81: You Are Awesome by Neil Pasricha

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1. 00:00:00 So I released a thing Mike you did tell us about your thing. I
2. 00:00:04 Had fun releasing this
3. 00:00:06 Working with Omni focus 3.0
4. 00:00:09 The follower longtime followers of me know that I wrote a book about Omni focus way back
5. 00:00:14 2016 early 2016 I believe and then later in the year I released my first
6. 00:00:19 Ever video course on Omni focus and those actually are now for sale as well
7. 00:00:26 obviously for lower prices by a long shot, but I released the new version Mike and
8. 00:00:30 It's apparently very popular. I'm learning because people like it, which is exciting sweet
9. 00:00:37 Congratulations. Yeah, the the sad part about this is that so I'm doing some introductory
10. 00:00:43 Pricing on it and by the time this episode releases that will be done
11. 00:00:48 so
12. 00:00:50 It will no longer be at introductory prices, but I thought about this ahead of time Mike and
13. 00:00:55 I set up a discount code for bookworm listeners, which is
14. 00:00:59 drumroll please
15. 00:01:02 Bookworm all capital
16. 00:01:05 Wait, it doesn't have to be all capitals, but it could you know, whatever bookworm
17. 00:01:10 So if you go to learn that Joe Buellig.com
18. 00:01:14 And go to purchase the course
19. 00:01:16 Use the code bookworm and it'll get you back to the introductory pricing, so it'll take five bucks off the course
20. 00:01:23 So there you go working with Omni focus 3.0. It is now live very cool
21. 00:01:28 Congratulations on launching this I haven't gone through the whole thing
22. 00:01:32 But I took a look at some of the videos that you had in there and one of the things that stands out to me about this is
23. 00:01:38 It's not just the technical features or a system that you follow
24. 00:01:43 You have a whole video on philosophy for example. Yeah, so it's kind of understanding how the different pieces work and then
25. 00:01:52 allowing you to craft it and modify it to suit your needs which is really one of the strengths of
26. 00:01:59 Omni focus, but also one of the things that a lot of people probably never get to because it can be a little bit overwhelming
27. 00:02:05 So yeah, I hope that it continues to do very well for you and looks great
28. 00:02:11 Yeah, no, thanks because that was the main point of this one is
29. 00:02:14 Like the the older version is all the nuts and bolts of how you click here click there
30. 00:02:18 This is how it works now granted. It's on Omni focus to the old one is
31. 00:02:22 This one is high level like if you're looking for something it teaches you how to do
32. 00:02:27 Like what is a project where the types of projects go check out max barkies field guide or check out my old course
33. 00:02:34 Or go to learn Omni focus like go one of those places. This is not for you
34. 00:02:38 This is high level like how do you go about building your architecture? So it's
35. 00:02:43 Definitely on the upper horizon of things. So thus, you know philosophy. Anyway, there's that
36. 00:02:51 Follow-up from last week. You have a few action items here. You got to follow up on Mike
37. 00:02:55 We got using headspace still I am although I broke my streak because I forgot to meditate yesterday
38. 00:03:03 Mike my dual lingo streak is still going however, and today actually is day 100 nice
39. 00:03:11 Well done. So yeah, that's pretty cool. I really
40. 00:03:16 Like the meditation the dual lingo this is not a surprise to anybody who listens to this probably but
41. 00:03:22 These are all related in terms of me rethinking the intentionality behind my devices and trying to eliminate the
42. 00:03:29 the time wasters are the unconscious moments of interaction with my technology and
43. 00:03:35 This has been a very worthwhile
44. 00:03:38 Experiment speaking to the meditation specifically. I don't think I've done this consistently enough to say like oh yeah every single day
45. 00:03:46 I'm experiencing a
46. 00:03:48 Difference with this but I know that it's it's coming. I'm kind of mad that I broke my streak yesterday
47. 00:03:54 but
48. 00:03:55 It is something that I'm going to continue to keep doing. I do think this is going to stick and
49. 00:04:00 I really I really enjoy it. It's just yesterday was nuts. So it fell through the cracks
50. 00:04:07 Tell them I was probably the day you really needed it probably yeah
51. 00:04:12 Yeah, it's true
52. 00:04:15 the next item on my follow-up here, which is probably the fun one is
53. 00:04:20 the
54. 00:04:22 the create baseball cards from my family now I put a
55. 00:04:25 Link in the document here. I will also I'll copy this link right now and I'll paste this in the live chat
56. 00:04:31 I don't think this is something I want to release as part of the show notes yet because this isn't finished
57. 00:04:36 This is kind of a concept and I'll walk you through what I did here
58. 00:04:42 I just made this quickly and an omnigraphal and this is for me
59. 00:04:46 but this is what I think the
60. 00:04:49 Format of the card is going to look like I obviously want to make it a lot prettier
61. 00:04:53 I want to go into probably numbers and create like a table and on a 0 to 10 scale
62. 00:05:00 Recurate these Colby scores so they look a lot better than they do right now
63. 00:05:04 But I do want to have my Colby results here
64. 00:05:09 I want to have my top five strengths finders results here
65. 00:05:12 Remember that exercise where I sent you that email and I asked you basically what you considered my my strengths
66. 00:05:17 Oh, yeah
67. 00:05:18 Yeah, I did that to a bunch of people that's part of the unique ability
68. 00:05:21 Book that I was going through and I dug that stuff up and the exercise is you send that to a bunch of people
69. 00:05:27 Who know you pretty well and then you synthesize all the responses down into like your top five
70. 00:05:34 unique abilities and so that's what that next section is and
71. 00:05:38 Then the other piece for me just something that I want to be looking at all the time
72. 00:05:43 And it seemed to make sense on a baseball card is my life first. So this is a
73. 00:05:49 Bible passage I have Psalm 112 on here because that's the one that really means a lot to me and so that's all in the back of this
74. 00:05:57 This baseball card or will be on the back of a baseball card
75. 00:06:00 And I want to do something similar for everyone in my family not everybody has taken the Colby not everybody has done the strengths finder
76. 00:06:08 Everybody does have their own verse and in our family
77. 00:06:11 So that piece is already there and we've also got something
78. 00:06:14 Downstairs in our basement with all the different like character traits
79. 00:06:18 So not everybody has gone through the unique ability thing that I have on mind
80. 00:06:21 but we basically have like a list of the
81. 00:06:24 Positive traits that we see in our kids written down
82. 00:06:28 And so those are the types of things that I would put on their cards instead of their unique ability sure
83. 00:06:33 So the the card that you shared the link to that's yours. This is mine. It's a card for you
84. 00:06:39 Okay, again, this was sure if it was you or the kids
85. 00:06:41 Yeah, this is me just based on some of the things that I had already done I
86. 00:06:46 All of this stuff exists for me already
87. 00:06:49 So I was kind of playing around with the different elements and what might I want to be on here?
88. 00:06:53 Since I had these things
89. 00:06:54 These were kind of my building blocks or my Lego as I snap these together and tried to create a format that I
90. 00:07:00 liked you know
91. 00:07:02 Then once I have that and I think I'm pretty close to that obviously there's not a whole lot of formatting that's done to this
92. 00:07:07 I
93. 00:07:08 Want to make it a lot cleaner a lot prettier, but this is basically what they'll look like I think sure
94. 00:07:13 Well, it's kind of a cool concept
95. 00:07:15 um, I
96. 00:07:17 Would share it make it public come on Mike. You could do it. Okay, okay
97. 00:07:22 The other action item I had here, which is the hard one is embrace radical truth and radical transparency. However, I can
98. 00:07:29 Feel like I'm trying to do this. It's kind of interesting because
99. 00:07:33 There's not a whole lot of places that you can do this
100. 00:07:37 I'm finding you have to kind of
101. 00:07:42 Tip toe a little bit
102. 00:07:45 And it kind of feel things out before you really dive in with radical truth and radical transparency
103. 00:07:52 I do think that
104. 00:07:54 You can like for your family
105. 00:07:56 Embrace these and kind of set the tone for we're gonna always share what we're thinking and we're always gonna share what's true
106. 00:08:03 but
107. 00:08:05 There's a lot of other
108. 00:08:07 Scenarios where just because I recognize the value of this doesn't mean I just just get to spout off whatever I'm thinking
109. 00:08:14 so
110. 00:08:16 This one requires some
111. 00:08:21 discretion, I guess sure
112. 00:08:23 Yeah, cuz it's one of those that you have to build up
113. 00:08:26 You have to build up a lot of integrity with honesty and and a close relationship of trust with another person
114. 00:08:35 But you can do this that's what I was gonna say there really needs to be a solid foundation of trust before you can right
115. 00:08:41 Really do this and there are some places where I can do that
116. 00:08:44 But there are some places where I'd like to do that and I can't yet sure sure yeah
117. 00:08:48 Cuz bad things could happen if you start just you know, here's everything I've got going on and here's everything I think about your business
118. 00:08:55 Okay, I'm never talking to you again about this. Yeah, just because it's true doesn't necessarily mean it's helpful
119. 00:09:02 right for sure
120. 00:09:05 For sure well, I've got one action item to follow up on
121. 00:09:09 Systematizing my business decisions
122. 00:09:12 this
123. 00:09:13 Starts with data collection and at least in the way that I intend this action item which I have started
124. 00:09:20 I don't know that there's an easy way to follow up on this one Mike because it's gonna be something that's gonna have to take some time
125. 00:09:27 It's gonna be a longer term
126. 00:09:29 Process of developing that system but it has a lot to do with data and funnels and how do you go here versus there?
127. 00:09:36 Sometimes I see like sales funnels and stuff and I get a little squeamish
128. 00:09:41 Cuz it tends to take some of the personal touches out of those conversations. I don't want to do that so
129. 00:09:47 Trying to figure out how to do that on a larger scale is what I'm intending there
130. 00:09:52 So we'll see how it pans out in the long term
131. 00:09:54 I do have a lot of those systems in place for working with Omni focus to build that in the long term as well
132. 00:09:59 So yes, I've started that road
133. 00:10:01 Not really anything I can technically share on that quite yet because I have not embraced Mike's action item of radical
134. 00:10:10 transparency apparently
135. 00:10:12 So that's that's not something I do intend to do
136. 00:10:15 But I will likely share a lot of tips and tricks of what I learned along the way just because I have a tendency to do that so
137. 00:10:21 Yes, I think that's it for
138. 00:10:24 Action items which brings us to today's book which is
139. 00:10:29 You are awesome by Neil Pessrecha who has written two other books the book of awesome and the happiness equation
140. 00:10:38 Just want to point out again. We did we mentioned this last time, but this is we're going through advanced readers editions
141. 00:10:44 That were sent to us by Neil and his team
142. 00:10:48 so
143. 00:10:49 If you see some of the promo stuff we'll have for pictures for this
144. 00:10:53 You'll notice the cover on it looks slightly different namely a big black dot on it
145. 00:10:59 So there's that but I want to point that out because this was these these books were given to us
146. 00:11:05 We were not given any form of we would like you to say there was none of that
147. 00:11:10 So we're allowed to say whatever we want
148. 00:11:12 About these books and I'm glad that we get to do that because I really enjoyed this. This was an awesome read
149. 00:11:19 So I'm looking forward to getting into this one, but yes, you are awesome by Neil Pessrecha
150. 00:11:23 He's a New York Times million copy best-selling author tagline on this one is nine secrets to getting stronger and living in a tent
151. 00:11:32 Intentional life my tongue will work
152. 00:11:35 It was a great read I really liked going through this but he shares these nine secrets
153. 00:11:40 We'll go through each one of them
154. 00:11:41 But what were your first impressions on this mic?
155. 00:11:43 This was not the normal
156. 00:11:46 Type of book that we cover I feel like is the best way to describe it. It was kind of the anti principles
157. 00:11:52 Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was a bad thing even though we both rated principles 5.0
158. 00:11:59 it's a very different and I would say and
159. 00:12:02 entertaining very
160. 00:12:04 Feels like you're being told a story as opposed to principles is like
161. 00:12:09 Forget all the personal stuff. Here's the facts
162. 00:12:12 Here's the systems and the machines that are working behind the scenes, right? This was more of an emotional read
163. 00:12:18 Neil's got a crazy story the whole
164. 00:12:21 launch pad for his
165. 00:12:24 career and his books
166. 00:12:27 was this blog that he started
167. 00:12:31 After his marriage fell apart and his best friend took his own life and that is one thousand awesome things one thousand awesome things
168. 00:12:37 come and
169. 00:12:39 He just decided that things are going terrible
170. 00:12:42 But I'm gonna find the things that are good and started blogging about the things that were awesome
171. 00:12:47 And these these posts on this website are great. Yes. Like one of them from November 19th
172. 00:12:53 Number 370 this is backing your car into the driveway. There's a picture of a car like facing the street
173. 00:13:01 And then the whole post says and driving it right out awesome
174. 00:13:04 So
175. 00:13:07 So that kind of gives you a little little taste of what what this book is all about
176. 00:13:13 there's there's not a lot of
177. 00:13:16 I don't know how to just how to say this without it sounding kind of bad
178. 00:13:20 But like there's not a lot of meat to this book compared to
179. 00:13:23 Principles like principles you kind of have to read it probably five times in order to digest the the gist of it
180. 00:13:30 This one is a lot easier to sit down and read because he's telling you his story
181. 00:13:34 And so after you you read it you that the real impact is in the story that he tells and kind of the
182. 00:13:41 the attitude that you feel
183. 00:13:44 Towards your own situation and recognizing that you have the ability to kind of change that but it's not a
184. 00:13:50 bunch of lists of things and like a thousand different things that you're gonna need to remember and apply at different points in your life
185. 00:13:57 Which is exactly what principles felt like sure so all that to say it's very very different
186. 00:14:01 But it's very very good and it also I think makes it a lot more accessible and something that just anybody could sit down and enjoy
187. 00:14:09 Yeah, because when we went through
188. 00:14:11 Principles we kind of came away from that with the the idea that you kind of you have to be in a certain place in
189. 00:14:18 order to read that and
190. 00:14:20 It's kind of heady takes a lot to figure out how you're gonna apply it. This is not that
191. 00:14:26 This is something I think is approachable to buy pretty much anybody that what you just said
192. 00:14:31 I think that's the best way to encapsulate this is that principles felt very heady. This feels very emotional. Yeah
193. 00:14:38 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So this is one that
194. 00:14:42 you know, it's ultimately about building resilience and
195. 00:14:46 How to live intentionally?
196. 00:14:49 He comes at it from the stance of you have bad things happen to you or you feel like you just can't win
197. 00:14:56 Which is nice timing because I've had a lot of those thoughts lately
198. 00:15:00 Between health and other things like it just I always tend to feel like I'm banging my head against the wall
199. 00:15:07 So it's it's kind of nice to to go through this at this point even though, you know
200. 00:15:12 I have had some successes with some things
201. 00:15:14 But let's jump into some of these secrets that he spells out and I I do want to preface this with
202. 00:15:21 I'm not sure that I would have called these secrets
203. 00:15:26 as
204. 00:15:27 much as just these are things to
205. 00:15:29 Consider when you're going through difficult times sure at the same time
206. 00:15:34 I completely understand the marketing and the publicity aspect of saying these are secrets. So I'm
207. 00:15:39 I would probably agree to do the exact same thing if I were him so it but on first blush
208. 00:15:46 Why are you calling it secrets? Why not call it principles?
209. 00:15:49 But that was in my head because we just finished principles. So I had the same thought yeah
210. 00:15:54 So I'm like, okay. Well, that's just merely you know happen stance of when these things crossed my mind
211. 00:16:00 So let's step into secret number one
212. 00:16:04 Which is add a dot dot dot now what he's getting at here when he says add a dot dot dot
213. 00:16:12 Let's say something terrible happen, you know your car gets rear ended or you rare. Let's say you rear in somebody else
214. 00:16:19 It's easy in that scenario to start having thoughts along the lines of I'm a terrible driver bad things always happen to me
215. 00:16:27 You know you can start to have these thoughts his point here is that
216. 00:16:32 You can say things like I'm a bad driver
217. 00:16:35 But always make sure you put a dot dot dot at the end of that statement to allow yourself to grow past that point
218. 00:16:43 You know it's not a matter of I'm a bad driver. It's I'm a bad driver
219. 00:16:49 For now like you know you can put the little clarifier on there that allows you to step past that particular
220. 00:16:55 aspect but that's important because it keeps your mind open to the growth piece and I could not help Mike but think of
221. 00:17:04 Carol Dweck and mindset whenever I was going through this because it's all about
222. 00:17:08 Thinking about being able to grow beyond
223. 00:17:11 What you're currently going through but that's the main point in chapter one here of or such secret one
224. 00:17:18 of adding that dot dot dot to your story whatever it is you're telling yourself making sure that you're not
225. 00:17:23 Focusing on that but being willing to see it as you know an extension of that story that you're you're referring to in your own mind
226. 00:17:32 Yeah, the main point is that something bad happens and we tend to view that as the end of the story
227. 00:17:40 And you says in the this first chapter that sometimes the hardest thing to do is to keep going
228. 00:17:47 But that's also the only way that things ever change
229. 00:17:49 I think it was Winston Churchill who said if you're going through hell keep going like you don't right you don't decide
230. 00:17:57 But oh, this is terrible. I guess I'm just gonna stay here for the rest of my life
231. 00:18:01 Yeah, but that's what you feel like doing whenever that happens. You just want an escape
232. 00:18:06 But that's not the way life works
233. 00:18:10 My pastor has a different way of saying this which I like and I think it fits with this whole idea of
234. 00:18:15 Your life as a story. He says all the time turn the page
235. 00:18:18 So the period his main point the dot dot dot he's saying replace the period at the end of your sentence
236. 00:18:25 The dot dot dot indicates that there's more to be said there's there's something coming after this
237. 00:18:31 adding yet to the end of the sentence essentially and
238. 00:18:35 That's hard for us to do
239. 00:18:40 Because we get so focused on the result and we see the result and we apply that result through a fixed mindset lens
240. 00:18:46 Going back to your point about Carol Dweck and we say I am a failure
241. 00:18:50 Rather than saying I failed, but I'm gonna learn it. I'm gonna go right try something else and
242. 00:18:57 Eventually, I'm gonna find the thing and everything's gonna
243. 00:19:00 Everything's gonna gonna turn out okay in the end
244. 00:19:04 But in order for that to happen we have to keep going I think this is
245. 00:19:09 One of the most powerful things that you can do is just simply never ever ever ever give up and
246. 00:19:15 Again, this is way easier to talk about than to actually practice. I get that just keep going step by step
247. 00:19:23 My pastor is noticing day by day play by play
248. 00:19:26 You know just focus on the next thing that's in front of you and don't stop if that's
249. 00:19:32 All people got out of this book it probably is enough to radically change a lot of people's lives
250. 00:19:38 sure because we tend to go by
251. 00:19:41 How we feel or what we see?
252. 00:19:44 The circumstances around us and we let that dictate our action we feel like we're helpless and there's nothing that we can do
253. 00:19:51 But we can choose to keep going in just that simple choice of
254. 00:19:56 Continuing to put one foot in front of the other and see what tomorrow brings
255. 00:20:00 That's enough to transform your situation because
256. 00:20:05 this isn't going to last forever this to shall pass and
257. 00:20:09 If you don't just stop and set up shop in the Valley of Despair, then eventually you're gonna you're gonna get to the other side and
258. 00:20:16 I think it's really sad
259. 00:20:19 how
260. 00:20:21 How many people never get there?
261. 00:20:23 You know that's that's the one thing that really stood out to me from this book was the very beginning when he's telling his story and all the
262. 00:20:29 reasons that he had to just
263. 00:20:31 Pack it up. Yeah, I'm done
264. 00:20:34 like
265. 00:20:35 Life you've been cruel to me. I'm not gonna try anymore
266. 00:20:39 but he didn't and
267. 00:20:42 as a result
268. 00:20:43 How many people have been impacted by the books that he's written the blog that he started the TED talks that he's given
269. 00:20:49 even though if you think about
270. 00:20:51 Everything that had happened to him at that point and you're trying to like crunch all the numbers
271. 00:20:56 Look at everything logically
272. 00:20:59 No one would have blamed him if he would have just said, you know, that's that's enough
273. 00:21:03 I'm just gonna
274. 00:21:04 Go get a normal job
275. 00:21:06 Just put in my time do my thing and not try for something awesome anymore
276. 00:21:11 Yeah, and I think maybe that's a good transition to into the the second secret because you really have to
277. 00:21:19 see the bigger picture so the second secret is shift the spotlight and
278. 00:21:25 What he means by that is we have a tendency to think things revolve around us and
279. 00:21:32 We tend to think that if we're doing something wrong
280. 00:21:36 Everyone around us sees it
281. 00:21:39 Everyone around us is focusing on it, you know if my hair is out of place everyone there noticed if I screwed up a line
282. 00:21:47 Everyone saw it you get the point we have a tendency to think that way
283. 00:21:52 You know, I see this on Sunday morning quite a bit, you know, we have a very high standard of
284. 00:22:01 I don't want to say production, but it's mostly we want to make sure that
285. 00:22:05 mistakes in sound and quality and the way the worship runs we want to make sure that those mistakes don't
286. 00:22:13 detract from the worship experience and that's always been our
287. 00:22:17 intention
288. 00:22:19 But if a mistake happens, I
289. 00:22:22 Notice it every single time I see every single thing like when the lyrics came up slightly too slow when you know
290. 00:22:31 There was a hair of feedback getting ready to come through on a specific microphone. I noticed that and
291. 00:22:36 I think I think everyone saw it and everyone saw that there was that potential mistake
292. 00:22:42 I talked to people afterwards. Oh, it was great. It went really well
293. 00:22:45 What yeah, like there were these seven things that went wrong. How could you not they don't see that?
294. 00:22:51 So his point here is that when you shift the spotlight you have to start start realizing that
295. 00:22:58 those mistakes or those little pieces that you see or that you do
296. 00:23:02 Don't necessarily
297. 00:23:05 Revolve like not everyone sees those so shift the spotlight off of yourself broaden it out
298. 00:23:10 So you can see the broader picture of what's going on
299. 00:23:12 Because you're just one piece in the broader puzzle that's going on there
300. 00:23:16 So don't don't focus in on yourself like I tend to do it seems every time I
301. 00:23:23 Yeah, and I think the really powerful application of this for a lot of people maybe is a little bit more personal
302. 00:23:30 so it's not on I'm in charge of
303. 00:23:33 The the lights or the sound for a large corporate event
304. 00:23:38 But just the fact that I am somewhere where there are a thousand other people
305. 00:23:42 I think based on the spotlight effect that everybody is looking at me and really nobody's looking at you
306. 00:23:49 Right, right. So don't worry about it so much
307. 00:23:53 Uh
308. 00:23:55 One thing that was really interesting to me from this section
309. 00:23:59 We have these two different extremes
310. 00:24:03 Typically in the productivity space specifically I think talks about how we hear
311. 00:24:10 Inspirational messages like just do it or follow your heart and then when you can't do something or you recognize
312. 00:24:16 You're not good at something then you feel stuck and at that point you've got a crossroads because if you quit
313. 00:24:22 That's a problem and if you stick with it. That's also a problem
314. 00:24:25 Because you're still stuck. Yeah, and so he makes the point that as a result this self-help
315. 00:24:32 Industry can actually be pretty toxic and offer a surprising amount of contradictory advice and I think this is totally true
316. 00:24:40 This is my main issue with with the the systems
317. 00:24:44 I think because the people who write a book about a system
318. 00:24:48 They 100% believe that this is the thing that will help people get unstuck
319. 00:24:54 Because this is the thing maybe that got them unstuck and I'm not even arguing that they shouldn't write that book
320. 00:25:00 If they this is the thing that really impacted them that absolutely they should share that idea with the world
321. 00:25:05 I just don't like to
322. 00:25:07 Take a system like that and assume that if I follow this system to the T that it is a hundred percent
323. 00:25:13 Gonna work every time and that's one of the things I really appreciate about you are awesome is there is no system here
324. 00:25:18 You know he's basically saying in this this section that all of the advice that you hear is gonna be appropriate in a certain context
325. 00:25:26 But when you try to consider all of it and then you add in an element of being stuck where you are
326. 00:25:32 you're gonna
327. 00:25:34 Quickly get to the point where this is all meaningless
328. 00:25:36 right and that's something I think people need to
329. 00:25:40 Recognize and if this book is helps you realize that then that's that's great
330. 00:25:46 I think I've kind of had my moment of clarity on this prior to reading this but that whole passage
331. 00:25:51 I thought that was articulated really really well sure yeah, absolutely and I know that like whenever
332. 00:25:56 You're referring to like the productivity space and how you know, it's
333. 00:26:01 sometimes counterintuitive with what we see and what we we refer to with that, but I think there's
334. 00:26:10 There they're they're starting to become a bit of a shift, you know
335. 00:26:13 He obviously doesn't like the systems, but I did see you know, I recently did a
336. 00:26:17 Workflow webinar on learn omni focus calm, which was a lot of fun
337. 00:26:22 But I got a lot of questions after that with people seeing my whole system
338. 00:26:27 That I demo and show off in the course and I use the real system for that
339. 00:26:33 But a lot of the questions I got around it were how do you?
340. 00:26:39 Nail down what it is you should do in each moment like that's what those questions revolved around like how do you use due dates?
341. 00:26:44 How do you make sure that you know exactly what to do because I use one big list and
342. 00:26:49 You don't get a system a ties way of working through things with one big list
343. 00:26:54 You just don't and that was the intent is you know, it allows me to step aside
344. 00:26:59 Let me use my intuition use judgment calls throughout the day. That's the intent there
345. 00:27:04 because
346. 00:27:06 Systems are great and they can also be detrimental
347. 00:27:09 Like I think that's I think he would agree with that and then yep
348. 00:27:12 We tend to see that in a lot of the self-help world
349. 00:27:15 Yeah, and then kind of compounded with that in the same
350. 00:27:18 Chapter is if you share how you've messed up it can motivate others. It's contagious in a good way
351. 00:27:25 because if you
352. 00:27:27 Look at the systems that are out there. These are this is people sharing
353. 00:27:32 What has worked for them and again? I'm not arguing that they should not share that
354. 00:27:37 But if all anybody ever shares is the things that are going well and no one shares the mistakes that they've made or the struggles
355. 00:27:44 That they've had to go through then when you go through something challenging
356. 00:27:48 You think to yourself
357. 00:27:50 Well, I must be doing it wrong because no one else that I look up to is facing this kind of stuff
358. 00:27:54 But the truth is that they all are yes, so that's one of my action items is to
359. 00:28:01 Share more of my failures, and I know that's not the first time I've had that one
360. 00:28:04 But it's a good reminder to me to not just share the stuff that looks good on the outside the stuff
361. 00:28:10 That's really gonna help people maybe the things that I'm struggling with thus bookworm
362. 00:28:14 good bookworm alright, so
363. 00:28:17 Secrets one and two added dot dot dot shift the spotlight secret number three see it as a step alright now think about
364. 00:28:25 something bad that has happened
365. 00:28:28 car breaks down or
366. 00:28:30 You know you have a failed website you have some
367. 00:28:34 something bad happen okay
368. 00:28:36 see that failure that
369. 00:28:38 Bad thing as a step in the right direction or towards something better
370. 00:28:45 The example here is that in Neil's case
371. 00:28:48 He had I think it was five or six websites that were complete failures, and then he started
372. 00:28:54 The blog a thousand awesome things he started that blog
373. 00:28:59 Because he got tired of all his failures he wanted to look for things that are awesome
374. 00:29:04 Thus backing your car into the driveway, so he he started that because he was sick and tired of
375. 00:29:10 Failing and that became a step in the right direction that has then led to three books
376. 00:29:16 And all kinds of great things that have happened to him as a result of that
377. 00:29:21 So whenever you look at this see whatever your failure is as a step
378. 00:29:27 so he saw all those failures as a step in the right direction and the analogy here is that
379. 00:29:32 I'm
380. 00:29:34 Think of it as an invisible staircase
381. 00:29:36 Now when you're taking these steps
382. 00:29:39 Generally on a staircase you know which steps come next you know if the it curves to the left or right
383. 00:29:45 You know if it goes straight up if there's a landing like you can see all of that ahead of time on a normal staircase
384. 00:29:50 But imagine that's invisible
385. 00:29:53 Now most of the time if you ask somebody if they know what the next five or ten years holds for them
386. 00:29:59 They say yeah, they're pretty confident is it is much going to change? No, you know
387. 00:30:03 It's you know my life's gonna be pretty much the way it is right now liars. Yep, exactly like that's what people will tell you
388. 00:30:10 but
389. 00:30:12 Almost a hundred percent of the time. That's not true things happen
390. 00:30:17 Difficult challenges come along you have to make edits to the way that you
391. 00:30:22 Operate in your life because you don't know what those next steps are you cannot tell
392. 00:30:27 What step three is when you're not even through step one all you can see is the next step
393. 00:30:33 Which is right in front of you?
394. 00:30:34 That's his point so whenever a bad thing happens you have to be able to see that as a step and think of it as a positive step
395. 00:30:40 Because you don't know what's coming next. That's his whole point here
396. 00:30:44 Yeah, and then kind of coupled with that is the fact that we think the way
397. 00:30:49 Things are is going to be based on the way things were or
398. 00:30:56 Maybe rephrasing that the way things will be in the future is based on
399. 00:31:00 What we've experienced so far so we project our current experience
400. 00:31:05 Forward and that's the whole idea of the invisible staircases. You can't see
401. 00:31:10 Where the top of it is?
402. 00:31:13 you don't have a clear path forward to your point you just have the next step and
403. 00:31:21 Kind of coupled with that is the general idea of failure as a bad thing
404. 00:31:27 Because we look back at all the times that we've failed and we see maybe the negative
405. 00:31:33 Consequences that came from it or we remember how that made us feel and then we project forward that well
406. 00:31:40 I'm gonna avoid that if I if I can
407. 00:31:43 but
408. 00:31:45 As he talks about in the later chapter, that's really the thing that's gonna ultimately allow you to be
409. 00:31:51 successful
410. 00:31:52 So we need to challenge some of those traditional ideas about moving towards our ideal future
411. 00:31:59 Because we assume that we can see up the invisible staircase, but we can't and then there's another
412. 00:32:05 Key piece to this which is a minor point that he makes but I really think is worth calling out here is that all news is negative
413. 00:32:14 I
414. 00:32:17 100% agree with this I've stopped following the news
415. 00:32:20 Probably a couple of years sure and it's kind of interesting to me because my parents are older obviously they still
416. 00:32:28 Very much are connected with the news the evening news specifically
417. 00:32:33 That's how they find out about what's going on in the world
418. 00:32:35 And then when we see him for dinner or whatever they want to talk about world events like did you hear about this?
419. 00:32:40 I'm like no, I didn't every time I have to say that I feel good
420. 00:32:44 Sorry
421. 00:32:47 No, I don't I don't really care because every single regardless of which way you lean politically every single
422. 00:32:55 News outlet they make their money off of bad news
423. 00:32:59 So there is going to be plenty of bad news and if you add up all of the
424. 00:33:05 Psychological effects that that has on you. It's very easy to see how that can very much be contradictory
425. 00:33:11 Towards progress in your quest for awesome, but it's also the kind of it's the kind of thing that
426. 00:33:17 Makes us keep coming back. It's kind of habit forming. It's addictive. So I
427. 00:33:22 Don't know it's hard sometimes to break free from some of that stuff
428. 00:33:27 but
429. 00:33:28 He makes the point and I 100% agree with this that if you really want to be
430. 00:33:33 Positive if you want to live in an awesome life you need to remove as much negative as you can and
431. 00:33:39 removing the news as a source of information
432. 00:33:43 Probably gonna have less of a negative impact than you think it might have a much greater positive impact than you think
433. 00:33:50 so we're recording this on a Friday and
434. 00:33:53 On this coming Monday morning. It will be exactly one year at that moment
435. 00:34:00 It'll be exactly one year since the last time I watched the news and I watched the morning news
436. 00:34:05 And I know this because we were in a hotel on our way
437. 00:34:11 towards my mom's place for Thanksgiving, which you know is coming up next week, so we do that trip every year and
438. 00:34:18 That particular morning
439. 00:34:21 when we got up to the hotel we went and grabbed breakfast and had the girls with me and
440. 00:34:25 Someone in the room of course had the TV on because hotels are incapable of having a breakfast area without one or twelve
441. 00:34:34 TVs on and blaring so there was a TV in the corner. They had the news playing and
442. 00:34:39 I watched it for a few minutes and it oh it was totally wrecked my day
443. 00:34:46 Just totally because you know everything's inflammatory everybody's mad. It's all negative like
444. 00:34:53 Why is this even on airports - oh yeah, they're terrible - and I think yeah in airports
445. 00:35:01 Like everywhere you look there's news and it's probably just because people are killing time
446. 00:35:05 But next time you go through an airport just people watch and look at who is watching the news and look at their facial expressions
447. 00:35:13 Whether they look happy yeah for sure well, I know that you know we sat there in the breakfast area and
448. 00:35:19 I one of the guys that I could tell who was intently watching the news
449. 00:35:25 Got up and left and there were two other families there that I could see were not
450. 00:35:30 paying any attention to the TV and I just asked them like can I turn that off and
451. 00:35:35 They looked at me like oh, I suppose that is an option we can turn that off and
452. 00:35:40 they like yeah by all means so I went over and I
453. 00:35:46 Couldn't find the power button on the thing and there was no remote to be found
454. 00:35:50 So you rip it out of the wall through it. I totally ripped the thing out of the wall
455. 00:35:54 I is like this no, I'm I will shut this thing off
456. 00:35:58 so I pulled the power cord on the thing like we're shutting this off and
457. 00:36:03 The rest of breakfast was peaceful and the part that was funny to me was that
458. 00:36:08 before that TV was turned off
459. 00:36:11 Each table in the room was kind of in their own little world like you were we were all contained
460. 00:36:17 We were talking amongst ourselves as a family when I broke that you know invisible wall between us and the other two families there and
461. 00:36:26 Killed the TV for whatever reason that broke
462. 00:36:29 The ice and we were able to have conversation so we had conversations with those two other families
463. 00:36:34 Found out that they normally go back to the same hotel at the same time of year like well, I might see you next year then
464. 00:36:41 We'll see we exchanged numbers and stuff. It was kind of a fun little ordeal, but I still very
465. 00:36:51 Very explicitly remembers like the news that day. I and it wasn't even anything
466. 00:36:56 You know massive
467. 00:36:58 It was just something local and they blew it out of proportion because they were looking for viewership. So
468. 00:37:03 No news get rid of it. So let me share my own story with this and kind of an annoyance about this
469. 00:37:14 So I mentioned my parents like to watch the news
470. 00:37:17 They like to talk to us about the things that are happening. We also have a lot of young kids
471. 00:37:23 so
472. 00:37:25 They'll be talking about something and they'll ask us like did you hear about?
473. 00:37:29 The guy who got?
474. 00:37:31 Murdered, you know and my kids hear everything like wait what right and then they try to oh never mind never mind
475. 00:37:38 Because it's like well because they should know they want to know but but they have no problem with us hearing it like
476. 00:37:44 We have an opinion and a preference here too like we would prefer not to hear this stuff
477. 00:37:49 But that just doesn't even register as an option
478. 00:37:52 You know and I'm I use this as an example. It's really not that big sure okay. I am not
479. 00:37:59 I have a very good relationship with my parents
480. 00:38:02 Okay, but I use this as an example that it just becomes so ingrained in the normal day-to-day
481. 00:38:09 but you don't have to settle for just going with the flow and
482. 00:38:13 Chatting at the water cooler about all the negative stuff that's happening you can
483. 00:38:17 Set intention and change your course or tell yourself a different story. Oh nice segue
484. 00:38:24 We I win alright secret number four tell yourself a different story because that was awesome
485. 00:38:30 Because you know you are awesome so tell yourself a different story when bad things happen typically we
486. 00:38:36 We see only the negatives
487. 00:38:38 I'm I don't have the body. I want I see only the bad things about the way I look
488. 00:38:44 My wardrobe isn't the way I like my boss doesn't like me like the all these things are
489. 00:38:49 Negatives and we tell ourselves all the negative stories, you know like what the news tells us and I think this is maybe one of the most
490. 00:38:57 Difficult secrets here Mike because telling yourself the opposite of that and then believing that is so incredibly difficult
491. 00:39:04 But I could see where it's super valuable
492. 00:39:06 If you see that your boss doesn't like you and he's making things hurt on you
493. 00:39:11 You know see it as hey
494. 00:39:14 This is a chance to get better at character see it as a chance to to figure out how to deal with difficult people
495. 00:39:19 Like see the positive side of that now maybe that's a bad example
496. 00:39:24 I don't know but you get the idea here is whenever you have something negative like the way you view it is all in your head
497. 00:39:31 It's not a matter of what's happening in the world. Maybe this is a stoic pull
498. 00:39:35 You know don't necessarily react to thing the way that everyone else does think about it
499. 00:39:40 And then choose the way that you're gonna react that concept really cool concept that is so hard to do
500. 00:39:46 like I
501. 00:39:47 Tried to figure out ways that I could do this from the time I finished reading that section to now and
502. 00:39:52 There've been a few points when I could try to implement this and I have been very
503. 00:39:58 Unsuccessful in trying to accomplish this that's why I say I think this is the most difficult one
504. 00:40:03 And I have no action items around this because I don't really want to try this
505. 00:40:07 But it's it's one that I think could be valuable. It's just one that I think is super difficult. Yeah, I agree with you
506. 00:40:16 The thing that I jotted down here was the three big questions, and I think this helps clarify
507. 00:40:24 Well, how important the story that you are telling yourself at the moment really is
508. 00:40:30 So number one will this matter my deathbed number two can I do something about this number three?
509. 00:40:35 Is this a story that I'm telling myself that last one in particular is pretty powerful? I think
510. 00:40:40 He makes the point in this chapter that many of us in part shame to ourselves
511. 00:40:47 Which he defines shame as the belief that others are making a judgment of you
512. 00:40:52 Well others may not be making a judgment of you, but you're saying
513. 00:40:58 something that is making you ashamed of of
514. 00:41:01 Maybe something that you've done and then you say that
515. 00:41:07 Enough and you assume the identity and now it's the fact
516. 00:41:11 It's not that you're experiencing shame about something that you've done
517. 00:41:14 But you're experiencing shame about something that you are and again
518. 00:41:18 No one needs to project this on to you. We do a great job of this ourselves and
519. 00:41:25 The reason I think that this happens is that we tend to connect dots
520. 00:41:29 We look at the outcomes and we say well that was a success or that was a failure and then we
521. 00:41:36 scribe a value judgment to the thing is either good or bad and we can already talked about how we tend to
522. 00:41:43 ascribe
523. 00:41:44 failures as
524. 00:41:46 Something that is bad, but that's not necessarily the case and
525. 00:41:52 especially for people who are very logical like I think both you and I are will look at the facts and
526. 00:41:59 There's a statement in this chapter that really struck me. He said that the fact a fact is different than a story and
527. 00:42:06 I think we've talked about this previous in bookworm - where you can have facts. You can have individual things
528. 00:42:12 That are true
529. 00:42:14 But the way that you connect them does not
530. 00:42:18 Ness is not necessarily true. So you can look at a fact that you failed at this thing that thing that thing and then
531. 00:42:26 Tell yourself a story that I am a failure as a fill in the blank and I'm not going to try this anymore
532. 00:42:33 But that's not necessarily true. So the whole point of this
533. 00:42:37 chapter this section is
534. 00:42:40 When you find that you're telling yourself that sort of story hit pause evaluate
535. 00:42:46 maybe why you're
536. 00:42:48 telling that story the way it is and then
537. 00:42:51 Try to spin it for lack of a better term
538. 00:42:55 find a different angle to interpret the facts that are before you and
539. 00:43:01 I don't have an action item associated with this either
540. 00:43:05 But I recognize that this is something that I'm not necessarily great at and it's something that I'd like to become better at right?
541. 00:43:11 So not an action item again, but I also want to start telling myself different stories
542. 00:43:17 And when I find myself connecting the dots
543. 00:43:20 Based on the facts that are presented
544. 00:43:22 Asking myself specifically is there another way to look at these things. I think this is hard
545. 00:43:29 I still think it's hard, but I get the value of it
546. 00:43:33 So it is and I think really the awareness of the fact that there is another option
547. 00:43:37 That's really the valuable thing at this point
548. 00:43:40 You know for someone who's just picking up this book and reading this and again
549. 00:43:44 We've read a bunch of these books. So a lot of this stuff
550. 00:43:47 We've heard in some way shape or form before but assuming you're brand new to this
551. 00:43:51 This may be completely revolutionary to some people
552. 00:43:54 First time you've ever heard the fact that you don't have to just assume that because A equals B and B equals C
553. 00:44:00 That A equals C. There's a different way to connect those dots. That's
554. 00:44:04 That can be life-changing for sure. I mean the obstacle is the way Ryan Holiday
555. 00:44:09 Go back in time. What was that episode three four something like that?
556. 00:44:15 You know it that's that's a lot of what it's about is seeing things with a different lens when it's not exactly pleasant
557. 00:44:22 Yep, so that's a good place to go for it. All right secret number five
558. 00:44:27 Lose more to win more
559. 00:44:30 This is basically
560. 00:44:32 Fail fast if you want a summarization of that
561. 00:44:36 The idea is the more times you play the game the more likely you are to accrue wins
562. 00:44:41 he brings out some baseball stats like
563. 00:44:44 Folks who are had the most wins in their
564. 00:44:48 repertoire
565. 00:44:51 Played the most games
566. 00:44:53 Just a simple fact the more times people try to do something
567. 00:44:58 The more likely you are to have some successes. Yeah, which means that you have to be willing to accept a large number of failures as well
568. 00:45:07 You know, this is Seth Godin's story
569. 00:45:10 He tells about how he had a lot of failures before he has had successes
570. 00:45:14 Einstein was the same way all kinds of
571. 00:45:18 Folks in history who talk about all the failures they had
572. 00:45:22 but those things teach you and those failures are allow you to
573. 00:45:28 Continue to get better at things. So I
574. 00:45:30 I of course working in software and in tech you deal with failures all the time and you always learn from those and move on
575. 00:45:38 but the the key that I found in this is being willing to
576. 00:45:42 step up to the plate and
577. 00:45:45 Try like it just be willing to lose
578. 00:45:48 Or fail at something with the hope that you will succeed at it. Yeah this chapter
579. 00:45:55 I totally get his point, but I also think that the fact that you fail a lot doesn't
580. 00:46:00 Necessarily mean that you're going to succeed. So
581. 00:46:04 How do I say this a lot of failure does not
582. 00:46:10 Does not produce a lot of success, but you can't get a lot of success without a lot of failure
583. 00:46:17 Does that make sense? It does but you have to keep in mind that he predicated this with
584. 00:46:23 some secrets that
585. 00:46:25 You know add a dot dot dot. Yes, you failed, but
586. 00:46:28 Now what you know shift the spotlight off your failure on to the broader picture see that failure as a step
587. 00:46:35 Tell yourself a different story about it
588. 00:46:38 He gives you all of those before he gets to this point
589. 00:46:42 So I don't I don't disagree with you
590. 00:46:45 but if you're doing those four things and
591. 00:46:48 You're willing to learn from those failures. I think eventually the answer is yes, you will eventually succeed. Yes
592. 00:46:55 I think that's what he's getting it. I agree with you for the person who just jumped straight to chapter five
593. 00:47:00 You maybe don't get that context for sure
594. 00:47:03 I guess really that's the thing I want to call out here is that you have to take this in context
595. 00:47:07 And if you just read chapter five, I think you're maybe missing
596. 00:47:11 Some key ideas here
597. 00:47:14 We kind of talked about the growth mindset that really is the key is what happens when you fail?
598. 00:47:20 So the number of failures
599. 00:47:22 Doesn't really matter but if after every failure
600. 00:47:26 You look at why you ended up here and you make some changes and you try something different
601. 00:47:33 Then that is going to eventually lead you to success
602. 00:47:37 But the fact that you failed isn't a predicator of that success
603. 00:47:42 He uses some some sports examples
604. 00:47:45 I think he talked about Cy Young but the one that really stood out to me because I'm in Wisconsin
605. 00:47:49 Brett Favre with the Green Bay Packers nobody likes Brett because he was
606. 00:47:53 He's a very likable guy
607. 00:47:56 He's just total chill
608. 00:47:59 I can't get to upset because he played for the Vikings for yeah, so
609. 00:48:02 But growing up he was the he was the quarterback and it was maddening to watch him because
610. 00:48:10 He had a people described as a gunslinger mentality, so he would just try for all these ridiculous throws and
611. 00:48:16 For a while he had the record for the most touchdowns in a career and also the most
612. 00:48:23 Interceptions and people were quick to point that out
613. 00:48:25 Neil would say that that's not necessarily a bad thing
614. 00:48:29 I think when people share those statistics they kind of think that it's a bad thing. I don't necessarily think that
615. 00:48:35 I think those two are kind of kind of related and the fact that he threw so many touchdowns was based on the fact that he was
616. 00:48:42 willing to take some chances
617. 00:48:44 But also you could get the feeling that watching somebody like Brett Favre
618. 00:48:48 Which is kind of my point about how you can't just fail a bunch of times
619. 00:48:51 You have to learn from your mistakes sometimes Brett would just you know throw stuff
620. 00:48:57 And he would have games where he'd have five six interceptions and you're just like stop doing that
621. 00:49:04 You're killing me. Yeah, yeah, exactly
622. 00:49:06 So
623. 00:49:09 That's the the mentality that I as I apply this
624. 00:49:13 Want to do a little bit differently than something like that and I want to I want to call it out to everybody else too is
625. 00:49:20 You can't just have a gunslinger
626. 00:49:23 mentality you have to have a growth mindset applied to this in order for this to to really work and
627. 00:49:32 Sure, it's hard to think of a specific scenario
628. 00:49:36 where I could
629. 00:49:38 Draw an example of that from
630. 00:49:40 But I do think that the real value here is really just recognizing that the fact that you failed is not
631. 00:49:50 necessarily bad failure is not final
632. 00:49:53 But where do you go from here and the answer should never be backwards it should always be forwards for sure
633. 00:50:02 for sure
634. 00:50:03 No, I totally get the whole like fail fast concept. I get it, but it's not
635. 00:50:11 One that I think you should
636. 00:50:13 How do I say that it's not one that you should count on or just like oh that was not gonna work
637. 00:50:19 Let me try again. Oh that was not gonna work. Let me try. Yeah, exactly that if you come at it with that mentality
638. 00:50:25 You may have a very long string of failures. You may never win
639. 00:50:30 Yeah, it's possible those successes never come
640. 00:50:32 It's only when you're willing to take what worked and what didn't work
641. 00:50:37 from those previous failures and applying them to
642. 00:50:40 Your next attempt like when you get to that point. I think that's where where the potential can come in
643. 00:50:47 Yeah, everybody likes to throw out the statistic that Thomas Edison had
644. 00:50:51 10,000 failures before he invented the light bulb, but maybe you don't have enough time to make 10,000 more failures in your life
645. 00:50:59 What do you do then you got to fail smarter? You can't just try a bunch of random stuff. Yes?
646. 00:51:04 You've got to know here about three ways to accelerate success. Yeah, you want to cover that quick sure
647. 00:51:10 This is kind of related so he had three things here, which I think are genius and
648. 00:51:17 Worth calling out for how to fail correctly
649. 00:51:20 Number one he said go to parties where you don't know any know anyone this
650. 00:51:26 Made the introvert in me very nervous, but I recognize that this is scared. This is very very correct
651. 00:51:33 Because I've I've seen this happen like I've seen this apply in my life before where I've been somewhere where I don't know
652. 00:51:41 anybody and I force myself outside my comfort zone and that's usually
653. 00:51:46 when cool stuff happens so
654. 00:51:48 Getting outside of your little
655. 00:51:54 Out of your world of of experience and
656. 00:51:57 Experiencing something else we can give you more dots to connect and help you see a bigger picture
657. 00:52:03 Number two is have a failure budget
658. 00:52:06 This also is genius and really addresses my main point with you can't just keep failing a
659. 00:52:13 failure budget ensures that you're going to cap your losses at a
660. 00:52:18 Certain amount and this could be a time budget. It could be a dollar budget
661. 00:52:23 He used this when he was making his websites because a thousand awesome things was his sixth website
662. 00:52:28 He would say I'm gonna spend up to a hundred dollars on this thing and then it's got to show me something before I invest more in it
663. 00:52:35 I think that's that's really smart and then number three counter losses. So again, don't just keep failing
664. 00:52:41 Recognize the fact that you have failed
665. 00:52:44 Don't just you get it out of your mind as quick as you can because that's another thing that people say all the time is like
666. 00:52:50 You got to have a short memory. Well, yeah, that's that's true
667. 00:52:53 But you don't I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to remember that the thing happened
668. 00:52:58 It depends how you look back at it if it causes you to be fearful of trying again or going forward
669. 00:53:05 Then that's a bad thing but recognizing that I tried this this way before and it didn't work
670. 00:53:10 So this time I'm gonna try something else. That's a very positive thing. Absolutely. So yes, I'm with you the first of those three
671. 00:53:18 Do I have to?
672. 00:53:20 Yeah, I get it
673. 00:53:23 but I was literally at a large group gathering the other day and somebody was like
674. 00:53:28 Do you like getting together with people like this and I mentioned your your t-shirt? I'm like no
675. 00:53:34 My buddy's got a t-shirt and I think I need to get one no introverts unite separately in your own homes. That's that's my good
676. 00:53:42 Yes, I
677. 00:53:45 Think we can get a link to that picture in the show notes
678. 00:53:49 So I think it's on my Instagram awesome if you scroll back on it, but yes
679. 00:53:53 I've had more than a couple people tell me they want that shirt
680. 00:53:56 I do wear that shirt in public by the way and
681. 00:53:59 Because it's it's one of those shirts like it's really cool shirt
682. 00:54:02 But you really got to think about the group you're going to when you wear that yeah, it's not another one
683. 00:54:07 The other did it said I'm sorry. I can't talk to you. I spoke to two people yesterday
684. 00:54:11 Yes, yes, absolutely
685. 00:54:15 Kind of piggybacking on off of that though secret number six reveal to heal
686. 00:54:20 It's exactly what it sounds like if you're going to heal from the failure of the difficulty that you dealt with
687. 00:54:27 You have to be willing to talk about it and you have to be willing to reveal it to other people
688. 00:54:31 This is why I was talking about Mike sharing his baseball card publicly because revealing those personal things
689. 00:54:39 Help you grow and help you get over some of the difficulties that you've dealt with to get there
690. 00:54:44 This is also why the course we were talking about earlier working with Omni focus the third version
691. 00:54:49 When I recorded that Mike you'll this will make you squirm
692. 00:54:54 When I recorded that I did not use a guest account on my computer and I did not set up a demo database for that particular
693. 00:55:02 Screencast yeah, I remember you you kept your original database in the first
694. 00:55:08 Program and that was one of the things people really liked about it
695. 00:55:11 Yeah, so I kind of assumed you would do that again with this one, but yeah, you're right
696. 00:55:15 That's not something people would typically do no no and it terrifies the people who record
697. 00:55:20 Whenever you do that, but if you want to see what I actually run in my Omni focus setup
698. 00:55:26 That's the way to do it and this is partially why because I have learned that if I'm going to share
699. 00:55:31 my real system
700. 00:55:34 And I think I actually managed to do it without blurring anything out to
701. 00:55:37 I managed to go through that whole system because in my mind whenever I watch other people's courses and watch other people's
702. 00:55:44 Systems and screencasts
703. 00:55:46 Yes, they use demo data and they tend to make it funny and like they'll use star wars references and stuff and like, you know
704. 00:55:52 Build the new millennium falcon like they'll do some stuff like that in order to to make it fun
705. 00:55:58 But it's hard to get a read on how real that is
706. 00:56:02 And like how to translate it because there is that level of translation you have to do
707. 00:56:06 um, you don't have to do that with this so
708. 00:56:08 I have found a lot of value in in revealing the real thing because to me it makes it easier to
709. 00:56:14 To learn on my own system as well
710. 00:56:17 Like I always tend to when I record those I find things and I tweak and adjust my own system usually right after that
711. 00:56:24 Sometimes in the middle of so that does happen there was one point he
712. 00:56:28 He called out one task of sorts that I have as an action item out of this
713. 00:56:35 Section and that's what he calls the two-minute morning practice
714. 00:56:38 It's three prompts. So this would be like I guess you would call this a morning journaling process
715. 00:56:44 Yeah, um, it's a way of revealing things to yourself
716. 00:56:47 I've never really done something like this. I'm not one that typically uses prompts with journaling
717. 00:56:53 No idea why that is that's that's maybe something I should explore
718. 00:56:57 But this sounded interesting and I'm willing to try this so the two-minute morning practice. There's three prompts here
719. 00:57:03 I will let go of fill on the blank. I am grateful for
720. 00:57:08 I will focus on
721. 00:57:11 So what you're doing is what is the thing that I you have in your mind that you haven't let go of yet that you're still you know
722. 00:57:17 Uh bottled up inside not willing to move past
723. 00:57:22 What are you grateful for what's something that has happened that you're super grateful has happened to you?
724. 00:57:27 And what is the thing you're going to focus on for that day?
725. 00:57:30 It seems like it's be a great way to jump start things now granted
726. 00:57:34 I read about this about five or six days ago as we're recording and I haven't done it yet
727. 00:57:40 Maybe that's a bad sign
728. 00:57:42 Um, but the goal is to do this so I'm making this an action item. Maybe I'll actually follow through delad
729. 00:57:50 I'm making a public so yes, that that is one that I'm willing to
730. 00:57:53 Try out, but I think on your part mic. I think you need to share your baseball card. Okay. I will
731. 00:57:59 Yeah
732. 00:58:00 Not to pressure you into it. You can say no, it's okay
733. 00:58:04 Not on mind sharing it. I think I've shared all the all the results
734. 00:58:08 Uh and everything that's on the baseball card anyways
735. 00:58:10 Let me think about whether I want to share the current version or if I can get a finished one before the
736. 00:58:17 Episode goes out. I'll share that but oh yeah, there you go. I have no problem sharing the the basic design of it
737. 00:58:24 I like the idea of the index card with the three prompts
738. 00:58:28 When I read that I thought about how I might apply that myself
739. 00:58:33 and
740. 00:58:35 I couldn't find anything
741. 00:58:37 Now I it's not to say that the practice that he has outlined here isn't valuable
742. 00:58:42 I just think I've kind of done this a different way
743. 00:58:44 So I've got my daily planning sheet that I fill out then in the morning
744. 00:58:48 I write everything out with my fancy fountain pen. Thanks a lot. Yes
745. 00:58:52 on my
746. 00:58:53 newspaper notebook
747. 00:58:54 And then in the evening is when I do the the gratitude and I have the prompts
748. 00:58:58 I 100 believe in the power of the prompts by the way
749. 00:59:01 I definitely think this is something that you should experiment with
750. 00:59:04 And if you're going to do it in a digital application, I know you like analog stuff
751. 00:59:10 But day one now has these templates that you can create which make this super easy
752. 00:59:15 It's actually even replaced the the shortcut that I used to have where I would fill everything out and that would format it into a table for me
753. 00:59:23 So it's really really easy
754. 00:59:25 To add your own prompts into a reusable template inside of something like day one
755. 00:59:30 And I think that the prompts
756. 00:59:32 Get you thinking in the right direction. That's really what he's trying to do with these three things
757. 00:59:37 So I will focus on basically that is
758. 00:59:40 Like the highlight that we learned about in make time by jake nap and john zeratski
759. 00:59:46 I've actually got that on my planning sheet. I've got the gratitude thing at the
760. 00:59:51 At the in the evening. I do think you could make an argument for doing this at the beginning of the day. He does share some
761. 00:59:56 findings from a
762. 00:59:58 Happiness does happiness lead to success study where they found 31 percent higher productivity 37 percent higher sales
763. 01:00:05 Three times as much creativity
764. 01:00:07 When you show up for your day with a positive mindset
765. 01:00:10 So I recognize that that's really the result that he's going for with this index card
766. 01:00:16 And I think that that is very valuable if you wanted to just copy and paste this part of it for yourself
767. 01:00:22 The I will let go of thing really challenged me
768. 01:00:25 But I don't think like I kind of built this into my personal retreat
769. 01:00:31 And I used to be the person who
770. 01:00:34 Answering that question would have totally made a very big difference
771. 01:00:38 In my day because I would get upset about something that had happened during my workday
772. 01:00:44 And I wouldn't be able to sleep because I just keep thinking about it
773. 01:00:47 And even if there's something I could do about it right now
774. 01:00:49 And just knowing that I have to deal with it tomorrow
775. 01:00:51 Like that's the kind of thing that would eat at me and that doesn't really happen anymore
776. 01:00:55 But past Mike definitely could have benefited from this index card practice
777. 01:00:59 Sure
778. 01:01:01 Yeah
779. 01:01:02 One thing that I do have from this section by the way in terms of an action item
780. 01:01:05 Is this whole idea of uh, he calls it a contemporary confession where you can share your own filtered thoughts
781. 01:01:14 I kind of hesitated when I read this because I feel like if you
782. 01:01:20 just focus on
783. 01:01:22 negative feelings that can kind of snowball
784. 01:01:25 So i'm a little bit hesitant to do that, but I also
785. 01:01:29 understand
786. 01:01:32 the benefit of
787. 01:01:34 Releasing these things and not keeping them inside
788. 01:01:37 So one of the things that's challenging to me is figuring out
789. 01:01:42 Who I can mentally release these things to and again not so I can just do your plane for hours
790. 01:01:47 Because that's gonna have the opposite effect
791. 01:01:50 but
792. 01:01:52 I don't really think there is anybody at the moment who I would feel completely comfortable
793. 01:01:58 Just unfiltered saying I feel like this right now
794. 01:02:02 uh
795. 01:02:04 And
796. 01:02:05 That's kind of a warming I guess
797. 01:02:08 Sure
798. 01:02:10 But it's something you know sharing my failures here. It's a something I recognize that I need to figure out a way to add that now
799. 01:02:17 Obviously
800. 01:02:19 Being married your significant other is one obvious
801. 01:02:22 Uh one obvious outlet for that, but also I'm not so sure I want to share
802. 01:02:28 All of that stuff with my wife because I don't want her to have to carry that
803. 01:02:32 I don't want her to feel like she needs to defend me because I'm feeling vulnerable at the moment
804. 01:02:38 Right, so I'm not 100% sure exactly what this looks like yet
805. 01:02:44 But it is something I need to wrestle through. Yeah, no, I get that
806. 01:02:48 Uh, I have a tendency to mentally release to myself
807. 01:02:53 Which I'm not sure that's what journaling is basically. Yeah, and that's what I do nightly. So
808. 01:02:59 Ultimately what I end up doing and this is why I don't use prompts
809. 01:03:05 I have a tendency to just write whatever is on my mind
810. 01:03:08 At the time and usually that's whatever
811. 01:03:11 Uh, whatever has been most difficult about the day
812. 01:03:15 That's just so you don't really want to read this because it's going to be pretty negative. So it's
813. 01:03:20 Probably gonna get burnt at some point
814. 01:03:24 Not one. I'll keep around
815. 01:03:27 Uh, but it's it's one that like that's how I tend to do that
816. 01:03:31 I don't really bring it up here because I've been doing it for quite some time. So it's not an ad
817. 01:03:35 But I don't know that that could be an option. I don't know that you would need to do that with a person
818. 01:03:40 Uh, personally, I don't and not sure I would
819. 01:03:44 Uh, as you know, sometimes what I think and what comes out of my mouth is
820. 01:03:49 Not helpful to anyone involved
821. 01:03:52 No matter how that's that's the thing I'm struggling with and he uses the idea of confession
822. 01:03:59 In a whole bunch of different religious practices is like an evidence of the value of this sort of thing
823. 01:04:05 But um, I struggle with that because exactly what you just said
824. 01:04:09 How does me sharing?
825. 01:04:12 My negative stuff help anybody else
826. 01:04:15 Right. I don't want to be the guy who's always bringing people down
827. 01:04:18 Right, right because I mean like you could you could share this stuff with me, but what if you're upset with me about something?
828. 01:04:24 Okay
829. 01:04:26 Yes, you could probably share that but
830. 01:04:28 You're going to be tactful in the way you say it. You're not just going to unload
831. 01:04:32 Right. You know what I mean?
832. 01:04:33 Yeah, it would be very very difficult to do that
833. 01:04:36 What if the thing you need to unload is the difficulty you have with your spouse?
834. 01:04:39 You don't want to share that with her because
835. 01:04:42 You are trying to be tactful in the way that you handle that situation. Yep, so
836. 01:04:46 I don't know that it's possible to have a single person that you could do that with
837. 01:04:52 It's I think it might be possible to have different people that you can share different things to yeah
838. 01:04:56 But trying to find a single person to do that with I think that's you know, that's a lost cause
839. 01:05:01 Sure. Yeah, I guess for me. It's just identifying
840. 01:05:05 Anybody that fits that description sure like the picture I get is of the guys who
841. 01:05:11 Go to the bar after work and they're sharing stuff over a beer. I don't drink so that's not going to happen
842. 01:05:19 but like
843. 01:05:21 You never cherry cola
844. 01:05:23 Who's my non-drinking drinking buddy?
845. 01:05:25 Yeah, yeah
846. 01:05:27 That's funny
847. 01:05:29 Yeah, no, I get it. I get it
848. 01:05:31 Now let's let's go ahead and step into the next secret
849. 01:05:35 And this is where he kind of shifts from dealing with the current failures to
850. 01:05:41 What do you what do you move towards?
851. 01:05:44 secret number seven is find small ponds
852. 01:05:47 And
853. 01:05:49 This is something that you can do in order to take the next step in and where do you start?
854. 01:05:55 Working on the new in that you have a much better chance of success if you find an area where you're a big fish
855. 01:06:02 You know use that that analogy in that
856. 01:06:05 You don't want to be you know someone who's going to get a 3.0
857. 01:06:10 Grade point average in the midst of a group who's got all got four point
858. 01:06:15 O's like you don't want to be in that scenario you want to be the 3.0 in a group of 2.0s
859. 01:06:19 Like that that concept is what you need to be working towards because what it does is it ups your chances of
860. 01:06:26 Success
861. 01:06:27 um as kind of a story and I don't mean to keep pushing this course
862. 01:06:31 It's just been fresh on my mind. So it's something it's come up
863. 01:06:34 This is kind of what I do with omni focus omni focus is not
864. 01:06:38 You know, it's not electric vehicle big as far as a topic
865. 01:06:42 It's much smaller than that
866. 01:06:44 Um, and that's where I've kind of had my niche as far as expertise goes
867. 01:06:48 So that has become a small pond that I'm I know that I'm comfortable operating within
868. 01:06:54 And i'm trying to branch out to a few other areas as well
869. 01:06:57 uh
870. 01:06:59 Somewhat successfully here and there so I am working on that as well
871. 01:07:02 But what you have to do is find those small ponds and then start working your way towards
872. 01:07:06 um
873. 01:07:08 Becoming a voice in them and in shooting for success within those this is actually a very short chapter
874. 01:07:13 So he just mentions this briefly
875. 01:07:15 Um as a as a form of uh, here's what you could do
876. 01:07:19 next
877. 01:07:20 I
878. 01:07:21 I understand the the point that he's making here, but again, I think this is something that could be
879. 01:07:26 Correct or incorrect depending on the context. So
880. 01:07:30 as an example
881. 01:07:33 When I read this initially
882. 01:07:35 I thought of some advice
883. 01:07:38 That I had been told a long time ago
884. 01:07:42 That if you are
885. 01:07:44 The most important person in the room
886. 01:07:48 If you want to keep growing you need to change your room like you got to get around people
887. 01:07:52 Who are more successful than you are and I do think that there is
888. 01:07:57 an element of truth to that
889. 01:08:00 but on the other hand he uses a very
890. 01:08:04 relevant example for me of
891. 01:08:07 when he started giving speeches
892. 01:08:10 because this is something that i've wanted to do and i haven't really pursued it a ton because
893. 01:08:17 I know it's a ton of work and I just don't think it's a major piece of
894. 01:08:23 What i'm doing right now, but I do enjoy
895. 01:08:28 We've talked about my Toastmasters experience. I do enjoy public speaking
896. 01:08:33 So kind of in the back of my head has always been the the thought of wouldn't it be great if I could get paid to speak
897. 01:08:39 and
898. 01:08:41 I remember as I was thinking through this a couple of years ago
899. 01:08:45 Had somebody helped me put together like a one-page speaker form
900. 01:08:49 and I had
901. 01:08:51 my
902. 01:08:52 Some some quotes some testimonials type stuff
903. 01:08:55 I had some speeches that I had done previously so people could like pick something if they wanted something for like a corporate training sort of thing
904. 01:09:03 and then examples of
905. 01:09:06 Your work so my book podcast stuff like that that I had been on
906. 01:09:11 And then pricing information and I remember putting pricing on there and somebody telling me at a zero basically 10x everything
907. 01:09:18 Sure, so I did and obviously it went nowhere. So
908. 01:09:23 That didn't really help and niehl's approach was different because
909. 01:09:28 He started at the low end of the pay scale when he uses the the story in the book of when he started working with a a service to
910. 01:09:36 Help get him paid speaking gigs
911. 01:09:40 they were
912. 01:09:41 Asking him sort of like what are the types of venues that you want to speak in and he was going for the low for the low stuff the small stuff
913. 01:09:48 and they were kind of
914. 01:09:50 My impression of the story they were kind of taken aback by that like they thought that was kind of weird
915. 01:09:54 But I think there's a lot of value to that
916. 01:09:58 I think that if you start that way you are pretty much guaranteed
917. 01:10:04 to
918. 01:10:06 Underpromise and overdeliver and that's going to create a lot of goodwill and a lot of momentum
919. 01:10:12 As you grow you'll start to develop a reputation as somebody who is really really good as opposed to
920. 01:10:18 Kind of the approach that I was following unintentionally was this guy who has never done this before
921. 01:10:25 Somebody pays him a big sum of money and they feel like well, that was a rip
922. 01:10:28 That's that's a quick way to to derail your
923. 01:10:34 speaking career, so I think that finding small ponds and
924. 01:10:39 the whole idea of
925. 01:10:42 Failing and then succeeding
926. 01:10:44 When you can do that when the stakes are small and you can learn those things you can cast string together some successes
927. 01:10:50 That's going to be a much better path forward for
928. 01:10:53 a lot of things that people want to do but
929. 01:10:56 also just finding the places where you feel like a big fish
930. 01:11:03 And just hanging out there for a long time. That's not necessarily a good strategy
931. 01:11:08 Yeah, and that's that's exactly what I have a note here of
932. 01:11:12 He never mentions of when to switch ponds
933. 01:11:15 Or when to move to a lake or when to move to the ocean like he never mentions that
934. 01:11:21 But you do have to at some point correct and that piece isn't brought up in that yes, you can find the small ponds
935. 01:11:27 but
936. 01:11:30 Don't become complacent or comfortable or content with that
937. 01:11:35 That would be my argument in that you have to be willing to grow if you're going to continue to get better
938. 01:11:41 You're going to continue to string together successes
939. 01:11:43 You either have to find a different pond or a bigger one
940. 01:11:46 Yep in order to continue to grow there now at the same time in his defense
941. 01:11:52 I think what he's getting at is how do you get that first success?
942. 01:11:58 Yep, totally because I don't think he really tries to go beyond that per se
943. 01:12:03 At least not here. So I think that isn't necessarily his
944. 01:12:07 Intention with this particular chapter, but it's also not made clear
945. 01:12:12 So that might be a detriment to this section or a qualm that we have
946. 01:12:18 With it, but that's something that I think should be called out for sure
947. 01:12:22 Yeah, and I don't think it's necessarily a qualm or even a disagreement
948. 01:12:26 It's just something that I thought of based on the whole context of everything that we've ever read
949. 01:12:31 Sure. Yeah looking at this book, you know, he's telling stories and he's
950. 01:12:35 Creating a narrative in a very specific direction. So I don't fault him for the approach that he took here at all
951. 01:12:41 I don't think that his advice is wrong. I just
952. 01:12:43 Want to bring some more context to it. Yeah, no, that makes sense
953. 01:12:48 Which does bring us to secret number eight go untouchable
954. 01:12:51 Uh easy way to summarize this deep work
955. 01:12:55 Basically what he's getting at is setting up
956. 01:12:57 Untouchable days you have a time period or an entire day where
957. 01:13:02 This is when you're gonna work on your thing
958. 01:13:05 And don't let anything get in the way of that like that's that's really
959. 01:13:10 If i'm gonna completely distill down that whole chapter into one little tiny succinct
960. 01:13:16 Summarization that would be it. Did you when you read this? Did you have an interest in trying this?
961. 01:13:21 Like this is something that I feel like whenever I was reading about like I want to do an untouchable day
962. 01:13:26 Like I feel like that's impossible for me because so much of my day is spent
963. 01:13:29 Uh handling things that show up. I can't really do that
964. 01:13:33 Does that make sense? Like maybe i'm just trying to find an excuse
965. 01:13:37 Well, you are trying to find an excuse, but that doesn't mean
966. 01:13:40 It doesn't mean that what you're doing is is incorrect either. So I don't think I would have
967. 01:13:48 I would have responded to this the same way as I did when I read it had I read this a year ago
968. 01:13:55 because
969. 01:13:58 my
970. 01:13:59 Work situation has changed and one of the things that we use at Blanc media is base camp
971. 01:14:06 We've brought up
972. 01:14:08 Gap books and things like Jason freed and it doesn't have to be crazy at work
973. 01:14:13 The the whole base camp ethos
974. 01:14:16 Is kind of built around you don't always have to be accessible
975. 01:14:19 And that has really changed how I go about my work day
976. 01:14:24 there are
977. 01:14:26 times when
978. 01:14:28 We don't communicate as a team for an entire day
979. 01:14:32 And I think that I can probably schedule that fairly regularly
980. 01:14:38 It doesn't mean that I can't respond though
981. 01:14:42 So I need to I need to give some thought to this because there are going to be times when people need something from me
982. 01:14:47 Usually I can see ahead and anticipate that
983. 01:14:50 But I would love
984. 01:14:53 to try this
985. 01:14:54 And I even if I can't embrace it completely I definitely won't be able to uh to do the no cell phone no Wi-Fi
986. 01:15:01 But I my version of this as i'm thinking about it is just I cut off every
987. 01:15:08 distraction from the outside world basically if I'm gonna
988. 01:15:12 Write scripts for a chorus for example, then I'm not checking anything
989. 01:15:17 email
990. 01:15:19 messenger
991. 01:15:20 nothing
992. 01:15:22 And that kind of happens already
993. 01:15:24 Accidentally
994. 01:15:25 Every once in a while
995. 01:15:27 So that's kind of the thing that gives me hope is
996. 01:15:29 Maybe I can schedule this stuff
997. 01:15:32 Into my regular
998. 01:15:34 Day-to-day. I'm not going to schedule it 16 weeks in advance like he talks about
999. 01:15:38 That's intense as I sit down and think about my week
1000. 01:15:41 I think that there's an opportunity to say this day is going to be my untouchable day
1001. 01:15:48 And again, even if it's not completely untouchable
1002. 01:15:51 I feel like I can create the 80/20 of this
1003. 01:15:54 Right pretty easily given what I've got to work with for sure
1004. 01:16:01 Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. I don't know. I like the idea
1005. 01:16:04 uh, it's it's one that I
1006. 01:16:07 It's it's
1007. 01:16:09 It struck me as deep work through and through from the get-go
1008. 01:16:13 and
1009. 01:16:15 As much as I love that concept like that's where deep work I feel like strikes me more because
1010. 01:16:20 Cal Newport at least gave the opening to do this for a few hours or just an hour
1011. 01:16:28 For your day uh that I can get on board with and I can I can implement that
1012. 01:16:33 But an untouchable day
1013. 01:16:36 At least in my work week
1014. 01:16:38 I have no idea how that would work. I can sometimes get three or five requests before I ever get to my desk
1015. 01:16:43 like that's
1016. 01:16:45 That's not abnormal. Yeah, and most of the time expected
1017. 01:16:49 So
1018. 01:16:51 Trying to do something like that would mean I can't go to the office
1019. 01:16:55 Like that that wouldn't work. You know yesterday. I was trying to do a few things at a deep work level
1020. 01:17:01 And was going to a few places in the building and in borderline hiding
1021. 01:17:06 But people come find you
1022. 01:17:08 You know and they they hunt you down and like if they need something and to be honest
1023. 01:17:12 They had legitimate requests that needed me hunted down for so
1024. 01:17:16 I can't really get to
1025. 01:17:19 Upset with that so you're basically making the excuses that he lists here
1026. 01:17:23 I know I know but what about emergencies, but what about urgent meetings?
1027. 01:17:27 And then the third one is I really want people on my team to take untouchable days
1028. 01:17:30 But they have trouble disconnecting the first two I think are very valid depending on your situation
1029. 01:17:35 But he would probably argue that that doesn't mean you can't do it
1030. 01:17:39 They're just going to be obstacles that you have to overcome. Yeah, no, you know in this particular case
1031. 01:17:45 We had a funeral getting ready to go on. You can't wait
1032. 01:17:49 Like that's not possible
1033. 01:17:52 So, you know, when I've got a grieving family that's trying to put together say a slide show that they so that they can remember the person that
1034. 01:18:00 the deceased
1035. 01:18:02 It's inappropriate for me to say no
1036. 01:18:05 I'm busy or to be unreachable. Like that's that's not acceptable. That's my job. So
1037. 01:18:11 That's I struggle with that part. I totally get him trying to shut down my excuses
1038. 01:18:17 I totally get it but I also don't know how to effectively do my job and do that at the same time
1039. 01:18:23 Now I will say this the one place where I could potentially see this being extremely helpful
1040. 01:18:29 And as this episode releases, I believe I can say this
1041. 01:18:33 There's an article coming out on the suite setup that Mike and I collaborated on somewhat Mike asked me a bunch of questions
1042. 01:18:38 And I responded to those and I I call out something
1043. 01:18:42 I don't think I've talked about online, but my family and I have recently started doing a shabbat dinner
1044. 01:18:47 So a Sabbath dinner
1045. 01:18:49 on either Friday or Saturday night depending on what's going on and then we take an entire day of
1046. 01:18:54 Rest and that entire day is typically Saturday because I work a lot of times on Sunday mornings
1047. 01:19:01 So that Saturday is usually when I'm taking a break that I have a tendency to be very regimented about
1048. 01:19:09 In trying to make sure that I'm focusing on my family that day and not letting the outside world
1049. 01:19:14 Get a hold of me and that's okay on that day
1050. 01:19:17 But I'm not going to be working
1051. 01:19:19 It on that day like that's that's a rest day. That's not a get work done day. So I could maybe see that
1052. 01:19:26 Applying here somewhat
1053. 01:19:29 But in a different way like I'm not going to be accomplishing a bunch of tasks on that day
1054. 01:19:33 So
1055. 01:19:35 I don't know. That's about a school since I can get
1056. 01:19:37 You know, he he does do a good job of shutting down my excuses though
1057. 01:19:40 Yep, so all right that said secret number nine
1058. 01:19:45 Never never stop now when we were talking about
1059. 01:19:49 Number five lose more to win more but also find small pawns
1060. 01:19:54 And we're referencing like yes, you have to be willing to move on
1061. 01:19:58 Like this I feel like is maybe the catch
1062. 01:20:00 Here in that he does cover that in that
1063. 01:20:05 Yes, you're going to have failures. Yes, you may have some successes, but don't stop
1064. 01:20:09 Keep stepping forward. Keep being willing to take the next step on the invisible staircase
1065. 01:20:14 Be willing to continue moving and pushing forward. That's what he's getting at here
1066. 01:20:19 I don't really have much more to say about it than that because this is just that never never stop keep going
1067. 01:20:25 Yeah, one additional thing i'll call out is he mentions don't overthink things simply because you have options
1068. 01:20:31 And I think this is difficult for me and probably a lot of other people too
1069. 01:20:36 where
1070. 01:20:38 if you are
1071. 01:20:40 Further along on your journey once you've made the mindset shift of I have the ability to
1072. 01:20:47 Design the type of life I want to live
1073. 01:20:49 You can get to the point where you're trying to keep all of these doors open
1074. 01:20:53 Which book was it where we talked about that was that?
1075. 01:20:56 Predictably irrational
1076. 01:20:58 You know where we try to I believe so and where we keep all the options open
1077. 01:21:03 And uh, he's basically saying just because you have a bunch of options don't overthink things just make a decision and go with it
1078. 01:21:09 Which is a good reminder to me because I totally tend to
1079. 01:21:14 Everything sure like well, I could do this. I could do that or should I do this or I don't want to close that door
1080. 01:21:21 But really just picking a
1081. 01:21:24 Course of action and then going all in with it. That's really the thing that's gonna make a difference
1082. 01:21:29 Uh, and then also he mentions that every connection is an opportunity to learn
1083. 01:21:35 And I view this as but when he said that you know, maybe that this isn't exactly the point that he was making
1084. 01:21:42 but
1085. 01:21:44 I've I read this or interpreted this as every single person that you come in contact with you have the ability to learn something from
1086. 01:21:53 It does not matter where you think you are on the totem pole and where you think they are
1087. 01:21:59 Even if you think that you are further along or above them and I hate using that term
1088. 01:22:05 But it's really like what we do if we're honest with ourselves
1089. 01:22:08 We think that we're above certain people because we've achieved something that's not really true
1090. 01:22:14 But that's kind of the natural perspective that we have. I don't want to look at people that way anymore
1091. 01:22:19 I want to every single person I come in contact with kind of ask myself. What can I learn from from this person?
1092. 01:22:25 Maybe there are aspects of my life where I've got some things
1093. 01:22:30 Figured out to a higher level than than they do but that doesn't mean that in a different area
1094. 01:22:36 They don't have more experience and can't teach me something and I feel like
1095. 01:22:40 I'm getting better at this but still I probably miss a lot of opportunities to learn something
1096. 01:22:47 Just because they don't recognize them and I want to be looking for those
1097. 01:22:50 Yeah, no, it's a good point to make. I do want to call out something from a higher level if you look through these nine
1098. 01:22:56 Secrets there is a progression here that I think is important and if you look at this whole progression it might
1099. 01:23:04 Handle some of the points we've brought up of well, you kind of need to be willing to do x
1100. 01:23:11 Not just this
1101. 01:23:13 He kind of calls it out if you look at the flow here. So something bad happens add a dot dot dot shift the spotlight
1102. 01:23:20 See that failure is a step and tell yourself a different story about it
1103. 01:23:24 So those are kind of four pieces of what happens when you have that failure
1104. 01:23:29 Then he kind of steps out, you know
1105. 01:23:32 Steps back from that to a kind of a meta level and talks about failures lose more to win more
1106. 01:23:37 Just talking about that failure at a higher level of just be willing to fail
1107. 01:23:42 So that you have time for those successes
1108. 01:23:44 But he also then goes in the secret six of reveal to heal so you've got the failure
1109. 01:23:49 You're working through it trying to see it the right way being willing to be okay with that failure, but then telling people about
1110. 01:23:55 Um, you know, whatever it is that you had that failure
1111. 01:23:58 So he does make a hard shift there from talking about the failure to what do you do with that failure?
1112. 01:24:03 But then he gets into how do you move past it?
1113. 01:24:07 So getting into seven eight nine moving past that failure and stepping into the next thing and on the next step in the invisible staircase
1114. 01:24:15 He gets into that and makes the point of don't stop climbing that staircase. So
1115. 01:24:20 When we've had the complaints around or maybe not complaints those are hard words
1116. 01:24:25 But um points around like yes, you have to be willing to shift pawns or you know
1117. 01:24:29 Don't just focus on failures
1118. 01:24:31 He kind of calls that out to some degree when you look at the overall flow of what he has there
1119. 01:24:37 So I can't appreciate you can tell he put a lot of thought into what order to put these into
1120. 01:24:42 The book. It's not just a randomized list of secrets or principles that he wants to point out
1121. 01:24:47 He does have the overall flow thought through which I think is true of most books
1122. 01:24:51 But I really noticed it in this particular
1123. 01:24:54 Uh outline here
1124. 01:24:56 Totally. Yeah, I completely agree
1125. 01:24:58 so that said
1126. 01:25:00 Action items mike. I have one
1127. 01:25:02 I should probably I feel like I should have more than that. Is that bad?
1128. 01:25:07 I I want to do this two-minute morning practice these prompts in the morning. I had to figure out how I want to do that
1129. 01:25:13 So much of this is just be aware of these problems
1130. 01:25:17 You know, that's you know
1131. 01:25:19 Be willing to see things in a certain way. It's all mindset stuff
1132. 01:25:22 So it's hard to really nail down what it is you're going to do with it when it's all in your head
1133. 01:25:29 Not that it's on your head, but it's on your head
1134. 01:25:32 It's true
1135. 01:25:33 All right. I've got three of them
1136. 01:25:35 uh, number one I mentioned I want to
1137. 01:25:38 Ask myself who can I mentally release to although you've given me food for thought with the stream of conscious writing
1138. 01:25:45 That's something I got away from
1139. 01:25:48 When we we've talked about that with the morning pages
1140. 01:25:50 Oh, yeah, this way. I think right maybe it's time to revisit that night. I have a fancy fountain pen
1141. 01:25:58 You'll appreciate it. We're now
1142. 01:26:00 Yeah
1143. 01:26:01 The second one
1144. 01:26:03 Was to share my failures
1145. 01:26:05 Again, I feel like this is something that I have been doing
1146. 01:26:07 It's not something that's going to just all of a sudden start, but it's a good reminder to keep doing that because
1147. 01:26:12 There is value in that
1148. 01:26:14 and then the third one is to
1149. 01:26:16 Think about how I might implement the untouchable days even if I don't take it all the way
1150. 01:26:21 To the to the degree that niel has I think that I can 80 20 this
1151. 01:26:27 and doing so would
1152. 01:26:29 Help me create more mental space
1153. 01:26:31 which is
1154. 01:26:33 A great lead into the book that we'll cover next time, but we'll come back to that
1155. 01:26:37 Yeah, for sure. So style in style and reading
1156. 01:26:40 You go first. Yeah
1157. 01:26:42 this one
1158. 01:26:43 It he tells a lot of story here and this and his personal story which is
1159. 01:26:48 like woven through the entire book from start to finish which is a fascinating story
1160. 01:26:54 and he is a very good writer in that he really pulls you into
1161. 01:26:59 Uh the book. I think I read this across. I think it was four sittings three or four settings something like that
1162. 01:27:06 just because
1163. 01:27:08 I didn't want to put it down and I had to make sure I had time whenever I picked it up because I knew I wasn't going to want to set it down
1164. 01:27:14 so
1165. 01:27:15 Kudos to niel on that absolutely loved
1166. 01:27:17 The process of reading it. I do feel that this is one that just about anybody should read
1167. 01:27:24 I feel like we say that from time to time, but this one I really truly say that because everybody has setbacks in life
1168. 01:27:29 And this really shows you on a detailed level what to do about it and how to become more resilient
1169. 01:27:36 So greatly appreciated that at the same time like we do have
1170. 01:27:40 You know, I I had a handful of places where like okay. Yes, but
1171. 01:27:46 And I wanted him to call a few things out a little bit more
1172. 01:27:50 So it just doesn't feel like it's a five oh
1173. 01:27:53 To me so
1174. 01:27:55 But I do think it's a ways up there. So I'm going to put it at 4.5
1175. 01:27:58 It is a great read
1176. 01:28:00 Absolutely loved it. Highly recommend it. So that's where i'm going to land. All right
1177. 01:28:04 I struggle with what to rate this because it's
1178. 01:28:10 not
1179. 01:28:12 my cup of tea
1180. 01:28:14 Uh, that's not it's not a knock against the book at all
1181. 01:28:19 It's uh, the stories are great and the what they the fact that they have is that they make
1182. 01:28:25 Neil more
1183. 01:28:27 Relatable and they make you want to hear what he has to say
1184. 01:28:32 People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care
1185. 01:28:36 And by telling the personal stories
1186. 01:28:39 You get the feeling that Neil is speaking directly to you and that he does care about your situation and this is
1187. 01:28:45 Advice from a close friend that you're meeting for coffee
1188. 01:28:49 It's a very easy read. I think I read it in two days. Nice. It's not
1189. 01:28:54 It's not uh, it's not something that is super heavy or heavy like you described it at the the beginning
1190. 01:29:02 And that's not a bad thing
1191. 01:29:04 That's also kind of what I prefer
1192. 01:29:06 So i'm going to take that out of the equation though and i'm going to join you at 4.5
1193. 01:29:12 Nice
1194. 01:29:13 It's not something that I think completely revolutionized my life
1195. 01:29:18 But there's a lot of stuff in here that maybe would have had I read it a couple of years ago and I had been in a different place
1196. 01:29:23 Sure
1197. 01:29:24 And I think that even if you have read every productivity book out there
1198. 01:29:28 You'll get something out of it and it's going to be an entertaining quick read. It's definitely worth your time
1199. 01:29:34 It's one that I would say like if you if you have read a lot of
1200. 01:29:38 Self-help productivity business books like like what we've done on bookworm
1201. 01:29:43 This is a great motivator. Yes
1202. 01:29:45 There is a lot of value in that like yes, you may know this stuff like I can't say that there was anything here that
1203. 01:29:52 Struck me as oh, that's revolutionary. I've never thought of that before that'll completely change my life
1204. 01:29:57 No, there's not really any of that to me
1205. 01:29:59 Because of what we've been through
1206. 01:30:02 But it is a very good motivational book to me because there's a lot of things in here
1207. 01:30:08 It's like yes, I know this but I needed reminded about it
1208. 01:30:12 So that's that's why I like it so much exactly it doesn't need to be a revolutionary
1209. 01:30:17 But he references a lot of studies in here that we've unpacked in a lot greater detail in other books
1210. 01:30:23 So there may be absolutely nothing new in here for you
1211. 01:30:27 But I guarantee you that once you go through this you will be motivated to a higher level to apply some of this stuff
1212. 01:30:33 Absolutely. So that said love the book highly recommend it put it on the shelf. What's next Mike?
1213. 01:30:39 Next is margin by Richard Swenson, which was a
1214. 01:30:44 Recommendation, I think rosemary was the first one to to vote for this
1215. 01:30:49 But it's something that I've wanted to talk about on bookworm for a very long time
1216. 01:30:53 So I was super excited when I saw it start to take off and uh, so this is one of the highest recommended books
1217. 01:31:00 in the club
1218. 01:31:02 And uh, I'm excited to go through this one with you next time. It's all about
1219. 01:31:06 Finding space. Yep, that'll be a good one and
1220. 01:31:10 Probably a good timing on that one as well. So the one after that
1221. 01:31:14 If you remember from a couple episodes ago was it three episodes ago now? I forget two or three
1222. 01:31:20 Uh, we went through super better and I played a game
1223. 01:31:22 And off a lotter on the club won that game. So off a lotter got to pick
1224. 01:31:28 uh, what the
1225. 01:31:30 Next choice that I was going to have if you follow my weird logic there
1226. 01:31:34 Um, so off a lotter picked the infinite game by simon sennock
1227. 01:31:38 And I think mike's okay with that
1228. 01:31:41 It didn't have to scare you
1229. 01:31:43 Yeah, I was going to say
1230. 01:31:46 Awful otter won the game, but more importantly mike did not lose the game
1231. 01:31:51 Yes, yes, so you've got margin then following that as the infinite game. Do you have a gap book this time room?
1232. 01:31:57 I do uh, I preordered this a while ago when I saw michael hyatt was working on this
1233. 01:32:04 He came out with a new book not too long ago called your world class assistant. It's all about working with a va
1234. 01:32:09 It's a it's a small book similar to the one that he wrote about no fail meetings
1235. 01:32:16 Have you seen that one? It's yeah, it's kind of like I like these hundred page books or something
1236. 01:32:20 So it's basically that size and I haven't started it yet
1237. 01:32:25 but no fail meetings was very practical lots of lists of things but
1238. 01:32:29 very uh direct and lots of actionable advice in it I have toyed around with the idea of
1239. 01:32:36 Hiring a va for a very long time. I even mentioned it
1240. 01:32:41 Was it last episode or the episode before as something I need to to revisit?
1241. 01:32:45 And I have no doubt I'm going to at some point and I want to do it right this time
1242. 01:32:50 So I want to see what michael hyatt can teach me all right
1243. 01:32:54 Well, if you're going to learn how to do it, he's probably a good one to learn from for sure. Yeah, um, I do not have a gap book this week
1244. 01:33:01 Uh with a course launch and stuff. I just have not had time to go through a second book excuses
1245. 01:33:07 I know I know I know I know but I think i'm better off than the long run for it
1246. 01:33:11 So I don't have a gap book this time around traveling and such so not even going to attempt that I know better
1247. 01:33:17 So you're already adding that margin. I am I am
1248. 01:33:21 So that said, uh big thanks to those of you who are listening live and joining us in the chat room
1249. 01:33:28 Big thanks to you guys. Uh, you help the show keep going if you would like to join
1250. 01:33:33 Uh the private area and listen to these live whenever we're recording them
1251. 01:33:37 You can join the the bookworm club club dot bookworm.fm
1252. 01:33:41 And become a member of that club a paid member of the club and you get some special perks
1253. 01:33:45 There's a custom wallpaper that mike put together for it
1254. 01:33:49 Um, which I use on everything it seems like love that thing. So good job mike
1255. 01:33:54 So I there's a wallpaper you get all of mike's mind node files all the notes that are there
1256. 01:33:59 There are a few gap book episode recordings that i've done from some previous gap books
1257. 01:34:03 So there's quite a bit in there
1258. 01:34:05 Uh, but again
1259. 01:34:05 The big one is you get to listen to these shows live and talk you know chat with us as we're recording this
1260. 01:34:10 So if you haven't already you can become a member club dot bookworm.fm slash membership
1261. 01:34:16 And that'll get you straight to the page where you can sign up to do that
1262. 01:34:19 Awesome. Well, thanks everybody for listening and if you're following along
1263. 01:34:24 Pick up margin by richard swenson and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks