0:00:00I'm recording in two places now.
0:00:01I have been recording this whole time.
0:00:03I'm just gonna let it run.
0:00:04There you go.
0:00:04Let me close this map of Hawaii.
0:00:07Pull up the show notes.
0:00:09Pull up my notes.
0:00:11Take my hands off the keyboard.
0:00:13Excellent.
0:00:13Don't mess up anything.
0:00:14Sit on your hands.
0:00:17Yeah, hands off the keyboard.
0:00:18Back up slowly.
0:00:20Ready to record.
0:00:21Sir, do not approach the keyboard.
0:00:25Can you believe it's the last episode of the year?
0:00:27No.
0:00:28I just had that feeling.
0:00:29Like, I looked at the date on the top of my computer here and it said it was December.
0:00:34And I was like, "Wow."
0:00:36Like, that just feels unexpected even though I knew it was coming at the same time.
0:00:40Yeah, well, I mean, that's what happens when your year is only four months long.
0:00:44So, uh, it's quite—it gets to the end of it quite quickly.
0:00:47Not entirely sure what that means.
0:00:48What does that mean?
0:00:49That is my mental estimation for how subjectively long has this year felt.
0:00:54Ah, yeah.
0:00:54I think this year has felt like it is four months long.
0:00:57I was really trying to pin it down, like, three months, that's too dramatic.
0:01:01Five months is almost half a year and it doesn't feel like that, so I'm going with four months as
0:01:07it feels subjectively like it's been about four months long this year.
0:01:11- Well, Edina mentioned this, what we've been traveling.
0:01:14It's like, really, our year started in August when we got our second shot.
0:01:19That's when our year actually began.
0:01:22It's when we started doing things that weren't that one same thing.
0:01:25- Yeah.
0:01:26And so it really has been like four or five months of an actual different year.
0:01:32And so it feels like it's gone by quickly.
0:01:35Because it feels to me, like in my mind, I tell my- like I think like,
0:01:39"Oh, I have been vaccinated for all of 2021."
0:01:42But I haven't been. It was August.
0:01:46So yeah, I think it has got that- weirdly has actually got that feeling to it.
0:01:50Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to do the math in my head,
0:01:52head and I think I've been quad-vaxxed for just about that amount of time so yeah that's
0:01:57that's how long the year has been.
0:01:58I don't want to talk about this again. I don't want to talk about how many vaccinations you've had again.
0:02:03I think about it. Anyway yearly themes time for 2022.
0:02:09Yearly themes time.
0:02:10All right so what is a yearly theme? So this is the fifth time I think that we've done this?
0:02:15I don't know maybe.
0:02:17Which is kind of an incredible thing. I want to give a very quick overview. I will say
0:02:20at this point, the best place to get a primer on what is a theme is to watch Grey's YouTube
0:02:26video, and I'll make sure that that's in the show notes. Was that last year that you
0:02:30made that video?
0:02:31I don't know, when is time? I think that's two years ago?
0:02:35Was it more than four months ago? Then the answer could be yes.
0:02:38Three years ago? It might have been three years ago, I don't know.
0:02:41But basically with our themes, we look at what we want to achieve and focus on in a
0:02:47a year. Themes can be shorter but we tend to think of them in about a year's time
0:02:51on this show. We look at our working lives, our personal lives, we think about what we
0:02:55want to change, what we want to continue, and create a theme around that. And then the
0:02:59theme acts as a guide for us through that time. It can be a phrase or it can be some
0:03:04key outcomes. Thinking about where do we want to be in a year from now. Themes are not the
0:03:09same as resolutions because they are not strict goals that you have some kind of success or
0:03:13failure in. So for example, one of my favorite is saying like year of health is much more
0:03:20kind to you than I want to lose 20 pounds because if you lost 19 pounds, you failed
0:03:26on your resolution. But if you only get some of the way with the theme of the year of health,
0:03:32you've still made good progress. It also allows you to adapt throughout the year. Like maybe
0:03:36instead of looking at weight or fitness, you look at mental health. It's still part of
0:03:40your health and you can still make those positive steps towards what you want to be working
0:03:45on rather than feeling like you have to have completed one very strict and set thing.
0:03:49>> DAN Yeah, I like to think of it as a unifying idea for the year. This is a phrase that means
0:03:57something to you and that you can have like thoughts collect together underneath this
0:04:01this umbrella and I particularly like them especially over the last couple of years because
0:04:06they can be very flexible and adaptable depending on what's going on in your life or what's
0:04:12going on in the world.
0:04:13And what I personally value about the yearly theme process is it gives me an opportunity
0:04:19to kind of take stock of my life like on a yearly basis and really think about what's
0:04:23working and what isn't and what I want to change about it. And then on these episodes
0:04:28which we've been doing for five years, we assess how our previous theme has gone for
0:04:33the current year and talk about what worked, what didn't, and what we're going to set our
0:04:37new yearly theme to be. So that's what this episode's going to be today.
0:04:40Alright. I thought we could maybe talk a little bit
0:04:43about how we choose our themes. Okay.
0:04:48Because I've kind of made a note of it this year that I've established a process at this
0:04:52point. And it kind of runs the whole year through and then in the last couple of months
0:04:57of the year gets kind of brought together. So, you know, I journal every day. As I'm
0:05:03journaling, I'm talking about how I'm feeling, you know, writing that down. And as we kind
0:05:08of get maybe to halfway through the year, I start to make like mental note of the things
0:05:13that I find myself writing often. You know, this could be like, such and such things going
0:05:18well, such and such thing is frustrating me, etc, etc. And as these things start to pop
0:05:23up more and more, I start to add some thoughts to an Apple note around kind of like October
0:05:30time and so I create my yearly theme note for the next year and I start adding lots
0:05:35of random thoughts and phrases and ideas like if I feel something about my work, to even
0:05:40just randomly walking around the day like oh I have this thought, I just put it down
0:05:44and I just start adding and adding and adding to this Apple note and then what I actually
0:05:49you did last week is I will open that note up and read back through everything
0:05:52and start to see what patterns are emerging and I start to bring it all
0:05:57together and then can build a theme around it. So for me it's very much a
0:06:02throwing everything in and seeing what is there and then I use that to craft
0:06:07what my theme will be because a lot of the time I'm talking about my
0:06:11frustrations in that note and I start to see like oh actually this could be
0:06:15related to this, and this could be related to this. Let me craft something around that
0:06:20to see if I can try and make this part of my working life better.
0:06:22My traditional method has been something of a vision quest during summer travel, under
0:06:28the stars that it comes to me. Obviously that didn't happen this year, so I've actually
0:06:33kind of cribbed, because you mentioned this offhandedly last time we spoke about having
0:06:38a running note that you were adding stuff to, and since we spoke I created a note in
0:06:43Obsidian and dumped just like a ton of thoughts that I'd had there and collected some little
0:06:48random stuff that I'd written down over the year in Apple Notes and sort of put it together
0:06:52in one place. And I've been having that just open up automatically just like in a little
0:06:58sidebar whenever I'm working in Obsidian on other projects so that I can see it there.
0:07:04It's interesting, I think I'm going to continue this through the year because whenever we
0:07:08do these episodes, very often one of the questions people have is, how do you keep reminding
0:07:15yourself about the theme over the course of the year? And I really like this as having
0:07:22an always visible, like, working document. So I think I'm going to keep up with this
0:07:30little habit of just having a little narrow sidebar just when I first open Obsidian, you
0:07:35you know, oh, here's that document about the year theme.
0:07:38And you can just look at it and think about it for a second
0:07:41and kind of remind yourself of what you want to be doing.
0:07:44- Yeah, a lot of people create a visual reminder.
0:07:46Like I know we have a lot of listeners
0:07:49that maybe make a desktop wallpaper
0:07:51that's related to their theme in some way,
0:07:53or they write it down on a piece of paper
0:07:55and stick it on the wall or put it on a whiteboard.
0:07:58Or honestly, for me, my journaling reminds me of it
0:08:01because it's written in the front of the journal.
0:08:04So I think about it.
0:08:05I think about my theme whenever I sit down to work on my theme system journal.
0:08:09But I think having some kind of reminder, whatever it is, is good, especially in the
0:08:14first, I would say three months of the year.
0:08:17It can be really helpful.
0:08:19So you're just internalizing what it is that you're working towards.
0:08:23Because I know that sometimes in the beginning of the year, I struggle with the transition
0:08:27between from one to the other.
0:08:28So having that reminder there is is pretty helpful to me too.
0:08:32So shall we review our years, Myke?
0:08:34Can you remind me what your 2021 theme was?
0:08:36My 2021 theme was Year of the Voyage.
0:08:40I was wanting something that would be specifically flexible.
0:08:44So it had a dual meaning for me.
0:08:46It was voyage in the sense of the Spaceship You video that I made about
0:08:53when you're in a constrained environment, maintaining the routine and the separate
0:08:57borders of your working spaces and your living spaces and your recreation spaces,
0:09:03that all of this is really important. So, Year of the Voyage was partly about,
0:09:07"Hey, this whole situation isn't over yet. Don't lose track of what you're doing."
0:09:15And sort of maintain the routines and what's worked so well for you in the past year.
0:09:21And then the flip side of Year of the Voyage was, it was hugely important to me that no matter what happened over the rest of the year,
0:09:30I was going to find a way and make time to go visit my family in America because it had just been way too long.
0:09:40So normally, like, I wouldn't include a specific target like that in a theme.
0:09:47I think that does sort of go against what we set out in the beginning, but it was just too important for me not to do it.
0:09:55do it. It's like, I'm going to make this happen, and I don't care how much effort or how inconvenient
0:10:01or how much time. I've got to make this happen, and I'm deciding at the beginning of the year
0:10:06that this is going to be a thing. Especially not knowing, like, what is it going to look
0:10:11like in the future? Doesn't matter. You have to make this happen one way or another. So
0:10:16that was my theme. I would rate Year of the Voyage as two-thirds a big success and one-third
0:10:24of failure. So the way my year went is that the first third was a big success in terms
0:10:31of year of the voyage. I did do what I set out to do, which is just maintain those routines,
0:10:38which I just thought were really important when you have a limited radius under which
0:10:43you're operating. But it did fall down in the middle, which I have labeled the swamp
0:10:51of uncertainty for my year. So I did have this like, I mean I can really pin it, the
0:10:57swamp of uncertainty started the moment I saw a particular shark statue in London and
0:11:04it ended the day that I uploaded the second unexpected Tiffany video. That is like the
0:11:15the perfect bookends of when was this middle unhappy time of the year? Oh, Sharks to Tiffany,
0:11:22that's when it was.
0:11:23S - Voyages can be affected by sharks. This is a well-known thing.
0:11:28B - This is very true, yes. If your voyage is going to be affected, sharks are definitely
0:11:33a possibility. So, I think there's many reasons why I kind of fell down in maintaining my
0:11:39routines and a whole bunch of my, like, work structures that I had been really great about
0:11:45over the past year and a quarter just didn't hold up for me. Like, it was a bit of a perfect
0:11:50storm of different intersecting things. And the main one is just this was the time of
0:11:57year when maybe the pandemic was coming to an end, but maybe not, and I kept trying to
0:12:06do the planning for going to America, but it kept having to get pushed back. And also
0:12:12both of these projects were extremely uncertain in how, if at all, are these videos going
0:12:21to be finished. They were both just unusually difficult, unusually uncertain projects. And
0:12:26then combined with the uncertainty about traveling, if I'm going to be here or not, it just ended
0:12:32up being like a really terrible time. And I'm gonna say something that sounds like so
0:12:38obvious it's going to sound really dumb, but I feel like I really in retrospect learned
0:12:45the lesson that you have to pay attention to when you're in an uncertain period of time.
0:12:56And this is when the routines are way more valuable, not way less valuable.
0:13:06So I think I started telling myself, "Oh, I don't need to make sure that I'm waking
0:13:13up at the same time because I might be in America in a few days and then it won't matter.
0:13:18Like I'm going to need to adjust the time anyway."
0:13:21And I think like there's always some lazy part of your brain which is looking for excuses
0:13:29not to do the things that you know are good.
0:13:32And I think I've really come out the other side of the swamp of uncertainty with a very
0:13:38sharp sense of notice when this is happening.
0:13:44And be aware that this is exactly the time to step up the alert of keeping your routines
0:13:52together and not like letting them slide because you think that they don't matter because this
0:13:58time is uncertain.
0:13:59No, this is the time it really matters.
0:14:02And I don't know, I think that sounds super obvious when I say it that way.
0:14:06But just going through the experience in this human way kind of made it more visceral to
0:14:13me than it's been in the past. It wasn't a great time, but I feel like I came out of
0:14:18it with a really clear lesson. And also as a little bit of a sidebar, this is one of
0:14:25the times when the journal really helps, like our theme system journal really helped me
0:14:30kind of exit the swamp. I did a bunch of my tactical journaling at the end of the Tiffany
0:14:36any project. And, you know, this is just thinking things through, having to put them down in
0:14:44words on paper, formulating like the set of questions that I want to be asking myself
0:14:52every day, you know, in the journal and like making a little note with the circles. All
0:14:57of this like really helped kind of pull me out of it and go, "Okay, you need to come
0:15:01back out of this time in one way or another, so it was very helpful there. So that was
0:15:07my like one-third failure of the year. But it was in the middle, and then I did accomplish
0:15:14the main thing, which was voyage to America. I don't have words to express how grateful
0:15:23I was for the experience that I was able to have with my family this summer. Obviously
0:15:28the circumstances that led up to it were terrible, but I would never have, under normal circumstances,
0:15:40been able to just dedicate that much time to family time. I think I ended up being with
0:15:47my parents... I have to double check the calendar at this point, but like something like six
0:15:53weeks and...
0:15:54Yeah, it was a long time.
0:15:55I haven't spent that much time with my parents since I lived with my parents back when I
0:16:01was in high school.
0:16:03Uh, like it's really true.
0:16:05Like I was going back through and trying to think like, "Oh, in college did I spend
0:16:08that much time?"
0:16:09But it's like, "Actually, no, never that much time straight in a row."
0:16:12And it was just really fantastic.
0:16:14MATT: And you can't complain about that, right?
0:16:16I know that, you know, that maybe there's a world where if you wouldn't have had so
0:16:19much trouble with those two video projects that you wouldn't have stayed that long.
0:16:24B: Yeah, that is also true. I have a slight other note about that which kind of contributed to that,
0:16:28but yes, for sure also the fact that the the swamp of uncertainty was a really bad time
0:16:35gave me good reason to just say "hey chill out man, relax for a while, just enjoy this."
0:16:42And also as I mentioned with the journal, like you know, one of the little you know,
0:16:45check and review that you're doing this every day things that I had at the back, like,
0:16:49I found it a really useful exercise just to order them from top to bottom of like, hey,
0:16:55the one that you write at the top is the one that you absolutely have to hit.
0:17:00Like that is there's no exception to that.
0:17:01And then they're in decreasing importance of like, okay, if you get down to if you hit
0:17:05the 10th one, that's great.
0:17:07But it's not you know, it's not a necessary one.
0:17:09And it's an interesting way of ordering the daily page.
0:17:12I've never thought of it that way.
0:17:13Like for me, they're all like of equal importance, really, like, I just got to hit all of them.
0:17:17But that's a really interesting way of doing it, of like descending in importance.
0:17:22Check these off if you get halfway through, you've still done a good job kind of thing.
0:17:25That's interesting.
0:17:26Yeah, I'd never thought about it that way either.
0:17:28I think all the years we've been doing this, I thought of it the same way you did, of them
0:17:32as being equally important.
0:17:35But I think I wasn't in a place where I could look at 10 things and be like, "Yeah, I'm
0:17:40gonna do all of these."
0:17:41Like, it was very, "No, I'm not gonna do all of these."
0:17:44I like it.
0:17:45I might do something like that because I know I want to redo mine for next year, which I
0:17:49haven't done for a couple of years, but I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do that
0:17:51yet.
0:17:52So I might use this as a starting point.
0:17:54It's so interesting to me that you haven't changed them for a while.
0:17:56Like I feel like that to me is actually one of the most valuable things is is like rethinking
0:18:02those questions.
0:18:03Well, I see a way that I've used them is not so much for the theme.
0:18:08It's actually secondary to that part.
0:18:10It's like you've always got to think about your theme.
0:18:13That's great.
0:18:14these 10 set, well for me, these nine set of things
0:18:17that you have to do just to make sure you're being
0:18:20the person you wanna be every day.
0:18:22But I'm thinking I might start tweaking them up
0:18:24a little bit, 'cause I have space for extra ones anyway.
0:18:27But you know, it's just basically like keeping contact
0:18:30with your friends, be a good husband, right?
0:18:32Like add something to your business.
0:18:34That it's like it's just, they're very simple to me,
0:18:37but it's like you gotta hit these every day
0:18:39as like this is only the beginning of a successful day
0:18:43if you've hit a portion of all of this.
0:18:46Rather than, you know, but I might switch it up
0:18:49because at this point I've gotten pretty good
0:18:51at doing something in all of those areas, so.
0:18:53That makes sense.
0:18:54I would suggest trying it out in the ordering.
0:18:56Like, or at least I was in the right mental space
0:18:59that this is exactly what worked for me.
0:19:01And the thing that I put right at the top
0:19:04was quality time with family.
0:19:07It's like, this is the whole reason I'm here.
0:19:09This is a big target for, you know,
0:19:12what had to happen with this theme for this year.
0:19:15And so it was great.
0:19:17And it worked out just perfectly.
0:19:19And I mean, I've mentioned it before,
0:19:21but it was just a literally magical time teaching
0:19:25my mom how to play Magic.
0:19:27And she would get obsessed at night and play the game.
0:19:31And then we'd wake up in the morning,
0:19:34and she'd have just a ton of questions.
0:19:36And we'd want to get right into it.
0:19:37And then my dad would be kind of laughing
0:19:40at the two obsessive weirdos in the house.
0:19:43[LAUGHTER]
0:19:43Look at these couple of nerds.
0:19:45Yeah, exactly.
0:19:46Doing this for hours and hours.
0:19:49It was just great.
0:19:50I could not have asked for a better time.
0:19:54It was a peak experience of my adult life,
0:19:57the ability to spend so much time with my parents
0:20:00that I just haven't had in years.
0:20:01So it was unspeakably great and just a huge success
0:20:07for the end of the year with regards to the year of the voyage.
0:20:13I think that I know you, I can tell you're a bit up and down on this one because you
0:20:17had a tough creative time but ultimately that part, what you did at the end, that was the
0:20:24whole point of the year anyway.
0:20:25It was like allowing you to get to a point where you were able to make a trip and you
0:20:30had such a good time on that trip.
0:20:32It feels like it was a full success to me, your theme this year.
0:20:35You know, this was all of it, right?
0:20:38Like it was all laddering up to allowing you to be able to take this time and you did it
0:20:42and it was great and you've made the most of it.
0:20:44Yeah, I mean, even though I say I would regard the year as one third of failure, I also wouldn't
0:20:53do the year differently precisely because it all led to this perfect ending of the year.
0:20:58So and also I have this funny experience where those two videos, sharks and the Tiffany video,
0:21:05particularly the second one, I almost never watch my old videos, but I really like those
0:21:12two.
0:21:13Like I actually think, oh, they came out great, both of them.
0:21:16And so that is still also a nice upside that, oh, this unusually terrible working period
0:21:23has actually produced, I don't know, two of my real favorite videos.
0:21:27The videos, it's like, this person almost killed me.
0:21:30What is it, dead person almost? You know what I'm talking about, right?
0:21:33Like the behind the scenes. That's a classic for me.
0:21:36Yeah, that's what I mean. It's that one and the sharks, I feel like.
0:21:39Those two are really great.
0:21:40Oh, okay. So you actually, because when you say like the project,
0:21:43there was two videos to the project, but you mean the second one?
0:21:46Yeah, I mean the second one.
0:21:47Oh, okay then. Then yes, I agree. I think that the Grey in the Real World kind of video,
0:21:53like, that's I think my favorite video you've done this year.
0:21:57Close to me with sharks. I love sharks too.
0:21:59Yeah, so there's, you know, there's totally something to The Tortured Artist.
0:22:03Where it's like, "Oh boy, look at this great work that came out of someone's miserable time!"
0:22:08"We would just like to see you suffer." That's kind of it, really.
0:22:13I look back on this year and I wouldn't do any of it differently, because I think it all
0:22:20worked out, even the part of it that I would regard as kind of a failure in the middle.
0:22:27I'm still glad for it and it worked out. So that's my review of the 2020 Year of the Voyage.
0:22:342021.
0:22:35Oh my god, Myke.
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0:25:12[BEEP]
0:25:12How was your 2021?
0:25:14I was so apprehensive of sitting down to do this part.
0:25:19Oh yeah?
0:25:20I don't know what it--
0:25:20I feel like I hadn't done a good job.
0:25:22That was-- in my mind, I was like,
0:25:23I just felt like I had not done a good job of my yearly theme.
0:25:26And I didn't want to re-listen to the part of the episode
0:25:31last year where I spoke about what I wanted my theme to be.
0:25:35Like I was really putting it off and putting it off.
0:25:38But once I actually sat down and went through it,
0:25:41I felt better about it than I had initially anticipated
0:25:45I would.
0:25:46And I think really for me, the reason for this was
0:25:49I had lost sight of the fact that my yearly theme this year
0:25:55was more about setting groundwork for future years
0:26:00and put way too much stock in about the way that I'm feeling towards the end of the
0:26:04year of Overwhelm, when really it actually kind of makes sense.
0:26:08And I think it was just in our episode last year we spoke a lot about how big my theme
0:26:13was, and we spoke about how there was this element of groundwork.
0:26:18So listening back to it made me remember that, and I felt a bit better about it.
0:26:21ALICE; Remind me, what was the name?
0:26:23SEAN-MARK WILKINSON The Year of Reinvention.
0:26:24- Right, right, right.
0:26:27- And I think maybe I suffered with a bad name in the end
0:26:31'cause I'm not reinvented, but that wasn't the point.
0:26:35The point was to start that process
0:26:37and I think I kind of got lost in the idea of like,
0:26:41well, I'm not a changed man.
0:26:43'Cause that takes a while.
0:26:45But the year of reinvention was more about setting
0:26:48some steps in place to move towards changing
0:26:52a lot of my work life.
0:26:53And I do feel that now that I've actually sat down and done the review,
0:26:57which is why I think it's important to do the review because now I've changed my
0:26:59perspective on my year.
0:27:01I feel like I have actually set myself on the path to being this future
0:27:06progression of who I want to be. And I've moved everything forward.
0:27:09Nothing's completed from the year.
0:27:10Everything's just moved forward in the direction that I wanted.
0:27:13And I feel like I made some meaningful progress.
0:27:15Can you give me some examples?
0:27:16Yeah. So I had a bunch of objectives, uh, of like things,
0:27:20areas that I wanted to focus my attention on.
0:27:23One was completing Mega Studio.
0:27:25And this was kind of like my,
0:27:27I'm going to America, that you had.
0:27:30Of like, there is actually, I believed an end point
0:27:33to this when I started it.
0:27:34But it actually turned out that that wasn't the case
0:27:36as the year went on.
0:27:38So one thing that I loved about when thinking
0:27:40about my studio is I spent the full year there this year.
0:27:44Which I had not done previously.
0:27:46So I was able to work there as much as I wanted
0:27:49for an entire calendar year.
0:27:52And I would say at this point, the studio is kind of as complete as I would feasibly want it for now.
0:27:58There's like a couple of items of furniture that would be nice to have,
0:28:01but ultimately what this year has done is proven what we really want in an outside space.
0:28:07That at the moment, Mega Studio only really works for me, it doesn't work for me and Adina.
0:28:13And so now it's kind of like, alright, like we've worked out the way that we would want to have an outside studio space.
0:28:22And ultimately we do need it to have a couple of rooms
0:28:25or at least one office room for me to record in
0:28:29and then a larger space and also like our own bathroom,
0:28:32our own kitchen, which is all stuff we have to share
0:28:34in the building that we're in right now.
0:28:36So really I don't think 2022 is the year
0:28:40where we actually change this,
0:28:42but it will be the year where we start to put some plans
0:28:45in place for maybe 2023 of moving to a new studio space.
0:28:50- Hmm.
0:28:51But having Megastudio has been the biggest, most positive change to my work in maybe five
0:28:58years.
0:28:59Really?
0:29:00I love it.
0:29:01I love having a place that I go to and I do all my work there and I come home and I don't
0:29:09do any more work.
0:29:10Like this sounds so simple.
0:29:13It sounds so simple but I know I get it.
0:29:16You know, I had worked for so many years
0:29:19just in the second bedroom of the house and the living room,
0:29:22which kind of just meant I worked everywhere
0:29:24all the time whenever.
0:29:25And there is just something so nice about having that space.
0:29:30There are so many things that I do.
0:29:32There are things that I don't do
0:29:33because of having this place of like,
0:29:35well, I could record this extra show,
0:29:38but it means I have to go to the studio on the weekend
0:29:40and I don't want to do that, so I'm not going to do it.
0:29:42That kind of stuff has just been so great for me.
0:29:45And while I do still have the emergency gear at home,
0:29:49I don't like to use it.
0:29:50I can still edit at home if I want to,
0:29:53but I don't really want to.
0:29:54I want to go to the studio and do it
0:29:55because I like the environment more.
0:29:57It just feels nicer, it's bigger, it's more open.
0:30:00You know, there's more light, there's more air.
0:30:03I have some space, I have things set up
0:30:05in like a comfortable way.
0:30:06I don't feel like I'm cramped in.
0:30:08Like it really has been super good.
0:30:10So I'm really happy for it.
0:30:12And I'm also happy that we have had this space.
0:30:16It hasn't been too much of a disruption
0:30:18and it's allowed us to learn more of what we would want
0:30:22in a future space.
0:30:23Like it's been a good first step
0:30:24in having an out of home office.
0:30:27I really love having a commute again,
0:30:29like all these little things,
0:30:30which I just, you know, I'd let them go for like seven years
0:30:34it had been since I'd had this in my working life.
0:30:37And I really have enjoyed the change.
0:30:39Like when I think about myself now, you know,
0:30:41I was like a kid when I used to do the commute and stuff.
0:30:44I didn't really know what I wanted then.
0:30:46- Yeah.
0:30:47- You know, like I was in my 20s
0:30:48and I was still kind of working stuff out
0:30:51and I also hated what I did
0:30:52and didn't see any of the value
0:30:54that can be drawn from that.
0:30:55And so now I feel like I've grown up
0:30:59and I've changed so much.
0:31:00Having that separation and everything that comes with it,
0:31:04I think works pretty nicely for me.
0:31:06So very happy with that part.
0:31:07I imagine a lot of people have recently realized that the commute and the physical separation of space,
0:31:16there's a lot of advantages to that. And while you might think, "Oh, I don't want to have to do that,"
0:31:22and it's nice to not have to, there are some big advantages for having a place that you go to,
0:31:29which is the work, and then you have a transition back home and the work is not done at home.
0:31:35It's a huge psychological advantage.
0:31:38- And I have no doubt that it's like a similar thing
0:31:41is there's just been a bunch of people
0:31:42that have realized they want the exact opposite
0:31:43now that they've had it.
0:31:45And this is more kind of like,
0:31:46I've just had that experience the same as everybody else,
0:31:49but in a different way,
0:31:50because it wasn't COVID related me getting the studio,
0:31:54but I've just had a similar experience to many people
0:31:57of having had a change in the way and where I work
0:32:01and I've learned something new that I love from it.
0:32:03- Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that your review
0:32:06is more successful than you thought going through it,
0:32:09because this is also a case where when you say
0:32:12you spent a full year at the studio, I think,
0:32:15no, Myke, surely that can't be true.
0:32:17You've only recently gone, but it's not true.
0:32:20- I didn't realize this until I sat down to do the review.
0:32:23- This is the exact reason why it's super useful
0:32:26to actually write down and track things.
0:32:29Because if you had asked me how long you've been
0:32:31the studio I would say, "Oh, a couple months at most?"
0:32:34- Just a couple of months.
0:32:37- Yeah, yeah.
0:32:38So like, I'm really happy to hear that that,
0:32:40both that you've done it and also way more importantly,
0:32:44at the end of the year during the review,
0:32:47you realize that you've done it.
0:32:49- Yeah, that's the most important part.
0:32:51- Yeah, that is way more important in some ways.
0:32:54- If a tree falls down in the studio
0:32:56and no one's around to hear it,
0:32:57was I ever at the studio in the first place?
0:33:00I don't know. It's an unanswerable question. These are life's great mysteries. What isn't
0:33:04a mystery though is I did visit your studio and it is awesome. Like I'm so jealous of
0:33:11it. It is crazy to me that you're thinking about a mega-er studio in the future on a
0:33:172023 timeline, but hearing you talk it through it totally makes sense.
0:33:22Yeah, I don't need more space. Like the amount of space that we have is great. It's like
0:33:27more than enough, we just need it to be separated.
0:33:29And there isn't really a great way to separate
0:33:32what we currently have, 'cause the ceilings are so high,
0:33:35like putting in any kind of fake walls or partitions
0:33:37is just not gonna do the job.
0:33:38But hey, if you like my studio so much,
0:33:40the unit next door is available.
0:33:42- It's too long of a commute.
0:33:43Otherwise, Myke, I would, but it's too long of a commute.
0:33:45- For you it is, for you it is.
0:33:47For me it's great.
0:33:48- It really feels like your place
0:33:50with the way everything is set up,
0:33:52with the equipment, the way things are laid out,
0:33:55the way it's designed, your adorable little like quarantine space taped out in the beginning.
0:34:01That is an Idina invention.
0:34:03The whole thing is great. I just love it. So I'm very happy that you've spent the year
0:34:08there. And I'm also very happy that I was able to actually see it in person and check
0:34:12it out. And yeah, it's great. I'm so happy that you did that. And you've got space for
0:34:18all your stuff.
0:34:19So one of the other things was doing something new. And again, I feel like I've ticked this
0:34:24This works quite a lot with keyboard related stuff and Twitch streaming.
0:34:27I've really been loving this.
0:34:28It's one of my favorite things that I've done in 2021.
0:34:32I stream basically once a week and we have a great set of people that hang out and we
0:34:39build keyboards and customize keyboards and it's just been a really great hobby and I've
0:34:45loved learning the new skills that come from it.
0:34:48And that comes from learning streaming stuff and also just learning how to do these electronics
0:34:55projects.
0:34:56Basically, we stream every Friday and I really like that it's at the end of the week and
0:35:00it's one of the things that I look forward to the most in my week.
0:35:04And I'm also really happy that after having done this for basically a year, it still just
0:35:10feels very much in the hobby camp.
0:35:12It never moved over into work.
0:35:14It doesn't feel like it at all.
0:35:16And it just feels like something that I do
0:35:18to just hang out with some people
0:35:19and just spend some time, some fixed time
0:35:22doing something that's just for me that I enjoy
0:35:25that I don't think I otherwise would have.
0:35:27I think if I didn't have the idea that I'm gonna stream it,
0:35:30if it wasn't on my calendar,
0:35:32I wouldn't spend the time doing it.
0:35:34But this is also something that if I have
0:35:36a spare moment to myself,
0:35:37I might tinker with something for a bit.
0:35:38But having the time on my calendar every week
0:35:42to sit down and play with this stuff,
0:35:43I think has been really valuable.
0:35:44and I'm really proud of the skills that I've learned
0:35:48over the last year with this.
0:35:50- That's all you need to do?
0:35:50- No editing of any kind is really good.
0:35:54I don't make YouTube videos about the keyboards either,
0:35:57which is something that I could do if I wanted to.
0:35:59I could make a YouTube review of a keyboard,
0:36:02but I don't wanna do it
0:36:03because then it's just gonna feel like work.
0:36:05So spontaneity of it and the fact that not really,
0:36:08I don't really prepare,
0:36:09I'm not sitting down and writing down ideas on my streams.
0:36:13I might have a thing I wanna do,
0:36:14but it's a totally different thing.
0:36:15Oh, I want to work on this project on Friday.
0:36:18Great, I'll get it ready and then I'll go for it.
0:36:20But it's not, none of the processes that I go through
0:36:24for my podcast recording at all, cross over into this.
0:36:28I can't even use a completely different computer for it all.
0:36:31I can't use my gaming PC or my streaming PC.
0:36:33Like it's all different.
0:36:34I have a different part of my studio for it.
0:36:36It's all very, like this is just what this is for.
0:36:40And I think that that separation of it
0:36:42has made it feel just really great
0:36:43and it just continues to feel like a fun project, not a work project.
0:36:47Yeah, because you do have that desk that's on the opposite wall for this.
0:36:51I didn't realize that was your gaming computer.
0:36:53Yeah, it's kind of split into two.
0:36:55It's a really large desk, and the left side of the desk is just streaming and keyboard-related
0:36:59stuff, and then the right side of the desk is kind of where I spend most of my time working
0:37:04where I'm not recording, because the desk is just huge.
0:37:08So it works great for it.
0:37:09Like, I've got these kind of two stations that I sit at at the studio.
0:37:13Yeah, but you can split a desk in two and make one side the one side and the other side
0:37:18the other side. But I just I think I didn't realize that the computer over there is also
0:37:22the gaming computer. I feel like that's a really good way to do it so that it's just
0:37:26clearly like, oh, this is where I do the fun stuff. And that includes the keyboards and
0:37:30it's not the it's not professionalizing it. That's interesting.
0:37:33And that Windows is where I do all my fun. Mac OS is where all the work happens.
0:37:40But isn't that how everybody thinks of the operating systems? Windows is for funsies and Mac is serious and button-down.
0:37:47I think that's the reputation.
0:37:49I think that's the long-standing understanding of those two. Yeah, I think you're right.
0:37:53So I have a few more. Building new norms was the thing that I wanted to do and I still think that I've got work to do on this.
0:38:01You know, one of the things that I spoke about and I feel very set in is less overall travel.
0:38:06I do not envision ever going back to my 2019 travel amounts in a year.
0:38:11And one of the things that I really want to focus on is different travel to what I was doing before.
0:38:18So basically more travel for pleasure, less for work, which means vacations.
0:38:22I only took one vacation in 2021. It's incredible. I'm actually at the end of it. I'm on it.
0:38:27I'm on it now. But I let it go way too long before I did this, basically the entire year.
0:38:35You know, the last vacation that I took was in January 2020 and then in end of November 2021.
0:38:41That was stupid, honestly. To do that, I didn't need to do it. I felt like I had to do it,
0:38:48but I didn't. I could have taken more time off in the year and a half, the two years,
0:38:53but I didn't do that. And I feel like this trip has reminded me of the value of proper vacations.
0:39:02And so I'm not gonna let that happen again.
0:39:05Yeah, I think you're a little hard on yourself for going so long without a vacation in this period of time.
0:39:13Like, I don't know. I think you're a little harsh on yourself with that and it's extremely understandable why.
0:39:17I could have taken a week. I could have taken a week or a couple of long weekends.
0:39:22Like, I could have done that.
0:39:23Yes.
0:39:24But I didn't do any of that.
0:39:25You're not wrong. I just think it's a very understandable time period for that to have happened.
0:39:30But yeah, you're not wrong that if you're thinking about it in terms of a week, you could have done that.
0:39:34If this was just random time, then I would be way more upset at myself.
0:39:39Like, I would just think that I was an idiot.
0:39:40Like, if it's just like...
0:39:42And then I would 100% agree.
0:39:432017 to 2018, I just didn't take any big gains.
0:39:47Like, what is wrong with you?
0:39:48So, you know, I've learned that going forward, I need to do this.
0:39:53It's very important to me.
0:39:55I feel so much more refreshed about going into next year than I did like two weeks ago.
0:40:02You know, two weeks ago my whole world was crumbling down, you know, like,
0:40:05and now I feel much better. Like, I'm going like as well. When I get home, I am like crash landing
0:40:12into a busy work period, but I feel more prepared for it. In a way that if this was just the amount
0:40:19of work that I've had starting Monday from a regular week, I would feel absolutely terrible.
0:40:25But now it's just like, no, this is just a busy, I've just got like a busy couple of weeks before
0:40:29Christmas starts and it's fine, you know, I'm going to be able to handle it. I've built up
0:40:34enough energy now, I'm ready to go. But that's because I've taken this time and it's been very
0:40:40valuable for me. So I'm not going to let it happen again where, I mean, really it's like,
0:40:46it's also the prioritization of relaxing time, of overworking time is one of the big things that
0:40:51I'm going to focus on when it comes to travel now. Can I ask what the reasons are for less
0:40:56work travel? Like is it specific if like I think this is good right that you're saying oh you want
0:41:03to you want to travel different more vacations less work but what's the reasoning for the
0:41:09decrease in the work? Working travel is just for me. Okay. Vacations are for me and my partner.
0:41:16Right, okay. And if I'm just traveling for work, I get an enjoyment out of that, I get a refreshment
0:41:22out of that, but it's only benefiting me and I don't think that's fair. And it's, you know,
0:41:31it's not that I won't do this stuff, I will, but basically all of my travel prior to the pandemic
0:41:37was just for work stuff. And there needs to be a way different balance for that. And also,
0:41:44I do get more benefit out of just pure vacations. And I can mix these things up, right? And I have.
0:41:52This trip has been vastly vacationed, but I've recorded a couple of shows. We've met with some
0:41:57friends and stuff, and friends that I also work with, right? So there's always that mix there.
0:42:02But the way that this has balanced has been way more vacationed. It's right. We've been
0:42:07been away for like 17 days and there's been maybe two days where there's been
0:42:12work stuff going on. That's been really good. That's vacation. I've enjoyed it
0:42:16immensely and I think it's important for me to have that time as
0:42:20well so that's what I kind of want to focus on going forward and I feel like
0:42:23I've set that up. This is one of those things where like I was thinking well I
0:42:27haven't I don't really feel like I have a plan for what this stuff looks like
0:42:30but it's fine because I've started taking the steps this year to enable
0:42:34that to occur in future years. You know, like this is one of the areas where I
0:42:38feel like, oh but I don't really have an idea of what I want when it comes to
0:42:42like new norms, because it's what it's more than just travel, it's a lot of things.
0:42:45But really I do feel like my mindset has changed this year, where I feel like I
0:42:51am in a space where I feel like I'm open to changing things that I have otherwise
0:42:57felt were just the way that things were. And so now I feel like I'm much
0:43:04more open in future years to adapting what my life looks like.
0:43:09There are a couple of other things that I can breeze through I think.
0:43:13Direct support was one and I'm super happy with how membership's been going.
0:43:16The base and security that it's provided has been really wonderful.
0:43:20Now I do feel like I have a level of security in my income that I didn't have before and
0:43:25in a time which still continues to be in flux, like the advertising part of the business
0:43:30is always up and down.
0:43:31and it's been up and down all of 2021.
0:43:33And I continue, I reckon it's going to continue to be the same global supply
0:43:37chain, et cetera, et cetera.
0:43:38So having the direct support model and the membership has been really great.
0:43:43And I do feel like this year I've gotten a much better handle on what the
0:43:48content is and what goes where for the shows where I do this stuff.
0:43:52So I've been really happy with that.
0:43:53And I feel like I've gotten the mix under control,
0:43:55which I'm really pleased with.
0:43:57I wanted to think about my relationship to the internet.
0:44:00I don't really feel like I've done anything different here.
0:44:04I know I use Twitter less, but I still debate as to whether I want to use it all, but cannot
0:44:10let go of my grip on it.
0:44:13So that's just, I think that's just going to continue to be an ongoing question in my
0:44:17mind.
0:44:18I feel like my news intake is far better.
0:44:21Like I feel better informed and I also feel like I have way better filters for myself
0:44:25feels like I see a new story,
0:44:27and I feel like I'm better at filtering it
0:44:29through my own brain,
0:44:31and working out what I think it means,
0:44:33rather than what it tells me it means,
0:44:35which I think has been a valuable skill that I've learned.
0:44:39- Okay.
0:44:40- Honestly, this is mostly to headlines.
0:44:42I feel like I'm handling headlines way better.
0:44:45Like I see a headline and I'm like,
0:44:47"I don't think this is true,"
0:44:48and then I read the story and I'm like,
0:44:49"Oh yeah, no, they were inflating that."
0:44:52Like I feel like I've gotten a way better sense,
0:44:54a gut sense of this stuff, which I'm pretty happy with.
0:44:57And the last area was product development.
0:45:00And this was one of the ones where I was like,
0:45:04"Oh, but I didn't do the thing I wanted to do."
0:45:06Like we've been working on a new project
0:45:09and it's something quite new and ambitious
0:45:11compared to what we've been doing.
0:45:12It's in the same ballpark,
0:45:14but it was really starting something completely from scratch
0:45:17and it's been in development for a year
0:45:20and I really wanted to have it for sale now,
0:45:23but there have been unexpected stumbling blocks.
0:45:25But ultimately the product is becoming better and better
0:45:28the longer we continue working on it.
0:45:30That was something I really wanted to have something else
0:45:33this year, but it just wasn't able to be worked out.
0:45:36- Yeah, I know that was your target for this,
0:45:39but this also I think is a case where you did heroically
0:45:44under the circumstances for how far along this product is.
0:45:48So I think you still get full points for this,
0:45:50even though, yeah, we wanted ideally to be announcing a new thing now, but just the realities
0:45:55of the world did not allow that to happen.
0:45:58So I think I'm giving you full points for product development for sure this year, even
0:46:03though it's going to be a little bit later than we otherwise anticipated.
0:46:06So this is kind of where I am with the theme of like, nothing major happened, but movement
0:46:13was in all of these areas.
0:46:16And so that's why like in my review, I realized, oh, you know what, I did a better job of this
0:46:20than I thought I did.
0:46:22And so after completing the kind of looking back,
0:46:24I felt pretty good in it.
0:46:25But it just maybe this wasn't really a theme
0:46:29that like I've had before,
0:46:31where I felt like where they kind of was like,
0:46:34oh, when I'm done with this,
0:46:35I know I'm gonna feel different.
0:46:36That's how kind of every other theme has been for me.
0:46:38And it's actually my theme for 2022 is focused around that.
0:46:43But really 2021's theme,
0:46:45I should have actually given it a different kind of name.
0:46:48It should have been like the year of groundwork
0:46:49or something called the Year of Foundation
0:46:51rather than the Year of Reinvention.
0:46:53That phrase really threw me off
0:46:55as I was going through the year
0:46:56and I don't think it did a good job with the name.
0:46:59Because the, you know, reinvention seemed to suggest that
0:47:02by the end of it, I'm a new man.
0:47:04It's not as simple as that.
0:47:06'Cause by the end of it,
0:47:07I have actually set myself up to become a new man,
0:47:10but that's gonna be a longer process.
0:47:13And so if I could go back,
0:47:15I would actually call this the Year of Foundation
0:47:17or the Year of Groundwork.
0:47:18feel like that would have made me feel way different about the theme overall. I think
0:47:23it was just poorly branded. How are you even debating between those two names?
0:47:28"Foundation" is such an awesome name for a theme that's got to go on the list for people of like,
0:47:34"Hey, are you considering a theme? How does 'Foundation' sound to you?" Like, that's great.
0:47:39I might go back and re-edit the episode. Just like every time, "Foundation" just comes in every
0:47:44- Every time, year of, foundation.
0:47:47Really bad ADR.
0:47:49- Yeah, that's a fantastic theme.
0:47:52That's definitely gotta go on the list of suggestions
0:47:54for sure and it's gotta be in bold.
0:47:56That's the only way to say it.
0:47:57Oh, what's your theme?
0:47:58Foundation.
0:47:59No even year of or anything.
0:48:02That's such a good one.
0:48:03- It breaks out.
0:48:05- Take that people and go run with it.
0:48:07And you know what the best way to run with it is?
0:48:09- Oh, there he goes.
0:48:11- By buying a journal, theme system.
0:48:14- Contextmerch.com.
0:48:17So we've been talking about the theme system journal a bit
0:48:20and this is where we're gonna pitch you
0:48:22on why this is important.
0:48:23So the journaling part of the theme
0:48:27is a very, very important part for me
0:48:29because it gives me the ability to take some time
0:48:32to look at myself every day, think about how I'm doing,
0:48:36think about what I'm focusing on,
0:48:37think about what I want to change.
0:48:39Not only does it keep me on track with my theme,
0:48:42It serves as a reminder for my theme
0:48:44and also helps me plan my next one.
0:48:46Right, this is what I mentioned earlier,
0:48:47that my practice of journaling every day
0:48:50helps me highlight the areas in my working and personal life
0:48:54that I wanna change for the future.
0:48:56I see what keeps popping up.
0:48:57For me, like, for example, a really good one,
0:49:00and I'm gonna talk about this in a bit,
0:49:01I have a section in my journal every day
0:49:03where I talk about something that was bad in my day
0:49:05or something that's frustrating me.
0:49:07Far too often I wrote, I feel like I'm too busy
0:49:10or I feel like I'm overwhelmed.
0:49:11I kept noticing that I was writing that a lot.
0:49:14So it was like, okay, I need to address that.
0:49:17And it's the thing that I feel like
0:49:18if I wasn't writing it down,
0:49:20if I wasn't like verbalizing it,
0:49:22I don't think I would be able to pin exactly what it is
0:49:24that was making me feel not great,
0:49:26but I was realizing it was overwhelming.
0:49:28And it was the practice of journaling every day
0:49:31that helped me uncover this feeling,
0:49:34which I can then use for creating my next theme.
0:49:38So I really love it for that stuff.
0:49:40I'm still gonna make the pitch that I'm thinking of a younger version of me who would be listening
0:49:48to this and listening to your pitch that you would do this every day over a long period
0:49:56of time.
0:49:58Younger version of me knows he's not gonna do that.
0:50:01And so I still make the pitch that like what the journal is great for me for is this tactical
0:50:07journaling.
0:50:09I like it because it's, over time, it's become much more like an object, which is the "hey,
0:50:17you're serious now" object of you want to change something and you're going to intentionally
0:50:26work on it with this thing.
0:50:29And like, I really do mean it, like it helped bring me out of a funk at the end of the swamp
0:50:35of uncertainty by just going through, writing down the items that I wanted to track every
0:50:41day, prioritizing them by what matters, like what are the things that I absolutely need
0:50:47and want to do.
0:50:48This time in particular, I really like the exercise of thinking through what counts as
0:50:53a full circle and what counts as a half circle for like partial credit for this thing and
0:51:00full credit for this thing.
0:51:03And I find using it really intensely for a period of one to two to three weeks, it never
0:51:12fails to help really change my mental mindset.
0:51:17I just love it for this.
0:51:18But I think you're making a really good example of why our product is good.
0:51:23Because we created this product together and we use it completely differently.
0:51:27Because that's how we made it.
0:51:29We made it to be customizable, that it fits into how you want to work.
0:51:35Maybe you want to journal every day, maybe you just want to pick it up for a three week
0:51:38period to journal.
0:51:39And it works because we don't date it, right?
0:51:41Like it's not meant to make you feel bad because you don't address it every day.
0:51:46Yeah, no, we definitely use it differently because – and also it is just very funny
0:51:50– every time you mention that thing about where you write down something that didn't
0:51:53go well, I hate that.
0:51:55I hate that so much.
0:51:56I'm always like, "Don't do that! That's a terrible idea!"
0:52:01But you know what? The point is, it works for you.
0:52:04Whereas my pitch instead for those two boxes at the top,
0:52:08especially if you want to elevate your mood,
0:52:11is the thing that always annoys me with how effective it is,
0:52:14which is writing down things you're grateful for.
0:52:18And it makes me so angry how effective it is.
0:52:22but it's like the top box in the morning,
0:52:25write something that you're grateful for.
0:52:27And the next little box right below it,
0:52:30save it for the end of the day.
0:52:32And at the end of the day,
0:52:34write something that went well during the day.
0:52:36And it's like, God damn it, it sounds so dumb,
0:52:39but it is so effective.
0:52:41- So I recommend people, they can go to theme-system.com
0:52:45and we have examples of what people write
0:52:48in the journaling pages.
0:52:49And these examples are actually built
0:52:51on these two ways that we journal.
0:52:53So there is like, there's one from me where in the four boxes
0:52:57I write something that's good, something that's bad.
0:52:59What am I thinking about?
0:53:00What am I looking forward to?
0:53:02And then there's one that you came up with
0:53:04what you're personally grateful for,
0:53:05professionally grateful for, what's on your mind
0:53:07and what's your most important task, right?
0:53:10So they're built on actual examples
0:53:12that the two of us put together,
0:53:14just as the kinds of things you can use the journal for.
0:53:17- It's super flexible.
0:53:18That's why the boxes don't have any labels.
0:53:20I feel I've not not not to congratulate ourselves Myke, but I do think we we hit a really sweet
0:53:26spot of just enough structure on the pages that you can make it work for you in the way
0:53:34that you want it to.
0:53:35So with the theme system journal you spend time reflecting on your day while writing
0:53:40in the journal pages.
0:53:42Then you keep track of some key points that you want to hit every day in the daily pages.
0:53:45This is what we were talking about earlier on that we have these basically they look
0:53:49like checklists and you can mark off if you've completed them, maybe you can color them in
0:53:54like you can shade them in for if you've completed it or half completed it during the day. And
0:53:59you know we were talking about I use it as a way at the moment of like these are the
0:54:03nine things if I do these every day, who I want to be and Gray uses them as like I have
0:54:08this set of things that I want to do but I order them in importance. And so like this
0:54:12is the kind of stuff we were talking about earlier, you can track these two things, you
0:54:15and write about how you're feeling
0:54:17and have something quantitative that you can tick off
0:54:19or mark off every day.
0:54:21The Theme System Journal is made of quality materials.
0:54:24It took us years of work to get just right.
0:54:27And we use them constantly as do at this point,
0:54:31thousands upon thousands of other cortexes.
0:54:33So you will be in very good company if you pick one up.
0:54:36- One of my favorite things is whenever I show someone
0:54:38the Theme System Journal, happens every time.
0:54:40I hand them the journal, first thing they say,
0:54:43"Ooh, feels so nice."
0:54:46Like, yes, that's the result of years of work.
0:54:48(laughs)
0:54:49- It's funny how that happens, really.
0:54:51But it really, look, the whole thing is made to,
0:54:54I think, a very high specification and standard
0:54:56that I set.
0:54:57You know, it is, it opens flat 'cause it has a semi,
0:55:00like it's like a kind of soft hardcover.
0:55:02It has some structure, but it opens flat
0:55:04and it's flexible, which I like.
0:55:06The paper's really good and it works
0:55:08with a whole variety of pens.
0:55:10I try to, basically everything that I own
0:55:12and I'm really happy with the results.
0:55:14So you can buy yours today, go to cortexmerch.com
0:55:17and you can pick one up.
0:55:19You can buy one or you can subscribe
0:55:21and get one every quarter, or you can read more about it
0:55:24and see more examples of how it works at theme-system.com.
0:55:27As we stand right now, we have more in stock
0:55:31than we've ever had at this time of the year,
0:55:34but every single time we've sold out.
0:55:37So who knows, right?
0:55:40You know, we have more being made right now, but we never know what's going to happen.
0:55:47So if you think you might want one of these, or if you think there's somebody in your life
0:55:51that you might want to pick one up for the holidays, cortexmerch.com.
0:55:55And if you like setting a theme for your upcoming year, you should have one of these.
0:55:59Yes.
0:56:00So we're really trying to make it so that everyone who wants to get a journal this year
0:56:03can get a journal this year.
0:56:06But again, just like I said last time, I'm going to re-emphasize, if you're listening
0:56:12to my voice right now and you think, "Oh, I'd like to get a journal for myself," or
0:56:18you think, "Ooh, I know someone this would make a great stocking stuffer for," order
0:56:22it right now because I'm going to promo it again on my YouTube channel.
0:56:28So if you're listening to the Cortex Podcast, you have the heads up before like a bigger
0:56:34So go to cortexmerch.com right now and get your journal if you want to make sure that you have one for the new year.
0:56:44Before we get to the themes proper, Myke, I have a bit of a interregnum theme topic here just to discuss.
0:56:53to discuss. For the last two years I've had a kind of secret business theme that I've
0:57:03been working on.
0:57:04Haha! Secret theme!
0:57:06Yeah, it's a secret theme. We talk about our themes for ourselves and I've just had
0:57:12this secret business theme which is really related to the YouTube channel over the past
0:57:16two years and I thought, well this might as well be a place to review it. I have never
0:57:20really talked about it, partly because I just didn't know if it was going to work at all.
0:57:24My business theme for the YouTube channel that I started really just after I did my
0:57:31very first major Patreon push where I said like, "Oh, I'm not doing sponsorships on the
0:57:36channel now and I'm just going to be patron and member supported."
0:57:39That kicked off a theme where what I wanted to try to do on the YouTube channel was to
0:57:47decrease the average time between real video uploads.
0:57:53Now I was trying to be very clear with myself, I'm like, I'm not setting deadlines here,
0:57:59because I hate deadlines.
0:58:01Did you say that looking in the mirror?
0:58:03Yes, listen, listen, you're not going to give yourself a deadline, because you know what
0:58:09you hate more than anything?
0:58:11Deadlines.
0:58:12You know what makes you not want to work?
0:58:14Deadlines.
0:58:15So don't do that.
0:58:16Instead, what we're going to do is a two-year running average.
0:58:21So if you're going to track anything, you're going to make yourself a little spreadsheet,
0:58:24which is exactly what I did, and I started every video upload tracking a two-year running
0:58:30average of what was the average time between videos.
0:58:36And here we are two years later, and no one in the world has noticed, but I was very pleased
0:58:44because when I started the average was over 50 days between what I considered to be like real
0:58:51videos and I finally hit the target that I wanted to see if I could hit two years later with the
0:58:59upload of the Tiffany video which was to get that two year running average under 30 days between
0:59:07something that I considered to be like a real video. Look at you, that's a big difference.
0:59:12Yeah, again, I think because I operate on basically geological timescales for a YouTube
0:59:18channel, no one noticed what was to me like a tectonic difference in sort of working pressure,
0:59:25but I was very pleased to have actually hit this. I think this is also a case where it's like,
0:59:30the stars aligned in various ways to make it a little bit easier for me to work over these
0:59:35previous two years than the two years prior to that. But I mention all of this because
0:59:41The goal of it was never like, "Oh, this is a thing that I want to maintain."
0:59:45It was more like, "I want to see if I'm able to do this over a long period of time."
0:59:49And I'm mentioning it now because in some ways it's a little bit of a prelude to where I am with
0:59:56the 2022 theme because I think I mentioned it a bunch... I can't remember if it was last episode
1:00:04or the previous episode, but I kept using this phrase like "tapped out" that after this year
1:00:12I felt really tapped out. And I kind of want to introduce this formally as an idea which is
1:00:18it's separate from the concept of being burned out. I feel like burned out has a has a really
1:00:27precise meaning of like you've overworked and you're like resenting what you're doing
1:00:34and you just you just feel like totally used up in a really negative way and that's not
1:00:42the way I feel at all but I do feel like I got myself into a position of having really
1:00:50on the YouTube channel that I was a bit tapped out after the last main upload.
1:00:56And the difference there is I feel like I've never liked the YouTube channel more than I
1:01:03currently do. Like, I really wanted to work on it, but I just I made a decision not to do any work
1:01:10when I was visiting with my family, and I thought, "Oh, when I come back to the UK, then I will get
1:01:18right back into things. But spoiler, I did not. Like when I returned, I just still for a little
1:01:26while found myself completely incapable of getting back to work. I think it wasn't helped because
1:01:33when I returned I went straight into a conference, which was the first time I had socialized with
1:01:39anyone in like two years, and then I suddenly met like 120 people and was really exhausted by that,
1:01:45especially basically stepping right off a plane, but nonetheless I felt really just tapped out
1:01:51and I've only just in the last two weeks really started to get back into things because it's like
1:01:58"OMG the end of the year is coming right up and like I need to get a video out before that is over"
1:02:04But it's left me in this funny place where I have now, without a doubt, had the biggest
1:02:14continuous break in my working life, you know, since summers in high school, I think.
1:02:23Like that's probably the the biggest comparison there.
1:02:26So I find myself like entering 2022 having finished off this.
1:02:34but I think was good, but is this kind of strange interregnum.
1:02:38And it just makes me think, like, quite unintentionally, YouTube has,
1:02:45just in the entertainment world, ended up being like this weird 10, 12 year long experiment in
1:02:52constant production without seasons.
1:02:58Like, when you think about people who work in the real entertainment industry,
1:03:03TV shows operate in seasons, right? Movies and other projects are created in a big burst,
1:03:11and then there's often a break. And I think kind of no one noticed or just sort of slowly crept up
1:03:19that YouTube has become this huge booming part of the entertainment industry, but there is no
1:03:28season break ever just because of the way that it's structured. And I think that that's
1:03:34that's been good for content production but maybe bad for people. So I don't know, I don't have any
1:03:43solid thoughts around that right now but it's just it's just been on my mind that like
1:03:48maybe there should be dedicated downtime instead of like an accidental downtime where it's like
1:03:55like, "Oh boy, you've really worked a bunch and now you're tapped out and you're sort
1:03:59of accidentally taking down time over a long period of time." But I don't know, it's just
1:04:04something that's been on my mind and I feel like I'm just entering what's supposed to
1:04:10be new theme season in this weird in-betweeny state.
1:04:15MATT: Well, I'm pleased you hit the little theme that you have for yourself of reducing
1:04:20that timeframe. I'm also pleased that you realize that you can do it but you don't need
1:04:26to do it. I think that that's a good thing. You know you have this, so if for any reason
1:04:32you feel like you must or need to change for a period of time you can, but also knowing
1:04:38that it's not imperative for you to do so and that you haven't built your business in
1:04:44in such a way that it requires the timeframe to decrease.
1:04:49'Cause I know a lot of people in YouTube,
1:04:51right, you're talking about that,
1:04:52like they build large teams around them
1:04:54and they have home machines that run
1:04:56that require the feeding of the beast,
1:04:59but your business isn't made that way.
1:05:02But it's good to know that if you ever need
1:05:04to turn up the dial you can,
1:05:06but also remaining core to yourself
1:05:09that that's not who you always want to be.
1:05:11I think that that's two valuable things
1:05:13you've taken away from that.
1:05:15- Yeah, yeah, and I think the YouTube channel
1:05:18was under attentioned in some ways,
1:05:21and I mean, it also, it just has been interesting
1:05:25that while I think basically none of my viewers
1:05:27have noticed at all, it is the case that it feels like
1:05:30the YouTube system has noticed,
1:05:32and so the numbers for the channel have been great
1:05:35over the last two years with even just like this,
1:05:37not major, but just slight shift in the frequency.
1:05:42I think part of that is just simply also you like more uploads mean there's sort of more
1:05:47lottery tickets that one of them does really well.
1:05:49But yeah, so anyway, I don't know, I felt a little bit like, oh, I had this secret business
1:05:53theme that I was working on and like, tee hee hee, updating my spreadsheet, and I just
1:05:57never told anybody about it.
1:05:58And it was always like, oh boy, look at that.
1:05:59The number is slightly going down month by month over two years.
1:06:03And when I did actually see like, oh, wow, the two year running average hit 28 days with
1:06:09Tiffany video for the videos that I count as real. I was like, "Wow! That's amazing!"
1:06:15Like, I'm really happy about that. So I did just want to mention it in this little interregnum section.
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1:08:15So what's the real theme then?
1:08:17Okay.
1:08:182022 theme.
1:08:20I think this is going to be my most nebulous theme ever.
1:08:28So the name is New Dawn.
1:08:31Oh.
1:08:32Oh.
1:08:33It's an interesting name.
1:08:34Yes, but of course I have secret brackets in there because I know that's always what you
1:08:38like.
1:08:39So New Dawn has been my like short working title.
1:08:43That's the name for the note in Obsidian.
1:08:46But the full title for me is "New Decades Dawn" brackets again.
1:08:52S: Wait, "The Year of New Decades Dawn Again."
1:08:55BH & H: [laughing]
1:08:57S; What is that?
1:08:59What is that?
1:09:01BH & H; No, it's "New" open parentheses, "Decades" close parentheses, "Dawn" square
1:09:08brackets, again close square brackets.
1:09:11That's the way I have it written in my text document.
1:09:13The year of new bracket decades dawn bracket again.
1:09:19Yeah, I think that's very clear, right?
1:09:21No, I'm there now.
1:09:22Here, I can message it to you so you see how it's properly formatted.
1:09:27I would like that.
1:09:28Although you can ignore the backslashes because that's necessary formatting for
1:09:31Obsidian to say that it's not an actual link to somewhere else.
1:09:33So there you go, very clear.
1:09:35Yeah, that's just what you need.
1:09:39Yeah, so... I don't-- I'm just gonna be-- I'm gonna be straight up about it.
1:09:44So this is one of these times where I feel like I have come to the episode about the yearly theme,
1:09:50and I do not have clearly solidified ideas.
1:09:55I think part of that is just the year has felt like it's gone incredibly fast,
1:09:59and I think part of that is this funny interregnum period where I'm just coming off
1:10:07a huge working break. And like we talked about last time in State of the Apps, there's a lot of
1:10:13stuff where it just feels like, "Oh man, I've been really out of practice with a lot of what I
1:10:19consider to be my normal life. I haven't really been using my to-do managers. I haven't really
1:10:27been tracking time. I haven't been tracking projects in various ways." It just feels like
1:10:32there's been this real big gap. But I also think that that's kind of an opportunity. And
1:10:40the thing that happened this year that I feel like I've only just really begun to process
1:10:48is realizing that I really have been on YouTube for 10 years. And so part of what my
1:10:58idea for this theme is, what does it really mean to think about the next 10 years of my career?
1:11:09Now, it's a funny thing to say, because I'm in the entertainment industry, and so careers are
1:11:16very uncertain. On a knife's edge, at all times.
1:11:20Yes, it really is true. Part of that is quite seriously thinking about, okay,
1:11:26what are the bounds of this career? And again, I feel really fortunate that I have found work
1:11:36that is well suited to my personality and my temperament and the kinds of things that interest
1:11:43me. And I would love to keep doing this, but I was trying to be very serious about it. It's like,
1:11:50Like, okay, the projections that I've kind of made are 20 more years of doing this is
1:11:57my optimistic, great outcome.
1:12:00Ten years is like the median prediction.
1:12:03And five years is I feel like is the very pessimistic prediction of, oh, no, something's
1:12:10gone wrong.
1:12:12TikTokers or GPT-5 have taken over the world.
1:12:16And like your career is just totally irrelevant.
1:12:18Who knows?
1:12:19I really like what I do and I just I find myself thinking about it in these two ways that like
1:12:29on one hand I feel like I have a really solid base like I've been lucky to build up this audience over time
1:12:39And on the other hand, I feel like, oh, if you're really serious about trying to think
1:12:47about a 10 year horizon for what you want to do, you also can't take any of that for
1:12:53granted.
1:12:54There's no guarantee that it continues to last.
1:12:57And so that also means you have to be really serious about what does it mean if you're
1:13:05deciding here that you really want to do this for another decade. In the same way that when
1:13:12I started a decade ago, also after a big break, I had to be really serious about what does
1:13:20this mean that this is my career now? Like, what do I have to do in order to make this
1:13:25work? And so that's why I have this idea like new decades dawn again, is it really feels
1:13:33like this is a mirror time to when I started 10 years ago. It's after a big break. I'm
1:13:42obviously in a much better position now, but I also think I need to take it very seriously
1:13:51because I don't know, in some ways, over time, it's just kind of felt very natural that like,
1:14:03"Oh, YouTube is what I do."
1:14:06And in the way that you forget your past selves, it starts to feel like, "Oh, this is the
1:14:11thing that I've just always done, right?
1:14:15This is quite natural.
1:14:16I've always done this and it'll just always be here."
1:14:20It was like, "But no, no, no, no.
1:14:21This is a good time to wake up and seriously think about it again."
1:14:26And I wish I had more solid thoughts around this theme, but I actually feel like this
1:14:36is really not something to rush.
1:14:41Which is why I mean that thinking about this theme kind of is the theme for the year.
1:14:49Think about the next long-term phase of your career.
1:14:55And I also just found myself thinking about a lot of things on a much more multi-year
1:15:03timeline now.
1:15:04You know, it's very funny that for you one of your things is, "Oh, much less travel,"
1:15:10right?
1:15:11But for me the decision has been much more travel.
1:15:13Like my wife and I have not traveled very much at all in like the time that we have
1:15:19lived here.
1:15:20And so we've set a real horizon on like, okay, we need to consciously, over the next
1:15:27several years, travel more.
1:15:31And we were also thinking about, do we move out of London?
1:15:37Where do we want to spend the next big chunk of time?
1:15:42And we have actually decided that we don't want to move right now, but we have we've
1:15:48out of like, we will re-evaluate this question in two years. Like we'll come back to this
1:15:56and then see like, is moving something that we want to do or is it not? But this is like
1:16:03a lot of the things that's been going on for me is just thinking about things on multiple
1:16:09year timelines in a way that I just haven't before. On one hand, I have this feeling like
1:16:17I'm starting from a very solid base.
1:16:21I have this career.
1:16:22I also have on the business side,
1:16:24I've mentioned over the years of like
1:16:26how much of a pain in the butt it is
1:16:28to try to like set up business processes in the background
1:16:31and like get all the paperwork sorted.
1:16:33And this year has really proven
1:16:37that we got all the systems right
1:16:40and the way that they're supposed to be.
1:16:42- Notion nation, baby.
1:16:44- I know this is going to sound crazy
1:16:45that it's a multi-year process to get paperwork in order, but I will again say, if anyone
1:16:51listening to the sound of my voice is an American living abroad, and you think there is any
1:16:56chance at all that you will be self-employed in the future, do not ever do that while you
1:17:03are tax resident outside of the United States.
1:17:07It will be a living nightmare for you for multiple years.
1:17:13That's very actionable advice.
1:17:16That is the most actionable advice I can ever give.
1:17:19Listen American expats, you will go on the internet and you will read from people,
1:17:23"Oh, there's no problem, there's tax treaties between..."
1:17:27Don't listen to any of those people.
1:17:29They don't know what they're talking about, they're in situations where they're just employed by someone who is handling it all.
1:17:36The moment you step outside of the normal system, it is a total nightmare for you.
1:17:41But anyway, all of this is to say like, last year we thought that we had like finally gotten an entire system in place
1:17:47so that everything just works really nicely and
1:17:50I just had my end-of-year meeting with my assistant and it's like, great! Everything did work perfectly! Like this
1:17:57long-term
1:17:59background nightmare is truly and finally over. It's all set up, all the bits are working,
1:18:06Everything with Gray Industries, everything with Cortex brand.
1:18:09It's all very complicated, but it's working and it's fantastic.
1:18:12And it, it really feels like great.
1:18:14I have put behind me one of the biggest problems that I had had, which always
1:18:22kind of made the whole YouTube business feel a bit improvised, like who knows
1:18:28what we're doing, you know, but now it's all set.
1:18:30One of the other things that's been on my mind is again, thinking of this
1:18:36as a mirror time to when I first started, is reevaluating my YouTube channel and my
1:18:45YouTube business in the face of what YouTube and the internet currently are, not what I
1:18:56remember them as being slash wish them to be.
1:19:01And so part of this is I've been real mopey over the last couple years about changes with
1:19:09the way the algorithm works and changes to thumbnails and like a bunch of stuff about
1:19:15like boo hoo I wish YouTube was different.
1:19:18And I really have this strong feeling of suck it up dude like that is over.
1:19:25And if you're serious about trying to do this for another decade, you've just got to put
1:19:30that aside and think about like the reality of maintaining a career in the face of intense
1:19:39global competition in an established industry. And you know what, when you think about that
1:19:46in a real serious way, I think it becomes easier. I think I had just let myself get
1:19:52mopey about it slowly over time in a way that I hadn't like called myself out over. This
1:20:01is what I mean by like being serious about it again, kind of waking up from "oh, YouTube
1:20:07is just what I always do" and it's like "no no, this is a thing that you have to work
1:20:11for" and so that's part of what I'm thinking about.
1:20:15This feels like a very like um, I can't think of a better phrase but like you're slapping
1:20:20yourself in the face kind of thing.
1:20:22up.
1:20:23Yeah, a little bit. It is sort of funny, like, I actually think really pushing the goal of
1:20:27trying to increase the frequency between videos, while it's not something that I'm trying to
1:20:33maintain going forward, I think like that sort of started directing my thinking towards
1:20:39this.
1:20:40Yeah, I can draw a line between the two things that you've been talking about, because one
1:20:43of the things that you said is that when you decreased the time period, you saw that YouTube
1:20:49favoring you again and then when you think about like alright I should
1:20:55actually be taking this seriously and doing what a youtuber should do like
1:21:00that's the line where like really you can as a youtuber say as we do many
1:21:05times we like bemoan the platform or what they do it's like I just want to
1:21:09make the videos I want to make and you can do that and you have done that and
1:21:12that's great but if you decide no I want to participate in this thing that I'm a
1:21:18part of it is all about doing the things that the system wants you to do to serve
1:21:23the videos in the way that they want that's what all big youtubers do right
1:21:27they're like we focus on this we focus on this and you've been doing more of
1:21:31that and you're getting the results so you don't have to go all in and make
1:21:36like two uploads a week and you got your shit like but there are things that you
1:21:39can do to be more serious about being a part of the platform and you know we
1:21:45spoke about like titles and thumbnails like that's an important part and the
1:21:50frequency the algorithm seems to like it's like I can draw a line between
1:21:53those two things of like oh when I did this thing I saw a benefit I'm actually
1:21:59now gonna try and be more serious about how I approach this I think it's
1:22:03interesting I would say that there are many ways in which I was actively
1:22:09bucking the system yeah out of like kind of spite it's like I think I get it I
1:22:15I get it. It's like I was the same, you changed, and I don't like it.
1:22:18Yes. Yes, that's exactly right.
1:22:22Yeah, I used to be able to depend on my subscribers to always see my videos, and now you've changed.
1:22:27Well, I'm still just gonna call my video "Exploring Ticoi," and I'll just, you know, it's like,
1:22:32no, that's a terrible title, dude. That's awful.
1:22:35That last video, calling it "Someone Dead Ruined My Life Again,"
1:22:38there's no way that didn't have a huge impact on the number of people actually watching it, right?
1:22:44It's a behind the scenes video that got more views than the video.
1:22:47Yeah, and I think my, I can't remember exactly what it was, but the original title I wanted to give it was something like
1:22:53"The Poem Project", right? Which is like, oh god.
1:22:56Ooh, let me click it!
1:22:59Yeah.
1:23:01Read me a poem, Gray.
1:23:02Yeah, exactly. It's like, that's... I almost couldn't engineer like a worse title, right? This is terrible.
1:23:08And one of the things that has helped draw this to my attention is a new business theme,
1:23:16which I am going to mention here, because I think part of what happened in the past is,
1:23:23you know, subscribers used to really matter on YouTube, and then they made a bunch of changes
1:23:26and subscribers don't matter. And that's fine. And I was always like, I came to the conclusion,
1:23:32like, subscribers don't matter. And I think in some part of my brain, I kind of went,
1:23:37So nothing matters was the rest of that sentence. Every time I was saying like, Oh, subscribers
1:23:42don't matter on YouTube anymore. I think there was a silent so nothing matters. But I realized,
1:23:49Oh, I actually can have a target, which is my next business theme, which is a multi,
1:23:57let me just be very clear is a multi multi year target is called a billion or bust.
1:24:06I would like, as a career goal, to get to a billion views on the channel.
1:24:13My lifetime views over 10 years is just about 700 million views, and extrapolating it out,
1:24:22it's like, okay, I think I'm on track for hitting that in something like five years.
1:24:29Can I bring that down to four years?
1:24:31That's cool.
1:24:32That would be great.
1:24:34Three years?
1:24:35you know, that'd be fast, but you know what? It's an actual target, and it actually feels
1:24:42really- even though I don't like goals, and even then I still use the word like target,
1:24:49I prefer the word target, but this really is a goal, and it's nice to have a career
1:24:55goal that's an actually measurable thing.
1:24:57- Well I think it's good, because you can have this thing up there, of like a thing
1:25:01you want to achieve and then your theme this year is the beginning of trying to get to
1:25:07what that eventual goal would be, that target.
1:25:10Like the theme of, I can't even remember the name, new decades dawn, but now I understand
1:25:16it, I do actually understand it now of like, this is me recommitting and in that recommitment
1:25:24it's the beginning steps towards achieving this big business target of a billion. Because
1:25:31I mean, if you just make videos for the next 35 years, you'll probably get there. But wouldn't
1:25:38it be great to do it as you say in four years? Yeah, and it's more that it feels nice and
1:25:44motivating to have a meaningful number to track. Like, the subscriber number is not meaningful on
1:25:52YouTube, it is a vanity number, but somehow it never dawned on me that like, "Oh, the total
1:25:58views on the channel is a meaningful number." And it would just be nice when I have to describe like
1:26:07what I do in a sentence to be able to say like, "Oh, I run a YouTube channel that has a billion
1:26:13views. Great!" Like I think that's a nice one sentence pitch. I will say though, Gray, saying
1:26:19I have a YouTube channel that has over 700 million views, it's still also really good.
1:26:24I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying a billion is a great number.
1:26:27Bigger numbers always good, right? Big numbers, you're always looking for bigger numbers,
1:26:32but yeah, I get your point. It's also faster to say billion rather than 700 million.
1:26:38Exactly, and I think there's some way in which when you're saying the number with more digits,
1:26:42it sounds like you're being much more of a tryhard sort of person, like it just sounds
1:26:46sounds better than say Billie. Over 744, right? Like, oh, so it's 745, is that what you're
1:26:52saying? Yes, exactly. This is also a clear example of what do I mean by, I find myself
1:26:59thinking about multi-year goals, and this is totally a multi-year goal. I'm very happy
1:27:06to have it. I'll also just say there's another sub part of this for me, which is the "again"
1:27:14a double meaning here, which is the pandemic for me has, again, personally mostly been a huge
1:27:23net positive in my life. 2020 was without a doubt one of the best years of my adult life,
1:27:31and 2021, while I would describe it as a highly variant year, it's also not a year I would want
1:27:38to do any differently.
1:27:40- Highly variant? That's a real phrase to use for 2021. I feel the same.
1:27:46- Whatever, I'm sticking with it. It's been a highly variant.
1:27:48- Yeah, you do go over it, man. It's all yours.
1:27:49- I was like, "Should I rephrase it? The variance has been quite high,
1:27:53but that doesn't make any difference. It's still the same."
1:27:55But the one thing that I really feel like I resent the pandemic for is it took away
1:28:03what was my goal at the start of two years ago, which was that I wanted to do more gray goes
1:28:11outside. And I was like, I was gearing up for, you know what I want to do more stuff in the real
1:28:17world. I want to go to places I want to try to see stuff. And like I lost that I really did.
1:28:24It was just terrible timing. And so the again, part of it is, I want to start this up again.
1:28:32It's a funny thing to do, but it also fits within the multi-year timeline here, because
1:28:40I feel like I'm trying to start up a sort of career within a career on the YouTube channel.
1:28:47I've tried lots of times filming a bunch of stuff in the real world, the vast majority of it has not
1:28:55worked out and has never appeared on the channel. Some of the things that I've done have gone up
1:28:59up there but they've all been sort of weird and random and this also feels like I either
1:29:08want to solve this or I want to put this to bed and be like you know what this isn't a
1:29:14good use of your time don't try to do the real life stuff.
1:29:17This is also another one where I'm kind of giving myself two years to really make a decision
1:29:25about is this a good use of my time?
1:29:29Does this make sense to do?
1:29:31And maybe at the end of the two years, I discover,
1:29:35you know what, going places is good for me personally
1:29:38and I shouldn't waste my time filming.
1:29:41Or maybe two years from now, I decide,
1:29:44oh, this is actually like a great use of my time.
1:29:46But right now, I just don't know.
1:29:49But that was the thing that I really wanted to do
1:29:52at the start of the pandemic.
1:29:54and it was taken away from me, that opportunity.
1:29:57So I'm booting that one up again.
1:30:01- I'm pleased 'cause I love those videos.
1:30:02I always enjoy the videos where there's like that mix
1:30:05and where you're outside doing stuff.
1:30:07So I look forward to more of it.
1:30:09I know it's hard and I know it's like a different
1:30:11set of skills and they're tricky to make
1:30:14and they're tricky to get right,
1:30:15but I always enjoy them when you do them.
1:30:16- Yeah, I mean, we can talk about this another time,
1:30:18but I'm very-- - I think so.
1:30:20- I don't know what these videos are yet.
1:30:23I love the sharks video, but I feel like that isn't even really a Grey Goes Outside video,
1:30:27that's just its own weird thing. You've seen a video that I'm working on now which is also
1:30:32very stylistically different and is its own weird thing, I don't know. But I want to solve this one
1:30:41way or another, and possibly solving it is deciding like it just doesn't make sense, I don't know.
1:30:47but this is a multi-year project that I want to really get working on and yeah so that's the
1:30:54again part. Yeah that's the again part. Pretty big theme this one. This reminds me of my last
1:31:02year theme so my advice to you is don't get lost in it. Yeah I think we may need to discuss that
1:31:10yeah, because I feel like it is without a doubt my most vague and unclear, but also feels really
1:31:17important. So I'm very happy to revisit your experiences with this. And yeah, we can talk
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1:33:10relayFN. Tell me about your theme Myke. Okay I'm gonna start off with the name
1:33:15which is the year of structure. Hmm. I was tempting to go gray on this and I have
1:33:21bracket and unstructured but I decided not to do that. That doesn't make any sense. Because I don't like the brackets I always
1:33:29think of what is it year of less comma me.
1:33:32That's the one that I always like to just have one word.
1:33:35And I've really struggled with the word, but I think you'll see why I got to it.
1:33:39So my kind of description for the theme is that I feel like I need a better structure
1:33:47in place to handle the various responsibilities that I have in my life.
1:33:50And also carving out and allowing for more unstructured time.
1:33:56I feel like I have a, I think, pretty desperate need at this point to have more space in my life
1:34:02while also balancing the things that I want and need to be working on.
1:34:06Over the last couple of years, I feel like I have lost some of the grip on my responsibilities.
1:34:14Like they just continue to stretch in all directions.
1:34:17And I feel like at this point I have way too many disparate things going on.
1:34:23and I feel like I need to do some work to get everything back in order,
1:34:27pare some things down, and find space in my schedule so I can better serve all of the
1:34:33things that are the most important. So I want to have this unstructured time to allow me to
1:34:39come up with new things that are related to the most important things that I'm doing.
1:34:44And I feel like I need to spend a bit more time looking at the wider picture of all of this,
1:34:48rather than focusing on small aspects which is what I've tried to do in the past like fix this
1:34:53small thing reduce this responsibility and surely it will make space when I actually think I need
1:34:58to spend time looking at the overall wider picture of this. One of the traps that I fall into when it
1:35:04comes to reducing my time is realizing that I want to do this and try to make changes at the end of
1:35:11the year. It's a terrible time to do it because you have not allowed yourself time to set up for
1:35:18for the next year.
1:35:19So if you decide, hey, I want to get rid of this project,
1:35:23it's too late at that point to do it in November.
1:35:26Like, I think mentally that's how we think,
1:35:29oh, well, just because it's before the next year,
1:35:32but by November, you've already started the preparation
1:35:34for the next year.
1:35:35Everything's in motion at that point.
1:35:37So I am planning on doing the work in 2022
1:35:42to enable this for late 2022, 2023 onward.
1:35:48So my plan is to work on the structure,
1:35:52where I can make improvements,
1:35:54and start the process for making those improvements
1:35:58for next year.
1:35:59Because if I decide now I want the year structure,
1:36:03it's too late for me to make all of the changes
1:36:05that I might want to make for 2022.
1:36:08So 2022 is working on what do I do for the future,
1:36:13but near term when it comes to making structure.
1:36:18- Okay, can you give me a specific example
1:36:20of what you think you're going to be doing
1:36:22in the first half of next year?
1:36:24I feel like I'm having a hard time,
1:36:26which is terribly unfair of me with my really vague notions,
1:36:29but I feel like I'm having a hard time making concrete
1:36:33what it is that you're trying to achieve here.
1:36:37When you say you want more unstructured time,
1:36:40does that mean more time not working?
1:36:43Is that what that translates into?
1:36:45- No, so one of the things that I think will help
1:36:47is I can run through some of my outcomes for this,
1:36:49for like what I think are like the things that I would get.
1:36:52So like, and the first one is,
1:36:54I want more days with less to no appointments in my diary,
1:36:59less stuff on my calendar, right?
1:37:02So these are days where I can be more reactive
1:37:05to things that are coming up,
1:37:07but also having large chunks of time
1:37:09to tackle bigger things, bigger projects.
1:37:12Like I wanna sit down and work out the layout
1:37:16for a new journal project, right?
1:37:19Like, let's just imagine I have something where I'm like,
1:37:21"Oh, I wanna rethink a new way of looking at things
1:37:25"from a wider lens," right?
1:37:26And I can sit down and be like,
1:37:27"What would that look like?
1:37:29"How could we make?"
1:37:30Like, I wanna have that time to sit down and like,
1:37:34"Oh, I've got the afternoon here.
1:37:36"What do I wanna think about today?"
1:37:39Like, I very rarely have that kind of time.
1:37:41Usually it's like, "Oh, I've only got two hours,
1:37:44"and then I've got three shows."
1:37:46- Okay, okay, so that's one of the things
1:37:49that you're trying to achieve is larger blocks of time
1:37:53without interruptions.
1:37:54- Yeah, that are just for me to turn my attention
1:37:58to whatever it is I wanna turn my attention on
1:38:01rather than my calendar telling me
1:38:03what my attention is supposed to be on.
1:38:05- I mean, I can get behind that.
1:38:08Your calendar always looks like a nightmare to me whenever.
1:38:09- It's horrible, yeah.
1:38:10So this is like creating the structure for less structure.
1:38:15So like I am creating a structure for unstructured time.
1:38:19- Does this mean that you're going to be trying to
1:38:22pile up more shows on recording days
1:38:25or are you going to be trying to do actually less
1:38:28or delegate more or like what are your thoughts
1:38:31on how to actually achieve this?
1:38:33- Let me tell you at the end of 2022.
1:38:35- Okay, yes, please don't let me rush you.
1:38:38I'm just--
1:38:39- Yeah, but this is the point is I don't know yet.
1:38:43- You don't know, right.
1:38:44there might be some things, it might not be shows, but things I have to give up.
1:38:49[sigh]
1:38:49Okay, okay, I feel like I'm getting this, because I really liked your point,
1:38:54and you're totally right that at this point in the year, the next year is already sort of locked in.
1:39:01I have a funny example that I want to travel more, I feel like I haven't really thought about what my
1:39:07next year's travel schedule should look like, but discovered in my monthly meeting with my assistant
1:39:14that next year I am already booked for more days away from home than at home without me even
1:39:21noticing. And it's like, oh, okay, schedules just get locked in without you even noticing.
1:39:27And if I wanted to have next year be like year of relaxation, tough nuggies, I would need to next
1:39:34year, start planning for the year after to be your relaxation. So that's what you're
1:39:40going for here.
1:39:41All I know is right now I have the feeling.
1:39:44Okay, I get it.
1:39:45And I need to do the work on it.
1:39:47Right, okay.
1:39:48Like, I was talking to a friend of mine and they were saying like a similar thing like,
1:39:53"Oh, I have some stuff that I want to reduce, but it's too late." And I was kind of like,
1:39:58"Yeah, that's- that's- this time of year is terrible for this." Like, I feel like this
1:40:02this every couple of years and I feel like at this time, it's like, well, it's too late
1:40:06to make your decisions. And as well, I haven't even worked out fully what the important areas
1:40:13are. And it's also like, I, you know, like basically everyone, I feel like I've been
1:40:20in this holding pattern for the last year and a half and I have these large areas that
1:40:25that I wanna make forward progress on
1:40:29and I've stalled on them all.
1:40:30And now I wanna move all of them at the same time.
1:40:34So it's like my home, my studio, family, and the business.
1:40:38And these things have all had to in some way be held
1:40:43and I wanna move them all,
1:40:44but now I wanna move them all at the same time.
1:40:46And that's a lot.
1:40:47So if I wanna focus on these family areas
1:40:51and maybe moving to a new home,
1:40:53I know I've got to reduce some of my work commitments
1:40:56to enable that as a thing.
1:40:58- Right.
1:40:59- So I've got to do this like balancing act
1:41:02of these things this year.
1:41:04But what I've learned from 2020 and 2021
1:41:07is just adding things on top is not a great way to do that.
1:41:12There has to be a reduction.
1:41:16Couple of the other areas that I want to focus on
1:41:18when it comes to the year structure.
1:41:20So I have my calendar, right, as one.
1:41:22My second is I want to make my to-do list smaller.
1:41:25Because I have noticed, I have developed a habit
1:41:29of opening to-do list and just staring
1:41:32at my upcoming tasks.
1:41:34I just open and I look,
1:41:37and I'm just looking at what I have.
1:41:39- Looking like a small animal trapped in headlights?
1:41:42- I think it might be something like that.
1:41:44But I just feel like I'm just opening it and looking at it
1:41:47and I'm scrolling through and see,
1:41:49in a way that I don't think is helpful.
1:41:52And I feel like I am adding too much stuff.
1:41:57So I have a thought and I add it.
1:41:59I have a thought and I add it.
1:42:00And it all goes into my own to-do list.
1:42:04And I feel like there's two things
1:42:05that I want to handle here.
1:42:06I want to have less stuff bouncing around in my brain
1:42:10that feel like there's a need for constant things
1:42:13to be added to to-do list.
1:42:14And that comes from reducing some responsibilities.
1:42:18The other is this idea of relying on other people to do things.
1:42:26I need to start loosening my grip in certain areas
1:42:32and letting work get done without me needing to be involved in it.
1:42:36People that have responsibility, allowing them to just handle the responsibility
1:42:41and trusting that the work will be done.
1:42:43There's a couple of things here.
1:42:46is one just like, just trying to relax and like, let go a little bit.
1:42:50His vacation's actually been pretty good for me on that one.
1:42:52Where I've realized again that like, I work with a selection of very talented
1:42:57and competent people, I can trust them and they will get the work done.
1:43:01I don't need to have a hand on it all, all the time.
1:43:04I think I need an assistant again, cause I don't have one.
1:43:09Right.
1:43:10Well, yes, you had one.
1:43:12I had one.
1:43:13my assistant became the vice president of sales at Real AFM because that's what
1:43:17she's best at.
1:43:18And that's like another thing of like the sales portion of the business to be
1:43:23handled by the vice president of sales and respecting the logical structure in
1:43:27our company, right?
1:43:29That I don't need to have my hand so much on that and that's the thing that
1:43:32we're working on together.
1:43:33But I think I also need somebody to help me with more basic tasks again.
1:43:41And so this is like, so that goes back to
1:43:44what's one way I make my to-do list smaller?
1:43:46Is that some things go into Slack
1:43:48for somebody else to handle.
1:43:51- Right.
1:43:52- So this is like trying to work out now, okay,
1:43:55'cause this is why it's like this is the whole year project
1:43:58is all right, so I've realized maybe I would want
1:44:00to have an assistant.
1:44:01What would this person actually do?
1:44:03I don't know.
1:44:04I need to work that out.
1:44:05Right, so this is the idea of like,
1:44:10I'm realizing these things, these areas that I think
1:44:14will be very helpful for this year structure.
1:44:17- Right.
1:44:18- But I need to work out what are the movements
1:44:21that need to be made for that to actually make sense
1:44:24for me in the long term.
1:44:25Like I've realized this area that I want,
1:44:28and now I need to start putting the pieces in place
1:44:32to make it a reality.
1:44:33- Right, and yeah, okay.
1:44:35And so that makes sense then, like you need to spend
1:44:38time to get an assistant to be able to start offloading all of this stuff to make the end
1:44:45of next year and the year after much better. But getting an assistant is a big project.
1:44:50MATT: Exactly. Well, if I even start looking for that, what will this person do for me?
1:44:54Like I need to actually really – and we did that before with Carrie when she was coming
1:44:57into the company – like what are the roles in the sales organization that require assistance?
1:45:03and we went through that process and I worked that out.
1:45:06But like this person, this assistant,
1:45:08I actually think it's for me,
1:45:10it's not for any of my individual things.
1:45:13It's not for Relay FM, not for Cortex brand,
1:45:16it's for any of the stuff that might come up for me.
1:45:19It could span all of that, but I need to think about,
1:45:22do I need someone to help me with these various tasks?
1:45:25This is what you have somebody to help you with, right?
1:45:29- Yeah.
1:45:30- So like, I know that your assistant works with you
1:45:32for your stuff, your assistant works with me
1:45:35and us for Cortex brand.
1:45:36Like I think I maybe need someone
1:45:38who's a little bit more involved in various areas.
1:45:42- Yeah. - Possibly.
1:45:43Then there's a couple of other things,
1:45:45big focus on Cortex brand is I wanna put more effort in,
1:45:48even more continued effort in 2022
1:45:51on design and development of products.
1:45:53If I was, you know, you have your billion,
1:45:55you have your target.
1:45:58My target is three new products in 2022.
1:46:03- Okay.
1:46:05- We have some stuff that we're working on.
1:46:06Some stuff is harder than others.
1:46:08I think this is an achievable goal, but we have to see.
1:46:12But I want the time because I want the time
1:46:15so I can sit down and work this stuff through
1:46:18because as well, like one of the reasons
1:46:20I feel like I need this space again
1:46:23is trying to realistically grow our business here,
1:46:27I need more time for it.
1:46:30- Yeah, and especially the product design side,
1:46:35trying to create something new is not something
1:46:39that you can do in 90 minutes between two podcasts.
1:46:44Because it's just, it isn't possible.
1:46:46And so yeah, if that's something I can see that,
1:46:51that if you're wanting to do more of the product design,
1:46:55you have to create more unstructured space in your calendar.
1:46:59- 'Cause I'm like, I'm really excited about this stuff.
1:47:02It's a great pleasure for me to do this kind of work.
1:47:06It's so different to anything I've ever done before
1:47:09and I love doing it.
1:47:10But like the design of the product
1:47:12that we've been working on through 2021
1:47:15came from an afternoon
1:47:17where I had a whole afternoon to myself
1:47:21And I sat down with my iPad and I started drawing out
1:47:24what I thought this thing could look like.
1:47:25And then I had this idea at the end of it.
1:47:28And I want more of that kind of time.
1:47:30A couple of other things.
1:47:31I wanna continue my trend of health and fitness,
1:47:34continuing to build this into the structure of my life.
1:47:37It was an unexpected thing that occurred to me in 2021.
1:47:41This was something that I wanted to focus on
1:47:43in the way that I have been.
1:47:45And I feel like I've built a great base
1:47:47to continue moving forward on.
1:47:49and I want to continue making that just a part of me.
1:47:52- I'm glad to hear that.
1:47:53- Yeah, it's been unexpected,
1:47:54but I'm very happy with the results so far.
1:47:56- Yeah, I mean, and if I can say,
1:47:58when we finally met up in person, most recent time,
1:48:03I gave you a hug, you physically felt different.
1:48:06So you should be very happy about that.
1:48:08- Thank you, I will say if you hugged me now,
1:48:10you would physically feel a vacation, but.
1:48:13(both laughing)
1:48:17But I know the steps that I would take to get back to where I was.
1:48:22And I find for me, vacation wait, I lose it quite quickly.
1:48:26I've always kind of been that way.
1:48:27But right now I feel like I've been on holiday.
1:48:30That is definitely true.
1:48:32Like when we did that hug, I was also at my most puffy, I've
1:48:36just come back from America, wait.
1:48:38Puffy's a good way to describe it.
1:48:41Honestly, America makes me puffy.
1:48:43It's totally impossible.
1:48:44But like, I made that call.
1:48:45I was like, you know what?
1:48:46I'm going to be in America for a while.
1:48:47it's fine, and then so it's like,
1:48:49but I came back and I hugged Myke and it was like,
1:48:50oh boy, this guy has been on the fitness train, I am not.
1:48:55But you are right, like, yeah,
1:48:56it does fade away relatively fast
1:48:59as far as those things go.
1:49:00- Once you get back into your kind of regular routine.
1:49:02- Yeah, but I'm really glad to hear
1:49:03that you're continuing with it.
1:49:05Like it just, it seems like you've really found something
1:49:08that works for you and obviously it doesn't fit in
1:49:11with the name of the theme in some ways,
1:49:13but it's a great little like sub thing to continue onward
1:49:16and to keep in mind over the next year.
1:49:19- And then this is an interesting one.
1:49:21I had this thought while sitting on the beach.
1:49:24Structured time off.
1:49:26I used to work in a company that had
1:49:27allocated vacation days.
1:49:28You got like 25 days a year,
1:49:30and you had to take 14 of those days in a block.
1:49:33You had to take a two week vacation,
1:49:34and then the rest of it you could take whatever you wanted.
1:49:37And I was thinking about this compared to
1:49:40the idea that a lot of tech companies
1:49:42have of unlimited vacation time.
1:49:45And it's been basically, there's lots of articles
1:49:48and studies to prove this, and I believe it
1:49:50from talking to people anecdotally.
1:49:51When you have unlimited vacation time,
1:49:53you do not take enough vacation.
1:49:55- Oh yeah, for sure.
1:49:56- You feel like, how do you book it?
1:49:58And also the company culture is not built to handle it.
1:50:03Because like when I used to work in the bank
1:50:06and we had that two week vacation,
1:50:07everyone took that two week vacation.
1:50:09So everybody knew how to handle somebody else's
1:50:12two week vacation.
1:50:14- Right.
1:50:14- Because we all took them.
1:50:15So built into the company culture was this idea of a two week handover.
1:50:20So you finish products to the point that you can, then you hand them over to your colleagues
1:50:24for a two week period and everyone takes it.
1:50:27But if you're on limited vacation time, how does that work?
1:50:30I'm going to take two months off now.
1:50:32Is anyone going to handle this work?
1:50:34It doesn't work.
1:50:35So I also realized that traveling, vacation, traveling, vacations, whatever, helped me
1:50:42stay grounded in a weird way. Like, leaving makes me feel... I don't know what it is,
1:50:48but it adds this thing that I enjoy. And it hasn't been possible, it still won't be like
1:50:53it was I think for a while, for quite a while, but there are feasible breaks/stations that
1:50:59I can take. So, my plan is to decide an amount of days I take off every year and do it.
1:51:08So, I will have allocated vacation days that need to be taken every year.
1:51:14Maybe it's 25 days, maybe it's more, maybe it's less.
1:51:17But I will set them, and I will take them, and that will be a part of the structure of
1:51:20my year.
1:51:21I will book them with myself, book them in my calendar, let people know that I work with
1:51:26them and I'm going to be doing this, and do it.
1:51:28May I strongly suggest that this is one of the areas of responsibility for your assistant?
1:51:34Well currently, this is an area of responsibility for my wife because Adina very much agrees
1:51:41with this and really likes this and wants to enforce this on me.
1:51:46Okay right.
1:51:47Look, the important thing is you have an enforcer and if Adina is the enforcer, that's great.
1:51:53It also fits with the kind of responsibilities that Adina has with our business that we run
1:51:57together here in the UK.
1:51:59Because weird stuff, right?
1:52:01Like all of that stuff that Greg was saying earlier about working with companies, it's
1:52:05complicated.
1:52:06So we have a business here in the UK where we handle all the stuff that we have coming
1:52:10in from our various companies, et cetera.
1:52:11It's like very complicated.
1:52:13But she helps me with running all the finance part of that and a lot of logistical stuff
1:52:19that I need to handle.
1:52:21And so she feels like this actually fits quite neatly with what she would keep her eye on.
1:52:27Plus wants to make sure I do it.
1:52:29So this is probably a job that she will handle for me.
1:52:33And then the last thing that I wanted to think about, and this one feels really complicated.
1:52:38So like I don't really know if it's something that I'm going to do, but I just thought about
1:52:42it which was, you know, I've spoken about siloing communication, the idea of having
1:52:49different places for different types of communication.
1:52:51And I've really liked that my Cortex brand email all goes to a separate email account,
1:52:57I can, it's a separate email app.
1:52:59So like I can, when I want to be in that,
1:53:01I can be in that and I can close it when I don't.
1:53:04I am wondering if I can silo my personal stuff
1:53:09away from my Relay FM stuff as well now.
1:53:12So my notes, my email, and my communication
1:53:17for the three things that I care about are all different.
1:53:20So personal Relay FM, Cortex brand.
1:53:22'Cause my Relay FM stuff and my personal stuff,
1:53:26They're all in the same place.
1:53:27And I think it might be nice to separate them out and have like three different
1:53:32areas. But I do not even know if I can feasibly do this or if I will like doing
1:53:37it, but it's just also something I'm going to keep in my mind, I think. Again,
1:53:41structure, it's all part of structure, you know?
1:53:43Right. I mean,
1:53:45are you talking about like separating it out in terms of like even like iCloud
1:53:49access? Like, oh, you'd have a different iCloud account for work notes.
1:53:52Is that what you mean?
1:53:53I don't know.
1:53:54- Yeah, okay, you don't know, you just, okay.
1:53:56- Like I'm imagining maybe I would use the Apple Notes app
1:53:59for Relay FM stuff and then a different place
1:54:02for personal notes, for example.
1:54:04- Right, right, okay.
1:54:05- And like I use, maybe would use Spark
1:54:08for my Relay FM email and like a different email app
1:54:11for my personal email.
1:54:13So I can more easily be in the right modes,
1:54:16the right apps at the right time.
1:54:19- Okay, I see what you mean.
1:54:20- 'Cause I have that with Cortex Brands.
1:54:21Like if I wanna do Cortex Brands stuff,
1:54:23right I open the GM, whatever app on you know, I lose like MimeStream on my Mac and
1:54:29Kraft and that's all of that stuff you know, but if I want to do relay FM stuff
1:54:36it's like well here yeah but here's also my travel confirmation and my Amazon
1:54:40email like you know it's all like mixed in. I see what you mean right. And I
1:54:44never really thought it was a thing that I needed but doing it with Cortex brands
1:54:48has made me realize that I actually can't find value in having it separated
1:54:52like that. So I'm thinking about what that might look like too, but that's much more
1:54:59a maybe kind of thing. It's definitely at the lower and the very bottom of the kind
1:55:04of the commitments and the outcomes that I want. So kind of in summary, the Year of Structure
1:55:09is about understanding what I need, what I want, who can do it for me, and what it will
1:55:14take to put it in place.
1:55:15>> Okay, I like it. I feel like this is, maybe this is the theme of yours that's taking me
1:55:20the longest to get, but I think it's a very, like it's very reasonable.
1:55:26I think you really identified a problem with the timing of the way we think about things
1:55:33and the actionability of changing the next year.
1:55:36Yeah, this one took me a really long time to work out.
1:55:41Because it started with some feelings, like this feeling of too busy, too overwhelmed.
1:55:48And then I had to work out what that meant, what that could look like.
1:55:51Then I was like, oh, OK, so I'll just my year is about getting everything in order.
1:55:56It's like, well, no, but I actually don't know what I need yet.
1:55:59So I need to build this structure
1:56:02over 2022 to enable me to be more effective and better going forward.
1:56:08And things could start to fall into place quite quickly.
1:56:11But I'm giving myself the entire year
1:56:14to build my new work structure because my work has become more complicated now.
1:56:20And I've not really taken time to look at all of my various responsibilities and work
1:56:27out what they actually need to be the best that they can be.
1:56:29Well, I think we both have some high level stuff to work on next year.
1:56:34That's why I actually really liked hearing yours because I could see that there were
1:56:37some parallels in that both of our themes are these ideas for future years.
1:56:46Yeah, exactly.
1:56:47And like a reframing of what we do rather than like, oh, I'm gonna just focus on this
1:56:53one little thing, which is maybe my health, or I'm just gonna focus on this one little
1:56:56thing which is maybe my knowledge intake or whatever.
1:57:00We're doing like advanced themes now.
1:57:03That's where we are in 2022.
1:57:05I like that, like let's pitch it that way.
1:57:06We're doing the advanced themes for sure.
1:57:09We've been doing it for five years now, you know, like we're in like, what is it, like
1:57:12themes 102?
1:57:14Is that the advanced class?
1:57:16Is that how it works?
1:57:17It would be 201.
1:57:18201?
1:57:19Okay, we're in themes 201.
1:57:20I think it's interesting every year, sort of see if we're at the same place or if we're
1:57:24at different places and I think this is a byproduct both of the fact that we have been
1:57:30doing the themes for a while, but also just the reality for both of us of where we are
1:57:38in our careers, and also a bunch of increasing complexity. Like, we've both made our lives
1:57:43more complex by starting a company together in addition to doing the podcast together,
1:57:49and so I think it makes sense that we both are now having this longer term, more meta-thinking
1:57:58kind of work to do.
1:57:59If you are setting a theme for yourself, we would love to know what that theme is.
1:58:04Please leave that in the subreddit or you can send them to us on Twitter.
1:58:08We would also love if you have questions about setting themes and you want advice.
1:58:14If you use #AskCortex, you can send those in to us.
1:58:18If you're in the Relay FM members Discord, you can use ?askcortex
1:58:22and they go to the same sheet that we can draw some questions from.
1:58:25because we'd really love to know.
1:58:26I mean, I always find value in the January episode
1:58:30kind of talking more about this stuff.
1:58:32We always do some reflection.
1:58:33So I would love to bring in some Ask Cortex questions
1:58:36and maybe share some theme examples that we've liked
1:58:39that we've seen people sharing maybe on Reddit
1:58:41or in Discord.
1:58:42So please send those in.
1:58:44And don't forget to buy a theme system journal
1:58:46or cortexmerch.com.