70: Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt

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1. 00:00:00 All right, Joe, you're ready to talk about emotional intelligence again?
2. 00:00:04 Not really, but I got a feeling I'm not going to get out of this without it.
3. 00:00:07 So here we are.
4. 00:00:09 All right.
5. 00:00:10 So yeah, first follow up item from last episode was the assessment that I had you take, which
6. 00:00:15 I gave you the long version.
7. 00:00:17 There is a shorter version also, but obviously with more questions that you asked, the more
8. 00:00:20 valid the results are.
9. 00:00:22 So before I psychoanalyze you, anything jump out to you from doing this?
10. 00:00:28 I was really, really, really, really long.
11. 00:00:32 I got through it in a little over 30 minutes and I'm fast at these things.
12. 00:00:36 Did you discover that there are keyboard shortcuts for the options?
13. 00:00:40 Nope.
14. 00:00:41 Didn't.
15. 00:00:42 Should have told you that.
16. 00:00:43 Sorry.
17. 00:00:44 That's okay.
18. 00:00:45 I did notice I can't go back.
19. 00:00:46 Yeah, of course figured that out.
20. 00:00:48 Okay.
21. 00:00:49 Well, that's like, okay, there's a back button, but I can't click it.
22. 00:00:52 Why is there a back button?
23. 00:00:53 Because your first answer is the best answer.
24. 00:00:56 So it took away the ability for you to go back.
25. 00:00:58 Then make the back button go away.
26. 00:01:01 Anyway, side note, I will say that whenever I got started, I got about what was I probably
27. 00:01:07 20, 30 questions in and I looked up and the progress bar had like barely moved.
28. 00:01:11 I was like, what?
29. 00:01:13 So I got about a hundred questions in like, okay, I'm not even halfway through this thing.
30. 00:01:21 So yes, there's a lot there, but I was looking through the results on it and it's got a
31. 00:01:26 ton that comes out of it.
32. 00:01:30 So I could see where there's a ton of value in this.
33. 00:01:32 I have not even had a chance to go through my own results in a lot of detail, let alone
34. 00:01:36 yours.
35. 00:01:37 So I posted my results on the bookworm club.
36. 00:01:43 I don't know if you want to do that.
37. 00:01:44 Did you?
38. 00:01:45 Okay.
39. 00:01:46 So I wasn't sure if you were comfortable making these public, but I'll share mine too then.
40. 00:01:49 Yeah.
41. 00:01:50 So public, feel free to psycho analyze me people like I ate.
42. 00:01:55 Sure.
43. 00:01:56 Hit me.
44. 00:01:59 So what insights did you get from your results?
45. 00:02:03 If any.
46. 00:02:04 There's a lot of things that I think I struggle with and a lot of those have to do with my
47. 00:02:12 own comfort levels around like how good I am at getting things done and how I communicate
48. 00:02:19 with that with other people.
49. 00:02:20 And this just showed me that a lot of it, what am I trying to say, a lot of it is true
50. 00:02:27 that I do struggle with a lot of those, but I think it's worse than I thought it was.
51. 00:02:32 That's my thinking at the moment.
52. 00:02:34 All right.
53. 00:02:36 Well to give you a little bit of hope looking at these, I mean your results really aren't
54. 00:02:42 that bad.
55. 00:02:43 Really?
56. 00:02:44 Yeah, for sure.
57. 00:02:46 And the other thing is like when people take this assessment, usually there are some areas
58. 00:02:52 that are lower.
59. 00:02:53 And I think I mentioned this in the last episode.
60. 00:02:55 The research shows though, because remember this has been used over eight and a half million
61. 00:02:59 times, 140 dot torl level papers and books on this particular assessment, right?
62. 00:03:04 If you focus on one of these areas and then go through a curriculum designed to develop
63. 00:03:08 that skill, you will see improvement across all of the areas.
64. 00:03:13 So since you've made your results public, do you mind if I talk about these a little
65. 00:03:16 bit?
66. 00:03:17 Sure, go for it, hit me.
67. 00:03:18 Okay.
68. 00:03:19 So your lowest area is commitment ethic.
69. 00:03:23 And the numbers on here really don't mean a whole lot because it's a bell curve.
70. 00:03:27 And they kind of explained that at the beginning.
71. 00:03:29 Yeah.
72. 00:03:30 So like one of these, I got 68 and we'll get to me in a second, but that's actually the
73. 00:03:34 maximum number you can get in a particular area.
74. 00:03:36 Sure.
75. 00:03:37 And I would argue actually that one maybe has negative repercussions too.
76. 00:03:41 So I won't get that in a minute.
77. 00:03:43 But your commitment ethic being in the first range here, the develop range, basically that's
78. 00:03:49 the low end and then there's a color to represent that.
79. 00:03:51 So those bars are red.
80. 00:03:53 And then the strength and range that's kind of in the middle and then the enhanced range
81. 00:03:55 that's the high end.
82. 00:03:57 And then based on where you land in these different ranges, it gives you a little bit
83. 00:04:02 different interpretation of your score and kind of paints a picture of where you're at
84. 00:04:06 as you go through those results in the instrument itself.
85. 00:04:10 Now when you print it off, obviously you just get the numbers.
86. 00:04:13 Right.
87. 00:04:14 It's designed to help you understand it even if you don't have a psychology degree.
88. 00:04:18 Sure.
89. 00:04:19 And kind of the reaction that I had the first time I went through it and also a lot of
90. 00:04:24 people have when they go through it is like, "Wow, I can't believe how crazy accurate this
91. 00:04:27 thing is."
92. 00:04:28 Really, it's not that difficult.
93. 00:04:30 There's not rocket science here.
94. 00:04:31 It's just you've answered these questions about yourself.
95. 00:04:34 You've defined yourself and then so it's helping you interpret what you're really saying
96. 00:04:38 about yourself.
97. 00:04:39 That's why I gave you the longer one because the longer the assessment, the more valid
98. 00:04:42 the answers.
99. 00:04:43 The shorter one I think is only like 84 questions.
100. 00:04:46 But that's where you get sometimes some false positives and stuff.
101. 00:04:50 So commitment ethic being on the low end, that really isn't a bad thing because even
102. 00:04:56 though you've got a couple scales that are red, if you went through a curriculum in developing
103. 00:05:01 commitment ethic, if that was really something that you said, "This is something I want to
104. 00:05:04 change," if you did that for a couple of months, you would probably see if you took this again
105. 00:05:08 that it had moved all of the needles in the direction that you wanted to go.
106. 00:05:13 Does that make sense?
107. 00:05:14 Yeah.
108. 00:05:15 No, it does make sense.
109. 00:05:16 For example, another one that's really low is stress management, which I've known for
110. 00:05:23 a long time.
111. 00:05:24 I'm terrible at that.
112. 00:05:26 Some of this I know is changing right now because my work situation changed and I'm making
113. 00:05:32 sense.
114. 00:05:38 Exactly.
115. 00:05:39 I know that some of this is in the works of being edited already.
116. 00:05:43 Exactly.
117. 00:05:44 That's the real key here is it shows you where to make the edits.
118. 00:05:49 Now you kind of intrinsically, I think, knew where you needed to make some edits.
119. 00:05:53 Yes.
120. 00:05:54 But not everybody has a podcast that they do with somebody and they read a book every
121. 00:05:57 two weeks and they talk about their accountability items and holding each other accountable to
122. 00:06:01 what they said they're going to do.
123. 00:06:02 If everybody did that, there'd be no need for an instrument like this because you can't
124. 00:06:06 see your own blind spots, right?
125. 00:06:08 Right.
126. 00:06:09 You need somebody else who's going to show you, like, "Hey, you've really not been yourself
127. 00:06:12 lately.
128. 00:06:13 Everything okay?"
129. 00:06:14 Yeah.
130. 00:06:15 Well, this kind of shows you maybe everything's not okay.
131. 00:06:16 In fact, one of the uses for this, if you scroll onto the bottom, there's interpersonal
132. 00:06:21 aggression, interpersonal deference, and then personal change orientation.
133. 00:06:25 So aggression and deference, those are kind of inversely related, which you can see on
134. 00:06:29 yours, like, aggression is kind of right at the end of the middle or normal range and
135. 00:06:34 really it's more towards the low end, okay?
136. 00:06:37 But deference is high.
137. 00:06:38 So you tend to defer, okay?
138. 00:06:40 Now if you have somebody who is terrible at stress management, they tend to defer.
139. 00:06:46 They are completely unhappy with themselves and all of these other scores are low.
140. 00:06:52 Those are the kinds of things that can indicate that this is somebody who maybe will blow
141. 00:06:58 up and maybe there's going to be a violent incident.
142. 00:07:00 In the past, you might just be able to say, "This is going to lash out and say something
143. 00:07:06 verbally abusive at work.
144. 00:07:07 Now you've got to worry about kids bringing guns to school."
145. 00:07:10 But that's the kind of thing.
146. 00:07:12 If you see that in somebody, you have that red flag and you're like, "Oh, we need to
147. 00:07:15 intervene here before it gets to that point," because that stuff happens when people feel
148. 00:07:20 like they have no other options.
149. 00:07:23 They feel painted into a corner.
150. 00:07:24 And I know I am grossly generalizing this, but eight and a half million times, there's
151. 00:07:29 enough data here to show that that's kind of the process here.
152. 00:07:33 You can see the patterns.
153. 00:07:35 Now you're not going to shoot up a school, all right?
154. 00:07:40 But you can see that you tend to defer and that causes you some stress.
155. 00:07:44 So really what you want to do based on these results is the next time you have the opportunity
156. 00:07:49 to be assertive and stand up for yourself, take a step in that direction.
157. 00:07:56 That's kind of the type of stuff you can get from this.
158. 00:07:58 Yeah, which makes a lot of sense to me because I feel like that's an area that I've become
159. 00:08:04 aware of more so in the last probably six months, but I haven't really spent a lot of
160. 00:08:08 time focusing on building out that area.
161. 00:08:11 So again, this is putting terms and numbers to things.
162. 00:08:16 I feel like I've intuitively noticed, but haven't been able to truly focus on doing
163. 00:08:22 anything about.
164. 00:08:23 Yeah, a couple other quick observations regarding yours.
165. 00:08:27 Your decision making is high.
166. 00:08:29 Your sales orientation and leadership is high.
167. 00:08:31 We added that term leadership because a lot of people were taking this and they view the
168. 00:08:35 term sales orientation and they're like, well, I don't want to be a salesperson.
169. 00:08:38 Right.
170. 00:08:39 Right.
171. 00:08:40 And you probably maybe even feel like you don't want to be a salesperson because you're introverted,
172. 00:08:43 not extroverted.
173. 00:08:44 Yeah, exactly.
174. 00:08:45 Yep.
175. 00:08:46 So, but if you are married, you have sold yourself at least once.
176. 00:08:50 That's what I always tell people.
177. 00:08:52 Yes, it's true.
178. 00:08:54 And if you have a job, you've sold yourself once.
179. 00:08:57 Yes, exactly.
180. 00:08:58 So sales is really not trying to get rid of used cars and take suckers for every buck
181. 00:09:05 that they have.
182. 00:09:07 It's being able to sell people on an idea and leadership is being able to sell people
183. 00:09:11 on the idea that you can help them get where they want to go.
184. 00:09:14 So I like the fact that those are kind of combined now.
185. 00:09:19 Your empathy score being high does not surprise me at all.
186. 00:09:22 Your interpersonal awareness score being high does not surprise me at all.
187. 00:09:27 Interpersonal assertion, that could also kind of be lumped in with the ones on the bottom.
188. 00:09:34 That is on the low end as well.
189. 00:09:36 So again, that just kind of shows like what your natural tendency is to defer and, well,
190. 00:09:41 I'll figure out a way to make this work.
191. 00:09:43 But as you know, that's not super healthy and we don't need to get into details, but
192. 00:09:48 you've gone through some stuff, which I would argue also contributed to the low stress management,
193. 00:09:52 low physical wellness scores.
194. 00:09:53 So could it be that if you're able to nail that assertiveness versus aggression or deference,
195. 00:10:01 that fixes all of the "problems" that you see here.
196. 00:10:07 That's the fascinating thing about this kind of stuff to me.
197. 00:10:11 And I also wondered how much physical health played into some of this as well.
198. 00:10:15 For sure.
199. 00:10:16 There's the physical awareness piece, which is really low on this.
200. 00:10:21 It's down in the red as well, which in my main makes perfect sense because right now
201. 00:10:27 is horrendous for health and wellness in the world of Joe.
202. 00:10:32 So it made perfect sense to me.
203. 00:10:34 Cool.
204. 00:10:35 Want to talk about my scores?
205. 00:10:37 I do because now I'm curious.
206. 00:10:39 Now I've got a little bit of background on this.
207. 00:10:43 Now I'm pulling yours up because I want to see this.
208. 00:10:45 You're going to make this public too, right?
209. 00:10:47 Yep.
210. 00:10:48 Mine are a little bit weird because I'm further along, I guess, on my emotional intelligence
211. 00:10:54 journey because it started when I was born in my family.
212. 00:10:59 But if you were to look at this maybe even five years ago, my results probably look a
213. 00:11:05 lot more similar to yours.
214. 00:11:07 So one thing that really was a struggle for me was my deference was really high.
215. 00:11:14 And on this score, you can see that it's actually pretty low.
216. 00:11:17 Aggression is also fairly low.
217. 00:11:19 Assertiveness is kind of right in the middle.
218. 00:11:21 So I've come a long way compared to when I first took this in high school and being able
219. 00:11:26 to be assertive and stand up for my rights but not trample on the rights of others.
220. 00:11:33 The other thing that really isn't a surprise to people who follow me online probably is
221. 00:11:41 like the drive strength motivation being pretty high.
222. 00:11:44 I tend to stick my teeth into an idea and then just make sure I do whatever I need to
223. 00:11:48 make it happen.
224. 00:11:49 Commitment ethic is maxed out at 68.
225. 00:11:53 I would argue that that one sometimes gets me into trouble because once I say yes to
226. 00:11:57 something, I can't let it go.
227. 00:12:00 I can't be the guy who just doesn't follow through on stuff.
228. 00:12:04 And that's to my detriment sometimes.
229. 00:12:07 Stress management is kind of in the middle.
230. 00:12:10 That's actually higher than I would have guessed.
231. 00:12:14 It's been a pretty stressful several months for me.
232. 00:12:18 But the fact that I am still here, I feel is kind of reflective of the fact that I have
233. 00:12:25 built in some systems and have some skills in that area where I'm able to mitigate some
234. 00:12:28 of that stuff.
235. 00:12:29 Maybe my wife who hears me complain all the time says otherwise.
236. 00:12:34 I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't matter really what you go through.
237. 00:12:37 If you have the skills to cope with that sort of stuff, you can get through almost anything.
238. 00:12:42 So I kind of feel like I've been through almost anything.
239. 00:12:46 And this score is kind of one of the things that's helped me get through that.
240. 00:12:50 Physical wellness also.
241. 00:12:51 This is the high end or the enhanced range.
242. 00:12:55 And that was again based on some results that I saw here.
243. 00:12:58 I basically work out at least six times a week going to the gym, now also cycling.
244. 00:13:04 So I don't mess up my knee when I run.
245. 00:13:08 But that has been a huge thing.
246. 00:13:10 And now it's gotten to the point where like if I don't get to the gym, it affects my mood.
247. 00:13:14 So sure.
248. 00:13:15 Or I noticed that it affects my mood and I don't like it.
249. 00:13:18 So I make sure that I get there.
250. 00:13:20 Time management is also maxed out.
251. 00:13:22 I would argue that I probably still have some room to grow in that particular area.
252. 00:13:28 But this is strictly just viewing, managing your time.
253. 00:13:33 It's not saying no to the things that you shouldn't be doing or the intentionality effectiveness.
254. 00:13:38 I feel like that's kind of where I need to go to the next level with that sort of stuff.
255. 00:13:43 But yeah, that's basically me.
256. 00:13:46 Now what you see for the real effective leaders, whether they are big teams, small teams, whatever,
257. 00:13:53 is that most of these scales tend to be in the enhance range.
258. 00:13:59 So they have developed these skills to the point where they can basically fit whatever
259. 00:14:04 the situation demands.
260. 00:14:06 Okay.
261. 00:14:07 So that's why I brought up the point last time.
262. 00:14:11 Like if you develop emotional intelligence, that means that you're not naturally introverted
263. 00:14:16 or you have to become more extroverted because kind of like the personality stuff in terms
264. 00:14:19 of leadership and reaching your full potential to a certain degree, it doesn't really matter.
265. 00:14:25 Your personality is your personality, but you got to learn to manage it effectively.
266. 00:14:29 And depending on the situation, there is going to be a right and wrong way for that to play
267. 00:14:35 out.
268. 00:14:36 So yeah, emotional intelligence in a nutshell.
269. 00:14:38 Yeah, I'm looking at these numbers.
270. 00:14:40 The only thing that's like there's a lot of numbers here.
271. 00:14:44 I remember the quiz was the survey was giving me some explanations of where these numbers
272. 00:14:51 came from.
273. 00:14:53 I noticed like where it's maxed out, yours and mine match on everything except time management.
274. 00:14:59 Do those max numbers change depending on the person going through it?
275. 00:15:04 Let's see.
276. 00:15:05 So let's look at the raw scores.
277. 00:15:06 I'm 22 out of 24 on time management.
278. 00:15:10 You were 13 out of 24.
279. 00:15:12 So basically what that maxed out 70 is saying, remember this is a bell curve.
280. 00:15:18 So this time management specifically has probably shifted more towards the low end in terms
281. 00:15:25 of people generally sucking at this, which is why it looks like that bar is maximized.
282. 00:15:30 But I guess technically, you know, 22 out of 24, that's not 100% in terms of my responses.
283. 00:15:36 Same thing with equipment ethic.
284. 00:15:38 That's 23 out of 24.
285. 00:15:40 But because of the bell curve, like it's close enough that it basically is, yeah, you're
286. 00:15:43 in the 100th percentile or whatever.
287. 00:15:45 Sure.
288. 00:15:46 All right.
289. 00:15:47 That makes sense.
290. 00:15:48 Well, I will say this was a fascinating process to go through.
291. 00:15:52 Definitely told me some things I was not not aware of, but also not oblivious to.
292. 00:16:00 So take that for what it's worth.
293. 00:16:03 Yes, there was a lot there.
294. 00:16:05 I was grateful for having gone through this.
295. 00:16:07 So thank you for sending this to me.
296. 00:16:08 I have no idea the value of what you sent me.
297. 00:16:11 So thanks.
298. 00:16:12 Well, I gave you, I think, the whole bundle.
299. 00:16:17 So if you wanted to go through and look at the curriculum associated with those areas,
300. 00:16:20 actually, the assessment will automatically assign the lowest areas.
301. 00:16:24 And then you can go through the skill building as a post assessment at the end, which kind
302. 00:16:27 of documents your growth.
303. 00:16:29 So sure, if you're curious, you know, you can continue to work on it.
304. 00:16:32 But otherwise, you know, you can be done too.
305. 00:16:35 All right.
306. 00:16:36 Well, thank you.
307. 00:16:37 I'm looking at the rest of follow up.
308. 00:16:40 We got a few things to go through here.
309. 00:16:42 Quick note again on memberships.
310. 00:16:45 We are live right now.
311. 00:16:46 So premium members of the Bookworm Club.
312. 00:16:49 Hi.
313. 00:16:50 Hello.
314. 00:16:51 We're talking to you right now.
315. 00:16:53 There is a chat that you can jump in if you are listening and you have a point of clarification,
316. 00:17:00 you know, let us know.
317. 00:17:02 We'll be glad to try to answer those on the show.
318. 00:17:06 So let's see.
319. 00:17:07 What else do we have here?
320. 00:17:09 Oh, I added a calendar.
321. 00:17:11 Somebody mentioned putting a calendar on the Bookworm Club.
322. 00:17:16 We'll put a link to this in the show notes, but it's on club.bookworm.fm.
323. 00:17:21 And I still have to teach Mike how to put things on this calendar.
324. 00:17:25 But the thinking is that we'll try to post when we have a live show coming up.
325. 00:17:31 If Mike is up for it posting, when episodes will drop.
326. 00:17:35 And if we do any other sort of thing going on, like, I'll probably put max stock on it.
327. 00:17:39 Like that sort of thing, trying to keep all of them.
328. 00:17:42 Everything is going on around Bookworm on that calendar.
329. 00:17:45 We should probably do the same thing for faith-based productivity, Mike.
330. 00:17:48 That just occurred to me.
331. 00:17:49 Probably so many things.
332. 00:17:52 Yes.
333. 00:17:53 Yes.
334. 00:17:54 Well, let's get Bookworm nailed down first.
335. 00:17:57 All right.
336. 00:17:59 Oh, fun times.
337. 00:18:02 Speaking of max stock, that's coming up very quickly.
338. 00:18:05 Do you still have a coupon code for this?
339. 00:18:06 I do.
340. 00:18:07 Somebody asked me the other day, actually.
341. 00:18:09 So I was going to bring it up anyways.
342. 00:18:12 If you go to the max stock website, which I believe is maxstockconferenceandexpo.com
343. 00:18:18 and register, there's no special link.
344. 00:18:21 But if you use the coupon code FOCUSED, then you will get $70 off of the weekend pass,
345. 00:18:28 which right now is $249.
346. 00:18:30 So it's essentially the early bird pricing.
347. 00:18:33 It's a good chunk of change.
348. 00:18:34 It's like a 30% discount.
349. 00:18:36 So if you haven't bought your ticket yet and you're going to go, make sure to use that
350. 00:18:39 coupon code, save a bunch of money.
351. 00:18:41 There you go.
352. 00:18:42 And come see Jo and myself.
353. 00:18:44 Yeah, we'll say hi.
354. 00:18:45 It'll be fun.
355. 00:18:46 There's quite a few folks going.
356. 00:18:48 I was on a call with a friend this morning.
357. 00:18:50 We were talking through some things about max stock.
358. 00:18:52 So yeah, it's going to be a good time.
359. 00:18:54 There's going to be a lot of folks there.
360. 00:18:55 It'll be a big event.
361. 00:18:57 It seems to grow every year, so it'll be fun.
362. 00:18:59 FOCUSED, should we get into action items from last time?
363. 00:19:03 Yeah.
364. 00:19:04 I have three, one of which you just talked about.
365. 00:19:06 Take the survey.
366. 00:19:07 I did it.
367. 00:19:08 I did my thing.
368. 00:19:09 Done.
369. 00:19:10 Good job.
370. 00:19:11 I also have been trying to pay attention to my emotions multiple times throughout the
371. 00:19:14 day.
372. 00:19:15 Mike recommended this app mood notes.
373. 00:19:19 I have to say that's been enlightening.
374. 00:19:21 I've been trying to check in with that three or four times a day and just note what's going
375. 00:19:25 on, the feelings specifically I have at that time.
376. 00:19:29 I'm trying to use it as much as I can so that it has more data on me.
377. 00:19:37 Sometimes I like seeing the results from that sort of thing and sometimes it terrifies
378. 00:19:40 me.
379. 00:19:41 This one's kind of in between.
380. 00:19:43 Sometimes I'm really excited to go look at those.
381. 00:19:44 Sometimes I really don't want to go look at it.
382. 00:19:47 Here we are.
383. 00:19:48 Mood notes.
384. 00:19:49 I like it.
385. 00:19:50 It's a good one.
386. 00:19:51 I like that.
387. 00:19:52 It's not free.
388. 00:19:53 I don't know how much it was, but it's helpful.
389. 00:19:55 I'll say that.
390. 00:19:57 The last one I have here is building optimism into my thoughts.
391. 00:20:00 I have a habit of focusing on the negative things and being critical of both myself
392. 00:20:04 and others way more than I should.
393. 00:20:07 I'm trying to give that a 180 and reverse that.
394. 00:20:11 All right.
395. 00:20:12 I don't know how that's going.
396. 00:20:14 So you pull the mic and pick the action item that is impossible to measure your sink.
397. 00:20:20 Yeah.
398. 00:20:21 I'm going to think this way.
399. 00:20:22 I dare you to measure that.
400. 00:20:25 Yeah.
401. 00:20:26 So here I am.
402. 00:20:28 We'll see.
403. 00:20:29 I'm continuing to work on that one.
404. 00:20:31 I still stink at it, but here we are.
405. 00:20:34 It's still, it will be a thing for a while, I think.
406. 00:20:38 All right.
407. 00:20:39 You just had one.
408. 00:20:40 Yeah.
409. 00:20:41 My one action item was to identify the emotional fault lines in my marriage and my wife listened
410. 00:20:47 to the episode.
411. 00:20:48 She said she wanted to do the same thing for me.
412. 00:20:51 I've been taking notes.
413. 00:20:52 We haven't had the conversation yet about these are the things that I feel cause stress
414. 00:20:59 in our relationship, but even without sitting down and comparing those notes, there have
415. 00:21:04 been a couple things that we have talked about because of this action item where something
416. 00:21:09 happens and I'm like, okay, so this is what I'm thinking when this happens and this is
417. 00:21:15 really stressful.
418. 00:21:16 She's like, oh, didn't know you were thinking that way.
419. 00:21:19 So I'll figure out a different way to do that.
420. 00:21:22 Sure.
421. 00:21:23 A lot of it has to do with us trying to get five kids out the door in two places in a
422. 00:21:30 timely manner.
423. 00:21:31 Wait, that's hard?
424. 00:21:33 I didn't know that.
425. 00:21:34 Well, it's hard, but we make it harder than it needs to be sometimes.
426. 00:21:38 So we're kind of in the maybe identification or phase of that where it's like we recognize
427. 00:21:45 that when we wait until the last minute and then, okay, everybody get in the car.
428. 00:21:49 Like that just creates a baseline of stress and that's usually when there are issues.
429. 00:21:56 Somebody hits somebody and somebody's balling in the car, you know, is pulling out the driveway.
430. 00:22:00 Like sure, we can do a better job setting the tone and being calm and in control and
431. 00:22:06 moving people in the direction that we need to go.
432. 00:22:09 Like if we just don't be so frantic on our end, it has an amazing exponential effect
433. 00:22:16 throughout five separate kids.
434. 00:22:18 Yes.
435. 00:22:19 In terms of the whole sounds stupid to use the word culture in a car, right?
436. 00:22:24 But that's kind of what it is.
437. 00:22:26 Like, I don't know, you can feel the stress.
438. 00:22:29 You can cut the tension with a knife when we don't do it right.
439. 00:22:33 And when we do do it right, it just makes everything simpler.
440. 00:22:35 So that's one specific example of something that has happened from this action item,
441. 00:22:41 but there's more to come, I'm sure.
442. 00:22:43 Well, I wish you the best of luck with that.
443. 00:22:44 I know that kids tend to like they mimic your attitude.
444. 00:22:51 Exactly.
445. 00:22:52 So if you're stressed and hurrying and trying to get out the door, like they'll tend to
446. 00:22:55 do the same thing, but that has a tendency to clash.
447. 00:22:59 Yep.
448. 00:23:00 Yeah.
449. 00:23:01 They very much reflect what you don't even see yourself a lot of times.
450. 00:23:08 So that is a very keen observation.
451. 00:23:11 All right.
452. 00:23:13 We better get into this book.
453. 00:23:15 Yeah.
454. 00:23:16 Okay.
455. 00:23:17 Pretty psycho.
456. 00:23:18 So today's book is free to focus by Michael Hyatt.
457. 00:23:22 And the subtitle is a total productivity system to achieve more by doing less.
458. 00:23:28 So that kind of sets the tone for a systems book, which I mentioned, I'm not a huge fan
459. 00:23:33 of, but I like this book more than I thought I would.
460. 00:23:38 So want to just jump right into it.
461. 00:23:41 I read this in two days.
462. 00:23:43 I read you.
463. 00:23:44 Wow.
464. 00:23:45 So you couldn't put it down.
465. 00:23:46 I couldn't put it down.
466. 00:23:49 And I attribute that to Michael Hyatt being phenomenal at writing because he's really
467. 00:23:55 good at writing.
468. 00:23:56 I'll give him that for sure.
469. 00:23:58 He is really good at writing.
470. 00:23:59 What's interesting though is I had the same, same reaction.
471. 00:24:04 Like I just want to keep reading this.
472. 00:24:08 But also if you look at my my node file, I don't have a single quote captured, which
473. 00:24:18 I think that's like the first time ever that that's happened.
474. 00:24:21 So he's a great writer.
475. 00:24:23 I feel like, you know, there's a lot of emphasis in the, the productivity.
476. 00:24:28 Like when you, when you write online, there's even like apps that try to get you to, to
477. 00:24:33 write at a, like a fifth grade level or something.
478. 00:24:35 So it's easier to read.
479. 00:24:37 I feel like Michael Hyatt did such a good job with that that nothing was really memorable
480. 00:24:42 for me from like some specific phrase that he used.
481. 00:24:46 Yeah.
482. 00:24:47 Which I thought was, was interesting.
483. 00:24:48 I mean, it doesn't, doesn't detract from the message of the book at all.
484. 00:24:51 I don't think, but I was kind of surprised by that.
485. 00:24:53 Yeah.
486. 00:24:54 I didn't underline anything.
487. 00:24:55 Like that's how I tend to do things is I'll underline it, make notes like an in, in,
488. 00:24:59 in index in the back, which is a thing I stole from, from Maria, Popova and Tim Ferris.
489. 00:25:07 And I'm, I'm sure a lot of people, it's a pretty common thing anymore.
490. 00:25:11 But I, I normally do that.
491. 00:25:13 I have none on this.
492. 00:25:16 And I think you're right on that.
493. 00:25:17 Another thing, a thing to point out is, and I don't remember where he mentioned, it was
494. 00:25:21 probably in the automation section about, or the delegation where he had someone else
495. 00:25:26 take a lot of his posts and the content that he's already written and compile it into this.
496. 00:25:31 Hmm.
497. 00:25:32 Okay.
498. 00:25:33 So someone else was heavily involved in getting this book put together.
499. 00:25:36 And then he basically just edited it later.
500. 00:25:39 Gotcha.
501. 00:25:41 Something along those lines.
502. 00:25:42 I'm probably botching that to some degree, but someone else was heavily involved in
503. 00:25:47 getting this written that wasn't Michael Hyatt.
504. 00:25:51 And for whatever reason, that really irked me.
505. 00:25:55 Like it, it really, really bugged me.
506. 00:25:57 So I don't remember reading that, but that wouldn't surprise me.
507. 00:26:01 I do recall thinking Grammarly did too good a job.
508. 00:26:05 Yeah.
509. 00:26:06 Yeah.
510. 00:26:07 But.
511. 00:26:08 All right.
512. 00:26:10 So this book is broken into three sections as you do.
513. 00:26:14 And the first section.
514. 00:26:15 Those sections are in three sections.
515. 00:26:17 Yes.
516. 00:26:18 This is the ultimate book of threes.
517. 00:26:20 So the first section is the first step in his process to regaining focus.
518. 00:26:26 And that is to stop.
519. 00:26:27 Step two is to cut.
520. 00:26:28 Step three is to act.
521. 00:26:30 Let's talk about these in order.
522. 00:26:33 So we'll start with stop and because there's three chapters in each, I think we can crank
523. 00:26:37 through these pretty quickly and get the main ideas.
524. 00:26:40 But we don't necessarily need to hit on every single chapter if we need to skip around
525. 00:26:46 too, because there are some chapters that have key ideas.
526. 00:26:49 Some feel or just like he put it there because he needed three.
527. 00:26:55 Yeah.
528. 00:26:56 So the first chapter formulate, he mentions another list of three.
529. 00:27:03 He has three common productivity objectives.
530. 00:27:06 Number one is efficiency.
531. 00:27:08 Number two is success.
532. 00:27:10 And number three is freedom.
533. 00:27:12 I actually really liked this part.
534. 00:27:14 I think this is one of the strongest messages that Michael Hyatt teaches is this whole idea
535. 00:27:21 of productivity being the key to creating the freedom that you want.
536. 00:27:26 So he mentions freedom to focus, freedom to be present, freedom to be spontaneous, freedom
537. 00:27:30 to do nothing.
538. 00:27:31 I mean, you can insert your own definition there, freedom to blank.
539. 00:27:36 But I feel like that is the big idea behind the whole book and is something that everybody
540. 00:27:44 can relate to.
541. 00:27:45 Yeah.
542. 00:27:46 I see how that could be a big thing.
543. 00:27:51 I mean, essentially he's trying to define productivity at this point.
544. 00:27:55 I don't argue with him on that.
545. 00:27:58 And I think it's, and maybe this is what hooked me on this.
546. 00:28:02 He did a very good job of hooking me in this book because I, my sense is like he's not
547. 00:28:07 trying to, let me back up with this being a systems focused book.
548. 00:28:13 Yes, it's systems, but at the same time it's, it's a higher level of system.
549. 00:28:20 Like GTD was ground level, show me how to manage, you know, keeping track of, I need
550. 00:28:27 to change this light bulb.
551. 00:28:29 Like that, that was the level that GTD was operating on, is operating on this.
552. 00:28:35 Michael Hyatt system here is at a higher level.
553. 00:28:38 Like it's along the lines of how do you go about deciding which projects and which areas
554. 00:28:44 of life you're going to be working on.
555. 00:28:46 Like that was, that was the level that he's operating on.
556. 00:28:49 So it's not like those two are competing.
557. 00:28:53 Like they definitely can work together.
558. 00:28:56 And my sense is that a lot of these systems focused books like to go down at the task level
559. 00:29:03 and operate there, not all of them, but this one has a tendency to be at the higher level.
560. 00:29:08 And that's where he starts off with this is like, what's the point of this whole book
561. 00:29:14 and the whole thing.
562. 00:29:16 And it's a much higher level than a lot of the others that we've operated with.
563. 00:29:19 Which is refreshing.
564. 00:29:20 Yeah, it really is.
565. 00:29:22 And maybe that's why it was a quick read and one that I didn't want to put down because
566. 00:29:26 you don't really see that level of things talked about in this detail very often.
567. 00:29:30 Sure.
568. 00:29:31 Yeah.
569. 00:29:32 Yeah.
570. 00:29:33 One quick thing that he mentions in here under the efficiency is that smartphones have promised
571. 00:29:38 to make things easier and give you more free time, but they don't deliver on that.
572. 00:29:43 And obviously, Cal Newport wrote a whole book on that topic, but I feel like the key idea
573. 00:29:48 here and is maybe a mindset shift for a lot of people who do view productivity as simply
574. 00:29:53 the efficiency is that productivity should ultimately give you back more time, not require
575. 00:29:59 more of you.
576. 00:30:01 My opinion, when you are focused on efficiency, you're just trying to get a little bit more
577. 00:30:06 breathing room.
578. 00:30:08 The tendency then is to fill that space that you've created with your efficiency with more
579. 00:30:13 things.
580. 00:30:15 And then you try to get a little bit more efficiency.
581. 00:30:17 And eventually, you are running so fast that you have absolutely no space.
582. 00:30:22 Like if you're going 100 miles on the highway, you're following at a car's length, the person
583. 00:30:27 in front of you.
584. 00:30:28 And as soon as they have to stop, you crash.
585. 00:30:31 Yep.
586. 00:30:32 And the freedom, the space, that gives you more margin, you have more of a buffer.
587. 00:30:38 And so things don't have to end up in a cosmic derailment of everything that you're doing.
588. 00:30:45 You don't have to drop all the plates.
589. 00:30:47 You just have to choose.
590. 00:30:48 I'm not going to keep spinning these ones.
591. 00:30:50 Exactly.
592. 00:30:51 Now, you get towards the end of this chapter.
593. 00:30:55 Every chapter has like an action item with it, like something you should sit down and go
594. 00:31:00 through and do.
595. 00:31:02 Did you do this?
596. 00:31:03 I started to.
597. 00:31:05 And then I realized that if I did do that, there was no way I was going to get through
598. 00:31:07 it in a timely fashion.
599. 00:31:10 So I downloaded the first form.
600. 00:31:13 I can't remember what it was because I remember looking at it, spending a couple minutes thinking
601. 00:31:16 about it and then deciding this is going to be like 100 hours of work if I do all of
602. 00:31:21 this.
603. 00:31:22 So I'm just going to skip this.
604. 00:31:23 I do, I will say though, that the exercises and the resources that he have with this would
605. 00:31:28 be worthwhile to do.
606. 00:31:29 From a bookworm perspective, just getting the thing done, I kind of feel like there was
607. 00:31:33 another book that we covered where we had to kind of not do it the way they intended.
608. 00:31:36 I think it was Think and Girl Rich by Napoleon Hill.
609. 00:31:39 No, that was.
610. 00:31:41 Isn't that the one where he said, "Make sure you only do like one of these a month or something?"
611. 00:31:47 That was the one with the morning pages in it.
612. 00:31:49 I'm trying to blank on the name of the book.
613. 00:31:50 Oh, The Artist Way by Julia Cameron.
614. 00:31:52 There you go.
615. 00:31:53 Could be that one too.
616. 00:31:54 I swear Napoleon Hill was like that too.
617. 00:31:56 Right at the beginning, he's like, "This is the right way to read this book."
618. 00:31:59 Right.
619. 00:32:00 And so I completely agree that that is the right way to read this book.
620. 00:32:04 However, I did not do all of that.
621. 00:32:07 Well, I did.
622. 00:32:08 I did do all of these.
623. 00:32:09 It didn't take me as long, but it was partly because I kind of knew a lot of the answers
624. 00:32:14 to it before I got started, but I did want to go through it in the detail.
625. 00:32:20 And the very first one that I went to, it did exactly what I expected Michael Hyatt to
626. 00:32:27 do.
627. 00:32:28 It required me to put in an email address in order to get the forms.
628. 00:32:34 And I immediately started getting emails for events and classes and something almost
629. 00:32:41 every day.
630. 00:32:44 That was incredibly frustrating.
631. 00:32:47 I get enough of this stuff and for that to just bombard me that much that fast was ridiculous.
632. 00:32:54 So I fully expected that.
633. 00:32:58 That's kind of the Michael Hyatt thing.
634. 00:33:00 Like I get it.
635. 00:33:01 I'm sure it works.
636. 00:33:02 It probably brings a lot of income in for him.
637. 00:33:05 I just have a tendency to not buy any of it because it drives me nuts.
638. 00:33:08 Now you know how I really feel.
639. 00:33:10 That said, I did go ahead and download all the things and they were helpful.
640. 00:33:14 Like the the forums and things, they were helpful.
641. 00:33:17 I wouldn't say that they were, I don't want to say groundbreaking it.
642. 00:33:21 Like it's exactly what you expect.
643. 00:33:22 He could have said, like he could have given you a couple questions and put them in the
644. 00:33:27 book and you could have gone and grabbed just a blank piece of paper and answered those
645. 00:33:31 questions and it would have been perfectly fine.
646. 00:33:33 Sure.
647. 00:33:34 But he did this whole heavily produced and formatted and designed forms to get where he
648. 00:33:42 wanted to go.
649. 00:33:43 I get it.
650. 00:33:44 I mean, if you want an email address, it's a great way to do it.
651. 00:33:46 Well, I'm sure those forms are coming from his free to focus course.
652. 00:33:50 Yeah.
653. 00:33:51 I'm sure they already existed and so that's kind of where he's pointing people.
654. 00:33:54 I get it.
655. 00:33:55 I do.
656. 00:33:56 Again, I'm not arguing that that's the wrong way to do it.
657. 00:34:01 It's just exactly what I expected in that scenario.
658. 00:34:04 Again, the forum was helpful, but here we are.
659. 00:34:08 It's worthwhile to know that that is the approach that he had when he wrote this.
660. 00:34:13 This is not something that like, I've got to get this message out there.
661. 00:34:16 The message already exists in the form of a digital course and the book was created in
662. 00:34:20 order to sell more courses.
663. 00:34:22 Yeah.
664. 00:34:23 Yeah.
665. 00:34:24 So keep that in mind.
666. 00:34:25 And that's exactly what it is.
667. 00:34:26 I mean, you go through it.
668. 00:34:27 You cannot get away from the fact that there's a course on a bunch of other materials that
669. 00:34:31 you can purchase around this.
670. 00:34:33 Exactly.
671. 00:34:34 I mean, it's exactly what you think.
672. 00:34:36 There's even a planner and a journal and stuff that you can buy that have all the branding
673. 00:34:40 and such for this.
674. 00:34:41 So it's exactly what you would expect in that sense.
675. 00:34:44 But that said, I'm rambling, complaining maybe.
676. 00:34:48 At the end of each chapter, there are these action items to go through.
677. 00:34:52 I did do all of these because I wanted to give it a full run.
678. 00:34:58 The first, I think probably the first five or six, I did 100% exactly the way he was expecting.
679. 00:35:07 Then they started to get a little light on impact and I let him drop off towards that
680. 00:35:14 point.
681. 00:35:15 I still did them, but didn't do them as thoroughly as I think he wanted me to.
682. 00:35:18 Well, I did them not at all.
683. 00:35:20 All right.
684. 00:35:21 Well, now that we know Mike didn't do it, let's go on to chapter two.
685. 00:35:28 I should probably defend myself at some point here and say that I know where he's pointing
686. 00:35:34 with these because I have gone through not in its entirety, but I have seen the free to
687. 00:35:39 focus course.
688. 00:35:41 So I know where he's driving people with this sort of thing.
689. 00:35:47 And I completely agree that there's value in asking the right questions and getting the
690. 00:35:51 clarity of like, what is the next step?
691. 00:35:53 But yeah, that's not what I did.
692. 00:35:56 All right.
693. 00:35:57 So next chapter number two, evaluate.
694. 00:36:00 This is where he introduces the freedom compass, which is probably one of the central pillar
695. 00:36:08 ideas in this book and this system.
696. 00:36:11 I have a couple of issues with this.
697. 00:36:14 But let's just describe what this is.
698. 00:36:17 So there's this compass and in the book, it's kind of offset a little bit where you've
699. 00:36:24 got like the standard two by two grid and you've got on the X axis, let's say, proficient
700. 00:36:34 and not proficient.
701. 00:36:36 And on the Y axis, you've got passionate or not passionate.
702. 00:36:40 He just uses this compass to define these zones and he breaks it into four different
703. 00:36:46 areas or four different squares.
704. 00:36:48 If you were to do the two by two matrix sort of a thing, you've got the desire zone, which
705. 00:36:53 is where you are both passionate and proficient.
706. 00:36:57 You've got the zone two is the distraction zone where you have passion, but no proficiency.
707. 00:37:02 The third zone is the disinterest zone where you have no passion, but you do have proficiency
708. 00:37:06 and the drudgery zone is where you have neither passion nor proficiency.
709. 00:37:11 Now my issue with this is in the use of the word passion.
710. 00:37:17 I get it.
711. 00:37:18 You can tell like he has spent so much time trying to get a iteration throughout all
712. 00:37:24 of this book, like the different zones, desire, distraction, disinterest, drudgery, like they're
713. 00:37:29 all these, you know, and he's got the two different scales, passionate, proficient.
714. 00:37:32 Like I know he picked those because they both started with P.
715. 00:37:36 But I don't think passion really means what he's saying here.
716. 00:37:44 And we don't need to unpack that whole discussion, but just real briefly, in my book and my
717. 00:37:51 course, I kind of unpack that the root of the word passion is the Latin word petite and
718. 00:37:57 it literally means to suffer.
719. 00:37:59 So what he's saying, like the desire zone where you have passion and proficiency, these
720. 00:38:05 are things that you really enjoy doing.
721. 00:38:08 That's kind of the picture that I get.
722. 00:38:10 Whereas true passion is things that are really important to you.
723. 00:38:15 And the whole name, the desire zone makes it seem like this is the fun zone.
724. 00:38:19 This is where you want to be, right?
725. 00:38:20 And I agree.
726. 00:38:21 You should bring passion into everything that you do.
727. 00:38:24 But that's the other thing is like if there are areas where you don't have passion, there
728. 00:38:29 are things that you can do to apply passion to those specific tasks or projects or even
729. 00:38:36 the job that you're in.
730. 00:38:38 I think it was micro of dirty jobs that said don't follow your passion, but always bring
731. 00:38:41 it with you.
732. 00:38:42 Like I believe that that's true.
733. 00:38:43 You can do that.
734. 00:38:44 And I feel like Michael Hyatt kind of touches on that idea a little bit.
735. 00:38:49 But if you just look at this compass, you get, it's very easy to get an inaccurate view
736. 00:38:55 of what this really means.
737. 00:38:57 Yeah, that's fair.
738. 00:38:58 I went through this and like part one of the action M's he has from the first is to write
739. 00:39:06 down some of the tasks that you would normally do in a week.
740. 00:39:11 And then when you finish this, the goal is to go through and like put your tasks into
741. 00:39:16 each of these zones.
742. 00:39:18 And then you go through a process over the next three or four chapters of figuring out
743. 00:39:23 what to do with those.
744. 00:39:25 Now, my first thought was, well, yeah, that's kind of cool.
745. 00:39:30 But at the same time, I was like, I'm not going to do this regularly.
746. 00:39:34 Exactly.
747. 00:39:35 This is not something like like I started trying to follow a lot of this entire system, which
748. 00:39:39 we'll get into in a little bit.
749. 00:39:42 The first week after I finished this book and I'll be honest, like this is a cool compass,
750. 00:39:49 but I've not thought about it since I did that homework assignment and finished the book.
751. 00:39:53 Like it's not even been on my radar since then.
752. 00:39:56 So I can't say it's something that's got long term impact.
753. 00:40:00 It's kind of a neat concept, but for me, it just kind of stops there.
754. 00:40:03 Yeah.
755. 00:40:04 And ultimately what he's trying to get you to identify there are the, I would argue is
756. 00:40:07 the same thing as the three questions that I ask in my personal retreat course, which
757. 00:40:11 you know, I ask those once in order.
758. 00:40:13 That's as often as I check in with those, but what should I start doing?
759. 00:40:16 What should I stop doing?
760. 00:40:17 What should I keep doing?
761. 00:40:19 So the things that are in your desire zone is, as Michael Hyatt would define it, things
762. 00:40:25 that you're passionate and proficient about, those are the things that you should keep
763. 00:40:27 doing.
764. 00:40:28 The things that you should start doing are things that aren't currently on your compass
765. 00:40:32 that would fall into that category.
766. 00:40:34 And the things that you should stop doing are all of the stuff that is in zone four or
767. 00:40:39 zone three or maybe even zone two.
768. 00:40:41 That's probably the progression there.
769. 00:40:43 Start with zone four, cut that stuff out.
770. 00:40:45 Then zone three, cut those out, zone two, cut those out as a trim it as much as you can.
771. 00:40:48 Yep.
772. 00:40:49 That's exactly what he was talking about.
773. 00:40:51 But he gets into that in the second step of the whole system, the cut section.
774. 00:40:55 But yes, evaluate.
775. 00:40:56 I mean, he's talking about paying attention to the work that you do and making decisions
776. 00:41:04 about what to do with those specific things and then trying to focus your time on the
777. 00:41:08 ones that you're truly passionate about to use his term and proficient, Mike.
778. 00:41:13 That's where you need to spend all your time.
779. 00:41:15 Yes.
780. 00:41:16 Which, by the way, we should probably define those real quick.
781. 00:41:18 He defines passion as work that you love that energizes you.
782. 00:41:22 So right there, I disagree with that.
783. 00:41:24 But proficiency, he says, this is how well you do something.
784. 00:41:27 It's your skills plus the contribution that you can make, the effectiveness of what you're
785. 00:41:32 doing basically.
786. 00:41:33 Did he mention Mahali in this section?
787. 00:41:35 That just occurred to me.
788. 00:41:37 I don't think so.
789. 00:41:39 I don't have any notes for that.
790. 00:41:40 Usually I write down any time any time it's Mahali.
791. 00:41:42 I have that.
792. 00:41:43 Maybe I've mentioned this.
793. 00:41:44 A list of things.
794. 00:41:47 Someday I'm going to write either a long essay or a book about books, like a book about nonfiction
795. 00:41:52 books.
796. 00:41:53 There's a list I've got collected of things that you have to mention when you write a
797. 00:41:57 nonfiction book.
798. 00:42:00 One of those is you have to mention Apple and Steve Jobs in some way.
799. 00:42:03 You have to mention Mahali and Flow in some way.
800. 00:42:07 Every single book has these in them.
801. 00:42:09 You cannot write a nonfiction book without mentioning these people or these companies
802. 00:42:13 in some way.
803. 00:42:14 You have to talk about how willpower is limited.
804. 00:42:17 Exactly.
805. 00:42:18 It's a muscle.
806. 00:42:19 You can grow.
807. 00:42:20 You can have a growth mindset.
808. 00:42:21 Like these are...
809. 00:42:22 Yes.
810. 00:42:23 Anyway.
811. 00:42:24 All right.
812. 00:42:25 So, chapter three.
813. 00:42:26 So, in this chapter, there really wasn't a whole lot that I thought was substantial.
814. 00:42:32 There is a list of seven practices to renew your personal energy.
815. 00:42:37 There are books written on every single one of these.
816. 00:42:40 So this is a very high level and kind of pointless review in my opinion.
817. 00:42:47 But just real quickly, they are get enough sleep.
818. 00:42:51 Number two, make sure to eat the right things.
819. 00:42:53 Number three, move.
820. 00:42:54 Number four, connect.
821. 00:42:55 Number five, play.
822. 00:42:56 Number six, reflect.
823. 00:42:58 Number seven, unplug.
824. 00:43:00 Did you get anything out of revolutionary out of that section?
825. 00:43:05 This whole chapter, I mean, I'm in a stage where I'm very heavily focused on trying to
826. 00:43:13 improve my health and trying to take care of myself.
827. 00:43:18 So to me, this chapter, I don't want to say it was important, but it was interesting to
828. 00:43:23 categorize different types of rejuvenation practices.
829. 00:43:26 Sure.
830. 00:43:27 So it was interesting to me to see, okay, there's these seven different types of rejuvenating
831. 00:43:33 activities that I can embark on.
832. 00:43:36 I hadn't really thought about it in breaking down things in this way.
833. 00:43:43 Something I thought about, and he kind of alludes to this of trying to make sure that
834. 00:43:46 you're building these things into every week.
835. 00:43:49 Some of them are habits, like sleeping well, that needs to be a good habit.
836. 00:43:52 Eating well, it's a good habit.
837. 00:43:53 Move and exercise, those are habits that are routine based.
838. 00:43:57 Those connecting with other people, giving yourself space to play and taking the time
839. 00:44:03 to reflect, that's probably an area that I could improve on, but I hadn't really thought
840. 00:44:07 about scheduling time with myself each week for those.
841. 00:44:11 Sure.
842. 00:44:12 Okay.
843. 00:44:13 I hadn't gotten to that point.
844. 00:44:14 That part was of interest, but again, I also haven't really thought about this much since
845. 00:44:19 I finished reading the book, so I can't say it has a long-term impact again.
846. 00:44:23 Sure.
847. 00:44:24 I feel like these seven things is regurgitating a lot of this stuff that I've studied in
848. 00:44:31 the productivity space the last several years.
849. 00:44:33 If you've never heard this stuff before, I could see it being impactful, but just describing
850. 00:44:39 each one of them very quickly like he did, I don't think there was a whole lot there.
851. 00:44:45 I did think that his section on the rule of 50, which is basically the more hours you
852. 00:44:49 work past 50, the less productive you are in a given week, that was kind of interesting
853. 00:44:54 because he clearly articulates the old way versus the new way of time management, I guess,
854. 00:45:02 or just how you quantify your productivity.
855. 00:45:06 He says that the old way, your energy is fixed, but time conflicts.
856. 00:45:10 And the new way, time is fixed, but energy conflicts.
857. 00:45:12 And I think that's a really powerful idea.
858. 00:45:15 And I've definitely seen that myself, where you have the time to do something, but if you
859. 00:45:19 are just completely drained, you are not going to sit down and create those screencasts for
860. 00:45:23 the course that you needed delivered by Friday.
861. 00:45:26 So I feel like the way he described that was really good.
862. 00:45:31 It wasn't just like, hey, you need to manage your energy, but this is the way people have
863. 00:45:35 traditionally thought about this is that whenever you sit down and work, you're going to have
864. 00:45:38 energy, and so you have to manage your time.
865. 00:45:41 But a better way to do that is that the time is fixed, but if you can make sure that you
866. 00:45:45 have the energy that you need to going into it, you are going to get more done.
867. 00:45:49 You're going to be more productive.
868. 00:45:50 And so if you can put a cap on the number of hours that you're going to work in a week,
869. 00:45:55 whether that's 50, the rule of 50 or 40 or 30, whatever, then you approach it this way.
870. 00:46:02 You might be surprised at what you're able to accomplish in less time.
871. 00:46:05 I will say this.
872. 00:46:06 I met with, in the midst of all my physical health stuff, I've met with my main doctor
873. 00:46:14 now, the specialist that's helping me through things.
874. 00:46:17 And she has helped me put together the first four of these.
875. 00:46:21 So sleep, eat, move, connect.
876. 00:46:25 So before I read this, I had been in a process already of making sure that those were regularly
877. 00:46:32 something I do either via habit or by putting them on the calendar on a regular basis.
878. 00:46:37 The last three play reflect unplugged.
879. 00:46:41 Six and seven reflect an unplugged digital minimalism, really put me into those spaces
880. 00:46:47 pretty heavily.
881. 00:46:49 Probably play a little bit too, Mike.
882. 00:46:52 Definitely the unplugged piece.
883. 00:46:54 So that's why I say I don't think that this specific section was the piece that really
884. 00:46:59 triggered a lot of that for me because of one, the stuff I had done with my doctor and Cal
885. 00:47:04 Newport's book.
886. 00:47:05 Like between those two, this was just review.
887. 00:47:09 Now, again, I think your point is spot on.
888. 00:47:12 Like if this is brand new, which I guess this book is really geared towards people who have
889. 00:47:16 no clue with the productivity world.
890. 00:47:19 If that's you, this could be very impactful.
891. 00:47:21 I could definitely see that.
892. 00:47:23 Yeah, I kind of think that even if you are brand new to it, there's not enough meat here
893. 00:47:28 to cause you to really take action on this stuff.
894. 00:47:31 Maybe there's a thing here or a thing there.
895. 00:47:34 And you know, if all you did was start sleeping better after reading this book, that's still
896. 00:47:38 a win.
897. 00:47:39 So I don't know, I kind of have mixed opinions on this.
898. 00:47:43 I kind of feel like on the one hand, why is this even in here?
899. 00:47:47 Sure, sure.
900. 00:47:48 But on the other hand, like how can you move on without talking about it?
901. 00:47:52 So yeah, that's fair.
902. 00:47:53 I don't know.
903. 00:47:54 That's fair.
904. 00:47:55 One of my action items did come from this section though.
905. 00:47:58 So maybe I'm just a big hypocrite here because as you mentioned, the connect section, like
906. 00:48:06 the people that you allow to speak into your life, the people that you're connected to,
907. 00:48:10 I recognized as I was reading that very brief section in here.
908. 00:48:15 And I'm not going to give Michael Hyatt really credit for this.
909. 00:48:18 But like as I was reading, even the back of my head, because I don't think I, I don't
910. 00:48:23 think he said this, but this is where my mind went was he's talking about connecting with
911. 00:48:28 the right people.
912. 00:48:29 You need to connect with people.
913. 00:48:30 You can't just be a hermit, whatever.
914. 00:48:31 I was thinking to myself, I need to cut out some voices from my life.
915. 00:48:37 So he's saying to connect, to rejuvenate, I am saying I need to stop connecting to the
916. 00:48:41 wrong things.
917. 00:48:43 So my action item here is to do a social audit and just go through and look at who am I talking
918. 00:48:52 to going through my messages app, for example, and seeing like who am I texting on a regular
919. 00:48:57 basis and then asking the questions that really I think I picked up from Jim Rohn.
920. 00:49:01 It's like, who is speaking into my life?
921. 00:49:03 What effect is that having or what are they doing to me?
922. 00:49:07 And is that okay?
923. 00:49:09 Because I feel that there are some stressors there that probably have a bigger impact on
924. 00:49:18 my overall state than I realize in the day to day.
925. 00:49:23 And I want to kind of take stock of all of the different inputs and figure out how to
926. 00:49:28 minimize the things that aren't bringing me joy, aren't bringing me life, aren't putting
927. 00:49:34 me in a positive mental state.
928. 00:49:37 And I know I'm not going to be able to eliminate all of them, but I feel like step one for me
929. 00:49:40 is just identifying, I don't even want to use the word toxic because there's some relationships
930. 00:49:46 like you can't get out of them and you really shouldn't.
931. 00:49:48 It's not truly toxic, but it is draining.
932. 00:49:51 It's not life giving.
933. 00:49:53 And it's I think worthwhile to recognize who those people are.
934. 00:49:58 These don't stop texting me.
935. 00:49:59 You have to worry.
936. 00:50:03 Thanks for that.
937. 00:50:04 So that brings us to the end of step one of stop.
938. 00:50:09 Step two is cut.
939. 00:50:12 And this is where we're referring to like that freedom compass where he was talking about
940. 00:50:17 the different types of tasks, like the drudgery tasks, the things that disinterest you, the
941. 00:50:24 distractions, and then the desire.
942. 00:50:29 Weird to me.
943. 00:50:30 But anyway, that whole process like taking the bottom three and how do you slowly or
944. 00:50:37 quickly get those off your plate so that you can focus on just the ones that you have
945. 00:50:42 both passion for and proficiency in.
946. 00:50:46 And the first step is the easy to say the hard to do in eliminate.
947. 00:50:54 Yes.
948. 00:50:55 Say no, Mike.
949. 00:50:56 Just say no.
950. 00:50:57 Well, I kind of have to a certain degree.
951. 00:51:02 I again can't share a whole ton of details yet, but my work situation is kind of changing
952. 00:51:09 and I've had to say no to a couple of things.
953. 00:51:11 And that's been difficult, but I've done it.
954. 00:51:14 And it's a positive net outcome.
955. 00:51:16 I know that that being said, even though I am technically following this advice, there's
956. 00:51:22 a whole section in here about how to get out of existing commitments that I was like,
957. 00:51:26 yeah, right.
958. 00:51:27 That doesn't work that way, not for most normal people.
959. 00:51:32 So I don't know.
960. 00:51:33 Maybe we should just talk about this and I'm interested to get your perspective on this.
961. 00:51:37 Okay.
962. 00:51:38 So how to get out of existing commitments?
963. 00:51:38 He says, number one, take responsibility for making the commitment.
964. 00:51:42 Number two, reaffirm your willingness to honor the commitment.
965. 00:51:45 Number three, explain why honoring your commitment is not the best outcome for the other party.
966. 00:51:49 Number four, offer to help solve the problem with them.
967. 00:51:52 Number five, accept the fact that you will be misunderstood.
968. 00:51:56 So that all sounds great, but what if they don't care?
969. 00:52:01 What if they just want you to do it?
970. 00:52:03 And what if that person happens to be important or you don't have the ability to say no to
971. 00:52:10 them?
972. 00:52:11 Maybe it's your boss, for example.
973. 00:52:12 Okay.
974. 00:52:13 So you follow all of this except for the key piece, which is actually follow through with
975. 00:52:18 the no.
976. 00:52:19 What happens when that gets challenged and you don't have the authority or the power
977. 00:52:24 to follow through with that?
978. 00:52:26 I don't know.
979. 00:52:28 And I guess as I'm thinking through this, there's a couple situations where I'm in the
980. 00:52:36 middle of something and we're trying to figure out what exactly this looks like.
981. 00:52:40 And on one level, I want to just apply this and get out of it, just be done.
982. 00:52:45 On the other hand, I kind of know in the back of my head that that's not the right way
983. 00:52:51 to handle this.
984. 00:52:52 This is something that I'm supposed to be doing.
985. 00:52:53 It's just we need to work through some of the kinks in order to make this work.
986. 00:52:57 Sure.
987. 00:52:58 Okay.
988. 00:52:59 So on the surface, according to the system, I have these things which are not in my desire
989. 00:53:06 zone.
990. 00:53:07 And Michael Hyatt would say, you should get rid of those.
991. 00:53:10 Here's how to get rid of those existing commitments.
992. 00:53:13 And then that five step process, I'm like, no, that's not going to work.
993. 00:53:19 So what do you do with that?
994. 00:53:21 You know, I'm not, I'm not really sure.
995. 00:53:25 So the steps you read off were the ones of saying no to new commitments.
996. 00:53:29 So was you meant to go through?
997. 00:53:31 No, this is how to get out of existing commitments.
998. 00:53:34 I was thinking the steps you mentioned were forgetting out of new ones.
999. 00:53:39 I know that like one of the big things I've always heard is like, if you've made a commitment
1000. 00:53:43 to something and you need to get out of it, the best thing you can do is make sure you
1001. 00:53:49 have a solution for whenever you say no.
1002. 00:53:51 Yes.
1003. 00:53:52 Who do you send them to or something to point that person to?
1004. 00:53:57 Like that's always important in the process.
1005. 00:54:01 But I'm not sure how that impacts what you're talking about.
1006. 00:54:04 Well, okay.
1007. 00:54:05 So I agree with that and if that's where he had left it, I would be like, yeah, I agree.
1008. 00:54:12 That's good advice.
1009. 00:54:13 But kind of underlying these five points is the assumption that you are able to say no
1010. 00:54:21 and stick with it.
1011. 00:54:23 And whatever happens is not going to be a severe negative reaction, which I would argue
1012. 00:54:32 sometimes some situations that is going to be the case.
1013. 00:54:37 Also he talks about in this section, I don't think it's in these five steps, but in this
1014. 00:54:43 section as he's talking about these, he talks about how you've made this commitment for
1015. 00:54:47 this time period.
1016. 00:54:48 What if there's no time period associated with the commitment that you made?
1017. 00:54:52 I mean, this is talking about you made a mistake previously and you're trying to get out of
1018. 00:54:56 it, right?
1019. 00:54:57 He assumes that there is these parameters regarding or around your situation that I don't think
1020. 00:55:03 are true of every situation.
1021. 00:55:04 So I feel like this advice is kind of limited in its effectiveness.
1022. 00:55:09 Is this this just occurred to me going back to the very beginning here to the emotional
1023. 00:55:17 quiz and you're like maxed out on commitment ethic.
1024. 00:55:23 That could definitely be a piece because I don't deal with what you're talking about
1025. 00:55:27 here.
1026. 00:55:28 Like, for example, if I make a commitment and then I need to get out of it, like, I don't
1027. 00:55:33 feel like I'm going to struggle with that.
1028. 00:55:37 Like I won't want to do it, but I'll do it.
1029. 00:55:40 I'll go through the process like, okay, here's who you need to talk to.
1030. 00:55:43 This is the thing that needs to change.
1031. 00:55:45 Here's how you can move forward.
1032. 00:55:46 I need to step away and explain that and explain the scenario.
1033. 00:55:50 I don't really have an issue doing that and I don't really see how that would be harmful.
1034. 00:55:54 If anything, it would be helpful for that person to know that I'm committed enough, but I can't
1035. 00:55:59 commit to that and I thought I could.
1036. 00:56:02 Like, to me, I see that, but I have a feeling that in this case, this is just pure speculation,
1037. 00:56:07 Mike.
1038. 00:56:08 Do you want to lay down for this?
1039. 00:56:10 This is me thinking that because you have such a strong commitment ethic that maybe it
1040. 00:56:16 has more to do with you feeling like you're going to let them down than it does with the
1041. 00:56:21 logistics.
1042. 00:56:23 Is that fair?
1043. 00:56:24 It's a good calculation.
1044. 00:56:25 I think regarding certain situations, you are 100% correct, but I also think that unless
1045. 00:56:31 you have CEO privilege, there's a work context here, which is completely missing.
1046. 00:56:39 If you are in a situation, you have a job and your boss is telling you, you need to work
1047. 00:56:46 60 hours a week, but Michael Hyatt says, "I can't work more than 50 otherwise I'll be
1048. 00:56:50 less productive."
1049. 00:56:51 Okay?
1050. 00:56:52 So what do you do with that?
1051. 00:56:53 I can't say no, because otherwise you're going to lose your job.
1052. 00:56:57 There are other places that this plays out, but I think you're right.
1053. 00:57:00 So thank you for the insight.
1054. 00:57:01 Part of this is just me.
1055. 00:57:03 But I do think that part of this is also coming from Michael Hyatt's perspective.
1056. 00:57:08 And maybe that's who he wrote this book for.
1057. 00:57:12 And the people who are working in nine to five, they aren't his target audience.
1058. 00:57:18 I don't know that, but that's where my mind went as I read this is like, "Well, that'd
1059. 00:57:21 be great if you could do that all the time, but I can see a bunch of situations where
1060. 00:57:25 you don't have the ability to do that all the time."
1061. 00:57:27 Sure.
1062. 00:57:28 Yeah.
1063. 00:57:29 And I feel like he did call that out, that there's sometimes when it's just your job
1064. 00:57:33 to do things that you really don't want to do.
1065. 00:57:37 That's every job out there.
1066. 00:57:39 If you're in corporate, a couple of the guys in the chat, I'm sure know that scenario.
1067. 00:57:44 I've been back and forth with a couple of people here.
1068. 00:57:46 But there's a number of things that come up, especially in corporate or small business
1069. 00:57:53 scenarios where you just got to do things you don't want to do.
1070. 00:57:57 And I feel like he did allow for that, but very briefly, it wasn't massive at that time.
1071. 00:58:03 So I can't say that it's something that you can't get into a scenario where 100% of your
1072. 00:58:13 job is roses and coming up amazing all day long.
1073. 00:58:21 Like that whole world.
1074. 00:58:23 Exactly.
1075. 00:58:24 You can't just choose the things that you're passionate about, especially according to
1076. 00:58:26 Michael Hyatt's definition.
1077. 00:58:27 It doesn't work that way.
1078. 00:58:28 Yeah.
1079. 00:58:29 Even he has to do things he doesn't want to do.
1080. 00:58:31 And he called that out.
1081. 00:58:33 Exactly.
1082. 00:58:34 He got the sense, but I think the point is to try to get as much of it in that scenario
1083. 00:58:37 as you possibly can.
1084. 00:58:39 Sure.
1085. 00:58:40 Sure.
1086. 00:58:41 To help you.
1087. 00:58:42 I don't know.
1088. 00:58:43 I mean, I think that this advice is good.
1089. 00:58:46 I just think that there's maybe situations where you're reading it and you're like, "Hmm,
1090. 00:58:52 can't do that."
1091. 00:58:53 And again, for me, I think you're right, that part of it is my high commitment ethic where
1092. 00:58:58 I feel like sometimes I can't do that when really I do have the ability to do that.
1093. 00:59:01 As I was reading this, that's kind of where my mind was going is how do I manufacture
1094. 00:59:05 situations where I can actually use this advice.
1095. 00:59:08 And there's a lot of other great stuff in here about like every yes contains a no, time
1096. 00:59:12 is a zero sum game.
1097. 00:59:13 You want to look at not what you're going to lose when you say no, but look at what you're
1098. 00:59:16 going to gain.
1099. 00:59:17 Again, I've kind of gone through that and had to say no to some things and I agree 100%
1100. 00:59:22 with that stuff.
1101. 00:59:23 It's just like the blanket system and maybe it's just the way that it's phrased.
1102. 00:59:26 Again, this is a systems book, right?
1103. 00:59:28 Right.
1104. 00:59:29 And I hate systems.
1105. 00:59:30 That's fair.
1106. 00:59:31 But like this is the way to do it.
1107. 00:59:33 It's kind of like, well, maybe.
1108. 00:59:36 I did have another action item from this section though.
1109. 00:59:38 Oh, you did.
1110. 00:59:39 Which was, yeah.
1111. 00:59:40 I mean, this whole idea is eliminating, right?
1112. 00:59:42 So create a not to do list.
1113. 00:59:44 I feel like I've done this before, but I feel like it's time to do it again.
1114. 00:59:50 I remember you doing this at one point.
1115. 00:59:51 Are you going to publicize the stuff on this not to do list?
1116. 00:59:54 Maybe we'll see what's on there.
1117. 00:59:57 Do not text Joe.
1118. 00:59:59 Social audit hashtag.
1119. 01:00:00 Don't have to worry about that.
1120. 01:00:05 So that was the eliminate chapter.
1121. 01:00:07 And then we get to chapter five, which is the automate chapter, which I have to say
1122. 01:00:10 I was kind of looking forward to.
1123. 01:00:12 I don't know why because I knew what I was going to find when I got there.
1124. 01:00:17 And I mostly knew what he was going to talk about when I got there.
1125. 01:00:21 But I still wanted to go through it.
1126. 01:00:24 Basically, in the tagline on this chapter is subtract yourself from the equation.
1127. 01:00:28 It's exactly what you think.
1128. 01:00:30 If you can batch things and you can put things together to where things are very quickly
1129. 01:00:34 happening or you don't touch at all, you win.
1130. 01:00:38 Like that's the idea.
1131. 01:00:40 Yep.
1132. 01:00:41 He has four different kinds of automation here.
1133. 01:00:43 Number one is self automation.
1134. 01:00:45 This is where he talks about like the rituals.
1135. 01:00:48 I thought this was interesting because you hear a lot of people talk about morning and
1136. 01:00:51 evening rituals, but also a work day startup and a work day shutdown ritual.
1137. 01:00:55 He introduces here.
1138. 01:00:56 I thought that was a kind of cool idea.
1139. 01:00:57 Yeah.
1140. 01:00:58 That's one I've got an action item on.
1141. 01:01:00 I've done like the shutdown shutdown ritual a number of times.
1142. 01:01:04 I've kind of fallen out of it in recent months, but this is where this book acted
1143. 01:01:10 as a pretty good motivational tool for me overall.
1144. 01:01:13 I've not really done the startup routine before, but I've been trying it over the last week
1145. 01:01:19 or so.
1146. 01:01:20 I seem to really like it.
1147. 01:01:21 It seems to work pretty well.
1148. 01:01:22 I've been implementing that.
1149. 01:01:23 Cool.
1150. 01:01:24 Maybe I'll have to look at that too then.
1151. 01:01:25 I don't know.
1152. 01:01:26 I feel like this really just comes down to habits and identifying the places that you
1153. 01:01:29 want to apply them.
1154. 01:01:31 I feel like that's again, a very valuable idea that is glossed over very quickly and
1155. 01:01:37 under self automation, I guess it makes sense there, but I don't know.
1156. 01:01:43 The other ones here were really the ones that I was kind of interested in.
1157. 01:01:47 I was kind of wanted to see how he was going to frame these.
1158. 01:01:51 Number two is template automation.
1159. 01:01:53 Number three is process automation.
1160. 01:01:55 Number four is tech automation.
1161. 01:01:57 Now Michael Hyatt has been on the Mac Power users podcast a couple of different times,
1162. 01:02:02 but I also kind of get the impression that maybe he's not as tech savvy as he projects
1163. 01:02:13 given some of the recommendations that he makes.
1164. 01:02:19 I don't know.
1165. 01:02:20 I kind of feel like if you're looking for tech automation, there's a lot of other places
1166. 01:02:25 I would go first before looking to what Michael Hyatt does.
1167. 01:02:29 Sure.
1168. 01:02:30 Sure.
1169. 01:02:31 So, like Michael Hyatt said, like how he's using this stuff I think is actually kind
1170. 01:02:36 of cool.
1171. 01:02:37 Like if I was in his position, I'm not sure that there's a bunch of other things like
1172. 01:02:41 low hanging fruit that he's missing in terms of the tech automation.
1173. 01:02:45 But for a lot of people, the tech automation specifically is not just about the efficiency
1174. 01:02:53 savings.
1175. 01:02:54 It's because they really like this stuff.
1176. 01:02:57 So, person I think of right away, Rosemary Orchard, she's loving shortcuts.
1177. 01:03:05 I know for a fact that she installed the beta when she was over at WWDC even though it says
1178. 01:03:12 basically thrill seekers beware.
1179. 01:03:13 Like don't do this.
1180. 01:03:14 It's going to break your device.
1181. 01:03:16 She just wants to see what's new.
1182. 01:03:19 She wants to figure out how to make her technology dance.
1183. 01:03:22 And that brings her a lot of joy.
1184. 01:03:24 That joy is missing from this equation because really this whole section on cutting things,
1185. 01:03:29 it's like how do I ruthlessly get rid of the things that I should not be doing because
1186. 01:03:35 it's not in my desire zone because it's not something that I am passionate and proficient
1187. 01:03:38 about that.
1188. 01:03:40 And for a lot of people, I mean, like there's a whole Rosemary and David have a podcast
1189. 01:03:45 on automation called Automators.
1190. 01:03:47 Like there's, I believe there's a whole bunch of people who are interested in this kind of
1191. 01:03:51 thing and it's totally cool that they spend a bunch of time figuring out how to make a
1192. 01:03:55 shortcut to do a specific thing, even if it doesn't give them a whole bunch of efficiency
1193. 01:04:00 savings.
1194. 01:04:02 And so I kind of feel like this section only covers one piece of this and why you might
1195. 01:04:07 want to do this.
1196. 01:04:09 Email filtering software, if the goal is just to get out of email as much as possible,
1197. 01:04:13 I'm completely on board with that one.
1198. 01:04:15 Macro processing software, text expansion, all that type of stuff, screen casting, that
1199. 01:04:18 kind of gets into like the delegation stuff.
1200. 01:04:20 It really isn't a use case for that feel other than you're giving somebody the same thing
1201. 01:04:27 over and over and over again, you're trying to explain something or you're trying to delegate
1202. 01:04:30 a test to somebody.
1203. 01:04:32 So I don't know.
1204. 01:04:33 It feels like a not very complete picture.
1205. 01:04:36 Sure.
1206. 01:04:37 Yeah, I could see that, but I also know like if this is a book designed for people who are
1207. 01:04:42 new to it, he's mentioning things that are very low level as far as like I script things.
1208. 01:04:47 I connect things via API without UI tools.
1209. 01:04:51 I'm kind of crazy when it comes to this stuff.
1210. 01:04:56 But I think what he's talking about is kind of like your entry level text stuff.
1211. 01:05:01 So I know that Michael Hyatt has scripted things before.
1212. 01:05:05 Like I've heard him mention that before where he's written Python scripts for things.
1213. 01:05:10 So I'm hesitant to say he's not that tech savvy.
1214. 01:05:13 I think he's just trying to make it approachable.
1215. 01:05:15 Could be, could also be that the scripts and things, that's not his desire zone.
1216. 01:05:21 That would be the distraction zone.
1217. 01:05:23 He's a fraction but not proficient.
1218. 01:05:25 Sure.
1219. 01:05:26 So maybe he's trying to cut those sorts of things.
1220. 01:05:28 But I feel like you can't have it both ways.
1221. 01:05:31 Either you should say, you know, I don't really do this kind of stuff anymore.
1222. 01:05:35 So go look at what Max Sparky does.
1223. 01:05:38 Or be like, okay guys, this is really what you need to do.
1224. 01:05:42 Which by the way, Max Sparky has a blur but the beginning of this reviewing the book.
1225. 01:05:47 Like one of the testimonials at the beginning of the book.
1226. 01:05:50 I was reading through these it when I first picked it up.
1227. 01:05:53 It's like that, this is David Sparks.
1228. 01:05:56 It's right.
1229. 01:05:57 But wow, that's cool.
1230. 01:05:58 So anyway, well done Sparky.
1231. 01:06:00 Yeah, you know, I haven't talked to David about that.
1232. 01:06:03 I am kind of curious though, if he knows that that's there.
1233. 01:06:07 That's that's true.
1234. 01:06:10 That's true.
1235. 01:06:11 Anyway, Michael Hyatt is a marketing machine.
1236. 01:06:13 That is something he is very good at.
1237. 01:06:15 So maybe you should talk about how he uses tech automation to crank through books and
1238. 01:06:19 create courses like that, give some context.
1239. 01:06:21 I don't know.
1240. 01:06:22 All right.
1241. 01:06:23 The last chapter in the cut step is delegate.
1242. 01:06:27 Guess what you're supposed to do, Mike?
1243. 01:06:29 I'm supposed to delegate, but I'm so bad at it.
1244. 01:06:34 This is, this was a good chapter.
1245. 01:06:37 This kind of smacked me in the face.
1246. 01:06:39 He describes a situation known as time famine, which I've definitely been there, where you
1247. 01:06:43 have more tasks than time to get it done.
1248. 01:06:46 And then the solution there is obviously to delegate.
1249. 01:06:49 What I really liked about this section was the five levels of delegation.
1250. 01:06:55 So he talks about like a seven step delegation process, which I don't think that really is
1251. 01:07:01 necessary to go through that.
1252. 01:07:03 But the levels of delegation, I think this is worthwhile because the process may look
1253. 01:07:08 different depending on the situation, but I feel like the levels give you a natural progression
1254. 01:07:12 to where you are finally able to let go of the thing.
1255. 01:07:16 This was always the piece that was missing for me.
1256. 01:07:18 I was never able to feel like I could just let it go and trust that it was going to get
1257. 01:07:23 done the way that I wanted it to get done.
1258. 01:07:26 So level one is that the person does exactly what you tell them to do.
1259. 01:07:33 And two is that the person research is a topic and then reports back to you.
1260. 01:07:39 Level three is that the person research is a topic.
1261. 01:07:42 They outline the options and they make a recommendation for the course of action that you're supposed
1262. 01:07:46 to take.
1263. 01:07:47 Number four, the person evaluates the options, makes the decision on their own, executes it,
1264. 01:07:51 and then reports back basically how it turned out to you so you can figure out did it work,
1265. 01:07:57 did it not work.
1266. 01:07:58 And then level five, the person makes whatever decision they think is best.
1267. 01:08:01 There's no need to report back.
1268. 01:08:03 That's obviously the ideal scenario.
1269. 01:08:05 That's where people want to get to when it comes to delegation.
1270. 01:08:08 But I feel like this framework follows a very clear progression of how you get there.
1271. 01:08:16 And again, I have not been great at delegating.
1272. 01:08:19 So I really have no experience with this, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
1273. 01:08:25 No, I think I like this section.
1274. 01:08:26 I can't say I have a whole lot to say about it.
1275. 01:08:29 I mean, I pay people that I delegate things to with my web business.
1276. 01:08:33 So I don't know how good at it.
1277. 01:08:38 I am, but I know that people don't have to ask me a lot of questions when I hand things
1278. 01:08:42 over to them, at least in that space.
1279. 01:08:45 So delegate things.
1280. 01:08:47 It means you don't have to do them and you can get bigger.
1281. 01:08:50 Go, go, go.
1282. 01:08:51 It's about all I got for that one.
1283. 01:08:54 All right.
1284. 01:08:56 Step three, act the first chapter in the section, chapter seven is consolidate.
1285. 01:09:02 And this is, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about this one.
1286. 01:09:08 There's this idea of mega batching that he introduces where you lump similar tasks together.
1287. 01:09:15 And he takes this to the extreme by putting like all of one activity in a specific day,
1288. 01:09:22 like a little batch record, a ton of podcast episodes.
1289. 01:09:25 So put all of his meetings on a single day.
1290. 01:09:29 And I get that on one level.
1291. 01:09:32 When I was at Asian efficiency, we used to have meeting day, except what happened was
1292. 01:09:35 that meetings crept to other days.
1293. 01:09:37 So that's kind of the back of my head is like, well, this sounds great, but can you really
1294. 01:09:42 100% pull this off?
1295. 01:09:44 I'm not sure.
1296. 01:09:45 Now, the one thing I do think that's valuable here is the broad categories of activities,
1297. 01:09:50 the front stage activities, the backstage activities, and then the off stage activities.
1298. 01:09:56 So front stage and backstage, those are basically the things that are related to working.
1299. 01:10:00 And then you make sure that you have enough off stage time so that you can rest and recuperate,
1300. 01:10:04 come back and give your best effort to building your thing when you come back.
1301. 01:10:10 I am kind of curious, have you thought about this backstage front stage idea?
1302. 01:10:16 And if so, what do you consider like backstage versus front stage tasks?
1303. 01:10:20 Yeah, this is I debated because like this whole chapter he does mention like theming
1304. 01:10:27 your week, like putting together your ideal week.
1305. 01:10:30 That's something Michael Hyatt's been promoting and talking about for years now.
1306. 01:10:36 I don't know if he gets into he does get into like theming your days to some degree, which
1307. 01:10:42 is like a whole Mike Vardy, a productivityist thing.
1308. 01:10:46 So I get that.
1309. 01:10:47 That's kind of cool. The whole front stage backstage piece.
1310. 01:10:51 I like it. I mean, it's a cool concept. I get the idea of doing front stage activities
1311. 01:10:59 on a certain day, doing backstage activities on another day. Like I get that and I can
1312. 01:11:05 see how that would be extremely helpful.
1313. 01:11:10 I can't say that my line of work, like that doesn't seem to fit real well for me, mostly
1314. 01:11:19 because I just have too many different kinds of tasks happening in one day that can force
1315. 01:11:26 me to have the fluctuate quite a bit. And I don't really have a whole lot of control
1316. 01:11:32 over that. So I like the concept. I just don't know how practical it is day to day for me.
1317. 01:11:38 I haven't put a whole bunch of thought into this, but I kind of view this as like podcasting,
1318. 01:11:49 creating that kind of front stage, backstage is kind of all the admin stuff. And I like
1319. 01:11:56 this idea of the stages. But the more I think about this metaphor that he's using, I kind
1320. 01:12:02 of feel like it loses its effectiveness. I think very simply it could just be like creating
1321. 01:12:08 versus managing. I forget who first came up with that model, but I feel like that's essentially
1322. 01:12:13 what he's talking about here.
1323. 01:12:15 Sure. Now, I mean, have you ever done this ideal week process?
1324. 01:12:20 Yes, it's part of my personal retreat course. So I do it once a quarter, basically, where
1325. 01:12:28 I plan out my ideal week. I don't break down the stages, themes, and activities like he
1326. 01:12:33 does, but I do put the big rocks in first. And I make sure that Friday mornings, for example,
1327. 01:12:39 I'm going to do my one on ones. And then work fills in around that. Church is on there.
1328. 01:12:46 Like all the stuff that I know I need to do. That's the things that go in there first.
1329. 01:12:53 And then the work stuff kind of fills in the cracks, which is not typically the way that
1330. 01:12:59 a lot of people do it. I think if you've never done it before, that's the big takeaway you'll
1331. 01:13:01 have is like, well, if I don't give work first priority, and again, that's kind of a privileged
1332. 01:13:07 situation for you to be able to do that. But if you're able to do that, you'll be amazed
1333. 01:13:12 at how everything just seems to work when you don't make work the priority.
1334. 01:13:18 Right. I don't know. I've done this whole ideal week thing before. Actually, I remember,
1335. 01:13:26 I don't know if it was the first time Michael Hyatt mentioned it. I used to follow everything
1336. 01:13:31 he did. And I know that at one point he had mentioned doing an ideal week and I went through
1337. 01:13:38 the process of building out my own. But I quickly learned that my personal struggle is to follow
1338. 01:13:49 said plan. I'm pretty easy at letting things go if I make a commitment to myself. It feels
1339. 01:13:59 like something easily cut from my schedule. So that's something I've always struggled
1340. 01:14:08 with. I did go ahead and theme my days after reading this. Now that I'm working full time
1341. 01:14:14 at our church, I've been able to theme my days to some degree, like putting out fires
1342. 01:14:20 on these days and building into new projects on these days, like that sort of thing, which
1343. 01:14:25 kind of floats into the whole back office for an office thing. Like it kind of gets into
1344. 01:14:29 that. But I feel like I can't really schedule much more than the day themes because I don't
1345. 01:14:38 really know what's going to happen. Like if there's an event in the afternoon, they
1346. 01:14:42 tell me they don't need my help. And then they need your help. But then that event shows
1347. 01:14:46 up in 10 minutes before they realize, oh, we need an extra microphone. Yeah. Well, guess
1348. 01:14:53 what? It doesn't really matter what I have on the calendar. Like I'll step out of meetings
1349. 01:14:57 and all kinds of stuff to go get that taken care of because that's my primary job. So
1350. 01:15:02 just call Joe. Yep. That's the way that works. So I can't say that scheduling to that level
1351. 01:15:11 would work. At least not at that level. Like if I can pay attention to events that are
1352. 01:15:17 happening in the building and such and I could schedule around that even, I could probably
1353. 01:15:21 get there. I just don't think it's worth all that. Like it would be quite a while taking
1354. 01:15:27 need that all the work. Yeah, which is why when I talk about planning your ideal week,
1355. 01:15:33 I do it once a quarter. I don't do it every single week. I'm not sure if that's what
1356. 01:15:36 Michael Haidt's advocating for. But recently I did kind of have a revelation that maybe
1357. 01:15:44 I should be doing that every week, not to the same level, but just like I very quickly
1358. 01:15:53 time block for my days at the beginning of the week, take some time and do the same sort
1359. 01:15:59 of process just a couple of minutes. And then again, like it doesn't have to be, this
1360. 01:16:03 is the gold standard. I have to make sure that I hit this, but just a little bit of
1361. 01:16:07 intentionality and something I can reference when I look at, you know, today is Tuesday,
1362. 01:16:13 for example, and my theme for this day is X and I'm going to try to stick to what I originally
1363. 01:16:19 said I was going to try to do on that Tuesday. But again, it changes so much. Plans are worthless
1364. 01:16:25 planning is everything. One of my favorite quotes. I really don't know yet how effective
1365. 01:16:31 that is going to be, but I did commit to trying that recently. So sure. I don't know.
1366. 01:16:39 On that topic, though, a very important thing worth calling out here is that I'm not doing
1367. 01:16:43 it the way Michael Haidt said do it. And you could look at it then as like, am I following
1368. 01:16:48 his advice or am I not following his advice? I don't really know. You could make an argument
1369. 01:16:52 for each. But I feel like that's the value for a lot of this stuff for a lot of people
1370. 01:16:58 is you hear people talk about this thing. And then maybe the way they're implementing
1371. 01:17:03 it isn't exactly the same way that you should that you would implement it and be okay with
1372. 01:17:08 trying something different, which really is at the heart of why I despise all of these
1373. 01:17:12 systems books because you look at it at surface level, it's like just do XYZ and you'll get
1374. 01:17:17 123 and save X number of hours per week. Never that simple. There's going to be certain
1375. 01:17:24 pieces of the advice that that's there that's going to provide a significant amount of value,
1376. 01:17:29 but there's going to be other stuff that you're going to try it and it's going to be like,
1377. 01:17:31 well, this did nothing. And so I kind of feel like having a very top level view of what
1378. 01:17:38 this week entails, there is some value in that. I'm not going to the point where I'm
1379. 01:17:43 identifying stages, themes and activities though. Sure. Chapter eight designate. I just wanted
1380. 01:17:49 to say it like that. I've been thinking about this for a little bit. There are two things
1381. 01:17:56 I feel that you can sum up this entire chapter with. Okay. One, do a weekly review and pick
1382. 01:18:03 three things to get done this week. Two, do a daily review and pick three things to do
1383. 01:18:09 today. I feel like that's the entire chapter. Am I right? Sounds good to me.
1384. 01:18:13 Yeah. Thank you. All right. Well, just to clarify a little bit, in this section, there's
1385. 01:18:19 really two different two different pieces here where he talks about the weekly preview.
1386. 01:18:24 And I feel like we kind of just talked about that. And then there's the design your day.
1387. 01:18:28 And I am doing both of those things with templates that I created for my faith-based
1388. 01:18:35 productivity course. So not a whole lot new here for me. But if you have not heard those
1389. 01:18:41 ideas before, again, this potentially could be revolutionary, though he skips over it
1390. 01:18:46 so quickly that it's such a surface level approach to this type of stuff that I'm not
1391. 01:18:51 sure how much value is here. I feel like his six different steps for the weekly preview
1392. 01:18:56 is kind of ridiculous. There's no way I would follow that.
1393. 01:18:59 Yeah, there's a lot in that. But, you know, we don't need to go there.
1394. 01:19:03 Yeah, there's a lot of things that could be in it that aren't. But, you know, it's, again,
1395. 01:19:10 if you're, if you're brand new to it, I could see how it's super helpful. But, yeah. Anyway,
1396. 01:19:18 I'm good for chapter nine now. Activate.
1397. 01:19:21 I'm not even really sure where to go with this. I have a bunch of like scattered notes
1398. 01:19:27 here. He's got some focus tactics. He talks about listening to the right music. He mentions
1399. 01:19:34 classical music and focus at will. Have you ever used focus at will, by the way?
1400. 01:19:38 I did way back like two or three years ago. It lasted about a week.
1401. 01:19:44 Yeah. Then I got, I kind of got into classical music at that point.
1402. 01:19:47 Okay, so do you still listen to classical music?
1403. 01:19:50 Not entirely, but I do occasionally still like probably once a week. I use it. Josh in the
1404. 01:19:58 chat room says he thinks focus at will is awesome. So, you know, there's definitely
1405. 01:20:03 science behind it. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I understand why people use it. It's just never
1406. 01:20:11 clicked for me. That's me. I am weird. I know that.
1407. 01:20:18 Yeah.
1408. 01:20:19 So if I'm listening to music, it's a lot of like repeated playlists that I've played in
1409. 01:20:26 the past or like I think even Michael Hyatt mentioned like Baroque classical music like
1410. 01:20:31 that's what I tend to listen to if I'm not listening to just a repetitive playlist.
1411. 01:20:37 Yeah. I've kind of shifted a bit. I've got a home pod in my office. So, I'll tell the
1412. 01:20:46 lady in the can to play typically some instrumental music. My current favorites are
1413. 01:20:52 NightDrive instrumental edition, anything Tycho and a band called Utah, I believe.
1414. 01:21:00 I think it's Utah. I'm getting it mixed up in my head because they're from Kansas City.
1415. 01:21:06 So I kind of want to say Kansas, but I don't think that's right.
1416. 01:21:09 And I just walk in and I say play whatever. And I do agree that instrumental music makes it
1417. 01:21:17 easier to focus on the thing that you're doing. But I haven't noticed personally any benefit
1418. 01:21:24 with focus at will versus that type of stuff. And it really just came down to I like that music
1419. 01:21:31 better than the focus at Will stuff. I do respect all of the effort that has gone into
1420. 01:21:36 focus that well, I've heard the guy who started on several podcasts and the amount of research that
1421. 01:21:41 they do and how they come up with those tracks. I have no doubt that for some people, that's
1422. 01:21:46 absolutely the key that unlocks their ability to focus. But I haven't I've tried to get into it.
1423. 01:21:56 I also have a lifetime membership to it, but I've tried to get into it so many times.
1424. 01:22:00 And it's just never worked for me. I gave up a couple of years ago when the iOS app in particular
1425. 01:22:05 was just complete garbage. And yeah, I don't know. I do think that the music that you listen to is
1426. 01:22:14 important and you want something that's not going to have words. So don't listen to bookworm as a
1427. 01:22:18 podcast if you're trying to focus on something. You should definitely listen to bookworm all day
1428. 01:22:23 every day. That's what you should get your work.
1429. 01:22:26 Unless you're trying to do deep focused work. No, even with deep focus work, like bookworm is
1430. 01:22:32 the thing. Like, it doesn't matter what your work is. You need to be listening to bookworm.
1431. 01:22:36 Maybe we should sign up and to be like narrators on Focus At Will and the Dalset tones.
1432. 01:22:42 Exactly. So I'm like, can people focus on it?
1433. 01:22:44 Oh, real quick. Somebody mentioned brain.fm. I did get into that one at one point.
1434. 01:22:49 Me too, because the app was way better.
1435. 01:22:51 I don't remember why I did it. It didn't last long for me because I had found other stuff at
1436. 01:22:55 the time. There's not a whole lot of tracks in that. And I found them very repetitive.
1437. 01:23:00 Maybe that doesn't matter. I tend to listen to the same music on my home pod all the time.
1438. 01:23:05 Whatever. Brain.fm. Here we go again. It wasn't bringing me joy anymore.
1439. 01:23:10 So I gave up on it. Another one that I have a lifetime membership to.
1440. 01:23:17 Nice. There is one more chapter at the end of this. I don't know if you have more you want to
1441. 01:23:21 say on activate. Well, I will mention that he has this metaphor of interruptions versus distractions
1442. 01:23:30 interruptions are breaking in where distractions are busting out. I thought that was kind of a
1443. 01:23:35 cool way to think about that. So interruptions, maybe there's nothing that you can do about it,
1444. 01:23:39 although he does have some things that you can do like limit your instant communication or
1445. 01:23:45 proactively set and enforce boundaries. Distractions, those are typically where you're your own worst
1446. 01:23:50 enemy though. And that's the one that I would argue people should focus on. You may not be able
1447. 01:23:56 to stop your boss from walking into your office and saying, I need you help with this thing right
1448. 01:24:00 now. But you can control whether you get distracted when you sit down to write. And for a lot of people,
1449. 01:24:05 if that's all the big, if that was the only place you're able to make any sort of gain,
1450. 01:24:09 that would be that would be a huge win. Sure. I did have another action item from this section,
1451. 01:24:15 which was to stop being other people's problem solver. This is hard for me,
1452. 01:24:22 but I feel like I made a lot of progress in this area lately since I read this even.
1453. 01:24:30 Where when someone says, Hey, I need your help with this, doesn't necessarily mean that I have to
1454. 01:24:37 agree to take on the project or the task. I can if I want to, but I shouldn't feel compelled to,
1455. 01:24:47 like one example, I did this website a couple of years ago for this guy, and I did it for free.
1456. 01:24:53 And he contacts me out of the blue. It's like, I need you help with this right away. And I
1457. 01:25:00 ignored the text message. And then he calls and I ignore the phone call because I don't want to
1458. 01:25:06 set that expectation that I did this project for you for free. You're not going to pay me for the
1459. 01:25:12 time that I'm going to spend on this thing. And really what he wants help with is like transferring
1460. 01:25:17 a domain that he controls to somebody else. I shouldn't be responsible for that. You know, so
1461. 01:25:23 I responded like a day later and I said, you know, I'm not sure what I can do, but here's what you
1462. 01:25:30 should do. And I feel like that was totally appropriate. I feel like the relationship is totally fine,
1463. 01:25:39 that it did not hinder it or hurt it in any way. But in the past, there was definitely a clear path
1464. 01:25:46 to Mike being completely frazzled for about four hours on a Wednesday night. Sure. That I was able
1465. 01:25:53 to avoid. And so I'm sure that there's lots of other situations like that. And I just
1466. 01:25:57 want to not sign for those packages if I can help it.
1467. 01:26:00 That's fair. There's one more chapter when he just summarizes the whole book.
1468. 01:26:06 There is. That's pretty much it. I really have nothing to say about that one.
1469. 01:26:09 Yeah, I don't either because there's not really anything new in that one.
1470. 01:26:11 It's kind of nice that he wraps it all in a neat little bow and ties it up and hands it over.
1471. 01:26:18 Like I like that go by free to focus. Yeah, I mean, kind of, but it is kind of nice to
1472. 01:26:25 see the summary. Basically, it's the blog post that was expanded into the book.
1473. 01:26:30 So if you want the full summary to read the last chapter, that's the easy way to do it.
1474. 01:26:36 We don't have time or I would read it to you right now. You can listen to me reading the last
1475. 01:26:40 chapter of Michael Hyatt's free to focus book. Let's not do that. If you want that sort of thing
1476. 01:26:45 for the premium members, go ahead and. I hadn't thought of that.
1477. 01:26:48 Very fair. That said, you're ready for action items. You have three. I have to.
1478. 01:26:55 Where is that go? I do. All right. So I mentioned all of these already. We can do this quick.
1479. 01:27:01 I want to create a not to do list things that I just either don't want to do or shouldn't be
1480. 01:27:05 doing anymore. I want to do a social audit and figure out which are the people that I talk to,
1481. 01:27:11 that give me energy and which are the people that take energy. Then I want to stop being
1482. 01:27:16 other people's problem solvers. That's the big, vague general one that you're not going to be
1483. 01:27:20 able to hold me accountable to. Like I said, I've already had a win with that. That action item
1484. 01:27:26 is already worth it. Sure. You can definitely keep me accountable on these. There's two of them.
1485. 01:27:34 They follow the same pattern. Schedule and follow a startup routine for the mornings and a communication
1486. 01:27:40 routine three times daily. So startup routine, pretty simple. A list of things I run through
1487. 01:27:46 whenever I first get to the office. Then a communication routine, which in the morning
1488. 01:27:52 follows that startup routine and then midday and end of the day. The goal is to give me points when
1489. 01:27:59 I'm cranking through email and such where I can get caught up on that without having it open all
1490. 01:28:07 day long because we all know email open all day long is how you get lots done. False.
1491. 01:28:12 Right. Scheduling it is the way to go. I was looking at my timing data the other day
1492. 01:28:21 because I always have thought, I don't spend a whole lot of time in email, but I wonder how
1493. 01:28:27 much time I do spend an email. Last week, I spent 27 minutes in email.
1494. 01:28:32 27 minutes? I spend that in one sitting.
1495. 01:28:36 Yeah. That's not stupid.
1496. 01:28:39 I'm also a little bit behind, but I feel kind of vindicated by those statistics. It's like,
1497. 01:28:46 man, it is possible. I should be spending a little bit more time. There are definitely
1498. 01:28:50 some people I need to respond to, but I've also feel like I've kind of set the expectations
1499. 01:28:55 regarding email. So I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people are furious waiting for me to get
1500. 01:28:59 back to them, but I easily spend an hour to an hour and a half every day. Easily. Go email.
1501. 01:29:05 Nah. All right. How are you going to rate this?
1502. 01:29:09 Stylin rating. You want me to go first? I do. It's your book. Go.
1503. 01:29:12 I am very conflicted about this book. You read it fast. I did read it fast. It was an entertaining
1504. 01:29:22 read. Actually, you know another reason why this was such a fast book is because like every five
1505. 01:29:28 pages, he has a full page graphic with like one sentence. Yes. Yes. So even though the book is,
1506. 01:29:36 let's see, 220 some pages, it's probably like 160 pages of actual text. Yeah.
1507. 01:29:43 I also skipped the action items. That's fair. I don't know. I mentioned at the beginning
1508. 01:29:49 that I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I was ready to just completely
1509. 01:29:55 rail on this thing, but I feel like there's a lot of good stuff here. I'm trying to disconnect my
1510. 01:30:02 perspective with what I feel is a very shallow overview of a lot of very important topics.
1511. 01:30:06 Not able to do that completely effectively. I do think that if you are just looking for
1512. 01:30:17 an introductory type book that's going to focus on the intentional aspect of productivity and not
1513. 01:30:24 just the efficiency, this is a great book. I don't think there was anything in here that was
1514. 01:30:30 particularly life changing for me. And I don't think there is anything even for people who are
1515. 01:30:36 just getting into this space. I feel like it's a great introduction. You'll have a solid grasp of
1516. 01:30:40 a lot of the concepts that are important, but you won't have any like real aha moments that are
1517. 01:30:48 going to profoundly impact your life five years from now. So it is what it is. And I think it's a
1518. 01:30:56 very good introductory book on the topic of focus. And I'm going to give it four stars.
1519. 01:31:01 Four stars, huh? Okay.
1520. 01:31:03 So again, I read this in two days. I had a hard time putting it down. Michael Hyatt's a great
1521. 01:31:12 writer in that sense. So as far as ease of reading, it's easy. It's very easy to pick up.
1522. 01:31:22 It's hard to put back down. So kudos to Mike on that one. You know, I, part of that is because
1523. 01:31:30 I really, really liked this as basically a motivational book. Like it's pitched as a productivity system
1524. 01:31:37 and a productivity book. But I really liked it as a motivational book instead. But that's partly
1525. 01:31:42 because like he didn't teach me any tactics here. I didn't already know. Did he put a system together
1526. 01:31:50 that I wasn't aware of? Not really. They're all just pieces that you can pick out from different
1527. 01:31:57 places. Can you get one piece without the other? Yeah, absolutely. So I don't think his system,
1528. 01:32:02 per se, is something that I'm going to go around recommending. I don't even know what you would
1529. 01:32:09 have to maybe, I don't know, free to focus. But the systems always have to have the acronyms.
1530. 01:32:15 GTD, F2, like whatever. I don't really see that happening. But I would say like if you're brand
1531. 01:32:24 new to productivity, this is a good one to pick up and get started with. If you've been in productivity
1532. 01:32:29 for a long time, I think this is still a good one to pick up because it's kind of inspiring to
1533. 01:32:35 keep going with what you're doing and maybe tweak it. Like obviously we've got five action items here
1534. 01:32:40 from a book that is full of things that we already know. Like you get what I'm saying? Like that's,
1535. 01:32:46 it's not something that's completely groundbreaking. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of
1536. 01:32:50 value in it. So I'm with you in that I'm a little bit torn on how to rate it because there's not
1537. 01:32:58 anything that completely stood out to me. But I also have a hard time seeing how this is not a,
1538. 01:33:06 like this book would be helpful to pretty much anyone who picked it up. So I'm going to put it
1539. 01:33:11 at a 4.5. All right. Because I think there's a lot of motivational value in this. Again,
1540. 01:33:20 it's I had a hard time putting it down. I mean, we're ripping on it here and there. But I think
1541. 01:33:25 overall, I do think it's a good book. I think it's a good one to pick up and read. So yeah,
1542. 01:33:30 I'll recommend it and I'll put it at a 4.5. All right. Well, I do think it is a good book
1543. 01:33:34 also. And I think that the discussion of the style and rating has just determined what I'm
1544. 01:33:41 going to pick next for an upcoming book. Okay. All right. So you're first on the outline.
1545. 01:33:46 So yes, next one up, I picked this one up at a like a thrift store of sorts bird by bird.
1546. 01:33:53 And Lamont. This is one that's pretty well known in writing circles. Some instructions on writing
1547. 01:34:00 and life. And there's actually a quote from this book in Michael Hyatt's free to focus too. So
1548. 01:34:06 I'm excited about this one. I've wanted to read this one for a long time. So, and someone recommended
1549. 01:34:11 it after I mentioned it on the last episode on the club. I thought that was kind of cheating.
1550. 01:34:16 But you know, here we are. Yeah. So speaking of the club, there's another book which has
1551. 01:34:23 actually it's the highest rated book that we have not covered. Okay. And that is Make Time,
1552. 01:34:30 How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, which is actually something that I read as a gap book,
1553. 01:34:36 not too long ago by Jake Knapp and John Zorotsky. Okay. This is on the complete other end of the
1554. 01:34:43 spectrum from Michael Hyatt's free to focus. And it's on the same topic. So okay, this is
1555. 01:34:50 first of all, I don't know which one of these guys is the illustrator, but there's a lot of really
1556. 01:34:56 cool illustrations in this book. It's a very easy read, very entertaining read. I want to get
1557. 01:35:04 your perspective on this book versus the Michael Hyatt systems book and see which one you like
1558. 01:35:11 better since you rated free to focus so high. Okay. This is something that I first heard about
1559. 01:35:18 on focused episode 70. I think it was with Shahid. He mentioned this book to me. There's
1560. 01:35:24 the concept of the infinity pools. That's where this book comes from. That's what comes
1561. 01:35:27 one of the things that comes from this book. So I don't know. I feel like this is just the
1562. 01:35:32 perfect follow up conversation to the one we're having right now. Okay. Maybe I'll regret putting
1563. 01:35:37 it at a 4.5. We'll see. I think 4.5 is completely fair. So I put it for. I have a gap book this time,
1564. 01:35:45 Mike. All right. What is it? I'm excited. I had one kind of last week. All marketers are
1565. 01:35:50 liars by Seth Godin. Very fascinating. I have always enjoyed Seth Godin. Been a while since I've
1566. 01:35:59 read one of his books. So yeah, I've really enjoyed it. It's a good one. Seth is just a brilliant
1567. 01:36:07 guy. I heard him speak at entry leadership. Somebody said that he was at craft and commerce,
1568. 01:36:13 which I got to go to, by the way, last weekend as we record this. All right. Somebody said he
1569. 01:36:18 was there as an attendee. I didn't actually see him. But yeah, he's he's the kind of guy where you
1570. 01:36:24 hear him speak and you're you're just instantly in awe of the fact that he is by far the smartest
1571. 01:36:29 person in the room. It doesn't matter who else is there. So true. So true. I've also got a gap book.
1572. 01:36:38 Forget where we last talked about it, but I've kind of in the back of my head had this on my radar
1573. 01:36:45 ever since we were talking about the whole concept of honor. There is a book in my collection,
1574. 01:36:51 which I haven't read now in several years, but I want to read it again called Honor Found by Robert
1575. 01:36:55 Barreger. And it's on the topic of honor and why it's important and what it is and how to implement
1576. 01:37:04 effectively, you know, all that kind of stuff. So that's my gap book. Cool. Cool. Well, bird by bird
1577. 01:37:11 is now a recommendation after I mentioned it. Make time is a book recommendation. So if you have one,
1578. 01:37:19 obviously we're picking books from that list, you know, let us know. What is it you would like to
1579. 01:37:25 hear us go through club.bookworm.fm, click the recommend button, fill out, give us a link,
1580. 01:37:32 tell us about it, get it on the list and vote for it. Make sure you vote for it. It's very
1581. 01:37:37 important. And you can vote for other books there too as well. Again, you can find that full list
1582. 01:37:41 of recommendations on the club. You can find all the ones that we've gone through already. The ones
1583. 01:37:47 that are upcoming, like you can find those all on the club as well, but you can also find them on
1584. 01:37:51 bookworm.fm/list. That's where you'll find those as well. Cool. We also want to hear your action
1585. 01:37:59 items. Joe and I post ours to the the bookworm club, but put yours there as well. If you want
1586. 01:38:06 other people to hold you accountable, a lot of times, by the way, just a random side note on this,
1587. 01:38:11 you don't even need people who are going to follow up with you. Sometimes just the act of
1588. 01:38:15 publicly declaring that you're going to do a thing can be the motivation that you need to follow
1589. 01:38:19 through and do it. So if that's the thing that makes it work for you, go ahead and do that. We
1590. 01:38:25 don't mind. We love to see you how other people are implementing the stuff that they learn, the
1591. 01:38:28 stuff that they read. Also mention that there is a couple different ways that you can support the
1592. 01:38:33 show. Number one, you can join the revolution. Take down KCRW. Go to iTunes and leave us a review.
1593. 01:38:38 Number two, we do have the premium membership where we are recording this live and apologies
1594. 01:38:45 to all the people who are listening live with the tech issues that we had. But it's fun.
1595. 01:38:50 And I think it gives a little bit different perspective than the polished, produced version
1596. 01:38:55 that you get in your podcast catcher. That is five bucks a month. You can find out how to sign
1597. 01:39:02 up for that by going to bookworm.fm/membership. In addition to listening live, you also get the
1598. 01:39:07 book notes for all the Mind Node files I've mentioned a couple different things from my Mind Node today.
1599. 01:39:11 So that's going to go up on the club when this episode goes out as well.
1600. 01:39:16 Cool, cool. Well, if you are reading along with us, I know there are a few of you that do that.
1601. 01:39:21 We're going into the National Best Seller, the one and only Bird by Bird by Ann Lamont.
1602. 01:39:28 I'm looking forward to this one and we will go through that one next time.