the same approach to, first of all, categorize an inventory every day.
329. 00:48:45 And then I have the inventory, everything that we own, because I don't think I've ever actually done that. And then from there, ask myself a question, you know, if I didn't already own this, would I, would I buy it? Do I, I really need it?
330. 00:49:00 One of the things that I am really looking forward to, I love the story that he talks about, how he tried to, they did a garage sale and it completely bombed. Yeah. Once in a while, they'll sell stuff on eBay. But most of the time, they gave their stuff away, or they gave their stuff away while they were pursuing minimalism.
331. 00:49:17 I absolutely love that approach, because I really like to serve. I really like to give people things. And he talks about how minimalism actually facilitates increased generosity.
332. 00:49:30 But I can already picture scenarios. And my takeaways, my action plan, I guess, is to, like he said, start with my car first, because a car typically, especially if you have two cars, your car is kind of your area.
333. 00:49:45 So if you are thinking about embracing minimalism and you're not sure if you're going to have any agreement with your significant other, they won't say anything. If you're focusing on minimizing your car first.
334. 00:49:55 And then from there, my closet, and from there, I mean, there's a bunch of different areas, but cataloging these things and then identifying the things that I don't need.
335. 00:50:05 And then instead of trying to get a few bucks here or there for these things and loading up the things in the car and taking them to a pawn shop or creating all the listings on eBay and trying to sell them, just looking for people that I can bless and say here, have this thing.
336. 00:50:18 I don't need it anymore. I really like that approach. I think that is the thing that will actually get me to embrace the minimalism, at least to a certain degree in my own life, because if I had to take the stuff and try to get rid of it, try to sell it,
337. 00:50:34 I wouldn't do it. Most of the time when I get something new, I have an idea that I'm going to sell this thing, but unless I do an electronics item on Gizelle or something, most of the time it goes on a shelf and I forget about it until it's too late to actually get anything for it.
338. 00:50:53 So I think that that's going to be the thing that finally gets me moving in this direction. I'm already seeing it. I'm looking around my house.
339. 00:51:04 Where are the things that I can give away? I'm making a list. I'm keeping it in drafts on my phone, but I'm actually really looking forward to that part of it.
340. 00:51:12 It's interesting because I did start, you can't help yourself. You go through these books and you just can't help yourself to get started sometimes.
341. 00:51:21 I did the easy stuff of just go through your closet. How many clothes do you actually need? Just open up a drawer, start digging through it and cleaning out the stuff you don't need in there.
342. 00:51:34 It's crazy how freeing that is because you find things, "Oh yeah, I put that in there probably three years ago and I've never pulled it out. Why on earth am I holding onto it? I have no idea."
343. 00:51:46 But it's in there. So I'm going to take it out, either throw it away if it's not worth anything. If it has any value at all, I'm going to donate it.
344. 00:51:54 I've seen some people run numbers on it. It's like garage sales. No one ever makes any money off of it. Even if you make $2,000 on it just because of the time involved, you just don't come out ahead on it most of the time.
345. 00:52:07 So it doesn't make any sense. In most cases, to do that, if you give it away and he has an entire section in here about the benefits of giving and serving because the byproducts of cutting back,
346. 00:52:23 you're going to have more money, like more discretionary money, and then you have more time because you're not doing spring cleaning near as much.
347. 00:52:33 You've got one car, so you don't have the $8,000 a year going into that. You've got the time and money thing coming and paying you dividends.
348. 00:52:45 You can take that to help others because that's where he cites all kinds of references to when you take the time to help others, that's where true happiness and joy in life can come from.
349. 00:52:58 And minimalism is a mechanism to help get you there. It's a way of thinking and a way of coming at things and clutter in general.
350. 00:53:05 And the way that we do life, it's a way of coming at all of that in order to be able to help other people and achieve that ultimate mission and purpose in life that we're all driven towards accomplishing, which in his mind is helping others through your gifts and talents.
351. 00:53:20 So it was very, very freeing whenever you start going through the process of cleaning things out and getting things out of the way. I've cleaned off my desk, of course, and the little stuff that's just me and it's my area.
352. 00:53:35 And I'm like, those are pretty easy places to start. And they can be very momentum building. We talk so much about the process of don't break the chain and just get the chain going and keep the recurring process, build the momentum and don't break it.
353. 00:53:52 We talk about that a lot in the productivity space and Josh has an entire list of what I would call productivity tricks that I would assume you and I have both been through numerous times that he calls them clutter busters, but they're simple things like make your bed every morning, wash the dishes right away, fill up containers, your trash and recycling containers all the time.
354. 00:54:17 Like little stuff like that that consistently builds the mindset of cutting back and not accumulating things and trying to break the consumer as a mindset.
355. 00:54:28 Yeah. And the last action point that I had here, he tells a story about the pearl of great price. I think this is really the book in a nutshell is that your life is about choices, but some of those choices are more valuable than others.
356. 00:54:42 Some of the choices that you make have a bigger impact on the rest of your life than others. Not all choices are equal.
357. 00:54:51 And being able to identify which choices are most important is a really critical first step.
358. 00:54:59 And I would argue, based on this book and then also what I've seen as I've started to apply this stuff into my own life is that as long as you have an abundance of clutter in your life, that is going to cloud your judgment about what are the critical choices.
359. 00:55:21 We're talking about the productivity tricks and things like that. Those are great because they help you maintain that margin so that you can identify the things that are the most important.
360. 00:55:33 But if you don't have that to start with, like you have to have that margin, you have to have embraced minimalism at a certain level.
361. 00:55:41 You don't have to own just a hundred things or anything like that, but you have to have a little bit of that before you can apply that stuff to help maintain it, I would argue.
362. 00:55:51 And so that is the big thing. And I've seen it already just since we recorded essentialism and we've been applying those action steps.
363. 00:56:03 Like the clarity that comes from having that margin, having that space is invaluable.
364. 00:56:12 And not only does it help make things more efficient, but when you can correctly prioritize things and make sure that you're not making mistakes in your judgment, then that just keeps the snowball rolling.
365. 00:56:28 It's kind of like you were talking about the compound effect. It's the little things that you do right, but you have to identify the correct little things.
366. 00:56:37 And I think for a long time, I've had a pretty good idea of generally what were the correct little things, but I have noticed that as I've created that space, even just a little bit of space has provided exponential benefits because it brings so much more clarity.
367. 00:56:57 I can be so much more sure about, "Yes, this is the thing," or "No, that is not the thing."
368. 00:57:04 One thing I need to bring up here, and we talked about this a lot last time. You made fun of me for it, and I need help.
369. 00:57:12 I'm sitting here looking through all of our notes on the more of less, and I've got some of the essentialism stuff up here as well.
370. 00:57:25 I'm looking through all of this and realizing that I -- and we knew this last time.
371. 00:57:31 I do have an email problem of getting too many and doing some things to cut back on that.
372. 00:57:36 I think this is one area where I really do need to minimize and cut back because I'm getting 300 a day.
373. 00:57:43 It's not sustainable. If I'm going to do a full-time job and email, I need some help there, whether it's an assistant or whether it's just finding ways to cut back on what's coming in.
374. 00:57:58 I'm going to do it, Mike. If I get harder to get a hold of, that's why.
375. 00:58:05 I've got your cell phone number.
376. 00:58:09 Okay. There you go. What did you think of Josh's writing style?
377. 00:58:16 I liked his writing style. I thought it was very approachable. Like I said at the beginning, I found it very inviting and not threatening at all,
378. 00:58:25 especially for, like I mentioned previously, I wrote a book called "Thou shalt hustle."
379. 00:58:30 Again, as I'm reading this, I'm taking it through the lens of what I've presented in that book.
380. 00:58:38 I actually don't think there's a difference of opinion here because I would define hustle as to force to move hurriedly in a specified direction.
381. 00:58:49 That specified direction is the key thing. I think that's what Joshua Becker would say as well.
382. 00:58:54 Removing the clutter would help you hustle, I guess is how I would say it.
383. 00:58:59 But I did feel, I know you put this in the outline as well, that he did kind of say things.
384. 00:59:07 I don't want to say it was long-winded, but he could have said things a little bit more concisely, I thought.
385. 00:59:13 When I wrote my book, I was really laser focused on that, though.
386. 00:59:17 I think my book is something like 20,000 words because I wanted it to be short, I wanted people to be able to sit down and read it one sitting if they wanted to.
387. 00:59:25 That's the only thing I would say about this, but his style, I really liked, the outline of the book I really liked,
388. 00:59:32 and I really liked his conclusion about how minimalism is great, but it's not just for you.
389. 00:59:39 It's so that you can go and you can be more generous.
390. 00:59:43 Because you've become a better steward of what you've already got, and again, this is where there's a ton of synergy between what I would say is in my book, and then his book as well.
391. 00:59:53 It's all about the stewardship, it's all about making sure that everything that you are doing is hitting the mark, and then accumulating more, not so that you can have more, but so that you can make more of a difference.
392. 01:00:06 He talks about the foundation that he set up and things like that. I thought that was a great way to end it, that story, about the Hope Foundation, I believe, is what he called it.
393. 01:00:16 So I thought that was just a great crescendo, a great end note, and really challenged me to think about how am I going to up my giving, because really it's all about the legacy, it's all about the impact that you're going to make in the world.
394. 01:00:32 So I really liked that, but it was a little bit longer than maybe it needed to be.
395. 01:00:37 Yeah, there were some, there were a handful of places that I just wanted him to be done.
396. 01:00:44 And that's why I say he was a little long-winded in some cases, I'll contradict you there a little bit, but he would cover a topic and he would tell a story about it, and it was a case where, okay, I get the idea, I get the point.
397. 01:01:00 I'm with you, and then it felt like there was another half a chapter to reiterate it.
398. 01:01:07 It's just the way it came across to me.
399. 01:01:09 And he has a very good writing style, it's easy to read, so he keeps you engaged, but I felt like we were covering the same thing multiple times in a few different areas.
400. 01:01:21 So that was my only complaint really with it, was just from hitting the topic multiple places, but at the same time I know that some people need that.
401. 01:01:31 Just having written on the blog and reading a number of books and talking to people about them, some people absolutely need that, because it's the reiteration process that makes it hit it for them.
402. 01:01:44 It just gets to be too much for me, it's just a personal preference.
403. 01:01:48 Yeah, it's not really anything wrong with the writing style, but it's a very fine line that, for me personally, where it's like, okay, let's move on, and just really cementing the idea that he's trying to communicate.
404. 01:02:05 As a writer, it's really hard to find that balance.
405. 01:02:08 You feel like you found it once and then, wait, no, that's not right, that's too much.
406. 01:02:13 Or no, that's not enough, what is that? I don't even, if I read that for the first time, it doesn't make sense.
407. 01:02:18 So yeah, it's hard to find that balance.
408. 01:02:21 It's hard to apply the more of less to your writing style.
409. 01:02:24 It's true.
410. 01:02:25 It's so true, it's true. So how would you rate this, Mike?
411. 01:02:30 I've been thinking about this a lot.
412. 01:02:33 I would say at the moment, I'm going to give it four stars, but like I said, this really kind of put a punctuation on some ideas and some things that have been stirring since essentialism.
413. 01:02:47 So if this book is the catalyst for the type of change that I think, it will be, I could definitely see it being a five, because ultimately that's why you write a book is because you want to make a difference.
414. 01:03:02 But at the moment, just based off of the content itself, I'm going to say four stars.
415. 01:03:07 Yeah, I'll join you on the four. And some of my rationale is what I was just talking about, the reiteration process and my personal preference on it.
416. 01:03:16 But I'm with you on the idea that I think this is one of those, and I don't know how much of this is because we just finished essentialism.
417. 01:03:24 I'm wondering if that's not coloring our opinion on this a little bit, which is okay.
418. 01:03:29 But I wonder if this is one, especially in combination with essentialism, that between the two that they, the rating on it might go up over time, that as you start to implement it, you realize in some more of it makes more sense that you come at it a little bit differently in the future.
419. 01:03:48 I don't know if there's maybe some of that there.
420. 01:03:50 Maybe we reread it in the future and we come back and hit it with fives just because we know more about it at the time.
421. 01:03:55 There's probably some of that, but right now I'm going to give it a four and I'll join you in that currently.
422. 01:04:01 So, upcoming books, what comes next?
423. 01:04:05 The one I have selected for us to read next is Deep Work by Cal Newport.
424. 01:04:10 So, I'll jump into that one tomorrow.
425. 01:04:13 That one's got a lot of hype around it, at least here recently.
426. 01:04:16 So, that's one of the reasons I've picked it, but that's what I've got up next.
427. 01:04:20 And then following that, Mike, what did you pick?
428. 01:04:23 I picked the Power of Full Engagement, which is by Jim Lear, I believe, and Tony Schwartz.
429. 01:04:31 Oh, that's a good one.
430. 01:04:32 I've heard of a lot of people rave about this one.
431. 01:04:36 That's what I've heard as well and I kind of can't believe that I haven't read it yet.
432. 01:04:39 So, I feel like I have to pick it next.
433. 01:04:42 All right, so we'll jump into that one after Deep Work.
434. 01:04:47 Now, we have been doing weekly releases and the reasoning for that is because before we
435. 01:04:55 launched Bookworm, we had recorded a number of episodes and through the process of releasing
436. 01:05:00 those weekly, for the launch process, we've continued to record and read.
437. 01:05:04 And we're now caught up.
438. 01:05:06 So, this one, as we're recording it, will come out in, what is that, four days?
439. 01:05:12 Five days.
440. 01:05:13 However long it takes me to get it edited and get it released.
441. 01:05:16 And so, it'll be the next Wednesday.
442. 01:05:18 That's the plan.
443. 01:05:19 And whenever that one comes out, then two weeks from that, Deep Work will be released.
444. 01:05:25 So, the more of less will be released on this upcoming Wednesday as we're recording this.
445. 01:05:31 And the next one will be two weeks after that.
446. 01:05:33 So, we're going to shift into our plan for biweekly releases.
447. 01:05:38 So, if you're following along and you've been reading with us, you don't have to do it every
448. 01:05:41 week now.
449. 01:05:42 You can take two weeks to read a book.
450. 01:05:44 So, a little bit of a break.
451. 01:05:46 Yeah, so it'll help us out a little bit there.
452. 01:05:49 Some other things that we have, just that we're going to, I'll just mention, because we
453. 01:05:55 have them around, is "recommend a book."
454. 01:05:57 So, if you're listening and you have one that you want to hear us cover, there is a button
455. 01:06:01 on our website, bookworm.fm.
456. 01:06:03 Just go to bookworm.fm.
457. 01:06:05 It's right in the sidebar.
458. 01:06:06 Click on "recommend a book."
459. 01:06:08 And you can submit your recommendation there.
460. 01:06:10 At the same time, you can also, at bookworm.fm, you can scroll down on the sidebar and find
461. 01:06:17 a book list, or it's bookworm.fm/list.
462. 01:06:20 And that shows a list of all the books that we have finished reading that has links to the
463. 01:06:26 episodes.
464. 01:06:27 There's a list of the books that we are planning to do along with the recommendations that have
465. 01:06:32 come in as well.
466. 01:06:33 So, you can get that full list there on the website.
467. 01:06:36 Do you want to talk about remarks?
468. 01:06:40 Sure.
469. 01:06:41 And we mentioned this in the last episode, but there's a service, it's called Remarks.fm
470. 01:06:45 is the website, and there's an app available.
471. 01:06:48 It's a social podcast player.
472. 01:06:50 So, it's the perfect medium for a "podcast book club."
473. 01:06:56 And we're not fully in on this, but we're giving it a shot.
474. 01:07:01 So, if you want to engage in the conversation, definitely check out remarks.fm.
475. 01:07:06 Basically, you can play the podcast.
476. 01:07:09 There's a speed selector, and then in line.
477. 01:07:12 So, basically, at specific time codes, you can leave comments.
478. 01:07:15 And then we can jump in, and we can respond to those comments.
479. 01:07:19 So, it's a way for you to join in the conversation as well.
480. 01:07:23 And then the other thing is that if you enjoy the show, we would love it if you would go
481. 01:07:29 over to iTunes and leave us a review.
482. 01:07:32 It really helps other people discover the podcast.
483. 01:07:36 So, if you love Bookworm, go ahead and leave us a five-star review, even if you don't
484. 01:07:40 love it.
485. 01:07:41 Leave us a review and let us know what we could do better, because we're always open to
486. 01:07:44 constructive criticism.
487. 01:07:46 Absolutely.
488. 01:07:47 And, again, if you're reading along, Deep Work comes up next.
489. 01:07:52 So, if you want to jump in on that one, we'll start reading that one tomorrow, and we will
490. 01:07:57 put together our notes, and we'll go through that one next.
491. 01:08:00 So, thanks for joining us on the journey, and get to work reading Deep Work.