0:00:00Two videos. You've returned. You've returned to YouTube. Six month break, two videos, three weeks apart.
0:00:07You alright over there? You doing okay?
0:00:10I was gonna say, was I ever away from YouTube?
0:00:14Yeah.
0:00:14Uh, does six months count as away? You know, maybe it does.
0:00:20Let's see if your Wikipedia page is, if they've moved it around again.
0:00:24Oh, no, don't give those people the--
0:00:26No, no, you're back. You're back. Educational YouTuber and podcaster. They switched it back around.
0:00:31And everybody knows now. They know you're back to YouTube. I was very surprised by this. I was
0:00:37surprised to see one pop up and then like another one like three weeks later. You're on a tear again.
0:00:43Is it now going to be like four years until the next one?
0:00:46Well, don't set up an expectation like on a tear. You're not doing me any favors or something like
0:00:52that Myke. Look, it is as it always ever was. Videos. When do they come out? They come out
0:01:01when they come out. They're not late, they're not early, they arrive on their publication
0:01:07date. So there happen to be two, but you know, don't use phrases like "on a tear". It just
0:01:16is what it is.
0:01:17Well, I'm just going to say, you're doing a lot to set them up. You're like story for
0:01:21another time you keep saying it you know like I'm just gonna say you're putting it out there
0:01:25for people you know you're only you're only making your own bed here.
0:01:28No I disagree I disagree look I was just I couldn't talk about the Indian reservations
0:01:32in the second one and so I'm just I wanted to acknowledge that and then move right along
0:01:36that's what story for another time is. Yep. You know you just sometimes you have to reference
0:01:40a thing that people are going to ask about and that maybe you think you're going to make a video
0:01:44about but then when the video actually gets published you're so exhausted with the topic
0:01:47that you never get around to it. Maybe that's what happens sometimes with a story for another
0:01:52time. It's like a release. It's like a release valve.
0:01:55It's a release valve. Don't look over here. Look over there.
0:01:57Yeah, or it's like a get out of one video free card that you can play on the table with
0:02:01story for another time.
0:02:02It's YouTuber Monopoly.
0:02:03Yeah.
0:02:04That's got to exist, right? That must exist. Did you see they have a millennials monopoly
0:02:09now, where like you never own any property? This is real. They make it.
0:02:13Oh no.
0:02:16It's real.
0:02:17Oh, that's terrible. That's really terrible.
0:02:20It's good, right?
0:02:21That makes me so sad for your people.
0:02:23It's so bad.
0:02:24It's almost like I can't believe they made it, but it's true.
0:02:27Like, it's a real thing.
0:02:29There's no owning property.
0:02:32And the actual tagline on the box,
0:02:36it almost seems like this is a joke, but you can buy it.
0:02:38It says, "Forget real estate. You can't afford it anyway."
0:02:41That is the tagline on the box for Millennial Monopoly.
0:02:46Oh god, it's so sad.
0:02:48It's crazy, right?
0:02:50I'm trying to find the bo- so like what happens when you- what happens when you land on Park Place?
0:02:53I don't understand. You just- you just pay money all the time? Is that how that works?
0:02:56You're paying rent.
0:02:57Right.
0:02:58And it's a quicker game.
0:02:59So you what, you start with like a thousand dollars and whoever runs out of rent first is the first loser?
0:03:03There's like- they've got exa- I'm looking at a Guardian article about it.
0:03:06They have community chess cards like, "Your free web streaming trial expires. Pay the bank $40."
0:03:11[snorts]
0:03:13And instead of like, and it has like emoji icons and hashtags and stuff as the pieces instead of like top hats and whatever.
0:03:21Oh it's so sad.
0:03:23It is terrible, really.
0:03:25Oh okay, but like, I mean some of this makes me angry right?
0:03:27Because like one of these things is a week-long meditation retreat, pay $50.
0:03:33I was like, but I was thinking of doing something like that, that sounds like fun.
0:03:36It's kind of ridiculous really.
0:03:38I mean, I feel like I'm not sure if they're doing it to troll everyone or not.
0:03:43Like I can't work it out.
0:03:45Like, so the, the, the, on the board, right?
0:03:48You've got parents basement, friends couch.
0:03:50Wait, wait a minute. Like Hasbro has made this.
0:03:53Yeah, yeah, it's real. You can buy it.
0:03:55Yeah, no, like I was thinking it was a parody or something.
0:03:58But no, so.
0:03:59It looks like it though. But no, this is a legit, complete troll of people.
0:04:03This may be the saddest thing we've ever discussed on the show.
0:04:05It's terrible, right?
0:04:06This may be the saddest thing we've ever discussed on the show.
0:04:08It's terrible. I can't believe they made it, really.
0:04:11And like... I don't know. I don't get them.
0:04:14But anyway, so going back to your videos.
0:04:16Right, so wait, how do we get off on this? Oh, right.
0:04:19YouTuber Monopoly.
0:04:20Yeah.
0:04:21Surely that must exist. I agree with you.
0:04:23I'm not quite sure how the mechanisms of that would work because you couldn't be scooping up
0:04:27YouTube channels so you'd have to land on, I don't know.
0:04:30No, each square is a different channel and while you're there, you're collabing.
0:04:36Oh, perfect!
0:04:37Right, so you have like, Hbgray square, the MKBHD square, the iJustine square, and they're all worth different amounts.
0:04:45And it's not money, right? Like, it has their subscriber counts instead of money on the bottom.
0:04:49Right, and that also makes perfect sense because you could, like the properties, you could group YouTubers together.
0:04:55Do like a big collab thing.
0:04:57Yeah, right, or like people who are in similar fields, they're the equivalent of a property.
0:05:02So then when you get the collab of three edutubers and it's like boom now you can build hotels or whatever
0:05:08Whatever the equivalent is. I like it.
0:05:09Is that the phrase "edutuber"?
0:05:11I've heard this phrase a lot recently.
0:05:15I've been traveling and I just came back from what could be described as an "edutube conference"
0:05:23ThinkerCon down in Huntsville, Alabama run by my friend Destin.
0:05:27And yeah, I heard the phrase "edutuber" a bunch
0:05:31Look, language sometimes it's like the waves of the ocean.
0:05:36Like, that makes my skin crawl, that word, collab.
0:05:40I have been hearing collab for so many years I don't even register it anymore.
0:05:43I'm sure you've heard it an awful lot during your Edge YouTube conference, right?
0:05:47I'm sure there were lots of people that wanted to collab with you during that period of time.
0:05:51Yeah, I genuinely think I've forgotten that collab was ever an abbreviation.
0:05:57That I think in my mind is just the word now.
0:06:00So like, do you start shortening it? Like, you're gonna do a lab? Like you just start shortening that word?
0:06:06Yeah, that is what's going to happen. Yeah, you're gonna do a lab with someone.
0:06:10But it's really nice to see your videos. I like that I have always enjoyed your videos,
0:06:16but I like seeing a return to the kind of more traditional format, right? Which has been gone for a bit.
0:06:21I mean, you didn't enjoy so much my path of wandering through a garden of death.
0:06:28No, but even the death videos, like these ones are in the style of that, right?
0:06:33Like, because you did your vlog, you did the dragon tyrant video, like they were more departures
0:06:39from your typical style.
0:06:40And whilst I enjoyed those, it's nice to have the more kind of traditional video back with
0:06:45the kind of more recent added flair of the enhanced animation and stuff.
0:06:50So yeah, they were really great.
0:06:51I was pleased to see you make your return.
0:06:54But I wondered if there was, I don't know, if there's anything different about those
0:06:57videos that you wanted to touch on at all, like in the production process or anything
0:07:00like that, I don't know.
0:07:03Yeah, I mean, as much as I may deny it, I will also secretly acknowledge that yes, I
0:07:12understand that these two videos are a return to form. And I don't mind after, we could
0:07:19call it a break, but after a little while of not having videos up on the YouTube channel,
0:07:25I don't mind having two in a row that I think are what people think of in their head as
0:07:32like, quote, "traditional CGP Grey videos."
0:07:35Yeah.
0:07:36Right?
0:07:37Like, though I will firmly maintain the channel is mine and I can do with it whatever I like.
0:07:40Of course.
0:07:41Nonetheless, I can acknowledge that in people's heads, they have an idea of this is what a
0:07:46traditional video is like.
0:07:48Yep.
0:07:49But yeah, so how much behind the scenes should I say?
0:07:54Alright, let's have some behind the scenes here.
0:07:56So one of the reasons why I particularly don't like you discussing about these videos as being on a tear is because...
0:08:05Alright, I don't really have any control over what videos are made. Just to be clear.
0:08:14No, no, that's not. They don't grow, right?
0:08:18No, no, look, no, but let me elaborate.
0:08:23You must have at least a little bit.
0:08:25Well, no, I genuinely don't think that I do. In this sense, like, I don't-- I think I've written it somewhere
0:08:32somewhere on the internet it exists as like the tagline
0:08:35for my channel of like, "I make videos that are interesting to me." Like, this is the idea of the channel and
0:08:42humans cannot control what they are interested in.
0:08:50So that's why like when I've done videos that are different it's because like oh, I'm
0:08:54Interested in life extension as a topic right now
0:08:56And I find like I can't have it leave my brain and there's like oh and then this video appears
0:09:01So I mean it in in that sense like I've been in a lot of situations where for example say another
0:09:09Edutuber wants to collab and we please stop. I'm sorry another edutuber wants to lab with me
0:09:15Oh, yeah, that was what I was looking for. Yeah. Thank you
0:09:20And they'll suggest a topic of,
0:09:23"Oh, here's a thing that we could do."
0:09:24But I genuinely find it impossible
0:09:29to create a video on a suggested topic
0:09:32if it doesn't grip me in some way.
0:09:35Because making these videos is a little bit
0:09:38of a crazy process.
0:09:40And so I've been in that situation a bunch
0:09:44where it would be really advantageous
0:09:47if I could create a video on topic X.
0:09:51And I've tried, and those always just fizzle out into like, "Oh, this is terrible.
0:09:58This is terrible, and it's boring, and it's not interesting, and it's not fun, and I just can't make it."
0:10:03But so, it's like, I'm very glad that the videos that have gone up are a "return to form,"
0:10:10But it really is mostly just that this topic gripped me a couple months ago,
0:10:18and I could not let it go.
0:10:22And it all started around this idea of,
0:10:26"Hey, the Statue of Liberty is a national monument."
0:10:28Like, what does that mean?
0:10:29What does it mean to say that it's a national monument?
0:10:31I know these things exist.
0:10:33I don't know anything about them.
0:10:35And I started researching them.
0:10:37And it's like, "Oh, down the rabbit hole we go," right?
0:10:40Like it starts to get very complicated.
0:10:43And at one point I'm thinking,
0:10:44"Hey, I sort of remember in high school something coming up about New Jersey wanting to steal the Statue of Liberty.
0:10:50Like, what was the deal with that?"
0:10:52And looking into these things.
0:10:54And these two videos in my mind were basically created at the same time almost as one video.
0:11:04That's why there are two in such a close approximation to each other.
0:11:09Okay, yeah, you were working on all this at the same time,
0:11:11but it was too much for one, so it kind of got split into two.
0:11:14Yeah, nobody wants a 20-minute long fast talking video like that.
0:11:19Like, it would just be way too much.
0:11:22But yeah, so it ended up being this, like, weird project that,
0:11:27more than anything in a really long time, dragged me down into the depths of
0:11:33research hell. Like, I was at the point where it was very interesting, but I was
0:11:40even doing things like listening to the oral arguments at the Supreme Court case
0:11:44in the 90s over Staten Island and Ellis Island and what was going to happen with
0:11:48those two. It's very interesting to listen to because it's like, man, I've
0:11:52never I've never listened to an oral argument in the Supreme Court before.
0:11:56It's interesting that they have those recordings. I never thought about it. And
0:11:59And it's also really interesting to hear that New York is clearly going to lose from like the first two minutes.
0:12:06I don't know how the Supreme Court's supposed to work, I imagine that they are just neutral angels who just decide things in terms of righteousness,
0:12:14but it sure seemed like they had pre-decided that New York was going to lose and were not very happy with that.
0:12:19But anyway, it was interesting, like, going through all of this stuff and ending up in the process of trying to figure out which thing belongs in which video.
0:12:34And I know when people watch the finished videos it can seem like it's obvious that, oh, the Statue of Liberty is a separate story that doesn't really have anything to do with federal land,
0:12:44Federal Land, and Federal Land is a completely separate story that doesn't really have anything
0:12:49to do with the Statue of Liberty. But when you don't yet know what the videos are, it's
0:12:55not at all obvious. So it takes a long time to sort out these two parts and to say what
0:13:02goes over here and what goes over there. But I don't think I've ever had two videos where
0:13:10The script to the next one was so close to finish when I finished the first one.
0:13:17But it was because it was like this Siamese twin of things that I just kept coming across
0:13:24as like, "Oh, they're all related," and eventually settling on, "Here's the two constellations
0:13:28of what this one should be about and what that one should be about."
0:13:33So it seems like, I kinda get what you're saying, right?
0:13:36like these things you have to be interested in them to make them so to be interested in them I
0:13:43know for you begins with like the research because that's where I guess the story ends up being found
0:13:51is like can you find enough interesting material to build from and so I guess it's that right like
0:13:57if if the research doesn't work the videos won't work and I know that the research is like an
0:14:02incredibly important part of it all for you.
0:14:05Yeah, in some ways it feels like a little bit like mining, where you're digging around
0:14:13and tons of stuff that you're working through is dirt, but you have to go through all of
0:14:21it to try to find the things that are the little gems of like, "Oh, this is an interesting
0:14:26piece of information."
0:14:27I think I understand that.
0:14:28Yeah?
0:14:29where you do it really intensively, I do it every single week, right?
0:14:33Like for all of the shows that I do is like, here's all of the news.
0:14:38Right. Yes.
0:14:39You've got to pick the things that are worth talking about.
0:14:42And they could, and they're not always like completely obvious because sometimes
0:14:47the biggest Apple related story of the week absolutely is the most boring thing.
0:14:52Right? So for example,
0:14:54there was a video about the iPads being bent by the guy who bends iPads and it
0:14:58was everywhere, but I had literally no interest in discussing it, even though it was the biggest
0:15:02story because there's no discussion. Like, congratulations, you bent an iPad. I feel
0:15:07really happy for you, right? But it's not a story. But then you end up finding like,
0:15:12oh, there was this little thing that was kind of interesting, maybe it's funny and we'll
0:15:15talk about it instead.
0:15:16Yeah, you also have, like, I have this problem too, but you have it in much more of an intense
0:15:21way where when you're digging through the gigantic slush pile of the news, like, I imagine
0:15:26you're also a little bit triangulating against what other people are going to talk about?
0:15:32Like that thing of this story may be somewhat interesting, but by the time the discussion
0:15:40goes up, it will have been talked to death and trying to be like, "Oh."
0:15:44It's not just picking the story, it's picking the story and then trying to find an angle
0:15:49which you hope is interesting and unique enough.
0:15:52I do not envy you for that.
0:15:54I know I don't always hit that, but I always am trying for it, right?
0:15:58And I think a lot of the time we're able to, and like it's the same with this show as well,
0:16:01like what can you find that's interesting to talk about in a specific thing?
0:16:06And you just hope that you find it, right?
0:16:08But it's all down to research.
0:16:11Yeah, and it's interesting the way different people work on this stuff.
0:16:19And I don't know if I mentioned before on the show, but do you know the YouTube channel
0:16:25Every Frame a Painting?
0:16:27Yes.
0:16:28So did you ever read their quitting YouTube article that they wrote?
0:16:32No, I didn't know that was a thing.
0:16:35Yeah, so find it for the show notes.
0:16:37They wrote this long article about why they were stopping the YouTube channel.
0:16:42Which made everybody sad because, like, they're...
0:16:48For listeners who don't know, they did what I guarantee you've seen a million of on YouTube,
0:16:54is these video essays about movies.
0:16:58And I think almost every one of the video essays about movies channels can directly
0:17:07point their lineage right back to every frame of painting, which I think solidified the
0:17:14genre and also is unparalleled.
0:17:19Their videos were so good and so interesting.
0:17:23And in their article about leaving YouTube, one of the things that I find very fascinating
0:17:30was they talked about their research process for doing this.
0:17:35And I would always, I would aspire to this, although I could never possibly do it.
0:17:41One of their rules was no internet sources.
0:17:45So when they were researching videos, they wouldn't use the internet.
0:17:50Like they wouldn't, they wouldn't type into Google to find out information about the movie
0:17:54they were making an essay on.
0:17:56They 100% went to the library to find books about things.
0:18:01Oh my God.
0:18:02And well, yes, but I think about that and I think, "Why did they do that?"
0:18:07And one of the reasons is, if they're thinking of it in terms of mining, the internet is
0:18:15already this well-mined area.
0:18:20And now, in the modern age, the library and physical printed books are a much more untapped
0:18:27resource.
0:18:28If you're making a video essay about The Shining,
0:18:32there's a million people who want to do that
0:18:34and who will look for articles about The Shining.
0:18:37But there are for sure very serious film enthusiasts
0:18:41who have written books about The Shining
0:18:43that are much less likely to come across.
0:18:46And so if you're trying to do background reading
0:18:49on a topic, you're going to find maybe more gemstones
0:18:53that other people haven't found on this topic
0:18:56if you're using a high quality source
0:18:59that maybe fewer people use.
0:19:01- Well, and I guess the inverse of it as well
0:19:03is if you want to be original
0:19:06and you don't look at any YouTube videos,
0:19:10you're more likely, I guess,
0:19:11to be less like other YouTube videos.
0:19:16- Yeah, and ever since I read that article,
0:19:18I've always thought about that,
0:19:19and I view that as a platonic ideal to aim for,
0:19:24but it's something I know I'll never achieve,
0:19:26like the internet is just too useful. But it is,
0:19:30it is very useful to try to dig down into other sources.
0:19:35And it's such an interesting thing. Like I was, I was talking to Kurtz Kazzat,
0:19:39I know you can pronounce that channel very well.
0:19:41Very good. At my edutube conference that I was attending and
0:19:47I have to do it Myke, you're just asking it for it. But it was interesting.
0:19:53Like, we were talking about this thing that happens where...
0:19:57Let's say you're trying to do all your background reading for a video that you want to produce,
0:20:02and you're doing it entirely online.
0:20:04It is terrifying how often you find these little loops of internet articles
0:20:13or, like, newspaper articles that all reference each other in a circle that closes.
0:20:19Right? Where it's like how on earth does this happen?
0:20:23Where a thing just becomes a thing that everybody starts to reference
0:20:27and it's very hard to know like where did this thing originally come from?
0:20:31And I ran into a few of those with this video in particular.
0:20:36Which did end up with me attempting to go down a little bit more the route of
0:20:44let me try to find things that people probably haven't gone across
0:20:51if they're making a video on this topic, or if videos on this topic already exist.
0:20:57And yeah, it was very interesting, but I definitely ended up much more obsessive about this topic
0:21:06than some of the ones in the past, and it did end up with me actually going into a library.
0:21:13into a library and getting books, like physical books and newspapers on this topic to do some
0:21:21of the background reading.
0:21:22And it was a really interesting experience, but I thought I would mention it to you, Myke,
0:21:29because there's a funny Cortex crossover here.
0:21:32So you may remember two episodes ago, I said something like, "Oh, I don't use my iPad anymore."
0:21:39And it just lays on the table and I don't touch it.
0:21:42I don't think you said those exact words. I think that you wouldn't want to break my heart that way
0:21:46I don't remember you saying that. That may have been what you were thinking, but they weren't the words you said, I'm sure of it
0:21:52Yeah, they weren't exactly the words I said, but it was, you know, the gist of it.
0:21:55But so, literally two days after that episode went up
0:22:00I like I fell off into the like I'm doing the deep deep reading on this topic now and
0:22:05Some of the books I was trying to get a hold of
0:22:10like no joke, books from the 1800s about the history of New York and New Jersey trying to trace some things down.
0:22:17I had to get
0:22:20membership in a couple of special libraries to be able to get these books because like they just don't exist online and
0:22:26the main research library that I was using had a no computers rule.
0:22:36The rule was you can come into the library and you can have pen and paper
0:22:41But you can't you can't bring a computer
0:22:44because the typing sounds of a keyboard are too offensive in a
0:22:49Serious research library which I can actually get behind. I was
0:22:55Very annoyed and surprised when I showed up with my gigantic 15-inch MacBook Pro like hi
0:23:01I want to look at some of your books
0:23:05"No, you will not be able to do that."
0:23:09But so, I found, I found a
0:23:13loophole. And what do you think that loophole was, Myke?
0:23:17Was it typing on a glass screen? Okay, so I asked
0:23:21them, and like, well, next time I come I have an iPad.
0:23:25Can I use this? And they say, "Will you be typing?" And I go,
0:23:29"Of course not! I won't be typing at all. There's no keyboard
0:23:33on this thing. In fact, it's just going to be on the screen a picture of a piece of paper
0:23:39that I will be writing on with a pencil." And the librarian paused.
0:23:43Pondered this fantastical technology.
0:23:45You know, "The rule is paper and a pencil." I was like, "Well, this device is literally
0:23:51called a pencil, and I'm going to have a picture of a piece of paper. How close can I get?"
0:23:55And it was deemed that bringing an iPad into the research library was perfectly acceptable.
0:24:02And then I ended up having, like...
0:24:06This was going-- You remember I was talking about how, like,
0:24:09"Oh, things are so great."
0:24:10Like, I'm just having these perfect nail-em-out-of-the-park days working on stuff.
0:24:15Again, I think that was an episode or so ago.
0:24:17So I never like to talk about videos when I'm working on them.
0:24:25And I've, like-- Like a fool, I've broken that rule a couple of times in my life,
0:24:29and I have always regretted it.
0:24:31Yeah, it never goes well. Like it doesn't. It doesn't go well.
0:24:34Yeah, it just never goes well. The only time I will talk about a video is like once the audio has been recorded and
0:24:42the basic animations are done, then I feel like oh this rock is already starting to roll downhill and there's nothing to stop it.
0:24:49But I've always regretted talking about the videos
0:24:53before that process. It always feels like it just deflates it. And so I was working on
0:24:59these two videos then.
0:25:01But I was also just... I was in like the world's most pleasant working routine.
0:25:06I was like, this is how I know life is going smooth.
0:25:08It's like I would get up, I would go into my glass cube,
0:25:12I would do a couple hours of writing, and then when I felt myself start to flag with the writing,
0:25:17I picked up my old iPad Pro,
0:25:20brought it with me, trucked off like I was in school again to the library,
0:25:25and
0:25:27spent another couple of hours at the library every day just with the iPad and like
0:25:33going through some of the research material that I had gotten librarians to get for me and
0:25:38just really spending the time to read a bunch of these very boring old documents and
0:25:43It was great like boy was that just a
0:25:48perfect little routine for me to be in and
0:25:53for you Myke this this gift that I have for you is that I do want to say that I feel like I've found
0:25:59The new role for the iPad in my life, which is the iPad is this little
0:26:06research companion
0:26:09This is this is great. Like this is the role for this thing. And then once I thought about it in that way, I
0:26:17Started to use it very intentionally in that way. Like if I'm ever in
0:26:22video reading research mode,
0:26:24do it on the iPad, like sit in a comfy chair, sit back and
0:26:30use this as the device to go through all your Evernote notes or like read or highlight PDFs on whatever the topic is.
0:26:37Or like have this as the companion that you're using when you're reading an actual
0:26:42book and you're trying to get in under the wires of a fussy library's rules.
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0:28:29[BEEP]
0:28:30It's interesting because it feels to me like you have reverted back to the stage that you were at
0:28:37before the iPad became your primary computer.
0:28:39Like this was the kind of stuff you were doing before that it seems like you'd maybe kind of lost sight of
0:28:45No, I think that is 100% correct and I find it interesting that this is this is the cycle of like
0:28:53Oh, I liked it so much. I turned it into the main computer and
0:28:55I don't
0:28:58expect to
0:29:00Really ever go back to it being the main computer as long as we have computers and iPads as they currently exist
0:29:07But it is it is like a rediscovery of the role of this device in this specific way and also just
0:29:15Yeah, it just takes advantage of all of of all of the power of it
0:29:21like being it this is where like being able to use the pencil and
0:29:23Like oh god and all these boring
0:29:26boring government report PDFs being able to like go through and and
0:29:31Highlight them in Evernote and just something about doing it with the pencil is very different
0:29:36Are you still doing your marking up of scripts? Are you doing that with the iPad?
0:29:40Yeah, I'm still doing that. I'm still doing that.
0:29:42It really feels like it's found its place again then, honestly.
0:29:45This is the thing, I call my iPad my main computer just because I sip with it more,
0:29:54but it also has its place for me, and its place for me is communication and administration.
0:30:03I think it's the perfect machine for that.
0:30:05And that's where it fits for me.
0:30:06But I'm sitting right now in front of my iMac, because that's where I feel
0:30:11most comfortable recording and editing shows right now.
0:30:14That's just that's how it works for me.
0:30:16But like it is a device that's definitely has a very, very important place.
0:30:21Like one of the one of, you know, I have two very important uses for computers.
0:30:25And that feels one of them like it has its place for me.
0:30:28And, you know, that's real work.
0:30:31What you're doing is real work.
0:30:32real work is always brought up, but you know, I don't think that you have to say that a
0:30:37device can completely replace another device for it to be real work or not. You're doing
0:30:42your real work on your iPad.
0:30:44Yeah, and I still love the idea of like this futuristic tablet as being the only thing
0:30:50that you need, and I think that's like that's the romance and that's the attraction of the
0:30:53iPad. But yeah, it's, I'm just very pleased with it. Like, and I was having just a like
0:30:58a fantastic time where everything in life seems to come together just right.
0:31:04It's like, "Oh, I'm really interested in this topic.
0:31:07I'm really on schedule with my routine of writing.
0:31:10And then I have this device that's doing exactly what I want it to do, being this friendly
0:31:16assistant that is helping me with this other area of my life."
0:31:20And it was like, "Ah, this is just fantastic."
0:31:25And everything was firing on all cylinders.
0:31:27I will say this makes me very happy to hear.
0:31:29Well, I wanted to talk about it last time,
0:31:31and then when, behind the scenes everyone,
0:31:34sometimes topics are intended to be talked about
0:31:37and we don't talk about them.
0:31:38And so I had put like iPad on the bullet points
0:31:41for last week, and you said you wanted to skip it.
0:31:45Oh, sorry, sorry.
0:31:46(laughing)
0:31:48Look, future listeners won't know when this goes up, right?
0:31:50People working their way through the back catalog
0:31:52will have no idea, yesterday.
0:31:53Yesterday.
0:31:55So I had put iPad on the list,
0:31:57And when we were recording, I can't remember why, but you decided like,
0:31:59oh, let's not, let's not talk about it this week.
0:32:01I think we've talked about too much Apple stuff.
0:32:02So you said like, let's cut it.
0:32:03And I didn't want to say anything, but at the time, like my heart sunk because
0:32:08I thought, oh, Myke, I have like a little gift for you.
0:32:10I want to talk to you about how, how I found this place for the iPad again.
0:32:15Let me say how it was written in our document.
0:32:17Grey gives the iPad it's due.
0:32:19One particular use case that has been great recently.
0:32:22I was just like, that sounds boring.
0:32:24Like he's just going to tell me like, oh, it's the greatest tool to read Reddit on,
0:32:29but I don't read Reddit or something, you know, like it's just like, it's not really
0:32:32going to give me what I want.
0:32:33Like if it would have said like, Gray is going to make Myke happy again because he's
0:32:37using the iPad more, then that would have been bumped up to topic number one.
0:32:41Yeah, but I didn't want to spoil it, Myke.
0:32:43No, it's good.
0:32:44But I said, that's why he's like, but now here we are.
0:32:46I will say something, though, because this might wrap it around to make it an even more
0:32:51fun episode for me.
0:32:53Earlier you referenced my old iPad Pro.
0:32:56Mm-hmm.
0:32:56Did you buy a new iPad?
0:32:58I mean, look, in America, iPads are a lot cheaper and...
0:33:07Yeah, nice try on that one, they're not really,
0:33:10but that was a really good attempt to come up with an excuse as to why you bought it.
0:33:15No, it's way too, it's like everything in America is like a 50% off sale,
0:33:18or at least it was eight years ago.
0:33:22Okay, so I did buy a new iPad. Although, I must say, I was genuinely kind of annoyed at first,
0:33:28because the iPad had wormed its way back into my life like three weeks before whatever that event
0:33:34was. And then the Apple event happened, which, sidebar here, I didn't realize was happening,
0:33:42and I uploaded my first video in the middle of the Apple event, which I would have never done in a
0:33:48thousand years if I had been online and knew what was going on.
0:33:52Oh, I just wanted to give a quick correction before I get to that. I was completely wrong.
0:33:56It's way cheaper in the US, so I would like to retract my previous statement. But yeah,
0:34:00I did at the time, because the Apple event was going on, and you posted your video, and
0:34:06I think I sent you a message of like, "Do you know there's an Apple event right now?"
0:34:11And you're like, "Oh no, I forgot." I was like, "Oh my god."
0:34:14Yeah, so you were the one who alerted me to the fact that there was an Apple event occurring.
0:34:18Well, because this is one of those things where every now and then you do something and people send me messages
0:34:23This was one of them of like why is he doing this right now?
0:34:26It still makes me uncomfortable that this happens
0:34:27I don't like it's weird to me that people send you messages about what I'm up to
0:34:31But yeah, I could see that this would be one of those moments
0:34:33Sometimes when people ask what's the downside of not being on the internet?
0:34:39That's a clear moment that I can point to is I pick maybe the worst moment in the world to upload the video because I just
0:34:45had no idea
0:34:47But anyway, the video went up and then I was immediately busy on trying to get the federal land part done as quickly as possible.
0:34:58And so I actually didn't really know anything about the new iPads or hadn't even seen one in person until just a few days ago in Alabama when I discovered there was an Apple store nearby.
0:35:11nearby and I wandered in. I was like, oh, let me just, let me take a look at,
0:35:16let me take a look at these iPads. You know, like you're going into,
0:35:20like you're going in to a pet store just to look at the puppies. Right? Like,
0:35:24that's, that's what it was. I was like, oh, let me just,
0:35:27let me just see what these iPads are like. Oh, how cute are they?
0:35:32Let me just pick one up and hold it. Oh, how, how light,
0:35:35how nice this iPad is. Ooh, this pencil, it snaps on the side. That's very cool.
0:35:40So yeah, of course, I totally walked out of the store with an iPad.
0:35:44And I really love it.
0:35:45I really love it, Myke.
0:35:46It's amazing.
0:35:48Tell me what you think about it.
0:35:51I love everything about it.
0:35:53Like I've had it for about a month, right?
0:35:56Multiple weeks at this point.
0:35:58I have both of them, of course.
0:35:59#MultiPadLifesyle.
0:36:01Right.
0:36:01This is like my favorite Apple industrial design.
0:36:04Maybe ever, at least in the last 10 years.
0:36:08Whoa.
0:36:09It sings on every level.
0:36:11There is nothing wrong with it.
0:36:13I just I can't find anything wrong with this.
0:36:16There's there doesn't feel like there's any compromises.
0:36:19The only like it's the only minor frustration is the removal
0:36:23of the headphone jack.
0:36:24But like I can just deal with that.
0:36:26I only ever use the headphone jack on my iPad when I'm on a plane.
0:36:29So I just bought a dongle.
0:36:31I attached it to my headphones.
0:36:33It's in my backpack and it will never leave those headphones.
0:36:35So like situation controlled, right?
0:36:37Like it's not a problem.
0:36:38Everything else is just perfect.
0:36:41I love the flat sides.
0:36:42It is unbelievably thin.
0:36:44You may not know this, but you know,
0:36:45it's thinner than any iPhone
0:36:47they've ever made.
0:36:48Wait, it's thinner than any iPhone?
0:36:49This is the thinnest iOS device ever made.
0:36:52It's like, where's my where's my phone?
0:36:55That can't be right.
0:36:56It's 100 percent true.
0:36:57This is one of those things I figured
0:36:59because, you know, you don't listen to
0:37:01podcasts or anything or just do
0:37:02anything anymore.
0:37:03I figured I could give you that fact and
0:37:05you wouldn't have known it.
0:37:07I mean, look, I don't I don't mean to put this burden onto you, Myke, but Cortex is now my Apple news podcast.
0:37:16That's perfectly fine.
0:37:17I have absolutely no doubt that all of our listeners will be very happy to understand this fact so we can just talk about it more.
0:37:24I'm sure they will.
0:37:25So the new iPads, both of them are five point nine millimeters thick.
0:37:30The new iPhones are seven point seven millimeters thick.
0:37:36It really seems impossible.
0:37:38It does, doesn't it?
0:37:39Like, I forget it a lot, like, because it just doesn't seem like it could be fathomable.
0:37:43How could you do that?
0:37:45But they did it.
0:37:45I mean, this is this part of the reason I love this device, because there are parts of it where it's like,
0:37:51I have no, it doesn't make any sense why you did that, but I love that you did it.
0:37:55Like the bezels on both the devices, on the 11 and the 12.9, they're the same thickness.
0:38:01Hmm.
0:38:04It's just little things like that where I'm like, that's wonderful.
0:38:07Like, I love that you did that.
0:38:09Thank you for doing that.
0:38:11I adore them.
0:38:12I think that they're absolutely beautiful.
0:38:14They're wonderful to hold.
0:38:16USB-C, I'm really intrigued about the possibilities of it.
0:38:19It has at least made my charging easier to deal with.
0:38:23This, it still needs a lot.
0:38:25It needs some work to like really kind of make that port shine.
0:38:29But I am very confident that iOS 13 is going to
0:38:33we're gonna see some crazy stuff for these iPads.
0:38:35It reminds me of the iPad Air 2, right?
0:38:39So the iPad Air 2 came out and it was really powerful
0:38:43for what iOS could deliver.
0:38:45And then in June, iOS 9 came out with multitasking.
0:38:49- Right, right.
0:38:50- So like, it feels like that again to me.
0:38:52This machine is incredibly powerful.
0:38:55It's powerful than most of the laptops,
0:38:57it's more powerful in Geekbench scores
0:38:59than most of the laptops that Apple sells right now.
0:39:01It has USB-C, this incredible screen.
0:39:04Like, I think it's a great time to, to love the iPad right now.
0:39:09And I am, I feel blessed with the hardware that I've been given.
0:39:15Every part of it, every single part of this whole package is, I find better.
0:39:19Like I, the Apple pencil, I am just, I've fallen head over heels in
0:39:26love with that thing all over again.
0:39:28Like I'm full of hyperbole with these new devices, but you know,
0:39:32I've thought about it and talked about it enough now that I feel confident in
0:39:36this. Like I think the app,
0:39:37the Apple pencil two is probably the best version two of any product
0:39:42Apple's ever made.
0:39:43Like they took everything that was frustrating about it and completely fixed
0:39:47every part of it.
0:39:48I just, I also had this little moment where I realized, Oh,
0:39:54- Oh, of course.
0:39:55Myke has talked about this iPad on lots of shows already
0:40:00over the last, whatever it is,
0:40:01three weeks that it's been out.
0:40:03And somehow, I think in my head, I sort of thought,
0:40:07if I don't listen to your shows, they don't happen, right?
0:40:12Whereas like, I'm used to listening to you talk about
0:40:14the things on other shows and then we talk about it
0:40:16and it's like, I'm aware of that.
0:40:17It's like, oh, of course, yeah.
0:40:18So you can be very confident in these statements.
0:40:22- They are distilled now.
0:40:23Yeah, like you've been through the internet wins of saying it and then like buffeted by
0:40:27the comments and pushback and like, that's outrageously hyperbole, right?
0:40:31And you're like, no, no, I think it is true.
0:40:33So yeah, I'm enjoying getting this distilled version of your thoughts.
0:40:38Yeah, this is the triple filtered version of my thoughts.
0:40:41These are the purest thoughts.
0:40:43Let me tell you why the Apple Pencil is so great now, right?
0:40:46It's smaller and it's got a better weighting to it throughout.
0:40:50So it's better balanced.
0:40:51It makes it easier to hold.
0:40:53The magnetic storage and inductive charging is unbelievable.
0:40:59I cannot believe that they did this because it's so good.
0:41:03It feels like it's too good to have done it.
0:41:06So going from sticking the lightning port into the bottom of the iPad, which whilst
0:41:10in elegant I still remain was the best thing they could have done with that technology.
0:41:14Being able to charge the pencil with the device you're using it on was the best thing to do.
0:41:19Trying to stick it into a wall to charge it was a stupid idea and that never would have
0:41:22like they did the best thing they could at the time but being able to just pop it on the top of
0:41:27the iPad and it charges is incredible because it's always where you want it to be which is stuck to
0:41:32the iPad and because every time it's stuck to it it's charging it's always charged so I use my
0:41:38Apple pencil more than ever now because it's so easy to get you just reach up and grab it and it's
0:41:43always ready to go like always it's there it's ready to go it's where it's there when you need it
0:41:49and that has made it an even more valuable tool for me.
0:41:52Yeah, it's gone from "I always have to plug in the pencil," which I agree,
0:41:57I think people pooh-poohed that charging solution more than was deserved.
0:42:01So here's the thing, here's the thing on this, and I think a lot of the criticism,
0:42:05and look, I think a lot of the criticism over the way the iPads function and work
0:42:09typically is by people that don't use them that much. So they don't get it, right? But like,
0:42:16Like if you used the Apple Pencil every day, like we did, you understand that whilst stupid
0:42:22and ugly and dangerous, you want to be able to charge it with the device.
0:42:27Yeah.
0:42:28Right?
0:42:29Like that was the best thing you could have done with what you had.
0:42:32It's now a million times better, but you think it's inelegant and you laugh at it, I think
0:42:38when you're not using it.
0:42:39Because if you're only ever charging it every once in a while, it does seem stupid because
0:42:43you lose the cap or whatever.
0:42:45But I prefer to have an Apple Pencil where I've lost the cap than to be on a plane and
0:42:51need to go and find my adapter so I can plug it into the back of the airplane seat to charge
0:42:55it.
0:42:56Hmm.
0:42:57You know?
0:42:58Yeah, I think you might be right about that.
0:43:02I mean, I do love this inductive charging so much better because always the things that
0:43:08I like.
0:43:09What's one less thing that I have to consider at all?
0:43:12Yeah.
0:43:13the amount of charge in the pencil is something I just never have to consider.
0:43:19I haven't thought about it once.
0:43:21It's never flat. Because you're never going to use it for an amount of time
0:43:25that you would even run the battery down.
0:43:27Like in most cases, it's very likely that you would take a break
0:43:31within the multiple hours of charge that it has,
0:43:33and then you just pop it down where it's supposed to go,
0:43:36and it will juice up again.
0:43:37So it's kind of perfect. I love it.
0:43:42I'm so happy you're happy Myke.
0:43:45They're amazing and I'm still doing both of them even though the smaller one is 11 inches
0:43:50like it's still the benefits are the same for me where like the 13 is still too much
0:43:54screen for a lot of cases that I need for the use cases that I have for it like if I'm
0:44:00in bed and reading or watching videos or whatever 13 inch screen is a bit too much but the 11
0:44:08great for that. But there is a thing now which has never happened before when sometimes I'm
0:44:14looking at my iPad and I'm like, "Which one is this?" I'm not sometimes I'm just not 100%
0:44:22sure which one is which.
0:44:24AO: It's the bezel-less because it throws off your only frame of reference. Now I didn't
0:44:31get two iPads because I'm not now the holder of the mantle of the multi-pad lifestyle.
0:44:39Yep, I've taken that. I'm running with it. Yeah, that's yours. You run with it.
0:44:42I simply got the bigger one because it was a total no-brainer of if I'm looking at some PDF
0:44:50from a research paper, I want it as big on the screen as it can be and I want as much space to
0:44:55write notes. It's a total no decision. Something they kept saying in the marketing is now that
0:45:00device is the same size as an A4 piece of paper.
0:45:03Oh, is it?
0:45:04Yeah, and they said that's one of the reasons they decided to bring the bezels in rather than
0:45:08make the screen bigger is they felt like that that was a was like a really prime size for most people.
0:45:15I may have to redo my papers a little bit because they don't quite fit perfectly anymore so I'll
0:45:20have to work on that but uh what was I gonna say all right no no bezels throws off your frame of
0:45:25reference and so I don't have two iPads to wonder which one is it but I do that
0:45:29with my phone all the time. I have the big phone and I look at it and
0:45:33constantly think "wait is that the big one or is that the other one?"
0:45:37and it's because you just don't have the bezels to know the proportion of the
0:45:41screen versus what's not the screen. I think it's... I don't know it's not like
0:45:45an optical illusion but it's just there's nothing for your brain to perch
0:45:49onto. It's just a black rectangle and you're not that good at judging the size
0:45:54of black rectangles just in the abstract.
0:45:57- Face ID is so much better on the iPad
0:45:59than any other device.
0:46:00I love it.
0:46:01- I find it really cute how when you go to open the screen,
0:46:05it'll put the little arrow to be like,
0:46:06"Hey buddy, you're covering the Face ID camera?"
0:46:09Like, I don't know why.
0:46:10- It's cute. - I don't know why.
0:46:11It makes me smile every time.
0:46:13- So I hear a lot of people say, right,
0:46:15that like Apple's lost its whimsy, right?
0:46:17That they used to have a lot of whimsy in their design.
0:46:19You know, things like when you would empty the,
0:46:23Oh no, when you drag something out of the dock on the Mac and it would like poof into a little like
0:46:27plume of smoke, right? I feel like this is very whimsical, like this little arrow that's pointing
0:46:32over here and the iPad itself is telling you like, "two faces too far away" or like, "hey,
0:46:38you're covering the camera up!" Like, silly, you know? Like it's, it kind of has a, a delightfulness
0:46:44in the way that the copy is written in the UI and the way that it indicates to you that it can't see
0:46:50I think it did a really good job of it.
0:46:52Every time something comes up about you've covered up the camera, it's "iPad peekaboo."
0:46:56That's what it feels like we're playing.
0:46:58It's like, "Oh, it's adorable! Like, peekaboo, I see you now, iPad, I've moved my hand!"
0:47:02It's great. It's really cute.
0:47:06I will have to just put in for me one thing that is a really big deal,
0:47:14which also goes back to what some of my original frustrations were with the iPad.
0:47:19But it's not, Face ID is great, but what matters even more to me is that because Face ID is there,
0:47:28now the user interface for my phone and my iPad is the same again.
0:47:33Yeah, it makes more sense. Like whilst they had the gestures, they weren't fully baked in, and it made it all feel weird.
0:47:41and it has become more fluid again now that the basic fundamentals of these devices have
0:47:47unified, which does make sense, I think.
0:47:50Yeah. I still have all of my weird grumbles about, I find it clunky when I want to do
0:47:56some additional thing, but what I really love now is that swipe back and forth gesture,
0:48:03which I don't use a lot on my phone, is the perfect and most valuable way on my iPad to
0:48:10do the thing that I'm doing if I'm at the library a lot, which is I have Evernote on the screen,
0:48:16and then I want to slide over to GoodNotes and write something by hand, and then slide back to
0:48:21Evernote and, you know, continue looking at a PDF or whatever. That fluid gesture, taking away the
0:48:28little bit of resistance of doing the home button double tap, plus also the "oh, I have to remember
0:48:33I'm using an iPad, I'm not using my phone, I have to press the button, I can't swipe on the screen,"
0:48:38that makes it a little, it makes the device a little bit more invisible.
0:48:43It makes it much more like, "Oh, it's just here. I'm just using this thing in a natural way."
0:48:47So that bar on the bottom to swipe back and forth between GoodNotes and Kindle or GoodNotes and
0:48:56Evernote is like, I've used that a thousand times on the iPad and it's great. It feels really
0:49:01natural. So that to me is really the biggest deal of anything is the user interface experience is
0:49:08now consistent everywhere and I don't feel like I'm breaking my brain switching back and forth
0:49:13between devices. Today's episode is also brought to you by Casper, the company focused on sleep
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0:51:42I'm very excited for iOS 13.
0:51:44I bet you are, Myke.
0:51:46This USB-C port, what is it there for?
0:51:50USB-C is interesting.
0:51:51It's not right now the most interesting thing to me.
0:51:54Like, I just think that, you know, we've spoken about this a bunch in the past.
0:51:58Like, if you're all in on a company, you know, like we aren't with Apple devices,
0:52:02like these are the devices that we've chosen to use.
0:52:04This is the ecosystem that we're a part of.
0:52:07It is it it makes you feel good when the company is putting a lot of effort into the thing you use
0:52:13Yeah, and it feels like they put a lot of effort into this ipad which just makes me feel confident
0:52:20that ios 13 is going to have a lot of effort put into it for the ipad and there's a lot of stuff
0:52:25I want to see right but I think that there's going to be some stuff that splits the ipad and the
0:52:30iphone apart again um you know like there's been a lot of rumors of a revised home screen which I
0:52:36I really think it's time for the iPad.
0:52:39- Oh yeah.
0:52:40- I would love to see stuff like,
0:52:42little bit more widget like,
0:52:43or something with shortcuts, right?
0:52:45Like how could shortcuts make the home screen better?
0:52:48And I was thinking about this recently.
0:52:50I wanna see what you think about this.
0:52:52On the Mac, you have Launchpad, right?
0:52:55Which is a way for you to bring up your applications
0:52:59from the dock, right?
0:53:00So you press the little button, it shows all your apps.
0:53:02I don't understand why the iPad doesn't just have that
0:53:05and you don't put apps on the home screen anymore.
0:53:08- Launchpad to me seems like trying to make the Mac
0:53:10into what the iPad currently is.
0:53:12What do you want to be different?
0:53:14I don't get it.
0:53:15- I don't want the home screen
0:53:16to just be grids of app icons anymore.
0:53:18- Right, yeah, yeah, okay, I agree with you there.
0:53:20- So I feel like you could use the iPad's dock
0:53:23and just hit a little button
0:53:24and it brings up all of your apps
0:53:25and you can just choose them that way.
0:53:27- Oh, okay, I see.
0:53:28You want a launchpad button on the iPad.
0:53:32- On the dock on the iPad, yeah.
0:53:33- To make the iPad look like it currently does
0:53:35and then you can do something else more interesting with the screen. Yes,
0:53:37I totally agree.
0:53:38Like you can put documents there if you wanted to. You could put shortcuts,
0:53:41you could put widgets, you could put all kinds of interesting pieces of
0:53:45information.
0:53:46So the home screen becomes like a command center and then you're only ever
0:53:51opening apps from the dock.
0:53:53I think there is a problem with that a lot of people don't like can't get their
0:53:56head around like why does the dock exist if the home screen exists and like how
0:54:01do I do multitasking? Do I have to go back to the home screen all the time? Everyone
0:54:07that uses the iPad a lot, most of their multitasking is action from the dock. They just swipe up
0:54:13the dock and all the apps that they use in multitasking are there, and the real iPad
0:54:16power users have a folder of little utilities that keep getting brought up. And I think
0:54:21that there is a disconnect between why the dock would exist and why the desktop exists,
0:54:27Mac users don't put app icons very frequently on their desktop, right?
0:54:32So like, why are they mixed together on the iPad?
0:54:35I think that a revision to the iPad's home screen will probably bring it closer to the Mac
0:54:42and further away from the iPhone, but I think that's the right thing to do for now.
0:54:49Yeah, they should do something.
0:54:51In my ideal world, the home screen, the background,
0:54:56could be built to be something
0:54:58like the Windows Phone background.
0:54:59Like here's a bunch of tiles that show me things
0:55:01that's useful to me or buttons I can press.
0:55:04Like it doesn't need to be this grid of icons.
0:55:06Like it's literally a decade ago
0:55:08when we first thought of this.
0:55:10Like we can do more now.
0:55:11- Look at any Android phone, right?
0:55:13It is possible to put useful pieces
0:55:16of information just there, right?
0:55:19Like, I don't want to have to swipe to the left to get to Spotlight anymore.
0:55:23Like, Spotlight should just be on the home screen.
0:55:27Right?
0:55:28So I could just tap it and search for something if I want to.
0:55:30Like, I'm keen to see what a kind of starting place for a computer could be in 2019 if you
0:55:40think it through again.
0:55:42Like, what does that end up being?
0:55:45And again, it's just like, what is the workflow team for?
0:55:48Like why did they get them?
0:55:49Why did they want to do shortcuts?
0:55:51I feel like this makes more sense.
0:55:54I've been spending time thinking a little bit about home screens in general and putting
0:55:59them around actions, you know, like we've been talking about recently.
0:56:03I've been thinking about that, like what does that mean?
0:56:06And that's just something I've had rolling around in my head at the moment.
0:56:08So I am very excited for iOS 13 because I love my iPad Pro so much.
0:56:15They're really, really wonderful.
0:56:16Now I'm so happy for you, Myke. I'm glad you're happy with your new iPad.
0:56:20I'm happy for you! Welcome back, welcome back.
0:56:23I'm happy for me too.
0:56:25cortexmerch.com
0:56:28cortexmerch.com
0:56:31We have two limited edition products going on right now. One of them, very excited about this,
0:56:37Cortexmus pins. 'Tis the season of Cortexmus and we are currently selling, we have a limited
0:56:43edition run of glow-in-the-dark Cortexmas tree pins. They are wonderful, and you can
0:56:51get those now at cortexmarch.com.
0:56:53It's glow-in-the-dark so that you can always know that it is Cortexmas all the time.
0:56:57Exactly.
0:56:58Cortexmas should extend for as long as possible, and so you need to be able to see the Cortexpin
0:57:03as long as possible.
0:57:04The sun will never set on Cortexmas!
0:57:09That's what I want, yes.
0:57:11They're doing a short second run of the subtlety.
0:57:15So we work with Cotton Bureau for our production.
0:57:18They're an incredible partner for Cortex merch.
0:57:21And they're doing a promotion right now called All the Ts, which includes a giveaway of some
0:57:24awesome stuff.
0:57:25So the subtlety is on sale until December the 4th.
0:57:30And I will say, Gray, I am wearing my subtlety right now.
0:57:35Mine came very recently from the first run that we did.
0:57:37I am so happy with this product.
0:57:40Like it perfectly fits the idea that I had, which is I have a cortex t-shirt now that
0:57:47I can wear to all manner of functions.
0:57:49Like I went for a nice lunch this afternoon with some family and I could wear my cortex
0:57:54t-shirt because it just looks like a nice fancy t-shirt that I own because it has this
0:57:58lovely little embroidered logo on it.
0:58:00So we are selling them right now until December 4th.
0:58:04I don't know when they will be on sale again.
0:58:06I will say of all the merch that we have done, this is my favorite item now.
0:58:11So I think it is in your best interest if you are interested to go and get one,
0:58:16um, as they're on sale for just a short period of time, but also now a cortex
0:58:21march.com, you will find our permanent line of products, which includes a hat,
0:58:26a hoodie, a tea, and a pin, all featuring the regular blue cortex logo.
0:58:29They will always be there now whenever you want to get them at cortex merch.com.
0:58:34But we have our limited edition products.
0:58:37So go right now.
0:58:39Cortex merch dot com.
0:58:40There's always a lot going on at cortex merch dot com.
0:58:43So that's why you should check in frequently, right?
0:58:45Yeah, you should check in every week with cortex merch dot com like that.
0:58:49You should definitely do that because you never know limited sales, new stuff to get.
0:58:54I just got a bunch of cortex pins delivered to me.
0:58:57They're fantastic. I love them.
0:58:58The subtlety is is so good that I can
0:59:02Like I can make myself get over how much I don't like the fact that the name is a pun,
0:59:07but you're so pleased about that and the shirt is so good I can say it.
0:59:10It's a pun? I don't know what you're talking about!
0:59:12It's just a subtle t-shirt!
0:59:14God damn it, Myke!
0:59:15I don't know what you mean!
0:59:17Yeah, so things are always happening at cortexmerch.com.
0:59:20Go check it out.
0:59:21[DING]
0:59:22Okay, Cortex book club time.
0:59:25The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker.
0:59:29[SIGH]
0:59:32So Myke, I need to tell you a little story about me and this book.
0:59:37And you have to not get angry.
0:59:41Because I didn't finish my homework, but there's more to it than that.
0:59:52Because...
0:59:53So this book had been sitting in my Kindle library for forever as a book that a bunch
1:00:01of people had recommended, and I vaguely thought I should read at some point, and then suggested
1:00:08it.
1:00:09Again, without saying it was good, I always wanted to be clear for Cortex Book Club, just
1:00:13suggesting it as a thing to read to try it out.
1:00:16And I figured now would be the time that I read the book.
1:00:20So a couple weeks ago I thought, "Gotta get started on this.
1:00:24Gotta read this book.
1:00:26Homework time.
1:00:27Open up my Kindle, download the effective executive, start reading, and what do I see
1:00:36but a highlight?
1:00:37And I go, "Huh, that's weird.
1:00:41How is this highlight in this book?
1:00:45It seems like something I would highlight, but I haven't read this book.
1:00:47I don't know how that happened."
1:00:49So I keep reading, and then there's more highlights of exactly the sorts of sentences that I would
1:00:54highlight.
1:00:55And then eventually a note from myself to me in the margins with a highlight.
1:01:01I had read this book already, Myke.
1:01:05But when I read it the first time, I didn't finish it then either.
1:01:13And I had, when I suggested that we do it for the show, no memory at all of having ever
1:01:21read the book.
1:01:23And I made a very game, a very game second attempt at reading it, but I also petered
1:01:32out maybe two chapters farther than I had made it the first time.
1:01:37So I have to apologize to you, and I have to apologize to all the Cortex listeners.
1:01:42I didn't finish it, and I also didn't remember that I read it.
1:01:46I will say this is it is very valid because this book really pizzas out in like the final
1:01:53third.
1:01:54Oh, OK.
1:01:55I feel less bad then.
1:01:56Yeah, it really like a lot of the stuff that I found most interesting in this book was
1:02:02contained in the first half of it.
1:02:05And then a lot of it for a couple of reasons.
1:02:07One it it it starts talking about stuff that just doesn't really apply to me or you anymore.
1:02:13it talks about a lot of like managing conflict resolution in small teams and how to be effective.
1:02:20So the idea is that the book is focused around, you know, as all these are, the title is what
1:02:25the book is about, which is about being an effective executive. I like the term and I
1:02:30like the way that this book is focused on, it's about you as an individual being the most effective
1:02:37person you can be, there's not too much focus on leadership in this book or like being the
1:02:44best leader that you can. It's mostly focused on like what you can do to be the most effective
1:02:50person in the organization you're a part of. So I liked it for that and that's what it's about.
1:02:55Like being effective, it's not about exactly the executive is not about like being a CEO,
1:03:01it is about like you being in control of your own effectiveness and how to do that.
1:03:06that. So it's good, but then it does start to get into some team stuff, which isn't really
1:03:11that interesting. And there is a chapter, I think it's like chapter six or something
1:03:17like that, which is called "The Effective Executive and the Computer".
1:03:21[laughter]
1:03:22Now let me tell you something.
1:03:25Oh man, I forget how old these books are sometimes.
1:03:28The effective executive by Peter Drucker was written in 1967.
1:03:33- Oh my God. - So I skipped
1:03:36that entire chapter.
1:03:38- I don't know, that's so old
1:03:39it would be interesting again, right?
1:03:41- Oh, I couldn't do it because I was really dying
1:03:43with this book by that point
1:03:44and was looking for any reason to skip.
1:03:46- One must have a large number of punch card monkeys
1:03:49assisting them with the computer.
1:03:50- Because before that, like, he's making reference
1:03:53to the computer, but like the executive won't be affected
1:03:57by the computer because decisions still need people's thought and there's no way that the
1:04:02computer will take away decisions. And I was like, oh Peter Drucker, old 1967 Pete. Here's
1:04:08the thing about this book whilst I'm talking about its age, it's been reissued and reprinted.
1:04:15I cannot believe it has not been updated in a couple of ways. One, that section should
1:04:20just be taken out. And another, now I'm going to say this, I need to say this because it
1:04:26annoyed me so much, right? I know this book was written in 1967, but there is incessant male
1:04:35gendering throughout this book to the point that it was driving me mad. Like, everyone is referred
1:04:42to as he and him, and only men are executives. And I just feel like it's so easy to change that.
1:04:51you could have just changed it in one of the reprintings.
1:04:54Like I think it was reprinted like three or four years ago.
1:04:58It's not difficult to make a change from like he to they.
1:05:02Like it's really not hard.
1:05:04Like if you've if you've reissued the book, like you can amend it.
1:05:08It's OK. And it's just it really grated on me over time.
1:05:13And also like this book feels like it was written in 1907 at points.
1:05:20It's obsessively wordy, almost like a Dickens novel.
1:05:24Like this just and some of the phrasing is like bonkers.
1:05:28Another thing that drove me mad is the use of one and oneself.
1:05:32It makes some sentences unreadable.
1:05:34I am going to read for you my favorite example of this, right?
1:05:37OK.
1:05:38One can know about oneself that one usually does a good job
1:05:41working alone on a project from start to finish.
1:05:44Like, why would you write it like that?
1:05:47One can know about oneself that one.
1:05:50- Like it's-- - Wait, one can know about oneself--
1:05:53- No, about oneself that one usually does a good job.
1:05:56- Okay, okay.
1:05:57I'm like mentally putting in commas in this sentence.
1:05:59- You could just say, you know that you do a good job
1:06:04or like someone knows they do a good job
1:06:06working alone on a project.
1:06:07Like one can know about oneself that one.
1:06:10Yeah, the way this book is written
1:06:13is really annoying in places,
1:06:15but annoying for different reasons
1:06:18that these books are usually annoying.
1:06:19I don't think that there are many of these types of books that have lasted for like 50 years, right?
1:06:29Like this one has?
1:06:30I'm trying to think of a counter example, and the best counter example I can come up with is
1:06:34How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie,
1:06:37which may literally have been written in 19-oh-something,
1:06:41and I don't know when, but I feel like that was written pre-World War I.
1:06:45But that is also a book that,
1:06:48I mean at this point I think they have to write like "written by Dale Carnegie" in quotes
1:06:52because the foundation that owns all of his stuff, whenever they do a reprinting,
1:06:57they update all the stories, they completely rewrite the book every time they do it.
1:07:02And it's like they're keeping the ideas of that book there, but guess what?
1:07:07An anecdote about CEOs in the 1910s means nothing to anyone now.
1:07:13So they're like, "Okay, we're just gonna get rid of that story
1:07:15and we're gonna replace it with another story."
1:07:17Like, there are so many references to, like, Lincoln in this book.
1:07:23AO: I mean, he is a very important historical figure, Myke.
1:07:26[laughter]
1:07:26MIKE No, but, like, there's gotta be something else,
1:07:29right? Like, surely. This version, the version that I read, was reprinted in 2007.
1:07:36AO Alright, let me see if I can find where my
1:07:38version was done. Uh...
1:07:40MIKE It hasn't been up-- it can't have been updated,
1:07:42because it doesn't feel like anything has changed.
1:07:46I really feel that the
1:07:50he/him thing would have been changed if they would have changed anything,
1:07:54because it's so egregious, it's so persistent throughout the entire book
1:07:59that like you wouldn't make a change to a book today
1:08:05and then not also change that, because it doesn't change the meaning
1:08:09of anything, really.
1:08:10Like it's not like you're going in and tinkering with what being an effective executive means.
1:08:15Like it's just like a change to the language, but so I just don't think they changed anything.
1:08:20I was just trying to find when this book was published and I have, I didn't notice it,
1:08:25but there's an author's note in my book that is for the updated version from 2002.
1:08:31I don't know what edition I'm reading, but I think, yes, if any of our listeners dares
1:08:40brave this book. When you're reading it, you have to interpret the way he says him and his as though
1:08:47it's J.R.R. Tolkien writing about the race of man, right? Where he's like, "Man does this thing!"
1:08:54And he uses the word "man" to compare it to elves and dwarves, right? Like you just have to get that
1:08:58in your mind that it's like, "Oh, it's a name for the whole race!" Because otherwise, yeah, it's
1:09:03I like, it's crazy. I didn't realize how old this book was, but I was very aware of thinking
1:09:09of it like in capital letters every time of like, okay, well then then we can sort of
1:09:15deal with this. But yeah, maybe it may be a little bit of updating of the section on
1:09:20the executive and his mainframe computer that exists in the basement. Like you could probably
1:09:25take that out. It's probably not very relevant.
1:09:28So there aren't a lot of typical, actually there are none, none of those like sickening
1:09:35fake stories.
1:09:36They don't exist in this book, which I actually found quite refreshing.
1:09:41The examples that he uses are of named individuals from real companies and I found that refreshing.
1:09:47Whilst I didn't necessarily read all of them, and we'll get to why in a little bit,
1:09:52I at least found that refreshing.
1:09:54However, the introduction of this book did not disappoint.
1:09:58So the forward is written by somebody else, right?
1:10:00Like it's a, I don't have the person's name in front of me, but it's not important.
1:10:04I want to read from you the opening of the forward of the effective executive.
1:10:09Please do, Myke.
1:10:10In December of 1994, I pulled up to Peter Drucker's house in my rental car.
1:10:14I rechecked the address because the house just didn't seem big enough.
1:10:18It was a nice house in a neighborhood near Claremont Colleges, bordered tightly by similar
1:10:23suburban houses with two small Toyota's parked in the drive.
1:10:27It would have been a perfect, modestly proportioned home for a professor from the local college.
1:10:33But I wasn't looking for a professor from the local college.
1:10:36I was looking for Peter Drucker, the leading founder of the field of management, the most
1:10:41influential management thinker in the second half of the 20th century, the founding father
1:10:47of the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management.
1:10:51But the address matched, so I ambled up to the front door.
1:10:54That's amazing.
1:10:55I wish it was in my edition.
1:10:57I don't have that. That is a thing of beauty.
1:10:59The introduction then goes on to talk about like how
1:11:02I had never met Peter Drucker before, but he was so warm and welcoming as if we'd
1:11:07been friends for 50 years.
1:11:09Like it's just like, waaaah, like vomiting all over the plane as I'm reading it.
1:11:13I want you to write a foreword like that when I write a book.
1:11:17For you? I will actually.
1:11:19I will do that. I will take that 100 percent and I will write it just like that.
1:11:24Yeah, look, every business book needs at least a moment of disgusting sycophanti, right?
1:11:31It's just a requirement.
1:11:33So there are a bunch of things spoken about in this book, like how to be effective, how
1:11:39to make decisions, and a lot of that stuff was okay, but it didn't really speak to me.
1:11:46There wasn't anything that I found particularly insightful in those chapters, which are the
1:11:52later chapters.
1:11:53But the first two kind of areas that the book focuses on I found really interesting.
1:12:00One was the term of knowledge worker, which I can only assume, because I hear this a lot,
1:12:06I haven't looked into this, but I can only assume that since this book was written in
1:12:091969, that Peter Drakker probably coined the term knowledge worker.
1:12:13Yeah, knowing how old this book is, I think I would bet you're right that this may be
1:12:17the first appearance of that term.
1:12:19Because I had, I don't know why I had always probably because it's the first place I had
1:12:23come across it. I had vaguely assumed that David Allen was like the creation of knowledge
1:12:28work.
1:12:29Yeah.
1:12:30Because the beginning of Getting Things Done, which again is a book like when I tried to
1:12:34reread it like does not age well.
1:12:36Yep. I've just checked the Wikipedia page. The term was first coined by Peter Drucker
1:12:40in the book called The Landmarks of Tomorrow in 1959.
1:12:43Okay, interesting. So he's the father of this.
1:12:46Well, like this is if you read this, this is part of his series, right? So like he did
1:12:49a book about knowledge workers, and now knowledge worker is a term that exists in another book.
1:12:55Like effective executive is a term that exists in later books that he wrote.
1:12:59Right.
1:13:00All right.
1:13:01It's just interesting.
1:13:02But it's like, I thought that was David Allen because he spends so much time selling you
1:13:06on this idea of knowledge work as separate from other things.
1:13:11And I remember at the time, like, oh, it just crystallized a bunch of thoughts around work.
1:13:17but it was so dependent on the modern world and technology.
1:13:21So I'm almost kind of curious about
1:13:23how did Peter Drucker define this word originally?
1:13:27But yeah, that's very interesting to know.
1:13:30- Okay, so his thinking, and I like this more actually,
1:13:34that a knowledge worker is based around ideas.
1:13:38And so he splits it into knowledge work and manual work.
1:13:40So here's a couple of quotes that I like.
1:13:42Knowledge work is not defined by quantity.
1:13:44- I'm looking at that right now.
1:13:46Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs.
1:13:49Knowledge work is defined by its results.
1:13:51And when I was reading this, something that struck me, which is if we think of knowledge
1:13:55work as ideas, ideas, they're not like a tradable commodity with volume.
1:14:01You can make a bunch of things that you can sell and maybe you can sell them for a little
1:14:05bit cheaper or you can sell them at scale.
1:14:08But an excellent idea that you have, if it's a really, really good idea, it's not equal
1:14:13to like 10 okay ideas or 50 bad ideas because they don't have a price attached to them.
1:14:19And I found that to be quite an interesting parallel of like if you think about making
1:14:23a physical thing and just thinking, your thoughts don't have an inherent intrinsic value to
1:14:29them.
1:14:30There wasn't like material cost and markup on these.
1:14:33It's just your ideas are all you have and they're only really useful when you put them
1:14:38into action.
1:14:40but they're not like a tradable thing.
1:14:42And that's like a big difference between people that deal in knowledge and
1:14:45people that deal with making.
1:14:47Yeah. Like I highlighted that section too.
1:14:51And it's, it struck me as well because it,
1:14:55it is the same thing of particularly like knowledge work is not defined by its
1:15:00costs, which I also interpreted that like,
1:15:04you're not looking at cost per unit of idea,
1:15:09that there are some ways in which knowledge work can have tremendous costs, but then also
1:15:15outsized results in a way that physical products simply never could. So it doesn't always make
1:15:20sense to think about cost-cutting measures in relation to knowledge work in the same
1:15:26way that it does make sense in terms of physical products. Like, you have to think about cost-cutting
1:15:30measures in that way.
1:15:31Yeah, so there's a part, like, later on where they're talking about, like, decisions, like,
1:15:35relate into this stuff where it's kind of a case of because you can't he says
1:15:40like cost cutting is pointless like when you're doing cost cutting measures
1:15:43you end up cutting things that there's kind of no point in cutting because
1:15:46there's such minuscule savings but if you're a cost cutter you've made effect
1:15:50you've been effective by cutting that cost even though there was no point
1:15:53doing it but I like something that he says which is something that I know that
1:15:56me and you both share as a thought anyway which is like if you are making a
1:16:00decision you ask yourself like if I stop doing this thing is it going to affect
1:16:05anything. And if it won't, then you just stop doing it. Or like another question of like,
1:16:11if knowing everything we know today, someone asks us to do this thing again, would we do it? And if
1:16:16we wouldn't do it, we stop doing that thing. Right. Right. And this is like part of that,
1:16:20like, it leads into part of the idea. I also like a thing about, when we talk about knowledge workers
1:16:25is typically somebody who's coming up with ideas is not actually the person that actually does
1:16:31anything with it, so you give your idea to somebody else who then goes out and does it.
1:16:38So it's a lot of the time, and this isn't always, because I know that people that are
1:16:43solo or independent like us, we will typically put a lot of our stuff into production ourselves,
1:16:48but especially if we're working in a company. If your job is to make decisions and come
1:16:52up with ideas, you probably communicate those to somebody else who then makes an output
1:16:56with them that the knowledge worker is not always tied to the output.
1:17:00Yeah, like, I like that stuff. I'm trying to think about, like I'm looking through a
1:17:09bunch of my notes from this book. And it's interesting because there are a bunch of parts
1:17:18that I do really like. And so let me take the one that I think is the best of this book.
1:17:27I wonder what it's gonna be.
1:17:30- I think it's not gonna be what you think it is.
1:17:35- Okay, okay.
1:17:36- Okay, I'm gonna try to guess.
1:17:38You're gonna guess it's time tracking.
1:17:40- I am gonna guess that 'cause it's my favorite part.
1:17:42(laughing)
1:17:44- Yeah, so he talks about time tracking a lot.
1:17:46That's not actually, it's not actually that.
1:17:49The thing that I like the best in this book is,
1:17:52and it's making me laugh now because it's a section
1:17:55where he references Lincoln,
1:17:57But it's chapter four. I think the start of chapter four is really great.
1:18:02And that chapter is called making strength productive.
1:18:07And
1:18:09like this is, okay, how do I want to,
1:18:17I want to phrase this delicately. It's not a good book. Like I, I don't,
1:18:22I can't really recommend it,
1:18:25But I do think if you are just coming out of school,
1:18:31like you've just graduated high school or you've just graduated college,
1:18:34find a library and read the first few pages of chapter four in this book.
1:18:40Because...
1:18:41the thing that I find so frustrating about school
1:18:48is it's this machine that produces the opposite of what we want in the real world.
1:18:54In school, you're always taught to focus more time on the thing that you're the worst at.
1:19:01And so it's like, "Oh, you've gotten an A in science and you've gotten a B in English,
1:19:05but you got a D in geography.
1:19:07So what happens now?
1:19:09You're supposed to spend most of your time on geography and ignore the thing that you're
1:19:14actually good at."
1:19:16And it's like you spend two decades under this propaganda of you're supposed to be a
1:19:23well-rounded individual.
1:19:26Whereas the real world doesn't care at all about what you're bad at, right?
1:19:30The real world only cares about what you're good at.
1:19:34And again, like it's so personal for me because it's like spelling.
1:19:38My whole life, like I failed spelling in school constantly and everyone was like, "You got
1:19:42to spend more time on spelling."
1:19:44And guess what?
1:19:45that I'm an adult, it doesn't matter at all. Like, it doesn't make any difference. Nobody
1:19:49cares that I can't spell. Like, it's not a skill that holds me back. It just doesn't
1:19:53matter. And, like, I just, I really like the way he focuses on a few things here. And he's
1:20:01focusing on it from both angles of, like, you need to find what you're really good at
1:20:06and double down on. And I also like that he really focuses on, if you're in a position
1:20:13of working with other people, you should be able to overlook their flaws.
1:20:18You know, and it's like where he talks about Abraham Lincoln, but he's like, you know,
1:20:22Lincoln picked generals who were like men who had tremendous flaws, but they were good
1:20:28at winning battles.
1:20:29And like, he doesn't care that like Ulysses S. Grant was like a total monster and a drunk.
1:20:35Like he's good at winning battles.
1:20:37And you shouldn't expect that everybody you work with is this well-rounded person who's
1:20:43good at everything.
1:20:45And I just, like, I think that's a really fundamental point that is very easy to overlook,
1:20:52especially when you're coming right out of education, because the whole school system
1:20:57has taught you the opposite.
1:21:00And in the real world, double down on what you're good at, and don't spend a lot of time
1:21:04on what you're bad at if it doesn't really affect you.
1:21:08But you liked the time tracking part, did you Myke?
1:21:09Yeah, I mean I did like that strengths part because it was very, it's very useful, right?
1:21:14Like the idea of if you're in a good organization you can hopefully find it, but like especially
1:21:20if you're working on anything for yourself, creatively or otherwise, like understanding
1:21:25what you're good at, doing that and then trying to work with other people who can help complement
1:21:30the skills that you're not so good at, is an incredibly valuable thing to learn.
1:21:35But I would say, I really would say, I agree with Grey, read that part, but I really think
1:21:42reading the beginning, and I think the whole chapter on time tracking is very useful.
1:21:49I think that it does in some places a better job of explaining why than we have been able
1:21:54to explain over the course of the show.
1:21:57There are sometimes things that are interesting when you read books like this, is that it
1:22:02can help communicate an idea that you already know, but it can solidify it for you.
1:22:07And there are a bunch of really excellent quotes about why time tracking is important.
1:22:14And again, to think that whilst this book is long-winded and it can be a bit frustrating
1:22:19in places, Draka really knew what he was talking about.
1:22:23He was coming up with a bunch of this stuff in '69.
1:22:27He kind of, he really got it, right?
1:22:29Like there was some stuff that he totally understood
1:22:32and he made it, you know,
1:22:34he kind of made it work all the way back then, right?
1:22:36Like things that we're still doing today.
1:22:38So there's a couple of things that I like, right?
1:22:40He says the executive's time
1:22:42tends to belong to everybody else.
1:22:44- I can see why you, you in particular, Myke.
1:22:47- Yeah.
1:22:47- I can see why you would like that quote.
1:22:48- And I love it, right?
1:22:50Like there is, and then like it kind of leads on,
1:22:54like the fundamental problem is the reality
1:22:55around the executive unless he changes it
1:22:58by deliberate action.
1:22:59The flow of events will determine
1:23:01that he is concerned with and what he does.
1:23:03So I find this stuff to be very true
1:23:05for people that are self-employed
1:23:08or people that maybe head up a small team or anything.
1:23:12Your time is a lot of the time pulled in such,
1:23:16in so many different ways
1:23:18that you actually don't get to control it
1:23:20because people require things from you
1:23:24and they require your time.
1:23:26So you don't really get to control it, they control it.
1:23:30And funnily enough, I like, talks a lot about the fact
1:23:33that meetings are mostly just time wasting.
1:23:36And I like that again, 1969, but yet still happens
1:23:39more and more and more.
1:23:41And you know, he goes on by saying that what you want to do
1:23:46is find out where your time goes, and then try to cut back
1:23:51on non-productive demands over time.
1:23:53And Drucker focuses on something that we talk about
1:23:57all the time, it's like, don't do it from memory.
1:24:00You have to actually record it.
1:24:03You have to record it because if you try
1:24:05and do it from memory, I love this.
1:24:07If we rely on our memory,
1:24:08we do not know how time has been spent.
1:24:10The important thing is that it gets done
1:24:12and that the record is made in real time.
1:24:14That is at the time of the event itself,
1:24:16rather than later on from memory.
1:24:18And he says, like, he goes on to say that like,
1:24:20if you do it from your memory,
1:24:22you record what you think you should have been doing
1:24:25rather than what you actually were doing.
1:24:28And I was like, that is such a good point
1:24:30because you're like,
1:24:31I know I had these important things to do today.
1:24:33I know I took care of them.
1:24:34That must have taken up the majority of my day.
1:24:37Well, that's probably not true,
1:24:39but your brain weights these things
1:24:41because on what it thinks is important
1:24:43as opposed to where you actually put your time.
1:24:46- No, it really is an excellent point.
1:24:49And we've mentioned this on the previous Book Club episodes,
1:24:53but this phenomenon I think of as crystallization.
1:24:58That you bring to a book the solution of thoughts
1:25:03that's in your head.
1:25:06And then you read someone express an idea
1:25:09and your thoughts can crystallize around that idea.
1:25:12But you get out of books what you bring to them.
1:25:16And it's why when you're reading something,
1:25:19lots of sentences don't resonate at all and then you feel like, "Oh, this sentence has
1:25:23crystallized what I've been..." like you said before, like stuff that's been rolling around
1:25:27in your head. And like I was thinking as you're talking, I think I was a little bit harsh
1:25:34on this book by saying it's not a good book because the note that I made to myself is
1:25:42like I think it's not a good book for me because I highlighted a bunch of stuff
1:25:49and when I was rereading it I highlighted even more but I was very
1:25:54aware of I'm just going through this and highlighting things that I agree with
1:25:58and thoughts that I've already had for a really long time but there was no point
1:26:04in reading the book where I felt like something crystallized for me but it's
1:26:09because I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time and reading these
1:26:12And now as you have revealed, like this is also a foundational book that has appeared in many others.
1:26:17But I'm reasonably confident that
1:26:20if I handed this book to
1:26:23the me who just graduated from college, he would actually get a lot out of it. That it would help
1:26:31sharpen and crystallize a bunch of his thoughts on these topics sooner than it would otherwise have happened.
1:26:38And so,
1:26:40Yeah, I guess like maybe the more familiar you are with this stuff the less good this book is and the less familiar you are
1:26:47with it the more potential it it has for you to say like, oh, that's a great way to put this because yeah, like as
1:26:55you as you pointed out at the beginning it also predates a lot of the
1:26:59business book tropes
1:27:02So it does like I have to give this book credit for having a very high density of ideas
1:27:09Like there is not a lot of filler in this book. It's him
1:27:13Much more talking about like time tracking doing the best managing your time meetings are a waste of time
1:27:20the the concept of being an
1:27:23Executive as one who is the executor of their own life and trying to make things happen in some way. So
1:27:30so yeah, like I want to withdraw my comment about it being bad and and simply phrase like it wasn't a book that had things for
1:27:39me to crystallize around, but it may very well have lots of those things depending on
1:27:46who the reader is.
1:27:47S: I think we should move on from it. I feel like we've drained most of what we found interesting
1:27:52about this book, but I want to read my final last quote just to drive home the point about
1:27:58time tracking and why people should do it. So Drucker says, "Time is the scarcest resource,
1:28:04unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. The analysis of one's time,
1:28:08moreover, is the one easily accessible and yet systematic way to analyze one's
1:28:13work and to think through what really matters in it. I love that. It's just like
1:28:18you only have your time. Your time is all you have to spend to do the work that
1:28:22you want to do. If you're not controlling your time, if you're not trying to look
1:28:27at your time in a clever way or in a smart way or with any kind of like
1:28:32thought into where it's going, you won't be enabling yourself to be able to get
1:28:37done what you want to get done because your time is like leaking away in just, I
1:28:42don't know, being on phone calls or whatever. So I just thought it was a very
1:28:46good way of continuing to like drive home this point of time tracking being
1:28:51important. So I liked it a lot for that. The book itself was really rough in
1:28:58places, but rough for different reasons to the usual books that we read.
1:29:01And I honestly think a lot of it is purely in the book's age.
1:29:06And I think that whilst it makes it kind of fascinating in places that the guy
1:29:11was talking about this stuff, it also like that the age of this book really
1:29:18kind of lets it down in some places.
1:29:20So I think that's, that's the main problem that I had with it.
1:29:23Yeah.
1:29:25So as I close this book virtually,
1:29:29don't let it tap to blue mana and cast forget on me again
1:29:34if I ever like suggest that we do the effective executive
1:29:38at some point in the future.
1:29:39Like if I suggest it again, you have to remember Myke
1:29:43that we've already read it.
1:29:45- Well, I will remember because there was something
1:29:47quite unique about this book.
1:29:50The effective executive is the first book I have actually read in probably like 10 years.
1:29:59You mean like red red?
1:30:01Red with my eyes, not with my ears.
1:30:03Red with your eyes!
1:30:04And how did you read it with your eyes, Myke?
1:30:07On a Kindle.
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1:31:54How was this experience?
1:31:56It was good and bad.
1:31:59There is good and bad to it, to the point that I'm not really sure
1:32:04what I should do about these books going forward.
1:32:08Okay, so I just want to back up for a second for the listeners.
1:32:10So Myke doesn't read books with his eyes.
1:32:15Myke reads books with his ears. And can you give a summary about why that is the case?
1:32:23Why you read books with your ears and not with your eyes?
1:32:25Like how would you describe the reason for that?
1:32:27I think that like...
1:32:29See, I feel like I don't even want to talk to you about this, but I think it's like my attention.
1:32:37I just don't really...
1:32:38And this has kind of been a thing always for me.
1:32:42I struggle to focus on just sitting and reading. Like, I get distracted really easily. Like,
1:32:51something that I noted about this book is I had to be in an environment of complete silence to
1:32:57be able to read it, which was difficult. Like, I can't listen to music.
1:33:02B: I was gonna say not even music.
1:33:03Can't listen to music. I just find myself getting distracted by noises and things moving.
1:33:14It was difficult. And this isn't a problem that I have with visual distractions when
1:33:20I'm listening to a book. And plus, when I'm listening to a book, if I zone out a little
1:33:27bit, I don't notice it as much. Then if I'm sitting and reading, I'll be like, "I don't
1:33:32I don't know what I just read.
1:33:34I also, I think that I am one of these, well, I know I'm one of these people that
1:33:38I read each word in my head, right?
1:33:42Mm-hmm.
1:33:43So when I read the book, my brain is saying the words to me.
1:33:47Right.
1:33:49So I'm not a fast reader. So it takes me quite a while to actually read.
1:33:53Yeah, I do the same thing for the record and it is
1:33:58Mind-blowing to me that people can read without doing that.
1:34:02Yep, I don't understand it.
1:34:03Like and I've done some of that speed reading stuff like I've tried it and like I can do it
1:34:08You know like with a speed reading app where you just like just look at it and it goes into your brain
1:34:13But I just I don't like it. It feels like it makes my head hurt to do it
1:34:19So I've done those things and it just makes the internal narrator faster where it flashes the one word. It is like
1:34:27I'm totally still hearing it when they do that.
1:34:29It's very strange.
1:34:32- So I kind of just haven't really spent a lot of time
1:34:37thinking about it.
1:34:40Audiobooks work for me.
1:34:42Audiobooks work for me when I'm doing other things.
1:34:45That was something I was really noted about.
1:34:47I couldn't read this book whilst walking.
1:34:52I couldn't read this book whilst I was doing the washing up.
1:34:56I couldn't steal time away to read this book
1:35:01like I could with other books in the Cortex book.
1:35:03- Right, right.
1:35:04This book demands your full attention.
1:35:06- I need to sit down with the Kindle
1:35:09and spend this time just reading this book.
1:35:13- Yeah, you can't also be playing Stardew Valley
1:35:16while you're listening to the book.
1:35:16- Exactly.
1:35:17- And feeling, oh, look at me, I'm being doubly productive.
1:35:20I'm relaxing and working at the same time.
1:35:22- So that was a frustration for me
1:35:24it made this book in places harder to get through, but there are things that I was able to do with
1:35:30this book that I can't do with the audiobook and that is skimming. So when he's rattling on
1:35:36about the Bell Labs guy, I'm just like skimming through it because as is usual with these books,
1:35:43there is a thing that you'll note, right? If you read the first two paragraphs of a section and the
1:35:48last two paragraphs of the section, as long as you understood the first two, you'll understand the
1:35:53the last two because they make their point, they have a huge example and then they conclude
1:35:58the point. A lot of the time, not always, but a lot of the time, I don't need to have
1:36:03it explained to me in depth because I got what he was trying to say. There were times
1:36:07when I did need more and I would read it. But if he set up a thing like, "Oh, I understand
1:36:12this. Like, I don't need a historical example, like, because I get what you're talking about."
1:36:17So that's good because when I'm listening to the books, I have to listen to those things.
1:36:21But it did make me think, right?
1:36:25Is some of the best stuff about the Cortex book club the frustration?
1:36:31Because if that makes this segment more interesting to listen to, then maybe I should be forcing
1:36:37myself to have to listen to it.
1:36:39Now this book doesn't have a lot of that, right?
1:36:42So maybe it's not the best test case, but it was something I was aware of.
1:36:48like I would not have continued to read like the examples of the what book the emith was
1:36:57it emith guy who was like living on an island of his family on a moped yeah that guy visited
1:37:02yeah I wouldn't have read that right I'd be like I hate this go away and just like skipped
1:37:06over it so I don't know like maybe I would have had some really hilarious anecdotes of
1:37:11what it was like for the guy talking about reading a computer in 1969 but I couldn't
1:37:15bring myself to spend the time to read it. So that is like a good thing maybe for me,
1:37:22but I don't know if it's a good thing for when we're talking about those books.
1:37:26B: Yeah, yeah, I mean, how much is it the value people get from listening to us talk
1:37:32about the books versus how much people think it's hilarious to hear people suffer? And
1:37:38other human suffering is hilarious. So I understand that. And I don't understand how, you know,
1:37:45I read these books, and to me, the thought of listening to them without the ability to skim is intolerable.
1:37:56I just don't know how you could possibly do it.
1:38:00So to me, you have finally experienced the way that is the only way a human can survive these books,
1:38:06which is to skim and to skim a lot.
1:38:09When you feel like, "Ah, okay, author, I see what you're doing. You're going into your story.
1:38:13or let me just boop boop boop down three paragraphs and now, okay, we're back.
1:38:17We're back to talking about the actual the actual thing.
1:38:20So like that, that was a big
1:38:22that that was a big help for me when getting through this book.
1:38:26But like I'm undecided right now.
1:38:29Like what is the best route forward?
1:38:31Like I feel like I would want to do it
1:38:34whenever our next one is.
1:38:35I would want to try and read it again and like see
1:38:37see what I think is the best thing to ultimately do.
1:38:41So you would give then reading a physical, in quotes,
1:38:46like a physical book a shot again?
1:38:49- Here's the thing, right?
1:38:50So the read time on the Kindle version
1:38:53was three and a half hours is what it quoted me, right?
1:38:56- Okay.
1:38:57- The audiobook is 10 hours.
1:38:59- Oh, oh God.
1:39:01- I didn't read the whole book,
1:39:03but it probably took me about three hours, right?
1:39:06'Cause I'm not a fast enough reader, I don't think.
1:39:08But so it took me a third of the time to get this book done.
1:39:12Right. But there was no Stardew Valley time overlaid on those three hours.
1:39:16So this is what I haven't decided, right?
1:39:18Like now I was able to skip a lot of the stuff I didn't want to read and that
1:39:23was great, but I don't, I haven't worked out like the trade offs for me yet.
1:39:27As you know,
1:39:28I liked the system of highlighting and noting because I didn't have to write out
1:39:33a separate note like I usually do. Right.
1:39:36And that was the system on the Kindle was very good for that.
1:39:38And then I could just bring them all up on a computer and then just like
1:39:41copy and paste into our show notes, the bits that I wanted, it let me triage it.
1:39:45It was, it worked pretty well for that.
1:39:46Um, I liked that.
1:39:48The gradient on the Kindle was, was, was fine.
1:39:52I, I got the, the Oasis, maybe.
1:39:57Was it the one with the battery pack in the cover?
1:40:01Or is it the, I didn't get the cover, but I can have a cover, right?
1:40:05But it's got that weird hump on it.
1:40:07It has three little pins on the back of it to connect to the battery cover.
1:40:11Okay, yeah.
1:40:12It has the weird hump and it's like a square, right?
1:40:15Which is all very strange.
1:40:16And it wasn't as comfortable as I wanted.
1:40:21I got that one because it had a light on it.
1:40:23It had a backlight and I wanted a backlight.
1:40:27But like whilst it's super small and super light, it's still not light enough.
1:40:33I feel like I wanted it to be a little bit lighter so I could really easily and comfortably
1:40:39just like hold it in one hand.
1:40:41It's this weird thing that like whilst the paperback book is heavier, its thickness makes
1:40:45it like easier to hold like there's like a balance to it where this thing is so thin
1:40:51but yet it's not light enough and the weight is misbalanced because of the strange hump.
1:40:55I just had a genius idea which hadn't even crossed my mind until just now because I do
1:41:00love the Kindles and but they are their thinness does make them hard to hold
1:41:07sometimes and I'm aware of that and the the newest Kindle is heavier than the
1:41:13version that you use they made it bigger and it's heavier but I just realized
1:41:17Myke popsocket on the Kindle oh now I I never thought of this is G but this
1:41:28seems great like why not this yeah that's perfect I'm gonna get I'm gonna
1:41:32grab my Kindle right now I have a pop socket right on the back of it straight
1:41:36on there that is genius genius by the way pop sockets they've introduced a new
1:41:42version where you can like easily twist the part of the back right they've
1:41:48called it like pop tops so you can one thing you can do is customize it but the
1:41:53other, it lets you do wireless charging.
1:41:55Yeah, no, someone someone sent me that.
1:41:58And it's still I still it doesn't
1:42:00work the way I would want it. But
1:42:01yeah, it's made me angry. Because
1:42:03what I want is no steps. And that's
1:42:05one step. Yeah, I might as well
1:42:06plug in the wire at that point.
1:42:07Right. And I totally agree with
1:42:09you. I totally agree with you. But
1:42:11on the off chance that it was like
1:42:13that that made sense. I thought
1:42:14I'd recommend it right like they
1:42:15do that they have created they have
1:42:17tried I think they've tried to do
1:42:18their best right like to to how can
1:42:20we make this work but it's still
1:42:23like I wouldn't want to be like taking these discs on and off every day.
1:42:25Yeah.
1:42:26But it is an option.
1:42:27So that's, that's, that's what I'm going to do.
1:42:28Pop socket on the back of my Kindle immediately.
1:42:30I think that's going to be great.
1:42:32So yeah, I would say that like overall, I think there are benefits to this, which I
1:42:38knew existed, but didn't really know how beneficial they would be in like being
1:42:42able to skip stuff about like enraging every time I'm listening to these like
1:42:49horrific lists.
1:42:51But also though, Drucker isn't that bad with this stuff.
1:42:54So I want to give it a go with some of another book before I make my final
1:42:59decision as to whether going forward I will use a Kindle or use an audio book.
1:43:03Right. Like he is not he was not one of these people that would write like
1:43:0817 different things, you know, like I have helped like people
1:43:15who have been gambling.
1:43:16I have helped people who are like, you know, going on and on and on and on and on,
1:43:20where you could just easily jump it.
1:43:22Like there wasn't that much of it.
1:43:23His stuff that I was skipping
1:43:24were just really long stories that I didn't care about
1:43:27or a computer chapter in 1969.
1:43:31I feel like I should go back and read that at some point.
1:43:34But like that.
1:43:35So, yeah, I think I would say the Kindle experiment was an interesting one.
1:43:38I just haven't made my mind up yet
1:43:43to what I'm going to what I'm going to do going forward.
1:43:48But I will say it was better than I thought.
1:43:51I thought I was going to absolutely hate it and wouldn't finish the book and would have
1:43:54to go to the audiobook.
1:43:56And that wasn't the case.
1:43:58That's what I was wondering was going to happen.
1:44:00Because when you suggested the idea that you were going to try to read this one on Kindle,
1:44:03which I can't even really remember why you originally... was it because you were traveling
1:44:06a bunch and you thought maybe you'll use the Kindle then?
1:44:08Was that the idea?
1:44:09I have no idea how it came up.
1:44:10Like one of us just mentioned it and then it'd be like, "Oh, that'd be interesting to
1:44:13talk about."
1:44:14So I just did it.
1:44:15I have no memory of why we ended up deciding to do this, but we just did.
1:44:20Yeah. But like I was,
1:44:23I was interested in you doing this because of the way that you entirely read
1:44:28books by listening to them instead of looking at them with your eyes.
1:44:34And I don't know,
1:44:35I was just kind of curious about what your experience was of reading a book with
1:44:39your eyes, but I'm also just realizing,
1:44:41But of course, the only books you're ever going to be reading are these horrible books
1:44:47for the Cortex book club.
1:44:50And it's not exactly like you're not exactly snuggling up on a couch with Harry Potter,
1:44:56right?
1:44:57It's like it's not quite the same experience.
1:44:59I did read a fiction audio book recently, but like, I don't know if it really fits the
1:45:03bill.
1:45:04I read The Handmaid's Tale.
1:45:05But, but okay, but you listen to it or you read it?
1:45:08I listen to it.
1:45:09I listen to it.
1:45:10was also an interesting thing because that was like the first fiction that I'd
1:45:14read in any form in like 10 years as well. So.
1:45:17Yeah, I guess like I want to,
1:45:20I want to say this without any judgment, just to be clear.
1:45:24Cause I think there's this weird societal judgment about like, Oh,
1:45:27people who read books are better than people who don't. Right.
1:45:30Which I think is dumb. And so I'm not trying to do that. But I was,
1:45:33I was kind of curious if your experience with the Kindle
1:45:38gave you even the slightest feeling of like, oh,
1:45:42maybe I would want to sit on a couch and read a book with my eyes instead of
1:45:47listening to one. Like did that happen at all?
1:45:52Like is it a thing that you might imagine in your life with a Kindle or do you
1:45:57think like it's just not a thing that you're ever going to do?
1:45:59I don't think that this experience made me any more likely to do it.
1:46:06Okay, all right. I think that makes sense. That makes sense, given your reasons from earlier.
1:46:13But I was just kind of curious if... I wanted you to do it because I thought maybe there's like a
1:46:18tiny, tiny chance that you might end up finding that you really enjoyed the experience of the
1:46:23Kindle, but I just hadn't really thought about the fact that I was making you read something
1:46:27torturous and like maybe that's not the best introduction.
1:46:30Yeah, I just I can't explain why I am this way, but I just don't enjoy reading.
1:46:37And again, I'm not being judgmental about that. I just think it's just I find it.
1:46:42I just find that interesting.
1:46:44It is. I don't know the reason why. Like, it's not like I don't have problems with the content.
1:46:49Like, it's not like I never want to read X, Y or Z. Like, I like to listen to things, right?
1:46:55But I mean, I'm the same. It's not just books.
1:46:58Like it's I don't like to read 2000 long New York Times articles.
1:47:02Like it's just not, you know, it's just not my thing.
1:47:05Yeah, I guess the reason I find it interesting is because you are a curious person.
1:47:11Like you're interested in things in the world.
1:47:13You're interested in thinking about things.
1:47:16And with people that I know, that correlates very highly with reading
1:47:19and people who are generally incurious people, it correlates very low with reading.
1:47:24So I guess that's why I always just find this,
1:47:27my mind wanders back to this on occasion,
1:47:30because you are like a bit of a statistical outlier
1:47:34with people in my social circle
1:47:35with regards to this behavior.
1:47:37But I'm glad you gave it a shot on the Kindle.
1:47:40I guess I'm gonna try to pick a much,
1:47:42like I'm gonna try to pick a real winner for,
1:47:44like I need a really engaging book
1:47:46for the next Cortex book club
1:47:48that we can still pass off as like a workbook for the show.
1:47:52Oh, right, you're trying to win me over. I get it. See, I was just thinking like,
1:47:56we just picked something horrifically bad, so I'll understand if I like skipping sections still.
1:48:02No, no, I'm not trying to win you over. I just think if you're gonna give the Kindle one more shot,
1:48:10I would like something that has at least the chance of being somewhat engaging. I think that's
1:48:15what I would be aiming for on the next Cortex book club. We'll see, who knows?
1:48:19I'm trying to think, have we read any book so far?
1:48:22Creativity Inc. I think was good.
1:48:24Yeah, but that wasn't even a business book though, really. It was his biography, and I like biographies.
1:48:29Yeah, but look, that's close enough, right?
1:48:32Maybe there's another one like that.
1:48:33That's within the greater orbit. Yeah, it's within the greater orbit of Cortex Book Club.
1:48:37We can try to find something, or I guess the listeners can suggest things, and maybe several
1:48:44months from now I can go back and try to find something. I don't know. We'll figure it out.
1:48:48[LAUGHTER]