00:00:00 ◼ ► On June 3rd, 2015, there was a blog post on the RelayFM, as it was then, blog, introducing RelayFM's 2015 Summer Pilots.
00:00:12 ◼ ► It sounds exciting, yeah. One of those shows was Cortex. It was a pilot. We committed to 10 episodes, and now we're celebrating 10 years.
00:00:20 ◼ ► No one would have been more surprised than me, I think, 10 episodes to 10 years, but yeah, here we are. We made it. Happy 10-year anniversary, Mike.
00:00:30 ◼ ► Yeah, it's a funny thing, really, the 10-year anniversary for the show. You know, 10 years was so much in my focus last year, right, with Relay turning 10.
00:00:39 ◼ ► So, you know, like Relay was in August, and then the following June, so like 10 months later or whatever, we launched Cortex to the network, and me and you had an idea for this show, and we decided we wanted to give it a go, and we committed to 10 episodes.
00:00:53 ◼ ► We'll talk a little bit about that later on, because we had some Ask Cortex questions, and lots of people made reference to the 10 episodes.
00:01:01 ◼ ► I was going to say, yeah, there's probably one of the most frequent things people want to know about the start of the show is the, like, 10 episodes. Lots of questions about that, so we will finally answer it today.
00:01:10 ◼ ► This show is mostly just going to be us looking back, and, you know, we've got lots of Ask Cortex questions to do, but there's something I want to talk about at the start.
00:01:16 ◼ ► So 10 years is a really long time, and it's a really long time to be doing anything, even in the way that we do it, which is hilarious.
00:01:24 ◼ ► I've been going through the archives today. It's very funny to see, like, how frequently we were doing the show, and then, like, spread out a little bit over time.
00:01:31 ◼ ► It's like weekly, fortnightly, monthly. Nevertheless, it's a very long time to be doing something.
00:01:38 ◼ ► So, at this point, I will speak for Gray and say that Gray is going to be taking a sabbatical from the show, but the show is not going anywhere.
00:01:46 ◼ ► We're going to talk about what we're doing. We've got some fun stuff planned, but it's time for Gray to take a bit of a break, to focus on some stuff.
00:01:54 ◼ ► I have some things that I want to do for the show. So, rather than the show taking a break, it's going to continue with just me for a little bit.
00:02:01 ◼ ► Mike has some fun stuff planned. He's got this great idea, which I quite like, which is state of the workflow, to bring on interesting people, to do the thing that, like, everybody wants the most from Cortex, which is to know the details of how do people work.
00:02:17 ◼ ► So, Mike is going to bring on people, do a sort of combination state of the hardware, state of the apps, and, like, run through how do people get their work done, which is, like, what people want from the show.
00:02:30 ◼ ► And so, I am very much looking forward to those episodes while I'm on sabbatical, and I will be back later, but that is what Mike is going to be doing in the meantime.
00:02:39 ◼ ► Gray's going to continue to know what we're doing, and, you know, I'm looking forward to talking through what I'm working on with him.
00:02:47 ◼ ► You know, in a different world, the show would take a break for a while, but I don't want to do that.
00:02:54 ◼ ► I'm going to talk a little bit later on in the episode about why it's so important to me, and so I want to continue doing it, and so I figure the best thing that I can do is, as Gray mentioned, the thing that people seem to love the most, which is understanding how people use the things that they use.
00:03:12 ◼ ► I'm going to ask them what they use, and so for all you Android and Windows users, you're finally getting what you want.
00:03:20 ◼ ► So, yeah, there's a bunch of creators that I'm reaching out to and I'm talking with, and I'm really looking forward to having them on the show to go through a bunch of stuff.
00:03:27 ◼ ► So, I think it's going to be a bunch of people that you know, maybe some people that you don't know, but I'm really excited to bring some special episodes to the Cortexans.
00:03:34 ◼ ► The Android users who've been sticking with us for 10 years will finally get satisfaction.
00:03:44 ◼ ► Yeah, I'll talk about that in one of those episodes, about a little bit what I'm doing, too, with that and my kind of split device lifestyle.
00:04:02 ◼ ► I value this show and I value our relationship so much, and it's weird to make any kind of change.
00:04:09 ◼ ► So, I felt like it was important to talk about it before we do the rest of the episode because I might be weirdly emotional.
00:04:20 ◼ ► And I do think this is the perfect time to do it because it's such an incredible amount of time that we have been producing this project.
00:04:26 ◼ ► Significantly longer, I think, than either of us ever really expected that it would go on.
00:04:50 ◼ ► So, let me just talk about it real quick, like, kind of what this show has been for me.
00:04:58 ◼ ► Like, in my professional career, there have been a few things that are, like, beginnings, right?
00:05:08 ◼ ► For me, beginning Cortex was equally as important as any of that stuff because this is the largest audience that I have the pleasure of being able to produce for.
00:05:34 ◼ ► There was an episode a while ago called Being Better, and I spoke about it in that episode.
00:05:38 ◼ ► Like, the expectations of having a larger audience but also working with you has pushed me to be better at what I do because you're really good at what you do and you have expectations of what you wanted this show to be.
00:05:54 ◼ ► And so, I kind of had to, I think, level up quite quickly, and I think that we did that.
00:06:03 ◼ ► It's like, I think that it's helped me hone my craft under a high-pressure environment.
00:06:07 ◼ ► It's like, not that we had disagreements, but we had different perspectives on the editing in particular of the show at the start.
00:06:14 ◼ ► And I do remember you really pushing back on me for, like, the amount of editing that you want to do is crazy.
00:06:24 ◼ ► And I will say, like, from my perspective, I think, like, we did get to the place that's like, ah, what is the correct amount of this?
00:06:37 ◼ ► And I think, like, genuinely, like, this is a thing that I value in you is, like, you saw that there's a reason that this show can be different in a certain kind of way.
00:06:56 ◼ ► Because I feel like, oh, we used to have more conversations about the edit and, like, what are we doing and the rest of it.
00:07:15 ◼ ► But it's one of these things, like, oh, yeah, projects require lots of time if you're trying to make them really good.
00:07:43 ◼ ► And even at the point where we have an editor now helping us out, there is still a pass that we both do.
00:07:48 ◼ ► And also, similarly, if you really focus on the end product, you actually get better at producing it.
00:07:56 ◼ ► So if you are aware of things that you're often cutting out, you start to do them less because it's like, I'm just creating more work for myself.
00:08:14 ◼ ► Like, if you were to put better quality sausage meat into the grinder, you would get a better result at the end of it.
00:08:26 ◼ ► But, you know, there were a lot of things that were weird to me when we started the show.
00:08:31 ◼ ► Like, every show that I do, I start in a similar way, which is like, from Relay, this is da-da-da-da.
00:09:27 ◼ ► But I am having the funny experience of current me, like, very strongly agreeing with 10 years ago me's thoughts on that.
00:09:53 ◼ ► But it is also, like, the second thing there is, I think, again, like, something that the audience is not really aware of.
00:10:09 ◼ ► Precisely because I have always been, like, a real pain in the ass about, like, trying to not have a show that is news-driven.
00:10:17 ◼ ► And it's like, that causes endless amounts of problems for both of us in a lot of ways.
00:10:28 ◼ ► Because with everything that I make, it's like, the audience should never in the moment be thinking about the fact that this is not a news-driven show.
00:10:44 ◼ ► And their experience should be something like, oh, with Cortex, obviously, the shows are timed in some way.
00:10:53 ◼ ► But fundamentally, there should still always be a lot of value in the conversation, even if, like, it is placed in time because of the tools that we're discussing.
00:11:02 ◼ ► Like, that's why when both of us are talking, I'm always trying to, like, have the conversation be part of, like, what is the way that we're thinking about using the tools, not just the tools themselves.
00:11:20 ◼ ► And behind the scenes, like, what is the thing that I have always, like, told Mike about?
00:11:52 ◼ ► And, like, I think some of the best podcasts are the podcasts that eat the lives of the hosts.
00:11:57 ◼ ► But it is always very tempting to jump to eat the news because the news is the easiest one.
00:12:05 ◼ ► There's a way in which, like, the audience, I think, in the short term always wants you to respond to the news.
00:12:11 ◼ ► But I think in the long term that can be detrimental for some kinds of shows if you're not thinking about it.
00:12:33 ◼ ► But, like, we've done a really good job with having a show where it's, like, oh, it's still technology focused.
00:12:42 ◼ ► But not allowing it to drift into this other category of being, like, a news focused show in a certain way.
00:12:52 ◼ ► For me, most podcasts fall into one of two buckets, which is either the content is influenced by the world or the show creates its own content.
00:13:07 ◼ ► And it is so much harder to produce a show in the long term where you are creating the content yourself.
00:13:17 ◼ ► That is the hard thing, because you can get into a situation where you run out of ideas, like, quite quickly.
00:13:24 ◼ ► And you have to find things to talk about that are interesting, as opposed to just being like, well, what are the headlines?
00:13:33 ◼ ► And so that is, like, the production challenge of this show, for me, has always been, like, what exactly are we going to talk about?
00:13:42 ◼ ► And, like, this has actually been something for the last year and a half or so that I've been thinking kind of longer term for the show of, like, planning stuff out a bit more to try and help fill those gaps in when otherwise I don't have, like, a pressing moment of inspiration for what we might talk about.
00:14:04 ◼ ► Like, state of the app, state of the hardware, yearly themes have been really helpful for that.
00:14:07 ◼ ► Because there are things that, they're just frameworks in which to have interesting conversations.
00:14:11 ◼ ► But it took many years to try and get that as, like, a basic structure that we could then start building on.
00:14:35 ◼ ► And also it's, like, ah, something that has been, like, set up as expectations for the audience over the years by, like, continuing to do them.
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00:15:10 ◼ ► And there's a good reason for this is they make it so simple for me to get my idea to the world.
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00:16:56 ◼ ► You're going to hate this, but it's like, I actually really liked our AI episodes in a certain way.
00:17:09 ◼ ► The ethics of AIR and AIR will make marionettes of us all before it destroys the world?
00:17:25 ◼ ► I feel like those episodes just existed at the perfect moment in time to be like quite part of like the discussion around AI, like at that moment.
00:17:33 ◼ ► I think we really did just like catch it at the kind of initial crest of like that coming into the mainstream.
00:17:46 ◼ ► I think what I also really like that is it's another thing where seeing a certain change in you.
00:17:53 ◼ ► Like, I think you had to do the difficult thing as a public personality of in public adjusting and changing the way that you think about a topic.
00:18:03 ◼ ► And like, boy, it's just like there's these terrible incentives on the Internet for people in public positions to just like have an opinion and never change it.
00:18:16 ◼ ► And it's like, look, there's a reason why people do this is because people have learned like, oh, doing the thing where you change your mind wins, you know, friends like the people whose side you've changed to don't care.
00:18:41 ◼ ► It's really hard to adjust an opinion on a topic in public and you get absolutely no appreciation for it.
00:18:49 ◼ ► And you have to like articulate your changing thoughts on the thing like as it happened.
00:18:54 ◼ ► And I think those made for good, interesting shows because it's like I'm the person with the static opinion.
00:19:01 ◼ ► Like that's just less interesting than hearing someone talk through like why did they change their mind on something?
00:19:06 ◼ ► Yeah, that is a microcosm of like two things which have been prevalent throughout the last 10 years of doing this show.
00:19:13 ◼ ► One is having opinions in front of such a large audience that if you say something that is unpopular or wrong, people will let you know and they can let you know in very large numbers.
00:19:26 ◼ ► Those episodes were really challenging for me from a feedback perspective because it was one of these scenarios where I felt like I'm obviously not getting my point across clearly because people are saying things back to me which aren't what I believe.
00:19:47 ◼ ► But then also, as you say, like one of the things that I feel like I've learned from you and from doing this show, but I do feel like I've learned from you is like choosing to live in the nuance as opposed to just taking a side.
00:20:03 ◼ ► Like, and I know in this scenario, you felt you've been quite rigid in your like opinion, right?
00:20:14 ◼ ► But I think it isn't always something that people can understand that you would change your mind.
00:20:20 ◼ ► I don't know what it is about content creation that makes that so complicated for people because I think we all go through this all the time in our daily lives.
00:20:27 ◼ ► But there's something about if you say something in public that like it must be a fully formed thought, which isn't always the case.
00:20:57 ◼ ► It's like I was a bit more completely opposed to it back then because it was all that we knew about.
00:21:03 ◼ ► But things have changed and I'm happy to live my life with my opinion changing in front of people, even if they say, hey, you're a hypocrite.
00:21:15 ◼ ► I think like those episodes are interesting because of that shift that happened and because of the timing.
00:21:21 ◼ ► I just kind of like running through in my head like, well, what are the other episodes?
00:21:35 ◼ ► But there's like the book club episode where we can't even remember what the book was now when we've talked about it before.
00:21:40 ◼ ► But like I've got to say like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was probably like the top tier book club episode.
00:21:48 ◼ ► Although I did really like doing the How to Win Friends and Influence People one, like the most recent one.
00:22:12 ◼ ► In Cortex 120, episode out of time, Rio Heist, is when we spoke about the replication crisis.
00:22:17 ◼ ► But like I've always loved the book club episodes and Thinking Fast and Slow for me is actually one of the things I like most,
00:22:24 ◼ ► which is like when we both are just so annoyed by the things that we're reading that we just have to let it out.
00:22:31 ◼ ► Still to this day, when I see people either reading it or I see it in like in bookstores, I'm like, what are you doing?
00:22:47 ◼ ► But that is perhaps our, of everything we've ever done, that might be our strongest agreement on any single piece of media.
00:23:03 ◼ ► I still say Seven Habits because I just feel like that's the one that has the most amount of madness in it.
00:23:09 ◼ ► And I remember, like, I feel like that was fun for both of us to be reacting to these crazy stories.
00:23:19 ◼ ► Although my favorite episode of the show is essentially because I think it's the best thing I've ever made.
00:23:34 ◼ ► And I feel like we did something different at a time when there were, you know, like with any kind of like Apple review or any embargo or anything, any kind of tech product where a bunch of people have had the same experience.
00:23:51 ◼ ► You're essentially hearing the same things over and over again because there's only so much you can say.
00:23:57 ◼ ► And we just had the idea that what I would do is talk you through moment by moment my actual experience, like the whole thing.
00:24:08 ◼ ► Like, you know, now looking back on it, like it didn't change a while, you know, not yet.
00:24:17 ◼ ► But it did also make me think of the episode where we went to Facebook and we tried on the Oculus.
00:24:22 ◼ ► As a great example of the show opening doors, like, oh, we were able to get inside Facebook and we tried the Oculus.
00:24:28 ◼ ► And I think, oh, in a weird way, that's probably the episode that ages better in some sense because we were just like trying to talk about our experience.
00:24:38 ◼ ► But I will remember so hard talking to you on that episode and trying to convey to the listeners, like, listeners, listen, I laid on the floor of the bathroom and stared at the ceiling for hours after this experience, which that does encapsulate, like, what can be the first experience with this kind of technology in the absence of real expectations of what is it like?
00:25:07 ◼ ► Like, right, Apple doesn't have a fainting room where they put people after they try on the Vision Pro, right, because they need to do so because it's just a different world.
00:25:23 ◼ ► I always think back fondly to recording that episode because it was the first time we recorded in the same place, but you would not record in the same room.
00:25:39 ◼ ► And then in the subsequent years at WWDC and other places, we then just recorded in the same room.
00:25:50 ◼ ► I feel like that's one place where I caved out of convenience is, like, eventually we recorded in person.
00:26:04 ◼ ► Like, me and Jason, we usually record, like, one or two episodes of Upgrade a year together.
00:26:09 ◼ ► It's very strange to record a podcast in the same room as someone if you usually don't.
00:26:18 ◼ ► It's like you feel like you've been doing it for four hours and it's been, like, 45 minutes.
00:26:22 ◼ ► It's a very, very different experience than sitting at your computer over Zoom or Skype or whatever.
00:26:28 ◼ ► One, my concern is always for the audience, even if you're trying your hardest, conversations sound different when you're actually in person.
00:26:38 ◼ ► It's why I don't like recording in person because I think it does make the show worse in, like, a difficult-to-perceive way.
00:26:48 ◼ ► And it's, oh, what's happening there is because the same thing that makes it somewhat worse to do those episodes is also why they're more draining.
00:26:56 ◼ ► Because some part of your brain is, like, also running the physically explaining to the person that you're talking to.
00:27:05 ◼ ► Whereas, like, now when I'm talking to you, like, oh, I don't have to be looking at anything.
00:27:17 ◼ ► It's, like, of course, the in-person-ness really does add a certain element of draining.
00:27:22 ◼ ► And it does make those episodes feel like they take ten times longer to record the same amount of content.
00:27:32 ◼ ► I'll say, again, another thing that's, like, I can't pick a specific one as a favorite episode.
00:27:37 ◼ ► But I will say it's, like, I enjoy Cortex as the venue to talk about the videos after they've gone up.
00:27:46 ◼ ► I've done the director's commentaries for the videos sometimes just on the YouTube channel.
00:27:56 ◼ ► There are, like, questions that are prompting me about, like, what's going on with the video.
00:28:01 ◼ ► But I don't know, I think, like, every one of those Cortex conversations where I've made a video and then we talk about it later, and this is where you are a good interviewer, those conversations, I always feel like they get at something different than the director's commentaries do.
00:28:23 ◼ ► When I'm doing the director's commentaries, I'm, like, looking at the timeline in Final Cut and, like, I can go through and show edits and that kind of changes the way that the conversation goes.
00:28:33 ◼ ► But I feel like our conversations on the show have always been, like, interesting about those episodes and particularly when things haven't gone well or were unexpected in some ways.
00:28:50 ◼ ► Rock, Paper, Scissors was the one that jumped to my mind immediately, one that I really enjoyed talking to you about on the show because it was such a nightmare.
00:29:02 ◼ ► Yeah, that was just, like, a nightmare to produce, and when I initially put it up, it's like, oh, it was very slow to get started with views, and, yeah, I just think it ends up being, like, an interesting conversation.
00:29:14 ◼ ► The director's commentaries end up being focused on more technical questions in some ways.
00:29:23 ◼ ► Like, it's a higher-level discussion about what went into creating this in a way that, like, it just never really quite comes out in the director's commentary.
00:29:35 ◼ ► But, like, any of those episodes, I feel like I'm always really appreciative of having Cortex as the venue to be able to get at something that feels quite fundamental about those video productions that's just not accessible in any other format somehow.
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00:31:50 ◼ ► And the first question comes from Molly, who says, on the first episode, you shared your iPhone 6 Plus home screens.
00:32:13 ◼ ► It's funny to look back at some of that stuff where, like, there's a podcast that I love called The Rest is History.
00:32:18 ◼ ► And they often reference this of, like, they have a series now that they've done, you know, about a certain event in history.
00:32:28 ◼ ► But when they started the show, like, six years before, they did the whole thing in one episode.
00:32:49 ◼ ► I honestly feel like I can kind of traumatically remember yours a little bit, trying to cast my brain back about it.
00:33:00 ◼ ► It's funny looking at this because I had to remind myself, oh, there was no app library.
00:33:12 ◼ ► Just like my advice about podcast ideas, I'm looking at the screen and I'm thinking, oh, that's pretty good.
00:33:45 ◼ ► Even like I remember I like I left the space on the bottom because I wanted swiping space.
00:34:44 ◼ ► And so I did think that I remembered, but what I did not remember was not only does it look
00:34:58 ◼ ► Your, like, mixture of folders and apps taking up every possible inch of screen space just in
00:35:50 ◼ ► I'm going to be a teacher here for a moment and be like, I still don't like your home screens,
00:36:06 ◼ ► So when we originally launched the show in the blog post, and I think in episode one, that
00:36:13 ◼ ► Because we were committing to 10 episodes, we released them weekly, which was terrible.
00:36:19 ◼ ► It was so hard to do that show weekly at that time, but it made sense for us at the time.
00:36:29 ◼ ► Sam asks, when you agreed to do 10 episodes, what percentage likelihood would you have given
00:36:41 ◼ ► Even if I thought we would continue doing it, I don't think that I would have ever thought
00:36:48 ◼ ► Since then, I've developed a mental heuristic that I use a lot, which is you should never
00:37:03 ◼ ► Even if you think something is very unlikely, you should never discount the percent chance
00:37:10 ◼ ► And I really just like 5% as a kind of like, I think it's the smallest understandable and
00:37:21 ◼ ► It's like, ah, but I, I developed this mental heuristic of like, always act like there's a
00:37:29 ◼ ► So that's why it's like, oh, back then a hundred percent, I would have given it a 0%, but I would
00:37:36 ◼ ► have been more correct if I was using my current heuristic and given it a 5% chance of like,
00:37:52 ◼ ► Tyler says, it seems like Mike always knew that Gray was always going to choose to continue
00:38:14 ◼ ► I don't remember having any kind of confidence for how long we would continue doing the show,
00:38:28 ◼ ► And like, that was why we started doing the show because we had stuff that we liked talking
00:38:34 ◼ ► And so I felt like that the show would last past those 10 because the show just to me made
00:38:50 ◼ ► And by that time we would have gained an audience and we would have gained advertisers and all of
00:39:18 ◼ ► We had still at that point had a lot of relationships with people who were essentially like patrons.
00:39:28 ◼ ► Like there were a lot of companies that were kind of acting like patrons of podcasting at
00:39:38 ◼ ► And let me tell you the companies that sponsored those first episodes boy oh boy did they get
00:39:53 ◼ ► It's like my thought on the 10 episode thing because people do always ask about it is it's
00:40:05 ◼ ► Like I'm able to hold two thoughts in my mind at the same time which is this is a 10 episode
00:40:11 ◼ ► run and also this might continue onward and you can just act as though both those things
00:40:24 ◼ ► My concern which again is very funny sitting here at the 10 year mark was a concern about
00:40:33 ◼ ► But I really did think especially when we first started the show it was kind of the premise
00:40:41 ◼ ► is that you were going to talk to me about how I worked and I was going to talk to you about
00:40:50 ◼ ► I mean like the initial premise of the show was I was going to talk to you about how you
00:41:01 ◼ ► But the initial thing was more like it was more focused on you and I would also bring my
00:41:20 ◼ ► But I think because that was the initial kind of thought about it and I really was just quite
00:41:31 ◼ ► And so 10 episodes I remember at the start feeling a little bit like almost slightly risky.
00:41:43 ◼ ► And I think that's actually the only reason that I ended up agreeing to trying to do the show
00:41:51 ◼ ► I do remember feeling like I think we talked about this but I remember that as like we need to know the answer
00:41:59 ◼ ► sooner about is this show going to be a long-term project or is it not going to be a long-term project?
00:42:04 ◼ ► Because I think it didn't take very long for us to switch to every other week after that first run.
00:42:13 ◼ ► But the thing is like oh what do you want to do when you were like making stuff like this is
00:42:22 ◼ ► It was a limited project like you and I like we both made money off of the advertising on those shows
00:42:32 ◼ ► And so like ah right that was the thing like we made that like there's limited run TV shows.
00:42:37 ◼ ► There's tons of limited run podcasts where they're just like covering one thing and then like
00:42:43 ◼ ► And so I think the thing that people are often trying to get at when they ask about the 10 episodes
00:42:49 ◼ ► is they're trying to get at something like ah but did you really know that it was going to be longer?
00:43:07 ◼ ► Like you just never know producing content in public what people are going to respond to and how much.
00:43:44 ◼ ► And that's the actual purpose that like the 10 episode run serves is allow it to be the point at which you have pre-decided you are going to make a decision about is this a viable project or not.
00:44:00 ◼ ► Now my memory is I feel like oh pretty fast like by episode 6 or something like we knew we were going to do it for longer.
00:44:07 ◼ ► But you just don't know that when you're recording the very first episode and you're trying to make all those initial decisions about what is it that we're going to do.
00:44:23 ◼ ► So there was like this weird lag of like for the first couple of episodes not even knowing if anybody was there.
00:44:31 ◼ ► And it also has the things like we're doing the same thing that some TV shows do where it's like oh they're recording like the first few episodes.
00:44:43 ◼ ► And like what happens there is the same thing of like you are then able to see what the audience reacts to and you're able to see what the audience doesn't react to and like slightly adjust course as you're going on.
00:44:54 ◼ ► And like that's also why many shows like especially older shows have like very shaky first few episodes.
00:45:02 ◼ ► But then they're able to adjust as they go on because they're in that same kind of thing of like you have to just try to make the first couple to just have any idea of what you're doing.
00:45:16 ◼ ► But yeah again my memory is that we knew probably by episode five or six like oh I think this is going to work.
00:45:26 ◼ ► Vlad says 10 episodes turn to 10 years from levels levels to a full-fledged productivity business.
00:45:33 ◼ ► What has been the greatest challenge working with one another and what are you most grateful for in your collaboration?
00:45:41 ◼ ► It's like I'm going to say from my perspective Mike it's like you have been great to work with.
00:45:52 ◼ ► Like again the thing that I appreciate with you is that through conversation I don't think we've ever not been able to like come to some kind of agreement.
00:46:05 ◼ ► Here's the thing it's like I want to set you up with this which is like I know right it's like I am fully aware that like ah when we turn this mirror in the opposite direction it's like challenges.
00:46:17 ◼ ► Mike has many of them and I am more than happy to hear them in this public forum that is perfectly fine.
00:46:24 ◼ ► But genuinely like I just don't have anything on this list for you and I just say like oh I just like appreciate the way that we have conversations both in public and in private and like discuss things.
00:46:41 ◼ ► I've said this many times I think I've said it on the show I don't know but I've said it many times like I actually there isn't anybody in my life that I can be so straightforward with.
00:46:59 ◼ ► I can just tell you and I hope that most of the time at least you feel the same about me.
00:47:05 ◼ ► I expect you maybe have to do a little bit more dancing with me because I am more of an emotional person.
00:47:41 ◼ ► And then also when we're actually doing the show on the day that we've moved it to twice.
00:48:09 ◼ ► You have always been very kind with the things that you say to me and you make me feel really
00:48:18 ◼ ► There's a great trait that you have is that you're very good at giving feedback to people
00:48:22 ◼ ► and you're very good at giving positive feedback as well as you are constructive feedback.
00:48:27 ◼ ► And I think a lot of people when they give positive feedback you know you're never really sure
00:48:31 ◼ ► if they mean it or not but you're very good at giving feedback in such a way that you can
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00:50:51 ◼ ► Ah, what is probably the thing that could make Mike's life the easiest and the least stressful
00:51:13 ◼ ► It is quite genuinely often why the show starts late is because like I've messed around with something
00:51:20 ◼ ► and then I'm doing 30 minutes of like technical difficulties, power, hopefully half hour but sometimes longer
00:51:43 ◼ ► The number of times I've also just like messaged Mike to be like, hey, I know everything's like fine with my setup
00:52:00 ◼ ► Because I always wanted it to be better but also somehow I'm always doing this at the absolute last moment.
00:52:25 ◼ ► It's a very innocuous question but they asked, your methods to avoid RSI are not discussed as much as they used to.
00:52:38 ◼ ► You really struggled with RSI and then once I became self-employed and left the ergonomic bubble of an office
00:52:54 ◼ ► And so a lot of conversation for many years, like all the way up until maybe like 2021,
00:53:28 ◼ ► Which is why I think you can peg it to 2021-ish as around the point where like I stopped feeling like I was talking about this.
00:53:38 ◼ ► And this in particular is an interesting case of solving a problem where we spent years very concerned with something as a like a top tier threat to being self-employed.
00:53:55 ◼ ► And we kept trying to have all of these different tools, which mitigated the problem to some extent, but wasn't actually solving the problem.
00:54:04 ◼ ► And I think I found it to be a real surprise that once I started getting into lifting weights at all.
00:54:15 ◼ ► Every time I mention this, like to the listener who is like how I used to be, when I say that, like I'm not talking about being a gym bro.
00:54:24 ◼ ► It's like doing the literal minimum amount of weightlifting just shockingly changed and fixed a bunch of problems like RSI on a relatively short timescale.
00:54:39 ◼ ► And it's just amazing to be confronted with, oh, the solution is that my muscular strength and your muscular strength was just way under the threshold for what it needed to be in a way that just like still seems unexpected.
00:54:55 ◼ ► That it was like such a solid problem because I like this question came in because I'd almost entirely forgotten about this because I just never even think about it.
00:55:19 ◼ ► And just from that, like I do other exercise, but just from the weight training once a week.
00:55:28 ◼ ► In fact, after I brought in some things back that I'd stopped doing, like I could, I stopped playing video games because I just couldn't do it anymore.
00:55:37 ◼ ► Well, I've, I game more now in the last few years than I had in many years previous because I could again.
00:55:42 ◼ ► The idea of a Steam Deck for me seemed impossible to be able to hold something so heavy in your hands and play a game.
00:55:49 ◼ ► Like I couldn't use a regular PlayStation controller for more than 30 minutes because by the past,
00:55:59 ◼ ► And like now, you know, it's easier for me now because, you know, I don't do so much intensive editing.
00:56:13 ◼ ► It was so painful and I would have to take breaks every 30 minutes to try and like relieve the tension.
00:56:22 ◼ ► And it just took regular weight training, building a little bit more muscle and a little bit more like movement in my body was all it took to get rid of it.
00:56:33 ◼ ► I think like for me to demonstrate how top tier of a problem this was, any listener of the show would have like constantly focused on.
00:56:52 ◼ ► I was like, ah, but when I was worried about RSI, I had an app, the whole purpose of which was to like interrupt me if I had continually used the computer for seven minutes without a break.
00:57:05 ◼ ► It would lock me out of the computer and I would have to take my hands off for 30 seconds and get back into it.
00:57:11 ◼ ► It's like the fact that I allowed that to exist in my life shows how much of a concern this was.
00:57:22 ◼ ► Also need this app, which is going to interrupt me on a seven minute basis because otherwise I'm like, I'm very concerned about not being able to continually use my hands.
00:57:33 ◼ ► But I'm really glad like you mentioned like the frequency there, Mike, for anybody listening, it really is true.
00:57:52 ◼ ► So it's like if you are like us and you are like struggling with this at all and you don't start with once a week, I'm going to go to the gym for a hour.
00:58:06 ◼ ► And I just think it's a fascinating example of missing out on the fundamental cause of a problem and instead trying to ineffectively treat the symptoms.
00:58:17 ◼ ► I have no doubt that there are people that have a worse scenario than we did where like this wouldn't fix it.
00:58:26 ◼ ► But what my feeling is that like the majority of people that are suffering from this problem are in the same boat that me and you were in.
00:58:33 ◼ ► It was just simply that our bodies were not strong enough to be even able to do such honestly basic stuff like using a keyboard and mouse, which is wild to think of.
00:58:45 ◼ ► But my assumption is just the wrong things were doing the work is the way I think about it.
00:59:02 ◼ ► That was why I actually started going to the gym because I've been seeing a sports physiotherapist and they said to me that you will probably get some relief if you build your core.
00:59:46 ◼ ► Grace says you have to go and imagine you're going to go and set personal bests in the gym every week.
00:59:50 ◼ ► Like you can start really small, which obviously you always should with this kind of stuff.
01:00:02 ◼ ► Or maybe you have a friend in your life that is like really focused on this kind of stuff.
01:00:10 ◼ ► It was helpful for me when I was getting started in taking away some of the fear that I had of doing this kind of thing.
01:00:17 ◼ ► I guarantee anyone listening, if you have a friend who goes to the gym, they will love to talk to you about going to the gym.
01:00:29 ◼ ► There's sometimes where I feel like, oh, I must be being like the world's most like boring bore about this.
01:00:35 ◼ ► It's like, oh, no, but like when someone wants to know everything is brand new, it's like everyone who goes to the gym will be more than happy to like, hey, let me help you with this.
01:00:43 ◼ ► Because it's like I think it is like it can be very intimidating, but like literally everyone who goes to the gym has gone through this same experience of learning how to get better at a thing.
01:00:56 ◼ ► And like I think even the most intimidating people who were there, like they all have the same experience of like wanting more people to be like, oh, look, look, here's how you can like get better.
01:01:05 ◼ ► It's a like surprisingly helpful environment, even though it can seem quite intimidating.
01:01:13 ◼ ► I use more regular keyboards now, but I do still use a lot of the things that I use then because I built them into my workflows.
01:01:21 ◼ ► I mean, one thing is everybody should have multiple pointing devices on their desk just because it's better.
01:01:38 ◼ ► That became the way in which I learned how to audio edit significantly, like to get real precision by using a pen.
01:02:02 ◼ ► I will say for me, the biggest benefit in the sense of fixing the RSI is just being able to not worry about using like a normal computer in a normal way.
01:02:15 ◼ ► But I used to really always have this feeling if I was like using a laptop on a plane and I'm just using the inbuilt trackpad.
01:02:23 ◼ ► I used to feel like I had some timer that was ticking down of like, oh, you only have so many hours of your life that you can do this.
01:02:29 ◼ ► Like, are you spending this hour like on this plane using this computer in this way and like in the most optimal way as like I'm just very, very glad to have that gone as a problem now.
01:02:39 ◼ ► Oh, I am also going to use this as a platform for my other big thing that I tell a lot of people, especially if they start working at home.
01:02:50 ◼ ► But if you're sitting and working on a laptop on a sofa for nine hours a day, like that is going to catch up with you.
01:03:05 ◼ ► Don't sit at the dining room chair like you need a place in your house where you can have a decent chair with good support, especially good back support.
01:03:13 ◼ ► And you should be having your monitor, even if you're a laptop, eye level, like essentially your eye level.
01:03:19 ◼ ► That means you're going to need to get a keyboard that you put down on the desk if you desperately want to use a laptop and not have a monitor that you plug your laptop into.
01:03:36 ◼ ► But like if you can just think about that, like your elbows, your knees, like your legs and your torso, like everything should be like a comfortable degrees.
01:03:56 ◼ ► But how do you determine if the dogged pursuit of productivity might actually be making you less productive?
01:04:02 ◼ ► In other words, at what point does the creation of structure and system take more time and thought than it saves in its actual execution?
01:04:14 ◼ ► Like if there is a single question in all of its different forms that gets asked the most, it is without a doubt this one.
01:04:30 ◼ ► So like I'll just start with the little thing that I'll say, which is how I always look at this stuff.
01:04:34 ◼ ► Anytime that I'm like playing around with a new system, a new app, a new tool, trying out something new that I think will make me more productive.
01:04:43 ◼ ► I do it because I enjoy it ultimately, and I think that it's always worth a try if you enjoy it.
01:04:51 ◼ ► Because if it doesn't work out for you or make you productive in the long term, or if you just go back to something you were doing before, you at least had fun experimenting with something new.
01:05:08 ◼ ► Like playing around with things, trying out new systems, trying out new tools, new apps, new services.
01:05:23 ◼ ► And I'm always in the hope that in the aggregate over time, the trend line is that I am more productive, but I am not personally attempting every step to optimize for the most productive result.
01:05:39 ◼ ► It's that like, if I keep going down this road of trying stuff and trying new things and adapting, I will in over the course of my time, become more of the type of productive person that I want to be.
01:06:02 ◼ ► As you were talking there, like again, for media things, you and I have very different tastes than say video games.
01:06:09 ◼ ► I'm out there like playing Factorio, like Factorio as a game is wildly popular, but its core mechanism is like not like in a weird way.
01:06:21 ◼ ► It's actually quite similar to building something in shortcuts to automate something on iOS.
01:06:27 ◼ ► Like if you're trying to distill like the core gameplay loop, there really is a fundamental thing that is quite similar there.
01:06:34 ◼ ► And so, yeah, I think I was even just overlooking this, that lots of times, particularly around trying to automate things, there is a real kind of enjoyment of trying to solve a puzzle, which is completely unrelated to the like, how efficient is this task sort of thing?
01:06:56 ◼ ► And it's like, it's very easy to ask the question, like, oh, yeah, was that a time efficient way to automate some trivial task?
01:07:08 ◼ ► And yeah, the answer to that question is no, if we're just doing a like time input versus output.
01:07:15 ◼ ► But you're totally right, like there's just enjoyment that is taking place, trying to like get this thing to work.
01:07:22 ◼ ► That is a kind of satisfaction that is difficult to find sometimes in other places in life, because like, especially around automation, there is just such a clear, correct answer to the problem that you are trying to solve.
01:07:36 ◼ ► Whereas lots of other work is not the same way, like, oh, writing a script, there's not a correct answer to what should this paragraph say.
01:07:46 ◼ ► But ah, with any kind of automation, you know when it's working and you know when it isn't.
01:07:56 ◼ ► But I think the funny thing to me about when people ask this question, that is always my frustration with this, which I think we have never spoken about, is you and I are doing a show about this kind of thing.
01:08:11 ◼ ► And so whatever these questions are being asked, I always feel like I want to say like, but it is also content for the show.
01:08:25 ◼ ► But it's always to be a kind of funny thing of like, oh, the question asker is always like frustrated with something about the show.
01:08:37 ◼ ► And so there is a way in which like, oh, you and I have had various degrees of like wacky productivity things that we have done over the years, which like may or may not have like lasted long term.
01:08:51 ◼ ► It's like, we're doing that and it's causing us to think about things in a particular way.
01:08:58 ◼ ► And then when we're talking about it on the show, my thought is the value to the listener is in, it's like, it's not again in the particular productivity thing.
01:09:09 ◼ ► Like, what is the discussion that results from like, oh, doing a thing this way or that way?
01:09:13 ◼ ► But yeah, we have never really answered this question fully because I always just kind of have found it frustrating to be like, but we do a show where we talk about doing this stuff.
01:09:24 ◼ ► It is like the most literal form of like, oh, this time can't be wasted because we then can talk about it on the show.
01:09:35 ◼ ► But it's like, but it is the case for us when people are asking like, oh, my God, aren't you spending more time working on this stuff that it makes sense?
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01:11:27 ◼ ► All right, before we wrap up today, considering this show is essentially about our work, I wanted to think about what the last 10 years have been in our work.
01:11:37 ◼ ► Like if I think back to me in 2015 and where I am now in 2025 and think about like how things have changed, and I had like a few areas that I wanted to talk about in reflection, just been really interesting.
01:11:53 ◼ ► It's somewhat easy for me to think about it, I think easier than it is for you to a degree, where the majority of the last decade for me has just tracked my entire self-employment.
01:12:06 ◼ ► And it's been really interesting to think about kind of like where I was then and where I am now, like the audience has changed, the work has changed.
01:12:28 ◼ ► But the actual fundamentals of what I do, essentially being a podcaster, that hasn't changed very much.
01:12:36 ◼ ► Like, I think all of the shows that I am doing now, I have been doing for about 10 years, which is funny.
01:12:51 ◼ ► I've done YouTube stuff, I've done streaming stuff, and these things still pop up in places, but they're not like the core of what I do, even though I wondered if they would be.
01:13:06 ◼ ► But the core of what I, how I see myself and what I am kind of putting into my work is still the same.
01:13:47 ◼ ► Like I see a lot online now of just like monetizing your hobbies, which was essentially what I was doing like all the way back, like 15 years ago or whatever.
01:14:03 ◼ ► But like the core of it is still just like I love podcasting and I love making podcasts and that makes me happy.
01:14:10 ◼ ► But, you know, in my work over the last 10 years, there have been big shifts in how the business operates, like how relay operates.
01:14:20 ◼ ► Like there have been various fluctuations in the ad market, which is just a thing that happens.
01:14:26 ◼ ► There's a thing that I say, you know, like I take business meetings often with new companies and kind of, you know, like, oh, tell me about relay.
01:14:35 ◼ ► When I talk about our history and like how long we've been around, I say two things and like relay launched before serial launched.
01:14:42 ◼ ► It's like as a way to kind of like conceptualize it in the minds of most people that are in the podcasting business now.
01:14:49 ◼ ► Like podcasting has been proclaimed dead or dying more times than I could count in the time that I've been doing this.
01:15:05 ◼ ► So there have been these various fluctuations and we kind of just work our way through it.
01:15:12 ◼ ► And that was forced by the pandemic because it seemed like the business could go away because that wasn't a fluctuation in the ad market.
01:15:25 ◼ ► And, you know, it's so funny, like to think back to that time where in that kind of like March to May 2020 time period of like really not knowing if anything was going to change again.
01:15:46 ◼ ► And so we really had to push to make membership and like listener support a much bigger part of our business.
01:15:56 ◼ ► You know, we had it as a thing from when we began just as like, hey, if you would like to tip us, essentially, you can do that.
01:16:03 ◼ ► But then it was like, no, we're going to make this an offering, like a product that people pay for.
01:16:09 ◼ ► And they get various things depending on the show, like the content that they might get.
01:16:20 ◼ ► Like, and now, like at this point, I think across all of my shows that have membership, it's like half and half.
01:16:27 ◼ ► And that has provided that level of security and stability, which has been super helpful.
01:16:35 ◼ ► Yeah, it's funny also, like, I think Relay was sort of early to this in the pandemic as well.
01:16:40 ◼ ► I'm just, I'm aware of almost everything now that is a content business in any way has like slowly started to make this shift.
01:17:12 ◼ ► But yeah, I think you were very early to, like, shifting Relay over to this is the thing that just, like, has to happen.
01:17:43 ◼ ► That wasn't what we wanted to do because we wanted it to be a more seamless experience and more integrated into everything we were already doing.
01:17:53 ◼ ► Memberful is owned by Patreon, but it's like a kind of a white label product, essentially, where, like, they've been an advertiser before.
01:18:00 ◼ ► They're probably going to be an advertiser in the future, so I'm not going to make a big pitch here.
01:18:03 ◼ ► But essentially, we used them because we could integrate it into our publishing system.
01:18:12 ◼ ► Like, something we were very concerned about was, like, how much more effort will it be to produce this content before we knew if anybody wanted it?
01:18:20 ◼ ► Like, I was very, very hesitant on this of, like, what are we going to be getting ourselves in for?
01:18:27 ◼ ► Like, from a production standpoint, with two versions of each show that have differences to them, that have to be published separately.
01:18:35 ◼ ► And then putting that into our system, you know, we ended up being able to build a system that kind of duplicates the feeds, and it's very clever.
01:18:42 ◼ ► But I was very hesitant, so, like, we kind of, like, worked it out to the point where it would be the lowest lift possible to be able to produce the content in the way that it worked.
01:19:03 ◼ ► So one of the things that I think I would not have imagined in myself from 10 years ago is that I would want to work outside of my home.
01:19:22 ◼ ► And so, yeah, I had, what, signed a lease on the studio that I'm in now in February of 2020.
01:19:51 ◼ ► Like, sometimes I think of, like, oh, wouldn't it be nice to just have, like, a shed in the garden and, like, work out there?
01:19:57 ◼ ► But then I feel about, like, I like listening to podcasts, and really, I get to do that on my commute.
01:20:10 ◼ ► Like, you know, kind of the first person we employed at Relay, like, that we brought into the fold and, like, had work for.
01:20:16 ◼ ► Then letting that person take over what was the most important thing that I brought to the company, which was advertising, like, running our advertising.
01:21:05 ◼ ► In the last five years, you know, five, six years, that has been a huge part of my working life.
01:21:44 ◼ ► But, you know, I don't think I would have ever imagined that we would be able to work with them the way that we do.
01:22:02 ◼ ► It's, like, you and Stephen are the ones who pushed forward, like, the St. Jude project.
01:22:07 ◼ ► And so, it's, like, you deserve the, like, lion's share of credit there for, like, what has been done.
01:22:19 ◼ ► Yeah, as for me, trying to think about, like, over the 10 years, like, in preparing for the show, like, again, behind the scenes, like, I think we've mentioned it in more text a bit.
01:22:29 ◼ ► But it's, like, I've, like, pushed back sometimes about the idea of, like, doing a 10-year episode.
01:22:50 ◼ ► It's always a little bit, like, oh, with 10-year episodes, it's, like, what do people often get caught up on is, like, a lot of the particular little details of, like, oh, what has, like, changed over the last 10 years?
01:23:02 ◼ ► And I think what you've done here about, like, looking at the big changes for you is sort of what I was also trying to focus on is something like, not what was my iPhone 6 like to use, but something instead of, like, what are the inflection points in the same way that you're thinking about the big moments?
01:23:20 ◼ ► It's, like, where does it feel like things have really changed in some fundamental way?
01:23:26 ◼ ► And, like, we do yearly themes, obviously, but there's been a kind of unintentional decade theme in a way that, like, ties together a lot of, like, what have my big changes been over the past 10 years?
01:23:43 ◼ ► And I think if I had to, like, encapsulate the decade theme, it would be into something like focus.
01:23:51 ◼ ► It is almost unbelievable to me to think of it now, but when we started the show, I didn't have an animator.
01:24:17 ◼ ► It's, like, oh, I was doing other things, like, a project Cyclops overlapped, right, with this Cortex time period.
01:24:26 ◼ ► That was about a kind of, like, media and input focus of, like, oh, I'm narrowing what is my input.
01:24:36 ◼ ► And, like, that is a theme that has, like, that project and, like, the ghost of that project has come up several times.
01:25:03 ◼ ► Like, we always talk about with the themes, like, the purpose of it, it's, like, a prism through which to run all of the decisions that you're making and, like, bring your mind back to this idea.
01:25:14 ◼ ► It's why I've, like, always been a big fan of and recommending themes that are around things like intentionality, like, in all of its myriad of forms, right?
01:25:31 ◼ ► And when I think about different projects that happened right on my end of things, like, on the video side, it's, like, the big one that really sticks out.
01:25:41 ◼ ► It's, like, the teacoy video that I did and having to follow up with the CGP Grey was wrong.
01:25:47 ◼ ► Like, that was a video time period where it's, like, oh, I really decided to, like, I'm going to double down on the fact-checking of the videos.
01:25:58 ◼ ► And there's a way in which, again, I know that it can seem to listeners like it's a kind of obsession to the point of absurdness with going through the scripts.
01:26:17 ◼ ► That was, it's, like, oh, that's my first, like, oh, I'm a creator and, like, admitting, like, making a mistake in public.
01:26:29 ◼ ► But it really did, like, change the way that a bunch of video projects were, like, worked on going forward.
01:26:34 ◼ ► And it's, like, ah, yeah, definitely slows me down but increases focus in this particular way.
01:26:42 ◼ ► And it's, like, what's the only tech product that I will mention here thinking about, like, the big things of the year?
01:26:56 ◼ ► But, boy, has that one just been a real inflection point for me as a kind of focus machine.
01:27:12 ◼ ► I don't think it's some coincidence that the Vision Pro came into my life at the same time where it's, like, oh, I was also doing a lot of travel to try to focus.
01:27:45 ◼ ► And, like, being more ruthless about, like, this video has had a huge amount of effort put into it.
01:27:54 ◼ ► Oh, being much better about not getting distracted by side projects that don't actually help.
01:28:00 ◼ ► I can't remember now if I've ever talked about what the secret Project Golem was from, like, years ago.
01:28:07 ◼ ► But just in case I have it, like, I'll get it on the record that, like, Project Golem was me trying to learn how to program computers.
01:28:21 ◼ ► It's, like, I was trying to, I was going through, like, courses on how to write an app for, like, iOS.
01:28:31 ◼ ► And I was doing the, what I still think is the correct calculus of if I was ever going to try to do it, it's now or never.
01:28:41 ◼ ► I was, like, I know at that point I was keeping it quiet of, like, ah, Mike, I already went through this, right?
01:28:50 ◼ ► I must have had something in mind that I was trying to do in particular, but I cannot remember what it was.
01:29:07 ◼ ► But Project Golem was, like, that was a real one of, I remember going through this and having to do the uncomfortable thing of, like, oh, at some points in life you just have to recognize, like, this thing that you always imagine, like, oh, maybe I'll do that at some point in the future.
01:29:25 ◼ ► And if you are pretending or, like, putting effort into this thing where it's, like, you won't be doing that in the future, you're just harming your existing projects.
01:29:34 ◼ ► And so, like, killing Project Golem, I think, was, like, one of the probably last times I had, like, wacky side project idea that I started and then realized, like, what am I doing?
01:29:49 ◼ ► So, yeah, I, like, I look at all of that as, like, focus as, like, the main theme of the last 10 years.
01:29:56 ◼ ► And because I can never resist making things more complicated, it's, like, there is a kind of sub-theme which flows from the focus.
01:30:04 ◼ ► It is doubling down on creative weirdness, even in ways if it, like, doesn't necessarily pay off.
01:30:22 ◼ ► And that kind of stuff is, like, it's good to do just from the perspective of being a creator.
01:30:29 ◼ ► And it's, like, I feel like the inflection point for me was really the Statue of Liberty video.
01:30:34 ◼ ► I always, like, point to as, like, oh, this is the moment when I recognize, like, oh, I can start leaning into a kind of creative strangeness in the videos in a certain way.
01:30:45 ◼ ► And it's, like, oh, that escalates into the whole Tiffany project, right, which Someone Dead Ruined My Life is, again, huge creative gamble making that project.
01:30:56 ◼ ► It's, like, oh, that is one, like, the amount of hours that have been poured into that is just, like, uncountable for that.
01:31:03 ◼ ► And, like, I remember being so nervous on publication day, like, is this going to work?
01:31:08 ◼ ► Are people going to be interested in the behind the scenes of the video as opposed to the video itself?
01:31:16 ◼ ► I'm always really aware that when I meet people at conferences, it's got to be, like, 80% of the time, that's the video they mention of, like, oh, I just love X.
01:31:44 ◼ ► Like, they're not creative payoffs in the same direct way where you can point to a thing as being, like, oh, that's, like, financially successful.
01:31:59 ◼ ► Like, trying to have a reason to, like, do something different or see something different.
01:32:15 ◼ ► But, like, that's another case where it's, like, oh, I have many vlog videos where it's, like, I have filmed something and started to edit it and, like, ultimately killed that project.
01:32:31 ◼ ► Like, the Hexagon chess video is essentially, like, oh, I'm going to do a vlog at home during the pandemic.
01:32:47 ◼ ► But I couldn't have gotten to that one without killing, like, ten other ideas along the way.
01:32:55 ◼ ► And I guess, like, what's the final one here that I think is, again, like, leaning into being creatively strange of, like, the clear triumph is, like, that flag video that I made, like, reviewing the U.S. flags.
01:33:07 ◼ ► There's a very real way, which is not obvious to people, but, like, that video was, like, seven years in the making.
01:33:15 ◼ ► I was thinking about that all the time, about, like, how do I do a video where I talk about the flags?
01:33:26 ◼ ► And sometimes stuff just takes a long time to mull over, which is why, like, focus is important.
01:33:44 ◼ ► And it's like, oh, that flags video is, like, a perfect example of, like, that is a video that has a style that isn't like any of the other videos.
01:33:58 ◼ ► There probably won't ever be another video that, like, can be done in that style in that way.
01:34:16 ◼ ► And, yeah, so it's, like, oh, I look at, like, what was going on 10 years ago and what's going on and, like, combining all of that together.
01:34:25 ◼ ► It's, like, there's this funny way in which I feel like the end result is I have a life that is both, like, much bigger and much smaller than life used to be.
01:34:36 ◼ ► It's, like, there's simultaneously a, like, breadth of experience and trying of different things, but also just, like, an incredibly narrowing focus on, like, what matters and what is important, what can be accomplished.