0:00:00If you were going to do an introduction to the show, what would it be?
0:00:03Like, just something like "Hello and welcome to Cortex, I'm Myke Hurley"
0:00:07but I don't want to do that though, you know?
0:00:10Yeah, it's no good.
0:00:11I feel like it's boring.
0:00:13But it's the easiest way to begin those shows because those shows don't require...
0:00:18don't have the same level of editing, right?
0:00:21So I have to do something or I'll be talking forever and we'll never start, right?
0:00:27And then I need to find a random start, but here we can just, something just happens
0:00:30and then that becomes the beginning of the episode.
0:00:32It's like, uh...
0:00:34What is it, when you're writing a book and maybe as rests or something?
0:00:37Like you start in the middle is what they recommend for writing books.
0:00:40Don't actually start where you think you want to start.
0:00:42Start when the thing starts.
0:00:44But that seems impossible.
0:00:45Just to like, to knowingly start in the middle.
0:00:48Like, how do you know what the middle is if you haven't done the start?
0:00:51I do this sort of with my videos sometimes.
0:00:54where I'm writing a video and then I realize the first four or five paragraphs, I can just ditch all of them.
0:01:02And that's what I think they mean by starting in the middle.
0:01:05You often feel like you need to have a... when you're writing something, like you need to have more of an introduction than you really need to have as an introduction.
0:01:13Right, so just begin and then eventually the introduction will fall out of it.
0:01:18Right, you start writing and then at some point when you are going over drafts you realize, yes,
0:01:24the first third or quarter of this can just be cut with
0:01:28Essentially no loss and you realize oh right my actual beginning was halfway through
0:01:33So we are doing that with a podcast now
0:01:35We were just talking and it feels like now we have actually really started the show
0:01:39Whereas like we were just saying a whole bunch of nonsense before and it wasn't really the start
0:01:43So you might start the podcast right here. I don't know
0:01:45But we're definitely in it now no matter what's happening. It's too late now. We're too far gone. There's nothing we can do about it
0:01:52We're inside the podcast.
0:01:53Yes.
0:01:54You are still broadcasting from an unknown location
0:01:59in North Carolina, am I correct?
0:02:01Right.
0:02:02Yep.
0:02:03You are traveling lots and lots this week.
0:02:06We mentioned this in last week's episode,
0:02:09which we recorded yesterday,
0:02:12which is very confusing for me and my brain,
0:02:14that we would talk a little bit about traveling.
0:02:19Are you still feeling jet-lagged?
0:02:21Is that still an issue that you're going through right now?
0:02:24I'm better today than I was yesterday, but it takes me...
0:02:27it always takes me a little while to feel perfect.
0:02:30And I won't feel perfect before I have to step on a plane again.
0:02:33So this is the summer of jet lag for me.
0:02:35Are you going to another on the location?
0:02:37I am going from visiting my family in North Carolina
0:02:43to visiting my wife's family in Hawaii.
0:02:46So that's where we're going next.
0:02:48I have to say, of all the places to have a wife come from, it's a pretty good one.
0:02:53Yes, it is a pretty good one.
0:02:55It's a much more interesting place than being from New York.
0:03:00A while back my wife and I realized that we were doing introductions, you know, when you meet a new couple or new people.
0:03:08One of the questions that often comes up is "Where are you from?" especially if you are an expat living abroad.
0:03:13And I told my wife that we always have to do the introduction, that she mentions that I am from New York first,
0:03:21and then say that she is from Hawaii second.
0:03:24Because the Hawaii part is way more interesting, and people naturally want to ask questions about it.
0:03:30Yeah.
0:03:31And if you do it in the reverse order, there's an awkward moment where people want to jump over,
0:03:37like if instead you say, "Oh, my wife is from Hawaii and I am from New York,"
0:03:41York, you can see that people want to go right to the Hawaii part of that.
0:03:45Hey buddy, let's just forget about you. Yes, and so if you reverse that order, it's much
0:03:53more smooth socially, because people don't feel like, oh let's skip the boring dude and
0:03:59let's talk to his interesting wife instead. So that's what we do now.
0:04:03Mrs. Grey understands how people works a lot better than you do, I think. I think she's
0:04:08good for you. So on your way to undisclosed location in North Carolina you seemed to have
0:04:18some issues with traveling because many things kept moving around and I would hear from you
0:04:25every few hours or so and you still wasn't in the location.
0:04:30Yeah, it was this was just one of those fun
0:04:34travel times where
0:04:37We got to the United States perfectly fine, but then I don't want to go into all of the details
0:04:42But we had trouble getting from my favorite airport in the world
0:04:45Which is Washington Dulles Airport to where we wanted to actually get in North Carolina because we got on an airplane and flew out
0:04:51North Carolina has huge thunderstorms one of which our tiny plane just circled the perimeter of in the air over North Carolina for a while
0:05:00while attempting to land before the pilot came on and telling us that we were running out of fuel
0:05:06Excellent. And that we had to go back to my favourite airport, Washington Dulles
0:05:11because there was nowhere else to land and so yes we arrived back at Washington Dulles
0:05:16at like 2 in the morning or something. It's like this guy has something against you
0:05:22Yeah, it was not a welcome piece of information to have been sitting in a turbulent jet for a long period of time and then yeah, I have to go back to exactly where you came from.
0:05:35Attention everybody, I hope you like this journey because you're gonna have to do it again.
0:05:40Yeah, basically, the trip from Washington to North Carolina we did three times.
0:05:46Out, return, and then out again the following day.
0:05:50So it was not pleasant.
0:05:52But yeah, so that is why I had to keep sending you messages the following day of trying to figure out, like, when are we actually going to get out here?
0:06:01And our travel schedule is relatively tight this time, so it was having a bunch of knock-on effects for other things we wanted to do.
0:06:08And this is why I have caused you nothing but grief with the scheduling of these podcasts and when they are going to occur.
0:06:14And I have constantly made you change things and push them around and as of now,
0:06:20the episode that we recorded yesterday is actually going to go up on Saturday instead of the usual Friday,
0:06:25and then we're going to be skipping an episode in the future.
0:06:27And this is entirely my fault, but you know what, this is just the way things are.
0:06:32And we have this constant argument, but I am convinced that people really don't care about schedules as much as they think they care about schedules.
0:06:40So anyone who is familiar with my work is very much aware that I don't have a schedule for just about anything because I don't think they matter.
0:06:47But you do think they matter, so I know that I have caused you stress.
0:06:50I would just like to point out that where we currently are now in actual podcast recording time is four hours after we would usually put an episode of Cortex out to the world.
0:07:02and I have already had a few people ask me where the episode is.
0:07:05You know what? That's your punishment for having regular episodes,
0:07:08is that people have expectations.
0:07:09If you didn't give them expectations, you wouldn't get as much of this.
0:07:12Your logic for that is my punishment is very flawed to me.
0:07:16I don't think that it's a punishment.
0:07:18What I did think about this, where usually I would be a bit more concerned,
0:07:23is that I am recording with you,
0:07:25so I expect that your audience doesn't necessarily think about it too much,
0:07:30and it's just like when it will come it will come.
0:07:32Exactly.
0:07:33But it was one of those situations where every couple of hours
0:07:37the schedule would change hugely because you just were failing to arrive at your destination.
0:07:43And one of these messages that you sent me was just three words.
0:07:48What preceded it was the words "show notes" and then "travel decision fatigue".
0:07:55Oh yes, yes.
0:07:56Now that I am out of it, I'm not so sure that was a great topic, but in the middle of being at an airport and being very tired, I thought, yes, travel decision fatigue is at least something to discuss on this episode.
0:08:09And, I mean, are you aware of the general concept of decision fatigue? How familiar are you with this?
0:08:16I can guess at it, but I wouldn't say I know enough of it, so why don't you explain that a little bit for me.
0:08:22It is what it sounds like that as you make more and more decisions your brain gets tired.
0:08:31And that sounds really obvious, but it's also interesting that there's a bunch of research that is done in this field about
0:08:40actually being able to measure how quickly people's decision-making ability degrades,
0:08:46you know, at what rate given how many decisions and all the rest of this.
0:08:50I was talking to some people who were discussing how this is a big issue for example in the military and
0:08:56that in
0:08:59helicopter and jet simulators that decision fatigue and information overload are not just
0:09:06terms that white-collar workers use to describe how stressed they are like they are
0:09:11measurable things that you can you can see the effect on a pilot so you want to reduce the number of
0:09:19inputs that they have going into their system, and you want to reduce the number of decisions that they have to make at any point in time.
0:09:25And the interesting thing is that counter-intuitively
0:09:29the size of the decisions
0:09:32doesn't matter. That there's something about
0:09:36deciding at all, which is the hard part for your brain. And the bigness of the decision
0:09:42matters much much less than the number of decisions. So if you have to make five tiny decisions
0:09:48it's wearing down your brain much more quickly than you might expect.
0:09:55So that's decision fatigue just in general.
0:09:59And all I could think of when we were traveling is how
0:10:04the very nature of traveling is a decision fatigue situation
0:10:10because almost everything that you're doing is new and novel.
0:10:18You have to figure out where you're going, what gate is it, which way to get to the gate,
0:10:23am I turning left, am I turning right, where am I getting the food from,
0:10:26what meal am I going to have at this restaurant that I never have had before,
0:10:29how much food am I going to bring on the airplane, am I going to stop at the duty-free,
0:10:33am I going to do this, am I going to do that.
0:10:35Once you're on the airplane, it's "Oh, am I going to take a nap now,
0:10:37or am I going to stay up and wait for the food?"
0:10:39Like, there's just this endless, endless array of things to decide,
0:10:45because the whole situation is novel.
0:10:48In a way that if you're doing other novel experiences,
0:10:51like once you're on vacation and you go for a hike,
0:10:54everything is new on your hike in the woods,
0:10:56but you're not making decisions.
0:10:59There's a path and you walk through it and you're just experiencing the new event.
0:11:03The culmination of all of this decision fatigue was
0:11:06at two in the morning or whenever it was when we arrived back in Washington
0:11:12I was really aware that my wife and I were at a decision fatigue point because
0:11:19They were giving us the options for flights for the next day. There were basically two things
0:11:26we had to figure out. Where are we going to spend the night and
0:11:29what time flight are we going to aim for the next day?
0:11:34And it took my wife and I so much longer to decide those two relatively simple questions
0:11:41than it ever would.
0:11:43And I just think being aware of something like decision fatigue is useful in those moments.
0:11:50To know that like, "Okay, yes, my brain is more tired."
0:11:54And to cut yourself more slack and if you're with other people to cut them more slack
0:11:59when you're in those situations.
0:12:02We definitely had that. We got through it, but it was just a moment of
0:12:09like the gate agent behind the desk presenting us with the times and we were
0:12:14just looking at each other in silence. 6 a.m. or noon or 3 p.m. or 6 p.m.
0:12:24And under normal circumstances it could make that decision in a second.
0:12:28But after so long in the airport and after so many other tiny decisions,
0:12:34that just... like your brain is just, "We're done. We've packed it up, people."
0:12:39And it's going to take a really long time to come to a decision in that situation.
0:12:44So that's what I think of as decision travel fatigue.
0:12:48Does that sound familiar to you, Myke? Have you experienced this?
0:12:51When I travel, I'm not a nervous traveller.
0:12:57But I prepare for things and do things in such a way that people either believe that
0:13:05I am a nervous traveler or just think that I'm mad.
0:13:10And one of those, some of the ways that this manifests itself is in the notion that I get
0:13:17very, very, very frustrated very, very quickly when traveling.
0:13:21My tether, I have no tether anymore.
0:13:24It is so far gone.
0:13:26And I think that that is part of the fact that my mind is working on a million different
0:13:31little things.
0:13:32Like, what time do I need to wake up?
0:13:34What time do I need to leave the house?
0:13:36Do I have my passport?
0:13:38What time do I get on the train?
0:13:39Do I have my passport?
0:13:40Like these things just go over and over and over again.
0:13:44And I can definitely see how it gets to a certain point.
0:13:48You get to the food court in the airport or whatever.
0:13:52it's like well I just don't even know how to choose food anymore. Which is
0:13:57why I very much one of the ways that I try and limit this kind of thing is to
0:14:02do my level best to keep as many things the same as possible. So like I try
0:14:09my very best when I go overseas to fly with British Airways because that
0:14:14typically means that I will fly from Terminal 5 at Heathrow which means I can
0:14:18then go to the restaurant that I like to eat at you know and I like to just know
0:14:21that there are certain things that I'm going to be able to do which are exactly
0:14:24the same so it limits the amount of stress that I put myself through.
0:14:30That is definitely the recommended strategy. My additional problem which I
0:14:35don't think I mentioned on this podcast is that I normally am flying standby and
0:14:40so that means I don't have a designated ticket I'm just getting on the airplane
0:14:45if there are seats available but this really contributes to decision fatigue
0:14:51because there are often hour by hour decisions that need to be made about
0:14:56which planes is standby going to be attempted for and having to weigh
0:15:01different scenarios of what is the likelihood of this flight filling up
0:15:04versus that flight filling up how does that affect the connection that you're
0:15:07trying to hit and so I if I was not flying standby I would do the same thing
0:15:12as you which is to try and regularize the travel but it's I'm in a situation
0:15:17where the travel is not regular at all. It's always different times, it's always different flights and different connections and it does not help.
0:15:28There is no world in which I could fly the way you fly. Just none. I had to fly standby once because I missed a connection
0:15:39because my first plane was delayed
0:15:43and I was in the airport for maybe about 12 hours
0:15:46and it got to the point where I was like,
0:15:48if I don't get on this next plane, send me home.
0:15:51Like I was in America, I was like,
0:15:52I just wanna go home, I'm done.
0:15:55I've been here for 12 hours,
0:15:56I'm in Philadelphia Airport,
0:15:58I don't even know what's going on anymore.
0:16:00If they can't get on this next plane,
0:16:02they're like, oh, we'll try and put you on one again
0:16:05tomorrow morning.
0:16:05I'm like, nope, I just wanna go to London.
0:16:08Forget it.
0:16:09So I don't know how you do it, I really don't.
0:16:13Plus it's interesting to me that you choose to fly this way because of everything that I know about you.
0:16:19Just feels like this is not something that you would want to do. It's very interesting to me that you make that choice.
0:16:25I think I'm better at this than it would be expected given everything that you know about me.
0:16:32because since my mom is a flight attendant and this is how we have always traveled ever since I was a kid
0:16:40I've always flown standby. It has been very rare to have a designated ticket.
0:16:47So my experience with what airports are like, I don't have too much of a frame of reference of what it's like to have a normal ticket.
0:16:56That's why I think I'm able to do this.
0:17:00Whereas if I had flown with regular tickets for most of my life
0:17:04and then now in my adult life there was this "Oh, you can fly standby" thing
0:17:09I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do it. I would give up a lot of the benefits of standby flight
0:17:15for the regularity and the predictability of regular tickets.
0:17:19But that's not the experience that I had as a kid. It was always just "We're going to the airport"
0:17:23airport and maybe we're getting on a plane and maybe we're just going back home at the
0:17:26end of the day and that's just how air travel works from my perspective.
0:17:32There are advantages but it is reducing decisions and cognitive load on a stressful day is definitely
0:17:40definitely not one of them.
0:17:42And I'm assuming then that there is some sort of economical like seating class benefit to
0:17:48being on standby.
0:17:50The basic benefits are one, it is super cheap, and two, if you do the planning correctly, you can end up in business or first class.
0:17:59So that is the big advantage, especially on longer flights. If you can figure it out right, you can end up in a business class or a first class seat.
0:18:07And pay even less sometimes than what an economy seat would have cost on the same flight.
0:18:13So that's the advantage, yeah.
0:18:15I'm assuming that this is when checklists go into real overdrive.
0:18:20[laughs]
0:18:22Well, yes and no. I have a big travel packing checklist.
0:18:28Is this an omni-focus?
0:18:30Yes, this is an omni-focus.
0:18:32But interestingly, as I have been married over the years, my wife and I have developed a bit of a division of labor for what's going to happen
0:18:44to happen when we're traveling. So we used to be, each of us would take care of our own things entirely,
0:18:51but now we have more like domains of responsibility. And I think this works out really well for each of us,
0:18:58because it's the same thing of eliminating one thing that the other person has to think about.
0:19:03And so broadly speaking, I'm in charge of a lot of the logistics for the day, so any train tickets,
0:19:11the plane reservations, all of that stuff I'm setting up and dealing with.
0:19:16And then I'm also in charge of packing electronics and a few other things.
0:19:21And then my wife is largely in charge of clothing and toiletry stuff for the bags.
0:19:27So this has just happened over time that we've settled into these rolls.
0:19:33And it's definitely better than when I used to try to pack entirely for,
0:19:39Like each of us trying to pack on our own for going on a trip because then there's a lot of overlap
0:19:43Did you bring your toothbrush? I brought my toothbrush and and
0:19:45That would just that would just be a little bit of crazy making so I really just have a checklist which is related to
0:19:51tickets and
0:19:54electronic stuff and I run through that but it's not a complete like I couldn't hand that checklist to another person and they would feel
0:19:59Like oh, I'm fully ready for a trip because it is missing the sections that my wife does
0:20:05They would only be ready for a trip with your wife, which is unlikely.
0:20:09Exactly.
0:20:11But I haven't actually looked at hers, but I know my wife uses Clear, and she has a travel packing checklist that she runs through.
0:20:21I don't know exactly how it works in Clear, but I think she can reactivate an old list, and so she just reactivates the old one and goes through it and adds things every time.
0:20:28So we each have our own separate list that we're running through the day before and the day of travel.
0:20:34travel. I use Clear for my travel checklist and this was a tip that came
0:20:39from my girlfriend because I would like maybe try and do something the day
0:20:45before or just like run through things and she was and she has a listing Clear
0:20:49which is her packing list that just gets added to over time so all she does is she
0:20:54has the list and she just marks everything off and doesn't delete the
0:20:57list and then just marks everything as new again every time she travels and it
0:21:02ends up being a really smart system because that thing you forgot, you add it to the list
0:21:07and you don't forget it again.
0:21:09And it's quite...
0:21:10That's exactly right.
0:21:11And I like it.
0:21:12And then I have one list but it serves both European and American travel.
0:21:16It's like I have both EU plug adapter and US plug adapter as a thing in that list and
0:21:22I just activate the ones that are necessary for that trip.
0:21:25And then I just check them off.
0:21:26Exactly, exactly.
0:21:27It's great.
0:21:28It's a great system.
0:21:29really, really great app for packing stuff. Because you also get the satisfaction of the
0:21:35little sounds every time you check one off. And it's like, "I'm so clever!"
0:21:40[laughs]
0:21:42Yeah, I do have to say, one area where Clear just trumps OmniFocus
0:21:47is in the sounds and the funness of it. Where it does...
0:21:52Clear makes it just delightful to tick off items. And you do feel like, "Oh, look at me!
0:21:57I'm so good. I'm just this great little person ticking off these things. Bloop, bloop, bloop.
0:22:02Right? And it makes little happy sounds as you go.
0:22:05So yeah, I do recommend clear to some people to use if they're looking for something that is simpler.
0:22:10But it is funny, when we are packing, I hear the little bloop, bloop, bloop sounds as my wife is ticking off items in the other room as she's getting stuff ready.
0:22:18But yeah, what you said is the same thing that I do and I recommend for these kinds of checklists is
0:22:23you
0:22:25over put things on the checklist you you like any travel scenario that you might
0:22:31have you have something on that checklist and then you can just
0:22:35Delete it or get rid of it or just tick it off if it isn't relevant to what you're doing
0:22:41I have items on that checklist which are about
0:22:44getting any money that I have for the place that I'm going. Now that's not always relevant if I'm traveling within the UK
0:22:50but it's crazy to have separate checklists for travel within the UK, travel outside of the UK.
0:22:54It's easy enough to just blow past those little items if they aren't relevant at the time.
0:22:59Do you have any kind of specific packing things that you do?
0:23:03I know that there are people that love to be able to put everything in one bag or anything like that.
0:23:07Do you have different bags for these kinds of trips to the regular
0:23:13go bags that you have or
0:23:15are they
0:23:16They actually the same bags because they're prepared for everything
0:23:19Big recommendation for traveling is to get a suitcase that is an upright with four wheels on it
0:23:27Yeah, I have a two-wheel one and it makes me sad every time
0:23:30I mean, it's like living in the Stone Age Myke using a suitcase with two wheels on it
0:23:34Because if you have a suitcase with four wheels that also has the handle that extends upward
0:23:42You have become like a nimble mountain goat in the airport because you can maneuver that around
0:23:49little spaces so well and the footprint of space that you are taking up is dramatically reduced.
0:23:57So you can have it right, you know, right by your side like a well-heeled dog and just move around people and get around crowds.
0:24:04The four-wheel suitcase is a
0:24:06huge, huge improvement for traveling.
0:24:11So my wife researched a bunch of four-wheel suitcases and eventually settled on one
0:24:18And we each have, we're just total dorks, we have matching suitcases just in different colors
0:24:23So we each have the same four-wheel suitcase
0:24:25So yeah, we go through the airport like that
0:24:29And that's a big deal
0:24:32But I bring my regular backpack with me, but it's inside the suitcase
0:24:37the suitcase because then when I'm, say like I'm in North Carolina now, I still use my
0:24:41backpack the way that I do when I'm in London. As in, I mean just the other morning I packed
0:24:45up my usual work stuff in the backpack, I had my iPad and I went out to a local cafe
0:24:49and I was clearing email like we discussed in the last episode. So I do want that with
0:24:54me, I still have that, but I just throw it into the bag and then it becomes my little
0:24:58more, my mobile bag when I'm just wherever I happen to be.
0:25:03But you must have something you take on the plane though, surely?
0:25:07Yeah, the four-wheel, the little four-wheel suitcase is what I am taking on the plane.
0:25:10Oh, you don't check anything.
0:25:13I do have a bigger version of that four-wheel that if we need to check bags, I do check
0:25:19bags.
0:25:20When I was a younger single man, I never checked anything.
0:25:26I was just not going to check a bag, partly because this can cause extra problems if you're
0:25:30going stand-by, so there was a big advantage in not having to check a bag, and partly because
0:25:35Because I just hated packing and so I thought, "Oh, instead of packing two bags, I'll just
0:25:39pack one bag."
0:25:40And also partly because I was always able to get away with it because the vast majority
0:25:46of time when I was traveling as a younger man, I was coming from London back to visit
0:25:51my parents at the start.
0:25:53My parents were the starting point of wherever I was going.
0:25:56And so I just left a redundant wardrobe and redundant everything at my parents' house.
0:26:02So I didn't need to pack all of my clothes because I just had a whole other set of clothes
0:26:06at my parents' house.
0:26:07So that's how I used to travel.
0:26:09Now that I'm a grown person and I'm going around with my wife, we do check bags.
0:26:13But I bring a small four-wheel one onto the plane.
0:26:16That's what I'm bringing there with me.
0:26:18Alright, so you have one case though, right?
0:26:21You're not bringing two suitcases to the airport?
0:26:24There's two suitcases to the airport, one that is getting checked, one that is going
0:26:27on the plane.
0:26:28Okay.
0:26:29also has within it my backpack.
0:26:32Right, I see.
0:26:33So you're taking out stuff that usually goes in the backpack
0:26:36and putting it in the small little wheelie case.
0:26:39That's exactly right.
0:26:40That's exactly right.
0:26:41What does Grey do on a plane?
0:26:43Do you slip into like a shutdown period or, you know,
0:26:48is there activities occurring?
0:26:50Do you watch movies?
0:26:51Do you consume like units of music utility?
0:26:55I am laughing because I always end up having to re-explain to my wife what I do on a plane.
0:27:02Because she forgets the particularness of what I want to do on a plane.
0:27:08And I have this thing that I think of as the cognitive ramp down on a flight.
0:27:14So I am very often taking long flights. I'm going from London to the US or back.
0:27:20This isn't the same for a brief flight, but if you're on a flight that's at least six hours, maybe a 12-hour flight,
0:27:27I have a list of things that I want to do, and I do them in the order of the cognitive difficulty of the task.
0:27:34So, something like watching a movie. This is when my wife is on the plane.
0:27:40She wants to start out by watching a movie, but I always feel that, no, we cannot start out watching a movie.
0:27:45Or at least I'm not going to start out watching a movie.
0:27:47because watching a movie is a cognitively easy thing to do.
0:27:51You just sit there and you absorb the movie.
0:27:53It doesn't require any effort on your part.
0:27:55If you're going to do stuff, you have to start out with the things that are more difficult for you to do.
0:28:03So something like reading a book is more cognitively difficult than watching a movie.
0:28:07So if you have a book with you and you have movies you want to watch, you have to read the book first.
0:28:12And then when you're tired of reading the book, then you can move on to the movie.
0:28:15And so depending on what I have with me to do, I want to do the harder stuff first.
0:28:19And on this last flight, I had loaded up some stuff that was related to one of my secret projects,
0:28:26and it involved learning a new skill.
0:28:29And so on the airplane, the very first thing that I did was, what was I said,
0:28:33"Okay, I'm going to go through this book and these lessons that I have for myself,
0:28:37and I'm going to learn this new skill as the first thing that I do on the airplane,
0:28:41because that is the most cognitively demanding thing."
0:28:44thing. Was it tailoring? Yeah, I was tailoring. That's exactly
0:28:48right. How'd you guess? I just I can tell these things, you
0:28:52know. Yeah. So, when when I grew tired of that, then I moved
0:28:57on to reading a book and then from there, you move on to
0:29:00watching TV or watching a movie. So, that's the way I
0:29:02always want to arrange stuff because you can't go from
0:29:05watching your movies to then, oh, I'm gonna teach myself this
0:29:08new skill. You're just going to be too tired at the end of the
0:29:12at the end of the airplane you're just gonna be restless and exhausted and not able to actually focus on something like that.
0:29:17So this is always how I arrange things. What do I have with me?
0:29:20And then do them in reverse order for cognitive difficulty.
0:29:24That is an interesting system.
0:29:27It is the only system.
0:29:29This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Harvest.
0:29:33If you're a freelancer or part of a team and you have client work, then you're gonna know how tricky and annoying it can be
0:29:39be to both track your time and send out the invoices that you need so you can get paid.
0:29:44Well, this is where Harvest can help you.
0:29:47Harvest lets you track exactly how much time you're spending on your projects and you can
0:29:51do this from the web, from your phone, your computer or even your watch.
0:29:55They have great apps for so many platforms that can help you get this done.
0:29:59Harvest's great time tracking is available for you no matter where you get your work
0:30:02done, making sure that you'll never lose track of that time or money.
0:30:06And when it comes time to bill your clients, Harvest lets you take those tracked hours
0:30:10and easily create and send beautiful invoices.
0:30:14They look great, they can be customised with your own company logo to make sure that everything
0:30:18looks and feels professional.
0:30:20Once you send that invoice out, you want to get paid as quickly as possible and Harvest
0:30:23makes that easy.
0:30:25They integrate with PayPal and Stripe so you can accept online payment on those invoices
0:30:29and get paid faster.
0:30:31They also feature multi-currency support in case you're billing overseas and also have
0:30:35automated invoices in case you need to send the same thing over and over again.
0:30:40Harvest have really built the full package for people that need to track time and get
0:30:44paid.
0:30:45They do this with great looking apps that are a pleasure to use by giving you powerful
0:30:48reporting tools to help you keep up to date with what's going on in your business and
0:30:52by helping you to go paperless with great expenses tracking.
0:30:56I'm super impressed with what they offer and I think that you will be too.
0:31:00To get started with Harvest right now, go to getharvest.com and create an account.
0:31:09The first month is free, but you can save yourself 50% off the second month by entering
0:31:13the coupon code "CORTEX" at checkout.
0:31:16Thank you so much to Harvest for helping support this week's episode.
0:31:20So in the spirit of this being a very irregular schedule that we have here, we decided to
0:31:27incorporate and push the Ask Grey questions to their very maximum
0:31:32and compile a long list of things to work through today.
0:31:37So I'm going to ask you some questions today that have come via the audience of this show.
0:31:42Right, because we don't have any follow up. The next show isn't even out.
0:31:46This feels like it is an episode out of time, so that's why we're doing something a bit different.
0:31:50This episode could actually exist anywhere within the run. You could just play it wherever and it wouldn't even matter.
0:31:56The first question comes from John and John would like to know what beverage does Grey typically consume at the cafes in where he works?
0:32:06I mean is that really a question? It's coffee, of course it's coffee. I drink a lot of coffee.
0:32:11Do you tend to go to just chains or do you go to like fancy independent coffee shops in London?
0:32:17It's mostly chains because I like things consistent.
0:32:20Right.
0:32:21And I haven't found any fancy independent places that are also places that you can sit
0:32:26down and stay and work comfortably for reasonable periods of time.
0:32:30So that's why I tend to just go to chains.
0:32:31Me and you are gonna go on a little tour when you get home.
0:32:34Oh yeah?
0:32:35Yeah.
0:32:36Because there's like just so many other great coffee houses that do way better coffee.
0:32:40Yeah but you're just gonna take me to these hipster places where you have to sit on a
0:32:44tiny stool in the corner and stroke your moustache.
0:32:47Like that's the kind of coffee place you're going to take me to.
0:32:50You don't have to stroke your moustache.
0:32:52Mmhmm, yeah.
0:32:54But you know, moustache is preferred.
0:32:56That's what the sign on the door would say at your coffee places.
0:32:59Tiny stall optional.
0:33:01Yeah.
0:33:02So do you just drink like filter coffee in Starbucks?
0:33:07My current drink in the various places that I go is to get a filter coffee and to get
0:33:13a...
0:33:14Now I always have to find the magic words at the various place for what I'm going to
0:33:17next but at Starbucks in the UK I have to ask for pouring cream I have learned is the magic word
0:33:23but if I'm at a place like um at some of the other places I'll have to say something like
0:33:27single cream seems to be the magic word for what it is that I want but there seems to be some
0:33:34confusion about this in England but I don't want milk in my coffee I want cream in my coffee.
0:33:40Yeah we typically don't don't go the cream option.
0:33:43I have found to my horror that at Starbucks if I just say that I want a filter coffee with cream
0:33:50If there are if there are no follow-up questions from the barista I get a filter coffee with whipped cream on top
0:33:58Who in the world wants this why would you think this is a reasonable drink, but it has happened on more than one occasion
0:34:07That is so ridiculous
0:34:09That I get a filter coffee with whipped cream on top
0:34:11(laughing)
0:34:14- You know what the problem with that is?
0:34:17Is that is internal jargon gone wrong?
0:34:20Because Starbucks call it cream, right?
0:34:24If you get like a frappuccino,
0:34:25they say would you like cream on top?
0:34:28So that is like, they're just like,
0:34:29oh, well he's obviously referring to the cream
0:34:31that we talk about.
0:34:32That's very weird, but you know, we'll do it anyway.
0:34:35Oh, that's incredible.
0:34:36I can only imagine your horror when you take a sip.
0:34:40like what is this? Yes but for some reason the it must be something with the
0:34:46training of the baristas but at Starbucks it has to be pouring cream if I
0:34:52say single cream at Starbucks it's always a big like what do you want what
0:34:56is the thing that you're after you want a single serving of whipped cream is
0:34:59like no it's not but single cream is the is the much better word at almost
0:35:03everywhere else so yeah this is this is this is my drink and my big problem of
0:35:09course is that this is slightly unusual asking for pouring cream so it always
0:35:13makes me be the guy who's like standing out online I don't just have a
0:35:16straightforward order and then I hate that because then they get to know you
0:35:19faster at Starbucks which is a whole other problem that I really hate.
0:35:23Mr. Single cream it's not very incognito, you should bring your own cream.
0:35:27I have thought about that. I figured that you had. You should bring your own coffee as well just sit outside.
0:35:35Maybe I'll do that next time.
0:35:36But yeah, so, coffee.
0:35:38Lots of it.
0:35:39That's what I drink.
0:35:40So another John asks, there's a lot, John seemed to like asking you about beverages,
0:35:46because John would like to know, do you have other beverages that you like to consume when
0:35:51working after breakfast time or when you're relaxing or socializing?
0:35:56I like coffee for all those occasions.
0:35:58Yeah?
0:35:59Relaxing, socializing, breakfast, lunch, sometimes after dinner.
0:36:03I like coffee.
0:36:04It's good.
0:36:05a lot.
0:36:06Whenever we meet for lunch I consume more caffeine than I tend to with over like a four
0:36:11day period.
0:36:12Oh yeah, are you just being polite with all the coffee that you drink when you're with
0:36:16me?
0:36:17No because I like it but I try not to do it right because this is my problem I really
0:36:19love coffee but I have one a day in the morning except on special days like sometimes what
0:36:26I refer to as two coffee Tuesday because I have to stay up really late on Tuesdays.
0:36:30Wow two whole coffees.
0:36:32this is the thing because I like to try and limit myself so when I have another
0:36:36one it really makes an effect and plus the other thing is if if I let myself I
0:36:43would be drinking more coffee than water which you know I would just consume it
0:36:48constantly so I try and limit the amount I have but whenever we see each other I
0:36:52have maybe like three or four lattes which is what basically if anybody talks
0:36:58to me I mean you see this I don't know if you even notice it but you maybe
0:37:01you'll notice it now, now that we talk more often.
0:37:03I tend to end up talking about a thousand miles an hour
0:37:07when we're done for the day, so.
0:37:10- Yeah, you talk faster in person than on the podcast.
0:37:12- Because I'm drinking an incredible amount of coffee,
0:37:14that's why. (laughs)
0:37:16'Cause I've already had one before I come and meet you,
0:37:18so the first sip of the first coffee
0:37:21is already more than normal.
0:37:23And then that makes me like twist your arm
0:37:26into starting projects, so.
0:37:29That's how that happens.
0:37:29Adam has asked a question that I'm very intrigued to find out your answer to.
0:37:37If you won millions of pounds on the lottery, would you still make videos or would you maybe
0:37:43learn to program or something different that would fulfill you?
0:37:47What would you do?
0:37:48I mean here's the thing, our very first episode of this little run was called "I don't really
0:37:51like work."
0:37:52And I think it's pretty clear that I think that a lot of the things that people say about
0:38:02work, particularly in school environments where I'm familiar with people giving career
0:38:05advice, is just total nonsense.
0:38:08Where people talk about loving your job, right, and finding work that you really love.
0:38:14And I think there are precious, precious few people who are in positions where they wake
0:38:24up in the morning and feel like, "Wow, I really love my job."
0:38:29And the thing that I usually tell people when they ask, like, "Oh, do you really love your
0:38:33job?
0:38:34It must be awesome!" is it's hard for me to imagine work that is better suited to my personality
0:38:43than the work that I currently do.
0:38:45So, figuring out how something works, and then making a video explaining about it,
0:38:50I can't imagine that there's something that would just naturally fit with the way that I want to work than that.
0:38:57But it's, to me, it's still work.
0:39:01It's still something that I have to do.
0:39:04And it's still something that I feel pressure that I have to make a certain number of videos,
0:39:09and my livelihood depends on all of this.
0:39:11Which is a long way of saying that if I won enough money that I never had to work ever again,
0:39:17I would not keep making the same number of things that I currently make.
0:39:25I would make fewer things.
0:39:28But the flip side of this is that I have had periods in my life,
0:39:33because I was a bum who didn't have any financial requirements,
0:39:37like I just was, you know, living very low,
0:39:41where I didn't really have to work. I've had stretches of time like that where it's like "oh, I don't really have to work at all"
0:39:48And that's too little.
0:39:52Just if you don't have, or I shouldn't say you, but I'm saying for me personally, if I don't have anything to do, that is depressing.
0:40:01That's not a good situation to be in, and that then just makes me unhappy.
0:40:06So I would work less if I didn't have to work,
0:40:11but the amount of things that I would do would not be zero,
0:40:14because zero would just be depressing and life would just feel totally aimless.
0:40:19So I would still make videos, I would still make podcasts,
0:40:23but I might not make them as frequently as I currently do if I didn't have to work.
0:40:28So now, what about you, Myke?
0:40:30Because I... I don't have a good sense of the shape of your mind in many ways yet.
0:40:38So I'm not quite sure how
0:40:41you would answer this question. I have a feeling you might have a similar answer to me, but I may be
0:40:46very wrong about that. So what about you? You win
0:40:49enough money that you could buy an apartment in the Shard plus more. What does your life look like from this point on?
0:40:58It overlaps with you in some ways, but it is different.
0:41:02So my feeling is, I also agree that the love what you do
0:41:07thing is, it holds some idealistic merit,
0:41:16but on the whole is very, very difficult to achieve.
0:41:20So I currently do the job that is the only job
0:41:24in the world that I wanna do.
0:41:27and I have worked for five years tirelessly
0:41:31to get to this point and now I have achieved it.
0:41:33But what happens when something like this becomes your job
0:41:37is there is the part of it that you love,
0:41:39which is this bit, so I am doing this bit,
0:41:42but there are parts of it that I don't love as well
0:41:46that come along with it.
0:41:47So I do the job that I love,
0:41:50but what comes along with that is the baggage
0:41:52of the things that I don't wanna do,
0:41:54like bookkeeping, accounting,
0:41:56dealing with my accountant for my end of year tax return.
0:41:59Like all of the random, like boring, not fun things
0:42:04that you have to do when it comes to running a business.
0:42:07So, if I was to win that amount of money,
0:42:11I maybe would just make a little bit less
0:42:15or maybe my schedules would go a little bit awry
0:42:18because I wanna go see the world a little bit or something.
0:42:22But on the whole, I would then use that money to hire people and just pay more people to do more of the things that I don't want to do.
0:42:30I actually don't, I can't imagine a world now in which I don't do this because I really love making this stuff.
0:42:44And I really, really love hearing from people
0:42:46and knowing that people enjoy what I make.
0:42:50Like the thrill that I get out of that,
0:42:53I couldn't trade that in for anything now.
0:42:57- You like having an audience, Myke?
0:42:58- Yeah.
0:42:59Don't you?
0:43:02- This may sound strange, but if I,
0:43:04if I could trade my current work
0:43:10for something that was equivalent in every way.
0:43:14So I get to continue talking to people who are as interesting as the people that I currently talk to
0:43:19and I get to earn the same amount of money that I currently earn
0:43:23and I get to work the same number of hours that I currently work.
0:43:25It's a different job, but all of the benefits are there
0:43:29except that I am no longer a public figure in any way.
0:43:34I would make that trade without a doubt.
0:43:37Like I love the Reddit stuff, like that's really fun and I like that, but I always view any level of being a
0:43:45public figure as a cost that I have to incur to do other stuff.
0:43:51I don't like it, so if I could trade my job for an equally satisfying job
0:43:57where I was not in the public eye at all, I would do it.
0:43:59I think you are...
0:44:02Me and you are built differently in this way.
0:44:06You are built differently to everybody else that I work with in that you are synonymous
0:44:11Mm-hmm, and you are very clearly a private person
0:44:17who has stumbled upon a
0:44:20Large audience of people which is a very very peculiar mix
0:44:25Yeah, I was not aiming for this. No
0:44:29What were you aiming for then I
0:44:33I was always running a bunch of side projects when I was teaching.
0:44:42And I was just aiming for independence.
0:44:47That's what I was aiming for. The ability to work for myself so that I was in control of my own life.
0:44:56life. And it just so happens that the first project that hit successfully enough that
0:45:03I was able to leave teaching and work for my own was also a project that just happened
0:45:09to be one that depends on having an audience of people. But no, it was not on purpose,
0:45:17it was incidental, and this kind of career was so far out of my mind that it took a long
0:45:25time for me to even realize, "Oh, you're making videos on the side that lots of people are
0:45:33watching and maybe this can turn into a career."
0:45:36And I've gone back through some of my old emails and some of my old notes from around
0:45:40that time, because of course you can't trust your memory, and just seeing how dim-witted
0:45:45I was about the thing that is obviously being the successful thing and doubling down on
0:45:50that.
0:45:51It took me a long time to realize it because, yeah, this kind of career just wasn't in my
0:45:55mind I was thinking more along the lines of okay what kind of services can I sell to people
0:46:00or what kind of products can I make that people might want to buy I was not thinking about
0:46:05how can I entertain a large enough audience so that I can support myself it wasn't it
0:46:09wasn't on my mind at all.
0:46:11Robbie would like to know what is it like in a day where Grey gets sick what do you
0:46:16do do you just like everything shuts off and you watch movies and play games like what
0:46:22happens when you're unwell. Because again, this is something else, maybe even more than
0:46:27holidays that changes massively when you're self-employed.
0:46:31Yeah, yeah. This is another case where we're going to have something that's very different
0:46:36because largely I try to arrange my working life so that I don't have schedules, I don't
0:46:44have things that absolutely need to get hit by a particular day. Like I'm often aiming
0:46:50for a video to be released on or by a date, but almost always that can get moved around,
0:46:56there's a little bit of flexibility in there. It isn't often a real requirement that it
0:47:03happens on an exact time. So a sick day for me when I'm feeling like I just can't do any
0:47:09work is probably way less stress than it is for you, because I can take a day off and
0:47:16and just say, "All right, I'm going to lay on this couch
0:47:19being a big snotty slug of illness doing nothing."
0:47:24And that means there's going to be a knock-on effect
0:47:29of pushing back podcasts or pushing back videos,
0:47:32but it doesn't necessarily have a huge impact.
0:47:37But again, that's on purpose.
0:47:41I don't like schedules.
0:47:43It's one of the reasons why this cortex every week thing
0:47:44really irritated me because like, "Oh man, we just did one of these! What do you mean I have to do it again?"
0:47:48It's like it's happening so frequently. I'm not used to this at all.
0:47:52So yeah, that's why for me a sick day is a relatively easy thing to do.
0:47:59It's usually not too stressful and depending on how sick I am most of the time I will just end up
0:48:06just putting something on TV, like trying to find a TV series where I can say, "All right,
0:48:11Is there a season of something I can just watch all day until I slip into unconsciousness at the end of the day?
0:48:16That's that's what I'll do if I'm not if I'm not feeling well
0:48:19But what do you do? And one thing is I have to be really unwell for something to change
0:48:26Like if I'm just not feeling great
0:48:29Then what I might do is like take the day off from everything except what has to happen
0:48:35So if something is scheduled then I will do my level best to make it
0:48:40But I might not do any of the other tasks on that day. Like for example one day this week
0:48:45I didn't sleep the night before very well at all
0:48:49And I just felt crap like just really crap like I'd slept maybe like
0:48:54Four or five hours sometimes I do maybe even less than that and I'm okay
0:48:59But I woke up and just felt like I had not slept at all
0:49:02Like I had the feeling of when I come home from a big flight overseas
0:49:08That was how I felt. And I was like, "I am going to sit here and play Batman on my PlayStation all day."
0:49:14And that was what I did.
0:49:17And so I can, you know, and I just moved some tasks around and there were a couple of things
0:49:21I had to do that day that I did, but the majority of my day was just playing PlayStation.
0:49:25But if I'm su- if I get super, super ill, then I just have to have someone stand in for me.
0:49:31But luckily that has not happened yet.
0:49:34So if you were super sick, I'd be talking to somebody else right now. I don't like that at all
0:49:38No, you wouldn't I would have to find something else for you because I know you wouldn't accept that but everybody else would
0:49:43Probably be okay with it plus. I don't think like I don't think I would feel okay
0:49:49Letting anybody else in this scenario
0:49:53Oh, so what you're saying is you're better than all of the other people who could potentially fill this role
0:49:58Is that what you know? I'm just worried of what you might do to them. Oh
0:50:01Oh, you're worried about my reaction.
0:50:03OK, yeah, different.
0:50:05That's you.
0:50:06Maybe you'd like systematically break them down or something.
0:50:08And I would do I would do nothing.
0:50:11I would do nothing except be bad at conversation, which is my skill.
0:50:14Utsav has asked, what advice would you and Gray give your university
0:50:19selves with regards to productivity and work ethic?
0:50:22OK, you have to go first on this one.
0:50:24I can't help Utsav at all.
0:50:27Because I didn't go to university.
0:50:29Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
0:50:31Yeah, I finished school at the age of 18 after completing sixth form college.
0:50:36Was going to take a break from studying because I applied for a bunch of universities,
0:50:43got into them and then decided I didn't want to do English literature anymore
0:50:46and that I wanted to do media. And only one university would accept me to change my course
0:50:55and it was a university in London and I didn't want to go to university and live at home.
0:51:00Mm-hmm. So I decided to take a year off. I got a job and then stayed employed at that
0:51:08company for eight years because I got used to the money.
0:51:15So depending on what you want to be productive with, Woodserve, I can't help you.
0:51:21That's good. You got used to the money. Once again, this is the purpose of the money is
0:51:25for the company to make you stay. Here, have some money. Why don't you stay?
0:51:28How kind of you?
0:51:30If I'm trying to answer this question I also
0:51:34I also have difficulty with this because some of the videos that I make feel like I am trying to
0:51:41address something to my past self like that's the audience whose mind I'm trying to convince
0:51:48Is an earlier version of me who didn't believe a thing and maybe if he stumbles across this video it would change his mind
0:51:55But when I think back to my university self, I just don't know if there's much about that person's mind
0:52:02I would be able to change
0:52:04because
0:52:07I was doing fine at university. I mean some of the classes were harder than others, but there wasn't like some big problem
0:52:14I was having and so the perspective of past me was everything's going great
0:52:21It's like I like my classes. I'm doing fine in them and so while current me
0:52:27might wish that he could convince past me to
0:52:31work harder or to learn how to do some things, I don't think past me would be receptive to that at all
0:52:37I don't think I could convince past me to
0:52:39change his productivity or his or his work ethic. The only
0:52:44concrete piece of advice that I will give which is something that I learned from one of my professors in university
0:52:50was how to study for a test and
0:52:55This piece of advice I gave this to the students that I taught and those who followed it it went very well
0:53:03but if you are
0:53:05Preparing for a test in something like physics or math or anything where you can get your hands on
0:53:11old versions of the tests
0:53:14And you can also know for sure that you're answering them correctly
0:53:18Because you have the answer keys or because it's physics and there's actual answers
0:53:22Unlike English where you know you're just making up stuff and a teacher is subjectively grading on you preparing for an English test
0:53:30I guess the answer to that is just try to know the mind of your teacher and work towards that and just keep
0:53:35Practicing and just keep writing and just keep doing it over and over and over again
0:53:39Yeah, yeah, you go through you go through the old tests and you do them over and over again, but more importantly
0:53:47You keep doing one of the old tests until you score
0:53:50Perfectly on it. Don't move on to any additional old tests that you have. Do one of them until you get a perfect score.
0:53:58And the purpose of this is
0:54:01Not what you're thinking. It's not that "Oh now I finally got all of it right." The purpose of this is actually to drill into your mind
0:54:11the easier parts to make them second nature so that you just
0:54:15Very quickly know how to do the simple things and kind of going to our cognitive load discussion before
0:54:22It helps you when you're facing a difficult question
0:54:26That the the easy stuff you don't even have to think about it's not a burden on your mind
0:54:31You just know it because you've done it 20 30 40 50 times. So that's my advice for preparing for a test
0:54:37So you end up with some points in the bag basically
0:54:40Because it's just stuff you know, it's not even stuff that you have to remember.
0:54:45Yes, that is definitely what happened when I prepared for test that way.
0:54:50Particularly with math and physics, you just go, "Oh right, I can just look at this easy problem for page 1 and 2 on a 10 page exam,
0:54:58and I feel like I haven't even started thinking until page 4, because the beginning pages, I just know this.
0:55:05I just know it because I've done it so many times."
0:55:08I don't think there is a better way to study for a test than that.
0:55:13I really think that's the best thing you can possibly do.
0:55:16Toby would like to know which RSS reader do you use?
0:55:19I would like to add to Toby's question
0:55:21and ask, do you even use RSS?
0:55:23It's funny this question comes up now
0:55:25because literally just yesterday,
0:55:27I canceled my subscription to an RSS syncing service
0:55:32because I realized that even though I think I use RSS,
0:55:35I haven't actually used it in any meaningful way in probably a year or so.
0:55:41So I mean, I used to be really heavy into RSS.
0:55:45And when I, the app that I was using was Reader with two E's, which is unhelpful.
0:55:50The worst name.
0:55:51But yeah, it's the worst name ever.
0:55:53This is the worst name.
0:55:54Reader, especially when Google Reader existed, because that was what people called Google Reader.
0:55:59They called it Reader.
0:56:00Oh, the worst.
0:56:01Right.
0:56:02I like Reader in no small part because it has the dark mode viewing, which is very easy on my eyes.
0:56:09That's what I used, but when it came time to renew my subscription to my RSS syncing service,
0:56:16I just realized, "Oh, I just don't really use this." I still have it, and I think I do, but I don't.
0:56:22So I just cancelled it, and I don't--I'm just admitting to myself that I don't use RSS. I used to.
0:56:28The thing that I do now is I actually use "if this then that" to send a limited number of websites that I want to follow straight to Instapaper.
0:56:40So Instapaper is sort of an RSS reader now, but the nature of Instapaper versus a proper RSS reader forces me to limit the number of things that I actually want to get sent to Instapaper.
0:56:56The other limitation which is useful is it makes me think about
0:57:00Who is writing stuff that is actually long enough and interesting enough that I want to read it?
0:57:07As opposed to just I mean I used to have
0:57:10100 200 websites that I was theoretically following in my RSS reader, but lots of those were just very
0:57:17short pieces of writing or they were link aggregators in some way and
0:57:22And it's one of these ways where I realize I don't really care.
0:57:26Like I think I care, but I don't.
0:57:28And so I have a much, much smaller number of people who write something that I think is substantial
0:57:32that I want to go to Instapaper, and when I'm looking for something to read, I open up Instapaper and go through that.
0:57:38So that's what I do now, and that has dramatically reduced the number of things that I follow.
0:57:47I was a big user of RSS and then just for some reason just stopped checking it I think
0:57:53because I just ran out of the time to do that as well every single day. So then a few months ago
0:58:00I took my maybe 200 subscriptions or something silly like that down to about 15 or 20 to see if
0:58:07I would then check it. I wasn't checking it. So like for me my feeling is I will find it on Twitter
0:58:17if it's good. And I just signed up for an app called Nuzzle. It's a little service.
0:58:23So what it does, you plug your Twitter account into it and it surfaces what lots of people are
0:58:30linking to on Twitter that you follow. So it kind of what it does is it basically delivers your own
0:58:37personal zeitgeist. So you just find out what is happening in your circle or of the people that
0:58:43you're interested in what are they talking about and I haven't I haven't
0:58:49used it enough yet to know if this is something that I'm interested in but
0:58:52what I do know is there have been a few things in Nozzle that I have come across
0:58:56and read or watched or whatever that I would have missed otherwise so I think
0:59:02that there might be some utility in there but I'm just trying to get used to
0:59:06it because it sends notifications and sometimes that can be annoying so I'm
0:59:11trying to work out if one I want the notifications and you can tweak what it
0:59:15will notify you about and then two and then if I'm not gonna get notified about
0:59:20things am I ever gonna go in there and look at it so I'm still playing around
0:59:24of it but it is an interesting thing but for me it's just if it's really gonna be
0:59:29that important I will find out about it on Twitter and I need to stay fairly
0:59:33well informed because I have a bunch of shows that are quite topical and
0:59:36news-based and I never feel like I don't know what's happening so yeah you have
0:59:41much more reason to stay up to date with lots of things that I do. So you need something
0:59:45to do that for you. And it sounds like you have found something that helps filter out
0:59:51the important stuff.
0:59:52Effectively just following people that I'm interested in that have something to say and
0:59:57then following the official accounts of a couple of blogs and sites that I like to read,
1:00:03I pretty much just find everything I need on Twitter that way. It works out. But yeah,
1:00:10RSS for me is just not a thing that I use anymore.
1:00:14Brookfield would like to know why do we both use Tweetbot and not the official Twitter
1:00:19app?
1:00:20I don't exactly know why.
1:00:24Okay.
1:00:25I just, every time I use the official Twitter app, I have both of them on my iPad.
1:00:31I just, something about the official Twitter app just repels me.
1:00:35I don't like the way it displays too much information, and it sometimes also just feels
1:00:41like the information density is too low.
1:00:43I can't put my finger on what it is, but there's something about it that I don't like.
1:00:48So I still use the very, very old now looking Tweetbot on my iPad.
1:00:54Oh, it's a sorry state of affairs.
1:00:57It's just horrific.
1:00:59It's a sorry state of affairs because of first, how old that is.
1:01:05And second, that there aren't better alternatives.
1:01:08Or at least alternatives that I like better.
1:01:10I mean there's um...
1:01:11Twitterific.
1:01:12What's the other?
1:01:13Yeah, Twitterific, thank you.
1:01:14That is the only other contender in this space.
1:01:17And something about Twitterific feels very similar to the Twitter app to me.
1:01:21Where it's like, I don't like these for the same reason.
1:01:24There's just something about the way they're presenting tweets I don't like.
1:01:28But this is all Twitter's fault. There should be very many different Twitter clients that
1:01:32you can try and that you can like, but there are not. It's a sad, withering field for Twitter
1:01:41apps.
1:01:42>> SANDEEP SINHA: Tweetbot gives me a few features that Twitter's official apps don't
1:01:46do and will probably never do. One of them is syncing my timeline position. So if I'm
1:01:53looking at Twitter on my iPhone and then open Twitter on my Mac, my Mac will
1:01:58scroll to where I was last looking on my iPhone and that is very much against
1:02:02like Twitter's business model because they always want you to know what's
1:02:06happening right now you know because that helps them and their ads are always
1:02:10at the top and stuff like that. The ads are annoying just because of the quality
1:02:16of stuff that's in there. They're not very tailored to me I don't think or any
1:02:22tailoring that they're doing I don't think that's a good job because I never
1:02:25look at the ads on Twitter's app because I check it every now and then just to
1:02:30see what it's like and the ads that it shows me are never relevant to me but
1:02:37that and I don't feel that way about a lot of web advertising because a lot of
1:02:41the time I'm going around the web and there's stuff happening that it's like
1:02:43okay there's some I can see why you're thinking that or yes I am interested in
1:02:47But Twitter stuff, it's just like, "Play Game of War!"
1:02:51It's like, I don't even want to and/or know what that is.
1:02:54All I know is that you're showing me a picture of Kate Upton.
1:02:57Like, that's 100% of all I know.
1:02:59I don't feel very aware of the Twitter ads, but it does feel the same way.
1:03:02These seem like TV ads on Seinfeld or something,
1:03:07where they're just hitting as broad of an audience as possible.
1:03:11- Yeah. - And so it's not...
1:03:14intensely relevant to anybody it is mildly interesting to a huge group of people
1:03:20that's maybe the way they feel so they don't even stick in my mind I can't think of anything
1:03:25that was an ad that caught my attention on Twitter
1:03:27and plus like you know you're effectively trying to make a choice as to what app
1:03:33are you going to use that has underdevelopment on one platform like Twitter don't seem to not care about their Mac app
1:03:38right right
1:03:40and they also don't really seem to put a lot of effort into their iPad app
1:03:43But at least on Tweetbot I get a really good iPhone app and a really good Mac app
1:03:47and the iPad is just in limbo.
1:03:49Okay, Gray.
1:03:51Mhm.
1:03:52Kirk Orpicard.
1:03:53This episode of Cortex is also brought to you by Igloo, the intranet you'll actually like.
1:03:59With Igloo, you no longer have to be chained to your desk to get your work done.
1:04:03With Igloo, you're able to manage your task list, your documents, anything that you need in your intranet from wherever you want to work.
1:04:11Maybe you could do this during a meeting on a laptop just to make sure you keep them up to date while somebody is talking about
1:04:16Something boring. Maybe you want to share status updates with your colleagues about the great lunch that you've had at that client site
1:04:22You can do this from your phone as you're walking out the door and you can even access the latest version of all your files
1:04:27From home which you can also do in your pajamas and nobody will ever know these days
1:04:32Everything is mobile your work should be too and igloo understand this what they also understand is with our mobile lives
1:04:38people are spreading documents across different platforms that they use.
1:04:42Maybe you use Box or Google Drive or Dropbox
1:04:45and people are spreading their sensitive documents that should be all contained within the business.
1:04:49They can be everywhere and this isn't great.
1:04:51So Igloo allows you to integrate all of these services into their one big, easy to secure platform.
1:04:57They feature 256-bit encryption, single sign-on and Active Directory integrations.
1:05:02A lot of that stuff doesn't make sense to me, but I know that it means
1:05:05that igloo is a super secure platform and your IT person is going to love to know that.
1:05:11If you ever looked at your internet and thought whoever designed this must truly hate me and
1:05:14everything I know and stand for, well those days are over.
1:05:17Igloo doesn't look like it was built in the 1900s.
1:05:20It can be completely customised to feel exactly like a place that you want to be.
1:05:25It's surprisingly configurable.
1:05:26You can completely rebrand it, give it the look and feel of your team and you can also
1:05:30customise group spaces with their easy drag and drop widget editor so you can organise
1:05:36and reorganise the whole platform to fit exactly how each of the teams work in your company.
1:05:41It's time to break away from the internet you hate. Go and sign up for igloo right now
1:05:44and you can try it for free for any team of up to 10 people for as long as you want. Sign
1:05:50up right now at igloosoftware.com/cortex this will also really help support this show. Thank
1:05:55Thank you to igloo for sponsoring this week's episode and for helping us out at relay FM.
1:06:00Oh the classic nerd question Kirk or Picard.
1:06:07Well first of all how much how much Star Trek have you ever watched Myke?
1:06:10Absolutely zero.
1:06:11I've seen I had a feeling that might be the answer.
1:06:15I've seen the new movies and I like them.
1:06:18New from 2007 the ones with the like the rebooted Star Trek?
1:06:22The rebooted ones and I really like those.
1:06:25And I know enough about the important parts of Star Trek, right?
1:06:30Like I know who Kirk Picard are.
1:06:33I know who they're played by.
1:06:36And I've seen some episodes of Next Generation when they were just on TV, but I have never
1:06:42been much of a Star Trek guy at all.
1:06:45I don't have anything against it, but I've just never spent any time with it.
1:06:52So I answered this question on one of my videos a while back, and I gave the answer which, if I have to choose between Kirk or Picard, I generally like Picard better.
1:07:04But since I made those videos, those new Star Trek movies, I have realized that there are two Kirks now, which is unique in the Star Trek universe.
1:07:14And I think that the new Kirk is very interesting in a way that the old Kirk I just found ridiculous.
1:07:20I may be too young to appreciate the Star Trek original series, but the episodes that I have seen, I find them difficult to enjoy.
1:07:31They're just too corny or... I don't know. I'm not a huge fan of them.
1:07:36So if I'm choosing between Kirk and Picard, I think it's a more interesting question now.
1:07:40I think the new Star Trek reboots are very good. I really like them.
1:07:44But I'm still going to choose Picard as the better Star Trek captain.
1:07:49I like him better.
1:07:50But it's always Kirk or Picard, but I really like Janeway.
1:07:55I am biased towards Janeway because I have seen more Voyager than
1:08:01anything else. My wife is a big Voyager fan and
1:08:04Voyager was on when I was in high school and I had some friends who were super into Star Trek
1:08:10and so we would watch the new episodes of Voyager at their house when they came out.
1:08:15I think the character of Captain Janeway has more interesting things going for her in some ways.
1:08:23I like the situation that Janeway is in way better, that she's stranded out in deep space, she doesn't have the fleet behind her, and she has to make these difficult decisions.
1:08:34So I'm a big fan of Janeway. I like her a lot as a captain, even though I think as we've discussed there are many things about Star Trek that frustrate me.
1:08:42There are many things that I would want to change and that it's horrifically inconsistent.
1:08:48I'll drop a little nerd trivia here that you won't care about at all because you don't know any of these things, but...
1:08:52[laughs]
1:08:54You laugh in the background there?
1:08:56Nope.
1:08:58Of course not.
1:09:00Behind the scenes at Voyager there was a big disagreement between the writers about what Captain Janeway's character should be.
1:09:10they split into two groups which were basically Captain Mom versus the Iron Lady.
1:09:16So should her character be very mothering or should she be just this really cold-hearted person who makes these decisions and never looks back?
1:09:24And the writing team was split on this.
1:09:26And so the result is that in many episodes of Star Trek, Janeway acts in these wildly inconsistent ways from episode to episode.
1:09:35And if you've seen Voyager as much as I have you notice this like wait a minute
1:09:40This is a totally different person than three episodes ago like oh now
1:09:44She's really caring, but you know she was she was willing to discard things earlier
1:09:49You know so anyway, so just wildly inconsistent, but what I love is that the actress Kate Mulgrew
1:09:54Said that this was driving her crazy, and she decided that
1:09:58The way to make this work is to simply play the character as though she has shell shock
1:10:04Right, as though she's going through PTSD, and this is the only thing that can make this character work.
1:10:11Is that the situation that she has been in is so traumatic that she has PTSD, and so she reacts very badly under some circumstances, and perfectly fine under others.
1:10:22So I thought that was that was a great little moment from like if you're an actress handed this difficult situation
1:10:30how to figure out to make this into something coherent and
1:10:34the only other minor thing that I will say is that
1:10:37in our household my wife and I
1:10:40we give out to actors and actresses what we call the Janeway Award, which is
1:10:46when we see someone on film
1:10:51sell a completely ridiculous line.
1:10:55Because
1:10:57Kate Mulgrew had to say some of the worst, most
1:11:01convoluted lines in Star Trek Voyager.
1:11:04But she was able to sell them sometimes in just this amazing way where it's like, "I totally buy this ridiculous dialogue."
1:11:12And this came from one of the early episodes where
1:11:15Captain Janeway is talking to Amelia Earhart on a planet out in the Delta Coast.
1:11:21quadrant and is trying to explain to Amelia Earhart the situation and the
1:11:26actress Kate Mulgrew has to look at Amelia Earhart and say with complete
1:11:29seriousness you have been abducted by aliens and it's just like it's just the
1:11:36worst ever but she sells it and so when we see someone's accomplished that we
1:11:40say that person has just won a Janeway Award. This is me selling a ridiculous line of
1:11:46dialogue so anyway that's my uh that's my situation with Star Trek.
1:11:50compromise that those writers came to is one of the worst decisions possible
1:11:55we'll just write it differently than you will like that is just the worst way of
1:12:00dealing with that situation yeah and the the interesting thing is that this this
1:12:04big split is actually what eventually led to Battlestar Galactica because it
1:12:09was the writing team that was on the side of Iron Lady that eventually
1:12:14produced Battlestar Galactica as very much a reaction to their experience
1:12:19putting together Voyager. And if you're watching Battlestar Galactica knowing that, you can
1:12:23see this in the couple of female lead characters, that they are both way more like the ruthless
1:12:32decision makers than they could have ever made Janeway be on Star Trek Voyager.
1:12:38So probably it kind of basically ended up being best for everyone, because you got Battlestar
1:12:43out of it.
1:12:44Yeah, Battlestar Galactica is pretty good.
1:12:47And when I watch Voyager, I'm always feeling like it could use 20% more
1:12:53Battlestar Galactica.
1:12:55That's what Voyager needs.
1:12:57Let's turn down the happiness 10% and turn up the Galactica 20%.
1:13:02So I want to ask you a couple of questions that are focused around something
1:13:07that is near and dear to my heart.
1:13:09OK. Which is paper and pens.
1:13:14people may not know this about me, but I actually host a podcast, co-host a podcast about pens and paper on Relay Fm.
1:13:21And Walker has written in to say,
1:13:25"How does Myke feel about Gray's 'shred everything shreddable' policy with regards to notebooks and things like Field Notes, for example?"
1:13:33Field Notes is a brand notebook that I love.
1:13:35So I notice about you that you enjoy shredding things.
1:13:38Well, I enjoy shredding useless things.
1:13:41Yeah, see this is this was my thought too. I also believe in shredding everything except
1:13:48the stuff that I want to keep. Which seems like a very simple argument there. Like, oh
1:13:55well yeah but it makes sense to me. Again, and one thing, my notebooks once I'm done
1:13:59in them they never get opened again because they're done. And I have had the habit in
1:14:05the past of scanning them but I don't really do that anymore. There used to be more when
1:14:10I used to take notes that were more critical for my job.
1:14:13I would scan them in case I ever needed to get back to them again.
1:14:17But it doesn't bother me like I don't shred my notebooks.
1:14:22I just put them in storage, but
1:14:25I could quite easily see a world in which I did that.
1:14:27It wouldn't really bother me too much.
1:14:30Right, because you're never accessing them in storage anyway.
1:14:32It's like they have been shredded.
1:14:33Exactly.
1:14:34It just happened to still physically exist.
1:14:36Yeah, I keep them just because.
1:14:38Yeah, I have a few things like that as well.
1:14:40In my pre-iPhone days, I used to write in notebooks, and I still have a bunch of notebooks that are just filled with handwritten things,
1:14:50and I have them around. They're actually at my parents' house where I am right now.
1:14:56And I've scanned some of them, and yeah, they're still here, you know, just because I haven't shredded them, but I never look at them either.
1:15:05Of all of the questions that we've received, the way in which this one is phrased, I love
1:15:12the most of all. This is from Le Blobbs. "When writing with the primitive pen and paper,
1:15:20do you write in cursive or in normal romanised text?" I just really love that, going into
1:15:26this, the bias, like, it's primitive. Well we all know that, we accept this to be true,
1:15:32that pen and paper is primitive, which I do not agree with, because pen and paper,
1:15:37as I know that Grey employs, is really great for some tasks.
1:15:40Mm-hmm, yeah, it definitely is.
1:15:42Like you can't, you cannot, like, well I know that I cannot, and I know many people are the same
1:15:49as me, the thinking process that occurs during using your hands to write is very, very different
1:15:57to the one that you go through when you're using a computer, and sometimes
1:16:01it's what you really need to get through something, is to be able to grab a pen and paper and go for it.
1:16:06Mm-hmm. Oh, without a doubt. This is where
1:16:09I do print out my scripts, and I work on them by hand, because it is... it's just different.
1:16:16Your brain just treats it differently, and I'm able to often cut through problems in scripts
1:16:21when I'm working with them on a piece of paper with a pen, in a way that I am not when I'm working on my iPad.
1:16:26So it is definitely useful.
1:16:28Um...
1:16:30To answer the question, when I am working on my scripts, so something that is going to be for video
1:16:37I make all of the corrections in cursive
1:16:41If I'm writing anything that is not a script, I'm writing it just in regular print
1:16:46I don't know why my brain has decided that this is the way it's going to be
1:16:50But that is just the way that it is
1:16:53Everything else that I write is print, but if I'm working on a script, for some reason it's cursive time
1:16:58time and that's that's the way I write. Whilst I don't have a distinction or my
1:17:04brain isn't making a distinction as strong as yours, I do very wildly between
1:17:09block capitals, print, and cursive or joined-up handwriting as I would know it
1:17:17to be called here and I don't know why this happens but sometimes halfway for a
1:17:21sentence I change from cursive to script. That must be great for anybody who has
1:17:26to read the things that you write.
1:17:27- Not many people have to read what I write,
1:17:29but my handwriting--
1:17:30- That sounds good then.
1:17:31- Yeah, so it works out for everyone.
1:17:34It's my own special brand of code.
1:17:35All right, I have a couple more for you.
1:17:38Nicholas would like to know how precise you are with scripts.
1:17:42Like for example, do you write the word so,
1:17:46or do you put like long pause
1:17:48or anything like that in your scripts?
1:17:51- The scripts are word for word when I write them out.
1:17:54So any non-word thing is written
1:17:59And I do make notes about pauses or sounds
1:18:04And I use a lot of italics as well for what word do I want to emphasize in this sentence
1:18:10But that's partly because when I'm going through the scripts, one of the phases is to read them out loud
1:18:16As though I am doing the video
1:18:18And part of that is trying to find the rhythm of the sentences
1:18:22So I do have to make notes about, yes, this word is going to be the word that is emphasized
1:18:28and I want to pause at this moment for a second or two
1:18:32If I was writing something just for an article in a website or something, I would still read it out loud
1:18:38because I do think that helps when you're writing, but I wouldn't feel the need to make a whole bunch of notes about
1:18:45or I wouldn't feel the need to include italics in the way that I currently do
1:18:50Yeah, that's why. That stuff is in there because I'm trying to find the way that sounds best when I'm saying it out loud.
1:18:57That's really cool. I didn't know that. I like that. That's a real level of detail that I enjoy now that I know that fact.
1:19:05Paul says I understand a little bit more, but emphasizing certain words, choosing that in advance is very interesting.
1:19:12Yeah, if people look at, if people turn on the captions for my videos, not so much with the newer ones, but with a lot of the older ones, I would just upload the captions as the script that I had written, and very often just didn't bother taking out some of the italics or a few other things.
1:19:31I would take out, if I wrote something like that was a pause or a little note to myself, I would take that out because I'm obviously not saying it.
1:19:38But on the older videos you can watch them with the captions on and you'll see the little asterisks around a whole bunch of words which were like "Yes, I decided that this was a word that I was going to emphasize in the sentence."
1:19:47So that stuff is still there, sort of, in some of the older videos.
1:19:51Do you use any kind of script writing software or do you use any kind of script writing markup or do you just have your own little codes and symbols that you use?
1:20:00I'm pretty much using Markdown.
1:20:02I want to talk about Markdown one day.
1:20:04With you.
1:20:06We can talk more in detail about that.
1:20:08But the short answer is I'm just using Markdown
1:20:10which is why I put asterisks around the words
1:20:12to mark that it's italics.
1:20:14So my last question today
1:20:16comes from Bobby. And Bobby would like to know
1:20:18what advice would you give to somebody
1:20:20who's looking to become self-employed
1:20:22in a similar fashion to how you are?
1:20:24We sort of touched on this earlier
1:20:26actually. So this is a good
1:20:28good bringing things around to the beginning question. I employed a very deliberate strategy
1:20:37when I was trying to become self-employed, and that was to try a bunch of different little
1:20:47projects on the side. So I always had something else that I was doing in addition to my actual
1:20:57main job. And so for a while when I was teaching I woke up very early in the
1:21:04morning and I always dedicated my first hour or two of wakefulness, which is my
1:21:11prime useful time, to my side project. I'm not giving my first couple of hours of
1:21:18wakefulness to my employer, I'm going to give them to me to work on things. And
1:21:26I think you have to think about becoming self-employed.
1:21:31I always think of it as a bit like,
1:21:32this is the worst analogy ever,
1:21:36but in my mind I'm always imagining like a roulette table.
1:21:40And what you wanna do is you wanna place
1:21:44a bunch of small bets all over the table.
1:21:48You don't want to go all in on a single thing
1:21:54because you want to be doing a little experiment to see what do people want to do
1:21:59and I went through this with a bunch of stuff that just didn't work out
1:22:03where, like we said before, I was trying to think of services to sell or other things to do
1:22:08and I had things that were successful but never successful enough to fully employ myself
1:22:14and that's a useful piece of information to have
1:22:18or I just had stuff that just totally didn't work
1:22:21And so you have to just try a bunch of little things and cut the stuff that isn't working.
1:22:27And that's... this is exactly why I have ended up in a career that I did not aim for.
1:22:33I wasn't planning for this. I never could have planned for this.
1:22:37But making the videos were little side projects that I thought would be popular in some way.
1:22:45I didn't just make them because I thought, "Oh, well, you know, this will be a fun thing to do."
1:22:49They were a very purposeless experiment that I still thought people might like.
1:22:56And I was originally thinking maybe any attention that I get from these videos, I can parlay that into something else.
1:23:04Right? Then people just know I exist and then maybe I can sell goods or services or do something else or do consulting or whatever.
1:23:11So that's what I think is the best thing to do.
1:23:14try a whole bunch of little things and try to figure out very quickly
1:23:20what people are interested in and what people aren't interested in.
1:23:25But if you do that, you may end up doing something that is just...
1:23:28that you're not planning for.
1:23:30You're just trying to figure out what people are interested in.
1:23:32And I have read a few books that match up with this advice
1:23:37from people who are also successful.
1:23:39The one that I usually recommend to say people who are just graduating
1:23:42is so good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport, which I really like.
1:23:46And the guy who writes Dilbert actually just wrote a book
1:23:51called, I think it's called "How to Fail at Everything and Still Succeed"
1:23:55and yeah,
1:23:59he's a very strange guy. He's a very strange guy.
1:24:03But reading through that book I could see
1:24:07he had the exact same experience that I did of...
1:24:10He didn't really care what it was that he was going to do, he was just willing to try a whole bunch of little things and just go with what works and what doesn't.
1:24:20And for him the cartooning was exactly one of these side projects.
1:24:23And even the beginning of Dilbert was very different than what he was thinking it would be.
1:24:28I forget the exact details, but it was originally going to be all about Dilbert's home life,
1:24:33and he quickly realized that the cartoons that got the most reaction from people were about Dilbert's job.
1:24:39And so he changed the direction of the whole comic to be entirely about work.
1:24:43And, you know, now this is what he does for a living.
1:24:45So, that's, that is my overall advice.
1:24:49And potentially two books to read.
1:24:51Do you have anything you want to add to that, Myke?
1:24:53Yeah. I have a very, very, very different opinion to you.
1:24:58Uh-huh. Well, you had a dream job you were aiming for.
1:25:01There you go. So that's, so this is the idea.
1:25:03We're both coming at this from very, very different avenues.
1:25:07because I remember when I quit my job
1:25:11and I was telling people in the office that I was leaving,
1:25:14a lot of the time I would have people say to me,
1:25:16"Oh, I'd love to have my own business."
1:25:19But they never had a business doing X.
1:25:23It was just, "I'd love to have my own business."
1:25:25And I was like, "I don't understand
1:25:26"how that can be a goal that you have
1:25:28"if you don't have any idea what you wanna do."
1:25:31So you can't just have, "Oh, my business does business,
1:25:34"so can you give me some money?"
1:25:36Like that's not how things work.
1:25:37So I always found that--
1:25:38- Like the haha business meme.
1:25:40- Yeah.
1:25:41- The haha business.
1:25:42- What are you doing today?
1:25:42Oh, just so much business.
1:25:44Like it doesn't exist.
1:25:46You have to have an idea.
1:25:48So my thing, my advice is,
1:25:51once you've found the thing that you really wanna do,
1:25:53you gotta get ready to sacrifice a whole bunch of stuff
1:25:55that other people might not wanna sacrifice.
1:25:58And if you can manage to do that, then you'll succeed.
1:26:02Because I genuinely believe the reason
1:26:04that a lot of people don't is because they don't want to sacrifice and that is
1:26:08not a criticism because some of the things you have to sacrifice are things
1:26:11that you just don't want to. Like I didn't and kind of still really don't
1:26:16have a social life like I didn't have a social life for years because every
1:26:20night I would come home and start my second job so and luckily now I know a
1:26:26bunch of self-employed people so I can meet the lunches and stuff like that but
1:26:32gave up that I gave up the ability to really sleep right because I would go to
1:26:36bed late because I was working on a project and wake up really early in the
1:26:39morning because I was working on a project and I lost a lot of friendships
1:26:43and relationships and these are things that I'm not saying good because they're
1:26:47not good which is why a lot of people can't do them but I think sometimes if
1:26:51the thing you want to do and this is this applies way more to I want to
1:26:56achieve my dream then I want to be self-employed but if you do have a dream
1:27:00job that you want to do. Sometimes the only way to get there is to go through some really
1:27:04tough decisions and to give up a lot of stuff.
1:27:08Yeah, that is definitely the case.
1:27:12One of the things that someone might get the impression from listening to
1:27:16our previous episodes that you also have to give up is if you're trying to
1:27:20do something outside your main job, it means that you have to make
1:27:24sacrifices at your main job. Which
1:27:28I think it might be clear that maybe we weren't the best employees we could have possibly been at the places we were working
1:27:37And even that is a stress that is difficult for some people to handle
1:27:44And so yes, if you are trying to do anything on your own you totally have trade-offs
1:27:50trade-offs. There are things that you have to sacrifice.
1:27:54But I mean, this is true with anything in life.
1:27:58All of life is about making decisions and cutting off options.
1:28:04But it's just that if you're going for working on your own or being self-employed,
1:28:09it's a big decision with a big impact so it also has
1:28:13big trade-offs that you have to face. But it's interesting hearing you say that,
1:28:17that Myke because my goal was of course exactly like I want to be self-employed
1:28:22in the same way that people want to have a business. What do you want to be self
1:28:25employed at? I don't know self-employment like this is this was the goal that I
1:28:29was aiming for and I was not particularly concerned with what the
1:28:34details of that were. Yeah that was just always so weird to me but as I said we
1:28:42were coming at it from very different perspectives I did really really not
1:28:45want to have to work with someone but more importantly to me was to do the
1:28:49thing that I really really want to do so maybe if this didn't work out or maybe
1:28:54if it ends up not working out I will end up in that mode. Because now it's like now I really have to be
1:29:01self-employed so maybe I will just do anything. Yes once you once you become
1:29:08self-employed I mean I've heard many people joke about it but it's totally
1:29:11true. If you become self-employed, the danger is that you are now pretty much
1:29:16unemployable to anyone in the future. It's just like you just wouldn't do very
1:29:21well in a regular job once you've been self-employed, which adds to the pressure
1:29:26of like you have to remain successful because otherwise you're in a lot of
1:29:30trouble. Oh yeah, I would. I was never a great employee because I always had
1:29:36something I wanted to do, you know? So I was never fully focused but now it would be just
1:29:45horrible for everyone involved. So we're skipping an episode next week, we're not gonna be around
1:29:53because of your travel schedule and the fact that what we can blame, basically we can blame
1:29:59Washington for this, right?
1:30:01Eh, the episode next week, you can just blame that on me because of the difficulties of
1:30:06trying to schedule and make sure that we have an episode and my refusal to believe in the
1:30:11schedule which I am now forcing on you but, yeah, I am not around to work as much as I
1:30:17would normally be so there's not going to be an episode next week.
1:30:20Unless I do one on my own.