0:00:00Are you ready to say goodbye to 2020?
0:00:02You know, I'm not sure if I'm ready to say goodbye to 2020.
0:00:06You want to stick in it for a little bit longer? It's nice and comfortable in here.
0:00:10Yeah, I'm not going to immediately back that statement, Myke.
0:00:13Okay, well I'm gonna join literally every single one of our listeners
0:00:18and wish goodbye to 2020. So goodbye 2020, we're nearly into 2021, the optimistic year.
0:00:24Goodbye 2020.
0:00:25We hardly knew you.
0:00:27- Do you?
0:00:28(both laughing)
0:00:31- It's time for yearly themes.
0:00:34- Yearly theme time, the best time of the year.
0:00:37- It is really the best time of the year.
0:00:38Yearly themes for 2021.
0:00:40So we're looking ahead to our next year.
0:00:43I guess we should start off with a brief recap
0:00:45of what yearly themes are.
0:00:47My favorite thing that's happened
0:00:48since our last yearly themes episode
0:00:50is you made that wonderful YouTube video, the themes video.
0:00:54I will put that in the show notes.
0:00:55There's a very good primer for the idea
0:00:57of what a theme is, what it is like to have a yearly theme.
0:01:01But if you want a bit more information,
0:01:03we can go into that here.
0:01:04So we've been doing yearly themes on Kotex since 2016.
0:01:09- Oh my God.
0:01:10- Don't think about it that way, it's fine.
0:01:12Every year we get together,
0:01:14we review how our last year has gone
0:01:17and the theme that we set for ourselves
0:01:19and talk about what we're looking to achieve
0:01:20in our coming year and then set a theme around that.
0:01:24So the things that we want to achieve,
0:01:26where we want to be, what we want to focus on.
0:01:29We kind of encapsulate these things
0:01:30and tie them up with a nice little theme bow.
0:01:33Now yearly themes, they are not resolutions, not at all.
0:01:38Resolutions should go in the trash.
0:01:41New Year's resolutions are a terrible idea.
0:01:43Do you want to tell people why New Year's resolutions
0:01:45are a terrible idea, Gray?
0:01:47- I mean, where does one even start?
0:01:50But yes, they're goals that you set a year in advance
0:01:54that you often think about with mere days,
0:01:58if that, of forethought.
0:01:59It's just like everything about them
0:02:02is structurally doomed to failure.
0:02:05And I think themes exist as a nice general layer
0:02:09above goals.
0:02:11Goals, if you want them to exist,
0:02:12need to be shorter term than a year.
0:02:16It's just, it's way too far and it's depressing
0:02:19and it's awful.
0:02:20So no one should do new year's resolutions.
0:02:22So I'll give a good example to our listeners.
0:02:24So a lot of people might set a New Year's resolution
0:02:27of like, I wanna lose 10 pounds by March
0:02:30or something like that.
0:02:31And these are like these fixed goals
0:02:33that you can succeed or fail with.
0:02:34But if you set for yourself, for example,
0:02:37the year of health as your yearly theme,
0:02:39there's so many things that you can achieve
0:02:41over that 12 month period that could contribute
0:02:44to the year of health, rather than it just being like,
0:02:47well, I didn't lose those 10 pounds, I lost eight,
0:02:50so I failed.
0:02:51It's like, no, but if you have the yearly theme of the year of health, you did what
0:02:55you wanted to do, or maybe your year of health could be focusing on your mental health instead
0:03:01because you decided that you don't want to lose the weight.
0:03:04So there are lots of different things that you can do that could ladder up to the year
0:03:08of health that makes it more of a thing that at the end of the year you can look back and
0:03:13see what you've accomplished rather than focusing on the things that you didn't.
0:03:18And they're adaptable and flexible as you go on because as might happen, a year could
0:03:25be quite different halfway in than you were expecting at the start.
0:03:30And then you also would just feel bad of like, "Oh, I'm never going to achieve my goal."
0:03:33It's like, no, no, no.
0:03:34Themes can be malleable.
0:03:35They can change to fit the situation.
0:03:37You just want to be moving in a positive direction.
0:03:41And if there's one thing that 2020 has taught us and all the Cortexians is that I think
0:03:46need to establish our yearly themes in such a way that in case they can take a
0:03:49harsh left turn. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Themes are intended to be
0:03:53broad. Like getting better at something is great, you don't have to be the
0:03:58ultimate version of it. So like there's one of the things you were talking about
0:04:01in the video that you made of positive trend lines being a good thing, you know?
0:04:06That's just like as long as you're moving towards where you want to be, that
0:04:10is improvement. Just being at the ultimate stage of that is not necessarily
0:04:15what you can achieve. You don't know what's going to happen in your year.
0:04:18So having a theme can help you move towards areas that you're looking for rather
0:04:23than be like all or nothing based around one particular metric that you've set.
0:04:28So when you're choosing a theme for yourself, try to stay broad.
0:04:32Don't make a defined route or path.
0:04:34Think about the kinds of areas that you'd like to focus on. Allow for adapting.
0:04:40As you reference it as broad directional resonant.
0:04:43These are these three little words that I really liked from the video that you made.
0:04:46So yearly themes, they're all about trying to help you build the life you want to live,
0:04:51whether it's personal stuff, work stuff, creative stuff, or a mix of all of them.
0:04:55And for the last few years, my themes have been exactly that.
0:04:59And my theme that I'm going to talk about later on in this episode for 2021 is I think
0:05:04one of the most all encapsulating themes that I have looked at so far.
0:05:10It touches on, I think, every single part of my work, creative and personal life in
0:05:16a way that they haven't usually.
0:05:18And so that's what I think, like a really good yearly theme, you can find parts of
0:05:24it in everything that you do.
0:05:26And I think that that really helps, again, enforce the idea of this being an
0:05:31achievable thing, because I may not achieve my yearly theme when it comes to
0:05:35the creativity stuff, but maybe I did with my personal life, my relationships.
0:05:39And so, you know, that's what makes these things really good.
0:05:41It remains like this overall kind of umbrella for your year.
0:05:46So.
0:05:46I'm very intrigued to find out what it is that your theme is going to be this year.
0:05:51You're really, really setting it up there.
0:05:53I know.
0:05:53This is foreshadowing.
0:05:55But we have a lot to do before we talk about what our themes are.
0:05:59We like to review our theme from the year before.
0:06:03So we take a look at what we set in 2020 at the beginning of the year, or it's
0:06:08at the end of 2019, and then we reflect on how it's been.
0:06:11I've already kind of done a bit of this this year,
0:06:14but we haven't done it for you.
0:06:15So can you give our listeners a reminder
0:06:19of what your 2020 theme was,
0:06:20and then talk about how it's been?
0:06:23- Yes, I will do that just as soon as I change the batteries
0:06:27in my backup recorder.
0:06:28Hold on one second, Myke.
0:06:29(laughing)
0:06:31- How good's the backup recorder if it has no power?
0:06:34- The backup recorder that I watched
0:06:35the little light blink out as you were talking
0:06:37thought oh no you're doing failing the one thing you're supposed to do
0:06:45i'll be right back levels levels okay okay
0:07:01levels levels okay great all right backup recorder
0:07:05backup. So yeah, you were in the interesting position of doing the half-year theme switch,
0:07:11a Cortex-first this year. I did not do a theme switch this year, and I'll say at this point,
0:07:18usually the weird thing that happens is we record this episode in December, and this is the time
0:07:28when people are thinking about New Year's resolutions. Every year in the past I've
0:07:33always felt like summer is the time that you have to decide on what your theme is going
0:07:38to be and it comes to you sometimes the theme picks you you know this happens and so often
0:07:45when we're talking about what the themes are I'm already half reviewing how it's gone because
0:07:52I've been living the theme for half of the year yeah and we've always been off kilter
0:07:57But this is the first year where that has not happened.
0:08:01So I did not have my summer decision of what the theme is going to be.
0:08:06I was wondering for a little while of like, "Gee, I wonder if this is even going to
0:08:10be a thing that occurs to me," because since this year was so different, it didn't feel
0:08:16quite like there was a summer and everything was just in a different place.
0:08:19So this year I actually, for the first time, have had a theme run for the full duration.
0:08:27So basically 18 months from the summer when I first thought of the Year of Clarity, which
0:08:33was my theme for last year until now.
0:08:36And so I'll s--
0:08:41How to put this?
0:08:43As the intro alluded to, Myke, 2020 has not been a good year for most people.
0:08:50I think we can make that as a general statement.
0:08:53Yeah, I think you could probably get away with that one, Gray.
0:08:56I don't like to generalize.
0:08:58But if I'm gonna generalize on something, it will be this.
0:09:01Yeah, and specifically, when you're going to try to make a generalization that, say,
0:09:06encompasses the entirety of the human species on the planet for a year.
0:09:11There's very few things you could say.
0:09:13But to say that 2020 was not very many people's best year,
0:09:19it's probably a pretty safe statement.
0:09:22And for me, you know, my 2020 got totally interrupted.
0:09:26It was originally going to be lots of travel and lots of family travel in particular,
0:09:33and all of that got canceled.
0:09:37But if we put aside all of the obvious things,
0:09:42and I'm just talking about myself,
0:09:452020 has been one of the greatest years of my adult life.
0:09:49And I will very easily attribute that
0:09:53to just a perfect alignment of theme and events.
0:10:01So I feel incredibly grateful to having the Year of Clarity to help in what would otherwise have been just like a really uncertain time.
0:10:13Yeah, you were set up perfectly to maximize everything you wanted, because there was nothing in your way.
0:10:21Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point that there was nothing in my way in very many cases.
0:10:26And I think also it just, it really helped me just focus a lot on what is important, what matters,
0:10:38like what actions can you take, like all of the obvious stuff, but just repeatedly thinking about
0:10:44like the clarity of decision-making or like what is it that you're trying to accomplish here.
0:10:49It really did work tremendously in my favor.
0:10:53And it's a strange thing to say, you know, because again, like within this context of,
0:10:58"Oh, 2020 has been fantastic and the Year of Clarity is amazing."
0:11:03You know, it's in the background of,
0:11:06"Oh, I haven't socialized with another human in person for almost a year,
0:11:12and I haven't been in a store or a restaurant of any kind."
0:11:16- I don't think we have ever gone so long about seeing each other.
0:11:19- Yeah, I mean, that has to be true.
0:11:20- Well, it'll be a year, right?
0:11:22- About now, I think I last saw you on New Year's Eve.
0:11:25- Yeah, I think that's right, yeah.
0:11:26I saw you last in person New Year's Eve.
0:11:28And yeah, I only saw a couple of people after that
0:11:32and it was like, well.
0:11:33- Goodbye everybody.
0:11:34- Goodbye everyone, I'll see you later.
0:11:37So yeah, it's been an interesting experience
0:11:39and I'm also just in this uncomfortable position
0:11:43of feeling guilty about that, but it is just the truth.
0:11:48- I'll tell you, Gray, it's good you do.
0:11:49'Cause if you said all of this stuff and just felt nothing,
0:11:53it's bad.
0:11:55At least you're being able to acknowledge that,
0:11:59yeah, you've had been able to focus and have a good year,
0:12:01but you're obviously very aware of the fact
0:12:03that it's also a terrible year for pretty much everyone.
0:12:06If you didn't feel guilty about having had
0:12:08a productive year in that sense, it's like,
0:12:11oh man, he's finally gone over the edge.
0:12:14- Yeah, and it's also,
0:12:17It's been an interesting experience just talking to other people where just, you
0:12:22know, sometimes you have to calibrate like, you know, many people I know are
0:12:25having terrible times and then it's like, well, you know, you want to keep it to
0:12:28yourself in those moments about like, oh really everything's great within this
0:12:31tiny radius in which I exist.
0:12:33But this is, this is here where it's like, okay, we're talking about how
0:12:36have our years actually gone.
0:12:38And this is just the truth of it for me.
0:12:40Although what I would say is it does feel like another piece of evidence on the pile
0:12:45for what is like the inevitable endgame of my life being a completely disconnected recluse
0:12:53in a cabin somewhere who every once in a while packs a video onto the back of a mule to send
0:12:59into town to be uploaded to the internet. It does feel a bit like, yeah, you could totally
0:13:06live that life, dude, and it wouldn't be a problem.
0:13:08From the outside, it does look like you have had, from an output level, a very productive
0:13:132020. Like it has been very productive for you and I assume the plans that you set in
0:13:18place that we spoke about on the show, topic lock and all that kind of stuff, which came
0:13:23from the Year of Clarity, it seems it's from the outside, it seems to have really worked.
0:13:28Oh, yeah, totally. And this is where I want to again, pitch to people who are thinking
0:13:33about themes, the real power of amorphousness, and it's perfectly okay for themes to be fuzzy
0:13:42Like, they don't have to be really precise.
0:13:45And, you know, I listened to the last year's episode, you know, before this one,
0:13:50'cause it's always interesting to hear how you are in the past, and...
0:13:53Like, I know what that Grey was planning.
0:13:57Like, I know all of the things that he wanted to do with this new clear vision
0:14:02and many of which involve travel and explicitly seeing people,
0:14:08and like, there were so many things that he wanted to do,
0:14:10And all of that got completely washed away.
0:14:13But this fuzziness of the theme allowed me to achieve many of the same things that I wanted to achieve,
0:14:22but just in what ended up being totally different ways.
0:14:25And yeah, I always talk about this idea for people, like, you want to be trying to build a life that you want to live?
0:14:33And, you know, in this past year, Year of Clarity helped me really focus on, okay,
0:14:39If your radius has been shrunk from "I can go anywhere in the world" to, you know, "This apartment is my existence."
0:14:47You know, what is- what does living a life that you want to live mean in that context?
0:14:53And I took it very seriously, and this is why, you know, I got exercise equipment, you know, um, very early to try to establish this as a thing.
0:15:04And also thinking about the video production, it was really a case of,
0:15:09"Well, I'm going to dive into the projects that I'm working on.
0:15:16Like, I can focus on this completely and clearly in a different way than before.
0:15:22There's fewer distractions from the outside world.
0:15:25Who knows how long this is going to last?
0:15:29You know, you never know in any particular moment.
0:15:32but I could always use that as an advantage to focus.
0:15:35And the strange thing about the year of
0:15:38knowing that there's not even going to be the possibility of a social interruption
0:15:44does allow a kind of deeper focus on things.
0:15:47Like, it has been interesting, and
0:15:51I think it's also been measurably successful.
0:15:56Like, if you look at the uploads for
0:15:59the past 18 months versus the previous 18 months.
0:16:03Like I've just put out a lot more videos
0:16:05over the course of that time.
0:16:08And I also think, you know,
0:16:09because what started off the year of clarity
0:16:11was changing the business model
0:16:14for the way that I make the videos.
0:16:16- Yeah, you were set up nicely in that regard.
0:16:19- Which then also just changes the way I think
0:16:21about the production of those videos.
0:16:23And so I don't wanna just upload more.
0:16:27Like I also wanted to really focus on the things that I think are interesting in those videos.
0:16:33So focusing on things like the rewatchability or the interconnectedness.
0:16:37And also understanding that I can trust that the core audience will give something a try,
0:16:45even if it's just like reading a spooky story or whatever.
0:16:48So I'm really pleased not just with, "Oh, there's been more videos over the past 18 months."
0:16:56but I'm also really pleased with the variance in those videos.
0:17:01They're more different from each other than in a previous 18 month period.
0:17:06And without a doubt, again, Year of Clarity has helped me kind of focus on that
0:17:12and realize like making and consistently working on the videos
0:17:18and uploading those videos is the thing that keeps me the most happy.
0:17:25And it is also the thing that has the biggest impact on the outside world.
0:17:31It's the thing that the most people see by a huge margin.
0:17:36It's the thing that affects the business revenue so I can pay myself
0:17:41and I can pay all the people that I work with.
0:17:42So it's like clearly the epicenter of everything that I should be doing.
0:17:49And for me, it was really well timed to have a year where it's like,
0:17:54thinking back to Past Gray, I know that he wanted to do a bunch of new things,
0:17:59but I'm, again, strangely grateful that I had a year that constrained me
0:18:05to focus on just the the core of everything, which is the YouTube channel.
0:18:10So yeah, I mean that's part of it.
0:18:14And then, I mean, just on the other half of it is,
0:18:17I feel like I've come out of this quarantine better than when I went into it.
0:18:21And that's professionally in terms of video production, and also just, I'm pretty sure I'm in the best physical shape of my life.
0:18:29I saw a picture of you the other day.
0:18:31Oh yeah?
0:18:31I agree, you look great.
0:18:32[Laughter]
0:18:33Thanks Myke!
0:18:34You look really good, you look young.
0:18:36[Laughter]
0:18:37You look like you've gone backwards, I don't know what this thing has done to you.
0:18:42But yeah, you look great man.
0:18:44Yeah, I took a painting, so I painted a portrait of myself that will get older as I get older, and so that's uh...
0:18:50That's another thing I learned in my, you know, you gotta pick up a hobby over a quarantine and
0:18:55that's been one of mine. Finally you found the link, right? Yeah, I found the link. But again,
0:19:01like that's a side effect of, and you can hear me in the previous year talking about it, of
0:19:06really the pandemic and lockdown making me take exercise as I, the phrase I kept using is like
0:19:18deadly seriously. Like this is, this is incredibly important. You can't blow it off
0:19:24and creating for myself a home gym. And there's a trick that I've done this year, which has,
0:19:32I'm still, I'm still with you here, Myke. Like I don't like exercise. It's not fun.
0:19:38Mm-hmm (affirmative)
0:19:39But what's different with this is in previous times, I've had exercise be a regular,
0:19:47regular like part of my week and I've gone long stretches where I've maintained exercise.
0:19:52But what I've done here is I've made exercise a part of my day in the same way that
0:20:01brushing my teeth is part of the day. And it's, I really think it's made a huge difference.
0:20:08And in particular, the thing that I've done is I hate morning exercises. Like it's never worked
0:20:16for me that like, again, those people who get up and they're like, "Oh, I'm gonna run two miles
0:20:20before I start work." It's always annoying. We're gonna get real sweaty before starting the day.
0:20:26Yeah, but the thing that does work for me, which has turned it into, no matter what happens in the
0:20:33day, you've made some progress on this. So I get up, I have my normal wake-up routine, brush my
0:20:39And then before starting the writing work, I do one set of like one exercise and that's it.
0:20:48It's like seven minutes tops, but it's just one thing.
0:20:53And with the, with using weights, like I find that is genuinely effective,
0:20:57at least for that one muscle group.
0:20:59And I've been doing this, this daily one morning exercise as I think of it, like every day.
0:21:08day for basically this entire time. And yeah, sometimes days get busy and I don't get to the
0:21:16full workout that I want to do later, but this has really again cemented this as part of my life.
0:21:23Like, this is part of the wake-up routine. It's just something that you do. The day hasn't really
0:21:28started yet. You can always take seven minutes in the morning to do one exercise. Like, you know,
0:21:36you're never that pressed for time.
0:21:38And, you know, this again fell out of having the time
0:21:44to really try to think about,
0:21:47"Okay, even when I'm at home and I have exercise equipment at home,
0:21:50what are the obstacles that get in the way of sometimes doing the exercise?"
0:21:54And feeling like I have solved this problem
0:21:57and I have now turned at least some portion of exercise into basically toothbrushing.
0:22:03So that's, I feel like this is, this is my review of, of the Year of Clarity.
0:22:08Never has a fuzzy wuzzy theme been better matched with circumstances.
0:22:14And I also don't expect that ever again will a theme be more well matched with circumstances in my entire life.
0:22:22I did want to ask you, obviously one of the big work milestones or markers in your year
0:22:31was our old friend the T-coi incident.
0:22:34How did the Year of Clarity help you navigate that?
0:22:36- Yeah, it totally was involved
0:22:38in that decision-making process.
0:22:40Year of Clarity also trickled down
0:22:42to some of the internal business stuff.
0:22:45So there were sort of like clarity sub-goals
0:22:48that I discussed with my assistant,
0:22:51for what we wanted to do business-wise,
0:22:53and again, which we've achieved really well together.
0:22:56But when the T-coi incident came up,
0:23:00This was also another one of these cases of, you know, especially in like the first
0:23:0524 hours after I realized, oh, there's this catastrophic error in the, in the video.
0:23:11The question of how to handle that again is not immediately obvious.
0:23:17And it's also not clear cause you're trying to make a judgment of how bad is this
0:23:22error, you know, how, what, what is the appropriate level of responding to this?
0:23:28And without a doubt Year of Clarity, just, I thought about it a bunch and it just
0:23:34helped think about, sure, we could leave a comment and that would be mostly fine
0:23:41for just about everyone about like, oh, the type of missile was wrong.
0:23:44But again, this is where things are just amorphous and fuzzy and Year of
0:23:50Clarity means something internally, but it felt totally right that the actual
0:23:56correct response was to drop everything and try to emergency rush a video describing the whole
0:24:02situation in two weeks. And I'm really glad we did that. You know, in the end, I'm being able to look
0:24:09at that video now with a little bit of distance. I'm happy with the way it came out. I feel like it
0:24:15does do a really good job of explaining, like, here's what happened, and here's what we're
0:24:20thinking about. It made that more obviously the right decision in the framework of, like, what is
0:24:26the clearest possible thing to do in this situation.
0:24:29But again, you know, you can argue that without the theme you may not have been able to approach
0:24:35that so well.
0:24:36Because this is one of those things where, you know, like having an error in a video,
0:24:41which is obviously, it's an important thing for you, it's a thing that you want to never
0:24:45happen because it's, you know, it goes against what you're trying to produce, right?
0:24:50You don't want errors.
0:24:52Because I'm your friend, I poke fun at you a little bit of it because it feels like,
0:24:56me on the outside the error that you made is not that bad but I know I
0:25:01understand that it doesn't matter how big or small the error is an error that
0:25:08changes part of what you were saying is something you never want to occur right
0:25:11like it's otherwise you wouldn't bother putting so much time into the research
0:25:15it's like why put so much time into the research if you if you're okay with
0:25:19having errors you know you may as well just rush these things out there but
0:25:22There's an interesting thing where with things like this, things that seem so large to people
0:25:28who are independently creative, it's inside of a large company.
0:25:32It's like a process.
0:25:35Someone can tell you what to do.
0:25:36Like, "Oh, you made the error?
0:25:38Oh, we'll go talk to Mandy.
0:25:41Mandy's got it all sorted out.
0:25:42She can give you the two-step plan to fix this problem."
0:25:46Or like, "Ultimately, there was an error and someone's going to be mad at you, but like
0:25:52whatever, it's not gonna affect the corporate wheel that much.
0:25:56These are these types of situations that occur where it's like you have to work out how to
0:26:02handle this yourself and no one can help you.
0:26:07You have to do it.
0:26:08And being in that mindset, the clarity mindset, must have been very good for you to deal with
0:26:14something that is really important to you and is kind of the first time there's something
0:26:19that has happened.
0:26:20you do tease me about it.
0:26:21And every time you bring that up,
0:26:23I always feel this immediate reason of like,
0:26:26but Myke, let me explain to you
0:26:27why this is a perfect storm, right?
0:26:28It's not just that it's an error.
0:26:30Like, let me explain, here's the five reasons
0:26:31why like this error is a catastrophic error, right?
0:26:33Which again is the whole point of the video that exists.
0:26:36Again, for the people who listen to us talk
0:26:39and are interested in the self-employment part of that,
0:26:43this is also the thing that is the biggest burden
0:26:48the hardest part about being self-employed and the thing that you just you just can't internalize
0:26:56as an employee until you're out all on your own and it's like oh it is entirely on my shoulders
0:27:04and even if I'm working with other people like it's still ultimately like this is where this is
0:27:10where all the responsibility lies and yeah I mean it's funny that you you mentioned about like oh
0:27:16the mistake stuff because it does immediately cast my mind back to you know when I worked as a
0:27:20teacher and I would make a mistake or something would go wrong and yeah you're right there's some
0:27:25process or whatever or someone is unhappy with you and then you leave the meeting and it's like
0:27:30okay but nothing happens right someone was just annoyed at me for 10 minutes and and life goes on
0:27:37yep but when you're doing something on your own it's like you don't you just you have no idea
0:27:42the variance of all possible outcomes is enormous.
0:27:45And so, yeah, it did really help with that.
0:27:50And also just in some of the post-mortem stuff,
0:27:54it's definitely helped in some of the fixing the workflow
0:27:59and adjusting the way things work and going like,
0:28:01"Okay, how can we make sure to minimize the possibility
0:28:05"of this kind of thing happening again?"
0:28:06I wouldn't want the Tico incident to happen
0:28:08in a different year, because it also, again,
0:28:11just the sort of luck of it is I was able to just,
0:28:15well, this is the next two weeks of my life.
0:28:17It was 100% is going to be just spent on this
0:28:20and like, go, go, go.
0:28:22- You didn't have any events.
0:28:23You weren't somewhere you didn't want to be.
0:28:25- Yeah, there was no conference.
0:28:28I mean, this is also why,
0:28:30this sounds like a fantasy land from a previous life.
0:28:33I have YouTube friends who I know
0:28:36they will just schedule videos to upload
0:28:40at the time that they want to.
0:28:41and if they're going to be on a plane or whatever,
0:28:43like that's what happens.
0:28:45And I always feel like,
0:28:46(laughs)
0:28:47how can you do that?
0:28:49- Our CMS has a scheduling system, right?
0:28:52And I can publish episodes whenever I want to
0:28:55based on that.
0:28:56I never use it.
0:28:58- Yeah.
0:28:58- I never will publish something
0:29:00unless I am ready to publish it
0:29:02and I'm able to sit and just make sure it's all good.
0:29:06- Yeah.
0:29:07- Never.
0:29:07- I totally get it, yeah.
0:29:09And this has reinforced that of like,
0:29:14don't upload a video right before you're going
0:29:16into a conference.
0:29:18(laughs)
0:29:20But again, that's from a fantasy world
0:29:23that doesn't currently exist anymore.
0:29:25But still, again, it's why things lined up,
0:29:27like there wasn't any other distractions.
0:29:29It's also a side effect of, we can get to this later,
0:29:32I probably did it too many times this year,
0:29:35but it is also like, why is it that this year
0:29:37There's, there's not only more videos, but there were more timely videos than in
0:29:43other years and it's, it's again, the same thing of like, there's a lot of space
0:29:47this year, there's very few interruptions.
0:29:49If I wanted to make the call of I'm going to spend seven days on the Supreme Court,
0:29:55I could just make that call and go.
0:29:58Like there just, there just weren't other interruptions.
0:30:00And so the shape of many projects, at least at their start, which we'll get
0:30:06into later was very clear this year.
0:30:09- Okay, it's gonna be interesting to see
0:30:12what you are realistically able to bring from 2020 forward.
0:30:15I think that's gonna be an interesting thing
0:30:18over the next couple of years,
0:30:20how you actually are able to, if at all,
0:30:22realistically bring the Year of Clarity
0:30:25into other more normal times.
0:30:29- Yeah, yeah.
0:30:31- We're not gonna know this, I'm just intrigued to see
0:30:33if or how this one can realistically be carried over.
0:30:37- Yeah, I agree.
0:30:38The one thing I will say is, as we discussed,
0:30:41ideally one of the things that happens with themes,
0:30:44or for the ones that particularly are resonant with you,
0:30:46is they just become part of the way
0:30:48that you think about things.
0:30:50And with Year of Clarity,
0:30:53its time has come and its time, I think,
0:30:57is ebbing in some way.
0:31:00But without a doubt,
0:31:02I feel like I just have a much stronger sense of, I don't even know quite how to
0:31:08put it, but like decisions should not only be like logically correct, they should also
0:31:15just intuitively make sense and be clear.
0:31:19I feel like I've become much more attuned to like hesitation over decisions and
0:31:27recognizing like there's something here that I haven't clarified.
0:31:32And yes, this decision is like logically correct, you've got it all on the piece of paper,
0:31:37but I'm like more sensitive to like slight hesitation somewhere in the system and being like,
0:31:45"What is that? Like let's figure out what this-- there's some part of this that like I haven't
0:31:51fully unraveled." And I think that's one way in which Year of Clarity is going to carry with me.
0:31:57is it's hard to articulate, but yeah, I feel more sensitized to the decision-making process
0:32:06in a way that I—not that I wasn't before, but I'm just much more aware of. So I mean,
0:32:13that's what I would say. But yeah, you're overall right that this is hopefully not a reproducible
0:32:20year and so it may have fewer applications to the near future.
0:32:27But maybe that's not important though, right? Because maybe the work that you've done
0:32:31in 2020 has laid a foundation, you know, stabilizing the business in some ways which you were already
0:32:38going to do irrespective of 2020 and how it went, pay dividends in the long run. So you
0:32:46You might not need to be in isolation for 9 months to still have benefit from the work
0:32:50that you've done this year.
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0:34:51So I abandoned my original 2020 yearly theme in July
0:34:55to respond to how my life drastically changed
0:34:58during the pandemic.
0:35:00I think pretty much any other year
0:35:02I would have been able to carry on my theme.
0:35:06But the problem was my original theme,
0:35:09the year of refinement in 2020
0:35:11was mostly focused on taking my foot off the gas,
0:35:16which was just from a work perspective,
0:35:20Just not a thing that I was able to do in 2020.
0:35:23So in episode 104 of Cortex,
0:35:26I provided the review of my original yearly theme
0:35:30and then set my new yearly theme.
0:35:33So if you wanna hear my review of the Year of Refinement
0:35:36to that point, you can go and check out that episode
0:35:39and it's there for you to listen to.
0:35:42- Yeah, I mean, we can still pour one out
0:35:44for the Year of Refinement here on this episode.
0:35:46- Yeah, we don't know what we're pouring out though,
0:35:48'cause we never got to learn about the wine.
0:35:50So.
0:35:51- That's all, oh God, oh God.
0:35:53And yes.
0:35:54- I have been bumping on a introduction to wine
0:35:57tasting course that Steven bought me for my birthday.
0:36:00I have been bumping that down the line for the last year.
0:36:04It's like, well, why don't we do it in two months time?
0:36:06Why don't we do it in two months time?
0:36:08I had to pay 15 pounds to extend it past the year.
0:36:13'Cause it was like a voucher, right?
0:36:14- Right.
0:36:15we're like, look, we usually don't extend them,
0:36:18but obviously, you know, what are we gonna do?
0:36:21Could you pay us a little, I was like, fine, right?
0:36:24I'll give you 15 quid and then we'll do it sometime in 2021.
0:36:28- Yeah, yeah.
0:36:29It was heartbreaking and bizarre to hear you talk
0:36:33about your refinements on the 2020 show.
0:36:37Just again, it's like, I don't know,
0:36:41it was like listening to a little flower describe
0:36:44the glorious future that it's going to have as you can see a steamroller slowly moving
0:36:49toward it in the distance.
0:36:50I couldn't listen to it.
0:36:51I think that's fair.
0:36:52So I listened back to the episode like you did and when I got to that point I stopped.
0:36:57Yeah I think that was a good decision.
0:36:59I couldn't do it.
0:37:01Basically so I set up the year of shift instead so you know I realized that I was in a position
0:37:08where I had to adapt and I had to change a bunch of stuff
0:37:11in my work and the challenges of a world-changing event
0:37:15put a lot of stress into my work life.
0:37:17And it was, you know, this is not a thing
0:37:19that I would normally do, but it was just,
0:37:22these things don't come along very often
0:37:24and I had to adapt.
0:37:26I needed a new theme.
0:37:27I couldn't just pause my theme or say,
0:37:29oh, like, I'll just take some elements of it.
0:37:31I had to go back to the beginning again and set a new one.
0:37:35And so I break my theme down into like a bunch
0:37:37of little things that I would like to focus on.
0:37:39None of them goals so much, but just how the themes come to be.
0:37:44So the year shift had a bunch of sections and one was to shift the business model
0:37:49of Relay FM to focus on our new membership program.
0:37:53And this has gone so well.
0:37:55Um, it was an incredible amount of time and effort over basically a six month period.
0:38:04I mean, I think I've said it on this show already, but I'll just say it again,
0:38:07cause it's, it's worthwhile for the recap is both me and my co-founder,
0:38:11Steven have said that we have not worked so hard since we launched the company
0:38:15over a crunch period of time.
0:38:19And it was needed because being able to get the membership in place and revamp it
0:38:24to what it was and give all the benefits and including like the membership bonus
0:38:29shows with the bonus content and having our discord and all that stuff.
0:38:34It took a lot from technical messaging and content, but it able, it provided us
0:38:42with like a new baseline that we could build from and, and financially provided
0:38:46me a bit more security in time of uncertainty, which honestly is it
0:38:49continues, right?
0:38:50Like, uh, advertising continues to be uncertain.
0:38:54Yeah.
0:38:55And so having not just a new baseline from the support from our members, but
0:39:03also a kind of pressure release valve of if things got really bad again, we have something
0:39:13that we can lean on and being able to have that in place provides much more relief for us.
0:39:23I mean, yeah, I think the, you know, people who are not in or adjacent to the industry,
0:39:30you know, may not be aware, but yeah, the, the, the whole world of advertising and all of the
0:39:37content that it provides is just, it's, it's been a hell of a variant year for that.
0:39:46And so, yeah, that's why like, you did so much work to get that membership up and running,
0:39:52to be like this this foundation upon which Relay can stand. Like I still can't believe how
0:39:59quickly and you were able to get it to roll out at all. Like it was just I can't imagine the
0:40:07the time that you put in to make it happen. Yeah it was a big it was a big event for us to do it and
0:40:13you know what was really important to me which I feel like we've delivered from
0:40:18is that there was a value exchange.
0:40:21We already had a system that provided content once a year,
0:40:27like in our kind of our techs adventure specials
0:40:30and that kind of stuff.
0:40:31And we could have lent on that and said like,
0:40:34"Look, this is a difficult time.
0:40:36We're unsure what the future holds
0:40:38and we'd appreciate your support."
0:40:40We could have done that,
0:40:42but I wanted to be able to provide more value
0:40:47in exchange for it and I feel like we have succeeded on that you know so the
0:40:54shows that I am really working hard on for the membership the shows that have
0:40:58to find membership stuff that I'm working on we produce more content which
0:41:04takes more work but that's what I was comfortable with you know just and we
0:41:09have done you know the easy thing to do the thing people always ask us to do is
0:41:12Just remove the ads and give us an ad free feed and that's fine
0:41:16But I still I it felt better. It felt more right to me
0:41:20To then also have more content
0:41:24Like that's what has always felt right to me is that it's the balance of those things
0:41:29Like you don't have to hear the ads anymore because you're giving us money and what I can give you is content
0:41:35That's what that's what I quote unquote sell always right and it took a lot and it continues to take a lot
0:41:42but I'm very happy with it.
0:41:43And similarly, so another thing that I wanted to do
0:41:45was to shift my focus more to content over business.
0:41:50So thinking about the thing that I love to do
0:41:55and the thing that I think I'm best at
0:41:57is helping produce the content,
0:41:59not necessarily just running a business, right?
0:42:02And I wanted to see how I could start to spread that out
0:42:05more over the last half of the year.
0:42:08And what I'll say is I've definitely spent more time
0:42:112020 focusing on making content the best it can be and I want to continue doing that but
0:42:17I haven't handed anything off.
0:42:19Okay.
0:42:20Right.
0:42:21Yeah, I was wondering about that part of it and how you felt like that's gone.
0:42:26Um, it's too soon.
0:42:29Okay.
0:42:30For me because the thing that I hadn't accounted for is that I wouldn't be able to let anything
0:42:39and go very easily.
0:42:40- Okay.
0:42:42- And I think that that time is still to come,
0:42:45but we need more stability again.
0:42:47And that's gonna be in the future.
0:42:50- So your assessment is like,
0:42:52this is not a good time to be cutting projects.
0:42:55- No.
0:42:56- Okay. - No.
0:42:57- I think that makes sense.
0:42:59- So like, you know, really the things that are occurring
0:43:01are the things that were already happening, you know?
0:43:03So like, one of the things I wanted to do
0:43:05and to continue to do, and the thing that is happening
0:43:08is that I deal less with advertising sales
0:43:13and that has been a thing that's been moving along forever
0:43:17as we have a sales manager.
0:43:19She's better than me
0:43:20and she handles most of the new business now.
0:43:22And I was looking at kind of applying that thinking
0:43:25into other parts of the business.
0:43:27And I didn't really have a good goal
0:43:29and it just like I wanted to move along that path.
0:43:33That has not happened at all.
0:43:35And all I've really done is add more in,
0:43:37which I'm spending more time on producing the content
0:43:41than I ever have, and I haven't decreased anything.
0:43:44So I think that there is still a desire to rebalance this,
0:43:49but I don't know when that's going to be.
0:43:53I don't have a plan for that,
0:43:56and I'm fine with that for now.
0:43:59- Yeah, I think this is also just another example
0:44:01of circumstances change and yeah,
0:44:05if you're creating a new value proposition
0:44:09for people to pay money for content,
0:44:13this is the time where it's like, yeah,
0:44:14you're gonna be spending more time creating that.
0:44:17And yeah, again, it's why I like that.
0:44:22I think your shift to the shift theme was great
0:44:26and I'm glad that you recognized
0:44:27that it was a thing that you needed to do.
0:44:30because it couldn't be more at odds
0:44:33with what needed to happen than the previous theme.
0:44:36And I feel like this is a good example of it.
0:44:38Like you said, you haven't worked this hard
0:44:41since the founding of the company,
0:44:43and that makes sense for this year.
0:44:47And that's how things are sometimes.
0:44:50I do, as your cohost and as your friend,
0:44:54I do hope that you are able
0:44:58to relinquish some more responsibilities at some point in the not too distant future.
0:45:05But yeah, I think it would be very ill-advised to have done that this year.
0:45:10- I think I've learned something about myself this year. I think that the pandemic has,
0:45:18and like the way that I've worked through it, has really shone a light on part of my
0:45:24which is that I can't let go.
0:45:29- Okay.
0:45:30- And that's something I know I need to work on.
0:45:32So I'll tell you one way this has manifested.
0:45:36I have not taken a day's vacation since January.
0:45:39- Okay, yeah, that's too many days.
0:45:44Even for a busy year, that's too many work days in a row.
0:45:49- I have not taken a day off where I should have been working
0:45:53which is what I would do in the past.
0:45:55It's like, you know, I'm going on vacation,
0:45:56so I'll move stuff around for a week,
0:45:57or I'm traveling, so I'll need to like
0:46:01have someone else fill in for me,
0:46:03or I'll skip an episode or something.
0:46:05I've not done any of that.
0:46:06And this year, I have also not been very good
0:46:09at observing weekends at all.
0:46:11And the reason this has happened
0:46:16is because I have not done it.
0:46:18Right, like I have decided no, I cannot.
0:46:22And that is how I have felt.
0:46:23I cannot, I cannot take a day off, right?
0:46:27And that is not good.
0:46:29And I know it's not good,
0:46:30but there's nothing I can do about it right now.
0:46:33And unfortunately, there are two times this year
0:46:36where I've tried to take a vacation
0:46:38and work has pulled me back in again.
0:46:40So we are now at the end of the year
0:46:43and I haven't done it.
0:46:45Luckily Christmas is gonna give me that time.
0:46:49I will be taking a week off over Christmas,
0:46:50which is something that we always have done.
0:46:53And it was just a case of like,
0:46:55we plan to take the Christmas week off every year.
0:46:58So all the shows were already blocked off on the Canada.
0:47:01Everyone else is expecting they wouldn't be working.
0:47:04So maybe I'll just do five monologues for a week,
0:47:06but maybe I'll just take that week off.
0:47:10I think the only day off that I've had thinking about it
0:47:13was Thanksgiving day.
0:47:16But I only shifted the work back to the Saturday and Sunday.
0:47:20Like, you know. - Right.
0:47:22- And I only had Thanksgiving Day off
0:47:24because no one was around to work.
0:47:25- Right, I was gonna say,
0:47:27because all of your coworkers are American.
0:47:28- Yeah, I had no choice.
0:47:30But yeah, look, I'm very aware of the unhealthy situation
0:47:34that I put myself in this year by doing this.
0:47:37- Yeah.
0:47:38- But I also just felt like there was never a point
0:47:42where I could have pulled myself away.
0:47:47- Yeah, and I'm not gonna argue against you there, right?
0:47:50like, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna po-poo you about like, oh,
0:47:53you should, you should take more weekends off like this much more so than,
0:47:58you know, for you than for me because of your industry.
0:48:01Like you had to have a real crunch year and there's just,
0:48:04there's just no way around that. And that happens sometimes.
0:48:07I could have decided not to, but I wasn't willing to roll the dice on that.
0:48:11Yeah. I, yeah. And, and I, I, I think I would, I would have viewed that as,
0:48:17as, as, as a, I don't quite want to say irresponsible,
0:48:20but I would have felt like that would be a bad set of dice to roll.
0:48:23Like the trade-offs here don't make sense.
0:48:25And so I'm just glad to hear that, you know, coming to the end of 2020,
0:48:31you're at least recognizing this situation and recognizing-
0:48:34Because I'm so f***ing tired, Gray.
0:48:36Like I really am so tired.
0:48:39Like in a way that is not I'm sleepy.
0:48:46It's like, I'm at the edge of burning out here, you know?
0:48:51- Right.
0:48:52- Like I know it's there.
0:48:54And you'll hear my 2021 theme, like you're hearing it,
0:48:59a man who's aware of it.
0:49:02- Okay, good.
0:49:03- Because there's just been a lot of stuff
0:49:06like I'm getting to the end of my rope,
0:49:08as my name would say with it.
0:49:10Like where it's just like I've reached the maximum
0:49:13that I can live my life this way but I just cannot see, like lots of people who
0:49:23are smarter than me and who know me better than I know myself will tell me that I
0:49:28should have taken a break this year but I will argue against all of them because
0:49:33I just could not have done it. There's not just my livelihood, there's lots of
0:49:41people's livelihoods at stake over this last year and we've gotten through it
0:49:46and I I cannot see a way in which it would have been to use the word that you
0:49:53said like responsible of me to not have my hands on the wheel constantly
0:50:04it's and I know that there are people listening to this show who I'm sure who
0:50:09who have been in the exact same boat as me.
0:50:11Like lots of business owners, I'm sure,
0:50:15have had a very, very different year
0:50:17trying to navigate this stuff,
0:50:19because it's like, you know,
0:50:21like more bad stuff happened in a four month period
0:50:26than like three years worth of bad stuff.
0:50:31Like it was just, you know, March to May was a bloodbath.
0:50:36It was just horrible.
0:50:39And going through that, knowing that at any point
0:50:43it could happen again, I just felt like I had no choice
0:50:48for my own sanity to not be on, switched on constantly.
0:50:54And look, I know I'm starting to pay the price
0:51:01for it a little bit now,
0:51:05But I am happy to take that
0:51:08than to have been in a situation where
0:51:12things could have gotten really bad and they didn't.
0:51:17- Yeah, yeah, and again, I agree with you.
0:51:21Knowing some of what you knew about the industry
0:51:23at that point in time, you were right to make this call.
0:51:26- And also, no, it's not a way to live my life.
0:51:30And I'm sure I'll be able to look back at this time
0:51:33and be like, ah, so that was when
0:51:36I started to change my life again.
0:51:39And I see this as a point to enable me to do that,
0:51:44but I had to get through it.
0:51:45Anyway, so other things that I wanted to shift,
0:51:50I wanted to shift my own approach to finances a little bit,
0:51:53just personal stuff, thinking about like what savings are,
0:51:56what my retirement is, like all those boring things.
0:52:00- Right.
0:52:01But when you are put in a situation where you're like,
0:52:04"Oh boy, am I gonna lose it all?"
0:52:06(both laughing)
0:52:08You kind of like try and be a little bit more responsible.
0:52:11- Yeah, when the finance tree gets shook
0:52:14by the winds of global change,
0:52:17you start looking around and thinking,
0:52:19"Hmm." (laughs)
0:52:21- I prepared a way for this.
0:52:23Yeah, just a thing to think about.
0:52:25And also I wanted to shift my mental energy
0:52:28to get back to learning some new things.
0:52:31So when I had downtime, when I had space, what was I doing?
0:52:36And this came from the sense of like,
0:52:39everything outside is so horrible.
0:52:42Stop looking at that when you have any spare time
0:52:47and try and look at new things,
0:52:49find new things to occupy yourself.
0:52:52So more text listeners and subscribers will know
0:52:56that I had a brief flirtation
0:52:58with trying to learn programming.
0:53:00- I was wondering if you were going to mention that here.
0:53:02- Did not go well. (laughs)
0:53:04That was an arc for a few months, that went away.
0:53:08Because I found other things that I like more.
0:53:11- Yeah, yeah, I think the programming 2020
0:53:16was not fertile ground for that project.
0:53:19- Yeah.
0:53:20- But also, I think, yeah, you immediately found
0:53:24other things that you like more.
0:53:26- Yeah.
0:53:26- And it made sense to shift your attention
0:53:28very quickly to those things.
0:53:30So like this is one thing that has kind of been out for my whole year is I've found a sport that I enjoy which is Formula One.
0:53:36I cannot believe this. Okay, okay. So when I was listening to our old episode, you know, and just like hearing what we're talking about and
0:53:45when you mentioned you were starting to get into F1 last year, that was one of those things that I mentally chalked up as a 100%.
0:53:53There's no way Myke is still following F1 now.
0:53:56I'm into it big time.
0:53:57There's no way that's gonna be your case.
0:53:59I absolutely love it. I love it.
0:54:01I can't believe it.
0:54:03If I had to bet money on one thing, I would have bet that the F1 was no longer around.
0:54:08I can't believe it.
0:54:09Oh man. It's so good. It's so good.
0:54:12It's something that me and Adina really enjoy together.
0:54:15That's amazing.
0:54:16And we're just really into it.
0:54:18Like, we love the races. We love following the drama between the races.
0:54:22Do you have a team that you follow?
0:54:24Who's your home car team?
0:54:27It's it's cuz I'm cuz it's been like my first year. Mm-hmm
0:54:30I'm still kind of I've moved around a lot and I'm more focused on
0:54:35particular drivers than teams
0:54:38okay, people will hate this but I I do I really love Lewis Hamilton like and
0:54:44The reason people will hate that is because he's the best
0:54:48Mm-hmm, but I can't help but a pretty I really appreciate him as a
0:54:55Competitor and also was a like a role model. He's really kind of come into his own this year and a lot of really great ways
0:55:01Plus it's like it's quite incredible to have started watching this sport at the year where?
0:55:07He has started to break all the records for being the greatest of all time
0:55:11Oh, okay
0:55:11Good timing that's quite a time to come into a sport when you can watch someone who is the best at the top of their game
0:55:19Right, that's been a very fun thing for me
0:55:22And it's one of the reasons that I really enjoy watching him.
0:55:25And there's a few other people like a guy called George Russell, who I really like.
0:55:28And there's there's a lot.
0:55:30Basically, we've come into a year where there's just a lot going on.
0:55:35I really, really recommend the Netflix documentary Drive to Survive.
0:55:39It's like this is why we got into it.
0:55:42My friend Austin recommended that we watch this documentary
0:55:46because he loves F1.
0:55:48And that's also been cool because we we've been sharing it together, too.
0:55:51and we spend a lot of time talking about it together as well.
0:55:54So yeah, it's just been a really nice thing for me this year,
0:55:56like a nice new thing to get into.
0:55:58So I really love that.
0:55:59But my biggest, biggest new hobby this year is keyboards.
0:56:04Into them keyboards.
0:56:08- You become a keyboard maniac.
0:56:09- The custom mechanical keyboard world
0:56:11is a world that I have dove into big time,
0:56:14but we're not gonna talk about it yet.
0:56:15We're gonna talk about it later in the episode.
0:56:17- Okay.
0:56:18- The last thing in my year of shift
0:56:21was to quote, "shift product creation for Cortex brand."
0:56:25That had a very specific meaning
0:56:28that I didn't really get into.
0:56:31It has taken a ton of work
0:56:34and I guess we can talk about what that means now, right?
0:56:38- Yes, Theme System Journal.
0:56:41- Second edition.
0:56:43I have been working on this since April,
0:56:45actively, every day.
0:56:49It has been something in the works for months before then.
0:56:54I think probably in kind of January, we put the work in in creating the new artwork that
0:57:03would go in the journal, if you would call it that.
0:57:06So like the actual what it would look like.
0:57:09But then the production, the creation of the product has been a daily task since April
0:57:15to now.
0:57:16You can go to cortexmarch.com right now and buy your own second edition theme system journal.
0:57:24It's finally here.
0:57:26It is finally here.
0:57:27Oh my god, it's finally here.
0:57:31So I want to dive into what we've done with this.
0:57:37So one of the things that hasn't changed is the system that underpins the journal.
0:57:44So the journal itself is still broken down into three main sections.
0:57:48You have your yearly theme pages, where you outline the theme that you've chosen, which
0:57:52I'm sure you will have chosen, either by now or maybe just after listening to this episode
0:57:57once you've got that inspiration from our themes.
0:58:00You then have your journal pages, which is where you spend time reflecting on your day.
0:58:06So you write down like how you're thinking, how you're feeling.
0:58:09And then your daily themes pages, which is where you keep track of some prompts that
0:58:13keep you on course with your theme. There is more to the system than this. If you're new to the
0:58:19theme system, go to thethemesystem.com where we outline in more detail what each of those sections
0:58:26are and how you can use them to help create a real kind of daily reflection of your yearly theme.
0:58:33And this has been something that I've been using every day now for multiple years at this point,
0:58:41because I'd created the system before there was a journal.
0:58:45Right?
0:58:46And this idea of having this book, which I come to every day,
0:58:51where I write down kind of what the good things in my day were,
0:58:54what the bad things in my day were, what I'm thinking about, what's on my mind,
0:58:58and then go and kind of like check off, like,
0:59:01have I made progress in these eight things this day?
0:59:05It's been a very useful thing.
0:59:09And I would say for me this year, once I changed my theme to the year of shift and going in every day and being like, am I moving the needle on these things that are important?
0:59:19It has continued to be like a really, really great thing for me this year.
0:59:23So I really encourage people to go and check this out.
0:59:27If you have a theme or if you have a theme that you're working on, the journal is a great way to make it a part of your every day.
0:59:34You want to externalize your thoughts in some manner and having this structure to help keep bringing you back to the theme is incredibly helpful.
0:59:48I've always said like journaling is just so, it's so effective, it's shocking how well this can work to just revisit in an external way that's not just in your head,
1:00:03thoughts that you want to revisit.
1:00:04And if you've never tried it, if you, like, I just incredibly strongly
1:00:10recommend that you give it a shot.
1:00:13Like get a theme journal, you know, it's, it's a new dawn at 2021.
1:00:19And I think this, this can be an incredibly helpful way to direct
1:00:26this ship of your life going forward.
1:00:31Now for people that have tried the journal out before, or for people that are interested
1:00:34in what is different, I want to talk about some of the things that we've done.
1:00:38So we've made some slight modifications to the print and the pages to basically make
1:00:44these areas of the book the best that they can possibly be.
1:00:48So for the journal pages, we've added an additional data box at the top of the page.
1:00:53This is where I write down what pens I'm using every day.
1:00:57But it's just like a really thin box that goes across the top.
1:00:59It's like one little piece of information.
1:01:00I thought you could put the weather in there, you could put a song that you're listening
1:01:04to in there, a quote, something like that.
1:01:07This is like a nice little, just a thin piece of information.
1:01:09We've also numbered the pages now.
1:01:11Previously we were working on a system of having just, you write your own numbers in
1:01:16if you wanted to, and I get why people wanted numbered pages rather than writing their own
1:01:20page numbers.
1:01:21We've now found a way to make that work.
1:01:24There's a lot of considerations you have to make about printing to allow for page numbering.
1:01:28It's kind of a weird thing, but I found a way to make it work so the pages are now numbered
1:01:33if that's the thing that's important to you.
1:01:35And on the daily theme pages, this is where you kind of track your little things for the
1:01:39day, we've now added more rows and more columns.
1:01:42So each double page spread lets you track 15 days.
1:01:46We have six of these, so you can track 90 days in total, which now matches with the
1:01:51journal pages.
1:01:52So each book is good for 90 tracked days.
1:01:55So depending on how often you're tracking or how often you're journaling can last you
1:01:59anywhere from like three to six months or maybe more.
1:02:01It took a lot of work to try and work out what the optimum number is and I went with
1:02:0615.
1:02:07So if you do 15 days per double page spread, you can do basically two weeks if you track
1:02:12every day, three weeks if you track every work day, and it's also a quarter of a season.
1:02:18But the biggest changes for the second edition is the fact that we went back to the literal
1:02:25drawing board with the book itself. It is made completely differently. The book is now
1:02:30made in Europe, which has made the making of the book a lot easier for me.
1:02:34Yeah, I mean, I've got to say, talking to you about it, this has clearly made one of
1:02:40the biggest differences in just the feedback time for going between iterations.
1:02:47And also, I've had a lot of physical prototypes made, and I can have them the next day.
1:02:53magic getting a next day delivery. So the prototyping stages have been really
1:02:57important for me because I guess the key difference here is our first edition
1:03:02we were working with our very good friends Tom and Dan at Studio Neat who
1:03:06make a selection of incredible products from accessories for your technology
1:03:11products to some of my favorite pens and paper out there. Dean System second
1:03:17edition, it was all me. So I made every decision. I worked with all of the suppliers. I basically
1:03:26felt like I was at a point where this was always what I wanted to do. I wanted to be
1:03:29the person who made all the decisions and I needed the expertise and I've got to that
1:03:35point. So I chose every paper we're using. I chose all the production and did the whole
1:03:41thing as one of the reasons why it took from April to December because we started again.
1:03:48It's a huge accomplishment and when we were talking about the journal, the idea of it
1:03:57years ago now, who even knows? This to me was always one of the really important things
1:04:03about this as a product is like, this is where I want you to express your pickiness in the
1:04:12physical form of the thing.
1:04:14Like I wanted you to be completely happy with the paper and the design and the way it feels
1:04:21and all of the little intangibles that someone who is deeply familiar with the whole pen
1:04:29and notebook world is sensitized to.
1:04:32And for this second edition,
1:04:35the amount of work that you've put into it
1:04:37is just, it's inconceivable.
1:04:39It's a huge amount of work that you've done on this,
1:04:43and it's come out amazing.
1:04:44- Yeah, I've been using some variation
1:04:47of the second edition since May.
1:04:48So as we've been prototyping it,
1:04:53I have been using the prototypes.
1:04:55I was, I think, surprising the print company
1:04:58that we were working with, 'cause this isn't,
1:05:00I found out this is not normal to prototype
1:05:04and continue to prototype so frequently.
1:05:07You know, it would be like, okay, I would choose a paper,
1:05:10we'd have a prototype made, and I was like,
1:05:11ah, I'm not so sure I wanna try this paper.
1:05:14And they would send me the new paper,
1:05:15and they'd be like, are we done now?
1:05:16And I'm like, no, no, we need to prototype that paper.
1:05:18And I kept doing it multiple times,
1:05:20and it was quite confusing to them.
1:05:22And I'm not sure why it was, but you know.
1:05:25I was never happy with just, okay, so we're now going to use this paper and then we'll
1:05:32just go ahead and make it.
1:05:33So no, I want the book in that paper.
1:05:36I've found so many interesting things this year, like about the way that paper products
1:05:42and how paper reacts to the way in which it's printed.
1:05:47So the prototyping process would never give me the actual final version.
1:05:56So the machines that they use for prototyping are not the same machines that they use for
1:06:00mass production.
1:06:01Which makes sense because a lot of the cost in producing paper goods is using the machine.
1:06:10If you make a thousand, it's not double the price of 500.
1:06:13It's actually a marginal difference.
1:06:16A lot of the something that's used in these industries is a lot of the cost is turning
1:06:21on the machine.
1:06:22Like that's what the cost is.
1:06:24And there were like, you know, so I found out a lot of the different attributes that
1:06:28these types of prototyping machines will do to a paper to the final product.
1:06:32And yeah, it was like a lot of iteration and the materials in the journal are all different
1:06:39now.
1:06:40So the paper was the thing that took the longest.
1:06:43was months of samples and then prototyping those samples and I think
1:06:48that we've landed on something that feels more luxurious. So the paper is
1:06:54thicker than it was before which was something that was really important to
1:06:57me which has made the book itself thicker it's made the book more
1:07:01substantial feeling and I have lots of different pens and this journal will
1:07:07stand up to all of them. It will take all of them. Thicker pens than a
1:07:13pens, different types of inks. I'm really happy with what I consider to be just an
1:07:18excellent all-round paper. I'm very very pleased of it and this is the thing that
1:07:24I fretted over the most because it was important to me. One thing I did not want
1:07:30to do as Myke Hurley, one half of the Pan-Adic podcast, was put his name on a
1:07:35book that was not made of great paper and it was it was like you're staking
1:07:41your reputation on this kid, you better do it right."
1:07:44And I'm really happy with where we've ended up with it.
1:07:47- Yeah, I mean, again, I think the listeners can hear it,
1:07:50but this is a journal that is made with a lot of sweat
1:07:54and a lot of love.
1:07:56And it's also, I mean, you say it there very quickly,
1:08:00but I think it's just an indication of,
1:08:03yes, most manufacturers are not used to a client
1:08:07who wants to do many revisions over the course of a year.
1:08:11But I have the journal in my hands,
1:08:14like the latest edition of it,
1:08:15and I think the effort that you have put in
1:08:18in all of those little decisions
1:08:20that most manufacturers designing a journal
1:08:25don't spend that amount of time on,
1:08:27it really comes through
1:08:28and it shines through the journal itself.
1:08:31It is the sum of a very large number of small decisions
1:08:36and it came out great.
1:08:39- Thank you.
1:08:40The cover is really great.
1:08:42So we're using a thicker, more durable,
1:08:46more premium feeling cover.
1:08:48It retains its beautiful debossing.
1:08:50And also the binding process was really important
1:08:54for me to keep, which is basically when you open
1:08:57the notebook it will lay flat at any point.
1:09:00This is something that's actually quite difficult to do,
1:09:03but I'm really pleased we're able to do it.
1:09:04And now the cover itself is thicker,
1:09:08the book more easily stays closed on its own as well,
1:09:11which I like.
1:09:13And one of the other things from using the original journal,
1:09:15and we got a lot of feedback from this,
1:09:17from the cortex and zygote,
1:09:18and also from just myself in using it,
1:09:20was trying to come up with some system of bookmarking.
1:09:24And we tried to add a ribbon to the old book design,
1:09:27and that was really complicated
1:09:29in ways that I never would have imagined.
1:09:31And so we came up with a system that I much prefer,
1:09:34which is every page, the corner of each page is perforated
1:09:38with this really large perforation
1:09:40that makes it very, very easy
1:09:42to pull off the corners of the pages.
1:09:44And the perforation is also rounded,
1:09:46but as you tear off each corner of the page,
1:09:49when you look at the,
1:09:50it's not the spine, but the opposite of the spine.
1:09:55When the book is closed and you look at the page edge,
1:09:58as you're pulling off the pages,
1:10:01it almost starts to look like a progress bar
1:10:03through the season.
1:10:04- Yeah.
1:10:05- And I love this detail.
1:10:07So not only can you very easily find where you are
1:10:10as your next day in the book,
1:10:12but as you look at the physical book,
1:10:14you get to see your progress through the theme
1:10:17through a year.
1:10:18And I think that that has come out to be
1:10:20one of my very favorite things about the second edition.
1:10:22It makes it quite novel and I really love that a lot.
1:10:25- Yeah, I also think it's such a great solution
1:10:29to a problem that's not what you were looking for.
1:10:32You know, you want a bookmark,
1:10:34but you come up with something better,
1:10:36which is the progress bar of the theme over the season.
1:10:40It's really lovely.
1:10:42- So yeah, that is the second edition
1:10:44of the Theme System Journal.
1:10:45It is available right now.
1:10:48- It's really real.
1:10:49Like, this day is finally here.
1:10:52- Yeah. (laughing)
1:10:53I kind of can't believe it at this point.
1:10:55- I know.
1:10:56- We have more of these in stock
1:10:58than we've ever had before,
1:10:59but I have no idea,
1:11:01I genuinely have no idea how we could either have enough
1:11:03stock for six months or six weeks.
1:11:05We never know with this.
1:11:07- We never know.
1:11:07- We have ordered the most we've ever ordered
1:11:09because this is the time of the year
1:11:11that people want them the most for good reason.
1:11:13- Yes.
1:11:14- Now is the time to go and buy one.
1:11:15Go to cortexmerch.com
1:11:17and you can pick up a Theme System Journal,
1:11:19second edition for yourself right now.
1:11:21They are in stock and ready to ship.
1:11:23So if you check it out, we really appreciate it.
1:11:26And I hope that if you do pick up one of these,
1:11:29not only will it help you with your year,
1:11:31I hope that you'll be able to tell how much work went into it.
1:11:34I want to reiterate that I'm a big believer in this idea of themes for your year.
1:11:41I think it is by far one of the biggest impact things you can possibly do for the least amount
1:11:51of effort.
1:11:52So if you are thinking about it at all, I really suggest you give the Theme System Journal
1:11:59try. Do it to express your gratitude for the tremendous amount of work that Myke has put in,
1:12:05and do it for yourself, for the, like I said, the dawn of a new year for a way to, a way to
1:12:12improve things. And also for the Cortex listeners, just to let you know, like, yes, Myke and I have
1:12:19put in a very big order of journals, um, but I am going to promote this on my YouTube channel
1:12:26At some point. So, I'm just saying right now, if you want a journal, now is the time to buy them to make sure that you get a journal.
1:12:39Because we, look, be real, we legitimately have no idea what that's going to mean. We don't know what that's going to mean.
1:12:45Yeah, we don't have any idea. Like, you know, are the YouTube viewers as interested in the journal as the Cortex listeners?
1:12:55I have no idea but I am just saying like if you're listening to this episode right now
1:13:02and you think yeah I want a journal you should get a journal right now.
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1:15:44Alright Gray, what is your 2021 yearly theme?
1:15:48*sigh*
1:15:50I'm like, every year I feel like you want me to just dive right into it.
1:15:55You can take whatever route you want to take.
1:15:58I'm perfectly fine just telling you this year.
1:16:01Oh, okay.
1:16:02This year is year of the voyage.
1:16:07Oh man that's good. Ah see I hate it because I really struggled with my name this year
1:16:12and you have such a good one. The names the names are hard the names are totally hard.
1:16:18Well sometimes they're easy most of the time they're hard like sometimes the name just like
1:16:23boom right like year of shift I was super happy with that and it came to me really easily. This
1:16:29year's name was a little trickier but yeah well like I don't I don't know if you even want to talk
1:16:33about it now, but like, you know, we've, you know, because obviously we know we're going to be talking
1:16:36about the themes at the end of the year. We never discuss what our themes actually are, but we have
1:16:42sometimes had conversations sort of about the ideas of the themes, and I knew that you were
1:16:51having some trouble coming up with a theme for this year, which I think, again, is no surprise,
1:17:00And it is also why, like, you know, when we talked about it, I wasn't worried either because, you know,
1:17:06I had only just settled on my idea of a theme, which again is months later than it normally happens.
1:17:12So I think it's just a, it's a, it's a difficult year for things to come together and to think about.
1:17:19And also then having for, for us being in the position of having a name that also has to not
1:17:27not just mean something for us,
1:17:28but can communicate something to the listener
1:17:31also adds a difficult challenge
1:17:33in what is the yearly theme gonna be.
1:17:36- Yeah, exactly.
1:17:37What I will say about that now is
1:17:41I've really struggled until it's crystallized.
1:17:44- Oh, okay, good, good.
1:17:45- Right, there was a point in the last couple of weeks
1:17:47working on this where I was like, I got it now.
1:17:50- So, "Year of the Voyage" is different in several ways.
1:17:56One of the things about this theme for me is, you know, as we've discussed, I think it is important that themes...
1:18:07It's not that they can't have a fail state, but you should try to design them so that they don't have a fail state.
1:18:13You know, thinking about how this year was very unexpected.
1:18:17You know, we're also in a situation where, again, the variance of what next year could be is quite high.
1:18:25It's hard to know, like, what is the next year going to look like.
1:18:29And so for me, I very much wanted to have a theme that was a coin with two sides.
1:18:37And so the first part of that is, when you were talking about
1:18:42how will clarity continue to be part of your life going into the future?
1:18:46It's interesting because yes, that is a thing that will happen.
1:18:50But what I really want to establish as the thing going forward in my life indefinitely
1:18:59is this idea of Spaceship You.
1:19:03Like, I think for me this year, like, anyone who has listened to us talk on Cortex for years knows, like,
1:19:11I've been talking about a lot of the ideas in Spaceship You for a long time.
1:19:18None of it is like, "Oh, I just came up with all of this stuff this year."
1:19:21But the pandemic forced me into a consolidation of a bunch of what I knew were the most important ideas in working life for me
1:19:32and also gave them just an incredibly solid mental framework.
1:19:38And so the first side of the coin is, no matter what happens in the rest of the year,
1:19:46no matter what it looks like, you should be able to really double down on your life is spaceship
1:19:58you now. That you're going to maintain this incredibly strict separation in the physical
1:20:07environments and really make this part of your life. Another reason for having this big year of
1:20:16of the voyage and thinking like, this is a year's goal that no matter what happens, you're
1:20:22going to keep up with this concept.
1:20:26Is because I think like, of course, even for me, like 2020, it wasn't all sunshine and roses.
1:20:33Like there was one part in the year where I was feeling really down and we'd sort of discussed
1:20:38it a little bit on the show.
1:20:40And part of what had happened at that point in time was like, I just recognized that I had
1:20:46lost track of reassessment points.
1:20:48You know, what started in the year as like, okay, we'll lock down for two weeks
1:20:54and then we'll reassess in a month and then we'll reassess on July 4th.
1:20:59That after one of those, there was no reassessment points and that
1:21:05rapidly just felt terrible.
1:21:07Like, oh, I guess we're just going to stay inside indefinitely.
1:21:13There's nothing to count on the calendar.
1:21:15on the calendar, like it happened very subtly without really noticing.
1:21:19And it was also very helpful with Year of Clarity because it, once I
1:21:24recognize what was going on, I was able to kind of like think through the
1:21:27situation and realize what the problem is.
1:21:29And so one of the things that I want to do with Year of the Voyage is actually
1:21:33set like this reassessment point one year in the future and have it be for me a
1:21:41little bit like how you often describe the themes as a North star, that like,
1:21:47this is a, this is a guiding point.
1:21:50There's, there will always be like a reassessment point, no matter what
1:21:55happens, that is next year when we discuss our themes, that one of the big
1:22:00things will be the continuation and the deepening integration of Spaceship
1:22:08U into my life.
1:22:10What will you be reassessing?
1:22:11Well, so what I mean by a reassessment point is just in the same way that
1:22:16lockdown has been extended a bunch of times, I want to be able to know we are
1:22:24having another year of Spaceship U no matter what happens in the external world.
1:22:30Because that concept is not intrinsically linked to lockdown.
1:22:36That concept is much more about how do I work?
1:22:41And in this year, even, I mean, just some of the dumb stuff
1:22:45that we've talked about over the course of the year,
1:22:46like, oh, I painted my office deep blue, right?
1:22:51To visually separate the space.
1:22:54That stuff has also really contributed
1:22:56to doing more core work in this space.
1:23:01Like, that has totally helped.
1:23:03And I feel like I've gotten much more into the projects when I'm working here.
1:23:08And so this is like the thing that I want to keep going and just keeping
1:23:17this going is a good theme for the year.
1:23:22Like in the world of all possible variances, this is an important thing
1:23:27Because maybe 2021 looks a lot like 2020.
1:23:33We don't know.
1:23:34Maybe it doesn't, but I'm pre deciding now that in both of those scenarios,
1:23:40embodying spaceship you is a good idea.
1:23:46And so when I say year of the voyage, there is a way in which that means like
1:23:52means like this is an internal voyage into the way that I maintain and think about and use the
1:24:03physical spaces around me to facilitate and encourage the activities that I want to do.
1:24:09Exercise, work, health, all the rest of it. So this is like setting the North Star.
1:24:16And I guess at a certain point, whether this year or the next year, part of it will be
1:24:23how do you take the expedition craft out into the world, right?
1:24:28Like how do you move the spaceship with you if you're going somewhere else, right?
1:24:34Okay, exactly.
1:24:36Now we get to the other side of the coin, which is Year of the Voyage.
1:24:42One year of lockdown was refreshing.
1:24:46Two is probably too much.
1:24:49(laughing)
1:24:51Right?
1:24:53And so--
1:24:54- Too much of a good lockdown.
1:24:56- Yeah, it's too much of a good lockdown.
1:24:58I like that.
1:24:58And one of the things that was just growing on my mind
1:25:06as we came to the end of the year
1:25:08and thinking about like, what are the themes?
1:25:11What's next year going to look like?
1:25:13I realized that long-term, I am not going to go two years without seeing my family in
1:25:24person.
1:25:25Like, I don't care what the state of the pandemic is, that is not going to happen.
1:25:32This is partly what I mean by like, year of the voyage in some ways is the opposite of
1:25:37the fuzzy wuzzy year of clarity.
1:25:39Like, I am kind of setting myself up with a little bit of a fail state, but also this
1:25:45is one of these things of like, if I've ever been determined about anything, this is one
1:25:51of these things that I'm determined about.
1:25:52Like, I refuse to go two years without seeing my family in person, and there is almost no
1:26:02price to pay that it, like, that I wouldn't pay.
1:26:06Like, do I have to be in America, do the lockdown thing for two weeks and like, risk getting
1:26:11Corona at the airport, right?
1:26:13Like all of this stuff, it's at some point the scales go on the other side.
1:26:18At time of recording, we're in a very interesting position with regards to all of that because
1:26:24You can be like cautiously in large caps, optimistic, lower case, italic
1:26:35subscript about next year with some of the things about the vaccine rolling out.
1:26:42And so it, it does actually throw some interesting complications into how do I
1:26:49think about the risk and reward of endeavoring on a trip to the United States
1:26:53at some point next year if it is going to happen.
1:26:56It does change some of the mental calculus of like,
1:26:59when should that happen and all of the rest of that.
1:27:03But it doesn't change the fundamental decision of like,
1:27:06it's going to happen one way or another.
1:27:10Yeah.
1:27:10Cause I guess when you say complication, it's like, if there was no vaccine,
1:27:14then it's like, well, there's no good or bad time to go.
1:27:18It's always bad.
1:27:18I'll just go.
1:27:19That's it.
1:27:20So this is the funny thing, like I decided on year of the voyage, basically
1:27:25two weeks before all of the positive news about the vaccine started coming out.
1:27:29And that doesn't change my calculation, but it does like at time of recording,
1:27:36it does mentally for me push back.
1:27:39When does this mean?
1:27:41I'm like, okay, right now the correct risk reward decision is to wait until
1:27:48there is more information about the vaccine and how fast it's rolling out and like, blah,
1:27:53blah, blah, blah, blah. That may mean pushing back the trip to later in the year does make
1:27:59sense. Whereas yes, when there's no vaccine, it's like, I could go in January, right? Because
1:28:05there's, there's no upside in waiting at all. There's just downside in that it takes longer.
1:28:09So that's like the opposite side of the coin is a very specific thing that in most
1:28:19years would saying like, "Oh, my theme is Year of the Voyage and one of the things that's
1:28:24going to happen is I'm going to America."
1:28:26I'm going to discover the foreign land.
1:28:28Yeah, like it would feel like such a tiny and inconsequential thing to have part of
1:28:32it as a theme, but I actually expect like when this happens, it will probably be a big
1:28:38deal.
1:28:39kind of thing where I have to make a lot of plans about, okay, burning maybe two weeks
1:28:45before and two weeks after and how does this work and if I'm in America, like, how do I
1:28:50coordinate everything that's going to happen?
1:28:51Like, when the trip happens, it's going to be a logistic deal no matter what the situation
1:28:58is.
1:28:59So that is the long term and the big term is like, I will see my family in 2021.
1:29:07There is a smaller part of that, which is the shorter term.
1:29:12- Right, so we have long term, big term, short term.
1:29:14(laughing)
1:29:15Do we have tiny term?
1:29:18- No, no, no, like, okay, it's very simple.
1:29:20It's a coin, there's two sides of the coin.
1:29:22- There's three things.
1:29:23(laughing)
1:29:24- Right, the others, no, no,
1:29:26but the other side of the coin has two parts, right?
1:29:28The long term and the short term.
1:29:30- When you say like big term,
1:29:31it's like if the coin lands on its edge.
1:29:33- By the way, I haven't told you yet
1:29:35that there's a sub theme, but we can get to that later.
1:29:37Nice!
1:29:38[Laughter]
1:29:39I'm taking a page out of your book with the sub-theme.
1:29:42But so, for Year of the Voyage, the other part of that is also, I have to get out of
1:29:48the house more.
1:29:49Again, like, I've loved Lockdown more than any man on the face of the earth, probably,
1:29:54but again, it's not a situation that I can have continue indefinitely.
1:30:00Like it just can't.
1:30:02And one of the things that I have for this theme is exploring the things that are safely
1:30:11within my radius.
1:30:14You know, last year I was thinking like, "Oh, I'm going to explore the world and I'm going
1:30:18to see all of these things and I can make videos on the interesting places that I visit."
1:30:23And this year I'm kind of revisiting that but on a much smaller scale.
1:30:28So I definitely do want to get out of the house more and I know myself I need an excuse
1:30:37to do that. Like I need a reason to do it.
1:30:41Yes, yes.
1:30:42And I can't just tell myself like, "I'm gonna get out of the house more because I
1:30:46won't. Like I won't do it. I've lived with me long enough to know that he needs
1:30:52two reasons to do a thing. One reason is never enough."
1:30:55- Yeah.
1:30:56(laughing)
1:30:58Yeah, that's really good.
1:31:00- What do you wanna think about that bike?
1:31:01- No, that's like a really beautiful way of summing it up.
1:31:04I like that.
1:31:05- Yeah, and so I did do like,
1:31:10I did do a very tiny test of this,
1:31:14which is I did get myself a bike,
1:31:18which is something I haven't owned in London
1:31:21in like 10 years.
1:31:22But part of the reason I also convinced myself to get a bike was, "Oh, you can now go to places that are outside your walking travel radius," which is what you've been limited to for the previous year.
1:31:37And you know, who knows, maybe you'll film a video about those things.
1:31:42Maybe you'll make a video about the very fact that you got this bike.
1:31:45Like I needed to give myself this excuse for the reason to get it.
1:31:50and just having the bike and being able to extend
1:31:54my travel radius has been a really nice improvement for me.
1:31:59So here's, okay, so here's where I'm gonna like call
1:32:04on the cortex and a little bit to help me out with this.
1:32:07Let me talk about the frustrations of being someone
1:32:10who runs a YouTube channel sometimes.
1:32:13- Wait, what do you, you sometimes run it
1:32:15or sometimes have frustration?
1:32:17- Sometimes have these frustrations, right?
1:32:19So it's specific to being a YouTube channel.
1:32:21So keeping this in mind, I've been thinking like,
1:32:24okay, I've lived in London a long time
1:32:26and I know some of the interesting places
1:32:29that exist in the city.
1:32:30And like, oh, I'm aware of interesting places
1:32:33that exist in England in a way that like,
1:32:35just when you live somewhere,
1:32:36you like come across these places.
1:32:39And so I've tried a few times in thinking about
1:32:43how am I gonna do this to reach out to places
1:32:48that I think, "Hey, wouldn't you love to have me come and make a video about your place?
1:32:54Oh, or I know this interesting thing is here. Can you just grant me access to be able to
1:33:01see this thing, like, when no one else is around? Just give me access to be able to
1:33:05film this thing and I can talk about it, and wouldn't that be cool?" You know, you're
1:33:10a little museum that's open to the public, or, you know, you're just—there's a million
1:33:14places like this in a big city that are interesting places. And I cannot tell you how incredibly
1:33:21frustrating this is to actually try to do because every place that I've contacted, this
1:33:29is how the conversation goes. "Oh man, we would love promotion. What television network
1:33:35are you with?" And I go, "I am a YouTuber." And they go, "Oh."
1:33:42[laughs]
1:33:43Right?
1:33:43Where they go like-
1:33:44And, and from, at this point, it, it blows my mind how frustrating the conversations
1:33:51are or how quickly this gets shut down.
1:33:53And they're like, we would love to be able to show off this thing or like, yes,
1:33:57please come let us know the number of crew who are going to be here.
1:34:00And I'm like, no, it's just going to be me.
1:34:02It's going to be me and my phone.
1:34:04And then it's, it's somehow completely impossible to do.
1:34:07It's infuriating.
1:34:11It's absolutely infuriating.
1:34:13It's like more people than the typical television show would even command, right?
1:34:19Yeah, I mean, this is one of these things where this is going to sound like a brag,
1:34:22but it's less than a brag that it sounds like, which is, yes, if I made a video about
1:34:27like some interesting places in the city, I know my vlogs don't get the same number of views
1:34:32as the animated things do, but if you are in the orbit of the entertainment world,
1:34:39I never don't find it shocking how low TV viewership numbers are.
1:34:47When I know someone who's involved with an actual TV show and they tell me like,
1:34:53the viewership numbers, I don't understand how that entire industry exists.
1:34:58It's shocking. It's absolutely shocking.
1:35:01Well, no, great. What it's just showing is how undervalued online advertising is, right?
1:35:08That's what it is, because it's just advertising that's keeping it going,
1:35:12but for some reason people find that allure of TV worth the money.
1:35:16I guess. I mean, I guess that must be what it is.
1:35:19But yeah, so like I find myself in these weird Alice in Wonderland kind of conversations of like,
1:35:24I can almost guarantee you I can get more people to know about the work that you do,
1:35:29or know about this museum or whatever, but you only want to work with TV things.
1:35:34Like it's just, it's maddening. Like it's totally maddening.
1:35:37And so, yeah, I found myself really thwarted on what were basically my first five or six ideas of,
1:35:45"Oh, I would make a video about this place," or "Oh, I would make a video about that place."
1:35:48And I've contacted them and they're like, "We're not interested unless you're TV."
1:35:52And so my call here to the Cortex audience is like, "Okay, listen, I know some of you
1:36:00live in the United Kingdom."
1:36:02Right.
1:36:04Okay.
1:36:05If you work at a place that you think is interesting, get in touch.
1:36:12This, this is all I'm saying.
1:36:14I feel like with every one of these places, I just need an in.
1:36:17Like I need someone who's there.
1:36:20To vouch for you.
1:36:21Who, who, who vouches, who can vouch for this, right?
1:36:23And who can be like, oh, this guy will make an interesting video about the
1:36:30thing that we do here or the location that this is, and I've listened to him
1:36:35to him for years and watch his videos for years, you don't have to worry that this is like some
1:36:41rogue prank YouTube channel or whatever.
1:36:43He's not going to come in and punk us.
1:36:46Yeah, he's not going to like smash your vase because it's funny, right?
1:36:50But yeah, like that has totally been my-
1:36:56So annoying.
1:36:57It's incredibly annoying.
1:36:58And like, I don't want to name any of these institutions in particular.
1:37:01Ah, let's do it, let's put them on blast.
1:37:03[laughter]
1:37:05No, I'm not gonna do it.
1:37:07But I've just had...
1:37:09just some crazy exchanges
1:37:13where it...
1:37:15it 100% has the feeling of like
1:37:19if someone in this room
1:37:21just watched my channel, this would be fine
1:37:25and you would let this happen. But I think there's something really weird
1:37:29and off-putting to people of like, "I'm not going to be showing up with a crew."
1:37:33You know what it like, my assumption as well, like I would expect for a lot of the types of
1:37:37places that you're trying to get in contact with and stuff, the perception of YouTubers is not good.
1:37:43And they heard about the person and the bad thing that they did, and that's what they must all be.
1:37:49So we don't trust these kids and the YouTubers.
1:37:54Yeah, yeah. So this is like my other side of the year of the voyage is I've got to get out of the
1:38:01house. I'm definitely seeing my family, that's 100% happening, but also I need to create reasons for
1:38:08me to get out of the house because otherwise I know me and I won't. And so again, no matter what
1:38:17happens in the world, I am fairly confident that I can arrange safe transportation within
1:38:26the United Kingdom to an interesting location.
1:38:29Like that's a totally achievable thing, you know, no matter what's going on.
1:38:33So what is the mechanism for these interesting places to get in contact with you then?
1:38:39Yeah, so I want you to use the contact form on my webpage.
1:38:43So it's cgpgray.com/contact.
1:38:44That's where you should go.
1:38:45It would be in the show notes too.
1:38:47- Yeah, it'll be in the show notes.
1:38:49- I feel confident for you here because we do not have
1:38:52the largest podcast audience in the world,
1:38:55but we have a big one.
1:38:57And our audience sometimes makes me feel like the world
1:39:01is smaller than it is.
1:39:03Because there's been many times where I've said a thing
1:39:07or we've said a thing or we've asked for something
1:39:09and somehow we end up finding someone.
1:39:14- Yeah.
1:39:15And so I feel good for you in this because this is exactly the type of thing that surprises us a bunch.
1:39:21Where like, "Oh, hang on a minute. This person does have an inn in this place."
1:39:27And I think there's like, we've spoken about it as like a selection effect and all that kind of stuff, right?
1:39:32That there is probably an over indexing of the type of people that work at the type of places that you would like to visit
1:39:39that would also listen to this show for the same reasons that you want to go to those places.
1:39:43Yes, exactly. So this is also what I'm betting on here is the
1:39:48Cortex audience is not going to be a representative sample of the general population.
1:39:54No.
1:39:55If I can say so, Myke. I think our audience on average is much more interesting than the general population.
1:40:00I would agree with that. I've met lots of our audience and they are.
1:40:03There's no way that's not true. And so the chances of those listeners working at a place that's interesting
1:40:11or like knowing someone who they can recommend to be like, "Hey, this guy's looking for projects,
1:40:16you know, get in touch."
1:40:17And so what I also just want to specify with this is "interesting" is this word that I
1:40:22use a lot, and it's because I think it is impossible to describe characteristic of minds.
1:40:31Why do people find things interesting?
1:40:33Impossible to say.
1:40:34Why is F1 interesting to you?
1:40:37Why did it stick in your mind?
1:40:39sort of give reasons and describe the sport or whatever, but like fundamentally, I feel like it's
1:40:45it's just a thing that exists in brains. And so when I say like I'm looking for interesting
1:40:53places, that is an extremely broad invitation. Some of the places I have tried to contact,
1:41:01I think very many people would regard as super boring, right? But it's like, I think that they're
1:41:08doing something interesting in this location.
1:41:10So what I would encourage people to say is like, don't doubt
1:41:16that the place is interesting.
1:41:17Like just, we've talked about rolling the dice on, on this show.
1:41:22And, and this is a case of like, I want to encourage listeners to just
1:41:26roll the dice and get in touch.
1:41:29And like, maybe something works out.
1:41:31There's nothing to lose here for either of us of just like, I sometimes don't
1:41:35even know what will catch my own interests.
1:41:38So this doesn't have to be like,
1:41:41"Oh, I'm the curator of the British Museum."
1:41:45Right? Like that is not what I'm looking for.
1:41:47(laughing)
1:41:49- I am the aid to her Royal Highness.
1:41:55- Yeah, exactly.
1:41:56Like, now, you know, keep in mind,
1:41:59I'm not gonna turn those down, right?
1:42:00- No, if you are one of those people,
1:42:03you have got a leg up,
1:42:04but you don't have to be one of those people.
1:42:07Yeah, yeah, and I think, you know, again, I feel like I can say this to the listeners
1:42:13here because they're going to be familiar with like the kinds of things I've made videos
1:42:17about, and I think one of the favorite comments I ever receive on videos is when people say
1:42:22something like, "I never thought I would be interested in this topic, but like I really
1:42:29liked this video."
1:42:31And I think a lot of the things that I cover at first glance can seem quite boring, but
1:42:38there's actually something quite interesting about them.
1:42:43Just to give an example of the kind of thing that I'm thinking of.
1:42:46Myke, do you know the UK property show Escape to the Country?
1:42:51MIKE Oh my god, yes, Ray, I know Escape to the Country.
1:42:55[Laughter]
1:42:57How would you describe it for the listeners?
1:43:02Two retired people want to move from the city to the countryside in England.
1:43:09People who claim to be estate agents or were once estate agents in their life but now present
1:43:14this television show, I guess just go online and find a selection of properties that they
1:43:21They will then take the retired couple to go and look at in the hopes of finding them
1:43:27a new home.
1:43:28It is like white glove Zoopla or whatever, right?
1:43:31Like it is white glove real estate.
1:43:34They will then talk about it and nobody ever buys one of those houses.
1:43:37Well, when they do buy a house, it happens maybe one in a hundred episodes is the most
1:43:40exciting thing that ever happens.
1:43:42And it always happens in the post-credits section as well.
1:43:45I happened to catch an episode recently of a show that was not Escape to the Country,
1:43:49it's one of the other various spin-offs of this show
1:43:51where they like escape to Spain or whatever.
1:43:54And they actually made an offer on the show
1:43:57and I could not believe it.
1:43:58(laughing)
1:44:01- Like this has genuinely been one of my favorite shows
1:44:06for years, like it's been on forever.
1:44:09- Which is why I groaned because--
1:44:11(laughing)
1:44:12- 'Cause yeah, you know, I mentioned it.
1:44:13- The Grays will bring up "Escape to the Country" a lot.
1:44:17- We watch it a lot, right?
1:44:18We love it. It's great.
1:44:20- Look, I know, I know you do.
1:44:23- So the reason I bring it up now, again,
1:44:27is the key characteristic that I love about the show
1:44:32is they almost never,
1:44:34there's like cuts and edits are very rare.
1:44:37Like the whole thing just plays out so slowly
1:44:40and it's brilliant.
1:44:42I love it.
1:44:43But the thing that happens also on this show
1:44:46is to mix things up a little bit.
1:44:48You know, they'll, they'll visit the first two houses and then they have a
1:44:53little like intermission where they'll often visit some local place in the area.
1:45:00And they'll, they'll do a little, it's often, it's like an arts and craft
1:45:05section where they're like, "Oh, we've gone to this brewery to help
1:45:08the local brewer brew his beer."
1:45:10Here is where they put paper over cheese.
1:45:14And this is what this little shop does, is like, they make the nice folded paper that
1:45:18goes on top of the cheese.
1:45:19Cuz you definitely- you need a break from all of the hot property action.
1:45:24You gotta calm things down a bit.
1:45:25Just a couple days ago we saw an episode that I felt like took this to brand new heights,
1:45:31which was, they visited a button museum, right?
1:45:34Which was just about buttons.
1:45:41And-
1:45:42And the woman who was in charge of the button museum was talking about
1:45:47the history of button making.
1:45:49And I was sitting there on the couch like, wow, this is what I mean by like,
1:45:54you don't have to hit an amazing bar.
1:45:56Like I watch escape to the country and find the sections where they go to like
1:46:02just the local horse, bride-ery place, right.
1:46:07Or they're going to take lessons on whatever.
1:46:09they're going to take lessons on whatever.
1:46:10Like I find all of those sections delightful and I love them.
1:46:14- You've definitely set the bar with the Barton Museum.
1:46:17Like you're good now, everyone gets it.
1:46:19(laughing)
1:46:21- So that's, I just wanted to clarify on that part of that.
1:46:24So that's Year of the Voyage.
1:46:28- Man, I cannot wait for the like kind of pointless
1:46:32CGP Grey travel show.
1:46:34I'm genuinely like really excited about it.
1:46:36'cause I know it's something that you would be very good at too.
1:46:41Here's the thing, like, I don't even really know what I'm doing here, right?
1:46:45But I just think I've been trying to do something like this for a while.
1:46:51And T-Coy was the first time I really made something along these lines of like,
1:46:59"Oh, I went to a place and just filmed it.
1:47:02and it turned into a year-long nightmare that exploded in my face.
1:47:07But it was like, I was still really glad to have done it and gone to this place.
1:47:12And I've also had the frustration of over the past few years
1:47:16trying this in a few ways, and like,
1:47:20it had just— other projects like just haven't quite worked out.
1:47:24But I do feel like,
1:47:27again, it will never have the kind of audience that the animated stuff does,
1:47:31But there's definitely some section of the audience who does like the vlogs
1:47:37and people who liked the T-Coy video and a couple of just like the, you know, the live stuff that I've done.
1:47:44And so, I feel like if I'm going to try to set an explicit goal to explore this more,
1:47:53this is the year to do it.
1:47:55This is the time to do it as a way to trick and force myself out of this really comfortable shell that I've been living in for the past year.
1:48:08And so it's also why, like, I'm very happy to kind of put myself on record by making a call to the audience of like,
1:48:16"Get in touch if you think you're at an interesting place."
1:48:21and, you know, I don't know if worldwide travel is a thing that's going to happen this year,
1:48:27but I feel like I can safely negotiate UK-wide travel no matter what happens.
1:48:34I'm not gonna lie, this is my favorite of your themes.
1:48:37Okay, I wasn't sure what your reaction would be. I feel like this is a little ridiculous and weird.
1:48:43Well, that's kind of why I like it. It's got like a real practical element and then like
1:48:50an interesting like challenge and then also this spectacular little project in the middle.
1:48:56I'm glad you like it. Now I do have a subtheme but I cannot continue onward with the show
1:49:05without knowing what your theme is like I need to know what are you what's what's the mic theme
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1:50:54[BEEP]
1:50:55The Year of Reinvention.
1:50:56Ooh, okay.
1:50:58So I have like an overall kind of like statement to it and then in my usual way a bunch of little
1:51:05things that ladder up into this wider theme.
1:51:09So the second half of 2020, maybe like the last three quarters, I guess, has seen just an immense
1:51:17amount of change in my professional life.
1:51:20And I mean, this was encapsulated by the year of shift, right?
1:51:24Like everything I had to do to get where I needed to be, where I wanted to be, to achieve what I had
1:51:31set out that year to start achieving, you know, just to get all those things done was harder, right?
1:51:37like getting the journal ready.
1:51:38Like the plan was always,
1:51:40the second edition will be ready now.
1:51:43And like even doing that was monumentally more difficult
1:51:46because of COVID, right?
1:51:48So just getting to that part to get to now
1:51:52was just to saw a lot of change
1:51:54and a lot of things that I had to do differently.
1:51:57And 2021 is gonna be focused on making these things
1:52:03regular parts of my life, permanent things.
1:52:07So the stuff that I wanna do in 2021,
1:52:11it's not all brand new,
1:52:12but all of these parts add up to the new overall thing.
1:52:18So I was really like,
1:52:22the working title of 2021 was a year of new
1:52:26but I didn't wanna make it that.
1:52:28And then the more that I've kind of focused
1:52:32these elements I came up with reinvention. So like, the world is going to be different post-pandemic
1:52:39and so will I. Maybe in more of a way than I would have thought. So got a bunch of things here.
1:52:47New outlets for myself is one of them. One of the things that I really wanted from the year
1:52:55of refinement was hobbies. New hobbies. And I have ended up walking into some of them just
1:53:01over this last few months and building and customizing mechanical keyboards has been
1:53:08that thing for me. This was the thing that came up on the show a long time ago and we spoke about it
1:53:14a while ago and I've kind of been talking about my journey a little bit more in Mortex, which is our
1:53:21member show. You can go to getmortex.com and you can sign up. And I've been kind of like
1:53:27checking in with you on this along the way.
1:53:29And at this point, this has become something
1:53:32that I have absolutely loved this year,
1:53:37is finding this new hobby for myself
1:53:39and being able to do something with my hands
1:53:44and learn skills and take in knowledge and information
1:53:49in a world that I knew nothing about
1:53:52or didn't even know existed.
1:53:55So that's been like a real great outlet for my energy.
1:53:59And the type of media and entertainment and information that I can
1:54:05consume in this world is a really great
1:54:09distraction from other things.
1:54:12Because there's very little realistic,
1:54:17practical overlap with the rest of my other pursuits.
1:54:20Like there are things that are similar, you know,
1:54:23like you use these keyboards with your computer, right?
1:54:27Like they are electronic, you know?
1:54:29And there are like these parallels
1:54:31with design and aesthetics, right?
1:54:34But it's not like how gaming and technology
1:54:39are basically the same industry, right?
1:54:41- Yes, yeah.
1:54:42There's too much overlap.
1:54:43- Too much overlap.
1:54:45And this is way less overlap.
1:54:48And so I've been really enjoying it for that.
1:54:50And I still have more to say on that,
1:54:52but that's coming in a later part of the theme.
1:54:55But just general hardware tinkering is something
1:54:58that I also wanna do a little bit more of,
1:55:01because now I'm getting a little bit more comfortable
1:55:05with electronics, because you kind of have to learn
1:55:09some of the basic steps in building keyboards, right?
1:55:13- You know how to solder now.
1:55:14- I know how to solder now.
1:55:15So stuff like that, it's bringing down
1:55:18some of those barriers from a world of technology
1:55:20that before now I've been kind of like that.
1:55:23I couldn't even begin to understand that.
1:55:25And it's like one thing that I want to do,
1:55:26which is similar to this in some ways is I want to build a new PC.
1:55:30So that's going to be something that I'm going to do early in the year.
1:55:32But in general, outside of these things,
1:55:37I want to find and continue to identify new places
1:55:41for my energy and my creativity.
1:55:44There were times in 2020, especially like many people
1:55:47where I felt stuck in a rut.
1:55:51I'm going through the motions here.
1:55:54So I want to continue to feed my desire for new things
1:55:58and new interests that I've always had
1:56:00and continue to have.
1:56:02And it's one of the things that I think is best about me
1:56:05and why I can have the type of career that I have
1:56:09in the type of podcasts and media that I create
1:56:12is that I have an insatiable need for new information.
1:56:17and curiosity and finding out about new stuff.
1:56:20And I want to continue to feed that about myself
1:56:22because it is what makes me feel creatively fulfilled.
1:56:26I notice about myself,
1:56:29one of the problems that I've fallen into in the past
1:56:32is that it meant that I needed
1:56:33to make new podcasts about them.
1:56:35And I have definitely been able now to decouple that,
1:56:38that I don't have to make a new podcast
1:56:42about everything that I'm interested in.
1:56:44This is something that I have learned
1:56:46over the last couple of years.
1:56:48And that this actually dovetails into,
1:56:51but what it doesn't mean is that I can't do stuff
1:56:54with this information.
1:56:56So with keyboards, keyboards have brought
1:57:00Twitch streaming back into my life.
1:57:01And for the last two or three months,
1:57:05every single week, at least once a week,
1:57:07I have been doing a Twitch stream focused around keyboards.
1:57:12And it's been really great.
1:57:14And so this is part of the next thing,
1:57:15which is doing something new.
1:57:18And I have been setting this thing up
1:57:20so that in 2021 it can become a more permanent fixture
1:57:25in my life again, and like video, right?
1:57:28Because I love video, I love things in video.
1:57:31Video has lots of considerations and things to learn
1:57:34and things to get better at, but I hate editing video.
1:57:38- Right.
1:57:39- And so I stayed away from video.
1:57:42I like the production of making it
1:57:44and everything that goes into it,
1:57:45but I don't like all of the stuff that happens after it.
1:57:48You don't have to edit Twitch videos because it's all live
1:57:52and what you do is done and that's it.
1:57:54When I press stop broadcasting,
1:57:56I can just go on with my life.
1:57:58There's no more.
1:57:59And I really like that about the medium
1:58:02because I'm used to producing live.
1:58:04Like I do it all the time.
1:58:07It's not a concern for me.
1:58:09It's very easy for me to do that.
1:58:10It's part of my skillset.
1:58:12And being able to do this stuff with Twitch is great
1:58:14because I don't have to do something that I consider to be really difficult.
1:58:18You know, video editing is much more time consuming than audio editing.
1:58:22I can do it. I'm happy with my ability and my skill.
1:58:26I just don't enjoy it. And so I really like Twitch streaming for that.
1:58:30And it's really great to build this
1:58:33new little community and new interest and
1:58:37I've been super pleased with my progress so far
1:58:40and I'm really really enjoying the Twitch streaming stuff.
1:58:44But there's something that goes alongside all of this, which I hadn't
1:58:49realized was important to me, which is building something that belongs to me only.
1:58:56I don't have this. I am genuinely blessed to work with some of the most
1:59:03interesting people I've ever met and I love working with all of the people that
1:59:08that I have the pleasure of working with.
1:59:10But I also have to
1:59:13collaborate with all...
1:59:16I can't just make decisions in the content that I produce
1:59:19and no one can tell me I don't want to do that or I would prefer to do it this way
1:59:24or why don't we try it that way.
1:59:26I don't have something that's only mine.
1:59:29Like, I have co-hosts, I have partners in all of my endeavors.
1:59:36And in the last 10 years, maybe even more, my whole kind of like creative professional life
1:59:44for all of my endeavors, someone's been there with me, which has its so many upsides.
1:59:51But I haven't had my own space to do my own thing about something that I really care about.
2:00:00And what I love about the keyboard stuff and the Twitch streaming that go together is that
2:00:08all of this is completely unconnected to my previous endeavors. No one else that I know
2:00:14is into this like I am. This is something that I found on my own and I love and you have a
2:00:25a keyboard and you love your keyboard.
2:00:27Yes, that's correct.
2:00:29I have a keyboard and that is where it ends.
2:00:31Right, but it's something that you care about is having the tool that you like.
2:00:35And my co-host on Upgrade, Jason, he has a similar thing where he has a keyboard that
2:00:40he likes and he went through a process of finding the one that worked for him and then
2:00:44stopped, right?
2:00:45But this is an area which is constantly evolving and there's all these cool designers and there's
2:00:51all these artisans.
2:00:52and there's actually quite a lot of parallels with my pen hobby
2:00:57and the keyboard hobby.
2:00:59They have similarities, which is how this whole thing began.
2:01:01But this is a thing where nobody that I work with cares really about this world,
2:01:09like I do.
2:01:10And it's a whole world of content creators and designers similar to the world that I'm in,
2:01:18but it's over there on its own.
2:01:21And I'm really loving trying to get into this world more and learning what it's all about
2:01:28and the terminology and who the cool people are and it's like this whole thing.
2:01:34And I love that it's everything I'm building is just mine.
2:01:37So like, it's like working on the branding of it all.
2:01:41I am the one who makes the final decisions and all of that.
2:01:45And what it all means and what it looks like and what the content I'm going to do is and
2:01:50when I'm gonna do it and how often and how long and everything is just mine and
2:01:55I am really enjoying all of what that means for me and it's so far been a very
2:02:03refreshing thing and it's been a great thing to have on my calendar to look
2:02:09forward to every week and to make headway in. It's been fantastic I've
2:02:14loved it. Having side projects in general is healthy for me. If I'm able to learn
2:02:20new things along the way it's a great bonus and what I'm really enjoying about
2:02:25this whole thing right now is that I'm starting to build a thing which is
2:02:30meaningful to me and is my thing to move forward and I'm loving that.
2:02:36I have to say, talking to you over the course of this year, you have been so genuinely
2:02:42when talking about keyboards and so engaged with it.
2:02:46And I've been startled at how huge this world is
2:02:51that you've shown me.
2:02:53(laughs)
2:02:55And I think like my dad always said
2:02:56that everything is a world unto itself.
2:02:59And with the keyboard thing, you can just pick anything
2:03:02and your first reaction is always gonna be like,
2:03:05how much can there possibly be to this?
2:03:07And the answer is infinity.
2:03:08The answer is always infinity.
2:03:10It's never not.
2:03:11Never not, it doesn't matter what you're picking and what you're thinking about.
2:03:15And yeah, I feel really happy to have seen this interest be developed and cultivated
2:03:24by you and, you know, made into a thing with your Twitch channel and developing the branding
2:03:31around the Twitch channel, which is just entirely yours and very Myke.
2:03:36And I like this.
2:03:37I like that this is something that you're continuing forward into 2021.
2:03:43And I like that it's me, like the branding is Myke.live.
2:03:48That's the, the, the branding of my Twitch channel when it's the URL and it's my
2:03:53name, you know, and I like that.
2:03:55Like it's, it's, it's something that's just mine and you know, I reserve the
2:04:01right to do other things on that Twitch channel and I will, you know, like, but
2:04:05Its core focus right now is this new hobby that I am just greatly enjoying tinkering with and
2:04:14learning more about. And so it's been a great thing for me over the last few months and I
2:04:18think it's going to be something that I'm going to continue to enjoy into 2021. Building new norms
2:04:25is another part of this. Looking at what this last year has been like and what it's going to
2:04:31mean for my future, one of these things is a permanent reduction in travel.
2:04:40Even when I can do this again, when I could in theory be on the road once a month every
2:04:46month, I'm not going to do it anymore.
2:04:50Okay, okay.
2:04:51Do you have specific limits?
2:04:53This is really interesting and I can totally see how you could start to think about this
2:04:59as a how is my life going to be different?
2:05:02How am I going to reinvent what my life is?
2:05:05Like what are you thinking around this?
2:05:09- I do not have hard and fast limits.
2:05:12- Okay.
2:05:13- But I know it's gonna be way less.
2:05:16There was a lot of travel that I was doing,
2:05:18which was superfluous, really.
2:05:20It was just like this would be nice to do.
2:05:22And I'm not gonna do any of that anymore.
2:05:27And a lot of the travel that I will do
2:05:32needs to be vacations if it's gonna be anything, I think.
2:05:37- Hmm, right.
2:05:39- We'll come back to vacations in a minute,
2:05:41but there's just been a change in my priorities
2:05:45and there was a time,
2:05:48so I was talking to a friend about this
2:05:50a couple of days ago and he said something to me
2:05:52which has really helped me understand this.
2:05:56There was a time in my life when I needed to travel
2:05:59more to help establish
2:06:03my working relationships.
2:06:07And I don't need to do that anymore.
2:06:09You know, there was a time five years ago when going to all these conferences was
2:06:16beneficial to me for building what would help be my
2:06:21future career.
2:06:21I do not need to do that anymore.
2:06:25and there are things which are really important for my business which I'll always travel for.
2:06:32There are certain events which are important and they're going to continue to be important
2:06:38and I'm going to continue to do them, you know, but there is also a lot of travel that I was doing
2:06:44to, you know, attend a conference that I was just kind of interested in but I didn't need to do it
2:06:50But I wanted to go to the place and I wanted to experience that part of the world
2:06:53but I'm just
2:06:57It's such a
2:07:00Big thing to keep taking all this time just cost this effect every time I make one of these trips and I
2:07:07Just I have found out that I don't need it. I just wanted it and
2:07:13I don't I just don't I know I don't have to continue doing this
2:07:19and so it's going to be something that I reduce a lot.
2:07:24Wow. I mean I was always impressed and shocked with the number of times that
2:07:34that you would fly to America. But again I think this year has definitely
2:07:39shown that the world can keep spinning with a dramatic reduction in travel.
2:07:45And yeah, I mean this is also one of the interesting things about having spoken to you for years and doing this show for years is
2:07:53I wouldn't have thought about it until you just mentioned it now but I think you're totally right that you're always moving through different phases of your life and your career
2:08:03and it's easy to continue doing the things from the previous phase without reassessing them
2:08:12This does feel like it's a good one to reassess,
2:08:16and one that is thrown into sharp relief
2:08:19because of this previous year.
2:08:21- Yeah.
2:08:21- I mean, yeah, I know you don't have hard limits on this.
2:08:25- No.
2:08:26- I'll be curious to see what does this actually
2:08:29translate into over the next year.
2:08:32- I think the biggest, like when I talk about,
2:08:34the biggest reduction will be in travel for work, right?
2:08:37- Yeah.
2:08:38- That's gonna be the big reduction.
2:08:41I may have taken 10 work trips a year,
2:08:43maybe it will be three.
2:08:45And I don't know hard and fast
2:08:49what it's gonna look like yet,
2:08:51but I know that I am committed to it being less,
2:08:54like a lot less.
2:08:55- Yeah, and this also feels much bigger
2:08:58than just like a yearly theme subsection.
2:09:01This feels a little bit, I mean,
2:09:02I don't know if I'm overstating it from your perspective,
2:09:06but it does feel to me a bit like a recognition
2:09:09of a probably, if not permanent, very long-term change.
2:09:14Like I'd have a hard time imagining three years from now,
2:09:21like being in a situation or a position where you're like,
2:09:25I wanna fly to America every month for work.
2:09:27It's very difficult to imagine that.
2:09:29- But I mean, that's kind of my theme this year
2:09:32is very much drawing a line.
2:09:36and there was pre-2020 Myke Hurley and Post.
2:09:42And this last year has crystallized a lot of stuff for me.
2:09:49And even if these things, some of these things,
2:09:51sound like the types of things I would have spoken about before,
2:09:55I just need to really try and get across that.
2:09:58In my mind, I'm thinking about them very differently and very definitively.
2:10:03And these things are different.
2:10:05I mean, so like, there are things which sound like stuff I've spoken about in the past,
2:10:10and I still have a couple more little things to talk about.
2:10:14But they are very much like, I have spent time understanding who I am, and what I want to be.
2:10:26And that's what I mean by the year of reinvention.
2:10:29It's like, I understand who I am, I understand what I do, and I understand how I react to things.
2:10:36And this year, and then moving forward, is a lot of me
2:10:42leaning into what I want to lean into and pulling back on what I think needs to change.
2:10:46Okay, I feel like I have a much deeper understanding now of reinvention.
2:10:50Yeah, yeah.
2:10:51Vacations!
2:10:54Hmm, okay.
2:10:55I just have to take more of them.
2:10:57More than none of them?
2:10:58More than none of them.
2:10:59more than none of them and even if and when things return to a more like 2019
2:11:05like feel that I need to be switching off more. I don't have a plan for that
2:11:13like I really don't but I have recognized that it is something that I
2:11:18need to work on this year for the future. That my "vacations" quote-unquote
2:11:25were they were tricks right like oh I'll take a few days off because I'm going to
2:11:32X place and I mean ostensibly it's a work trip but it's gonna feel like a
2:11:38break because it's not like my normal life yeah that that is a real trick for
2:11:44yourself I've done that oh yeah the shows I'm recording but I'm doing them
2:11:50but with different views so it feels like a vacation.
2:11:53Like no, I know I have a weird job
2:11:58and I have a fun job and a job
2:11:59that lots of people would want,
2:12:01but I work hard and I work long hours
2:12:05and I feel like at this point I've put in enough time
2:12:08that I can actually start taking some vacations.
2:12:13Like real weeks off.
2:12:15And so that's the thing that, again,
2:12:19I don't know how much of this realistically I'm going to get to do in 2021,
2:12:23but this isn't about just 2021. Right.
2:12:25Like this is about like taking a little bit more control of this stuff
2:12:29for now and then moving forward. Direct support.
2:12:35So membership has been, you know, as,
2:12:39as we mentioned in kind of the wrap up of 2020 has been like a really,
2:12:42really great thing.
2:12:43But I know now that this is going to continue to be something which is going to
2:12:49continue to get focus from me moving into the future. This wasn't just a 2020
2:12:54thing to help kind of get us out of a bad spot. It's like no this is a legitimate
2:12:59way as a creative professional to make a portion of your living and I want to
2:13:06continue to explore what that means and continue to take guidance from people
2:13:13like you as to what it means to be a creative professional who relies on
2:13:20support from an audience directly. And so I'm really happy with where I've
2:13:27gotten to with this show and with the other shows that I produce that have
2:13:31membership content but I want to play around with what that means, what
2:13:37that content can be and where it can be pushed to.
2:13:41And I want to keep moving this forward in 2021
2:13:46into different areas and see what feels right.
2:13:50- Oh man, like every, this is like the biggest theme
2:13:55that you've ever done.
2:13:56I feel like every one of these little subsections
2:13:58is like a giant bomb of things to be processing,
2:14:02just even as you're saying it.
2:14:05So yeah, that is another entire thing
2:14:08that could have been a theme unto itself,
2:14:11but is also extending to the future forever.
2:14:14- It's a groundwork year.
2:14:162021 is a year of laying the groundwork for future things.
2:14:21There's gonna be a lot of exploration for me
2:14:26in really trying to understand
2:14:28kind of what my next 10 years are gonna be like.
2:14:34So like I didn't talk about it
2:14:35because we were in a weird time,
2:14:37but 2020 was 10 years for me in podcasting.
2:14:41- Wow.
2:14:43- It was in April.
2:14:45I've been doing this for a decade
2:14:47and like it just wasn't a thing to celebrate, right?
2:14:50We were like three weeks into lockdown.
2:14:52So I just kind of kept it to myself
2:14:54and I wanted to do something to mark the time,
2:14:57but I never did.
2:14:58So from 2021,
2:15:01I am hopefully moving into my next decade.
2:15:04And if that's gonna be the case,
2:15:09it feels like a time to be like,
2:15:11all right, what did you learn over the last 10 years?
2:15:16Let's keep moving it forward.
2:15:1710 years doesn't mean anything.
2:15:18Like we've spoken about this in the show,
2:15:19but as human beings, we'd like to round things up.
2:15:23It's like the fact that we do the yearly themes
2:15:24in December, January, right?
2:15:27As you said, really it could be in February
2:15:29if you wanted to, it doesn't make a difference.
2:15:31We could do nine monthly themes, right?
2:15:33Everything's arbitrary.
2:15:35This show could just be a theme for the month, every month, that's it, right?
2:15:39But like, we like to kind of like to look at things in these
2:15:43nice little neat compartments and...
2:15:45Yeah.
2:15:46And 10 years of anything is a big deal.
2:15:48It's why the decade transitions are a big deal.
2:15:51It's why it has a word.
2:15:52Human civilization thinks about 10 year periods at all.
2:15:56Like, what were the nineties like?
2:15:58What were the 2010s like?
2:16:00Yeah, it's arbitrary, but it is also, it has meaning.
2:16:05It has meaning.
2:16:06- I'm happy I started in 2010,
2:16:08because I can always just round it to the tens.
2:16:14I'll always have that, right?
2:16:152010 to 2020, 2020 to 2030, you know?
2:16:18And so, you know, it just feels like that to me of like,
2:16:23what'd you learn in the last 10 years
2:16:25and how do we move them through to the next 10?
2:16:27and I was just forced in 2020 to rethink a lot of stuff.
2:16:32You know, this may have, what I'm doing right now,
2:16:36this like taking stock and what do I want
2:16:38this next long-term period to be like,
2:16:40it might have been what I always did
2:16:41because of this 10 years thing,
2:16:43but I was forced to look at my work
2:16:48in a much harsher light than I normally do
2:16:51because of the pandemic.
2:16:54and it has, I think has helped me realize the things that like I care about the
2:16:59most and the things that I also have ignored where I shouldn't have,
2:17:04you know, I have two more. Yeah. Go, go. All right.
2:17:08Cortex brand product development.
2:17:11We have finally, hopefully,
2:17:15gotten the theme system under control, right?
2:17:20So the journal now is what I want the journal to be.
2:17:24It's what I've always wanted it to be.
2:17:26It is where we think it is best for its long term.
2:17:30We have gotten it into a place where we are happy
2:17:34with the production.
2:17:35I'm much happier with the timelines of things.
2:17:38My expectation now is it should be a manageable part
2:17:42of our business, that we should just be able
2:17:44to look at stock levels, we reorder,
2:17:47and it keeps going from there, right?
2:17:49That is what we have spent the last 18 months working towards.
2:17:53And you know, it was a, it was a punt that ended up turning into a thing.
2:17:58And you know, now going into where we are now going into 2021, we're
2:18:05hopefully going to get a much clearer idea as to what the theme
2:18:09system means for our company.
2:18:11But it's taken this long to get to here.
2:18:16My hope in 2021 is that we will now be able
2:18:21to look at new products.
2:18:24Like, as we said this before,
2:18:28but Cortex brand was never supposed to be just the company
2:18:31that we had that makes the journal.
2:18:33- Right, it's not the journal company.brand, right?
2:18:37It was always supposed to be a bigger thing
2:18:42with more products.
2:18:43It's just product one turned out to be an enormous deal.
2:18:48- And also was a really hard thing to make.
2:18:55And then we had a pandemic to deal with.
2:18:57And then, you know, and then, and then, and then.
2:19:00We have the next areas that we want to pursue.
2:19:04And so I'm hoping that 2021 will see the first of those.
2:19:09I think that would be really great.
2:19:12And then the last thing I want to talk about for now
2:19:13Mega Studio. So this is a much more short-term part of the year of
2:19:19Reinvention. It doesn't really ladder into the Reinvention theme at all
2:19:24honestly, but it's just a thing that I really want to achieve this year so it's
2:19:28going in, I'm shoehorning it in. That's fine, that's very acceptable. The studio
2:19:34over the last nine months has felt like it's been in a permanent state of being
2:19:40unfinished. There's been a lot of stumbling blocks outside of our
2:19:46control, you know, like the ability to use it the way that we'd first imagined
2:19:51using it, we couldn't. Like I've had to, both me and Idina have had to maintain
2:19:54home office setups as well, which was the whole friggin point of getting this
2:19:59space was that we wouldn't do that anymore, but we've had to keep it because
2:20:03we're not sure how long we can be here for, you know? Like if we need to
2:20:09lockdown again or if we want to lockdown again or whatever you know so that that's been tricky
2:20:16but having this space has been the best part of my professional life this year because
2:20:24it's provided me with the mental clarity and strength to do everything else. Without this
2:20:32space I would be in a much worse mental place right now because considering I
2:20:39had taken no time off if I would have been at home every day working for this
2:20:43whole nine months probably would have lost my mind somewhere in the middle of
2:20:47it. You know talk about burnout I know I would have burnt out big time during
2:20:53that period of time and being able to for the time that I've been able to be
2:20:59here which unfortunately has not been as much of the year as I wanted to be right
2:21:03there was a what like March to June period where I wasn't here at all but
2:21:11the the act of getting up getting ready coming to the studio doing my work
2:21:17coming home being at home that has helped me like a lot a lot and it has
2:21:26been this fantastic new thing for me that is also enabling other things. I can
2:21:33only do all the keyboard stuff and all the Twitch streaming stuff because I have
2:21:36this space. I couldn't do all of it at home. It just wouldn't be possible for me
2:21:41to be able to have this stable video environment which I can have here
2:21:45because I have space here to set things up the way that I want and to as my
2:21:50needs and use cases adapt, I can adapt with it, but unfortunately I've yet to be
2:21:57able to get this place into some kind of stasis. You know, there are so many things
2:22:03that keep changing and I've yet to even be able to set this working environment
2:22:08up the way that I want and there's still a lot of stuff, I mean honestly like even
2:22:13this isn't a big thing, but just like the computers that I'm using keeps changing
2:22:18and that is causing frustration in it, right?
2:22:21Like I can't even get that set.
2:22:23And like all work environments,
2:22:27me and Adina have been learning
2:22:29how we want to use this space.
2:22:31And I feel like we have a much better idea of it now
2:22:35and I'm just hoping that in the next few months,
2:22:37we can move further towards getting it set
2:22:42the way that we want to.
2:22:43so that in 2021, by the end of 2021,
2:22:48I want to have removed my home office.
2:22:50But we're gonna have to wait and see
2:22:53if it's possible to do that.
2:22:54- I would like to pitch to you
2:22:59how this is part of Year of Reinvention.
2:23:03- Okay.
2:23:04- I view this as the caterpillar that was 2019, Myke,
2:23:12began to spin a cocoon that was Mega Studio.
2:23:17Mm, okay.
2:23:19Right?
2:23:20And that cocoon spinning took a much longer time
2:23:25than expected.
2:23:28It was a big old cocoon.
2:23:30Right?
2:23:31Yeah, it ran out of silk off way through.
2:23:33Yeah, but as the year of reinvention,
2:23:38this is your pushing off platform
2:23:42for 2021 Myke and beyond.
2:23:45So that's the way I think,
2:23:47yes, you getting it finished and set up this year
2:23:52is a smaller target,
2:23:54but it is to complete the work that past you started
2:23:59to enable the thing
2:24:00that is the base of the reinvention.
2:24:05That's my pitch to you on,
2:24:07I think this is still connected.
2:24:09- You've said something now, which I seem to have,
2:24:12I kind of got it wrong in the order.
2:24:13Like Mega Studio is the top of this list
2:24:15because without it, I am not able to do these other things.
2:24:20Because part of the reason that I don't feel the need
2:24:25to travel as much anymore is because I'm not at home
2:24:29all the time, working from home, being at home.
2:24:32You know, I used to like to travel
2:24:34because it would break up my life a bit.
2:24:39But being here does that.
2:24:41You know, like, I'm in a different area of London when I'm here.
2:24:46I'm travelling, I'm getting the feeling of being on the move.
2:24:50It's giving me more activity and I can explore different new things here.
2:24:55You know, like, I am in a better area here for walking around to different stuff than I am where we live.
2:25:03Again, we haven't been able to really put that into practice because the types of things that we would go to,
2:25:09go to, we don't go to them in COVID times. We will again. And so it does enable all this
2:25:15other stuff. And also is for my business, a different financial commitment. So like,
2:25:25I have made the decision to have this studio at the expense of even being able to travel
2:25:33as much as I would before, because I have a new financial commitment to make sure that
2:25:37maintain you know mm-hmm so you are right and and I like that you said that
2:25:42and that's actually really helped kind of crystallized that part of why this
2:25:48fits into my year of reinvention so that is my theme gray it's a big one and it is
2:25:57the biggest one ever this for me though is the the the in cap it goes back to
2:26:03what we were talking about at the beginning of the show.
2:26:04I can't complete anything in here.
2:26:08There's nothing to complete.
2:26:10Everything has no end.
2:26:14The point is that by the end of 2021, my goal is to look back and say that I have
2:26:21moved the needle on all of those things.
2:26:24But none of them have like a point that I get to in the year, I'm like, tick.
2:26:33I've done it because none of these things have a defined end to them.
2:26:38They're all things that by the end of the year, I want to have progressed in some
2:26:44way that I can look back and be like from where I was in December, 2020 to December,
2:26:492021 and say like, yes, I have moved forward on all of these fronts.
2:26:55Would you like to hear my sub theme?
2:26:57I would, yes.
2:26:58[laughter]
2:27:00[breathes in]
2:27:02This is a very different year, I think, for both of us.
2:27:06You have this big, overreaching, epic, decade-long start to your theme.
2:27:13I think I've never had anything that's more specific and sort of bitty?
2:27:18And like, it's kind of fun?
2:27:21[laughter]
2:27:22In a way, as well?
2:27:23Yeah, yeah. Maybe whimsical?
2:27:25Yeah, whimsy's a good way to describe it.
2:27:27And so I'm going to continue with that because I think there's, there's some part of my brain,
2:27:33which after the amorphous fuzziness of Year of Clarity has been craving some more specific things.
2:27:43And so there is this sub theme that I do want to mention because it, it feels like an important
2:27:51lesson learned from Year of Clarity. So the sub-theme to continue with the with the nautical
2:27:58metaphors here is clear the decks. So I've really learned something as well about myself this year.
2:28:09It's something I've kind of been aware of but it really crystallized in this past year which is
2:28:16going back to human interest. Like, why are humans interested in things?
2:28:21And I think one of the best ways that I can know what my own internal emotional state is
2:28:31is expressed in "how much do I find things interesting?" And this year I know that I've
2:28:41been doing great, that it's not like some some trick of the brain to cope with what was actually
2:28:46disaster because I've never been so interested in almost everything. Like, you can laugh, it's
2:28:59perfectly fine. As an example, you know, I've always like, I find history mostly really boring,
2:29:05but this year it's like, "Oh, I've read a lot about the Cold War," which I feel like in almost
2:29:09any other time I would just be like "oh this is boring, who cares?" But again, you can't explain
2:29:14interest and I've never had a year where I feel like my brain has wanted to go in just so many
2:29:22directions and this, you know, this comes and goes and I feel like "oh it's a good, it's just a good
2:29:29barometer for like emotional well-being, it expresses itself as interest in things."
2:29:38you know, but everything comes with costs, and being interested in lots of things is great,
2:29:45but you have to direct that. And this is where the topic lock that I talked about
2:29:53came into play. For clarity in what I'm working on, I'm going to pick some projects as locked
2:30:01and consider, like, "I'm going to work on these and I'm not going to switch topics." Like,
2:30:08I'm gonna get it finished so that I know what am I actively working on.
2:30:13But here's the thing, Myke. Brains are tricky. You can't trust brains.
2:30:22They're always trying to find ways around your rules, and one of the things that my brain totally
2:30:29did this year, which compounded on itself over the months as they rolled by, which was
2:30:38locking a topic and then I would finish the video on that topic.
2:30:46But I would tell myself repeatedly, "Oh, there's a lot of these little things that I'd like
2:30:52to quote "follow up" quote "quickly" about related to this main video.
2:30:59And so I spawned in my mind, like very many little followups or light gray video ideas that were
2:31:08supposed to attend the main videos.
2:31:12And this is just one of these ways where it's almost hilarious to me how your brain can trick
2:31:18you because it's like when I put up a main video, have I ever quickly wrapped up a little
2:31:27follow up within the next few days after the video goes live? No, never. Never. Like, I'm
2:31:34I am like a, you know, a snail curled up in a shell after the video goes up. It's exhausting.
2:31:40And I know from experience that I can never actually do any of these things. But because
2:31:44I was just so interested in so many things, like, I just had all of these little, like,
2:31:50residue ideas left over after the main video on something was done. And my brain was sneaking
2:31:59these past the topic-lock idea of like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this isn't a video.
2:32:05This is just a little thing. This doesn't count. Don't worry about this. You can now
2:32:10lock what the next topic is and somehow you'll wrap up these little extra videos really quickly
2:32:18in your spare time.
2:32:20You know, perhaps you'll work on them in the afternoons when you know from full experience
2:32:24that you work terribly and inefficiently and don't ever try to do writing in the afternoon.
2:32:29But maybe you'll finish writing them up then because they're quick and easy.
2:32:32And so Clear the Decks is a sub-theme that is really important to me.
2:32:38one is I've got way too many of these little like open boxes in some sense around of things
2:32:46that I wanted to follow up on videos that I have done this year that I just didn't.
2:32:53That didn't work out because how were they ever going to work out? Like when was I going
2:33:00to work on these? Not in the morning when I was working on the locked topics, you know,
2:33:06Like, it just wasn't ever going to happen.
2:33:08So I am, you know, when Christmas rolls around and it's the new year, January is a famously
2:33:17slow time on YouTube in particular, I'm really going to go through everything that I thought
2:33:25I was going to follow up this year and make some really harsh decisions about closing
2:33:33these topics down for good.
2:33:36It's like, yes, the main video is up,
2:33:39and these additional ideas,
2:33:41I am putting them away in storage.
2:33:44They're gonna have to go,
2:33:45because we need to clear the decks
2:33:49for the year that's coming up.
2:33:52The second part is me realizing,
2:33:55"Okay, topic lock was a great idea,
2:34:01I need to get around my tricksy brain and recognize that topic lock has to be bigger
2:34:10than I was originally thinking about it.
2:34:14If it is to be taken seriously, it has to mean the main video and also anything that
2:34:23you think is going to follow up that video, so that I cannot lie to myself that the quick
2:34:32and easy videos that should follow up a main thing, that they are not still under topic
2:34:39lock.
2:34:40Which means, if they're going to get made, they have to use up the prime hours in the
2:34:47morning of writing time.
2:34:50They have to use up the prime hours of directing time and thinking about the visuals and everything
2:34:55else.
2:34:56I'm really happy that I've, over the past year, been able to make like those light grey
2:35:01and those easy videos.
2:35:03But the videos that did happen still occurred when I took them seriously as, yes, this is
2:35:10a light grey video, but it is topic locked.
2:35:14- Oh, no, I get it.
2:35:15- Right?
2:35:16- Yeah, I thought you were saying like, "No, I'm not gonna do those."
2:35:19and I was gonna say, "I don't think that's a good idea,"
2:35:21but now I get it.
2:35:21Like, you will give those videos the same treatment.
2:35:26- Yes. - Right.
2:35:27- They have to get the same treatment.
2:35:30Everything has costs.
2:35:31The whole reason that I'm able to do the job that I do
2:35:35is because I will become interested in lots of things,
2:35:39and I like connecting different topics,
2:35:42and I like exploring and trying to figure out
2:35:44what are the useful things here,
2:35:45but like, I really have to constrain it,
2:35:48and topic lock out of Year of Clarity felt like the first correct tool that made a big difference,
2:35:55and this is clear the decks is like an extension of that idea.
2:36:01Okay dude, you can have three topic locked things at a time.
2:36:07But, when you want to bring up a new thing on deck to be worked at,
2:36:15everything related to this topic has got to go back below decks.
2:36:19You can't tell yourself, "Oh, I just have a two-minute extra idea that's going to go along
2:36:26with this." No, you don't. You either finish this one before we bring up the new stuff,
2:36:32or we make the decision that this is not going to happen.
2:36:36And it's just interesting because like, rolling into this December, I had a hilarious,
2:36:44hilarious number of quick little videos that kept getting pushed back into December that I was like,
2:36:53"Oh yeah, it's totally reasonable that in December I'm gonna have seven tiny videos that are following
2:37:00up all of the things that happened this year," right? And it's like, it was never gonna happen.
2:37:03And I walked into that trouble by not being really serious about it, and because I found myself like,
2:37:11spread across too many of the things that I was interested in from over the whole year.
2:37:17It was like, oof, I put the December video in like a shaky position of getting made because it was
2:37:24just spread across. Oh yeah, yeah, there's the main video for December and there's also going
2:37:28to be all of these other things. And it was just like a trick. So for me, when I was talking before
2:37:37about this idea of integrating Spaceship U into my life, like, very deeply. This is also part of
2:37:48it, and it's why the reason, like, I've chosen language that matches up with vessel language.
2:37:55It's like, keeping the decks clear is just as important as all of these other things.
2:38:02And like you, you made steps in the right direction last year, and we just need to
2:38:08tighten this concept to make it flow more smoothly.
2:38:11So that is my sub theme going into next year is like clear the decks phase one,
2:38:18make decisions about which of these are actually going to happen and be treated
2:38:22seriously in the production process, even if there's still light videos.
2:38:28And which of these, almost certainly many of these, am I going to make a decision?
2:38:33No.
2:38:34Like, that's just not going to happen and that's fine.
2:38:36And then after that is done, keeping the decks clear and not letting this like tricky expansion
2:38:46take place that slowly caught up with me over the course of the year as it progressed.
2:38:54So that is my sub theme.
2:38:55All right.
2:38:56I think that's yearly themes.
2:38:57That is yearly themes. This is an epic yearly themes episode.
2:39:03If you want to send in your yearly theme, ask cortex questions for next time, I think
2:39:08we might do some of those. You can send a tweet with the hashtag #askcortex or you can
2:39:12use question mark ask cortex in the relay FM members discord. If you have a yearly theme
2:39:18that you want to share, you can share it that way. You can also share it in the subreddit.
2:39:21I really love it when people share their themes. I think these episodes are, they're big
2:39:27deal for us and it's really enjoyable and rewarding to see what people are doing in
2:39:35their own lives with their own themes.
2:39:38It's definitely one of the nicest and best times around the subreddit and I also think
2:39:43it's a great tool for people who are thinking about this for themselves.
2:39:46So I really encourage everyone to share their themes in the subreddit.
2:39:52And once you have shared your theme, there's no better way to put it in place than with
2:39:59the Theme System Journal that is here and is magnificent.