Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So it turns out that now I have to read the Reddit just to get answers from you for questions that really should have been answered on the show.

00:00:09 ◼   ► What are you talking about?

00:00:10 ◼   ► So apparently you had a theme for your entire year this year that you just didn't bring up when we were talking about goals and planning for 2016 last week.

00:00:20 ◼   ► It just didn't come up in the conversation.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Or you didn't draw it out of me. It's your job as a professional interviewer to

00:00:28 ◼   ► draw all the interesting things out of me, Myke.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Have I just been told that this is an interview show? Is that what this is?

00:00:34 ◼   ► Is that what I'm here to do for you now?

00:00:36 ◼   ► Let's just say that interviewing is not my strong skill.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Or even offering any information.

00:00:42 ◼   ► Directing conversations is not my skill.

00:00:44 ◼   ► This is why I have to work with people who do direct conversations.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Such as yourself.

00:00:49 ◼   ► So last time we were talking about New Year's resolutions

00:00:53 ◼   ► and how mostly we think that they are dumb and ineffective for various reasons

00:01:00 ◼   ► But the thing that I didn't mention last time is that I am not opposed to the idea of having a theme for the year

00:01:10 ◼   ► And I'm not exactly sure when this idea like crept into my mind

00:01:16 ◼   ► But I have noticed people doing themes for the year.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I know several people this year who are doing themes for the year.

00:01:23 ◼   ► And so I don't think that's a bad idea as a replacement notion for a New Year's resolution.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Like a theme can be something that helps guide your decisions over the following year.

00:01:38 ◼   ► It doesn't have to be like a goal that you are trying to achieve.

00:01:42 ◼   ► So, I wish I had a catchy year of for my theme.

00:01:48 ◼   ► So, everyone I know who's doing this, they say "Oh, this is the year of X."

00:01:53 ◼   ► Linux on desktops.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Yes, this is the year of Linux on the desktop.

00:01:59 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:02:01 ◼   ► And you're making it your own personal goal to assure that that happens.

00:02:06 ◼   ► I remember a decade plus ago now being in university when I used Linux and thinking,

00:02:13 ◼   ► "This is going to be everywhere in no time!"

00:02:16 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:02:19 ◼   ► Oh, how wrong I was.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and everybody else since.

00:02:22 ◼   ► So I wish I could come up with a single word, but...

00:02:25 ◼   ► What I have come to the conclusion that my theme for the year, if I had to pick a single word,

00:02:34 ◼   ► is I would say the year of less is my theme for the year.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And it would really be, because the year of less sounds nice,

00:02:46 ◼   ► but it really should be the year of less and then in brackets, me.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I have been thinking a lot about the kinds of projects that I'm involved in.

00:02:57 ◼   ► I was thinking a lot about this on my trip to Amsterdam, which we talked about recently.

00:03:02 ◼   ► and just thinking in the biggest, broadest picture of

00:03:06 ◼   ► the kind of work that I do, the kind of side projects that I do,

00:03:12 ◼   ► what do I want to take on, what do I not want to take on.

00:03:15 ◼   ► And I have come to the realization that

00:03:19 ◼   ► I am at the limit of the number of projects that I can work on

00:03:27 ◼   ► that

00:03:29 ◼   ► require me to be constantly involved in an intimate way.

00:03:34 ◼   ► So obviously the YouTube videos, the two podcasts, each of these, they can't be done without me. Like I am an

00:03:44 ◼   ► intimate part of this project. And as we have discussed, I always like to work on various side projects.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And I reference this as a thing like I like to do this.

00:03:54 ◼   ► This is a thing that I think is good. You never really know what's going to pay off.

00:03:59 ◼   ► But really none of my side projects aside from these two podcasts in the past

00:04:06 ◼   ► two years have

00:04:09 ◼   ► Gone very many places. They don't really see it a lot of day. Yeah, they all get killed in the crib

00:04:15 ◼   ► Oh, wow, that's a that is a really heavy metaphor

00:04:19 ◼   ► Wow

00:04:24 ◼   ► The drama today gray, I don't think that's drama. That's a perfectly apt metaphor

00:04:28 ◼   ► Sure side project is like a brand new baby full of hope. Uh-huh that you just murder. Yeah, right

00:04:35 ◼   ► Yeah, you carry on down that that line of thought

00:04:38 ◼   ► I partly came to that conclusion because as I think I referenced in the last podcast in in Amsterdam one of the the side projects

00:04:44 ◼   ► That came closest to being something real. I

00:04:46 ◼   ► murdered because

00:04:49 ◼   ► it was really this this thought of

00:04:53 ◼   ► Let me imagine if this project is wildly successful.

00:04:58 ◼   ► Like, let's say it's as successful as a person can reasonably expect that it would be.

00:05:03 ◼   ► I realized, oh, okay, all I will have done for myself is add another YouTube channel level of requirement for my own interaction in the project.

00:05:14 ◼   ► What about all the good things that would come with that? Like money?

00:05:18 ◼   ► More money is always better. There's not a scenario under which more money is not better.

00:05:22 ◼   ► But my theme is the year of less because it is about recognizing the limits of how much I can possibly do.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Like how much can I directly be involved in?

00:05:38 ◼   ► And I've come to the conclusion that like, "Oh, okay."

00:05:42 ◼   ► If any of these side projects that I have worked on that would involve me

00:05:47 ◼   ► ongoing

00:05:50 ◼   ► working on them in the future if they're successful

00:05:52 ◼   ► At this stage they would have to be taking time away from other things that I'm doing

00:05:59 ◼   ► and so the realization that I have had is that if

00:06:02 ◼   ► For any side projects that I am going to work on at this point in the future

00:06:09 ◼   ► I have to at least envision that if it is successful, there is a way for it to either be done as in a completely self-contained "it is finished, it doesn't require updating" kind of project.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Or it needs to be something that I can turn over to somebody else.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Right, where I could say like hire someone if the thing is very successful to continue to work on it.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And it would not have to be me working on the thing.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Sure.

00:06:42 ◼   ► So this is what I mean by like my theme of the year of less.

00:06:47 ◼   ► It's like less me involved in any side projects.

00:06:50 ◼   ► projects and so I've just been thinking very carefully about any of the things

00:06:54 ◼   ► that I choose to work on of what is the end point in this if it is successful is

00:07:00 ◼   ► it successful in the way that it is just done it is just finished or is it

00:07:05 ◼   ► successful in the way that it's something I can turn over to somebody

00:07:08 ◼   ► else right and if it doesn't meet one of those criteria I've decided this is no

00:07:13 ◼   ► longer a project that I'm going to work on I can't create for myself another

00:07:18 ◼   ► thing like a podcast or another thing like a YouTube channel. It would just put

00:07:22 ◼   ► me over the limit for how many things I can possibly do and I think that's

00:07:26 ◼   ► partly why, as you've said, none of my side projects in the past have come to

00:07:30 ◼   ► light really because this was the limiting factor that I just didn't

00:07:34 ◼   ► really think through carefully enough about of course you can't take on yet

00:07:38 ◼   ► another one. So it's not necessarily that the idea of you having side projects is

00:07:44 ◼   ► over, but there are just new kind of rules that these side projects need to adhere to,

00:07:49 ◼   ► like the idea of being able to pass them to somebody else. So like, when an opportunity

00:07:54 ◼   ► comes up, you'd have to assess if that seems like it would be possible for you to consider

00:07:58 ◼   ► entertaining it.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's exactly right. I will never be free of side projects. It's just the way

00:08:04 ◼   ► that my brain is. If I tried to eliminate side projects entirely, I would just end up,

00:08:09 ◼   ► I think, hating my main projects, because you have to have something else which is like,

00:08:12 ◼   ► "Oh, this is a fun thing to work on."

00:08:14 ◼   ► And so that has been largely the criteria I've used

00:08:18 ◼   ► in the past for side projects.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Is this fun and interesting?

00:08:21 ◼   ► And there are many things that are fun and interesting,

00:08:23 ◼   ► but they can't be fun and interesting things

00:08:26 ◼   ► that spin off ongoing indefinite projects in the future.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Like it's just not something that is possible.

00:08:33 ◼   ► - And also for the money side,

00:08:36 ◼   ► like to come back to that again,

00:08:38 ◼   ► it may actually, I don't know this,

00:08:40 ◼   ► But it may be easier to grow your existing projects

00:08:45 ◼   ► to make more money from them than it

00:08:48 ◼   ► would be to start brand new ones in the hope

00:08:51 ◼   ► that they will make you a lot of money.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Yeah, well, this goes back to the thing

00:08:55 ◼   ► that I've discussed before, where

00:08:57 ◼   ► I think everybody should have some notion of how much money

00:09:01 ◼   ► they earn per active hour of working.

00:09:04 ◼   ► And that formula is involved in two things,

00:09:07 ◼   ► like money coming in and time going out.

00:09:10 ◼   ► you divide those two numbers.

00:09:12 ◼   ► - I'm really scared to do that calculation.

00:09:14 ◼   ► - Why are you scared to do that?

00:09:16 ◼   ► - I'm just worried it's gonna show me something

00:09:17 ◼   ► I don't wanna see.

00:09:18 ◼   ► - See, that's precisely why you should do it.

00:09:22 ◼   ► - Why you should do it.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Yeah, but then if it shows me that,

00:09:25 ◼   ► oh, your time is worth a dollar an hour,

00:09:28 ◼   ► then what do I do?

00:09:29 ◼   ► Like I'm scared of the potential bad feelings

00:09:33 ◼   ► that may give me.

00:09:34 ◼   ► It's on my list, but not right now.

00:09:36 ◼   ► - It's on your list.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Yeah, it's on your list and it's not right now.

00:09:39 ◼   ► For someone like you, you seem like you are in just a prime category of person who should definitely do this.

00:09:46 ◼   ► As in, if I was you, I would want to know what is the dollar value of hours spent per show that you work on.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Because you are a host on Relay FM, but you are also an owner of Relay FM.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And so I think you, like I would want to know as an owner of Relay FM this idea of, again you imagine yourself as two different people, which is something we might talk about a little bit later,

00:10:13 ◼   ► but as two different people, like the owner of the company and then someone who is directing an employee, who is also you, to do certain kinds of work.

00:10:22 ◼   ► And so I would want to know, like what is the value of this employee per hour per project?

00:10:28 ◼   ► But it just so happens that this employee is also you. That's why I think you should totally do it.

00:10:32 ◼   ► do it. Yeah, don't get me wrong. Uh, this, what we're going to talk about later, this book that

00:10:38 ◼   ► we've been reading has actually started making me think that I should do this. So when I say it's on

00:10:44 ◼   ► my list, whilst that list is like this mental thing, it's knocking around in my brain a little

00:10:49 ◼   ► bit more. So maybe we can actually come back to this idea on a later episode. Yeah, we'll come

00:10:55 ◼   ► come back to this, but to return to the theme of the year of less, what I'm aware of is

00:11:02 ◼   ► for projects in the future and how I track my hourly earnings for my business, I have

00:11:09 ◼   ► to largely focus on not increasing the denominator in this formula of dollars per hour.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Sure.

00:11:16 ◼   ► Right, that the denominator is relatively maxed out. Like I've done all of these clever

00:11:23 ◼   ► things about, okay, my afternoons are unproductive time, but I can fill afternoons with podcast

00:11:28 ◼   ► work as a thing that I can do, which is why we are recording right now at like 3.45 in

00:11:35 ◼   ► the afternoon, which is normally just a terrible dead time for me.

00:11:38 ◼   ► But it is a time that, with some coffee, I can talk to my good friend Myke, and we can

00:11:42 ◼   ► do some podcasting.

00:11:43 ◼   ► I figured out some of these things, but the year of less for me is this idea of recognizing

00:11:50 ◼   ► How new projects could fit into my business if they're wildly successful and recognizing

00:11:58 ◼   ► some limitations on how many hours I can put in during the day, how many hours I want to

00:12:04 ◼   ► put in during the day, and trying to figure out the way to make that work out.

00:12:11 ◼   ► So I am currently just in the very beginning stages of a side project that I'm interested

00:12:17 ◼   ► and working on, whether it comes to the light of day, we'll see at the end of the year,

00:12:22 ◼   ► who knows. But I'm working on that side project with my side project time because I can see

00:12:30 ◼   ► if this is successful, it is the kind of project where I could hand it over to somebody that

00:12:35 ◼   ► the project itself could pay for their salary to keep the thing going. And that is now a

00:12:42 ◼   ► requirement for side projects in the future.

00:12:45 ◼   ► - That's a good requirement.

00:12:46 ◼   ► I have to say the idea of less is definitely something

00:12:49 ◼   ► that is a theme for me this year,

00:12:51 ◼   ► but like in a slightly different way.

00:12:52 ◼   ► And I've already acted on it a little bit

00:12:54 ◼   ► and I've cut down the active hours of recording for me

00:12:59 ◼   ► by canceling a show or retiring a show

00:13:04 ◼   ► and dropping two weekly shows down to fortnightly.

00:13:07 ◼   ► We spoke about this.

00:13:08 ◼   ► You know, that's one of those things for me

00:13:10 ◼   ► where it's doing less of that type of work

00:13:13 ◼   ► because the podcasting work takes up the most amount of time

00:13:16 ◼   ► because you're spending multiple hours

00:13:19 ◼   ► and this is what you do.

00:13:21 ◼   ► It's blocked out.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Where my other work is a little bit more sporadic.

00:13:25 ◼   ► So I'm trying to just cut down a lot of that kind of

00:13:28 ◼   ► scheduled time where I must be working on something.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm thinking that that is a definite theme

00:13:38 ◼   ► for me as well but in a slightly different way.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Do you know, I mean how many hours a week then, or I guess maybe you think on a bi-weekly

00:13:46 ◼   ► schedule, but how many hours have you gotten back with those changes?

00:13:50 ◼   ► Do you know roughly speaking?

00:13:51 ◼   ► I've probably got back about six to seven hours every other week.

00:13:55 ◼   ► That's a pretty big gain.

00:13:56 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's the preparation, the recording and the editing, and I've been able to drop

00:14:00 ◼   ► that down so I'm kind of at the moment of structure of my week where I kind of have

00:14:05 ◼   ► one week on one week off in that I record three shows one week and then like six or

00:14:13 ◼   ► seven shows the next week. And I'm trying to get used to this but I think that's a pretty

00:14:20 ◼   ► good way of doing things because when I feel really busy I'm like next week will be better

00:14:27 ◼   ► and that has kind of helped me so far and we're only like a month into it but where

00:14:32 ◼   ► I feel like I've been really busy one week. I'm like, "It's okay. Next week's gonna have more time."

00:14:36 ◼   ► And that's been quite a nice feeling for me,

00:14:39 ◼   ► having done this over a few different weeks now, so I quite like that.

00:14:45 ◼   ► It's very interesting that you mention that because

00:14:48 ◼   ► one of the ideas that has been knocking around in my head that is under the theme of "the year of less" is

00:14:55 ◼   ► trying to figure out some kind of schedule like that because

00:15:01 ◼   ► I've always said that one of the biggest downsides about being self-employed is that the work never leaves you

00:15:08 ◼   ► That that you're always thinking about it. It doesn't matter what you're doing. It's always on your mind and

00:15:13 ◼   ► You can't sweep it under the rug either which I used to do. Yeah, you can't sweep it under the rug

00:15:19 ◼   ► There's nobody else who's going to pick up the problems, you know, when when you drop them

00:15:24 ◼   ► Because they're all your problems

00:15:28 ◼   ► You just drop them on the floor and it's like, oh I have to clean that up

00:15:31 ◼   ► and

00:15:34 ◼   ► To compare and contrast the thing that was the greatest about teaching was looking forward to the holidays

00:15:39 ◼   ► like that was the best part of the job without a doubt and I too have been just wondering in the theme of year of

00:15:45 ◼   ► less is if there is a way to

00:15:47 ◼   ► Build back in some kind of schedule like that

00:15:51 ◼   ► You know, I don't know what it would be but I've just been toying with the idea like can I do?

00:15:57 ◼   ► four weeks on and then one week is like a low-power week and then four weeks on and one week is a low-power week to

00:16:03 ◼   ► have some kind of cycle in the working schedule to do this same thing that that it sounds like you are beginning to see this idea

00:16:11 ◼   ► of

00:16:12 ◼   ► chunking work into

00:16:14 ◼   ► different kinds of

00:16:16 ◼   ► schedule time so that you have some sense of like oh, this is the busy time, this is the less busy time,

00:16:22 ◼   ► this is the busy time, this is the less busy time as opposed to the thing that I don't like

00:16:26 ◼   ► which is just this constant uniform background radiation of work that is ever unchanging.

00:16:32 ◼   ► That's something I have been toying around with. How could I make this work in the year of less?

00:16:37 ◼   ► It's interesting that you have done something like that so far with your own schedule.

00:16:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it started to happen accidentally, and then I made some choices specifically to make it this way.

00:16:51 ◼   ► And I'll report back how this is going, but right now I'm pretty happy with it.

00:16:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. Like whenever I could as a teacher,

00:17:02 ◼   ► I always like to schedule as much as possible

00:17:05 ◼   ► teaching days and non-teaching days. Like, let's try to have

00:17:09 ◼   ► Monday is wall-to-wall classes from the morning until the end of the day, if that means I can get a Tuesday where there's only

00:17:17 ◼   ► one class or two classes.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Yeah, all right, like that was way better

00:17:21 ◼   ► Like I hated the couple years where I had a schedule where every day was the same right where there's like oh, there's

00:17:26 ◼   ► Four or five classes every single day and there's no big chunks of time in between them

00:17:32 ◼   ► I much prefer to schedule that was super lumpy with everything or nothing on particular days

00:17:38 ◼   ► It reminds me of my sixth form college

00:17:41 ◼   ► Timetable that's what I think of and I think of this is I had exactly that

00:17:45 ◼   ► I had one week where I was in every day and then another week where I was in three days

00:17:49 ◼   ► But no earlier than 1 p.m. Hmm, and I loved it. I just loved working that way

00:17:54 ◼   ► so I think this it's kind of reminding me of that a little bit and so I I kind of

00:18:00 ◼   ► Built a lot of my habits around that and I think this is pretty nice. So it's cortex on the busy week. Yeah, or okay

00:18:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and it could only be this is part of the busy week

00:18:12 ◼   ► Because as I said to you before like Thursday is Cortex Day

00:18:16 ◼   ► It's the only thing I do because it's all I can handle.

00:18:19 ◼   ► But you see that's why I thought oh surely

00:18:21 ◼   ► I'm on the non-busy week because this is the only thing that you do.

00:18:25 ◼   ► If you were on the non-busy week it would make the non-busy week the busy week.

00:18:28 ◼   ► I'm not that much trouble, Myke.

00:18:31 ◼   ► You're not!

00:18:31 ◼   ► It's the whole thing around the show.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Talking to me is not the hard part.

00:18:36 ◼   ► It's all my picky demands behind the scenes that's the hard part. Is that it?

00:18:40 ◼   ► I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:18:41 ◼   ► Was that like how we spent like two hours this morning trying to find a tool to replace

00:18:45 ◼   ► Google docs?

00:18:46 ◼   ► You remember referring to that?

00:18:48 ◼   ► This is the type of stuff that happens on my first day.

00:18:51 ◼   ► I don't know what you're talking about.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Of course you don't.

00:18:54 ◼   ► Two hours of fruitless endeavor.

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00:19:45 ◼   ► I love PDF Pen because I have to sign contracts

00:19:48 ◼   ► and fill in forms a bunch

00:19:49 ◼   ► because of the type of work that I do.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I sign contracts for sponsorships and stuff like that.

00:19:53 ◼   ► This happens pretty frequently.

00:19:54 ◼   ► So people will send me like maybe a Word document

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00:20:08 ◼   ► I mean some people I even export it as word and just send them back the word document

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00:20:43 ◼   ► PDFPen for iOS is available from the App Store.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Smile and PDFPen for sponsoring this week's episode of Cortex.

00:20:53 ◼   ► So we had some pretty good feedback on the Reddit from a user who goes by the name BlindBlondPhD

00:21:00 ◼   ► about goals and I just wanted to read this because I thought it was really good and did

00:21:04 ◼   ► a much better job.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Then we did of summing up goals.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Make a goal specific.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I want to lose x amount of pounds is better than I want to lose weight because you have

00:21:23 ◼   ► a clear idea of where you are and where you need to be to achieve your goal.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Make the goal challenging yet attainable.

00:21:31 ◼   ► This challenge should force yourself to actually change your behaviour or work hard to attain

00:21:35 ◼   ► it and point three is the person must be committed to a goal. Goals dictated from your boss that

00:21:40 ◼   ► you're committed to won't work. We also have evidence that just paying someone a raise

00:21:44 ◼   ► isn't always the best method to motivate people either. I thought these were really good and

00:21:50 ◼   ► like that last one really you know that goes against what I was saying about the corporate

00:21:53 ◼   ► goals. It's like no one's committed to them so nobody bothers.

00:21:57 ◼   ► Yeah, that's definitely the case. Yeah, goals dictated from your boss, whatever. I don't

00:22:03 ◼   ► I don't care, I'm not committed to this.

00:22:06 ◼   ► - And I like the idea of I wanna lose x amount of pounds

00:22:09 ◼   ► as opposed to I wanna lose weight.

00:22:11 ◼   ► That is a really good way of putting it

00:22:13 ◼   ► 'cause I need to work out what my goal is

00:22:15 ◼   ► 'cause right now I just know I wanna lose some weight.

00:22:17 ◼   ► I haven't worked out exactly how much weight

00:22:19 ◼   ► I do wanna lose.

00:22:20 ◼   ► - That's hard to not have a specific goal.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Are you keeping it on a spreadsheet at least, Myke?

00:22:26 ◼   ► We talked about spreadsheets last time.

00:22:27 ◼   ► You do have it on a spreadsheet, right?

00:22:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:22:29 ◼   ► - Okay, all right, good.

00:22:30 ◼   ► - Don't worry.

00:22:31 ◼   ► - You're gonna put it on a public Twitter?

00:22:32 ◼   ► help you do that if you want to put it on a public Twitter.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - Absolutely not.

00:22:35 ◼   ► - No, you don't want to do that?

00:22:36 ◼   ► - I'm not interested in that.

00:22:37 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:22:38 ◼   ► - The only way I do that is if one of those scales

00:22:41 ◼   ► arrives at my home.

00:22:43 ◼   ► - Oh yeah?

00:22:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not buying one.

00:22:45 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:22:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know what you're up to.

00:22:49 ◼   ► - Where do you live, Myke?

00:22:50 ◼   ► - Not telling you.

00:22:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:53 ◼   ► That was my safety net in saying that,

00:22:56 ◼   ► is I'm pretty sure you don't have my address.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Oh, and I need to provide an important piece of follow-up about this show.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Oh, yeah? Okay.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Yeah, from last week's episode. So, a couple of hours after we record, Adina arrives at

00:23:12 ◼   ► home. And I'm not 100% sure how we got onto this topic, but she kind of mentioned in passing

00:23:22 ◼   ► her contact information had been provided to you via Casey, our mutual friend Mr. Casey

00:23:30 ◼   ► listed the Accidental Tech podcast. You took advantage of Casey to get Adina's contact

00:23:37 ◼   ► information to talk to her about my diet.

00:23:39 ◼   ► Paul I don't know what you're talking about.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Matt Poor Casey.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Paul I just guessed Adina's information.

00:23:44 ◼   ► Matt Oh yeah?

00:23:45 ◼   ► Paul Nobody else was involved or is going to be

00:23:47 ◼   ► implicated.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Matt Well it's too late.

00:23:49 ◼   ► Paul I am sticking to my story.

00:23:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm sure you are.

00:23:53 ◼   ► I sent Adina a suggestion today. You know, she asked for suggestions for you. So I sent her one.

00:23:58 ◼   ► Well, it was funny. We were talking about this last night. She's like, "He sent me one message,

00:24:02 ◼   ► I sent him one back and he never replied." I'm like, "Yeah, that's great."

00:24:04 ◼   ► It's just how he is. He just doesn't reply to messages. It's totally fine.

00:24:10 ◼   ► I do reply to messages, just eventually.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And sometimes we've completely different things as to what the message was about. Therefore, you didn't reply to it.

00:24:18 ◼   ► I am looking at the dates on this iMessage conversation and it is two weeks until I reply.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:24:26 ◼   ► The replies, they never come.

00:24:28 ◼   ► Listen, I don't think it's a secret at this point to anybody who listens to me on podcasts

00:24:32 ◼   ► that they know, I am very difficult to get in touch with even under the best of circumstances,

00:24:37 ◼   ► even if you have my iMessage information.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Unless you're animating.

00:24:42 ◼   ► That's true, unless I'm looking for distraction, desperately.

00:24:45 ◼   ► I imagine, I can only imagine that you send messages to everyone until somebody replies.

00:24:50 ◼   ► Like, "Please, someone, get me out of this!"

00:24:53 ◼   ► Everybody look at this funny Buffalo stock footage!

00:24:58 ◼   ► That's what I do.

00:24:59 ◼   ► In between last episode and this episode, you set me a task to read a book called "The

00:25:06 ◼   ► E-Myth Revisited."

00:25:07 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I asked you, "Why are we doing this now? Shouldn't we set homework for the listener?"

00:25:15 ◼   ► And you told me specifically that we should not tell people to read this book.

00:25:20 ◼   ► That was not exactly what I said, Myke.

00:25:23 ◼   ► All right, let me find exactly what you said.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Oh, no, don't pull up the iMessage conversation.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Maybe I've put my own feelings on this.

00:25:30 ◼   ► I think you have put your own spin on this.

00:25:33 ◼   ► on this. I suggested that you read this book because the topic of doing the follow-up on

00:25:40 ◼   ► year themes came up, and as listeners will see shortly, I think that the E-Myth revisited

00:25:48 ◼   ► aligns with the theme of the Year of Less in the same way that one of the books I recommended

00:25:56 ◼   ► on Audible for Cortex was Essentialism, which is a book that I read recently, which also

00:26:02 ◼   ► aligns with the year of less. So I just thought the E-Myth would be something to have you

00:26:08 ◼   ► read, to have us discuss on the next show.

00:26:12 ◼   ► This show.

00:26:13 ◼   ► This show.

00:26:15 ◼   ► I just want to preface this whole conversation here by saying to the listener, don't feel

00:26:19 ◼   ► like you have to pause and go and get this book and listen to it or read it. Actually,

00:26:26 ◼   ► I would implore that you do not do that.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Do not listen to this or read this.

00:26:33 ◼   ► Just listen to this conversation.

00:26:35 ◼   ► My hope is that I will give you, or we will give you, all of the value that you're gonna

00:26:40 ◼   ► need from this book over the course of this discussion.

00:26:44 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

00:26:46 ◼   ► Why did you read this book?

00:26:48 ◼   ► How did this book even come into your view in the first place?

00:26:52 ◼   ► Okay, so let me tell you the story with this book.

00:26:56 ◼   ► This falls into the category of

00:27:00 ◼   ► books that I sometimes mention and recommend to people that I think of as

00:27:04 ◼   ► business books. I don't just mean books that are

00:27:08 ◼   ► for business people, but there is like a genre of

00:27:12 ◼   ► books which are not as

00:27:16 ◼   ► terrible as like a self-help book would be. Like, self-help books are just awful.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Right?

00:27:21 ◼   ► They are just totally useless.

00:27:23 ◼   ► And in my mind, business books is a category of books that usually include people who have

00:27:28 ◼   ► accomplished something writing some book with advice about how they have accomplished a

00:27:33 ◼   ► thing.

00:27:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I've read a bunch of these books as well.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:37 ◼   ► But I don't mean to say that they are for businesses, necessarily.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Sure.

00:27:41 ◼   ► So this is just a category of book that I have always read to some degree in because

00:27:47 ◼   ► I think, "Oh, I would like to do some kind of self-improvement, but there's nothing useful

00:27:54 ◼   ► in the self-improvement section."

00:27:56 ◼   ► So this is the more actionable part of that section of the bookstore.

00:28:01 ◼   ► And so I do not know how I originally came across the Emeth Revisited, but at some stage

00:28:08 ◼   ► I read it, and I remember I read it when I was a teacher, I think back a long time ago,

00:28:15 ◼   ► when I was still teaching at my first school and I read it back then and I

00:28:21 ◼   ► thought well this book is terrible and useless and I was not a fan of it.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And a couple months ago I was talking with a fellow YouTube friend of mine and

00:28:39 ◼   ► somehow the topic of the book came up. I was vaguely discussing ideas with this

00:28:44 ◼   ► about the the year of less even though it wasn't under that exact title they

00:28:48 ◼   ► were doing something that was sort of similar and this person mentioned the

00:28:53 ◼   ► e-myth revisited as a book and suggested that I try rereading it I did reread it

00:29:00 ◼   ► and it was interesting because right at the time that I read it when I was a

00:29:06 ◼   ► teacher and I was trying to get something off the ground there was

00:29:08 ◼   ► nothing of value to be derived from that book for me.

00:29:14 ◼   ► But fast forward 8-10 years, when I'm actually a person who is now running my own very small

00:29:22 ◼   ► business with just myself as the one person who works for it, this book now does have

00:29:28 ◼   ► something of value to say to someone in my exact position.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So it is the rereading of this book I thought, huh, oh, okay, I am now in the position where

00:29:39 ◼   ► there is value to be derived from this book.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I agree mostly but not completely.

00:29:47 ◼   ► I believe this book is terrible but I don't think it's useless and I think that it is

00:29:53 ◼   ► possible to derive value from this if you're just in the position of having a side thing

00:29:59 ◼   ► that you like, you're fully employed.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I think this could help someone think about things to take their side business to a full

00:30:07 ◼   ► business.

00:30:08 ◼   ► I think it's possible to do that.

00:30:10 ◼   ► There are many problems with this book that we will get into, but I can easily see how

00:30:16 ◼   ► you did in your position, like completely miss what he was trying to get at.

00:30:21 ◼   ► But I do think that there is some value in it, but I think the book could be a tenth

00:30:26 ◼   ► of the size and you'd get the exact same value out of it.

00:30:31 ◼   ► This is a fundamental property of all business books. They are too long.

00:30:37 ◼   ► This is easily one of the worst for this that I've ever read though. It really, really is.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Usually these books do tend to be too long and they're peppered with a bunch of crap

00:30:49 ◼   ► and a bunch of just going over the same thing multiple times. And I think maybe some people

00:30:55 ◼   ► find value in that because it helps drive home the point, but on the whole I think that

00:30:58 ◼   ► that's kind of wasted. But I think this book suffers from that in brand new heights that

00:31:04 ◼   ► I had not yet come into contact with. So let's talk about it, right? Let's talk about what

00:31:09 ◼   ► this book is. One of the first things you need to know is that the E in EMISS stands

00:31:13 ◼   ► for entrepreneurial. I thought it meant like online.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Right. But this is actually quite an old book.

00:31:21 ◼   ► So yeah, this was like written in the 90s because at one point during the towards the

00:31:24 ◼   ► end, he talks about the coming change of the millennium. I was like, Oh, no.

00:31:30 ◼   ► book.

00:31:32 ◼   ► He's like the coming millennium. I like Oh, this explains a lot about you because there's

00:31:38 ◼   ► very little

00:31:41 ◼   ► anything in this book that is close to the internet. Like you kind of get this feeling

00:31:45 ◼   ► for out that like, this guy just hates the internet. But no, it's because the internet

00:31:49 ◼   ► doesn't really exist yet in the way that we know it to be now.

00:31:53 ◼   ► Yeah, he's not avoiding the elephant in the room.

00:31:55 ◼   ► And he talks about IBM, constantly talks about IBM.

00:31:59 ◼   ► And it's like, why do you love IBM so much?

00:32:01 ◼   ► It's like, oh, because it's the late 90s.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Right.

00:32:04 ◼   ► IBM, which feels like a brontosaurus lumbering across the plains when you talk about it now.

00:32:11 ◼   ► There was one thing that I had to do while I was halfway through this book,

00:32:14 ◼   ► and I was really excited, and it didn't give me what I wanted,

00:32:17 ◼   ► which is to check to see if this guy's business was still in business.

00:32:20 ◼   ► It is. So he has a company called E-Myth Worldwide, right?

00:32:25 ◼   ► And they're basically a management consultancy and business consultancy firm.

00:32:30 ◼   ► And this book is intended to sum up a lot of what they do

00:32:35 ◼   ► and what they help people do, which is to help people turn around their small businesses when they're in trouble.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's kind of the fundamental if we're talking for a moment about the content of the book. Yeah

00:32:47 ◼   ► The sales pitch of it might be that it is for someone who is running a small business

00:32:54 ◼   ► feels

00:32:56 ◼   ► ridiculously overwhelmed and

00:32:58 ◼   ► Overburdened by the business and is having a difficult time figuring out what exactly the problem is

00:33:04 ◼   ► Like I think that might be the sales pitch for it and that might also be why someone can now see like, oh, okay

00:33:11 ◼   ► I was in a position to derive some value from this book later in a way that I was not in a position to drive value from it

00:33:18 ◼   ► Before I even had a business to be running at all. Like I was just doing experiments

00:33:22 ◼   ► So I have lots of notes and I was taking these notes as I was listening to the book

00:33:27 ◼   ► I got the audiobook which is lovingly narrated by Mr. Michael Gerber the author.

00:33:32 ◼   ► I think that was a mistake. Oh, it was a horrible mistake

00:33:37 ◼   ► So you told me at some point I recommended that you you read this

00:33:41 ◼   ► I know Myke that you do not read books. I do not only listen to audiobooks. It's perfectly fine

00:33:48 ◼   ► yeah, and so I said, okay, you might as well just listen to this audiobook and

00:33:52 ◼   ► There are many cases with audiobooks where I think many nonfiction books

00:33:56 ◼   ► Benefit from being audiobooks because they they help get you through

00:34:00 ◼   ► Boring sections like you can just kind of plow on in a way that's a little bit more difficult when you are

00:34:05 ◼   ► physically reading a book? Yeah, I don't think I would have finished this if I was reading it. Right.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And that might normally be the case.

00:34:11 ◼   ► But when I discovered that you listened to the audiobook and it was read by the author, I thought,

00:34:18 ◼   ► "Oh no, that sounds like a terrible idea because

00:34:24 ◼   ► the author is

00:34:27 ◼   ► a slightly crazy person." Maybe in some ways. I have never listened to it,

00:34:30 ◼   ► but I predicted that this was not going to be a good thing to have the author read this audiobook.

00:34:35 ◼   ► you need to hear this.

00:34:37 ◼   ► So like I'll put a link in our show notes

00:34:40 ◼   ► to the Audible page, which I believe has a sample on it.

00:34:45 ◼   ► You just need to hear him, how he talks.

00:34:48 ◼   ► And I think it will help.

00:34:50 ◼   ► And why don't you do that now?

00:34:52 ◼   ► - Okay, let me actually hear what this sounds like.

00:34:55 ◼   ► - I want you to hear what this guy sounds like.

00:34:58 ◼   ► - I got it, I'm listening now.

00:35:00 ◼   ► - Risking capital to make a profit.

00:35:03 ◼   ► This is simply not so.

00:35:05 ◼   ► The real reasons people start businesses have little to do with entrepreneurship.

00:35:11 ◼   ► In fact, this belief in the entrepreneurial myth is the most important factor in the devastating

00:35:18 ◼   ► rate of small business failure today.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Okay, just listen to a little section of it.

00:35:24 ◼   ► This is a little bit like the actor who plays Vizzini in The Princess Bride, the Sicilian.

00:35:31 ◼   ► His name is Wallace Shawn.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:34 ◼   ► It's like if Wallace Shawn was doing a really professional reading of something, like he

00:35:41 ◼   ► could tone down the way he sounds, but I imagine this would be quite difficult to listen to

00:35:49 ◼   ► for however many hours it is.

00:35:51 ◼   ► Eight.

00:35:52 ◼   ► Eight.

00:35:53 ◼   ► Eight long hours for you, huh Myke?

00:35:55 ◼   ► It was long.

00:35:56 ◼   ► So let me go chronologically through some of the things that stuck out to me in this

00:36:02 ◼   ► book.

00:36:03 ◼   ► things that Mr Gerber talks about is small business owners and how when

00:36:10 ◼   ► people start their own businesses they work way more than they should be

00:36:15 ◼   ► working and but the problem is that they are doing the wrong type of work for

00:36:20 ◼   ► them for them which I thought was really interesting because I can definitely

00:36:24 ◼   ► associate with that and I think you can as well and I think that's some one of

00:36:28 ◼   ► the things that's driven us both to consider doing less is that we find that

00:36:32 ◼   ► that sometimes we're doing the work

00:36:34 ◼   ► that we not necessarily should be.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And this goes into this whole thing,

00:36:41 ◼   ► this whole like, one of the things

00:36:42 ◼   ► that underpins this entire book

00:36:44 ◼   ► is that people are one of three types of person

00:36:48 ◼   ► and you're either an entrepreneur, a manager,

00:36:51 ◼   ► or a technician.

00:36:52 ◼   ► And that it's possible to move between them

00:36:55 ◼   ► but you need to think about things in different ways

00:36:57 ◼   ► and have different types of skills.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And one of the things that he talks about

00:37:00 ◼   ► which I think is really interesting

00:37:01 ◼   ► is that when people leave their jobs to start businesses,

00:37:05 ◼   ► they're usually in the technician phase

00:37:08 ◼   ► or in the technician mindset,

00:37:09 ◼   ► as in they are the person doing the work

00:37:12 ◼   ► and they can do the work and they do the work well,

00:37:14 ◼   ► but they don't see why they should be doing that work

00:37:17 ◼   ► for someone else.

00:37:18 ◼   ► They should be doing that work for themselves.

00:37:20 ◼   ► So they go off and start their businesses,

00:37:22 ◼   ► but they don't get out of the technician mindset

00:37:24 ◼   ► and all they keep doing is just the work always

00:37:28 ◼   ► and then get bogged down in all of the other things

00:37:31 ◼   ► that it takes to run a business and then it can get a bit overwhelming.

00:37:34 ◼   ► That is by far and away the key value in this book.

00:37:40 ◼   ► Yeah. The, unfortunately it comes really soon.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Like you can listen like to the first hour and you've got all you need.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And I didn't know this when I was listening to it.

00:37:49 ◼   ► I'm looking at, I'm looking at my, uh,

00:37:52 ◼   ► my notes from the book and I can see his breakdown of the manager and the

00:37:56 ◼   ► technician and the entrepreneur, at least in my ebook reading of it,

00:38:01 ◼   ► is on page 24 of 204.

00:38:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's it.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Like, he goes into a lot of detail,

00:38:09 ◼   ► and there's a whole massive section later,

00:38:10 ◼   ► which is completely pointless in my opinion.

00:38:12 ◼   ► But this is the key thing that comes out of this book

00:38:15 ◼   ► that I think is really interesting,

00:38:17 ◼   ► and the idea of breaking out of the technician,

00:38:19 ◼   ► becoming the manager, and being the entrepreneur,

00:38:21 ◼   ► and like having to think about all of those things,

00:38:23 ◼   ► and you must be all of them

00:38:25 ◼   ► at certain times of your business.

00:38:26 ◼   ► And that is a really interesting thing.

00:38:28 ◼   ► And the idea of most people leaving their jobs

00:38:32 ◼   ► just being technicians and not transitioning

00:38:34 ◼   ► is something that so many people have to deal with.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And usually, like what happened for me is

00:38:39 ◼   ► it just all fell on me and I came to realize

00:38:42 ◼   ► a lot of this stuff.

00:38:44 ◼   ► But it was kind of overwhelming to begin with.

00:38:46 ◼   ► It's like, oh, you have to do it all now.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And that was a big thing, a big turning point for me

00:38:52 ◼   ► and something that I'm slowly trying to transition out of.

00:38:55 ◼   ► But still, like my transition's a long way away

00:38:58 ◼   ► And this book has helped me think about some of that stuff.

00:39:00 ◼   ► And there is a little bit more of that to come.

00:39:02 ◼   ► - Just wanna really hammer home this point,

00:39:06 ◼   ► because it is really one of the only points.

00:39:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:10 ◼   ► But what I found, you know, is quite striking,

00:39:13 ◼   ► is he's trying to talk about what kinds of people

00:39:17 ◼   ► end up going into business for themselves.

00:39:20 ◼   ► And it is very likely that, you know,

00:39:23 ◼   ► if you are listening to this podcast

00:39:25 ◼   ► and you have started your own business,

00:39:27 ◼   ► or you are currently working on side projects,

00:39:30 ◼   ► that you are someone who is very competent,

00:39:34 ◼   ► and you're very competent probably

00:39:36 ◼   ► at whatever it is you're doing at work.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And this is the idea, like you are the technician.

00:39:41 ◼   ► You are the person at work who is getting things done, right?

00:39:45 ◼   ► Or you have some skill on the side

00:39:48 ◼   ► that you are attempting to leverage

00:39:50 ◼   ► that you are very good at.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And this is the idea of the technician.

00:39:55 ◼   ► you are technically able at your skill.

00:39:59 ◼   ► This is why your boss employs you,

00:40:01 ◼   ► or it is why you think about doing something on the side

00:40:05 ◼   ► that involves this skill.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And that from the perspective of the technician,

00:40:11 ◼   ► your boss or your manager,

00:40:13 ◼   ► they're people who just kind of get in the way

00:40:16 ◼   ► of whatever it is that you're trying to do.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And that's the feeling that you have.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And so the thing that really struck home with me about this is thinking again when I was teaching

00:40:28 ◼   ► is this feeling of there were many lessons that I could do with the kids that I thought were really great lessons

00:40:35 ◼   ► that got them involved and got them interested

00:40:37 ◼   ► but then this feeling of "Oh, the whole structure of the school requires that the students write things down at regular intervals

00:40:47 ◼   ► and if we don't have something in their notes then this lesson didn't happen"

00:40:50 ◼   ► And so this is that frustration of like, I can put together a good interesting lesson,

00:40:55 ◼   ► but the bosses and the structure above are the thing that are frustrating me and limiting me.

00:41:00 ◼   ► So it's like, boy, I would love to work for myself.

00:41:05 ◼   ► And this idea that because you are skilled at something,

00:41:10 ◼   ► you will very naturally end up creating a business around your skill,

00:41:16 ◼   ► whatever it is that you are able to do.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And the problem is, however, that this role, this person that you can be, the technician,

00:41:27 ◼   ► the person who is good at making something, is not the same skill as someone who is running a business for someone who is self-employed.

00:41:38 ◼   ► You have created a job for yourself around your skill,

00:41:44 ◼   ► But if you just continue to do that all the time, you're going to run into problems.

00:41:51 ◼   ► And I've discussed this with some other people and this is in the theme of the year of less is this realization,

00:41:59 ◼   ► like what we were talking about in the beginning, of like, "Boy, I sure could create another YouTube channel."

00:42:06 ◼   ► Like, I would know how to make a YouTube channel that would be interesting and that people would want to watch.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Like I could make YouTube channels on various topics, but if I keep acting in this role of technician

00:42:17 ◼   ► I'm just going to end up causing for myself more and more problems because I'm just going to

00:42:22 ◼   ► run out of ability to do stuff or

00:42:25 ◼   ► Just not understand like what is the direction that the business should take?

00:42:30 ◼   ► So that like that to me is the real interesting key like the technician is the one who gets things

00:42:36 ◼   ► started who is able to create something of value that other people want but that if you

00:42:42 ◼   ► keep operating in only this

00:42:46 ◼   ► mindset you're going to eventually

00:42:49 ◼   ► Drive yourself into a bunch of problems. This is a really good thing to think about

00:42:55 ◼   ► And the whole idea of just having to consider

00:43:01 ◼   ► That you've got you're gonna have a lot of new things to do and it's not just the work anymore

00:43:07 ◼   ► And it's it's really this is why I think it's useful for people that have a side business to learn this before

00:43:13 ◼   ► Because then they know before they do it that you're gonna have to consider all of these different things

00:43:18 ◼   ► Yeah, there's going to be much more that you that you have to do that. You're not necessarily

00:43:23 ◼   ► expecting yeah

00:43:25 ◼   ► I think that was just, that's just a really great point.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And it's something that I had vaguely thought about. Like if you go back and listen to earlier Cortex shows,

00:43:34 ◼   ► like I do talk about this idea of thinking about myself as like the CEO of Gray Incorporated

00:43:42 ◼   ► and as an employee of Gray Incorporated, right?

00:43:45 ◼   ► And there are different ways that you have to think.

00:43:49 ◼   ► And I think even when we were discussing first doing this podcast, you know,

00:43:53 ◼   ► I think I explicitly told you at a couple of points like, okay,

00:43:56 ◼   ► I'm thinking of this not in terms of like, boy,

00:43:58 ◼   ► is this a thing that I can do?

00:44:00 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of this in terms of if I was the CEO of a company,

00:44:05 ◼   ► is this something I would say, yes,

00:44:07 ◼   ► one of my employees should do like this podcast called cortex.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Yeah. And we, we have a good relationship like that. Um,

00:44:14 ◼   ► and I don't know if you have this of other people,

00:44:16 ◼   ► but there are times where we would, you know, you would say,

00:44:20 ◼   ► or I would say like, we're talking about this strictly as business now. Yeah.

00:44:23 ◼   ► and we have a conversation, which is without the friendship,

00:44:27 ◼   ► it's like this is purely a business conversation,

00:44:29 ◼   ► CEO to CEO kind of stuff.

00:44:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, we've done that many times, and it's very helpful.

00:44:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we just put the friendship at the door,

00:44:35 ◼   ► we need to talk about business for a moment,

00:44:37 ◼   ► and then we can pick it up later.

00:44:38 ◼   ► I like that thinking, and there's a part way later

00:44:42 ◼   ► in the book which was quite useful to me,

00:44:44 ◼   ► is thinking about having an organizational chart

00:44:46 ◼   ► in your business.

00:44:47 ◼   ► - Yes, that is the second valuable idea in this book,

00:44:51 ◼   ► the end.

00:44:52 ◼   ► - Exactly, and this is something that I'm thinking a bit

00:44:54 ◼   ► about and wondering like, how would we do this at Relay FM

00:44:58 ◼   ► and we probably should do this.

00:45:00 ◼   ► And I brought this up to Steven and he's now gonna hear

00:45:02 ◼   ► the idea because I've not explained it to him yet.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Basically what Gerber does is he explains this,

00:45:09 ◼   ► like he creates this business called Widget Inc.

00:45:13 ◼   ► And there's these two people

00:45:14 ◼   ► and they run the business together.

00:45:16 ◼   ► And at one point they sit down and they map out

00:45:20 ◼   ► in an ideal world, what are all of the jobs

00:45:22 ◼   ► that need to occur in this business?

00:45:24 ◼   ► Like COO, president, vice president of marketing,

00:45:27 ◼   ► marketing person, vice president of sales, sales person.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And then between those two people,

00:45:33 ◼   ► they're the only two people in the business,

00:45:35 ◼   ► they divide up every single job

00:45:37 ◼   ► and sign contracts for those jobs.

00:45:40 ◼   ► So one person is like the COO,

00:45:43 ◼   ► the vice president of production,

00:45:45 ◼   ► and the production person.

00:45:46 ◼   ► The other is like the vice president of marketing,

00:45:49 ◼   ► the marketing person, the vice president of sales,

00:45:51 ◼   ► and the salesperson.

00:45:53 ◼   ► And they talk together and they work out

00:45:55 ◼   ► who the best person is for each job.

00:45:56 ◼   ► They take all of those roles and he said,

00:45:59 ◼   ► "What it allows you to do is to think in the business,

00:46:02 ◼   ► "you are doing the stuff, and think on the business."

00:46:05 ◼   ► So you are the salesperson and the salesperson's boss.

00:46:09 ◼   ► And thinking about those two roles for yourself

00:46:12 ◼   ► helps you do the work and advance your business

00:46:15 ◼   ► at the same time, and then later,

00:46:17 ◼   ► you can become the vice president of sales

00:46:19 ◼   ► is you hire a salesperson and they take your old job.

00:46:22 ◼   ► And I thought that way of thinking about it

00:46:24 ◼   ► is really smart because me and Steven were talking about

00:46:27 ◼   ► what we want our goals to be for our business this year.

00:46:30 ◼   ► And we actually had this conversation after last week,

00:46:32 ◼   ► we were both in the mindset of it.

00:46:34 ◼   ► And one of the things that we were talking about

00:46:38 ◼   ► and then one of the things that I know

00:46:40 ◼   ► is I want us to have some help this year,

00:46:43 ◼   ► but we don't really know what that is yet.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And I was thinking, this is gonna be a great way

00:46:47 ◼   ► for us to work out what is the help we need

00:46:50 ◼   ► and what are the roles that person should fill.

00:46:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's exactly what this is.

00:46:55 ◼   ► This idea, and it's something I've tried

00:46:59 ◼   ► to some extent to do it myself.

00:47:00 ◼   ► I think it's a little harder

00:47:01 ◼   ► when you're just a single person.

00:47:04 ◼   ► - 'Cause you're every single job.

00:47:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, because you're every single job

00:47:07 ◼   ► and so it's less differentiated.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Whereas I think if you have two,

00:47:09 ◼   ► it's a lot easier to say, oh, okay, yes,

00:47:11 ◼   ► obviously you do this and I do this.

00:47:13 ◼   ► But it is really useful to try and think about the company as it exists without you, even

00:47:23 ◼   ► if you are an integral part of it.

00:47:26 ◼   ► And so I'm actually looking at the chart that he has right now.

00:47:29 ◼   ► And so yes, he has divided up between even going so far as like the shareholders.

00:47:35 ◼   ► You are the shareholders and then design the company as though your only role was as a

00:47:44 ◼   ► shareholder.

00:47:45 ◼   ► If you couldn't do any of the things that the company does, what are all of the roles

00:47:50 ◼   ► that need to be filled?

00:47:52 ◼   ► And so that's a thing that you and Steven could do because you are shareholders of Relay,

00:47:56 ◼   ► you could think, "Oh, okay.

00:47:58 ◼   ► Let's say we couldn't be involved directly."

00:48:01 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Well, we would need hosts.

00:48:04 ◼   ► we would need someone who manages the hosts, and so then there's a vice president of talent

00:48:10 ◼   ► management, something along those lines.

00:48:11 ◼   ► I like the sound of that.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I'm gonna take that job.

00:48:15 ◼   ► We would also have the vice president of dealing with Grey.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:19 ◼   ► A whole division.

00:48:20 ◼   ► There's a grey vertical on this chart, which is just for managing me.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Grey's handler.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Grey's pillow fluffer.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I like this.

00:48:30 ◼   ► This is perfect.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Myke fills all these roles right now.

00:48:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but obviously we can have more people fluffing my pillows at a later date.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But yeah, so I think this, this is helpful if you are a single person.

00:48:43 ◼   ► I can imagine that in a company where it's the two of you,

00:48:47 ◼   ► that this seems like something that would be vital.

00:48:51 ◼   ► It's a vital tool to help think about the organization of the business.

00:48:55 ◼   ► And it's a vital tool to delineate clearly, okay,

00:49:00 ◼   ► who is in charge of what?

00:49:02 ◼   ► Instead of, okay, one of us just picks up at work when it's available,

00:49:06 ◼   ► like really have it written down and laser clear

00:49:09 ◼   ► who you are as though the company was a much bigger thing than it really is.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Yeah, so I really like that thinking.

00:49:16 ◼   ► That was another very useful thing that came out of the book for me,

00:49:19 ◼   ► and something I'm going to think a little bit more about

00:49:21 ◼   ► and look at how we could maybe implement something like that.

00:49:24 ◼   ► That is the second valuable idea in the book,

00:49:28 ◼   ► Which comes from me on page 126, so there's a hundred page gap between the two ideas.

00:49:35 ◼   ► And then...

00:49:36 ◼   ► Let's talk about some of the things that happen in those 100 pages, shall we?

00:49:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I was gonna say that.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And then there are almost no notes from me after page 126, there's another hundred something

00:49:47 ◼   ► pages, and I have two highlights from that whole section.

00:49:51 ◼   ► The book opens with statistics about how many businesses fail in America.

00:49:59 ◼   ► That is the opening of this book.

00:50:00 ◼   ► And to paraphrase after this section is done, it's basically Gerber saying, "There are

00:50:06 ◼   ► so many books out there to help you run a small business, so why do people fail?

00:50:09 ◼   ► Well this one's going to be the one that makes sure you succeed."

00:50:13 ◼   ► That's effectively how he starts, which is, this is how many many business books are,

00:50:17 ◼   ► right?

00:50:18 ◼   ► - Of course, of course. - You're gonna fail

00:50:20 ◼   ► unless you read this.

00:50:21 ◼   ► You're so lucky you bought this book,

00:50:23 ◼   ► now you're gonna be okay.

00:50:24 ◼   ► And then Gerber introduces a term

00:50:27 ◼   ► that he uses a lot in this book that I hate.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I hate this term.

00:50:32 ◼   ► And basically this term is to describe

00:50:36 ◼   ► what happens when a technician, a person doing the work,

00:50:39 ◼   ► decides they want to leave their job

00:50:41 ◼   ► and they make the snap judgment and decision

00:50:44 ◼   ► to leave their job and start their own thing.

00:50:46 ◼   ► He calls it an entrepreneurial seizure.

00:50:49 ◼   ► - Oh wow, that is bad.

00:50:52 ◼   ► - I hate this term.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Have you forgotten this?

00:50:55 ◼   ► - Well, here's the thing, Myke.

00:50:58 ◼   ► You have listened to this book very recently.

00:51:00 ◼   ► - In the last couple of days.

00:51:01 ◼   ► - Right, for me, this book,

00:51:04 ◼   ► I have much warmer feelings toward it

00:51:06 ◼   ► because it's like, oh yeah,

00:51:07 ◼   ► I remember there were things that I don't like.

00:51:09 ◼   ► I have a couple of points that I want to make

00:51:10 ◼   ► about things that I didn't like.

00:51:12 ◼   ► But I don't know, my feeling always

00:51:15 ◼   ► with these kinds of books is I want to extract whatever value is from them and I just assume

00:51:23 ◼   ► that there's a huge amount of nonsense and ridiculousness.

00:51:27 ◼   ► This one happens to be very, very high on the spectrum of things that are crazy and

00:51:34 ◼   ► nonsensical but the harshness of it has faded in my mind.

00:51:41 ◼   ► I guess, can I tell you the one thing that I really remember from this book as the part

00:51:45 ◼   ► that is just what I think of as business book sins.

00:51:49 ◼   ► And listeners, in case you don't read these kind of books,

00:51:52 ◼   ► I just want to be clear, the thing that I'm about to describe

00:51:55 ◼   ► is a thing that I have read many authors do,

00:51:58 ◼   ► but this book is just the peak example of it.

00:52:02 ◼   ► And it falls into two parts, which is

00:52:05 ◼   ► the whole structure of the book

00:52:08 ◼   ► is the author talking to an imaginary person.

00:52:13 ◼   ► who doesn't exist. I don't care. This person, Sarah, who owns a pie shop.

00:52:19 ◼   ► I think it's Sarah. I couldn't quite remember, but I thought it was Sarah. I do remember

00:52:22 ◼   ► that she owns a pie shop. I will never believe that Sarah, it was a

00:52:28 ◼   ► real person. Well, it's an amalgamation of people. It's

00:52:31 ◼   ► a theoretical example. Whatever it is, it is a book structured as a conversation to

00:52:37 ◼   ► to an imaginary person who acts as a sounding board for the author

00:52:41 ◼   ► and a way for the author to have examples of how to solve particular kinds of problems.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Now this device can be used well,

00:52:51 ◼   ► but it strikes me as often a device that is used by people who are not the strongest of writers.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And so it's a crutch.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And it also then makes the imaginary person, like it's a I don't think authors who do this can resist it makes

00:53:11 ◼   ► the

00:53:12 ◼   ► the imaginary person this I

00:53:14 ◼   ► Don't know how to put like

00:53:18 ◼   ► Amazingly impressed person right who is just wowed by the author which then becomes a situation like wait

00:53:26 ◼   ► You're just you're just writing a character

00:53:29 ◼   ► Who thinks you're the greatest thing in the world and of course all of her problems are?

00:53:36 ◼   ► perfectly solved by your solutions. Yeah, because you have created this character

00:53:43 ◼   ► to to be this way. They feel like they can't they're not a real person. No. And

00:53:49 ◼   ► the little bugbear that always gets me about this is

00:53:52 ◼   ► the imaginary characters will almost always just

00:53:57 ◼   ► Excessively use the author's name like they will just constantly

00:54:01 ◼   ► Say Oh

00:54:04 ◼   ► Michael what do you think Michael? What do you think at the end of this book?

00:54:07 ◼   ► The epilogue is a letter to Sarah where it is. I've never heard anything so insane. It's like

00:54:15 ◼   ► He's talking about

00:54:17 ◼   ► the year

00:54:19 ◼   ► 2000 being a moment where the world is gonna be shocked by intense lightning and

00:54:27 ◼   ► People have got to get out of the way or they're gonna be burnt to a crisp. I'm not even kidding

00:54:31 ◼   ► This is what I don't know what I don't know what happens to him at the end of this book, but in this letter

00:54:37 ◼   ► Every sentence he says Sarah

00:54:40 ◼   ► Every single is like and you know what Sarah this is gonna happen and Sarah

00:54:47 ◼   ► Let me tell you about this and Sarah and Sarah it just constantly over and over again

00:54:53 ◼   ► What are you doing? Nobody does this?

00:54:56 ◼   ► I just jumped to it. I've got the e-book open here. It starts with, "Dear Sarah,

00:55:02 ◼   ► it has been said that there are no accidents in the universe, so I might

00:55:06 ◼   ► consider it to be providential that on this very day that I'm writing this

00:55:10 ◼   ► letter to you, I have just finished reading for the third time

00:55:14 ◼   ► Rollo May's remarkable book, Man's Search for Himself." Just skimming through this,

00:55:18 ◼   ► every paragraph starts out with Sarah. And I have to just say again,

00:55:24 ◼   ► And this is, it's not that this letter is bad, but it just forces you to recognize the

00:55:31 ◼   ► craziness of this author is now writing a letter to an imaginary character that doesn't

00:55:37 ◼   ► exist.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Oh, I hear he's talking about the 20th century.

00:55:42 ◼   ► That dear Sarah is where I believe, blah, blah, blah.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Love, drama, experience, spirit.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Your path has always been there for you, Sarah.

00:55:52 ◼   ► You simply got lost.

00:55:54 ◼   ► didn't trust it. And you need to be assured, as any little girl would, that

00:55:59 ◼   ► your parents wouldn't leave you and that your teachers would love you. You became

00:56:03 ◼   ► disconnected from yourself, but fortunately not forever. Because this

00:56:07 ◼   ► path you're now on, this entrepreneurial path, winds around corners that will

00:56:12 ◼   ► amaze you at times and even shock you at others. It's like, but this person isn't

00:56:16 ◼   ► real! Like this person who is afraid that their teachers wouldn't love them.

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00:58:26 ◼   ► If we had such a yearning for values in 1953 when May's book was first published and we

00:58:30 ◼   ► have such a yearning for values today, what happened to us in the interim? The Cold War?

00:58:34 ◼   ► A trip to the moon? Korea? The Vietnam War? Cambodia? The sexual revolution? The civil

00:58:39 ◼   ► rights explosion, the psychological revolution, the new age manifesto, and the coming millennium?

00:58:44 ◼   ► One hell of a lot I would say.

00:58:46 ◼   ► We're looking like this person isn't real.

00:58:50 ◼   ► Who are you talking to?

00:58:53 ◼   ► And you just find the little part about being burnt by an intense bolt of lightning.

00:58:57 ◼   ► I think that we, playing our endgame at the bottom of the 20th century, are going to need

00:59:02 ◼   ► one hell of a lot more than anything our trainers have in store for us.

00:59:06 ◼   ► I think we need a shock, a self-administered shock, so jolting, so outrageous, so unsympathetic

00:59:12 ◼   ► to our little wants that we'll either be blown off the planet we've each shaped for ourselves

00:59:18 ◼   ► our own little spaces when we least expect it, or we will be burnt to a crisp right there

00:59:23 ◼   ► on the spot, never to be heard from again.

00:59:26 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense!

00:59:28 ◼   ► It's like Scientology or something.

00:59:30 ◼   ► It's like, what are you talking about, man?

00:59:32 ◼   ► Our own little planets, okay?

00:59:34 ◼   ► He just went mad at the end. Like I don't know what because like one before he talks about that he's saying about how

00:59:40 ◼   ► We're too obsessed with training and management consultancy, which is exactly what this book is

00:59:46 ◼   ► Like I don't which is the business that he's selling very it's all very very peculiar

00:59:50 ◼   ► The the insanity thing though for me peeks at what I remember as the second major sin

00:59:55 ◼   ► So the first sin is just the whole premise of the book is written to an imaginary character many books do this

01:00:00 ◼   ► Another thing that many books do

01:00:03 ◼   ► but that I like that is combined with the first sin here is that there is a

01:00:09 ◼   ► long chapter

01:00:11 ◼   ► where the author tells a story of a Jesus-like figure.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Oh dear Lord.

01:00:18 ◼   ► What the hell was this?

01:00:22 ◼   ► He tells the story about like a guy

01:00:25 ◼   ► finding his way in life and he's like a carpenter and he's a simple man and he travels.

01:00:30 ◼   ► woman and he travels to the world and he comes back and he has children and he finds another

01:00:35 ◼   ► woman and he becomes a carpenter seriously becomes a carpenter and he has a dog and he's

01:00:41 ◼   ► a poet and he's a jazz musician this is all true this is all stuff he's talking about

01:00:46 ◼   ► and then he goes to silicon valley and he becomes a salesman he doesn't understand computers

01:00:53 ◼   ► but he can sell to anyone because he used to sell encyclopedias and one time he got

01:00:58 ◼   ► attacked by a dog but he made the sale with the torn up contract it is so long

01:01:03 ◼   ► and so unbelievable and a a literal Jesus story like it is so clear that

01:01:10 ◼   ► this is the comparison of like Jesus finding his way in the world is the

01:01:15 ◼   ► story that he tells and then the author who's telling this story to Sarah the

01:01:20 ◼   ► imaginary character wraps it up by revealing what is no surprise to anybody

01:01:25 ◼   ► who's been reading this chapter that this is a story that the author is telling about himself and his own life and like how he

01:01:31 ◼   ► Came to be in the position where he's writing this book

01:01:33 ◼   ► And then it goes off into a little piece of music for the next chapter in the audiobook

01:01:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like let me just get this straight. You are one

01:01:42 ◼   ► Comparing yourself to Jesus to two an imaginary person who loves everything that you do

01:01:48 ◼   ► It's like okay tick tick. I have read

01:01:52 ◼   ► I mean, this is not the first time I have read in a business book a section where someone tells a Jesus parable about themselves

01:01:59 ◼   ► That's not unusual for this this genre of book

01:02:03 ◼   ► But to combine it with the flaw of telling it to an imaginary character just raises it to an exponential of crazy

01:02:09 ◼   ► It's almost breathtaking and beautiful in its its insanity

01:02:13 ◼   ► I have a couple of good points that I want to make before going back

01:02:18 ◼   ► One of them is any plan is better than no plan.

01:02:23 ◼   ► I quite like that.

01:02:24 ◼   ► He talks about that.

01:02:26 ◼   ► You should just have a plan.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Even if it's not necessarily the right one, make one,

01:02:30 ◼   ► and then you can make more later.

01:02:32 ◼   ► I quite like that.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And the idea of nobody cares about your business

01:02:37 ◼   ► the way that you do, and nobody will put the time in

01:02:39 ◼   ► like you do, you need to accept that,

01:02:41 ◼   ► then build systems which mean that it's okay,

01:02:43 ◼   ► 'cause otherwise you'll hire people

01:02:45 ◼   ► and you'll just do their work as well.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, that is also an excellent point, that you will care more than anybody else.

01:02:53 ◼   ► You have to build that into the system.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Like, that has to be part of it.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And that brings me to, I guess really, a third point that is valuable in this book.

01:03:05 ◼   ► It comes about because he's wandering, you know, Jesus-like through the mountains or

01:03:09 ◼   ► something, but the hotel that he comes across—

01:03:11 ◼   ► Oh!

01:03:12 ◼   ► No!

01:03:13 ◼   ► This hotel!

01:03:16 ◼   ► I've tried to find this hotel and I think I may have found it, but it doesn't look like the way he describes it.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Let's put aside

01:03:24 ◼   ► the reality of this hotel. Let's just ignore that for a second.

01:03:28 ◼   ► But he describes this just like amazing magical hotel that exists in the woods where the service is perfect and blah blah blah.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Like that's not the relevant thing.

01:03:39 ◼   ► What his takeaway here is to talk about, look,

01:03:45 ◼   ► Since you will care about your business more than anybody else you have to assume that anybody who's working for you will not care

01:03:51 ◼   ► As much as you do like how do you solve this problem if you're running something like a hotel?

01:03:55 ◼   ► What are you gonna do and the answer is?

01:03:58 ◼   ► That you have to rigorously

01:04:01 ◼   ► systematize

01:04:03 ◼   ► everything checklists and checklists and checklists checklists for checklists for checklists and

01:04:09 ◼   ► It sounds obvious and like even even for me as someone who just loves checklists and use checklists all the time this notion of

01:04:16 ◼   ► You need to think of the business in terms of this

01:04:21 ◼   ► Everything that is part of the business should be able to be represented by a checklist of some kind

01:04:28 ◼   ► And so he goes through an example about how?

01:04:30 ◼   ► He's talking about like the cleaners have

01:04:34 ◼   ► Not just instructions like oh you need to clean the room like here is the order that the room should be cleaned in every time

01:04:41 ◼   ► Here are all of the actions that should be cleaned out and you should tick tick tick this box, right?

01:04:45 ◼   ► And so this is this notion of okay

01:04:47 ◼   ► This is how you go through it

01:04:48 ◼   ► And then the manager has their own routine about like collecting in the checklists and going through that and make and you know doing random

01:04:54 ◼   ► checks and all this other kind of stuff, but I

01:04:57 ◼   ► really I really like that as the idea of

01:05:02 ◼   ► The business like this is how you define the DNA of what the business is

01:05:07 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, and like this is a thing that is separate from the actual implementation, but you as the business owner

01:05:14 ◼   ► This is the part that you can work on you can work on the checklists, but you shouldn't be

01:05:22 ◼   ► Carrying out the work if you can get someone else to follow the checklist like that like that is the fundamental idea

01:05:31 ◼   ► of a business that can be big. Again really smart stuff and again like I can

01:05:36 ◼   ► think about making checklists for just some of the real basic stuff that I do

01:05:39 ◼   ► so if I wasn't around for whatever reason somebody could pick it up and

01:05:43 ◼   ► creating these systems and plans but I need to talk about the hotel story a

01:05:48 ◼   ► little bit because people need to understand why I was just freaking out.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Okay. Tells this story about this hotel that he finds in the middle of the night

01:05:55 ◼   ► on a drive and he's basically found an oasis and he talks about like he goes to the room and he gets

01:06:03 ◼   ► changed and the room is so perfect and they've given him a room without a reservation and they're

01:06:08 ◼   ► really nice to him he talks about going to dinner and he arrives and they've made a reservation for

01:06:14 ◼   ► him but there's a line at the door but he doesn't need to worry because he has a reservation and

01:06:18 ◼   ► this place must be special he takes some time to listen to some jazz guitar with a brandy in his

01:06:23 ◼   ► hand goes back to his room thinking about wanting to light the fire that he

01:06:27 ◼   ► knew that had been there he arrives at his room the fire has been lit already

01:06:30 ◼   ► they must have known which seems unlikely yeah and he thought to himself

01:06:35 ◼   ► I would love to have a brandy maybe I'll pour one but when I arrive at the room

01:06:39 ◼   ► there's already a brandy waiting for me we have a card and it says your favorite

01:06:45 ◼   ► brandy love Kate how did they know my brand of brandy

01:06:51 ◼   ► I forgot all of this.

01:06:52 ◼   ► I remember they asked me at the restaurant what brandy I liked, so it's there for me.

01:06:58 ◼   ► And they put a mint on each pillow, and I wake up in the morning and I hear a bubbling

01:07:03 ◼   ► sound.

01:07:04 ◼   ► And I go into the bathroom and there's coffee that's already bubbling for me on a timer.

01:07:09 ◼   ► And there's another card that says, "Your brand of coffee, K." How did they know my

01:07:15 ◼   ► brand of coffee?

01:07:16 ◼   ► Oh, yes, they asked me in the restaurant.

01:07:19 ◼   ► I didn't even notice.

01:07:20 ◼   ► And then there's a knock on the door. I open the door. Nobody's there. But my newspaper,

01:07:26 ◼   ► the New York Times, is sitting on the mat. How did they know? Oh yes, they asked me when

01:07:32 ◼   ► I checked in. What's my favourite newspaper? And this all goes in their content management

01:07:37 ◼   ► system and it's so perfect. And you know what? This has happened to me every single time

01:07:42 ◼   ► I've been back. No it didn't! Shut up! Like, ahh. This is the main problem with this book.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Gerber takes a thousand words to explain ten words. I am sure he had a word count

01:08:00 ◼   ► because there are times when he lists things in this insane way. Like I'm

01:08:08 ◼   ► trying to think of an example but like he will say something over and over

01:08:13 ◼   ► again like the key to your business is time, the key to your business is effort,

01:08:18 ◼   ► The key to your business is people.

01:08:20 ◼   ► The key to... and he'll do this and he just keeps doing it.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And this happens multiple times in the book and I don't know why he does it.

01:08:27 ◼   ► And again, I reckon this is way easier in the written because you can just gloss over it.

01:08:31 ◼   ► But I have to sit and listen to him say it all.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Right, that's why I think the audiobook, especially narrated by him, was a terrible mistake.

01:08:38 ◼   ► So bad.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Because... these are the kinds of books that I don't even normally listen to as audiobooks

01:08:46 ◼   ► precisely because I'm expecting a large amount of skimming.

01:08:48 ◼   ► And so when I read business books,

01:08:52 ◼   ► it is almost always read as an actual book on my iPad.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I do not listen to it as an audio book.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Like I will listen to audio non-fiction books

01:09:02 ◼   ► that are books about a topic and it's very helpful then,

01:09:06 ◼   ► but yeah, it seems the reverse of helpful

01:09:08 ◼   ► when you have to listen to him go through point by point

01:09:12 ◼   ► every one of his lists and you can't just go like,

01:09:14 ◼   ► I'm gonna skip this.

01:09:15 ◼   ► I'm gonna skim, skim, skim, let me find when you change topic again, buddy.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Can't do it.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I want to talk about one other little thing here, called the turnkey revolution.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Oh, this is where he talks about franchises?

01:09:31 ◼   ► This is such a massive portion of the book, and a lot of it doesn't really apply to me

01:09:35 ◼   ► and you.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's why my memory of this is very dim.

01:09:39 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, right, I remember he talks about franchises."

01:09:43 ◼   ► And it is a really interesting way to think of it, because you're saying that even if

01:09:45 ◼   ► you don't want to franchise your business, you can follow this model and create procedures

01:09:50 ◼   ► and manuals that people can follow.

01:09:52 ◼   ► But I think it's difficult for people like me and you, where I hate to say this, but

01:09:57 ◼   ► entertainment led, because not anyone can do all of it.

01:10:03 ◼   ► You can't create a guide for somebody to make a YouTube video or to make a podcast, because

01:10:08 ◼   ► There's stuff that needs to go in that you can't just teach someone if they don't know

01:10:13 ◼   ► it.

01:10:14 ◼   ► Like you've spoken about this in the past.

01:10:16 ◼   ► You've got to have this little thing about you which allows you to create the entertainment.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and all of the things that we do I broadly think of as entertainment.

01:10:29 ◼   ► I make educational YouTube videos, but ultimately they're popular because they are entertaining.

01:10:36 ◼   ► like them and people listen to the podcast like I hope people get something out of the

01:10:41 ◼   ► podcast but people listen because they are entertaining and there is there is not a checklist

01:10:46 ◼   ► that you can give to someone to replace someone who is in the entertainment business I do

01:10:52 ◼   ► think that that is a bit of an exception.

01:10:54 ◼   ► You would have done it already.

01:10:55 ◼   ► Yeah honest to god if I could just own a company that paid a dude who could just be me like

01:11:02 ◼   ► this would be great yeah get all the money and none of the work.

01:11:06 ◼   ► That's what you would do. So he came up with this term and he says like he created a term

01:11:11 ◼   ► for this called the turnkey revolution, which is the impact of franchise businesses on American

01:11:17 ◼   ► business. So he introduces the turnkey revolution as an idea. And then he starts talking about

01:11:25 ◼   ► the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the world. He talks about the information

01:11:30 ◼   ► age and the impact of the internet and what that's having on the world. And then he says

01:11:35 ◼   ► But if you ask people about the turnkey revolution, you'll be met with a blank face.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Well of course, because you created it! Nobody knows this exists! You've made the term up!

01:11:47 ◼   ► Like, he's like "Why does nobody know about this?"

01:11:52 ◼   ► *moans*

01:11:53 ◼   ► GURVA you drive me mad.

01:11:57 ◼   ► See what you've done to me?

01:12:01 ◼   ► The last week of my life has been spent screaming at my phone.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I have specifically not really wanted to talk to you about this between the time I recommended

01:12:12 ◼   ► that you listen to this book and now, but I have gotten some iMessages that felt like

01:12:17 ◼   ► they were verging on a little testy.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Like I could tell Myke was a bit grumpy.

01:12:22 ◼   ► There were points where I think I had said to you, "Why have you done this to me?"

01:12:27 ◼   ► you not derive some value from the book? I have, but my whole, I have a whole section at the end of

01:12:35 ◼   ► my notes which is basically why didn't you just tell me this stuff? Why did you make me listen

01:12:41 ◼   ► to this book? You could have just told me all of this stuff like we've just told our audience here.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Why did you make me listen to this book, right? Well, I mean first of all we need to talk about it.

01:12:53 ◼   ► But you could have just told me.

01:12:55 ◼   ► But we can't just- the conversation is different if you haven't actually read the book.

01:13:01 ◼   ► Do you remember at one point in this book,

01:13:02 ◼   ► where he says as a way to try and position your business as what you want to achieve in your life,

01:13:10 ◼   ► and he says the way you should imagine this

01:13:12 ◼   ► is he describes a church, then describes a coffin,

01:13:16 ◼   ► then describes you in the coffin and somebody giving your eulogy and what you want that to sound like.

01:13:22 ◼   ► Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:24 ◼   ► What about, what's your point? What about that?

01:13:27 ◼   ► Nothing. We can just, you know, we gloss over that.

01:13:31 ◼   ► There is really some good stuff in this book.

01:13:33 ◼   ► There's two things, but unfortunately it is full of so much stuff.

01:13:40 ◼   ► Maybe now, listener, you will want to hear this so you can share in the pain.

01:13:46 ◼   ► That's the only reason you should listen to this.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Like, if you're looking for more, we've given you everything you're going to get from it, I think.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Well, we've told you the main points to be derived from the book.

01:13:56 ◼   ► There's still a lot of context that maybe you can get, but there is, I think we've basically

01:14:02 ◼   ► boiled down to what it does.

01:14:04 ◼   ► And one of my other favorite things about this is there is an ad for E-Myth worldwide

01:14:08 ◼   ► at the end of the audiobook that I don't understand.

01:14:11 ◼   ► That's classy.

01:14:12 ◼   ► Like, why should I need your services?

01:14:15 ◼   ► Shouldn't this book have done everything?

01:14:17 ◼   ► Apparently not.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I don't agree with that approach. It's very different to have someone actually work with

01:14:24 ◼   ► you and you can hear him tell his stories in person. It might be a very different experience.

01:14:28 ◼   ► Well, of course Sarah.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Again, this falls under the category of these kind of things. I would not strongly recommend

01:14:38 ◼   ► this book to people, but I would say that there is some value to be derived from it.

01:14:42 ◼   ► Yeah, there is. There is. But you really need to know what you're getting into.

01:14:46 ◼   ► You need to know what you're getting into.

01:14:49 ◼   ► listen to any book. But it just reminds me of, I just pulled it up here on my website,

01:14:55 ◼   ► the thing that I always intend to do more but I do very rarely is sometimes I write

01:14:58 ◼   ► up some of the notes that I take on books and there's a book called Bird by Bird which

01:15:04 ◼   ► is about writing and in it she has a line about how it's difficult to do the thing that

01:15:13 ◼   ► we're sort of doing now which is to just tell someone the key bullet points from a book

01:15:18 ◼   ► that you that's not the same thing as actually reading the book and and she

01:15:25 ◼   ► says in bird by bird that you know there may be a flickering moment of insight in

01:15:29 ◼   ► a one-liner but everyday truth is beyond our ability to capture in a few words

01:15:34 ◼   ► the whole piece is the truth not just one shining moment in it and I do I do I

01:15:42 ◼   ► really agree with that line because I have that feeling from many books that

01:15:47 ◼   ► someone can tell you the bullet points but it's not the same thing as actually

01:15:53 ◼   ► reading the book even if the book is filled with moments of just babbling

01:15:58 ◼   ► insanity yeah just and and this book is is one of those examples I mean there

01:16:05 ◼   ► are there are several books I have read like this where you feel like this is

01:16:09 ◼   ► just filled with craziness like what's it like what's his name Taleb I forget

01:16:17 ◼   ► his first name, but the guy who wrote the Black Swan and

01:16:19 ◼   ► Antifragile like those books fall into the same category of even more so than this like well

01:16:26 ◼   ► Yes

01:16:27 ◼   ► insanity like this person is

01:16:29 ◼   ► Literally out of their mind and also thinks they are the greatest human being to ever have lived

01:16:37 ◼   ► But it's and I could tell you the bullet points from those books

01:16:42 ◼   ► But it's still not the same thing as actually having read those books so that so that's why I get I'm not

01:16:46 ◼   ► Commending this book listener, but I'm not

01:16:48 ◼   ► Disrecommending it, you know, I think there is some value to be derived separate from listening to two people

01:16:55 ◼   ► Tell you what the bullet points are. I

01:16:57 ◼   ► Can't let the irony go amiss though of you making that point by reading a line from a book

01:17:03 ◼   ► Yeah, of course. I can't let that I just can't let that go because I quite like that

01:17:07 ◼   ► You know read bird by bird. It's good

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01:19:10 ◼   ► So whilst you did something horrible to me this week, you redeemed yourself a little

01:19:14 ◼   ► bit. Actually quite a lot by doing something amazing.

01:19:18 ◼   ► What did I do that was amazing for you, Myke?

01:19:20 ◼   ► You introduced me to another thing that cost me some money.

01:19:25 ◼   ► Those are very amazing things. Things that cost money.

01:19:28 ◼   ► If there is one thing that joins me and you together, it's our joy in spending money

01:19:32 ◼   ► on new toys that make our work even miniscule amounts more fun or easier.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Yes, you and I are both willing to spend money in ways that makes the business easier even

01:19:44 ◼   ► if it's not a lot easier.

01:19:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it can be like it can take seconds off a process and I'm willing to spend £100 on

01:19:50 ◼   ► it.

01:19:51 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:19:52 ◼   ► Because it's like anything that makes us better is good.

01:19:53 ◼   ► And the thing that you've done this time is you have made me, which made Adina say, another

01:19:58 ◼   ► Wacom tablet?

01:19:59 ◼   ► Yep, another one.

01:20:01 ◼   ► So I now own a Wacom Intuos Pro.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Because you sent me a picture of a Wacom Intuos Pro on your lap with your feet up on your

01:20:12 ◼   ► desk editing Hello Internet and you told me this is all I need.

01:20:18 ◼   ► Yeah, so I have been using a Wacom bamboo tablet I think for years and years.

01:20:26 ◼   ► It's like this old tablet that I got.

01:20:28 ◼   ► And, as can sometimes happen with tools,

01:20:31 ◼   ► it was just a thing that I was using without really thinking about it.

01:20:34 ◼   ► I was dimly aware that it was really old.

01:20:36 ◼   ► But I just, you know, it didn't really cross my mind.

01:20:39 ◼   ► And as we have discussed many times,

01:20:41 ◼   ► I use a pen tablet probably now 50 or 60% of the time

01:20:46 ◼   ► when I'm using a computer.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Like, I like to rotate input devices.

01:20:50 ◼   ► But so, like, I would just use the bamboo as per normal,

01:20:52 ◼   ► interacting with the computer.

01:20:54 ◼   ► But it eventually started giving up the ghosts, it was flickering, it was having some connection problems.

01:21:00 ◼   ► It wasn't really working and I thought, "Oh, okay, this is the time to get a new tablet."

01:21:05 ◼   ► And so I did some digging around, I did some looking around, and I discovered that Wacom now has this...

01:21:10 ◼   ► In their lineup, I think it's in the middle of their Pro stuff, like some of their top-top Pro stuff is just crazy,

01:21:17 ◼   ► like it shows the screen on the tablet, I don't need any of that.

01:21:20 ◼   ► but their like mid-range pro tablet, the Intuos, is fantastic.

01:21:27 ◼   ► So I was looking at this online, I thought, "Let me get it, let me buy this and see if..."

01:21:33 ◼   ► What I wanted to be able to do was edit a podcast without having to touch the keyboard.

01:21:41 ◼   ► And this tablet has two features that make that possible.

01:21:48 ◼   ► The first is that the actual surface of it is also a touch screen or touchpad.

01:21:54 ◼   ► So you can use it a bit like the Magic Trackpad for Apple.

01:21:58 ◼   ► And the second thing is it has a bunch of hardware buttons on the left side that

01:22:03 ◼   ► perfectly you can program on a per application basis.

01:22:11 ◼   ► So I can set it up so that when I press the buttons on the side, it performs

01:22:15 ◼   ► specific actions just in Logic.

01:22:19 ◼   ► And I can change what those actions are if I'm using a different application.

01:22:23 ◼   ► And this thing is just amazing.

01:22:29 ◼   ► It is just astounding.

01:22:31 ◼   ► And I already got pretty fast on editing stuff in Logic with the keyboard shortcuts

01:22:38 ◼   ► that I had set up. But man, being able to do the whole thing without touching the

01:22:43 ◼   ► keyboard to just have a couple of buttons on the pen that I can click or a

01:22:47 ◼   ► couple of buttons on the side of the tablet that I can press with my one hand

01:22:50 ◼   ► and to be able to use the touch surface to quickly zoom in and zoom out of

01:22:54 ◼   ► waveforms and move forward and move back it allows me to edit a podcast much

01:23:02 ◼   ► faster and also much more comfortably I don't have to be right on top of my

01:23:09 ◼   ► computer like I sent you in that picture I can actually lean back and just have

01:23:14 ◼   ► this thing in my lap and use it it has to be the best input device I have used

01:23:20 ◼   ► thus far on a computer it's yeah it's astounding I loved that we both did love

01:23:26 ◼   ► that Logitech mouse one of the reasons that we would have loved that mouse so

01:23:29 ◼   ► much is how programmable it was oh yeah but the problem was with it is because

01:23:34 ◼   ► it was so programmable I was doing and contorting my hand in ways I shouldn't

01:23:37 ◼   ► a

01:23:57 ◼   ► it

01:24:20 ◼   ► add but I just want to tell people give them an idea of what I'm able to do now.

01:24:24 ◼   ► So the pen obviously moves things around and if I click one of the buttons I can

01:24:29 ◼   ► drag logic around which is great and then I can pause play I can seek to the

01:24:36 ◼   ► playhead press a button that takes me back to where the playhead is I'm able

01:24:39 ◼   ► to cut at the like the playhead line I'm able to select all forward I mean it's

01:24:47 ◼   ► It's just beautiful.

01:24:48 ◼   ► I love this thing.

01:24:49 ◼   ► And also, there's something that I do quite a bunch, which is selecting a bunch of the

01:24:56 ◼   ► waveforms at once, like all the audio tracks.

01:24:58 ◼   ► So what I set it up was if I turn it over to the eraser and hold down, it presses basically

01:25:04 ◼   ► the select key and I can drag and select multiple things at once.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Oh, that's clever.

01:25:09 ◼   ► That's clever.

01:25:10 ◼   ► I didn't think to do that.

01:25:11 ◼   ► And then it has this zoom wheel thing, this touch ring, which allows me to zoom in and

01:25:15 ◼   ► out greatest things amazing. Isn't it though? It's just incredible it is so incredible and

01:25:22 ◼   ► a lot of these tools I think are kind of made for video editors and for uh like to use photoshop

01:25:27 ◼   ► and stuff like that like that's kind of what it's here to do but like it works brilliantly for me

01:25:31 ◼   ► and in my kind of non-logic controls I have it so it can access mission control and switch from

01:25:37 ◼   ► space to space so I don't even need to use my magic trackpad because I find the touch gestures

01:25:42 ◼   ► to be a little bit inaccurate like it doesn't always like if the pen is kind

01:25:46 ◼   ► of anywhere near the touchpad of the tablet it kind of doesn't like to do the

01:25:51 ◼   ► gestures with my fingers I found that to be the case yeah I am never a fan of

01:25:56 ◼   ► using multi finger touch gestures on almost anything like I just I'm I'm not

01:26:01 ◼   ► a fan of that as an as an input device sure so I can't speak to that for myself

01:26:07 ◼   ► but the buttons do such a great job of switching from space to space for me

01:26:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I wanted to bring this up because like you said this is this is something that is designed

01:26:16 ◼   ► very clearly for

01:26:19 ◼   ► animation professionals for artists for Photoshop like you feel like this is a

01:26:23 ◼   ► Photoshop augmentation devices is its prime purpose now I

01:26:28 ◼   ► Don't use Photoshop. I do do some animation in other programs, but

01:26:34 ◼   ► For anyone listening, you know a recurring theme I think on this podcast has been us touching upon the issue of RSI and repetitive strain injury

01:26:42 ◼   ► Because this is a thing that if you work it at a computer you worry about if your whole living comes from a computer

01:26:50 ◼   ► it's something that you worry about and

01:26:52 ◼   ► This

01:26:55 ◼   ► pen tablet with its programmable interface

01:26:59 ◼   ► is I think an input device that

01:27:04 ◼   ► Anybody who makes a living at a computer they should seriously consider using this at least some of the time

01:27:12 ◼   ► Because it just it is so much more comfortable to use

01:27:18 ◼   ► It is something that you can use for an extremely long period of time

01:27:22 ◼   ► it's

01:27:25 ◼   ► There is something just very natural about

01:27:28 ◼   ► holding a pen and using it to interact with an interface

01:27:32 ◼   ► that this really takes advantage of and the couple of programmable buttons on top of that just makes a

01:27:39 ◼   ► world of difference.

01:27:41 ◼   ► I've been over the past week slowly trying to set it up with a bunch of different programs that I use

01:27:46 ◼   ► so that again like when if I'm using Inkscape to draw I can have something set up differently even if I'm using

01:27:53 ◼   ► logic than if I'm just using the operating system in general.

01:27:58 ◼   ► It is a fantastic input device that I can really feel helps with my hands.

01:28:06 ◼   ► It takes a lot of the pressure off of my left hand in terms of editing.

01:28:13 ◼   ► I don't know if I ever told you this, Myke, but I like to play video games.

01:28:18 ◼   ► A very common input method for video games is WASD with your left hand for moving forward, back, left, or right.

01:28:26 ◼   ► right and then a couple of buttons around there to interact with the game in some way.

01:28:30 ◼   ► So it's very common that your left hand is on the keyboard WASD.

01:28:34 ◼   ► And I had set up logic so that I was WASD-ing for all of the keyboard shortcuts that I wanted

01:28:42 ◼   ► to use.

01:28:43 ◼   ► I don't even know what that must look like.

01:28:45 ◼   ► That sounds crazy.

01:28:46 ◼   ► It does sound crazy, but it was very natural that every button I wanted to use was kind

01:28:52 ◼   ► of around WASD and I could press them in the same way that I was very used to in games,

01:28:58 ◼   ► having that as a hand position and then my right hand is using a mouse, it was using

01:29:02 ◼   ► the MX Master or it's using the pen tablet or whatever.

01:29:05 ◼   ► But because there is this overlap with playing video games where it's like, okay, now I have

01:29:09 ◼   ► two activities that are using the same hand position, I was aware of beginning to feel

01:29:15 ◼   ► in my left hand a little bit of that precursor feeling of like, oh man, this is really fast,

01:29:22 ◼   ► This is why video games use this input.

01:29:24 ◼   ► This is why I have also chosen to set up my logic this way with this input.

01:29:27 ◼   ► But this is bad now having two activities that use the exact same hand gestures.

01:29:33 ◼   ► And so that's why being able to do everything from the tablet is just fantastic.

01:29:41 ◼   ► So I can do the whole thing one-handed from my lap.

01:29:45 ◼   ► It's just great. It's just amazing.

01:29:47 ◼   ► I love it. I really, really do love it.

01:29:49 ◼   ► Because I'm just very used to this type of interaction now.

01:29:53 ◼   ► When you're worried about RSI, these are the kinds of things that you think about.

01:29:59 ◼   ► And I've definitely had problems with RSI in the past, problems that have prevented

01:30:04 ◼   ► me from working for various periods of time.

01:30:08 ◼   ► And this is a tool that really helps get around that.

01:30:11 ◼   ► And so I highly, highly recommend it.

01:30:13 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's safe to say, Gray, that you did redeem yourself.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I don't know if you're bothered about that.

01:30:20 ◼   ► - I'm not bothered.

01:30:21 ◼   ► - No, I didn't think you would be.

01:30:22 ◼   ► But I just want you to know that in my eyes,

01:30:26 ◼   ► you are redeemed.

01:30:28 ◼   ► - Irrelevant.