Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Main recorder is going. Levels are levels are leveled. Okay. Show notes. We're good to go.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Great. Good to go for 111. One of the things I like about our show is I think that a lot of

00:00:13 ◼   ► people can go back and listen to any point of it and find something in the episodes that are

00:00:19 ◼   ► relative. I think a lot of our show is is mostly timeless. You know there are things that are

00:00:24 ◼   ► happening in our lives at that time but people can relate to them with where they are in their

00:00:27 ◼   ► own working lives. However, the kind of thing that is happening right now I don't think

00:00:34 ◼   ► is going to be as timeless and dates the show quite a lot and will date it into the future.

00:00:40 ◼   ► What I'm talking about is we're back in lockdown. So, you know, it's like I don't know if people

00:00:45 ◼   ► are going to be able to relate to lockdown in four years time. I certainly hope not.

00:00:51 ◼   ► But I'm back at home again.

00:00:53 ◼   ► - I have a big bias towards evergreen content.

00:00:58 ◼   ► I don't like to date things.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Especially for this show.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Like it really, I think is a great benefit to the show.

00:01:05 ◼   ► People can go back, you know, it's like I said this,

00:01:07 ◼   ► I think when we did episode 100,

00:01:09 ◼   ► I actually really liked that we've only very recently

00:01:13 ◼   ► passed 100 episodes of the show,

00:01:14 ◼   ► even though we've been making it for 25 years

00:01:16 ◼   ► or whatever it is.

00:01:17 ◼   ► Because it still means that somebody coming to the show,

00:01:21 ◼   ► even now after so many years of doing the show that they can consume the whole thing

00:01:26 ◼   ► in what is not an obscene amount of time I think.

00:01:29 ◼   ► B: Yes and experience the rapid time warp of going through all of the changes in our

00:01:34 ◼   ► life and then catching up to the current point which I actually think can be a kind of useful

00:01:41 ◼   ► lesson to hear people talking about their working lives like in this accelerated way

00:01:46 ◼   ► like you can kind of gain something from that.

00:01:48 ◼   ► The span of like, I've had a great idea to that didn't work, which for us is like nine

00:01:53 ◼   ► months, but they can get through it in like five hours.

00:01:56 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Or theme inauguration to theme completion, 12 episodes.

00:02:02 ◼   ► But, uh, yes, I completely agree that this, this year has been less of a timeless year and

00:02:12 ◼   ► another lockdown is less evergreen content,

00:02:17 ◼   ► or it may very well be evergreen content.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:02:22 ◼   ► Because I feel like, God damn,

00:02:25 ◼   ► when I was talking to you last time,

00:02:27 ◼   ► I was very much in the, "Oh, it's all over mode."

00:02:31 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:02:32 ◼   ► And then we get lockdown two.

00:02:34 ◼   ► - Well, it's actually not lockdown two.

00:02:36 ◼   ► It's like lockdown, well, we had one in the middle,

00:02:40 ◼   ► but it wasn't really an actual lockdown, I guess.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, no one took those seriously, Myke.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - I did.

00:02:46 ◼   ► - Right, isn't it? (laughs)

00:02:48 ◼   ► I'm glad you did, I did, but you know,

00:02:51 ◼   ► from my peekings outside,

00:02:54 ◼   ► people didn't take it super seriously.

00:02:56 ◼   ► And so this is lockdown too,

00:02:58 ◼   ► because it's the second big one.

00:03:01 ◼   ► So how has it impacted your working life, Myke?

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm back at home again.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - Just packed up the studio.

00:03:07 ◼   ► - Packed up the studio, what do you mean by that?

00:03:09 ◼   ► - Well, I always say to some people,

00:03:10 ◼   ► ask me, what I mean is I went there

00:03:12 ◼   ► and I collected up a bunch of gear.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - Then just made sure that, all right,

00:03:18 ◼   ► is everything off, all that kind of stuff,

00:03:21 ◼   ► 'cause it's gonna be a while, right?

00:03:23 ◼   ► So I just went and took care of everything.

00:03:25 ◼   ► But I did that on the first of January,

00:03:27 ◼   ► which was before lockdown began,

00:03:30 ◼   ► because we could see where it was going.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And we had decided we were like grey style,

00:03:38 ◼   ► locking down because it was clearly getting out of control again.

00:03:43 ◼   ► We didn't know at that point why, right? Like we know now,

00:03:46 ◼   ► like the variants and all that stuff, like it was things were getting out,

00:03:50 ◼   ► out of hand. We've been,

00:03:52 ◼   ► we've been working at home for about three weeks ish.

00:03:56 ◼   ► It feels better this time than the other two times that I've made this

00:04:02 ◼   ► like transition from studio back to home

00:04:04 ◼   ► for a couple of reasons.

00:04:06 ◼   ► Set the office up a bit more permanently, tidied it.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I also brought home enough gear to continue streaming.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Like that was important to me

00:04:14 ◼   ► 'cause that would have been a real bummer.

00:04:16 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, yeah, that's interesting.

00:04:19 ◼   ► That makes sense. - If I wouldn't have been

00:04:19 ◼   ► able to do that.

00:04:20 ◼   ► So I brought home enough gear to do all of that.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And I've got like a second like desk set up

00:04:26 ◼   ► like I would have at the studio.

00:04:27 ◼   ► So I still have like the desk where I record

00:04:30 ◼   ► in a desk where I do my work and do streaming from and stuff.

00:04:33 ◼   ► The other thing that does feel better is unlike the other times,

00:04:37 ◼   ► I do feel like there is an end in sight.

00:04:39 ◼   ► OK.

00:04:40 ◼   ► And it has not felt that way up until now.

00:04:43 ◼   ► You know, like there is hope now

00:04:46 ◼   ► for this ending in a way that there wasn't before.

00:04:50 ◼   ► You know, especially with the first lockdown where it was kind of like,

00:04:54 ◼   ► when do you think we'll be able to go back to, you know, like it was that was

00:04:58 ◼   ► were the kinds of questions that everybody was having, like I know we would talk about it, like

00:05:02 ◼   ► what's your best guess on this? And now, you know, the vaccination program is rolling out.

00:05:09 ◼   ► There wasn't one before, right? Like, especially the first lockdown, the like march to whenever it

00:05:14 ◼   ► was locked down. Well, vaccines take years, so settle in. Yeah, I mean that's true. I know my

00:05:21 ◼   ► thought early on was there's not going to be a vaccine, like from what I'd read it's like, oh,

00:05:26 ◼   ► It seems like no one's ever developed a vaccine for this kind of novel coronavirus before, so, uh, like,

00:05:32 ◼   ► I wouldn't- I wouldn't put money on "there will be one", so that has definitely been, uh, a nice surprise outcome.

00:05:38 ◼   ► So I see what you mean there.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And I can't wait to read tellings of this in years to come, of like,

00:05:44 ◼   ► "Well, if the entire world and its resources are focused on one problem,

00:05:49 ◼   ► you'd be surprised how fast we can move stuff forward", right? Like,

00:05:53 ◼   ► If every scientist in all of these fields are all just attacking one issue, stuff can

00:05:59 ◼   ► happen quite quickly, you know, like, which is, you know, it's a triumph and it's interesting,

00:06:05 ◼   ► but I look forward to retellings of this in the future of like getting a bit of a, like,

00:06:10 ◼   ► a 50,000 foot view on it. But yeah, I know that, like, you know, it was, I didn't know

00:06:16 ◼   ► enough about this stuff and it was a concern, you know, like, my hope would be that they

00:06:20 ◼   ► would work it out but I spoke to enough people that were like "I don't know" right and so now

00:06:26 ◼   ► that's the difference it's like yeah all right we've got many more months of this but I feel like

00:06:33 ◼   ► there is an end for me now and I just have to move towards that. I'm happy for you Myke I'm just

00:06:40 ◼   ► trying I'm trying to hold back the question of when do you think the end is and why? Like I don't

00:06:49 ◼   ► have a clear answer on that but I also feel bad for even asking you and putting that in your head

00:06:54 ◼   ► No I'm fine with it like I believe that in the spring I will be able to leave the house and go

00:07:02 ◼   ► back to the studio again but I know the situation will have not gone away

00:07:07 ◼   ► Ah okay okay so that's what you're thinking about is what's the timeline for

00:07:13 ◼   ► glorious reunification with Mega Studio?

00:07:16 ◼   ► Yeah and that's

00:07:17 ◼   ► You're thinking spring

00:07:18 ◼   ► I'm thinking like March, like maybe in March. And then my expectation is by the end of the year,

00:07:26 ◼   ► I will be able to get vaccinated. Right, okay.

00:07:29 ◼   ► But like it's it basically my... what I like now is I feel like I can see two end points,

00:07:36 ◼   ► which is what I want, which is like, when can I go back to how I was in the summer?

00:07:42 ◼   ► which was I could go to the studio every day and work from the studio and it was no problem, really.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And then by the end of the year, I believe I'll be able to get vaccinated and then

00:07:54 ◼   ► I'll be able to resume even more of a normal life for whatever that's going to look like after that.

00:08:01 ◼   ► But, you know, the idea of like being able to see friends and family, being able to go to restaurants,

00:08:05 ◼   ► like that stuff, you know, I have hoped that by the end of the year now, that's more of a

00:08:11 ◼   ► possibility than it has been up until this point.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Right, okay, okay, that makes sense, that makes sense.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Do you have any different opinion?

00:08:19 ◼   ► Uh, no, no, I just, I wasn't quite sure what you meant by being over, and so this is, I think,

00:08:29 ◼   ► like, you're expressing what I talked about before about, like, this importance of having

00:08:36 ◼   ► specific dates on the horizon or at least specific-ish dates that being in lockdown

00:08:44 ◼   ► and just being like "oh I guess this is for an indefinite period of time" is way

00:08:50 ◼   ► harder than "okay I'm gonna buckle down until March and I expect by March to be back

00:08:56 ◼   ► to this this particular state of things"

00:08:59 ◼   ► So yeah, my emotional state right now is vastly improved on my emotional state when we had

00:09:05 ◼   ► Locked down 1.5

00:09:07 ◼   ► Right. Okay, that's good because that was just like well, well what then you know, it's like, all right, i'll do it

00:09:13 ◼   ► But like what you know, like how long is this gonna last?

00:09:17 ◼   ► Where are we, you know, like it was that kind of feeling but now it's kind of like this is just a hump to get over

00:09:23 ◼   ► i'm gonna stay at home again for a few months and then

00:09:27 ◼   ► we'll be able to try and get back to where we were eight months ago or whatever, six months ago.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I don't have any real mental estimate on the timeline. I feel like

00:09:41 ◼   ► I'd back your statement that I would expect to be vaccinated by the end of the year, perhaps like

00:09:48 ◼   ► September maybe, optimistically?

00:09:51 ◼   ► September is my date too. That's like where I'm thinking.

00:09:55 ◼   ► The only reason I hesitate is because once the vaccine came out, I was with everyone I was talking to,

00:10:01 ◼   ► I was very optimistic about, "Oh, vaccine rollout will be way faster than people expect."

00:10:06 ◼   ► Because I think this is the kind of problem that humans are actually quite good at solving is,

00:10:11 ◼   ► "Okay, we've made the thing, now it's like a scale and logistics issue."

00:10:16 ◼   ► My only hesitation there is just I didn't quite properly parse in my head that there's two problems here,

00:10:22 ◼   ► which is manufacturing and distribution.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And then what I can categorize as the last mile,

00:10:30 ◼   ► which is, okay, we need to get like jabs into people's arms.

00:10:35 ◼   ► And that's the part where it seems like humans

00:10:38 ◼   ► have floundered quite a lot.

00:10:40 ◼   ► And so that's the only reason I just worry a little bit

00:10:42 ◼   ► is like that last mile distribution seems to be running

00:10:47 ◼   ► into a bunch of very unexpected barriers.

00:10:51 ◼   ► But that's my only caution of like, if I don't get vaccinated this year, that would be my expectation for like, what was the stumbling block?

00:11:01 ◼   ► It seems like the plans here are relatively aggressive if they can actually act the way that they're suggesting.

00:11:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:07 ◼   ► The army's getting involved, which makes sense.

00:11:11 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:11:13 ◼   ► That was a nice long pause there, but yeah, like you need, you know, you need people to actually-

00:11:17 ◼   ► Every time you say the army's getting involved, you know the situation isn't great, right?

00:11:22 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know what it's like in other countries, particularly, but I know that that

00:11:27 ◼   ► tends to be the thing here. It's like, there is a disaster of some impact and now the army's

00:11:32 ◼   ► involved. It's like, oh God. Like anytime the army is involved in anything domestic here, like,

00:11:37 ◼   ► the s*** has hit the fan in quite a significant way. And so that's where we are. And like,

00:11:42 ◼   ► I think I saw the Brigadier General, I think that was his phrase, which I just love that as a

00:11:47 ◼   ► title, Brigadier General, just sounds so fancy. If he says something like, you know, we have

00:11:52 ◼   ► logistical skills, we can try and get this done, but it is also kind of like building

00:11:58 ◼   ► a national supermarket in a month. And I was like, okay, I see that. Right, like I get

00:12:06 ◼   ► it. Good luck.

00:12:09 ◼   ► I hope you solved that problem. I'm glad it's not my problem. That's the feeling

00:12:15 ◼   ► there.

00:12:16 ◼   ► who's listening in speed mode to this in a two years time.

00:12:21 ◼   ► They know how it went.

00:12:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, they know how it went.

00:12:24 ◼   ► They're either thinking, oh, you know,

00:12:26 ◼   ► what are they talking about?

00:12:27 ◼   ► Or how relevant this evergreen content is.

00:12:30 ◼   ► But I'm glad you're feeling better.

00:12:32 ◼   ► - This episode of Cortex is brought to you

00:12:34 ◼   ► by Command Line Heroes.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Command Line Heroes is a podcast that tells epic,

00:12:39 ◼   ► true tales of developers, programmers, hackers, geeks,

00:12:43 ◼   ► and open source rebels who have revolutionized the technology landscape.

00:12:48 ◼   ► Season 6 of Command Line Heroes is available now and this season tells the story of black

00:12:53 ◼   ► technologists who innovated and invented, despite systemic racism, unfair hiring practices

00:12:58 ◼   ► and unequal education opportunities.

00:13:00 ◼   ► There is an episode all about Gladys West, whose mathematical models and data analysis

00:13:06 ◼   ► paved the way for GPS.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Another episode tells the story of Jerry Lawson, who invented the first cartridge-based video

00:13:12 ◼   ► game console, paving the way for Atari, Nintendo, Sega and others. Another episode tells the

00:13:18 ◼   ► story of Mark Dean, who grew up in the Jim Crow south and revolutionised the PC industry

00:13:23 ◼   ► with the ISA bus. I got a sneak preview of season 6 of Command Line Heroes. The episode

00:13:28 ◼   ► I heard was all about Dr Gladys West, and hearing her overcome the struggles of being

00:13:34 ◼   ► a young black woman trying to make her way through the scientific field in the 50s and

00:13:38 ◼   ► was really inspiring. The episode features fantastic interviews. I really like hearing

00:13:43 ◼   ► these stories directly from the people involved and getting to hear Dr West's story is something

00:13:49 ◼   ► that made this show really special to me. I think you should give it a listen. There are people whose

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00:14:01 ◼   ► on us as well. Our thanks to Command Line Heroes for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:14:06 ◼   ► Little follow up on the Theme System Journal, Gray. Happy new year, happy new theme to everybody.

00:14:12 ◼   ► This is our first episode of 2021. The Theme System Journal went on sale for our last episode.

00:14:18 ◼   ► We sold out in a week, pretty much. It was unexpected. So, you know, we spoke about it

00:14:24 ◼   ► last time. We had a larger order than we've ever had before and we were putting them up and we

00:14:31 ◼   ► We figured we'd have stock for a while, but there was one thing that we said, was like,

00:14:35 ◼   ► you were gonna promote it on your YouTube channel, which we'd not done before, and we

00:14:38 ◼   ► genuinely didn't know what that was gonna do.

00:14:41 ◼   ► Basically we sold half in just under a week, and then the other half in two days, which

00:14:48 ◼   ► was after you put up your video.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Complete honesty, this far exceeded our best expectation.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Oh yeah, totally.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like we weren't being foolish, we weren't being reserved, we really didn't think that this was gonna happen.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And I'll try and put it in perspective a bit.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So the order that we made was 75% of the total value that we have ever sold up until that point.

00:15:14 ◼   ► So I really thought that we would have enough for at least a couple of months.

00:15:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:15:20 ◼   ► But we didn't.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Yeah, no we didn't.

00:15:23 ◼   ► And also, I think with me promoting the journal on my YouTube channel, I think that is one of the most nervous I have been about uploading a video in quite a while.

00:15:36 ◼   ► Because I really had the feeling of, I must have messaged you a million times, like, I'm very uncertain, like, who knows how this is going to work out?

00:15:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it was this was all very weird for a lot of reasons.

00:15:49 ◼   ► Because like one, there have been lots of times where you have shared ideas with me

00:15:54 ◼   ► that you're working on, you maybe like show me a thing and so like, hey, what's your thoughts on this?

00:15:58 ◼   ► This was very different because like I was kind of actually involved.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Because this was our thing that you were making a video about and like you would run things by me.

00:16:08 ◼   ► And it was like it was it was a weird feeling for me like to be in that process with you.

00:16:15 ◼   ► and then we ended up putting up the video at a time that wasn't expected

00:16:21 ◼   ► and it went up on its own.

00:16:23 ◼   ► Everything about it was like this is weird and uncertain

00:16:27 ◼   ► you know like I think as I mentioned last time I kind of

00:16:30 ◼   ► got myself into a position in December where I was just working on too many

00:16:33 ◼   ► things and so there was supposed to be

00:16:38 ◼   ► a main video that was going to go along at the same time as the journal video

00:16:43 ◼   ► went up and it just, you know, I had a big phone call with you about it and we were talking

00:16:49 ◼   ► about options and like, "I don't think this is gonna work out." It's like, "I'm not gonna

00:16:53 ◼   ► have that main video ready." And I made the call just to do the journal on its own, which

00:16:58 ◼   ► even there, like just for someone who runs a YouTube channel, like you're always worried

00:17:02 ◼   ► when you do something different, like you just don't know how people are going to react,

00:17:06 ◼   ► which is a whole issue that's completely separate from, "I don't know how many journals this

00:17:11 ◼   ► video is is going to sell. I have no idea. Everything was so uncertain.

00:17:16 ◼   ► Like it might not make sense on the face of it but we actually believed that less people

00:17:21 ◼   ► could see the video putting it up on its own. Yeah.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Which is like a it's like a very weird thing that you were explaining to me from the YouTube

00:17:29 ◼   ► algorithm that if it like isn't what your viewers are expecting because it's not a full-on video

00:17:34 ◼   ► then they might not click it within the first few seconds.

00:17:36 ◼   ► Yeah, so there's a weird thing to explain which is the video has done better than I expected by about twice as much

00:17:45 ◼   ► but still probably half as many views as I would expect if it had gone out with the main video

00:17:52 ◼   ► is my like mental estimation of where it is.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And yeah, that totally is an effect that like YouTube is extremely sensitive to

00:18:01 ◼   ► and I hate this about YouTube, but I know it's a change that they've made

00:18:04 ◼   ► but like they're really sensitive to click through rates and retention in like the first

00:18:11 ◼   ► five or ten seconds for the very first people who are watching the videos and yeah so I thought like

00:18:17 ◼   ► oh man like this this could end up being shown to very few people if like the algorithm gods just

00:18:22 ◼   ► decide straight away that they don't like it. I mean not that it matters because and anyway like

00:18:28 ◼   ► this is all this this thing where we really weren't sure and if we were making the right

00:18:33 ◼   ► But it ended up being the right decision because if it would have gone out of a main video and got more views

00:18:37 ◼   ► we would have had

00:18:39 ◼   ► double than not amount of journals right like so it ended up being a

00:18:44 ◼   ► Weird chain of events that resulted in the best worst case scenario. Yeah

00:18:50 ◼   ► No, um, yeah

00:18:51 ◼   ► I'm very glad at the way it went out because again this this is another thing where if you're running a business

00:18:56 ◼   ► I always think of this thing

00:18:58 ◼   ► talking about like in economics and how do you price things and if you're a store, you always

00:19:03 ◼   ► want like a little line like that means that your price is just right if you have a really long line

00:19:09 ◼   ► like the price is probably too low and if you have no line the price is too high. And there's

00:19:15 ◼   ► something similar here where we have the inventory and what we don't want is a long line of people

00:19:24 ◼   ► who also then can't get the thing.

00:19:26 ◼   ► So it totally worked out that yes, the video didn't get shown to say twice as many people,

00:19:31 ◼   ► all of whom wouldn't have been able to get it anyway.

00:19:35 ◼   ► So yeah, we did really luck out with that.

00:19:40 ◼   ► But yes, I was the most nervous ever and I was sending you drafts of the script and I was like,

00:19:45 ◼   ► "What do you think about this, Myke?"

00:19:47 ◼   ► But it went out very well and I think we've both been very surprised

00:19:53 ◼   ► at how well it's sold. We just weren't expecting it, we really did think we probably had months of

00:19:59 ◼   ► inventory, but that turned out to not be the case. Again.

00:20:04 ◼   ► - Again. There is a difference this time though.

00:20:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:20:07 ◼   ► - So, but the week this episode goes live, by the end of that week,

00:20:12 ◼   ► the next batch starts printing and that is unprecedented for us in speed. And this is one

00:20:19 ◼   ► of the the great benefits we've had in moving on manufacturing. The plan right now as it stands

00:20:25 ◼   ► right now is that we will have the same amount again ready to go to be shipped in early February.

00:20:34 ◼   ► So barring any hold-ups or shipping issues of which there could be many of both, we expect to

00:20:40 ◼   ► have more on sale in early March. Yeah and this does feel like okay we underestimated inventory

00:20:48 ◼   ► But we are finally in the position where when that occurs, we can restock on a reasonable time frame.

00:20:57 ◼   ► And we don't have any of those kind of problems before.

00:21:00 ◼   ► So that's a huge deal because it's also a thing that, you know, we think with the journal like,

00:21:06 ◼   ► "Oh, you want to use the journal for a season and then use it for the next season."

00:21:11 ◼   ► Like we want to be able to have the inventory ready for that.

00:21:14 ◼   ► and it feels like we're finally in that place where the journals are no longer one-off items.

00:21:20 ◼   ► I think you should feel hugely accomplished, Myke, at getting to that place. Like, you really should.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Myke: Yeah, I feel very good about it. This analogy I've been having in my mind for a while,

00:21:34 ◼   ► like, stock management, which is what we're trying to do, it's like trying to catch an eel.

00:21:40 ◼   ► like you can barely see it most of the time and then you you think you've spotted it and you try

00:21:46 ◼   ► and grab it and you do but it slips right out of your hand right it's just like it's like an

00:21:51 ◼   ► impossible thing like sometimes you think you've got it but you don't you know and it's like

00:21:55 ◼   ► i know people hear the numbers like why don't you just order more

00:22:01 ◼   ► and it i wished it was as simple as that right well yeah your eel metaphor doesn't work because

00:22:09 ◼   ► there's also the reason people go, "Why don't you just order more?" It's because like, well,

00:22:13 ◼   ► in this scenario, if you try to catch the eel too hard, you go out of business. So that's,

00:22:19 ◼   ► like, that's the problem is you have to catch the eel, but not too much.

00:22:26 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, just put the eel in an eel-sized tub and you'll get it. It's like,

00:22:31 ◼   ► yeah, but now, now the eel's too big, right?

00:22:35 ◼   ► Yeah, so like that is constantly the flip side is order too much, bigger problem.

00:22:43 ◼   ► The dream is over, right? Like so as I said like I think it's a big number, right? 75%

00:22:49 ◼   ► of the total amount that we had sold up until that point and we had been selling them for a year and

00:22:56 ◼   ► a half, right? So we ordered a very large amount but it's very hard to try and predict buying

00:23:04 ◼   ► patterns. This is something that I was, I can't remember who I was talking to about

00:23:08 ◼   ► this, I was talking to a friend about this recently, and they said to me, you know, lots

00:23:13 ◼   ► of companies employ teams of people to make these decisions.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Okay, that makes me feel better because a thing that has been constantly niggling at

00:23:20 ◼   ► the back of my mind and I've searched for every once in a while on Google is like,

00:23:23 ◼   ► this feels like someone's PhD thesis is how to write a good algorithm for

00:23:33 ◼   ► predictive inventory, like this must exist.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Like there's gotta be a formula which, which like abstracts away all the details

00:23:41 ◼   ► of the business and can reduce it down to here's inventory, here's sales in X period

00:23:48 ◼   ► of time, and then here's the restock numbers for same, like what is the

00:23:53 ◼   ► algorithm to even this curve out?

00:23:55 ◼   ► Like it must exist.

00:23:57 ◼   ► But since you're telling me that companies employ teams of people to try to solve

00:24:01 ◼   ► this problem. My dream of "oh I just don't know the correct Google keyword to find the

00:24:06 ◼   ► solution to all of our problems" was just a dream and a fantasy that this does not exist.

00:24:11 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's like the scales are all messed up, right? Like we've been selling

00:24:16 ◼   ► merchandise for years, right? But the scales that we're selling these things on are completely

00:24:21 ◼   ► different and it's because it's a completely different type of product and the time of

00:24:25 ◼   ► year that we're selling it is different. The outlook of people makes a difference.

00:24:30 ◼   ► It's like, because we had some journals that we were selling at a discount, right?

00:24:35 ◼   ► Because we started selling them in August because it was so delayed.

00:24:38 ◼   ► And I guess people just didn't want to buy the journals in August in the pandemic year

00:24:43 ◼   ► of 2020.

00:24:46 ◼   ► And that was like a theory that I went in.

00:24:48 ◼   ► So like, we were nervous about ordering the amount that we ordered because we hadn't completely

00:24:52 ◼   ► sold out of the smaller amount that we'd ordered six months prior or eight months prior.

00:24:58 ◼   ► I was coming into it thinking like, no, no, I believe that people maybe abandoned their themes

00:25:04 ◼   ► because the world changed and they were like, I'll just do another one in 2021.

00:25:08 ◼   ► So I feel confident that this is a good amount.

00:25:11 ◼   ► And I was right, but not right enough.

00:25:13 ◼   ► And we talked about that decision a lot.

00:25:16 ◼   ► And this is also one of these things where I'm always aware, you have to be worried about

00:25:22 ◼   ► telling stories to yourself sometimes.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And, and this is a thing where I was aware that we, we were just like

00:25:30 ◼   ► making up stories about why.

00:25:33 ◼   ► So we said, oh, we haven't sold out the run of the first journals.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Uh, why?

00:25:38 ◼   ► Oh, maybe it's August and people don't want to, maybe it's the pandemic.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Like, but there's no data for any of this.

00:25:43 ◼   ► Right?

00:25:43 ◼   ► It's just like a little fairy tale story.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And, but, but the thing is like, you just know from experience, he's got feelings,

00:25:53 ◼   ► I don't think they have a high predictive output.

00:25:57 ◼   ► And so that's why I think both of us were also feeling cautious

00:26:03 ◼   ► about what we already felt like was too big of an order.

00:26:08 ◼   ► That was part of my feeling is like,

00:26:10 ◼   ► "Oh, okay, we haven't sold out version one."

00:26:13 ◼   ► Yes, maybe it's the problem of like,

00:26:17 ◼   ► "Oh, when you think a new Mac is coming,

00:26:19 ◼   ► you don't buy the old version."

00:26:21 ◼   ► version like oh maybe it's this kind of issue with selling like.

00:26:24 ◼   ► Oh yeah that was the other thing, I believed a lot of people were holding off because they

00:26:28 ◼   ► knew there was a version 2 coming. Yeah and like maybe that's true, maybe that's not true,

00:26:34 ◼   ► and the killer thing is we'll never know right, like we just have speculation,

00:26:39 ◼   ► but you just can't predict this stuff at all and again it's high stakes eel catching is what it is.

00:26:47 ◼   ► So everybody that bought one, thank you so much.

00:26:51 ◼   ► It is, you know, uh, I consider one of my greatest professional accomplishments

00:26:55 ◼   ► to this point that people bought it and they seem to really like it.

00:27:00 ◼   ► The feedback has been very, very good and I am so happy.

00:27:03 ◼   ► And if you weren't able to get one, we're very sorry.

00:27:07 ◼   ► We're working very hard.

00:27:08 ◼   ► They'll be back in stock soon.

00:27:09 ◼   ► If you're using one now and you're thinking, am I going to be able to get one

00:27:13 ◼   ► of these, we're going to have more in stock.

00:27:15 ◼   ► So hopefully if you're using the system, you'll be able to pick one up.

00:27:18 ◼   ► I guess, you know, I really don't like to say this, but I'm going to say it

00:27:23 ◼   ► like if you're using it and you think this is really great,

00:27:26 ◼   ► I want to keep using it.

00:27:27 ◼   ► Just buy one as soon as they go back on stock again, because then you'll know.

00:27:31 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff that happens during these processes that we cannot.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Conceive of until they happen.

00:27:38 ◼   ► And you know, it's like what I'm saying, like we're

00:27:41 ◼   ► expecting to have these shipping in February, but

00:27:45 ◼   ► the factory could go into lockdown, right? I don't know, but it could happen and then we're gonna be waiting again

00:27:52 ◼   ► so-

00:27:52 ◼   ► I will just say Myke, I think

00:27:54 ◼   ► you- you are in the position of having

00:27:57 ◼   ► much more bloody first-hand contact with what the problems are.

00:28:02 ◼   ► I'm in the trenches on this one, Gray. I'm not gonna lie.

00:28:04 ◼   ► Yeah, you are deep in the trenches and

00:28:07 ◼   ► you have that hollow look in your eyes, right, for having been in that experience for a while.

00:28:14 ◼   ► My overview here is I feel very confident that we have, as soon as we get the next

00:28:25 ◼   ► order, we will have solved the problem of restocking because all of the major

00:28:32 ◼   ► uncertainties are now over, you know, people knew we were working on the second

00:28:36 ◼   ► version and that that has been resolved.

00:28:38 ◼   ► There was the uncertainty about the YouTube audience sales that has been

00:28:43 ◼   ► been resolved and the production timeline for order and restock has been dramatically shrunken

00:28:52 ◼   ► so that it's very achievable to now have an idea of like, okay, when inventory hits this number,

00:29:01 ◼   ► we reorder this number. And like, I feel like this is a solved problem going forward. So that's,

00:29:09 ◼   ► That's my feeling on it, Myke. I know you've been through a lot, but that's how I feel about this.

00:29:15 ◼   ► What I'll say is there's two places you can sign up. If we're out of stock at any point

00:29:21 ◼   ► on our product page at Cotton Bureau, you can put your email in and you'll get a one-time

00:29:26 ◼   ► notification for when we restock. But if you want to always know when there's restocks,

00:29:33 ◼   ► at thethemesystem.com there is just an email newsletter that every time we have them go back

00:29:37 ◼   ► back in stock again I send out an email to that newsletter to let people know so

00:29:40 ◼   ► depending on what your preference is if you just want to get it one time or you

00:29:44 ◼   ► want to know every time they're your options there'll be links in the show

00:29:48 ◼   ► notes above for those along with actually I want I will also put a link

00:29:51 ◼   ► in the show notes to an episode of the pen addict episode 441 if you are a pen

00:29:57 ◼   ► and paper nerd and you would like to know in more detail the exact

00:30:01 ◼   ► particulars of the journal why I made the choices I made which is like four

00:30:06 ◼   ► levels down the stack of nerdiness that I'm going to subject everybody to on this show.

00:30:12 ◼   ► Me and Brad broke it down on that episode and we kind of went into all of like, why

00:30:15 ◼   ► did I choose this grammage of paper over this grammage of paper and what are the, you know,

00:30:20 ◼   ► really like deep down, but if you're that type of person, that's out there for you.

00:30:25 ◼   ► All right, should we talk about our Yelly themes again? I always like to spend some

00:30:30 ◼   ► time in the next episode after we set them, like after they've settled in a little bit,

00:30:35 ◼   ► Because I don't know about you, but I really feel like the first kind of 60 days of my yearly theme,

00:30:41 ◼   ► there's like a lot of movement as it's kind of like solidifying for me.

00:30:46 ◼   ► Yeah, like I completely agree.

00:30:47 ◼   ► And I think there's the additional effect for us about making it public and talking about it, you know,

00:30:54 ◼   ► because again, I keep it a total secret, like, and I just talk to you about it on the show.

00:30:58 ◼   ► And there's always this process of explaining something to someone helps clarify your own thoughts.

00:31:04 ◼   ► and also just having it out there can sharpen things up for you. So yeah, I'm very happy to

00:31:10 ◼   ► revisit our themes in this early January. - Taking a lot of voyages yet?

00:31:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I will just say not to revisit our opening conversation, but very quickly, when we did record

00:31:29 ◼   ► that first episode where I talked about Year of the Voyage, I did have it in my mind of like,

00:31:35 ◼   ► my theme was almost boring of like, "Oh, my theme is I'm gonna go outside sometimes?" and

00:31:45 ◼   ► this is almost boring to talk about because we were recording at, I think perhaps to the day,

00:31:53 ◼   ► my apex of optimism for the next year's worth of time.

00:31:58 ◼   ► And I was like, "Oh, this, this whole coronavirus thing is getting wrapped up."

00:32:03 ◼   ► And I almost had this weird thought of like, "I might've picked a really bad

00:32:08 ◼   ► theme that I would have to change because it's just like, it wouldn't really be

00:32:14 ◼   ► relevant in the next coming year."

00:32:16 ◼   ► But boy, oh boy, am I glad I went with Year of the Voyage because of like the

00:32:22 ◼   ► two sides of the coin and like the flip side of Year of the Voyage is like what

00:32:29 ◼   ► I was, what we were talking about before is like double down on spaceship you and,

00:32:35 ◼   ► and have set reassessment points or like set dates that, that you're looking for.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And the events of the world conspired to give them to me.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And I also like you, um, psychologically, I feel like I'm in a really good place

00:32:52 ◼   ► Because when Lockdown 2 was announced, I felt like, "Oh, okay.

00:32:57 ◼   ► This is exactly what I had prepared for."

00:33:00 ◼   ► That the flip side of this theme is, you know, this is not unexpected and you're

00:33:06 ◼   ► going to continue with this process of like working at home in a very space

00:33:12 ◼   ► deliberate way for set periods of time.

00:33:16 ◼   ► And so I think if I had not done that, I think the psychological feeling

00:33:21 ◼   ► could have been something along the lines of, "I was really optimistic that this was over,"

00:33:27 ◼   ► and then it was all snatched away at the last second, which would not have been a great feeling.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Again, I just feel very relieved about intentionally picking something that was quite

00:33:39 ◼   ► flexible. As part of this, one of the things that I've done was, after the Christmas break,

00:33:45 ◼   ► I decided to do the thing that I have wanted to do for the entirety of this lockdown period,

00:33:52 ◼   ► but just never wanted to do at any particular time, was a full and complete office konmari.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Like, I went to my home office, I took everything out of that office, brought it all into the main

00:34:09 ◼   ► room. This includes, like, in my home office I also have a closet which contains a lot of

00:34:14 ◼   ► of my personal stuff like clothing and additional equipment, it's like, bring it all out into

00:34:20 ◼   ► the main room. And I just went through all of it, like deciding, okay, I am going to

00:34:29 ◼   ► assume for the sake of this exercise that I will be working in my office for the next

00:34:38 ◼   ► year at home with no other place to go.

00:34:41 ◼   ► And like, with that in mind, what do I need to keep?

00:34:45 ◼   ► What makes sense to have in the office and what doesn't make

00:34:49 ◼   ► sense to have in the office.

00:34:50 ◼   ► And as always with one of these like tidying sessions, it was just a

00:34:55 ◼   ► really great thing to do.

00:34:58 ◼   ► Like it had been on my mind for months and months.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Like it bothered me that I had too much stuff that was just unorganized in here.

00:35:03 ◼   ► As you occasionally heard when I had to rummage through boxes to try to find

00:35:07 ◼   ► like, "Oh, where's that cable?"

00:35:09 ◼   ► And I probably decreased the amount of storage space

00:35:13 ◼   ► that I had by at least two thirds.

00:35:15 ◼   ► I have a nice little box with all of my audio stuff in it.

00:35:18 ◼   ► And it's like, "Ah, yes, this is the box

00:35:20 ◼   ► that contains audio stuff.

00:35:22 ◼   ► This is the box of all of the different wires.

00:35:24 ◼   ► And each type of wire is like

00:35:25 ◼   ► in its own separate little bag.

00:35:27 ◼   ► And here's the charging station for all the things."

00:35:29 ◼   ► Like, I kind of sort of had that stuff for most of the year,

00:35:34 ◼   ► but I gave it a lot of really serious thoughts.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And, you know, in the process of doing that, I also decided, okay, now that everything's

00:35:41 ◼   ► out of the office, it's way easier for me to think about how do I want this to be set

00:35:48 ◼   ► up, assuming that I'm going to be here for a year.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And it was just, it was just really clarifying.

00:35:54 ◼   ► And again, because of the theme is like, it didn't feel like a bad exercise.

00:36:01 ◼   ► It felt like a good exercise.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Also when you bring everything out, it's way easier to move stuff around or

00:36:07 ◼   ► like make brand new decisions.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And so I've totally changed the layout of the two desks in my space.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So I've kind of reversed my podcast slash writing station and the sound

00:36:20 ◼   ► booth that I use around it and like how the microphone is oriented and all of

00:36:26 ◼   ► this stuff from my initial tests say like, Oh, this is, this is a much better setup.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Like there's way less noise that gets on the microphone.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Works nicely in my office.

00:36:35 ◼   ► I have a new treadmill for the treadmill desk that is much nicer than the one I used to

00:36:40 ◼   ► have.

00:36:41 ◼   ► I don't remember if we ever spoke about the treadmill desk.

00:36:44 ◼   ► We did talk about the treadmill desk.

00:36:45 ◼   ► I think you were annoyed because I hadn't mentioned it because I had had it for like

00:36:48 ◼   ► months and then it came up at some point.

00:36:51 ◼   ► What I don't remember if we talked about is I did have a treadmill and then it like had

00:36:57 ◼   ► a small electrical fire one day and so I had to get rid of it.

00:37:03 ◼   ► No!

00:37:04 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can't, I don't think I've mentioned

00:37:08 ◼   ► that on the show, but.

00:37:09 ◼   ► - No, I even told me this, I didn't know this.

00:37:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so.

00:37:13 ◼   ► - But it's like a small electrical fire on a treadmill.

00:37:15 ◼   ► Like what is that, what's the sound about?

00:37:17 ◼   ► - So I have to like, it's still the same case now,

00:37:22 ◼   ► but in order to, so I am sitting at the desk,

00:37:26 ◼   ► which is normally my standing desk for writing

00:37:28 ◼   ► where I have the treadmill.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Now with the old treadmill, I had to physically unplug it

00:37:34 ◼   ► from the wall and plug it back in and move it each time I wanted to do a podcast recording,

00:37:39 ◼   ► which is like a big pain in the ass.

00:37:41 ◼   ► But one of the times when I went to plug it back in, there was an extremely loud pop from

00:37:48 ◼   ► right under the front where the motor was and a little bit of light that I could see

00:37:55 ◼   ► coming translucently through the top of the case and a lot of heat.

00:38:01 ◼   ► And I grabbed my little fire extinguisher that I have in my office.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Luckily, I did not need to use it because I was just looking at it for a few minutes

00:38:09 ◼   ► and then the light dimmed and the smell of horribly burnt plastic filled the room.

00:38:14 ◼   ► And so that treadmill was no more and I did not order a replacement of the same model

00:38:19 ◼   ► of that treadmill and I got a different one.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Should I have a fire extinguisher in my office?

00:38:23 ◼   ► Yeah, you should have a fire extinguisher in your office.

00:38:25 ◼   ► You should totally have a fire extinguisher that is for electric fires and this is the

00:38:28 ◼   ► reason why.

00:38:29 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Well, I don't have a treadmill.

00:38:33 ◼   ► Yeah, but I'm sure, like me, you must have a million electrical equipment stuff.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:39 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:39 ◼   ► I mean, you know, again, if I look under my desk right now,

00:38:43 ◼   ► like the amount of things that are plugged into the extension cord,

00:38:48 ◼   ► even if any of them individually are not likely to catch fire,

00:38:51 ◼   ► like, you know, the extension cord itself is not a perfect piece of equipment

00:38:54 ◼   ► and it has a lot of draw on it.

00:38:57 ◼   ► So it's just a like, it's just a really teeny tiny one. You know, it's not much bigger than

00:39:02 ◼   ► two soda cans on top of each other and it's for electrical fires and I keep it in my office.

00:39:06 ◼   ► - You know how I don't like Qi charging? We've been through this, right?

00:39:09 ◼   ► - Yes, yes. - Belkin made a Qi charger that was

00:39:12 ◼   ► catching fire. I knew it was gonna happen. Said it the whole time. Apple was selling this Belkin

00:39:18 ◼   ► wireless charger and it started catching fire. - I mean, when you say catching fire,

00:39:22 ◼   ► is this the thing where people say catching fire and they mean shorting out?

00:39:26 ◼   ► or do they- you mean like flames?

00:39:28 ◼   ► "An issue with the power supply unit could cause the device to overheat and leave it

00:39:32 ◼   ► vulnerable to catching fire or shocking people."

00:39:34 ◼   ► That's what the product recall says.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Okay, that sounds like possible fire, but still quite alarming.

00:39:41 ◼   ► You know, it's like your treadmill only possibly caught on fire, but-

00:39:44 ◼   ► I'm very certain it was on fire inside, and luckily it ran out of air.

00:39:49 ◼   ► If you had seen a fire, how'd you know it was a fire?

00:39:51 ◼   ► You know?

00:39:52 ◼   ► I am counting the light of the smoke as fire.

00:39:54 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:39:55 ◼   ► >> It could've just, like, I don't know, got really excited.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it definitely sounded like the treadmill caught on fire.

00:40:01 ◼   ► That's a, I don't like that.

00:40:03 ◼   ► >> Yeah, get yourself a small fire extinguisher

00:40:05 ◼   ► for electrical fires.

00:40:06 ◼   ► >> Yeah, no one gonna do that now.

00:40:07 ◼   ► >> Yeah, yeah, definitely do that, so.

00:40:10 ◼   ► But so like, as part of the office rethink,

00:40:13 ◼   ► like I got a treadmill that one, disconnects

00:40:16 ◼   ► without having to like physically plug it in each time,

00:40:18 ◼   ► there's like a wire that I can disconnect

00:40:21 ◼   ► in a different way, and also got a treadmill

00:40:24 ◼   ► that quite nicely actually does fold up against the wall in an easier way,

00:40:29 ◼   ► so that like, when I'm transitioning to podcast mode,

00:40:32 ◼   ► it's a much simpler process than it was before, which is very nice.

00:40:36 ◼   ► And also as part of this process,

00:40:38 ◼   ► I got new storage shelves that are much nicer

00:40:41 ◼   ► than the temporary stuff that I'd had before.

00:40:44 ◼   ► So I took this, the start of the year as a time to take

00:40:50 ◼   ► The year of the voyage brackets, like in spaceship you very seriously again, in

00:40:57 ◼   ► the, in the same way that I took it very seriously a year ago and I was, I

00:41:01 ◼   ► was really happy to do that and right now I feel the same way of like, oh,

00:41:06 ◼   ► thank goodness, like I got rid of so much crap that I didn't need in my office.

00:41:10 ◼   ► Everything that I do need is much more easily accessible.

00:41:15 ◼   ► The storage spaces that I have now look much nicer.

00:41:20 ◼   ► I also bought like 10 of these massive sunshine LED lamps

00:41:25 ◼   ► to place all around the office.

00:41:28 ◼   ► So it's like really bright inside, which is very nice.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - Your office is not that big.

00:41:33 ◼   ► It must be like the surface of the sun in there.

00:41:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you know, Myke,

00:41:38 ◼   ► I have these massive sound absorbing panels

00:41:41 ◼   ► that I build my little recording studio.

00:41:43 ◼   ► They're like, it's like looking into the abyss, those things.

00:41:46 ◼   ► Yes.

00:41:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Those, those things are, are, are venti, black, you know, perfect light absorbing stuff.

00:41:52 ◼   ► So you need the power of several tiny suns to, to overcome them.

00:41:56 ◼   ► But it's just one of those things like, again, thinking about it quite seriously and try, and

00:42:02 ◼   ► trying to go through what haven't I liked about my office in the past year.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:07 ◼   ► That was one of the things that was high on the list.

00:42:09 ◼   ► like, I can never get it bright enough that I'm happy with the situation. So I was like, "Okay,

00:42:15 ◼   ► brightness is my problem. What do I need? LEDs that have 10,000 lumens. Great. Give me 10 of

00:42:22 ◼   ► them." And I'll just pop them all over the place and now it's really nice, especially with the blue

00:42:27 ◼   ► walls. Like, I couldn't possibly love it more. So that was like the main big project of working on

00:42:34 ◼   ► redoing the office, and it took so much longer than I thought it would, but I'm really happy

00:42:39 ◼   ► that I spent the time at the start of the year to do that.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Yeah I think that's really great. I would definitely say that I have not put that

00:42:45 ◼   ► kind of effort in that you have. Like the amount of work I did was small for getting the office

00:42:51 ◼   ► set up again. I could imagine wanting to do this if I didn't have a studio, right? Like at the

00:42:57 ◼   ► moment, like Adina was asking me, like if I wanted to get some new things for the home office, like

00:43:02 ◼   ► she's like "oh like what about this, what about this, would it make you feel more comfortable?"

00:43:07 ◼   ► and I'm kind of like, I kind of refuse to want to spend more money on the home office

00:43:10 ◼   ► because I'm paying rent on a studio that I'm not going to, right? So like I'm like a little,

00:43:17 ◼   ► I'm like resistant to it kind of like on a principle level.

00:43:20 ◼   ► Yeah I totally get that.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Yeah but I've, you know, what I have done is just make it so I've made enough space to not feel like

00:43:29 ◼   ► I'm in this cave of an office which is what I felt like previously because it just felt like

00:43:35 ◼   ► everything was closing in around me being in here. So I have done some work, but I could imagine if

00:43:41 ◼   ► I was in your position where like, maybe me like a year ago from now, where I was just assuming that

00:43:47 ◼   ► I was going to be at home all the time, I could imagine doing what you have done, like really just

00:43:53 ◼   ► going back to the beginning, ripping it out and starting all over again.

00:43:56 ◼   ► B: And it's also easier to do that with the perspective of, okay, I have worked in this space

00:44:02 ◼   ► for almost a year. What have I liked and what have I not liked? And just trying to get rid of the,

00:44:07 ◼   ► you know, not like there was any major problem, but it was just a bunch of minor things.

00:44:12 ◼   ► But a bunch of minor things do cause annoyance, like they add up together. And so I'm really

00:44:17 ◼   ► happy to resolve it. But I agree, like in your situation, I wouldn't recommend the same course

00:44:23 ◼   ► of action. Like taking the time I took to redo my home office wouldn't make sense for you to take

00:44:27 ◼   ► that time to redo your home office. Like that, you know, they're just totally different situations.

00:44:31 ◼   ► M- The plan is that this room doesn't have any office stuff in it, like that was the

00:44:35 ◼   ► plan.

00:44:36 ◼   ► B- Right.

00:44:37 ◼   ► That's the dream.

00:44:38 ◼   ► M- That's the dream.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:44:40 ◼   ► B- It's the dream.

00:44:41 ◼   ► M- Maybe.

00:44:42 ◼   ► 2021.

00:44:43 ◼   ► I could do it.

00:44:44 ◼   ► B- 2021.

00:44:45 ◼   ► No home office for Myke.

00:44:46 ◼   ► M- Maybe.

00:44:47 ◼   ► B- Just one, one other little thing for my year of voyage in Spaceship U is also thinking

00:44:56 ◼   ► The one station, the one station I have never been able to really get a good hold on, which has driven me crazy all last year, because it's normally not a problem, has been sleep.

00:45:12 ◼   ► And it's been like, I've just found it sort of fascinating, but last year I've just was

00:45:22 ◼   ► never able to get into a consistent waking time and I just found it shocking. Like I'm not this

00:45:30 ◼   ► sort of person who sleeps in, but I've never in my whole life had more difficulty getting up at

00:45:38 ◼   ► the time that I want to wake up than I have in the last year.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And it's just been totally shocking on both ends of staying up later than I

00:45:48 ◼   ► intend to, or like waking up in the middle of the night and being awake for a while

00:45:54 ◼   ► and just sleeping in and not even consistently like waking up times keep

00:45:59 ◼   ► moving by an hour in either direction.

00:46:01 ◼   ► It's one of those things where it just sort of slowly happened.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I was aware of it all last year and I would talk to people sometimes about like, "Oh,

00:46:11 ◼   ► this is probably one of the biggest changes for me is this really this big frustration."

00:46:16 ◼   ► But I could never quite get it to work and I've decided like, "Okay,

00:46:22 ◼   ► that's one of the specific topics for again, this year, if I'm going to at the start of the year,

00:46:31 ◼   ► take it seriously and overestimate the time. It's like, I can't have another year of this.

00:46:38 ◼   ► No matter what the deal is, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much my brain really doesn't

00:46:44 ◼   ► want to get up when it's supposed to get up in the morning, like, I'm going to tackle this problem

00:46:50 ◼   ► and get this sorted because this is probably like one of the bigger things that I want to

00:46:57 ◼   ► accomplish under this lockdown situation that I want to be different from how it went last year.

00:47:04 ◼   ► So yeah, that's probably the next thing on my like actionable items that are coming out of the theme

00:47:11 ◼   ► reassessing at the beginning of the year.

00:47:15 ◼   ► - Mm, yeah, my sleep pattern's messed up big time.

00:47:19 ◼   ► - Okay, can I ask you a question? Have you had really vivid dreams?

00:47:25 ◼   ► Some, yeah. What I'll say is for me with dreams, I don't dream very often or at least I very rarely

00:47:36 ◼   ► remember my dreams. Like I wake up and they're gone. But I have had some dreams recently that

00:47:44 ◼   ► have stuck with me a little bit more which is abnormal. But I have heard this from a lot of

00:47:50 ◼   ► of friends are having what I would describe as COVID dreams, where it's like,

00:47:57 ◼   ► I'm outside and I'm freaking out, right?

00:48:00 ◼   ► Like I've been hearing a lot of that kind of stuff, which is like very clear.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Like, but I know this is what people do, right?

00:48:06 ◼   ► Like they, you're influenced, it's your brain being influenced by what's around

00:48:10 ◼   ► you and you're dreaming about it.

00:48:11 ◼   ► But I would say that I am, I don't know if they're more vivid or not than other

00:48:17 ◼   ► but I am having more dreams than I'm remembering

00:48:20 ◼   ► than I normally do.

00:48:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's interesting.

00:48:25 ◼   ► I've heard the same thing from other people

00:48:27 ◼   ► and it's one of the reasons why I sort of

00:48:29 ◼   ► wrote off the sleep thing is like,

00:48:31 ◼   ► oh, something's just different about sleep

00:48:33 ◼   ► and it'll sort itself out eventually.

00:48:36 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't know what the deal is.

00:48:38 ◼   ► If anything, if I had to predict ahead of time,

00:48:42 ◼   ► if someone said,

00:48:43 ◼   ► "Oh, you're gonna spend a year in your house."

00:48:46 ◼   ► Do you anticipate that the intensity and vividness of your dreams will increase or decrease in

00:48:53 ◼   ► that environment?

00:48:54 ◼   ► I would have bet a lot of money on decrease.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, this is nothing.

00:48:58 ◼   ► This is super boring."

00:49:00 ◼   ► The number of times when I wake up now and feel like, "Oh man, I was really busy last

00:49:05 ◼   ► night," like, "in my dreams," is very high.

00:49:08 ◼   ► And it's just interesting talking to other people.

00:49:10 ◼   ► does seem like that has not been a universal phenomenon, but a very fairly prevalent phenomenon.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And I just kind of wonder what the deal is, but I've had enough of this.

00:49:20 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:49:20 ◼   ► I think it's one of the things that like you can see in hindsight, like I would have

00:49:24 ◼   ► agreed with you, like in the given this set of parameters, what would your dreams be like?

00:49:30 ◼   ► It's like, well, you have no stimulus, so they would be boring. But actually it's the

00:49:34 ◼   ► inverse. You have no stimulus, so your brain's like, "Oh, what can I cook up? I am bored."

00:49:38 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:49:38 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:49:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

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00:52:00 ◼   ► So how is your theme going in the beginning of the year?

00:52:04 ◼   ► Pretty good!

00:52:05 ◼   ► I think for me, there isn't really too much to be achieved in the short term, but what

00:52:14 ◼   ► I have enjoyed is keeping the idea of reinvention in my mind as I'm moving through life at

00:52:22 ◼   ► the moment.

00:52:24 ◼   ► And I think I've been able to kind of solidify some of my thinking around it a little bit

00:52:29 ◼   ► more.

00:52:30 ◼   ► So we've been watching a chef's table on Netflix, which is just like

00:52:34 ◼   ► Multiple series TV show we're gonna tell you the life of a famous chef or a successful chef

00:52:41 ◼   ► and the main thing that I noticed from watching these shows is kind of this idea of a

00:52:49 ◼   ► reinvention for these individuals

00:52:52 ◼   ► There is a formula like it was we were making a joke about it by getting to the ends of the show

00:52:58 ◼   ► Like every chef would have some success and then they would have a thing that knocked them back

00:53:04 ◼   ► And then they would come back and be bigger and better than ever, right?

00:53:09 ◼   ► And the knockback for them could honestly it wasn't necessarily that something terrible happened

00:53:15 ◼   ► Like they failed, you know, like some of them like they have rush on fail, but some of them would be like I

00:53:20 ◼   ► Believe that I am making this kind of food

00:53:24 ◼   ► Which is incredible and everyone loves it and they're doing great and then they meet some of a famous chef and they're like

00:53:30 ◼   ► You're not your foods not doing what you think it's doing

00:53:33 ◼   ► You are making like an imitation of Mexican food, you know actually respecting the ingredients

00:53:40 ◼   ► So then that person takes it to heart and then they go on like a vision quest throughout all of Mexico

00:53:45 ◼   ► And then they end up making the best Mexican food around right?

00:53:49 ◼   ► this is like a thing that plays out a lot in the show and I've been I was finding it very interesting watching it because it

00:53:54 ◼   ► Was like you watch these people get really good at a thing, but they're always looking for the next thing

00:54:00 ◼   ► They you they have the success, but they've always got that eye on well

00:54:05 ◼   ► I've hit this now

00:54:06 ◼   ► So now what and I really enjoy watching shows like this to see

00:54:11 ◼   ► the creative process for people like how they grow and express themselves and

00:54:15 ◼   ► And I like a show that highlights how difficult this process can be for people, right?

00:54:21 ◼   ► Of like, wanting a next thing, a more thing.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And this has helped me kind of like, solidify another phrase

00:54:30 ◼   ► that I'm baking into the year of reinvention,

00:54:34 ◼   ► which is the phrase "the second act".

00:54:37 ◼   ► Ooh, I like that.

00:54:38 ◼   ► That's the thing that I see all these people going through

00:54:42 ◼   ► and I think it's where I am in my creative life.

00:54:45 ◼   ► I've been looking at my last few years of themes.

00:54:48 ◼   ► Diversification, stabilization, refinement and shift.

00:54:52 ◼   ► These were the themes in kind of reverse order.

00:54:56 ◼   ► And I think that this thing about what is my next thing

00:55:02 ◼   ► has been something that's been bubbling up for a long time.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And I think for me it's not that I feel like I need to start again,

00:55:13 ◼   ► but it's that I am looking for another challenge.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And when I've been looking through my years of themes,

00:55:23 ◼   ► there's been this element of it the whole time,

00:55:25 ◼   ► like wanting to diversify myself and stabilize certain areas of my creative life,

00:55:31 ◼   ► but also looking for new creative expression and fulfillment.

00:55:34 ◼   ► And I think that it's circling around this idea.

00:55:40 ◼   ► And so I think that reinvention for me for this year is really the culmination of work that I've

00:55:49 ◼   ► been trying to do for a while. I cannot say that I will achieve this in 2021, but I think that I've

00:55:58 ◼   ► finally gotten to kind of like the knife's edge of something that I've been skirting around for like

00:56:05 ◼   ► four years nearly. And so kind of like finding other areas that I can find success in right now

00:56:14 ◼   ► feels like something that's important to me and with where I am right now with like my spread

00:56:21 ◼   ► of the things that I do I think I'm potentially finding that in the work that we're doing with

00:56:28 ◼   ► Cortex brand. The idea that we are trying to build out of this

00:56:35 ◼   ► selection of products for people that are like us, it's interesting to me and I

00:56:41 ◼   ► find myself being very engaged with it mentally. I'm enjoying the

00:56:49 ◼   ► problem-solving aspect of it and the risks inherent to it. There is

00:56:56 ◼   ► something in that which is very exciting and fulfilling. And I do feel like now we are

00:57:04 ◼   ► getting to a point where, I don't know why I keep coming up with animal-based metaphors,

00:57:10 ◼   ► but like grabbing the bull by the horns kind of thing is where we're getting closer to

00:57:15 ◼   ► that point of like, "Alright, well, we just got to do this thing." And it's an intimidating

00:57:23 ◼   ► thing but I think that that's kind of where I'm getting closest to of like, "alright,

00:57:30 ◼   ► so you've done this thing. You had a thing that you wanted to do and you wanted to be

00:57:35 ◼   ► a podcaster. That was your goal." And I have now spent more time doing this professionally

00:57:42 ◼   ► than I ever wanted to do it. So I feel accomplished here but I don't think that I would feel creatively

00:57:51 ◼   ► fulfilled just doing the same thing for the next 35, 40 years.

00:57:57 ◼   ► I want to do different things.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And one of the main differences for myself now to how I've been over the last 10 years

00:58:05 ◼   ► is I don't feel like I have to leave anything behind, but I feel like I need to have a different

00:58:12 ◼   ► mix.

00:58:14 ◼   ► And I've been kind of circling around this for years, but it's like, okay.

00:58:21 ◼   ► What is the next thing that Myke Hurley can do?

00:58:25 ◼   ► That's kind of where I am now. That's what reinvention is.

00:58:29 ◼   ► That's what this idea of the second act is.

00:58:33 ◼   ► And I think that maybe this year

00:58:37 ◼   ► I'm going to be able to make more significant

00:58:41 ◼   ► steps in this than I have been in the previous

00:58:45 ◼   ► few years because now I feel like I've really hit it.

00:58:49 ◼   ► So I've had a lot of clarification in my mind over the last few weeks.

00:58:53 ◼   ► Yeah, that's so interesting to hear because since we spoke about it last time, I've thought about your theme several times.

00:59:00 ◼   ► And I think it's because it's without a doubt my favorite theme that you've done.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Like hearing you talk about it, I've thought like, wow, Myke's really gotten something this year.

00:59:13 ◼   ► and like I like the way he was talking about it and this today has really solidified for me like

00:59:18 ◼   ► oh why have I thought like oh Myke picked for himself just like the perfect just a great theme

00:59:23 ◼   ► this is the best theme he's picked for himself so far and I think you're right it's because you have

00:59:28 ◼   ► been kind of swirling around these ideas for a while and you've articulated it now like you said

00:59:34 ◼   ► reinvention is is a thing that uh may take more than a single year to accomplish but I really

00:59:41 ◼   ► like that this is in your mind clearly. And I think the second act is a great additional phrase

00:59:50 ◼   ► to have to try to clarify to yourself like, "Oh, what do you mean by this?" And like you said,

00:59:54 ◼   ► it doesn't, it doesn't need to be something that's totally different. You don't need to

00:59:58 ◼   ► lead something behind. And that's why the second act is just a great phrase because it's like,

01:00:02 ◼   ► that's what happens in a story. Like there is a continuation, but also there are new things that

01:00:08 ◼   ► are different and so I really like it.

01:00:11 ◼   ► Because I feel like I've already entered my second act as a podcast creator.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Like I feel like I'm already there, like I've done that, like in that part of my career,

01:00:20 ◼   ► you know, like I'm very much in it now, you know, in multiple ways. Like one, just from going from

01:00:28 ◼   ► like being a person trying to make it happen into being a person who part runs a company that does

01:00:34 ◼   ► this but then that then also another level of last year being a person who is

01:00:42 ◼   ► now creating content that I'm asking people to pay me directly for.

01:00:48 ◼   ► That's like another part of this right of like this like second act of me as a

01:00:53 ◼   ► creator. It's like okay I've had this stuff and it's free and we support it

01:00:58 ◼   ► with ads and that's the business. Now I am also asking you like if you like the

01:01:04 ◼   ► work that I do enough that you want to support it and get more of it this is a

01:01:09 ◼   ► thing that we can do and like that I feel like that is like a second act for

01:01:15 ◼   ► me there as well but now I'm like all right but this is all still in the thing

01:01:20 ◼   ► that you've been doing for a decade let's go up another level you as a

01:01:27 ◼   ► a person who has ambitions and creativity, you need to look at something else, a completely

01:01:35 ◼   ► different field.

01:01:37 ◼   ► Can you make it work in something that is completely unlike everything that you're doing?

01:01:44 ◼   ► Not an adaptation, not like a little shift here or there, a different step into a different

01:01:50 ◼   ► type of podcast content.

01:01:52 ◼   ► talking like different business and so we have been moving towards this for a while but I feel

01:02:03 ◼   ► like it's an area that now I've kind of like I've made it like I've approached like a fork in the

01:02:10 ◼   ► road and I think I know where we're going. I know you like to build traditions into the

01:02:17 ◼   ► Cortex calendar. Are you going to give us the traditional mic time tracking report?

01:02:23 ◼   ► - Yes, and I've made it better this year. There's a chart. I've made a chart.

01:02:28 ◼   ► So I've provided this in the show notes for you and for our listeners.

01:02:34 ◼   ► It's my-- - Oh wow, you're really

01:02:36 ◼   ► getting fancy. - I know. So like previous years,

01:02:39 ◼   ► I've just included screenshots and then today I thought, wouldn't it be nicer if rather than

01:02:43 ◼   ► you going between one or the other to compare them, I can just create a chart for you to

01:02:48 ◼   ► show how things have changed year over year.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Ooh, I really like this. This is great. The state of Myke. I like it.

01:02:55 ◼   ► I know. There's one thing, look, before we dive into any particulars here, there's

01:03:00 ◼   ► just, there's like a massive element in the room that needs to be addressed to these

01:03:03 ◼   ► statistics. So in 2019, I tracked 918 hours of work. In 2020, I tracked 1506.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Ah, that's quite a difference. Why?

01:03:14 ◼   ► It's a massive difference. Well, there's a bunch of reasons. So there's small reasons

01:03:20 ◼   ► and there's big reasons. Like, I didn't travel, right? When I traveled, I didn't

01:03:24 ◼   ► time track.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

01:03:26 ◼   ► But that doesn't equate for a 600-hour difference.

01:03:31 ◼   ► No, and looking at the charts, there's nothing on here that's obviously a 600-hour

01:03:38 ◼   ► difference either.

01:03:39 ◼   ► No, the difference is I worked a lot more in 2020.

01:03:44 ◼   ► I mean, we knew that, I've spoken about that.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Everything is up across the board

01:03:51 ◼   ► and that has just added to a 600 hour difference.

01:03:56 ◼   ► - How do you feel about that?

01:03:59 ◼   ► - I feel terrible about it.

01:04:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:04:02 ◼   ► - Because I didn't feel like in 2019,

01:04:05 ◼   ► I had all this time to spare, right?

01:04:09 ◼   ► You mean if we had talked to 2019 Myke and said, "Oh hey, could you increase these hours by what,

01:04:18 ◼   ► like 40%?" Like he wouldn't have responded, "Oh yeah, there's tons of slack in the schedule for that."

01:04:25 ◼   ► Yeah, like I would have been like, "No, I don't think I want to do that, thanks."

01:04:29 ◼   ► But you know, I've spoken about this, right? I spoke about it on our last episode,

01:04:35 ◼   ► I think maybe even a little bit on the one before, it was a, I feel like, mostly unavoidable

01:04:41 ◼   ► requirement this year. More was needed. You know, there are new entrants on this list,

01:04:48 ◼   ► there are entrants that saw a huge change in them. It is what it is. I don't, I couldn't tell you

01:04:56 ◼   ► what 2021 is going to look like. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask is, what is your prediction for

01:05:02 ◼   ► 2021, given that I think if we asked current you, do you think you have say 40% more slack in the

01:05:11 ◼   ► schedule to give, I think you're going to answer no to that. No, I can tell you categorically I don't.

01:05:18 ◼   ► I think 2019 Myke would have said he didn't want to. Ah okay, interesting. Right? But I think,

01:05:25 ◼   ► you know, I could have found it. I don't have that kind of amount of hours in me.

01:05:31 ◼   ► I would expect my prediction now is that 2021 the number will be in between these.

01:05:38 ◼   ► How do you feel about that?

01:05:40 ◼   ► I'm fine with it for now because I think it's continued to be what is needed

01:05:45 ◼   ► and also that there are just some things that won't change.

01:05:48 ◼   ► So some of the clearer differences are in show prep, podcast editing and podcast recording.

01:05:55 ◼   ► Right? So they're the biggest bars and those biggest bars have gotten bigger.

01:06:01 ◼   ► One of the reasons for that is my shows that take the most time now take more time to make.

01:06:08 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

01:06:10 ◼   ► I feel like Cortex doesn't fit in that category, right?

01:06:14 ◼   ► Or are you including all of the additional stuff for the membership?

01:06:20 ◼   ► Like is that what you mean by like all of the shows across the board?

01:06:23 ◼   ► It's you're including the membership because you have an additional category on here,

01:06:28 ◼   ► which is membership, but you're not tracking the show extras.

01:06:32 ◼   ► - Right, that is administration of membership, right?

01:06:37 ◼   ► - Ah, okay.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - And so I also expect that that number

01:06:40 ◼   ► will be vastly lower now, because most of the, what,

01:06:44 ◼   ► 60 hours in that was in getting the new system

01:06:48 ◼   ► off the ground.

01:06:49 ◼   ► I don't do the ongoing maintenance

01:06:53 ◼   ► of the membership program.

01:06:54 ◼   ► That's Steven's part of the business,

01:06:56 ◼   ► but when we were starting off with our new system,

01:07:00 ◼   ► I was much more involved in that, in helping them.

01:07:04 ◼   ► We were talking about it more, meeting about it more,

01:07:06 ◼   ► that kind of stuff.

01:07:08 ◼   ► - Okay, that makes more sense.

01:07:09 ◼   ► - And so I expect that that number will go down a lot,

01:07:12 ◼   ► but the membership content for my shows

01:07:15 ◼   ► is included in podcast editing,

01:07:17 ◼   ► podcast recording, and show prep.

01:07:19 ◼   ► - Okay, all right, that makes more sense.

01:07:21 ◼   ► I don't know why, just the way it was worded on the chart,

01:07:23 ◼   ► I assumed membership included everything you were doing

01:07:26 ◼   ► for the membership, which included the additional content

01:07:30 ◼   ► and editing, which in retrospect is crazy.

01:07:32 ◼   ► Like that obviously shouldn't have been the case, but.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - I can see why someone would think it, right?

01:07:37 ◼   ► And like, this is one of those things,

01:07:38 ◼   ► like everyone's time tracking setup,

01:07:41 ◼   ► or like even their productivity setup,

01:07:43 ◼   ► basically only makes sense to them, right?

01:07:45 ◼   ► 'Cause it's what makes sense to your brain

01:07:48 ◼   ► and everybody else is completely different.

01:07:50 ◼   ► So that also then puts you in a more difficult position for getting back to say sub a thousand

01:07:58 ◼   ► hours of tracked work because yeah, like there's things on here.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Also like Mega Studio I expect will have not so much of a bar next year for the time that

01:08:09 ◼   ► was put into it.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Like that's a one-time investment along with the membership admin.

01:08:14 ◼   ► But yeah, so you've signed yourself up for and it visually looks like, I don't know,

01:08:22 ◼   ► would you say like 20-25% extra work across the board for all podcasts with the membership

01:08:29 ◼   ► program now as part of them?

01:08:31 ◼   ► Would you say that's about right?

01:08:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:08:34 ◼   ► I'm fine with it because the membership program has been a success.

01:08:38 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:39 ◼   ► So you think that's a sensible increase in time per unit of recuperation from that?

01:08:45 ◼   ► Yes.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:46 ◼   ► I'm just, I'm, I feel very suddenly aware of looking at these charts of bigger

01:08:52 ◼   ► numbers in the context of reinvention.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Like I, like I am just thinking of Myke needs reinvention time.

01:09:00 ◼   ► And, and so that's, that's just what, that's just sort of what's on my mind here.

01:09:03 ◼   ► is like, oh, okay, you have signed yourself up

01:09:06 ◼   ► for more work across the board for podcasting

01:09:11 ◼   ► and just trying to think about other projects for you,

01:09:15 ◼   ► where are they gonna go

01:09:16 ◼   ► or where are you gonna find time for it?

01:09:18 ◼   ► - I mean, it's going to, ultimately, I mean,

01:09:21 ◼   ► I guess mean that I have to make tougher decisions

01:09:24 ◼   ► in some areas and that's just gonna have to be a thing

01:09:28 ◼   ► that I need to deal with if and when.

01:09:32 ◼   ► I mean, for all I know, a lot of the growth in time

01:09:37 ◼   ► has also been in establishing new processes

01:09:39 ◼   ► to handle the production.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Like it took me a while to really get my head around

01:09:47 ◼   ► what is the most efficient way to produce

01:09:51 ◼   ► this second version of the show,

01:09:53 ◼   ► and I am getting way faster at that now.

01:09:55 ◼   ► - Okay, let's get to here. - 'Cause just from like

01:09:58 ◼   ► a management level, right, like I'm dealing

01:10:02 ◼   ► with two versions of the editing project, two files,

01:10:06 ◼   ► two parts of our publishing system, right?

01:10:09 ◼   ► And getting that system down took me a while

01:10:15 ◼   ► and I know I'm getting faster at it,

01:10:17 ◼   ► but like what I can never get away from is

01:10:21 ◼   ► it will always take more time to prepare the shows

01:10:23 ◼   ► if there's more content,

01:10:24 ◼   ► it will always take more time to record them

01:10:26 ◼   ► and it will always take more time to edit them.

01:10:28 ◼   ► And that's fine, for right now that's fine.

01:10:32 ◼   ► I just need to see how it shakes out in the long term.

01:10:35 ◼   ► - What do you think about your time spent

01:10:37 ◼   ► on the one-off things on this list?

01:10:39 ◼   ► Like, I'm looking at this mega studio

01:10:42 ◼   ► and I'm also looking at the things

01:10:44 ◼   ► that have massively increased, like streaming.

01:10:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:48 ◼   ► - Streaming was nothing in 2019

01:10:50 ◼   ► and it's a much bigger thing in 2020.

01:10:53 ◼   ► So how do you feel about those things that exist

01:10:56 ◼   ► which didn't before?

01:10:57 ◼   ► There's a funny one here, which is also events,

01:11:00 ◼   ► which is dramatically increased in 2020.

01:11:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:11:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, what I'm wondering is like,

01:11:07 ◼   ► where would have been the WWDC on 2019?

01:11:12 ◼   ► Like that went away, but you know, events has gone up.

01:11:16 ◼   ► So I'm just like, I'm kind of curious about these ones

01:11:19 ◼   ► in particular where bam, there's stuff in 2020,

01:11:23 ◼   ► which basically didn't exist in 2019.

01:11:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I know, I was waiting for events.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I was waiting to see if you pick up on that one,

01:11:31 ◼   ► 'cause it doesn't make sense, does it, right?

01:11:33 ◼   ► - No, no. - There were no events in 2020.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - I assumed events is like the podcast-a-thon,

01:11:40 ◼   ► like that's what I was assuming that was.

01:11:41 ◼   ► - That is exactly what it is.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:11:43 ◼   ► - This is one of the ones hit by travel.

01:11:45 ◼   ► So my 2019 events would have been massive,

01:11:49 ◼   ► but I don't track when I travel.

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:11:52 ◼   ► - But I was tracking the podcast-a-thon stuff,

01:11:54 ◼   ► 'cause I was at home for it all.

01:11:56 ◼   ► But I also was tracking like the planning of it

01:11:59 ◼   ► differently, I think I would have, honestly,

01:12:01 ◼   ► the thing was that we spent a lot more time

01:12:03 ◼   ► on the 2020 event than the 2019 event.

01:12:05 ◼   ► - Right.

01:12:06 ◼   ► - Because not only did we have to plan it,

01:12:08 ◼   ► we had to plan it all over again, right?

01:12:10 ◼   ► When all the plans changed.

01:12:12 ◼   ► So live shows and all that kind of stuff,

01:12:16 ◼   ► I didn't really track that kind of, those really in 2019,

01:12:19 ◼   ► because I was handling all of that

01:12:22 ◼   ► while I was mostly not at home, right?

01:12:25 ◼   ► When I was not working at home.

01:12:27 ◼   ► So that is a thing which is large, 63 hours,

01:12:31 ◼   ► and that's all of the planning

01:12:33 ◼   ► and then the execution of the event.

01:12:35 ◼   ► And I also had to do a lot of like

01:12:37 ◼   ► getting the environment ready.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Like all of that stuff may not be in the 2021 thing.

01:12:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Streaming for me is, I mean, I track it as work

01:12:48 ◼   ► because I feel like it's time that should be tracked,

01:12:50 ◼   ► but it's like, it's a hobby.

01:12:53 ◼   ► It's how it feels.

01:12:54 ◼   ► So it's in my work tracking,

01:12:57 ◼   ► but it doesn't feel like work at all.

01:13:00 ◼   ► So that going up will improve my mental health.

01:13:04 ◼   ► - So what's your reasoning for tracking it

01:13:09 ◼   ► if it feels so different?

01:13:11 ◼   ► - I just want the data on that.

01:13:13 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:13:14 ◼   ► - Because like when I come to look at this list,

01:13:17 ◼   ► it makes me happy to see those numbers there

01:13:20 ◼   ► 'cause I know that like that makes me feel good.

01:13:22 ◼   ► So I like to see that I'm putting more time in it.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - Okay, that makes sense.

01:13:27 ◼   ► It makes me happy, it's a perfectly valid reason.

01:13:29 ◼   ► I like that. - Yeah.

01:13:30 ◼   ► Mentorship is a new one on there.

01:13:32 ◼   ► I don't think we think this is the thing

01:13:33 ◼   ► I've actually spoken about all on the show.

01:13:35 ◼   ► I don't even know if it's something

01:13:36 ◼   ► that me and you have spoken about.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I started a mentorship program back in like May

01:13:42 ◼   ► or something like that it was,

01:13:44 ◼   ► where I'm working with a group of people

01:13:46 ◼   ► that are trying to get their kind of start in podcasting.

01:13:50 ◼   ► So this is a thing that I've been doing,

01:13:53 ◼   ► mostly on a monthly basis.

01:13:55 ◼   ► and is a thing that I look to continue to do into the future.

01:13:58 ◼   ► It takes a lot of time to make something work like this.

01:14:02 ◼   ► And I feel like it's something that I need to continue getting better at as a

01:14:05 ◼   ► person leading a group like this.

01:14:07 ◼   ► But that's the thing that didn't exist before and it's the thing that's going to

01:14:10 ◼   ► continue from there. And again, it's like,

01:14:13 ◼   ► is it work like the rest of my stuff is? Not really,

01:14:17 ◼   ► but it feels related enough and I want to get those numbers in there.

01:14:20 ◼   ► I want to see what I'm spending time on it.

01:14:23 ◼   ► there's something that didn't exist before.

01:14:25 ◼   ► Can you explain to me more about the mentorship one?

01:14:28 ◼   ► I feel like I don't have a good understanding of

01:14:32 ◼   ► why did you pick up this project and what is it for?

01:14:36 ◼   ► So this is a program that I created

01:14:39 ◼   ► kind of in like May or June of last year

01:14:42 ◼   ► to work with people who are underrepresented

01:14:47 ◼   ► in the type of podcasting that I do,

01:14:49 ◼   ► which is, you know, mostly technology shows, but in my kind of area, effectively like conversations,

01:14:59 ◼   ► they're like talking shows, right? I can't really help people that want to make shows that are

01:15:04 ◼   ► really heavily produced, like they have music in them and sound like they belong on American

01:15:09 ◼   ► Public Radio, but there are lots of people that want to do the types of shows that we make,

01:15:16 ◼   ► but want to get a head start, want to get a hand.

01:15:18 ◼   ► And I have experience and can share it with people.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And I put out a call on social media and I had lots of people apply.

01:15:26 ◼   ► Like I had like a,

01:15:26 ◼   ► an application system and I work with a group of like nine or 10 people.

01:15:31 ◼   ► And we are in constant communication. We have like a, uh,

01:15:35 ◼   ► a private group, a Discord group actually, not Slack.

01:15:39 ◼   ► A Discord group.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the way to go.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:42 ◼   ► And we meet on a monthly basis where I give what I've like jokingly dubbed in

01:15:46 ◼   ► the group, like little lectures about a certain topic, like I'll pick a thing.

01:15:49 ◼   ► And we'll talk about it and we'll answer questions about it.

01:15:53 ◼   ► And then in the in-between times, I hope these people that with questions that they

01:15:58 ◼   ► have about trying to get their project started.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:16:01 ◼   ► That's, that's really interesting.

01:16:02 ◼   ► That's really interesting.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And yeah, I don't, I don't think you've, you've mentioned a peep

01:16:06 ◼   ► about this to me all year.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Like, I can't believe that you've, you've like kept this secret

01:16:11 ◼   ► me this whole time. (laughs)

01:16:12 ◼   ► MATT: Well, I think it was one of those things where I meant to mention it to you and then

01:16:17 ◼   ► didn't, and then it was like, "Is this something that you'll just never find out about because you

01:16:21 ◼   ► don't use social media?" And the answer is yes. (laughs)

01:16:25 ◼   ► CB; And then it's funnier this way. (laughs)

01:16:27 ◼   ► MATT; Yeah. I've been working on this project for about six or seven months. Yeah, we've had

01:16:33 ◼   ► like six or seven Zoom calls with the group. And it's been really interesting to have this stuff

01:16:39 ◼   ► to share with people and it feels like it's like a it's a lot of responsibility you know because like

01:16:46 ◼   ► you kind of go into these things and you're like I feel like I have stuff to say like am I actually

01:16:53 ◼   ► helping these people right and it's something that like you know I've tried to keep small because

01:16:59 ◼   ► going into it I had no idea how much time it would take to help people go go through this kind of

01:17:06 ◼   ► a process. But you know I kind of feel like that there is an element of like

01:17:11 ◼   ► you've got to kind of be the change you want to see in the world and it felt

01:17:17 ◼   ► like to me the right thing for me to do. It was something I wanted to do to

01:17:25 ◼   ► help people out that wanted help. You're doing like group calls with everybody at

01:17:29 ◼   ► once that's what you're doing? Yes we have a group call once a month. And so

01:17:33 ◼   ► that's when you're giving the mic lecture? Yeah that's when the lectures

01:17:36 ◼   ► begin. And then...

01:17:38 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:17:39 ◼   ► You're the professor of podcasting is what you are.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I guess so.

01:17:42 ◼   ► That's what you're doing in those situations. That is high stakes. Like honest to God, looking

01:17:48 ◼   ► at your prep time, like I can't believe you're able to do what you said, six or seven Zoom

01:17:53 ◼   ► calls? Like I would be so nervous having to be the professor of podcasting.

01:17:59 ◼   ► It was, it was, man, I was like, before the first one, like sick with nerves.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Oh, I bet.

01:18:07 ◼   ► And that's honestly like one of the reasons they became what I refer to them as like lectures is because when I get nervous like this I just can't stop talking.

01:18:15 ◼   ► So I went into the first one expecting to have more of a conversation, but I just couldn't stop myself talking.

01:18:25 ◼   ► And then over the following ones, it became more of a conversation, but I do go, I mean,

01:18:31 ◼   ► I go into them with like, I have this information that I want to give to you.

01:18:34 ◼   ► So I will talk through everything that I've prepared and then we can have a conversation about it.

01:18:39 ◼   ► And that sense would have been like the way that I have felt comfortable in giving this information out is like,

01:18:45 ◼   ► I have all this stuff locked away in my brain. I will share it with you.

01:18:49 ◼   ► And then hopefully that will spark a conversation or dialogue.

01:18:54 ◼   ► it does feel like a very different thing to add into the list.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it's related to the fact that you've been a podcaster for 10 years, but it's a-

01:19:04 ◼   ► it's not a new project like it's a new podcast, it's a totally different thing.

01:19:09 ◼   ► And like, preparing even little lectures or trying to like prep what topic do you want to

01:19:16 ◼   ► talk about ahead of time, like, yeah, that's- that's- that's no joke, so congratulations on

01:19:22 ◼   ► getting that done and I and and also for keeping it from me for all of this time you sneaky sneaky mic

01:19:28 ◼   ► Aha! I've kept the secret! You never know what a mic's up to he's doing sneaky sneaky things

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01:21:25 ◼   ► I asked on the Cortex Witter account for people to send in some questions for us for a yearly

01:21:31 ◼   ► themes focused to ask Cortex in case there are people I know that are maybe starting

01:21:36 ◼   ► off on their yearly theme journey or have heard the episode, maybe it's their first

01:21:41 ◼   ► yearly themes episode and they're still trying to get their head around the yearly

01:21:44 ◼   ► theme they want to approach for the year. So got a lot of great questions and I thought

01:21:49 ◼   ► we could maybe tackle some of them before we finish the show today. First one comes

01:21:54 ◼   ► from Chris. What do you think about having several themes and what do you think about

01:21:59 ◼   ► stacking themes?

01:22:03 ◼   ► Stacking themes?

01:22:04 ◼   ► I saw this was like having themes that overlap.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Okay I mean like stacking seems fine if that's what that means over overlapping.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:14 ◼   ► I feel like I am in a terrible place to make a comment about what do you think about having

01:22:19 ◼   ► several themes this year because like I have the theme where it's a coin and there's two

01:22:24 ◼   ► sides and but each side also has the long and short part of it like I'm in this weird

01:22:30 ◼   ► position where I'm not like four things going on at once.

01:22:33 ◼   ► I think it's maybe better in this instance for us to look into our past, right?

01:22:37 ◼   ► Because we've both had years that have had multiple themes in them.

01:22:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I would say like, in general, the newer you are to themes, the stronger I would advise

01:22:53 ◼   ► towards one rather than several.

01:22:56 ◼   ► Or the, you know, the thing that we've also talked about, like sub themes, which is more

01:23:02 ◼   ► like an idea that relates to the main idea but I mean I don't know how you feel about

01:23:09 ◼   ► it Myke but I would be cautious about having two that are not related to each other. That's

01:23:17 ◼   ► sort of my thought about this.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Mykey - Yeah I think if you're gonna have multiple things that ideally should be some

01:23:23 ◼   ► kind of relation to them otherwise it's a real pro move. You've got to be experienced

01:23:30 ◼   ► of yearly themes to try and want to hold two of them at the same time.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Yeah and even with that like I'm cautious to even say like oh it's a pro move like oh

01:23:39 ◼   ► when you reach seventh Dan in themes you'll be able to tackle two at once.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I'm just I'm a little suspicious because I do think that there is some advantage to your

01:23:50 ◼   ► brain kind of can't keep two things going on in the background in this way that themes

01:23:56 ◼   ► are.

01:23:57 ◼   ► like the very light touchness of themes is beneficial for there to be like one.

01:24:04 ◼   ► So I'm just cautious about the several themes idea.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Marcia asks, "How much writing do you do about your themes?

01:24:13 ◼   ► We hear your thoughts about it, but how much do you write down?

01:24:17 ◼   ► How much gets put into your journals?"

01:24:18 ◼   ► I feel like you're the person to go for this one, Myke.

01:24:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:22 ◼   ► So when I'm coming up with my theme, I write a lot about it.

01:24:27 ◼   ► getting a lot of thoughts out and trying to really express everything, I will then

01:24:33 ◼   ► distill it. So one of the ways that I distill it is talking to you about it,

01:24:37 ◼   ► right? When I bring all of my thoughts to the show, it helps me kind of

01:24:43 ◼   ► process them and then what actually goes in my journal is a distilled version of

01:24:48 ◼   ► it. So kind of the theme is summed up in a couple of sentences and then I will

01:24:52 ◼   ► have like six bullet points as like these are the things that ladder up

01:24:56 ◼   ► under that. So I think that there is a lot of benefit in doing both, like really trying to

01:25:01 ◼   ► get everything written down somewhere and then you review it and try and distill it down to

01:25:08 ◼   ► some digestible phrases that I then write into my theme system journal.

01:25:14 ◼   ► So the theme system journal for you is the primary point.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:19 ◼   ► It's interesting because, like, I think for me if we're talking about

01:25:24 ◼   ► where is it most often for me at top of mind is in my OmniFocus I often have a, like,

01:25:33 ◼   ► a folder which has the theme name and I'll sometimes put projects in there. So this is one

01:25:40 ◼   ► of the places where, depending on how actionable it is, I do try to sort out projects by, "Oh,

01:25:46 ◼   ► this is a year of clarity project or this is a year of less project.

01:25:50 ◼   ► Or I'll also just have reminders pop up for me in OmniFocus as like, this is

01:25:57 ◼   ► an item to think about because this is what you want to have your mind focused

01:26:03 ◼   ► on for like this particular theme.

01:26:05 ◼   ► It, and they can be, this is, this is a little dumb one, but it sort of relates

01:26:11 ◼   ► to the, like it's partly clarity is where it originally came from and it's also

01:26:16 ◼   ► related to the Spaceship U stuff, but so

01:26:19 ◼   ► when I'm looking at my to-do list, there's a little item at the top

01:26:23 ◼   ► which it's not a to-do, but it just says

01:26:27 ◼   ► "inside before outside" and

01:26:30 ◼   ► the idea that that's trying to remind me of is like, okay, you need to do your

01:26:36 ◼   ► core work of

01:26:38 ◼   ► writing and research which is like internally generated

01:26:44 ◼   ► before you start doing anything that's related to the outside world.

01:26:48 ◼   ► And so is that a to-do item?

01:26:51 ◼   ► No, it's not a to-do item at all, but it's, it's like a distillation of an idea

01:26:58 ◼   ► that if you do this in the reverse order, if you try to look at the outside stuff,

01:27:02 ◼   ► go on the internet, look at things.

01:27:05 ◼   ► I'm even cautiously including some kinds of research in this as like external

01:27:10 ◼   ► thoughts, if you try to do the outside stuff before the inside, it's like,

01:27:14 ◼   ► It never goes as well during the day.

01:27:16 ◼   ► So this is like a point to follow.

01:27:18 ◼   ► So I put some of those things on my own task list.

01:27:22 ◼   ► The second thing for me, which is a little different this year that I'm

01:27:27 ◼   ► trying to do as part of the, the year of the voyage is my journal use has

01:27:33 ◼   ► always been, I think what I've called tactical in the past, just, just like

01:27:38 ◼   ► my tactical coffee, nuclear weapons for going to conferences, my journal

01:27:44 ◼   ► use has always been, "Okay, I'm on a graycation or there's a specific period of time."

01:27:49 ◼   ► And it's like, I'm going to use the journal as a super focusing tool for

01:27:55 ◼   ► these three weeks and themes can be involved then. But what I'm trying to do with Year of the Voyage

01:28:05 ◼   ► is, again, thinking about it over the course of a year, I'm trying to extend this tactical use.

01:28:14 ◼   ► to a significantly longer timeframe.

01:28:18 ◼   ► And so I am doing the daily journaling and daily themes

01:28:24 ◼   ► with the idea that this is going to be over the course of the year.

01:28:29 ◼   ► And in my brain, this is the dumbest thing, but it has totally helped

01:28:33 ◼   ► and has made it consistent so far since the start of the year,

01:28:38 ◼   ► is transitioning it from like, "Oh, it's a journal!"

01:28:41 ◼   ► a journal and I know that I tactically journal, but now this is a completely different concept.

01:28:47 ◼   ► I have to enter the ship's log every day because I am completing this voyage over the

01:28:53 ◼   ► course of a year and it's not a question about am I tactically using this thing, it's

01:28:59 ◼   ► just no. Part of your job as captain of spaceship you is like you've got to fill out this

01:29:05 ◼   ► ship log and it has some questions about how well have you done on these various things.

01:29:10 ◼   ► So this is my mental reframing and attempt to make it like just a daily thing that becomes

01:29:20 ◼   ► a kind of non-optional daily thing in the same way that I was successfully able to turn

01:29:25 ◼   ► exercise into a non-optional daily thing.

01:29:28 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, yeah, Tactical Journal Use.

01:29:31 ◼   ► It's been great.

01:29:32 ◼   ► It has been literally life changing.

01:29:35 ◼   ► But if I'm expecting and planning for this upcoming year to be like another year of Spaceship

01:29:44 ◼   ► U, this is an element that is going to be part of that for the upcoming year.

01:29:50 ◼   ► So those are my thoughts on it.

01:29:53 ◼   ► Basically use a journal or have it somewhere else that you know you're going to be looking

01:29:58 ◼   ► at it recurrently.

01:29:59 ◼   ► BK asks, "How do you find words that speak to you? My theme for 2021 is 'year of later

01:30:07 ◼   ► becomes never'. This is an attempt to reduce procrastination, but it's a bit wordy."

01:30:12 ◼   ► It is a bit wordy. It's totally a bit wordy.

01:30:14 ◼   ► You can't really rally yourself around a phrase like that, I think.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Yeah, "year of later becomes never" is not great. It's like, you know, there's

01:30:24 ◼   ► rule for naming dogs, which is that you want a name that you're comfortable yelling loudly

01:30:30 ◼   ► across a park. You know, like, if you wouldn't yell a name loudly across a park, it's not a good

01:30:35 ◼   ► dog name. I feel like themes are a bit like, you should be able to yell it as a battle cry,

01:30:43 ◼   ► is the same kind of thing. And so, I look at something like "year of later becomes never."

01:30:48 ◼   ► I would translate that into something like "action", right?

01:30:52 ◼   ► "Year of action" is way more like battle cry-y than "year of later becomes never".

01:30:57 ◼   ► Now, I think "later becomes never" is an excellent little phrase, like if you are journaling or

01:31:06 ◼   ► you're writing out what you're thinking about the theme, that can reinforce like what do you mean

01:31:11 ◼   ► by action.

01:31:12 ◼   ► - It's part of the description.

01:31:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, like you've had the second act, right?

01:31:17 ◼   ► Like that's a phrase that kind of clarifies for you what do you mean by this.

01:31:22 ◼   ► So I mean the answer to how do you find words that speak for you is...

01:31:27 ◼   ► I think this is part of the question of like how do you find a theme is

01:31:37 ◼   ► you just have to have something in your mind that's like, okay, you know, I'm

01:31:42 ◼   ► trying to think about reducing procrastination and you just sort of

01:31:46 ◼   ► of have to sit with it for a while. I think it has to just brew in your mind for a little

01:31:58 ◼   ► while and you just kind of... something will come to you that is more concise if you keep

01:32:06 ◼   ► thinking about it. But you don't need to have a deadline for yourself of "Oh, I want to

01:32:14 ◼   ► start the journaling system right now, and so I need a name of a theme." It's like, "No, no,

01:32:18 ◼   ► it's okay. You can just have this on your mind and you can start working out, like,

01:32:23 ◼   ► what are you trying to do?" And I think in that process, you'll find something that- that speaks

01:32:31 ◼   ► to you that is more concise. But I think the- the action point here, or the actionable point here,

01:32:38 ◼   ► is that a concise title does not need to be fully descriptive. So don't fall into that

01:32:47 ◼   ► trap. I think if you've listened to Myke and I talk about our own themes, it's why we need

01:32:53 ◼   ► an episode and a half for both of us to fully explain what do we mean by these couple word

01:33:00 ◼   ► phrases.

01:33:01 ◼   ► Question from Thomas. I set my theme based on some goals I already had, then added more goals once I set the theme.

01:33:08 ◼   ► Am I doing this wrong? Or is thinking about what you want to accomplish first a good strategy?

01:33:14 ◼   ► This is exactly what I did this year though. Like I-

01:33:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:33:18 ◼   ► There have been years where I've had the word or the idea before I've had the things that come from it.

01:33:24 ◼   ► And then there have been other years where I've had a selection of things.

01:33:28 ◼   ► and then when I look at them all together, I realize a common theme.

01:33:32 ◼   ► So I don't think it's necessarily wrong.

01:33:37 ◼   ► I would say it does tend to help with an overriding idea,

01:33:40 ◼   ► but sometimes if you just get all of your thoughts out there,

01:33:43 ◼   ► you can see there's a connection between them and then that can become the theme.

01:33:47 ◼   ► I think that that's a perfectly valid way of starting this process,

01:33:52 ◼   ► especially if you're new to it, I think.

01:33:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a funny question.

01:33:55 ◼   ► Like I wasn't actually really sure how to think about it at first, but I mean, I guess

01:34:01 ◼   ► in some ways I'm doing the same thing. I feel like I don't have very many explicit goals,

01:34:07 ◼   ► but like the themes often are the result of a question like, "What is it that I'm trying

01:34:15 ◼   ► to accomplish over the next year?" Which is another way of saying like, "What is it that

01:34:19 ◼   ► that I want to do.

01:34:21 ◼   ► Or actually, I do have actually an explicit example of this,

01:34:25 ◼   ► which is that this year and last year,

01:34:28 ◼   ► there has been an internal, like my company theme.

01:34:32 ◼   ► And that has been very explicitly like,

01:34:36 ◼   ► "Here are the goals.

01:34:38 ◼   ► What is the word to describe these goals?"

01:34:40 ◼   ► So for my company, like totally,

01:34:43 ◼   ► that's the way it's been done of like,

01:34:44 ◼   ► "Goals, goals, goals.

01:34:46 ◼   ► What's the word to describe these goals?"

01:34:48 ◼   ► So, um, then yes, I think that is a totally fine way to do it.

01:34:52 ◼   ► You're not doing it backwards or wrong.

01:34:54 ◼   ► Adam asks, well, Adam has an opening statement before the question,

01:34:58 ◼   ► but it's important for it.

01:34:59 ◼   ► Uh, I'm continuing my year of health.

01:35:01 ◼   ► I started getting in shape in mid 2020, thanks to cortex and themes.

01:35:05 ◼   ► I'm down 30 pounds for the first time of years, and I've held a consistent

01:35:08 ◼   ► workout routine and I'm eating better.

01:35:10 ◼   ► Congratulations.

01:35:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:35:12 ◼   ► Congratulations.

01:35:12 ◼   ► If that, if that is what you were like, this is clearly what you're going for.

01:35:15 ◼   ► and I hope that you're happy with the progress that you've had.

01:35:19 ◼   ► Like, a lot of it is like eating better, feeling better is the most important part.

01:35:23 ◼   ► The question is, when or how do you guys consider a theme to be done?

01:35:28 ◼   ► What do you think about that, Myke?

01:35:30 ◼   ► Sometimes I just change over because the year is a new year, right?

01:35:36 ◼   ► You know it's done because it's time to record your theme episode of the podcast.

01:35:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:35:42 ◼   ► But there are, you know, there are things that I bring along with it if there's something that I feel like I haven't completed yet, you know, so like I will adapt something maybe

01:35:51 ◼   ► Understand what needs to be achieved from it and move it forward

01:35:56 ◼   ► Straight up there have been things where I was like I didn't do that

01:36:00 ◼   ► I was trying to do it for a year and I didn't do it. So i'm leaving it

01:36:03 ◼   ► Like i'm gonna leave this thing behind now

01:36:07 ◼   ► It was part of my yearly theme. It did not get achieved

01:36:12 ◼   ► if it was something that I had in my mind for an entire year and I couldn't make it happen then

01:36:17 ◼   ► I'm gonna let it go. This is maybe not a thing for me right now. But at the same time if you've

01:36:23 ◼   ► had a year and you're happy with the progress that you've made but you still want to continue working

01:36:28 ◼   ► on it keep it going. There was what was it year of order two that was something you did once I think

01:36:36 ◼   ► or was it comma me or something?

01:36:38 ◼   ► I don't remember.

01:36:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:36:42 ◼   ► - It was year of order and year of reorder.

01:36:44 ◼   ► - So what was, there was one,

01:36:45 ◼   ► there was a theme that you had,

01:36:47 ◼   ► which had a comma in it at one point.

01:36:49 ◼   ► - Look, I have this commas, there's parentheses,

01:36:52 ◼   ► there's two sides, there's always like a catch, right?

01:36:56 ◼   ► That's the way it works.

01:36:58 ◼   ► I think even the very first one,

01:36:59 ◼   ► which was the year of less,

01:37:00 ◼   ► it was like year of less brackets me.

01:37:02 ◼   ► There's always something like right from the beginning.

01:37:03 ◼   ► - That was it, it was,

01:37:04 ◼   ► I think it was year of less comma me.

01:37:07 ◼   ► I think that was the-

01:37:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:37:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think my thought on this is,

01:37:12 ◼   ► if you have had a theme and it hasn't panned out for a year,

01:37:17 ◼   ► like you feel like it hasn't worked well,

01:37:20 ◼   ► probably it's better to think about it in a different way.

01:37:26 ◼   ► And like, I'm the person who didn't do that

01:37:29 ◼   ► with year of order and year of reorder,

01:37:32 ◼   ► with I think mixed success out of the two of those.

01:37:36 ◼   ► So I think there's a way in which like,

01:37:38 ◼   ► if the theme isn't working for you for more than a year,

01:37:42 ◼   ► I would say don't keep pushing that rock up that hill.

01:37:45 ◼   ► Like that's not a great idea.

01:37:47 ◼   ► But I'm with Myke that if something is going well,

01:37:50 ◼   ► there's no reason to cut it short.

01:37:51 ◼   ► I would put it this way.

01:37:53 ◼   ► It's like a theme is done when you find yourself

01:37:58 ◼   ► thinking about the next one.

01:38:02 ◼   ► And I think that is, that is likely to occur when the current one either just

01:38:08 ◼   ► no longer applies because you have changed or the situation has changed, or it has

01:38:12 ◼   ► simply become part of your thinking.

01:38:15 ◼   ► Like I think about the themes a lot at these decision points.

01:38:20 ◼   ► I think it is a tool to help focus the way that you make decisions.

01:38:27 ◼   ► How are you going to spend your time?

01:38:28 ◼   ► What are you going to do in this moment?

01:38:30 ◼   ► and it can just become a background part of you, like it did for me with Year of Less, where

01:38:37 ◼   ► it's just a natural thought for me now always, like, do I need to be the person who does this

01:38:44 ◼   ► thing? And I don't need to constantly think about that anymore, it's just built into the way I make

01:38:51 ◼   ► decisions. So I think when you find yourself thinking about what the next one is going to be,

01:39:02 ◼   ► that's a sign that the theme is over. I guess I don't like the phrase "done" because "done" is

01:39:12 ◼   ► the kind of language you would use with a goal or a target. Or a resolution. Yes, or a resolution!

01:39:18 ◼   ► "Excellent, Myke."

01:39:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's like,

01:39:20 ◼   ► "Why am I having such a hard time with this question?"

01:39:22 ◼   ► That's what it is.

01:39:23 ◼   ► It's like, "I don't like the language of done."

01:39:25 ◼   ► Done implies like a completed state.

01:39:28 ◼   ► And themes are more of these background processes,

01:39:33 ◼   ► high level general navigation stuff.

01:39:38 ◼   ► So they're useful while they are useful.

01:39:41 ◼   ► They're not completed states.

01:39:46 ◼   ► I want to share a selection of some of the themes that were sent into us as the

01:39:53 ◼   ► opportunity to help inspire people who may be looking for something for

01:39:58 ◼   ► themselves for this year.

01:40:01 ◼   ► Blake says, "I'm a week into my first yearly theme, the year of intention.

01:40:06 ◼   ► Intention is such a popular one.

01:40:07 ◼   ► I feel like every year I see a lot of people talking about this.

01:40:10 ◼   ► I'm hoping to use this year to turn off my autopilot and be more intentional

01:40:15 ◼   ► thoughtful with what I eat, how I spend my time, what I purchase, what I own, and the

01:40:19 ◼   ► words I choose and how they affect others.

01:40:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I always love that one.

01:40:23 ◼   ► I think I've mentioned it in years past, but I do feel like intentionality is just a great

01:40:29 ◼   ► starter theme.

01:40:31 ◼   ► It touches on everything, it makes you think about your life, it doesn't have to be towards

01:40:38 ◼   ► trying to specifically accomplish anything.

01:40:41 ◼   ► I always love intentionality as a theme, but perhaps that is because I am always fighting

01:40:47 ◼   ► the war on unintentionally and tracking my unintentional time.

01:40:51 ◼   ► So I love that one.

01:40:52 ◼   ► I'll always love Year of Intention or Intentionality as a theme.

01:40:55 ◼   ► AO: I think Year of Intention and Year of Less are like starter pack.

01:41:01 ◼   ► If you're struggling and one of those two, pay attention to what you're doing or do

01:41:06 ◼   ► less of what you're doing.

01:41:07 ◼   ► Like they're really great starters.

01:41:10 ◼   ► Brian is doing the Year of Discomfort.

01:41:13 ◼   ► Growth doesn't happen when you're comfortable

01:41:15 ◼   ► and I'm going to stop avoiding situations that scare me.

01:41:18 ◼   ► No bones about it.

01:41:20 ◼   ► This is more dark, I think, than yearly themes tend to be,

01:41:25 ◼   ► but I actually really liked it.

01:41:27 ◼   ► - It's not dark at all.

01:41:28 ◼   ► That's a very actionable one, right?

01:41:30 ◼   ► That's a great like clear decisions.

01:41:34 ◼   ► - A word like discomfort is not typically the type of word

01:41:39 ◼   ► that we see in yearly themes, but I very much like it.

01:41:44 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in there,

01:41:47 ◼   ► but it is definitely in sound different

01:41:51 ◼   ► to the type of thing that we would normally see, right?

01:41:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay, I get what you mean.

01:41:56 ◼   ► I like it because when you've talked about themes

01:41:59 ◼   ► being north stars, what this immediately makes me think of

01:42:02 ◼   ► is a book I know I've mentioned in passing on the podcast,

01:42:05 ◼   ► which is "The War of Art,"

01:42:07 ◼   ► which is talking about the creative process and how you can use your own resistance to doing

01:42:15 ◼   ► something as the compass that points toward what should you be doing. So I really like Year of

01:42:23 ◼   ► Discomfort because it has that same attribute of you know when you're feeling discomfort,

01:42:33 ◼   ► So it can really highlight, is this a moment when you want to try to grow and push out of your

01:42:40 ◼   ► comfort zone? Because you're not going to not know when you're uncomfortable. And, and like,

01:42:46 ◼   ► so I really like that one. I like that one a lot.

01:42:48 ◼   ► Brandon, my yearly theme is Year of the Muscle rather than starting new things like hobbies or

01:42:54 ◼   ► activities and working out muscles I currently have physically, mentally, and getting better

01:42:59 ◼   ► at my existing hobbies. Oh, interesting. That's not where I was expecting it to go.

01:43:03 ◼   ► go from here. Neither was I, which is why I included it because I loved it because it

01:43:07 ◼   ► really threw me out. I was like, "Oh, Brandon wants to get swole this year." It's like,

01:43:11 ◼   ► "Oh, maybe that's part of Brandon's focus, but that isn't all it is." I like that. That's

01:43:18 ◼   ► a nice twist on your muscle. Nijali says, "My yearly theme is one, focus on becoming

01:43:27 ◼   ► proficient at one thing at a time. I have lots of new stuff being thrown at me this

01:43:31 ◼   ► year and focusing on one tool, one method is helping me do my job and keep my sanity.

01:43:36 ◼   ► Oh yeah that's that's another great one I like that I like that a lot.

01:43:41 ◼   ► Don't do too many things at once. Also is something I struggle with too many things at once

01:43:47 ◼   ► year of one is a is a good good theme I like it a lot.

01:43:51 ◼   ► Graves says 2021 is my year of connectivity. Quarantine and lockdown calls me to not reach

01:43:57 ◼   ► out to friends and family as much, but I'd like to reconnect and make more connections

01:44:01 ◼   ► in a safe way as I move into the workforce.

01:44:04 ◼   ► Also another theme that I think perhaps very many people can feel like might be a nice

01:44:10 ◼   ► thing to do this year.

01:44:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's definitely a 2021 theme that one.

01:44:15 ◼   ► Marianne is working on the year of balance.

01:44:17 ◼   ► Too much stress on social media, too much bad food, too much TV.

01:44:21 ◼   ► I want to consider other thoughts, add in a few constructive activities and allow for

01:44:24 ◼   ► more calming walks rather than 10k run or nothing attitudes.

01:44:29 ◼   ► Lewis That's a really good way to put it.

01:44:32 ◼   ► Chill walks versus 10k all or nothing.

01:44:34 ◼   ► I like that.

01:44:35 ◼   ► I like that.

01:44:36 ◼   ► Matt Yeah, I like that phrase too because it's

01:44:37 ◼   ► like allow yourself to do some calm stuff rather than like if this isn't perfect I'm

01:44:41 ◼   ► not even going to bother.

01:44:43 ◼   ► Lewis Yeah, that's good.

01:44:45 ◼   ► Matt And Lewis says, "My theme for 2021 is the

01:44:48 ◼   ► year of novelization.

01:44:50 ◼   ► Firstly, and most importantly, I want 2021 to be the year I finally finish writing a

01:44:56 ◼   ► novel, but I also want to try branching out into new creative directions, maybe trying

01:45:00 ◼   ► streaming or making other game videos.

01:45:03 ◼   ► >> That's interesting.

01:45:04 ◼   ► I think it's a, it's a little more like actiony and goally

01:45:09 ◼   ► than I'd like themes to be.

01:45:11 ◼   ► But you know what?

01:45:13 ◼   ► People have the novel inside of them and we can all be

01:45:18 ◼   ► the authors of our own lives.

01:45:19 ◼   ► So good luck to everyone with your themes in 2021.