0:00:00So it turns out that now I have to read the Reddit just to get answers from you for questions that really should have been answered on the show.
0:00:09What are you talking about?
0:00:10So apparently you had a theme for your entire year this year that you just didn't bring up when we were talking about goals and planning for 2016 last week.
0:00:20It just didn't come up in the conversation.
0:00:24Or you didn't draw it out of me. It's your job as a professional interviewer to
0:00:28draw all the interesting things out of me, Myke.
0:00:30Have I just been told that this is an interview show? Is that what this is?
0:00:34Is that what I'm here to do for you now?
0:00:36Let's just say that interviewing is not my strong skill.
0:00:39Or even offering any information.
0:00:42Directing conversations is not my skill.
0:00:44This is why I have to work with people who do direct conversations.
0:00:47Such as yourself.
0:00:49So last time we were talking about New Year's resolutions
0:00:53and how mostly we think that they are dumb and ineffective for various reasons
0:01:00But the thing that I didn't mention last time is that I am not opposed to the idea of having a theme for the year
0:01:10And I'm not exactly sure when this idea like crept into my mind
0:01:16But I have noticed people doing themes for the year.
0:01:19I know several people this year who are doing themes for the year.
0:01:23And so I don't think that's a bad idea as a replacement notion for a New Year's resolution.
0:01:30Like a theme can be something that helps guide your decisions over the following year.
0:01:38It doesn't have to be like a goal that you are trying to achieve.
0:01:42So, I wish I had a catchy year of for my theme.
0:01:48So, everyone I know who's doing this, they say "Oh, this is the year of X."
0:01:53Linux on desktops.
0:01:55Yes, this is the year of Linux on the desktop.
0:01:59[laughter]
0:02:01And you're making it your own personal goal to assure that that happens.
0:02:06I remember a decade plus ago now being in university when I used Linux and thinking,
0:02:13"This is going to be everywhere in no time!"
0:02:16[Laughter]
0:02:19Oh, how wrong I was.
0:02:20Yeah, and everybody else since.
0:02:22So I wish I could come up with a single word, but...
0:02:25What I have come to the conclusion that my theme for the year, if I had to pick a single word,
0:02:34is I would say the year of less is my theme for the year.
0:02:41And it would really be, because the year of less sounds nice,
0:02:46but it really should be the year of less and then in brackets, me.
0:02:51I have been thinking a lot about the kinds of projects that I'm involved in.
0:02:57I was thinking a lot about this on my trip to Amsterdam, which we talked about recently.
0:03:02and just thinking in the biggest, broadest picture of
0:03:06the kind of work that I do, the kind of side projects that I do,
0:03:12what do I want to take on, what do I not want to take on.
0:03:15And I have come to the realization that
0:03:19I am at the limit of the number of projects that I can work on
0:03:27that
0:03:29require me to be constantly involved in an intimate way.
0:03:34So obviously the YouTube videos, the two podcasts, each of these, they can't be done without me. Like I am an
0:03:44intimate part of this project. And as we have discussed, I always like to work on various side projects.
0:03:51And I reference this as a thing like I like to do this.
0:03:54This is a thing that I think is good. You never really know what's going to pay off.
0:03:59But really none of my side projects aside from these two podcasts in the past
0:04:06two years have
0:04:09Gone very many places. They don't really see it a lot of day. Yeah, they all get killed in the crib
0:04:15Oh, wow, that's a that is a really heavy metaphor
0:04:19Wow
0:04:24The drama today gray, I don't think that's drama. That's a perfectly apt metaphor
0:04:28Sure side project is like a brand new baby full of hope. Uh-huh that you just murder. Yeah, right
0:04:35Yeah, you carry on down that that line of thought
0:04:38I partly came to that conclusion because as I think I referenced in the last podcast in in Amsterdam one of the the side projects
0:04:44That came closest to being something real. I
0:04:46murdered because
0:04:49it was really this this thought of
0:04:53Let me imagine if this project is wildly successful.
0:04:58Like, let's say it's as successful as a person can reasonably expect that it would be.
0:05:03I realized, oh, okay, all I will have done for myself is add another YouTube channel level of requirement for my own interaction in the project.
0:05:14What about all the good things that would come with that? Like money?
0:05:18More money is always better. There's not a scenario under which more money is not better.
0:05:22But my theme is the year of less because it is about recognizing the limits of how much I can possibly do.
0:05:34Like how much can I directly be involved in?
0:05:38And I've come to the conclusion that like, "Oh, okay."
0:05:42If any of these side projects that I have worked on that would involve me
0:05:47ongoing
0:05:50working on them in the future if they're successful
0:05:52At this stage they would have to be taking time away from other things that I'm doing
0:05:59and so the realization that I have had is that if
0:06:02For any side projects that I am going to work on at this point in the future
0:06:09I have to at least envision that if it is successful, there is a way for it to either be done as in a completely self-contained "it is finished, it doesn't require updating" kind of project.
0:06:25Or it needs to be something that I can turn over to somebody else.
0:06:32Right, where I could say like hire someone if the thing is very successful to continue to work on it.
0:06:38And it would not have to be me working on the thing.
0:06:41Sure.
0:06:42So this is what I mean by like my theme of the year of less.
0:06:47It's like less me involved in any side projects.
0:06:50projects and so I've just been thinking very carefully about any of the things
0:06:54that I choose to work on of what is the end point in this if it is successful is
0:07:00it successful in the way that it is just done it is just finished or is it
0:07:05successful in the way that it's something I can turn over to somebody
0:07:08else right and if it doesn't meet one of those criteria I've decided this is no
0:07:13longer a project that I'm going to work on I can't create for myself another
0:07:18thing like a podcast or another thing like a YouTube channel. It would just put
0:07:22me over the limit for how many things I can possibly do and I think that's
0:07:26partly why, as you've said, none of my side projects in the past have come to
0:07:30light really because this was the limiting factor that I just didn't
0:07:34really think through carefully enough about of course you can't take on yet
0:07:38another one. So it's not necessarily that the idea of you having side projects is
0:07:44over, but there are just new kind of rules that these side projects need to adhere to,
0:07:49like the idea of being able to pass them to somebody else. So like, when an opportunity
0:07:54comes up, you'd have to assess if that seems like it would be possible for you to consider
0:07:58entertaining it.
0:07:59Yeah, so that's exactly right. I will never be free of side projects. It's just the way
0:08:04that my brain is. If I tried to eliminate side projects entirely, I would just end up,
0:08:09I think, hating my main projects, because you have to have something else which is like,
0:08:12"Oh, this is a fun thing to work on."
0:08:14And so that has been largely the criteria I've used
0:08:18in the past for side projects.
0:08:19Is this fun and interesting?
0:08:21And there are many things that are fun and interesting,
0:08:23but they can't be fun and interesting things
0:08:26that spin off ongoing indefinite projects in the future.
0:08:30Like it's just not something that is possible.
0:08:33- And also for the money side,
0:08:36like to come back to that again,
0:08:38it may actually, I don't know this,
0:08:40But it may be easier to grow your existing projects
0:08:45to make more money from them than it
0:08:48would be to start brand new ones in the hope
0:08:51that they will make you a lot of money.
0:08:53Yeah, well, this goes back to the thing
0:08:55that I've discussed before, where
0:08:57I think everybody should have some notion of how much money
0:09:01they earn per active hour of working.
0:09:04And that formula is involved in two things,
0:09:07like money coming in and time going out.
0:09:10you divide those two numbers.
0:09:12- I'm really scared to do that calculation.
0:09:14- Why are you scared to do that?
0:09:16- I'm just worried it's gonna show me something
0:09:17I don't wanna see.
0:09:18- See, that's precisely why you should do it.
0:09:22- Why you should do it.
0:09:23Yeah, but then if it shows me that,
0:09:25oh, your time is worth a dollar an hour,
0:09:28then what do I do?
0:09:29Like I'm scared of the potential bad feelings
0:09:33that may give me.
0:09:34It's on my list, but not right now.
0:09:36- It's on your list.
0:09:37Yeah, it's on your list and it's not right now.
0:09:39For someone like you, you seem like you are in just a prime category of person who should definitely do this.
0:09:46As in, if I was you, I would want to know what is the dollar value of hours spent per show that you work on.
0:09:56Because you are a host on Relay FM, but you are also an owner of Relay FM.
0:10:03And so I think you, like I would want to know as an owner of Relay FM this idea of, again you imagine yourself as two different people, which is something we might talk about a little bit later,
0:10:13but as two different people, like the owner of the company and then someone who is directing an employee, who is also you, to do certain kinds of work.
0:10:22And so I would want to know, like what is the value of this employee per hour per project?
0:10:28But it just so happens that this employee is also you. That's why I think you should totally do it.
0:10:32do it. Yeah, don't get me wrong. Uh, this, what we're going to talk about later, this book that
0:10:38we've been reading has actually started making me think that I should do this. So when I say it's on
0:10:44my list, whilst that list is like this mental thing, it's knocking around in my brain a little
0:10:49bit more. So maybe we can actually come back to this idea on a later episode. Yeah, we'll come
0:10:55come back to this, but to return to the theme of the year of less, what I'm aware of is
0:11:02for projects in the future and how I track my hourly earnings for my business, I have
0:11:09to largely focus on not increasing the denominator in this formula of dollars per hour.
0:11:16Sure.
0:11:16Right, that the denominator is relatively maxed out. Like I've done all of these clever
0:11:23things about, okay, my afternoons are unproductive time, but I can fill afternoons with podcast
0:11:28work as a thing that I can do, which is why we are recording right now at like 3.45 in
0:11:35the afternoon, which is normally just a terrible dead time for me.
0:11:38But it is a time that, with some coffee, I can talk to my good friend Myke, and we can
0:11:42do some podcasting.
0:11:43I figured out some of these things, but the year of less for me is this idea of recognizing
0:11:50How new projects could fit into my business if they're wildly successful and recognizing
0:11:58some limitations on how many hours I can put in during the day, how many hours I want to
0:12:04put in during the day, and trying to figure out the way to make that work out.
0:12:11So I am currently just in the very beginning stages of a side project that I'm interested
0:12:17and working on, whether it comes to the light of day, we'll see at the end of the year,
0:12:22who knows. But I'm working on that side project with my side project time because I can see
0:12:30if this is successful, it is the kind of project where I could hand it over to somebody that
0:12:35the project itself could pay for their salary to keep the thing going. And that is now a
0:12:42requirement for side projects in the future.
0:12:45- That's a good requirement.
0:12:46I have to say the idea of less is definitely something
0:12:49that is a theme for me this year,
0:12:51but like in a slightly different way.
0:12:52And I've already acted on it a little bit
0:12:54and I've cut down the active hours of recording for me
0:12:59by canceling a show or retiring a show
0:13:04and dropping two weekly shows down to fortnightly.
0:13:07We spoke about this.
0:13:08You know, that's one of those things for me
0:13:10where it's doing less of that type of work
0:13:13because the podcasting work takes up the most amount of time
0:13:16because you're spending multiple hours
0:13:19and this is what you do.
0:13:21It's blocked out.
0:13:22Where my other work is a little bit more sporadic.
0:13:25So I'm trying to just cut down a lot of that kind of
0:13:28scheduled time where I must be working on something.
0:13:33So yeah, I'm thinking that that is a definite theme
0:13:38for me as well but in a slightly different way.
0:13:40Do you know, I mean how many hours a week then, or I guess maybe you think on a bi-weekly
0:13:46schedule, but how many hours have you gotten back with those changes?
0:13:50Do you know roughly speaking?
0:13:51I've probably got back about six to seven hours every other week.
0:13:55That's a pretty big gain.
0:13:56Yeah, because it's the preparation, the recording and the editing, and I've been able to drop
0:14:00that down so I'm kind of at the moment of structure of my week where I kind of have
0:14:05one week on one week off in that I record three shows one week and then like six or
0:14:13seven shows the next week. And I'm trying to get used to this but I think that's a pretty
0:14:20good way of doing things because when I feel really busy I'm like next week will be better
0:14:27and that has kind of helped me so far and we're only like a month into it but where
0:14:32I feel like I've been really busy one week. I'm like, "It's okay. Next week's gonna have more time."
0:14:36And that's been quite a nice feeling for me,
0:14:39having done this over a few different weeks now, so I quite like that.
0:14:45It's very interesting that you mention that because
0:14:48one of the ideas that has been knocking around in my head that is under the theme of "the year of less" is
0:14:55trying to figure out some kind of schedule like that because
0:15:01I've always said that one of the biggest downsides about being self-employed is that the work never leaves you
0:15:08That that you're always thinking about it. It doesn't matter what you're doing. It's always on your mind and
0:15:13You can't sweep it under the rug either which I used to do. Yeah, you can't sweep it under the rug
0:15:19There's nobody else who's going to pick up the problems, you know, when when you drop them
0:15:24Because they're all your problems
0:15:28You just drop them on the floor and it's like, oh I have to clean that up
0:15:31and
0:15:34To compare and contrast the thing that was the greatest about teaching was looking forward to the holidays
0:15:39like that was the best part of the job without a doubt and I too have been just wondering in the theme of year of
0:15:45less is if there is a way to
0:15:47Build back in some kind of schedule like that
0:15:51You know, I don't know what it would be but I've just been toying with the idea like can I do?
0:15:57four weeks on and then one week is like a low-power week and then four weeks on and one week is a low-power week to
0:16:03have some kind of cycle in the working schedule to do this same thing that that it sounds like you are beginning to see this idea
0:16:11of
0:16:12chunking work into
0:16:14different kinds of
0:16:16schedule time so that you have some sense of like oh, this is the busy time, this is the less busy time,
0:16:22this is the busy time, this is the less busy time as opposed to the thing that I don't like
0:16:26which is just this constant uniform background radiation of work that is ever unchanging.
0:16:32That's something I have been toying around with. How could I make this work in the year of less?
0:16:37It's interesting that you have done something like that so far with your own schedule.
0:16:43Yeah, it started to happen accidentally, and then I made some choices specifically to make it this way.
0:16:51And I'll report back how this is going, but right now I'm pretty happy with it.
0:16:56Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. Like whenever I could as a teacher,
0:17:02I always like to schedule as much as possible
0:17:05teaching days and non-teaching days. Like, let's try to have
0:17:09Monday is wall-to-wall classes from the morning until the end of the day, if that means I can get a Tuesday where there's only
0:17:17one class or two classes.
0:17:18Yeah, all right, like that was way better
0:17:21Like I hated the couple years where I had a schedule where every day was the same right where there's like oh, there's
0:17:26Four or five classes every single day and there's no big chunks of time in between them
0:17:32I much prefer to schedule that was super lumpy with everything or nothing on particular days
0:17:38It reminds me of my sixth form college
0:17:41Timetable that's what I think of and I think of this is I had exactly that
0:17:45I had one week where I was in every day and then another week where I was in three days
0:17:49But no earlier than 1 p.m. Hmm, and I loved it. I just loved working that way
0:17:54so I think this it's kind of reminding me of that a little bit and so I I kind of
0:18:00Built a lot of my habits around that and I think this is pretty nice. So it's cortex on the busy week. Yeah, or okay
0:18:08Yeah, and it could only be this is part of the busy week
0:18:12Because as I said to you before like Thursday is Cortex Day
0:18:16It's the only thing I do because it's all I can handle.
0:18:19But you see that's why I thought oh surely
0:18:21I'm on the non-busy week because this is the only thing that you do.
0:18:25If you were on the non-busy week it would make the non-busy week the busy week.
0:18:28I'm not that much trouble, Myke.
0:18:31You're not!
0:18:31It's the whole thing around the show.
0:18:34Talking to me is not the hard part.
0:18:36It's all my picky demands behind the scenes that's the hard part. Is that it?
0:18:40I have no idea what you're talking about.
0:18:41Was that like how we spent like two hours this morning trying to find a tool to replace
0:18:45Google docs?
0:18:46You remember referring to that?
0:18:48This is the type of stuff that happens on my first day.
0:18:51I don't know what you're talking about.
0:18:52Of course you don't.
0:18:54Two hours of fruitless endeavor.
0:18:57Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by Smile and I get to talk to you today about
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0:20:53So we had some pretty good feedback on the Reddit from a user who goes by the name BlindBlondPhD
0:21:00about goals and I just wanted to read this because I thought it was really good and did
0:21:04a much better job.
0:21:06Then we did of summing up goals.
0:21:18Make a goal specific.
0:21:19I want to lose x amount of pounds is better than I want to lose weight because you have
0:21:23a clear idea of where you are and where you need to be to achieve your goal.
0:21:28Make the goal challenging yet attainable.
0:21:31This challenge should force yourself to actually change your behaviour or work hard to attain
0:21:35it and point three is the person must be committed to a goal. Goals dictated from your boss that
0:21:40you're committed to won't work. We also have evidence that just paying someone a raise
0:21:44isn't always the best method to motivate people either. I thought these were really good and
0:21:50like that last one really you know that goes against what I was saying about the corporate
0:21:53goals. It's like no one's committed to them so nobody bothers.
0:21:57Yeah, that's definitely the case. Yeah, goals dictated from your boss, whatever. I don't
0:22:03I don't care, I'm not committed to this.
0:22:06- And I like the idea of I wanna lose x amount of pounds
0:22:09as opposed to I wanna lose weight.
0:22:11That is a really good way of putting it
0:22:13'cause I need to work out what my goal is
0:22:15'cause right now I just know I wanna lose some weight.
0:22:17I haven't worked out exactly how much weight
0:22:19I do wanna lose.
0:22:20- That's hard to not have a specific goal.
0:22:24Are you keeping it on a spreadsheet at least, Myke?
0:22:26We talked about spreadsheets last time.
0:22:27You do have it on a spreadsheet, right?
0:22:28- Yeah.
0:22:29- Okay, all right, good.
0:22:30- Don't worry.
0:22:31- You're gonna put it on a public Twitter?
0:22:32help you do that if you want to put it on a public Twitter.
0:22:34- Absolutely not.
0:22:35- No, you don't want to do that?
0:22:36- I'm not interested in that.
0:22:37- Oh, okay.
0:22:38- The only way I do that is if one of those scales
0:22:41arrives at my home.
0:22:43- Oh yeah?
0:22:44- Yeah, I'm not buying one.
0:22:45- Oh, okay.
0:22:46- Yeah, I know what you're up to.
0:22:49- Where do you live, Myke?
0:22:50- Not telling you.
0:22:51(laughing)
0:22:53That was my safety net in saying that,
0:22:56is I'm pretty sure you don't have my address.
0:22:59Oh, and I need to provide an important piece of follow-up about this show.
0:23:05Oh, yeah? Okay.
0:23:06Yeah, from last week's episode. So, a couple of hours after we record, Adina arrives at
0:23:12home. And I'm not 100% sure how we got onto this topic, but she kind of mentioned in passing
0:23:22her contact information had been provided to you via Casey, our mutual friend Mr. Casey
0:23:30listed the Accidental Tech podcast. You took advantage of Casey to get Adina's contact
0:23:37information to talk to her about my diet.
0:23:39Paul I don't know what you're talking about.
0:23:41Matt Poor Casey.
0:23:42Paul I just guessed Adina's information.
0:23:44Matt Oh yeah?
0:23:45Paul Nobody else was involved or is going to be
0:23:47implicated.
0:23:48Matt Well it's too late.
0:23:49Paul I am sticking to my story.
0:23:51Yeah, I'm sure you are.
0:23:53I sent Adina a suggestion today. You know, she asked for suggestions for you. So I sent her one.
0:23:58Well, it was funny. We were talking about this last night. She's like, "He sent me one message,
0:24:02I sent him one back and he never replied." I'm like, "Yeah, that's great."
0:24:04It's just how he is. He just doesn't reply to messages. It's totally fine.
0:24:10I do reply to messages, just eventually.
0:24:13And sometimes we've completely different things as to what the message was about. Therefore, you didn't reply to it.
0:24:18I am looking at the dates on this iMessage conversation and it is two weeks until I reply.
0:24:24Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
0:24:26The replies, they never come.
0:24:28Listen, I don't think it's a secret at this point to anybody who listens to me on podcasts
0:24:32that they know, I am very difficult to get in touch with even under the best of circumstances,
0:24:37even if you have my iMessage information.
0:24:40Unless you're animating.
0:24:42That's true, unless I'm looking for distraction, desperately.
0:24:45I imagine, I can only imagine that you send messages to everyone until somebody replies.
0:24:50Like, "Please, someone, get me out of this!"
0:24:53Everybody look at this funny Buffalo stock footage!
0:24:58That's what I do.
0:24:59In between last episode and this episode, you set me a task to read a book called "The
0:25:06E-Myth Revisited."
0:25:07Mm-hmm.
0:25:08I asked you, "Why are we doing this now? Shouldn't we set homework for the listener?"
0:25:15And you told me specifically that we should not tell people to read this book.
0:25:20That was not exactly what I said, Myke.
0:25:23All right, let me find exactly what you said.
0:25:25Oh, no, don't pull up the iMessage conversation.
0:25:27Maybe I've put my own feelings on this.
0:25:30I think you have put your own spin on this.
0:25:33on this. I suggested that you read this book because the topic of doing the follow-up on
0:25:40year themes came up, and as listeners will see shortly, I think that the E-Myth revisited
0:25:48aligns with the theme of the Year of Less in the same way that one of the books I recommended
0:25:56on Audible for Cortex was Essentialism, which is a book that I read recently, which also
0:26:02aligns with the year of less. So I just thought the E-Myth would be something to have you
0:26:08read, to have us discuss on the next show.
0:26:12This show.
0:26:13This show.
0:26:15I just want to preface this whole conversation here by saying to the listener, don't feel
0:26:19like you have to pause and go and get this book and listen to it or read it. Actually,
0:26:26I would implore that you do not do that.
0:26:30Do not listen to this or read this.
0:26:33Just listen to this conversation.
0:26:35My hope is that I will give you, or we will give you, all of the value that you're gonna
0:26:40need from this book over the course of this discussion.
0:26:44Oh yeah?
0:26:46Why did you read this book?
0:26:48How did this book even come into your view in the first place?
0:26:52Okay, so let me tell you the story with this book.
0:26:56This falls into the category of
0:27:00books that I sometimes mention and recommend to people that I think of as
0:27:04business books. I don't just mean books that are
0:27:08for business people, but there is like a genre of
0:27:12books which are not as
0:27:16terrible as like a self-help book would be. Like, self-help books are just awful.
0:27:20Right?
0:27:21They are just totally useless.
0:27:23And in my mind, business books is a category of books that usually include people who have
0:27:28accomplished something writing some book with advice about how they have accomplished a
0:27:33thing.
0:27:34Yeah, I've read a bunch of these books as well.
0:27:36Yeah.
0:27:37But I don't mean to say that they are for businesses, necessarily.
0:27:40Sure.
0:27:41So this is just a category of book that I have always read to some degree in because
0:27:47I think, "Oh, I would like to do some kind of self-improvement, but there's nothing useful
0:27:54in the self-improvement section."
0:27:56So this is the more actionable part of that section of the bookstore.
0:28:01And so I do not know how I originally came across the Emeth Revisited, but at some stage
0:28:08I read it, and I remember I read it when I was a teacher, I think back a long time ago,
0:28:15when I was still teaching at my first school and I read it back then and I
0:28:21thought well this book is terrible and useless and I was not a fan of it.
0:28:29And a couple months ago I was talking with a fellow YouTube friend of mine and
0:28:39somehow the topic of the book came up. I was vaguely discussing ideas with this
0:28:44about the the year of less even though it wasn't under that exact title they
0:28:48were doing something that was sort of similar and this person mentioned the
0:28:53e-myth revisited as a book and suggested that I try rereading it I did reread it
0:29:00and it was interesting because right at the time that I read it when I was a
0:29:06teacher and I was trying to get something off the ground there was
0:29:08nothing of value to be derived from that book for me.
0:29:14But fast forward 8-10 years, when I'm actually a person who is now running my own very small
0:29:22business with just myself as the one person who works for it, this book now does have
0:29:28something of value to say to someone in my exact position.
0:29:33So it is the rereading of this book I thought, huh, oh, okay, I am now in the position where
0:29:39there is value to be derived from this book.
0:29:44I agree mostly but not completely.
0:29:47I believe this book is terrible but I don't think it's useless and I think that it is
0:29:53possible to derive value from this if you're just in the position of having a side thing
0:29:59that you like, you're fully employed.
0:30:01I think this could help someone think about things to take their side business to a full
0:30:07business.
0:30:08I think it's possible to do that.
0:30:10There are many problems with this book that we will get into, but I can easily see how
0:30:16you did in your position, like completely miss what he was trying to get at.
0:30:21But I do think that there is some value in it, but I think the book could be a tenth
0:30:26of the size and you'd get the exact same value out of it.
0:30:31This is a fundamental property of all business books. They are too long.
0:30:37This is easily one of the worst for this that I've ever read though. It really, really is.
0:30:44Usually these books do tend to be too long and they're peppered with a bunch of crap
0:30:49and a bunch of just going over the same thing multiple times. And I think maybe some people
0:30:55find value in that because it helps drive home the point, but on the whole I think that
0:30:58that's kind of wasted. But I think this book suffers from that in brand new heights that
0:31:04I had not yet come into contact with. So let's talk about it, right? Let's talk about what
0:31:09this book is. One of the first things you need to know is that the E in EMISS stands
0:31:13for entrepreneurial. I thought it meant like online.
0:31:17Right. But this is actually quite an old book.
0:31:21So yeah, this was like written in the 90s because at one point during the towards the
0:31:24end, he talks about the coming change of the millennium. I was like, Oh, no.
0:31:30book.
0:31:32He's like the coming millennium. I like Oh, this explains a lot about you because there's
0:31:38very little
0:31:41anything in this book that is close to the internet. Like you kind of get this feeling
0:31:45for out that like, this guy just hates the internet. But no, it's because the internet
0:31:49doesn't really exist yet in the way that we know it to be now.
0:31:53Yeah, he's not avoiding the elephant in the room.
0:31:55And he talks about IBM, constantly talks about IBM.
0:31:59And it's like, why do you love IBM so much?
0:32:01It's like, oh, because it's the late 90s.
0:32:04Right.
0:32:04IBM, which feels like a brontosaurus lumbering across the plains when you talk about it now.
0:32:11There was one thing that I had to do while I was halfway through this book,
0:32:14and I was really excited, and it didn't give me what I wanted,
0:32:17which is to check to see if this guy's business was still in business.
0:32:20It is. So he has a company called E-Myth Worldwide, right?
0:32:25And they're basically a management consultancy and business consultancy firm.
0:32:30And this book is intended to sum up a lot of what they do
0:32:35and what they help people do, which is to help people turn around their small businesses when they're in trouble.
0:32:41Yeah, so that's kind of the fundamental if we're talking for a moment about the content of the book. Yeah
0:32:47The sales pitch of it might be that it is for someone who is running a small business
0:32:54feels
0:32:56ridiculously overwhelmed and
0:32:58Overburdened by the business and is having a difficult time figuring out what exactly the problem is
0:33:04Like I think that might be the sales pitch for it and that might also be why someone can now see like, oh, okay
0:33:11I was in a position to derive some value from this book later in a way that I was not in a position to drive value from it
0:33:18Before I even had a business to be running at all. Like I was just doing experiments
0:33:22So I have lots of notes and I was taking these notes as I was listening to the book
0:33:27I got the audiobook which is lovingly narrated by Mr. Michael Gerber the author.
0:33:32I think that was a mistake. Oh, it was a horrible mistake
0:33:37So you told me at some point I recommended that you you read this
0:33:41I know Myke that you do not read books. I do not only listen to audiobooks. It's perfectly fine
0:33:48yeah, and so I said, okay, you might as well just listen to this audiobook and
0:33:52There are many cases with audiobooks where I think many nonfiction books
0:33:56Benefit from being audiobooks because they they help get you through
0:34:00Boring sections like you can just kind of plow on in a way that's a little bit more difficult when you are
0:34:05physically reading a book? Yeah, I don't think I would have finished this if I was reading it. Right.
0:34:09And that might normally be the case.
0:34:11But when I discovered that you listened to the audiobook and it was read by the author, I thought,
0:34:18"Oh no, that sounds like a terrible idea because
0:34:24the author is
0:34:27a slightly crazy person." Maybe in some ways. I have never listened to it,
0:34:30but I predicted that this was not going to be a good thing to have the author read this audiobook.
0:34:35you need to hear this.
0:34:37So like I'll put a link in our show notes
0:34:40to the Audible page, which I believe has a sample on it.
0:34:45You just need to hear him, how he talks.
0:34:48And I think it will help.
0:34:50And why don't you do that now?
0:34:52- Okay, let me actually hear what this sounds like.
0:34:55- I want you to hear what this guy sounds like.
0:34:58- I got it, I'm listening now.
0:35:00- Risking capital to make a profit.
0:35:03This is simply not so.
0:35:05The real reasons people start businesses have little to do with entrepreneurship.
0:35:11In fact, this belief in the entrepreneurial myth is the most important factor in the devastating
0:35:18rate of small business failure today.
0:35:20Okay, just listen to a little section of it.
0:35:24This is a little bit like the actor who plays Vizzini in The Princess Bride, the Sicilian.
0:35:31His name is Wallace Shawn.
0:35:33Yeah.
0:35:34It's like if Wallace Shawn was doing a really professional reading of something, like he
0:35:41could tone down the way he sounds, but I imagine this would be quite difficult to listen to
0:35:49for however many hours it is.
0:35:51Eight.
0:35:52Eight.
0:35:53Eight long hours for you, huh Myke?
0:35:55It was long.
0:35:56So let me go chronologically through some of the things that stuck out to me in this
0:36:02book.
0:36:03things that Mr Gerber talks about is small business owners and how when
0:36:10people start their own businesses they work way more than they should be
0:36:15working and but the problem is that they are doing the wrong type of work for
0:36:20them for them which I thought was really interesting because I can definitely
0:36:24associate with that and I think you can as well and I think that's some one of
0:36:28the things that's driven us both to consider doing less is that we find that
0:36:32that sometimes we're doing the work
0:36:34that we not necessarily should be.
0:36:36And this goes into this whole thing,
0:36:41this whole like, one of the things
0:36:42that underpins this entire book
0:36:44is that people are one of three types of person
0:36:48and you're either an entrepreneur, a manager,
0:36:51or a technician.
0:36:52And that it's possible to move between them
0:36:55but you need to think about things in different ways
0:36:57and have different types of skills.
0:36:58And one of the things that he talks about
0:37:00which I think is really interesting
0:37:01is that when people leave their jobs to start businesses,
0:37:05they're usually in the technician phase
0:37:08or in the technician mindset,
0:37:09as in they are the person doing the work
0:37:12and they can do the work and they do the work well,
0:37:14but they don't see why they should be doing that work
0:37:17for someone else.
0:37:18They should be doing that work for themselves.
0:37:20So they go off and start their businesses,
0:37:22but they don't get out of the technician mindset
0:37:24and all they keep doing is just the work always
0:37:28and then get bogged down in all of the other things
0:37:31that it takes to run a business and then it can get a bit overwhelming.
0:37:34That is by far and away the key value in this book.
0:37:40Yeah. The, unfortunately it comes really soon.
0:37:42Like you can listen like to the first hour and you've got all you need.
0:37:46And I didn't know this when I was listening to it.
0:37:49I'm looking at, I'm looking at my, uh,
0:37:52my notes from the book and I can see his breakdown of the manager and the
0:37:56technician and the entrepreneur, at least in my ebook reading of it,
0:38:01is on page 24 of 204.
0:38:04- Yeah, and that's it.
0:38:05Like, he goes into a lot of detail,
0:38:09and there's a whole massive section later,
0:38:10which is completely pointless in my opinion.
0:38:12But this is the key thing that comes out of this book
0:38:15that I think is really interesting,
0:38:17and the idea of breaking out of the technician,
0:38:19becoming the manager, and being the entrepreneur,
0:38:21and like having to think about all of those things,
0:38:23and you must be all of them
0:38:25at certain times of your business.
0:38:26And that is a really interesting thing.
0:38:28And the idea of most people leaving their jobs
0:38:32just being technicians and not transitioning
0:38:34is something that so many people have to deal with.
0:38:37And usually, like what happened for me is
0:38:39it just all fell on me and I came to realize
0:38:42a lot of this stuff.
0:38:44But it was kind of overwhelming to begin with.
0:38:46It's like, oh, you have to do it all now.
0:38:49And that was a big thing, a big turning point for me
0:38:52and something that I'm slowly trying to transition out of.
0:38:55But still, like my transition's a long way away
0:38:58And this book has helped me think about some of that stuff.
0:39:00And there is a little bit more of that to come.
0:39:02- Just wanna really hammer home this point,
0:39:06because it is really one of the only points.
0:39:08(laughing)
0:39:10But what I found, you know, is quite striking,
0:39:13is he's trying to talk about what kinds of people
0:39:17end up going into business for themselves.
0:39:20And it is very likely that, you know,
0:39:23if you are listening to this podcast
0:39:25and you have started your own business,
0:39:27or you are currently working on side projects,
0:39:30that you are someone who is very competent,
0:39:34and you're very competent probably
0:39:36at whatever it is you're doing at work.
0:39:39And this is the idea, like you are the technician.
0:39:41You are the person at work who is getting things done, right?
0:39:45Or you have some skill on the side
0:39:48that you are attempting to leverage
0:39:50that you are very good at.
0:39:52And this is the idea of the technician.
0:39:55you are technically able at your skill.
0:39:59This is why your boss employs you,
0:40:01or it is why you think about doing something on the side
0:40:05that involves this skill.
0:40:07And that from the perspective of the technician,
0:40:11your boss or your manager,
0:40:13they're people who just kind of get in the way
0:40:16of whatever it is that you're trying to do.
0:40:19And that's the feeling that you have.
0:40:21And so the thing that really struck home with me about this is thinking again when I was teaching
0:40:28is this feeling of there were many lessons that I could do with the kids that I thought were really great lessons
0:40:35that got them involved and got them interested
0:40:37but then this feeling of "Oh, the whole structure of the school requires that the students write things down at regular intervals
0:40:47and if we don't have something in their notes then this lesson didn't happen"
0:40:50And so this is that frustration of like, I can put together a good interesting lesson,
0:40:55but the bosses and the structure above are the thing that are frustrating me and limiting me.
0:41:00So it's like, boy, I would love to work for myself.
0:41:05And this idea that because you are skilled at something,
0:41:10you will very naturally end up creating a business around your skill,
0:41:16whatever it is that you are able to do.
0:41:19And the problem is, however, that this role, this person that you can be, the technician,
0:41:27the person who is good at making something, is not the same skill as someone who is running a business for someone who is self-employed.
0:41:38You have created a job for yourself around your skill,
0:41:44But if you just continue to do that all the time, you're going to run into problems.
0:41:51And I've discussed this with some other people and this is in the theme of the year of less is this realization,
0:41:59like what we were talking about in the beginning, of like, "Boy, I sure could create another YouTube channel."
0:42:06Like, I would know how to make a YouTube channel that would be interesting and that people would want to watch.
0:42:10Like I could make YouTube channels on various topics, but if I keep acting in this role of technician
0:42:17I'm just going to end up causing for myself more and more problems because I'm just going to
0:42:22run out of ability to do stuff or
0:42:25Just not understand like what is the direction that the business should take?
0:42:30So that like that to me is the real interesting key like the technician is the one who gets things
0:42:36started who is able to create something of value that other people want but that if you
0:42:42keep operating in only this
0:42:46mindset you're going to eventually
0:42:49Drive yourself into a bunch of problems. This is a really good thing to think about
0:42:55And the whole idea of just having to consider
0:43:01That you've got you're gonna have a lot of new things to do and it's not just the work anymore
0:43:07And it's it's really this is why I think it's useful for people that have a side business to learn this before
0:43:13Because then they know before they do it that you're gonna have to consider all of these different things
0:43:18Yeah, there's going to be much more that you that you have to do that. You're not necessarily
0:43:23expecting yeah
0:43:25I think that was just, that's just a really great point.
0:43:29And it's something that I had vaguely thought about. Like if you go back and listen to earlier Cortex shows,
0:43:34like I do talk about this idea of thinking about myself as like the CEO of Gray Incorporated
0:43:42and as an employee of Gray Incorporated, right?
0:43:45And there are different ways that you have to think.
0:43:49And I think even when we were discussing first doing this podcast, you know,
0:43:53I think I explicitly told you at a couple of points like, okay,
0:43:56I'm thinking of this not in terms of like, boy,
0:43:58is this a thing that I can do?
0:44:00I'm trying to think of this in terms of if I was the CEO of a company,
0:44:05is this something I would say, yes,
0:44:07one of my employees should do like this podcast called cortex.
0:44:10Yeah. And we, we have a good relationship like that. Um,
0:44:14and I don't know if you have this of other people,
0:44:16but there are times where we would, you know, you would say,
0:44:20or I would say like, we're talking about this strictly as business now. Yeah.
0:44:23and we have a conversation, which is without the friendship,
0:44:27it's like this is purely a business conversation,
0:44:29CEO to CEO kind of stuff.
0:44:31- Yeah, we've done that many times, and it's very helpful.
0:44:33- Yeah, so we just put the friendship at the door,
0:44:35we need to talk about business for a moment,
0:44:37and then we can pick it up later.
0:44:38I like that thinking, and there's a part way later
0:44:42in the book which was quite useful to me,
0:44:44is thinking about having an organizational chart
0:44:46in your business.
0:44:47- Yes, that is the second valuable idea in this book,
0:44:51the end.
0:44:52- Exactly, and this is something that I'm thinking a bit
0:44:54about and wondering like, how would we do this at Relay FM
0:44:58and we probably should do this.
0:45:00And I brought this up to Steven and he's now gonna hear
0:45:02the idea because I've not explained it to him yet.
0:45:05Basically what Gerber does is he explains this,
0:45:09like he creates this business called Widget Inc.
0:45:13And there's these two people
0:45:14and they run the business together.
0:45:16And at one point they sit down and they map out
0:45:20in an ideal world, what are all of the jobs
0:45:22that need to occur in this business?
0:45:24Like COO, president, vice president of marketing,
0:45:27marketing person, vice president of sales, sales person.
0:45:31And then between those two people,
0:45:33they're the only two people in the business,
0:45:35they divide up every single job
0:45:37and sign contracts for those jobs.
0:45:40So one person is like the COO,
0:45:43the vice president of production,
0:45:45and the production person.
0:45:46The other is like the vice president of marketing,
0:45:49the marketing person, the vice president of sales,
0:45:51and the salesperson.
0:45:53And they talk together and they work out
0:45:55who the best person is for each job.
0:45:56They take all of those roles and he said,
0:45:59"What it allows you to do is to think in the business,
0:46:02"you are doing the stuff, and think on the business."
0:46:05So you are the salesperson and the salesperson's boss.
0:46:09And thinking about those two roles for yourself
0:46:12helps you do the work and advance your business
0:46:15at the same time, and then later,
0:46:17you can become the vice president of sales
0:46:19is you hire a salesperson and they take your old job.
0:46:22And I thought that way of thinking about it
0:46:24is really smart because me and Steven were talking about
0:46:27what we want our goals to be for our business this year.
0:46:30And we actually had this conversation after last week,
0:46:32we were both in the mindset of it.
0:46:34And one of the things that we were talking about
0:46:38and then one of the things that I know
0:46:40is I want us to have some help this year,
0:46:43but we don't really know what that is yet.
0:46:45And I was thinking, this is gonna be a great way
0:46:47for us to work out what is the help we need
0:46:50and what are the roles that person should fill.
0:46:53- Yeah, that's exactly what this is.
0:46:55This idea, and it's something I've tried
0:46:59to some extent to do it myself.
0:47:00I think it's a little harder
0:47:01when you're just a single person.
0:47:04- 'Cause you're every single job.
0:47:05- Yeah, because you're every single job
0:47:07and so it's less differentiated.
0:47:08Whereas I think if you have two,
0:47:09it's a lot easier to say, oh, okay, yes,
0:47:11obviously you do this and I do this.
0:47:13But it is really useful to try and think about the company as it exists without you, even
0:47:23if you are an integral part of it.
0:47:26And so I'm actually looking at the chart that he has right now.
0:47:29And so yes, he has divided up between even going so far as like the shareholders.
0:47:35You are the shareholders and then design the company as though your only role was as a
0:47:44shareholder.
0:47:45If you couldn't do any of the things that the company does, what are all of the roles
0:47:50that need to be filled?
0:47:52And so that's a thing that you and Steven could do because you are shareholders of Relay,
0:47:56you could think, "Oh, okay.
0:47:58Let's say we couldn't be involved directly."
0:48:01It's okay.
0:48:02Well, we would need hosts.
0:48:04we would need someone who manages the hosts, and so then there's a vice president of talent
0:48:10management, something along those lines.
0:48:11I like the sound of that.
0:48:12I'm gonna take that job.
0:48:15We would also have the vice president of dealing with Grey.
0:48:18Right.
0:48:19A whole division.
0:48:20There's a grey vertical on this chart, which is just for managing me.
0:48:26Grey's handler.
0:48:27Grey's pillow fluffer.
0:48:29Yeah, I like this.
0:48:30This is perfect.
0:48:32Myke fills all these roles right now.
0:48:34Yeah, but obviously we can have more people fluffing my pillows at a later date.
0:48:38But yeah, so I think this, this is helpful if you are a single person.
0:48:43I can imagine that in a company where it's the two of you,
0:48:47that this seems like something that would be vital.
0:48:51It's a vital tool to help think about the organization of the business.
0:48:55And it's a vital tool to delineate clearly, okay,
0:49:00who is in charge of what?
0:49:02Instead of, okay, one of us just picks up at work when it's available,
0:49:06like really have it written down and laser clear
0:49:09who you are as though the company was a much bigger thing than it really is.
0:49:14Yeah, so I really like that thinking.
0:49:16That was another very useful thing that came out of the book for me,
0:49:19and something I'm going to think a little bit more about
0:49:21and look at how we could maybe implement something like that.
0:49:24That is the second valuable idea in the book,
0:49:28Which comes from me on page 126, so there's a hundred page gap between the two ideas.
0:49:35And then...
0:49:36Let's talk about some of the things that happen in those 100 pages, shall we?
0:49:40Yeah, I was gonna say that.
0:49:41And then there are almost no notes from me after page 126, there's another hundred something
0:49:47pages, and I have two highlights from that whole section.
0:49:51The book opens with statistics about how many businesses fail in America.
0:49:59That is the opening of this book.
0:50:00And to paraphrase after this section is done, it's basically Gerber saying, "There are
0:50:06so many books out there to help you run a small business, so why do people fail?
0:50:09Well this one's going to be the one that makes sure you succeed."
0:50:13That's effectively how he starts, which is, this is how many many business books are,
0:50:17right?
0:50:18- Of course, of course. - You're gonna fail
0:50:20unless you read this.
0:50:21You're so lucky you bought this book,
0:50:23now you're gonna be okay.
0:50:24And then Gerber introduces a term
0:50:27that he uses a lot in this book that I hate.
0:50:31I hate this term.
0:50:32And basically this term is to describe
0:50:36what happens when a technician, a person doing the work,
0:50:39decides they want to leave their job
0:50:41and they make the snap judgment and decision
0:50:44to leave their job and start their own thing.
0:50:46He calls it an entrepreneurial seizure.
0:50:49- Oh wow, that is bad.
0:50:52- I hate this term.
0:50:54Have you forgotten this?
0:50:55- Well, here's the thing, Myke.
0:50:58You have listened to this book very recently.
0:51:00- In the last couple of days.
0:51:01- Right, for me, this book,
0:51:04I have much warmer feelings toward it
0:51:06because it's like, oh yeah,
0:51:07I remember there were things that I don't like.
0:51:09I have a couple of points that I want to make
0:51:10about things that I didn't like.
0:51:12But I don't know, my feeling always
0:51:15with these kinds of books is I want to extract whatever value is from them and I just assume
0:51:23that there's a huge amount of nonsense and ridiculousness.
0:51:27This one happens to be very, very high on the spectrum of things that are crazy and
0:51:34nonsensical but the harshness of it has faded in my mind.
0:51:41I guess, can I tell you the one thing that I really remember from this book as the part
0:51:45that is just what I think of as business book sins.
0:51:49And listeners, in case you don't read these kind of books,
0:51:52I just want to be clear, the thing that I'm about to describe
0:51:55is a thing that I have read many authors do,
0:51:58but this book is just the peak example of it.
0:52:02And it falls into two parts, which is
0:52:05the whole structure of the book
0:52:08is the author talking to an imaginary person.
0:52:13who doesn't exist. I don't care. This person, Sarah, who owns a pie shop.
0:52:19I think it's Sarah. I couldn't quite remember, but I thought it was Sarah. I do remember
0:52:22that she owns a pie shop. I will never believe that Sarah, it was a
0:52:28real person. Well, it's an amalgamation of people. It's
0:52:31a theoretical example. Whatever it is, it is a book structured as a conversation to
0:52:37to an imaginary person who acts as a sounding board for the author
0:52:41and a way for the author to have examples of how to solve particular kinds of problems.
0:52:47Now this device can be used well,
0:52:51but it strikes me as often a device that is used by people who are not the strongest of writers.
0:53:00Yeah.
0:53:00And so it's a crutch.
0:53:03And it also then makes the imaginary person, like it's a I don't think authors who do this can resist it makes
0:53:11the
0:53:12the imaginary person this I
0:53:14Don't know how to put like
0:53:18Amazingly impressed person right who is just wowed by the author which then becomes a situation like wait
0:53:26You're just you're just writing a character
0:53:29Who thinks you're the greatest thing in the world and of course all of her problems are?
0:53:36perfectly solved by your solutions. Yeah, because you have created this character
0:53:43to to be this way. They feel like they can't they're not a real person. No. And
0:53:49the little bugbear that always gets me about this is
0:53:52the imaginary characters will almost always just
0:53:57Excessively use the author's name like they will just constantly
0:54:01Say Oh
0:54:04Michael what do you think Michael? What do you think at the end of this book?
0:54:07The epilogue is a letter to Sarah where it is. I've never heard anything so insane. It's like
0:54:15He's talking about
0:54:17the year
0:54:192000 being a moment where the world is gonna be shocked by intense lightning and
0:54:27People have got to get out of the way or they're gonna be burnt to a crisp. I'm not even kidding
0:54:31This is what I don't know what I don't know what happens to him at the end of this book, but in this letter
0:54:37Every sentence he says Sarah
0:54:40Every single is like and you know what Sarah this is gonna happen and Sarah
0:54:47Let me tell you about this and Sarah and Sarah it just constantly over and over again
0:54:53What are you doing? Nobody does this?
0:54:56I just jumped to it. I've got the e-book open here. It starts with, "Dear Sarah,
0:55:02it has been said that there are no accidents in the universe, so I might
0:55:06consider it to be providential that on this very day that I'm writing this
0:55:10letter to you, I have just finished reading for the third time
0:55:14Rollo May's remarkable book, Man's Search for Himself." Just skimming through this,
0:55:18every paragraph starts out with Sarah. And I have to just say again,
0:55:24And this is, it's not that this letter is bad, but it just forces you to recognize the
0:55:31craziness of this author is now writing a letter to an imaginary character that doesn't
0:55:37exist.
0:55:38Oh, I hear he's talking about the 20th century.
0:55:42That dear Sarah is where I believe, blah, blah, blah.
0:55:45Love, drama, experience, spirit.
0:55:49Your path has always been there for you, Sarah.
0:55:52You simply got lost.
0:55:54didn't trust it. And you need to be assured, as any little girl would, that
0:55:59your parents wouldn't leave you and that your teachers would love you. You became
0:56:03disconnected from yourself, but fortunately not forever. Because this
0:56:07path you're now on, this entrepreneurial path, winds around corners that will
0:56:12amaze you at times and even shock you at others. It's like, but this person isn't
0:56:16real! Like this person who is afraid that their teachers wouldn't love them.
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0:58:26If we had such a yearning for values in 1953 when May's book was first published and we
0:58:30have such a yearning for values today, what happened to us in the interim? The Cold War?
0:58:34A trip to the moon? Korea? The Vietnam War? Cambodia? The sexual revolution? The civil
0:58:39rights explosion, the psychological revolution, the new age manifesto, and the coming millennium?
0:58:44One hell of a lot I would say.
0:58:46We're looking like this person isn't real.
0:58:50Who are you talking to?
0:58:53And you just find the little part about being burnt by an intense bolt of lightning.
0:58:57I think that we, playing our endgame at the bottom of the 20th century, are going to need
0:59:02one hell of a lot more than anything our trainers have in store for us.
0:59:06I think we need a shock, a self-administered shock, so jolting, so outrageous, so unsympathetic
0:59:12to our little wants that we'll either be blown off the planet we've each shaped for ourselves
0:59:18our own little spaces when we least expect it, or we will be burnt to a crisp right there
0:59:23on the spot, never to be heard from again.
0:59:26It doesn't make any sense!
0:59:28It's like Scientology or something.
0:59:30It's like, what are you talking about, man?
0:59:32Our own little planets, okay?
0:59:34He just went mad at the end. Like I don't know what because like one before he talks about that he's saying about how
0:59:40We're too obsessed with training and management consultancy, which is exactly what this book is
0:59:46Like I don't which is the business that he's selling very it's all very very peculiar
0:59:50The the insanity thing though for me peeks at what I remember as the second major sin
0:59:55So the first sin is just the whole premise of the book is written to an imaginary character many books do this
1:00:00Another thing that many books do
1:00:03but that I like that is combined with the first sin here is that there is a
1:00:09long chapter
1:00:11where the author tells a story of a Jesus-like figure.
1:00:16Oh dear Lord.
1:00:18What the hell was this?
1:00:22He tells the story about like a guy
1:00:25finding his way in life and he's like a carpenter and he's a simple man and he travels.
1:00:30woman and he travels to the world and he comes back and he has children and he finds another
1:00:35woman and he becomes a carpenter seriously becomes a carpenter and he has a dog and he's
1:00:41a poet and he's a jazz musician this is all true this is all stuff he's talking about
1:00:46and then he goes to silicon valley and he becomes a salesman he doesn't understand computers
1:00:53but he can sell to anyone because he used to sell encyclopedias and one time he got
1:00:58attacked by a dog but he made the sale with the torn up contract it is so long
1:01:03and so unbelievable and a a literal Jesus story like it is so clear that
1:01:10this is the comparison of like Jesus finding his way in the world is the
1:01:15story that he tells and then the author who's telling this story to Sarah the
1:01:20imaginary character wraps it up by revealing what is no surprise to anybody
1:01:25who's been reading this chapter that this is a story that the author is telling about himself and his own life and like how he
1:01:31Came to be in the position where he's writing this book
1:01:33And then it goes off into a little piece of music for the next chapter in the audiobook
1:01:38Yeah, it's like let me just get this straight. You are one
1:01:42Comparing yourself to Jesus to two an imaginary person who loves everything that you do
1:01:48It's like okay tick tick. I have read
1:01:52I mean, this is not the first time I have read in a business book a section where someone tells a Jesus parable about themselves
1:01:59That's not unusual for this this genre of book
1:02:03But to combine it with the flaw of telling it to an imaginary character just raises it to an exponential of crazy
1:02:09It's almost breathtaking and beautiful in its its insanity
1:02:13I have a couple of good points that I want to make before going back
1:02:18One of them is any plan is better than no plan.
1:02:23I quite like that.
1:02:24He talks about that.
1:02:26You should just have a plan.
1:02:28Even if it's not necessarily the right one, make one,
1:02:30and then you can make more later.
1:02:32I quite like that.
1:02:33And the idea of nobody cares about your business
1:02:37the way that you do, and nobody will put the time in
1:02:39like you do, you need to accept that,
1:02:41then build systems which mean that it's okay,
1:02:43'cause otherwise you'll hire people
1:02:45and you'll just do their work as well.
1:02:47Yeah, yeah, that is also an excellent point, that you will care more than anybody else.
1:02:53You have to build that into the system.
1:02:57Like, that has to be part of it.
1:02:59And that brings me to, I guess really, a third point that is valuable in this book.
1:03:05It comes about because he's wandering, you know, Jesus-like through the mountains or
1:03:09something, but the hotel that he comes across—
1:03:11Oh!
1:03:12No!
1:03:13This hotel!
1:03:16I've tried to find this hotel and I think I may have found it, but it doesn't look like the way he describes it.
1:03:22Let's put aside
1:03:24the reality of this hotel. Let's just ignore that for a second.
1:03:28But he describes this just like amazing magical hotel that exists in the woods where the service is perfect and blah blah blah.
1:03:36Like that's not the relevant thing.
1:03:39What his takeaway here is to talk about, look,
1:03:45Since you will care about your business more than anybody else you have to assume that anybody who's working for you will not care
1:03:51As much as you do like how do you solve this problem if you're running something like a hotel?
1:03:55What are you gonna do and the answer is?
1:03:58That you have to rigorously
1:04:01systematize
1:04:03everything checklists and checklists and checklists checklists for checklists for checklists and
1:04:09It sounds obvious and like even even for me as someone who just loves checklists and use checklists all the time this notion of
1:04:16You need to think of the business in terms of this
1:04:21Everything that is part of the business should be able to be represented by a checklist of some kind
1:04:28And so he goes through an example about how?
1:04:30He's talking about like the cleaners have
1:04:34Not just instructions like oh you need to clean the room like here is the order that the room should be cleaned in every time
1:04:41Here are all of the actions that should be cleaned out and you should tick tick tick this box, right?
1:04:45And so this is this notion of okay
1:04:47This is how you go through it
1:04:48And then the manager has their own routine about like collecting in the checklists and going through that and make and you know doing random
1:04:54checks and all this other kind of stuff, but I
1:04:57really I really like that as the idea of
1:05:02The business like this is how you define the DNA of what the business is
1:05:07Mm-hmm, and like this is a thing that is separate from the actual implementation, but you as the business owner
1:05:14This is the part that you can work on you can work on the checklists, but you shouldn't be
1:05:22Carrying out the work if you can get someone else to follow the checklist like that like that is the fundamental idea
1:05:31of a business that can be big. Again really smart stuff and again like I can
1:05:36think about making checklists for just some of the real basic stuff that I do
1:05:39so if I wasn't around for whatever reason somebody could pick it up and
1:05:43creating these systems and plans but I need to talk about the hotel story a
1:05:48little bit because people need to understand why I was just freaking out.
1:05:51Okay. Tells this story about this hotel that he finds in the middle of the night
1:05:55on a drive and he's basically found an oasis and he talks about like he goes to the room and he gets
1:06:03changed and the room is so perfect and they've given him a room without a reservation and they're
1:06:08really nice to him he talks about going to dinner and he arrives and they've made a reservation for
1:06:14him but there's a line at the door but he doesn't need to worry because he has a reservation and
1:06:18this place must be special he takes some time to listen to some jazz guitar with a brandy in his
1:06:23hand goes back to his room thinking about wanting to light the fire that he
1:06:27knew that had been there he arrives at his room the fire has been lit already
1:06:30they must have known which seems unlikely yeah and he thought to himself
1:06:35I would love to have a brandy maybe I'll pour one but when I arrive at the room
1:06:39there's already a brandy waiting for me we have a card and it says your favorite
1:06:45brandy love Kate how did they know my brand of brandy
1:06:51I forgot all of this.
1:06:52I remember they asked me at the restaurant what brandy I liked, so it's there for me.
1:06:58And they put a mint on each pillow, and I wake up in the morning and I hear a bubbling
1:07:03sound.
1:07:04And I go into the bathroom and there's coffee that's already bubbling for me on a timer.
1:07:09And there's another card that says, "Your brand of coffee, K." How did they know my
1:07:15brand of coffee?
1:07:16Oh, yes, they asked me in the restaurant.
1:07:19I didn't even notice.
1:07:20And then there's a knock on the door. I open the door. Nobody's there. But my newspaper,
1:07:26the New York Times, is sitting on the mat. How did they know? Oh yes, they asked me when
1:07:32I checked in. What's my favourite newspaper? And this all goes in their content management
1:07:37system and it's so perfect. And you know what? This has happened to me every single time
1:07:42I've been back. No it didn't! Shut up! Like, ahh. This is the main problem with this book.
1:07:50Gerber takes a thousand words to explain ten words. I am sure he had a word count
1:08:00because there are times when he lists things in this insane way. Like I'm
1:08:08trying to think of an example but like he will say something over and over
1:08:13again like the key to your business is time, the key to your business is effort,
1:08:18The key to your business is people.
1:08:20The key to... and he'll do this and he just keeps doing it.
1:08:23And this happens multiple times in the book and I don't know why he does it.
1:08:27And again, I reckon this is way easier in the written because you can just gloss over it.
1:08:31But I have to sit and listen to him say it all.
1:08:33Right, that's why I think the audiobook, especially narrated by him, was a terrible mistake.
1:08:38So bad.
1:08:39Because... these are the kinds of books that I don't even normally listen to as audiobooks
1:08:46precisely because I'm expecting a large amount of skimming.
1:08:48And so when I read business books,
1:08:52it is almost always read as an actual book on my iPad.
1:08:57I do not listen to it as an audio book.
1:09:00Like I will listen to audio non-fiction books
1:09:02that are books about a topic and it's very helpful then,
1:09:06but yeah, it seems the reverse of helpful
1:09:08when you have to listen to him go through point by point
1:09:12every one of his lists and you can't just go like,
1:09:14I'm gonna skip this.
1:09:15I'm gonna skim, skim, skim, let me find when you change topic again, buddy.
1:09:19Can't do it.
1:09:20Yeah.
1:09:21I want to talk about one other little thing here, called the turnkey revolution.
1:09:27Oh, this is where he talks about franchises?
1:09:31This is such a massive portion of the book, and a lot of it doesn't really apply to me
1:09:35and you.
1:09:36Yeah, I think that's why my memory of this is very dim.
1:09:39It's like, "Oh, right, I remember he talks about franchises."
1:09:43And it is a really interesting way to think of it, because you're saying that even if
1:09:45you don't want to franchise your business, you can follow this model and create procedures
1:09:50and manuals that people can follow.
1:09:52But I think it's difficult for people like me and you, where I hate to say this, but
1:09:57entertainment led, because not anyone can do all of it.
1:10:03You can't create a guide for somebody to make a YouTube video or to make a podcast, because
1:10:08There's stuff that needs to go in that you can't just teach someone if they don't know
1:10:13it.
1:10:14Like you've spoken about this in the past.
1:10:16You've got to have this little thing about you which allows you to create the entertainment.
1:10:22Yeah, and all of the things that we do I broadly think of as entertainment.
1:10:29I make educational YouTube videos, but ultimately they're popular because they are entertaining.
1:10:36like them and people listen to the podcast like I hope people get something out of the
1:10:41podcast but people listen because they are entertaining and there is there is not a checklist
1:10:46that you can give to someone to replace someone who is in the entertainment business I do
1:10:52think that that is a bit of an exception.
1:10:54You would have done it already.
1:10:55Yeah honest to god if I could just own a company that paid a dude who could just be me like
1:11:02this would be great yeah get all the money and none of the work.
1:11:06That's what you would do. So he came up with this term and he says like he created a term
1:11:11for this called the turnkey revolution, which is the impact of franchise businesses on American
1:11:17business. So he introduces the turnkey revolution as an idea. And then he starts talking about
1:11:25the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the world. He talks about the information
1:11:30age and the impact of the internet and what that's having on the world. And then he says
1:11:35But if you ask people about the turnkey revolution, you'll be met with a blank face.
1:11:41Well of course, because you created it! Nobody knows this exists! You've made the term up!
1:11:47Like, he's like "Why does nobody know about this?"
1:11:52*moans*
1:11:53GURVA you drive me mad.
1:11:57See what you've done to me?
1:12:01The last week of my life has been spent screaming at my phone.
1:12:07I have specifically not really wanted to talk to you about this between the time I recommended
1:12:12that you listen to this book and now, but I have gotten some iMessages that felt like
1:12:17they were verging on a little testy.
1:12:20Like I could tell Myke was a bit grumpy.
1:12:22There were points where I think I had said to you, "Why have you done this to me?"
1:12:27you not derive some value from the book? I have, but my whole, I have a whole section at the end of
1:12:35my notes which is basically why didn't you just tell me this stuff? Why did you make me listen
1:12:41to this book? You could have just told me all of this stuff like we've just told our audience here.
1:12:46Why did you make me listen to this book, right? Well, I mean first of all we need to talk about it.
1:12:53But you could have just told me.
1:12:55But we can't just- the conversation is different if you haven't actually read the book.
1:13:01Do you remember at one point in this book,
1:13:02where he says as a way to try and position your business as what you want to achieve in your life,
1:13:10and he says the way you should imagine this
1:13:12is he describes a church, then describes a coffin,
1:13:16then describes you in the coffin and somebody giving your eulogy and what you want that to sound like.
1:13:22Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar.
1:13:24Yeah.
1:13:24What about, what's your point? What about that?
1:13:27Nothing. We can just, you know, we gloss over that.
1:13:31There is really some good stuff in this book.
1:13:33There's two things, but unfortunately it is full of so much stuff.
1:13:40Maybe now, listener, you will want to hear this so you can share in the pain.
1:13:46That's the only reason you should listen to this.
1:13:48Like, if you're looking for more, we've given you everything you're going to get from it, I think.
1:13:52Well, we've told you the main points to be derived from the book.
1:13:56There's still a lot of context that maybe you can get, but there is, I think we've basically
1:14:02boiled down to what it does.
1:14:04And one of my other favorite things about this is there is an ad for E-Myth worldwide
1:14:08at the end of the audiobook that I don't understand.
1:14:11That's classy.
1:14:12Like, why should I need your services?
1:14:15Shouldn't this book have done everything?
1:14:17Apparently not.
1:14:19I don't agree with that approach. It's very different to have someone actually work with
1:14:24you and you can hear him tell his stories in person. It might be a very different experience.
1:14:28Well, of course Sarah.
1:14:31Again, this falls under the category of these kind of things. I would not strongly recommend
1:14:38this book to people, but I would say that there is some value to be derived from it.
1:14:42Yeah, there is. There is. But you really need to know what you're getting into.
1:14:46You need to know what you're getting into.
1:14:49listen to any book. But it just reminds me of, I just pulled it up here on my website,
1:14:55the thing that I always intend to do more but I do very rarely is sometimes I write
1:14:58up some of the notes that I take on books and there's a book called Bird by Bird which
1:15:04is about writing and in it she has a line about how it's difficult to do the thing that
1:15:13we're sort of doing now which is to just tell someone the key bullet points from a book
1:15:18that you that's not the same thing as actually reading the book and and she
1:15:25says in bird by bird that you know there may be a flickering moment of insight in
1:15:29a one-liner but everyday truth is beyond our ability to capture in a few words
1:15:34the whole piece is the truth not just one shining moment in it and I do I do I
1:15:42really agree with that line because I have that feeling from many books that
1:15:47someone can tell you the bullet points but it's not the same thing as actually
1:15:53reading the book even if the book is filled with moments of just babbling
1:15:58insanity yeah just and and this book is is one of those examples I mean there
1:16:05are there are several books I have read like this where you feel like this is
1:16:09just filled with craziness like what's it like what's his name Taleb I forget
1:16:17his first name, but the guy who wrote the Black Swan and
1:16:19Antifragile like those books fall into the same category of even more so than this like well
1:16:26Yes
1:16:27insanity like this person is
1:16:29Literally out of their mind and also thinks they are the greatest human being to ever have lived
1:16:37But it's and I could tell you the bullet points from those books
1:16:42But it's still not the same thing as actually having read those books so that so that's why I get I'm not
1:16:46Commending this book listener, but I'm not
1:16:48Disrecommending it, you know, I think there is some value to be derived separate from listening to two people
1:16:55Tell you what the bullet points are. I
1:16:57Can't let the irony go amiss though of you making that point by reading a line from a book
1:17:03Yeah, of course. I can't let that I just can't let that go because I quite like that
1:17:07You know read bird by bird. It's good
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1:19:08FM.
1:19:10So whilst you did something horrible to me this week, you redeemed yourself a little
1:19:14bit. Actually quite a lot by doing something amazing.
1:19:18What did I do that was amazing for you, Myke?
1:19:20You introduced me to another thing that cost me some money.
1:19:25Those are very amazing things. Things that cost money.
1:19:28If there is one thing that joins me and you together, it's our joy in spending money
1:19:32on new toys that make our work even miniscule amounts more fun or easier.
1:19:37Yes, you and I are both willing to spend money in ways that makes the business easier even
1:19:44if it's not a lot easier.
1:19:45Yeah, it can be like it can take seconds off a process and I'm willing to spend £100 on
1:19:50it.
1:19:51Yeah, exactly.
1:19:52Because it's like anything that makes us better is good.
1:19:53And the thing that you've done this time is you have made me, which made Adina say, another
1:19:58Wacom tablet?
1:19:59Yep, another one.
1:20:01So I now own a Wacom Intuos Pro.
1:20:07Because you sent me a picture of a Wacom Intuos Pro on your lap with your feet up on your
1:20:12desk editing Hello Internet and you told me this is all I need.
1:20:18Yeah, so I have been using a Wacom bamboo tablet I think for years and years.
1:20:26It's like this old tablet that I got.
1:20:28And, as can sometimes happen with tools,
1:20:31it was just a thing that I was using without really thinking about it.
1:20:34I was dimly aware that it was really old.
1:20:36But I just, you know, it didn't really cross my mind.
1:20:39And as we have discussed many times,
1:20:41I use a pen tablet probably now 50 or 60% of the time
1:20:46when I'm using a computer.
1:20:48Like, I like to rotate input devices.
1:20:50But so, like, I would just use the bamboo as per normal,
1:20:52interacting with the computer.
1:20:54But it eventually started giving up the ghosts, it was flickering, it was having some connection problems.
1:21:00It wasn't really working and I thought, "Oh, okay, this is the time to get a new tablet."
1:21:05And so I did some digging around, I did some looking around, and I discovered that Wacom now has this...
1:21:10In their lineup, I think it's in the middle of their Pro stuff, like some of their top-top Pro stuff is just crazy,
1:21:17like it shows the screen on the tablet, I don't need any of that.
1:21:20but their like mid-range pro tablet, the Intuos, is fantastic.
1:21:27So I was looking at this online, I thought, "Let me get it, let me buy this and see if..."
1:21:33What I wanted to be able to do was edit a podcast without having to touch the keyboard.
1:21:41And this tablet has two features that make that possible.
1:21:48The first is that the actual surface of it is also a touch screen or touchpad.
1:21:54So you can use it a bit like the Magic Trackpad for Apple.
1:21:58And the second thing is it has a bunch of hardware buttons on the left side that
1:22:03perfectly you can program on a per application basis.
1:22:11So I can set it up so that when I press the buttons on the side, it performs
1:22:15specific actions just in Logic.
1:22:19And I can change what those actions are if I'm using a different application.
1:22:23And this thing is just amazing.
1:22:29It is just astounding.
1:22:31And I already got pretty fast on editing stuff in Logic with the keyboard shortcuts
1:22:38that I had set up. But man, being able to do the whole thing without touching the
1:22:43keyboard to just have a couple of buttons on the pen that I can click or a
1:22:47couple of buttons on the side of the tablet that I can press with my one hand
1:22:50and to be able to use the touch surface to quickly zoom in and zoom out of
1:22:54waveforms and move forward and move back it allows me to edit a podcast much
1:23:02faster and also much more comfortably I don't have to be right on top of my
1:23:09computer like I sent you in that picture I can actually lean back and just have
1:23:14this thing in my lap and use it it has to be the best input device I have used
1:23:20thus far on a computer it's yeah it's astounding I loved that we both did love
1:23:26that Logitech mouse one of the reasons that we would have loved that mouse so
1:23:29much is how programmable it was oh yeah but the problem was with it is because
1:23:34it was so programmable I was doing and contorting my hand in ways I shouldn't
1:23:57it
1:24:20add but I just want to tell people give them an idea of what I'm able to do now.
1:24:24So the pen obviously moves things around and if I click one of the buttons I can
1:24:29drag logic around which is great and then I can pause play I can seek to the
1:24:36playhead press a button that takes me back to where the playhead is I'm able
1:24:39to cut at the like the playhead line I'm able to select all forward I mean it's
1:24:47It's just beautiful.
1:24:48I love this thing.
1:24:49And also, there's something that I do quite a bunch, which is selecting a bunch of the
1:24:56waveforms at once, like all the audio tracks.
1:24:58So what I set it up was if I turn it over to the eraser and hold down, it presses basically
1:25:04the select key and I can drag and select multiple things at once.
1:25:08Oh, that's clever.
1:25:09That's clever.
1:25:10I didn't think to do that.
1:25:11And then it has this zoom wheel thing, this touch ring, which allows me to zoom in and
1:25:15out greatest things amazing. Isn't it though? It's just incredible it is so incredible and
1:25:22a lot of these tools I think are kind of made for video editors and for uh like to use photoshop
1:25:27and stuff like that like that's kind of what it's here to do but like it works brilliantly for me
1:25:31and in my kind of non-logic controls I have it so it can access mission control and switch from
1:25:37space to space so I don't even need to use my magic trackpad because I find the touch gestures
1:25:42to be a little bit inaccurate like it doesn't always like if the pen is kind
1:25:46of anywhere near the touchpad of the tablet it kind of doesn't like to do the
1:25:51gestures with my fingers I found that to be the case yeah I am never a fan of
1:25:56using multi finger touch gestures on almost anything like I just I'm I'm not
1:26:01a fan of that as an as an input device sure so I can't speak to that for myself
1:26:07but the buttons do such a great job of switching from space to space for me
1:26:10Yeah, I wanted to bring this up because like you said this is this is something that is designed
1:26:16very clearly for
1:26:19animation professionals for artists for Photoshop like you feel like this is a
1:26:23Photoshop augmentation devices is its prime purpose now I
1:26:28Don't use Photoshop. I do do some animation in other programs, but
1:26:34For anyone listening, you know a recurring theme I think on this podcast has been us touching upon the issue of RSI and repetitive strain injury
1:26:42Because this is a thing that if you work it at a computer you worry about if your whole living comes from a computer
1:26:50it's something that you worry about and
1:26:52This
1:26:55pen tablet with its programmable interface
1:26:59is I think an input device that
1:27:04Anybody who makes a living at a computer they should seriously consider using this at least some of the time
1:27:12Because it just it is so much more comfortable to use
1:27:18It is something that you can use for an extremely long period of time
1:27:22it's
1:27:25There is something just very natural about
1:27:28holding a pen and using it to interact with an interface
1:27:32that this really takes advantage of and the couple of programmable buttons on top of that just makes a
1:27:39world of difference.
1:27:41I've been over the past week slowly trying to set it up with a bunch of different programs that I use
1:27:46so that again like when if I'm using Inkscape to draw I can have something set up differently even if I'm using
1:27:53logic than if I'm just using the operating system in general.
1:27:58It is a fantastic input device that I can really feel helps with my hands.
1:28:06It takes a lot of the pressure off of my left hand in terms of editing.
1:28:13I don't know if I ever told you this, Myke, but I like to play video games.
1:28:18A very common input method for video games is WASD with your left hand for moving forward, back, left, or right.
1:28:26right and then a couple of buttons around there to interact with the game in some way.
1:28:30So it's very common that your left hand is on the keyboard WASD.
1:28:34And I had set up logic so that I was WASD-ing for all of the keyboard shortcuts that I wanted
1:28:42to use.
1:28:43I don't even know what that must look like.
1:28:45That sounds crazy.
1:28:46It does sound crazy, but it was very natural that every button I wanted to use was kind
1:28:52of around WASD and I could press them in the same way that I was very used to in games,
1:28:58having that as a hand position and then my right hand is using a mouse, it was using
1:29:02the MX Master or it's using the pen tablet or whatever.
1:29:05But because there is this overlap with playing video games where it's like, okay, now I have
1:29:09two activities that are using the same hand position, I was aware of beginning to feel
1:29:15in my left hand a little bit of that precursor feeling of like, oh man, this is really fast,
1:29:22This is why video games use this input.
1:29:24This is why I have also chosen to set up my logic this way with this input.
1:29:27But this is bad now having two activities that use the exact same hand gestures.
1:29:33And so that's why being able to do everything from the tablet is just fantastic.
1:29:41So I can do the whole thing one-handed from my lap.
1:29:45It's just great. It's just amazing.
1:29:47I love it. I really, really do love it.
1:29:49Because I'm just very used to this type of interaction now.
1:29:53When you're worried about RSI, these are the kinds of things that you think about.
1:29:59And I've definitely had problems with RSI in the past, problems that have prevented
1:30:04me from working for various periods of time.
1:30:08And this is a tool that really helps get around that.
1:30:11And so I highly, highly recommend it.
1:30:13Yeah, so it's safe to say, Gray, that you did redeem yourself.
1:30:16I don't know if you're bothered about that.
1:30:20- I'm not bothered.
1:30:21- No, I didn't think you would be.
1:30:22But I just want you to know that in my eyes,
1:30:26you are redeemed.
1:30:28- Irrelevant.