Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► Are you familiar with the TV show The Bear?

00:00:02 ◼   ► No.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Are you aware of it at all?

00:00:05 ◼   ► No, I paused there because I was thinking like,

00:00:08 ◼   ► The Bear, is that where the guy gets eaten by a bear?

00:00:11 ◼   ► But that wasn't a show, that was a Werner Herzog documentary.

00:00:15 ◼   ► This is about a chef in Chicago, it's very different.

00:00:18 ◼   ► Does he get eaten by a bear?

00:00:19 ◼   ► There is a bear in it at one point,

00:00:21 ◼   ► but I think that's a dream sequence.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Oh, all right.

00:00:25 ◼   ► So no, I'm unfamiliar with The Bear.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I think that's totally fine,

00:00:28 ◼   ► but basically I was watching this show.

00:00:30 ◼   ► So ostensibly, I think what you need to know is

00:00:33 ◼   ► The Bear focuses on a world-class chef

00:00:36 ◼   ► and he comes back to his hometown to open a restaurant.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And he is cooked all over the world

00:00:41 ◼   ► in all the best restaurants

00:00:42 ◼   ► and he wants to open a restaurant in his hometown.

00:00:44 ◼   ► And it's a really good show.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Are you gonna bet a point on this, Mike?

00:00:47 ◼   ► For our more text listeners,

00:00:49 ◼   ► they know that I am very, very poor track record-wise

00:00:54 ◼   ► on my recommendations to you,

00:00:55 ◼   ► so I'm not recommending this one to you

00:00:57 ◼   ► because I don't feel confident that you would like it,

00:01:00 ◼   ► but maybe you would.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Yeah, Mike's gotten real hesitant to risk

00:01:04 ◼   ► the reputation points that he has been betting

00:01:06 ◼   ► on media recommendations and more text.

00:01:08 ◼   ► And I will say in all fairness,

00:01:11 ◼   ► in the previous more text, when we discussed Fallout,

00:01:14 ◼   ► you just had some real bad luck.

00:01:16 ◼   ► That was just bad luck.

00:01:17 ◼   ► That's understandable.

00:01:17 ◼   ► That's why my ears perk up the moment

00:01:20 ◼   ► that Mike starts making any media recommendations,

00:01:22 ◼   ► because all I'm thinking is like,

00:01:24 ◼   ► ooh, is he gonna bet a point?

00:01:26 ◼   ► Is it a point worthy?

00:01:27 ◼   ► But the bear is not.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Well, I love it.

00:01:29 ◼   ► There's just lessons to be learned from the bear?

00:01:31 ◼   ► Is that what's happening?

00:01:32 ◼   ► Yeah, and by the way,

00:01:32 ◼   ► Severance is coming back next year, January.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Yeah, you did get a point for Severance.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Well, I bet my reputation on Severance.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Oh, is that where it started?

00:01:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:41 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:01:42 ◼   ► Oh, okay, that's where it started.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Where over dinner, I bet my reputation

00:01:46 ◼   ► that you would like Severance.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Yes, that's right.

00:01:48 ◼   ► 'Cause you were unwilling to take my recommendations

00:01:51 ◼   ► at that point, and so I had to up the stakes.

00:01:54 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:01:55 ◼   ► I had blacklisted you.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I completely forgot.

00:01:58 ◼   ► And so he were like,

00:01:59 ◼   ► I'm going all or nothing on Severance.

00:02:01 ◼   ► That's how it began, okay.

00:02:03 ◼   ► So really the thing that I wanted to take away for this,

00:02:06 ◼   ► and the thing I maybe took away for the most recent season,

00:02:08 ◼   ► is the bear is about a chef who is a master at his craft,

00:02:13 ◼   ► and is basically torturing himself for perfection,

00:02:20 ◼   ► and what he needs to do to get to perfection.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And I think I took the wrong lesson away from the show.

00:02:29 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:02:30 ◼   ► I think.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Uh-oh.

00:02:31 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:02:32 ◼   ► I just think maybe you're supposed to be like,

00:02:34 ◼   ► oh man, he shouldn't do that.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Where I'm like, no, I think he kind of has to do that,

00:02:39 ◼   ► is where I'm coming from when watching the show.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Okay, go on.

00:02:43 ◼   ► Because of what it takes to be the best, right?

00:02:46 ◼   ► Like if you want to be the best, you must sacrifice.

00:02:49 ◼   ► That's kind of what it is about to be the best

00:02:51 ◼   ► at anything in any field.

00:02:54 ◼   ► But to take it back a level from that,

00:02:56 ◼   ► the show has left me thinking a lot about the idea

00:03:00 ◼   ► of being better, and how I also feel like

00:03:05 ◼   ► I'm in this constant state of being unsatisfied

00:03:10 ◼   ► with my level of skill in the things that I do,

00:03:14 ◼   ► and wanting to be better, like meaningfully better.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I sometimes feel like I'm in this conflict with myself

00:03:22 ◼   ► about wanting to be immediately better at what I do,

00:03:25 ◼   ► but then being impatient about the time that it takes

00:03:27 ◼   ► to be better at what I do.

00:03:29 ◼   ► And then also being very aware of,

00:03:33 ◼   ► by the time that I actually get to that level of better,

00:03:35 ◼   ► I don't even see it anymore, because you kind of,

00:03:38 ◼   ► you lose the perspective of your skill level increasing.

00:03:43 ◼   ► And I think for me, this kind of idea comes from

00:03:47 ◼   ► the things that I do, I want them to be the best

00:03:50 ◼   ► that they can possibly be, but also feeling frustrated

00:03:55 ◼   ► at understanding that I'm not sure

00:03:58 ◼   ► that I can actually do that, to make these things

00:04:01 ◼   ► the very best they possibly can be,

00:04:04 ◼   ► is always, it feels like it's outside of my skill level,

00:04:09 ◼   ► because I know I'm not the best, right?

00:04:13 ◼   ► Like when I think about any of the endeavors,

00:04:16 ◼   ► so let's say, if I think about podcasting,

00:04:19 ◼   ► I think about product design, the two areas of my work

00:04:22 ◼   ► that I'm focusing on, I can see things that I want to be,

00:04:27 ◼   ► or want to do, and I can see past those things as well,

00:04:33 ◼   ► like what areas could I imagine somehow getting to,

00:04:36 ◼   ► but knowing that I'll never actually get there,

00:04:41 ◼   ► this is a thing I've been rolling around in my head.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - This is a big, heavy start, boy,

00:04:46 ◼   ► it's like a thousand things already in what you said.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Do you feel this way ever?

00:04:51 ◼   ► - This is a topic among creative people,

00:04:55 ◼   ► like it's a thing that you're just gonna run across

00:04:57 ◼   ► the moment you start trying to make anything,

00:04:59 ◼   ► even just like pure skill at anything.

00:05:03 ◼   ► There's something that's slightly different about tasks

00:05:06 ◼   ► in particular that involve creativity,

00:05:08 ◼   ► like product design, like podcasting, and like chefing,

00:05:12 ◼   ► chefing up a storm as you're getting better and better

00:05:15 ◼   ► at your chefing.

00:05:16 ◼   ► - Or making YouTube videos.

00:05:17 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, okay, so I was sort of trying

00:05:18 ◼   ► to avoid YouTube videos, but I guess I'll get to one,

00:05:21 ◼   ► like what's one of the first things that from my end

00:05:25 ◼   ► comes up, but might be just a bit,

00:05:27 ◼   ► I think it's probably a little bit different

00:05:29 ◼   ► because of the nature of my work,

00:05:30 ◼   ► but I still think it might be a useful idea to keep in mind.

00:05:33 ◼   ► There is a thing that happens when I am, like now,

00:05:38 ◼   ► working on a video, you're in the middle of things,

00:05:41 ◼   ► like I'm writing the scripts,

00:05:43 ◼   ► and I don't have great language for this,

00:05:47 ◼   ► the best I have come up with to describe it

00:05:50 ◼   ► is to talk about how you can be working on something

00:05:55 ◼   ► and you are thinking about what it could be,

00:06:00 ◼   ► but what is hard to know is if that thought in your head

00:06:06 ◼   ► is more like when your brain dreams.

00:06:12 ◼   ► I think about this with dreams a lot.

00:06:14 ◼   ► There is a phenomenon that I always think of as like,

00:06:17 ◼   ► you wake up and you think you had a great idea

00:06:19 ◼   ► in your dream, but what you really had

00:06:22 ◼   ► was the idea of a great idea.

00:06:24 ◼   ► You didn't have a great idea,

00:06:26 ◼   ► but you had all the emotional resonance

00:06:28 ◼   ► to it being a good idea in your dream.

00:06:30 ◼   ► You're like, "Oh, why can't I think of the details?"

00:06:32 ◼   ► It's like, because there weren't any details there at all.

00:06:36 ◼   ► That's on my mind right now because I'm in the process

00:06:39 ◼   ► of doing visuals for the script,

00:06:42 ◼   ► and that's a moment where it can really make it

00:06:44 ◼   ► quite clear sometimes where it's like,

00:06:45 ◼   ► "Oh, this section of the script,

00:06:48 ◼   ► I was kind of dreaming the version

00:06:52 ◼   ► that is the good version,

00:06:54 ◼   ► but the moment we start to try to put visuals to it,

00:06:56 ◼   ► it's like, "Oh, these couple of paragraphs

00:06:58 ◼   ► are just terrible.

00:06:58 ◼   ► They're not really working at all."

00:07:00 ◼   ► And I just had some idea in my head

00:07:03 ◼   ► of what the better future version would be,

00:07:05 ◼   ► but it turns out that idea wasn't real at all.

00:07:07 ◼   ► There were no concrete details to it at all.

00:07:10 ◼   ► I think that's partly for me a stronger phenomenon

00:07:12 ◼   ► because I'm working across media.

00:07:15 ◼   ► I'm producing writing that then has to be turned

00:07:18 ◼   ► into something else,

00:07:19 ◼   ► and the details of that always really matter

00:07:21 ◼   ► and can be kind of easy to not think about sometimes.

00:07:25 ◼   ► But I do have it with scripts as well.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Like, when I'm working on the script,

00:07:29 ◼   ► there's often an idea in my head

00:07:31 ◼   ► of the amazing version of this script,

00:07:35 ◼   ► and it can be dispiriting at times

00:07:37 ◼   ► to work with that in your mind.

00:07:39 ◼   ► You feel like you can see the better version of this.

00:07:44 ◼   ► You just can't get to the point

00:07:46 ◼   ► where you can feel like, "I got to that level."

00:07:49 ◼   ► You know, like, you know the emotional feeling,

00:07:52 ◼   ► but then how do you replicate that?

00:07:54 ◼   ► - But sometimes that really can be a dream.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Sometimes there just isn't the better version of the thing.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Like, that that's not real,

00:08:01 ◼   ► that you can't get the details right

00:08:03 ◼   ► because those details don't exist,

00:08:06 ◼   ► and you're having some kind of different response

00:08:09 ◼   ► to the thing that you're working on,

00:08:11 ◼   ► which is, "This thing isn't good.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I can imagine a better version of it."

00:08:16 ◼   ► But can you really?

00:08:17 ◼   ► Because, like, the details are what matters,

00:08:20 ◼   ► and it's very different to look at something

00:08:22 ◼   ► and think like, "Oh, this could be better."

00:08:24 ◼   ► That's always the case when you're working on stuff.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Like, this kind of work never ends.

00:08:28 ◼   ► You can always refine out the last 0.001%

00:08:31 ◼   ► of making it better.

00:08:32 ◼   ► But there is a different thing that can sometimes happen,

00:08:35 ◼   ► which is you are comparing yourself

00:08:39 ◼   ► to just the idea of it being better

00:08:43 ◼   ► without any of the specifics.

00:08:45 ◼   ► And so I just like, again, that may or may not resonate

00:08:48 ◼   ► at all with you or people who are listening,

00:08:50 ◼   ► but I think it's a good idea to have in the back of your mind

00:08:53 ◼   ► as a thing to pay attention to

00:08:55 ◼   ► as something that can happen.

00:08:58 ◼   ► So that's one place in which I come at this topic

00:09:00 ◼   ► a little bit differently,

00:09:02 ◼   ► is I sometimes feel like this is a bit of an illusion,

00:09:06 ◼   ► but the ability for it to be an illusion

00:09:09 ◼   ► becomes less and less true

00:09:12 ◼   ► the more you are working in the physical world.

00:09:16 ◼   ► And so with product design, with cooking,

00:09:21 ◼   ► with actual skills, the more you get down to something like,

00:09:25 ◼   ► "I'm here practicing my pitching."

00:09:27 ◼   ► And it's like, "OK, I'm a baseball pitcher.

00:09:29 ◼   ► That's what I'm doing."

00:09:31 ◼   ► There, it's like you're talking about a pure skill,

00:09:33 ◼   ► and it's very clear, your visualization of

00:09:36 ◼   ► what is it that you're supposed to be doing?

00:09:37 ◼   ► The ball's supposed to be going faster and curvier.

00:09:41 ◼   ► It's supposed to drop down at the end.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Like it's very physical things, right?

00:09:44 ◼   ► It goes into the catcher's mitts, and then they're out.

00:09:49 ◼   ► That's like, you know what's supposed to happen.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - Big baseball fan.

00:09:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, so these are the extremes, right?

00:09:54 ◼   ► Clear physical skill that has less creativity.

00:09:58 ◼   ► It is just a thing to achieve,

00:10:00 ◼   ► and you have like a very clear success metric

00:10:03 ◼   ► of what that looks like.

00:10:04 ◼   ► And then you can just brush up against

00:10:07 ◼   ► physical limitations or limitations in practice time

00:10:11 ◼   ► or refining skill.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Like that can be the boundary.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And then the stuff in the middle is,

00:10:17 ◼   ► I mean like in some ways, Mike,

00:10:18 ◼   ► I feel like product design might be one of the harder things

00:10:20 ◼   ► because you are right in the middle of that.

00:10:22 ◼   ► There's just actual physical reality

00:10:25 ◼   ► that you're dealing with, trying to make things better.

00:10:28 ◼   ► But there is an element of the creativity

00:10:32 ◼   ► and the like dreaming possibilities of what could it be,

00:10:35 ◼   ► where it is important to not nail down those details

00:10:38 ◼   ► because you want your brain to be able

00:10:40 ◼   ► to run around and like put different things together

00:10:44 ◼   ► in a creative way.

00:10:45 ◼   ► So I do not think that you are even remotely alone

00:10:50 ◼   ► in this feeling of like, it's frustrating.

00:10:54 ◼   ► And of course there is, I think it's from Ira Glass,

00:10:57 ◼   ► but it's like, it's the quote,

00:10:58 ◼   ► which the detail of it don't matter,

00:11:00 ◼   ► but I think he made the excellent point.

00:11:02 ◼   ► And this is why I like working with you,

00:11:04 ◼   ► that the reason you're able to do a bunch of the things

00:11:08 ◼   ► that you do is you have good taste.

00:11:12 ◼   ► You have a skill at visual sensibility.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Like I'm just like, I am lacking this skill.

00:11:19 ◼   ► It's like, it's clearly turned up much more in you.

00:11:23 ◼   ► You also have like very strong and I think correct senses

00:11:27 ◼   ► about what makes podcasts good.

00:11:29 ◼   ► It's the same thing there.

00:11:31 ◼   ► And Ira Glass like sort of made the fundamental point

00:11:35 ◼   ► that is good to keep in mind that your skill

00:11:38 ◼   ► at taste and perceiving will always be better

00:11:43 ◼   ► than your skill at producing.

00:11:46 ◼   ► It's like the one that leads to the other.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Like when I go visit your studio

00:11:50 ◼   ► and there's a thousand notebooks everywhere,

00:11:51 ◼   ► like your ability to discern little details between these

00:11:55 ◼   ► of like, oh, this is what makes this one feel good.

00:11:57 ◼   ► This is why this one works better.

00:12:00 ◼   ► That is what leads you to making things.

00:12:02 ◼   ► But it just kind of has to be true

00:12:05 ◼   ► that you will always be better at the perceiving

00:12:08 ◼   ► than the doing.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It just has to be that way

00:12:11 ◼   ► because otherwise your doing couldn't possibly improve.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Like you wouldn't have something to aim for

00:12:17 ◼   ► if you couldn't have that like refined sense of taste

00:12:21 ◼   ► of like, ah, this is what matters.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And this isn't what matters.

00:12:25 ◼   ► This needs to be tweaked this way.

00:12:26 ◼   ► This needs to be tweaked that way.

00:12:28 ◼   ► - So I just found a quote.

00:12:30 ◼   ► "Your taste, the thing that got you into the game

00:12:32 ◼   ► "is still killer and your taste

00:12:34 ◼   ► "is why your work disappoints you."

00:12:35 ◼   ► It's pulled out from a discussion

00:12:37 ◼   ► where he's just talking about this phenomenon in general.

00:12:39 ◼   ► I've heard this reference a bunch of times

00:12:41 ◼   ► because I just feel like he really cut to the core

00:12:43 ◼   ► of what is the problem in this way.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Your taste is better than your ability to do,

00:12:49 ◼   ► but one is really causing the other.

00:12:51 ◼   ► It just has to be this way.

00:12:52 ◼   ► - That's interesting.

00:12:53 ◼   ► - Think about a chef.

00:12:54 ◼   ► A chef literally couldn't be better at cooking

00:12:57 ◼   ► than they are better at tasting.

00:12:59 ◼   ► How on earth could they possibly refine

00:13:01 ◼   ► their ability to cook if they're worse at tasting

00:13:04 ◼   ► than they are at cooking?

00:13:05 ◼   ► Like it's so obvious in that case

00:13:08 ◼   ► that it has to go this way.

00:13:10 ◼   ► - It's interesting.

00:13:12 ◼   ► I feel like for me, maybe this is true for a lot of people,

00:13:16 ◼   ► but I think I'm in this situation

00:13:20 ◼   ► where the things that I want to be good at,

00:13:23 ◼   ► there are lots of people around me that I know are better.

00:13:28 ◼   ► I work with these people.

00:13:29 ◼   ► They have the skills that I aspire to have.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And I think some of the things that I am maybe best at

00:13:38 ◼   ► are not as valued in my peer group,

00:13:42 ◼   ► but it's part of why I'm here.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - Do you have examples of that?

00:13:45 ◼   ► Yeah, like what are you thinking about there?

00:13:47 ◼   ► - I think I'm good at business.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I think I have a pretty good gut instincts

00:13:52 ◼   ► and good problem solving that apply well to business,

00:13:57 ◼   ► which is one of the reasons why I'm in the circle

00:14:00 ◼   ► that I'm in.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And I also think I have a good understanding

00:14:04 ◼   ► of content planning, which that is a skill

00:14:07 ◼   ► that I am happy I have,

00:14:09 ◼   ► but I think a lot of my colleagues have that one too.

00:14:13 ◼   ► But when I think about product design,

00:14:17 ◼   ► there are people around me like Tom and Dan

00:14:19 ◼   ► who are leagues ahead of me and I'm happy to be around them.

00:14:23 ◼   ► But again, I look at what they're doing and I'm like,

00:14:25 ◼   ► that's so easy to you.

00:14:26 ◼   ► It's so hard to me.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And then, some of the people that I work with

00:14:31 ◼   ► on my other shows, they're able to generate better takes

00:14:34 ◼   ► than mine faster and more easily.

00:14:36 ◼   ► And I would like to be able to generate as good takes

00:14:40 ◼   ► where I feel like my best takes are further between,

00:14:44 ◼   ► like there is further time between my good takes.

00:14:47 ◼   ► - Just right there is a great example.

00:14:49 ◼   ► You have thought much more about podcasting than I have,

00:14:53 ◼   ► obviously, because you've done it 10 times more.

00:14:56 ◼   ► And I never would have pulled out like,

00:14:59 ◼   ► oh, we're trying to put together a portfolio

00:15:01 ◼   ► of podcast skills.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Take-a-tude is obviously a skill

00:15:04 ◼   ► that belongs in this portfolio.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And it would not have, never crossed my mind,

00:15:09 ◼   ► but it crosses your mind because you're paying

00:15:11 ◼   ► much closer attention across a greater number of podcasts.

00:15:16 ◼   ► - And it definitely applies more to podcasts

00:15:19 ◼   ► that are about events, whether it's technology news,

00:15:23 ◼   ► politics news, sports, whatever, right?

00:15:25 ◼   ► But your ability to have good takes will help you

00:15:30 ◼   ► in that scenario.

00:15:31 ◼   ► And so your take-a-tuity level is important.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - Take-a-tuitiveness.

00:15:37 ◼   ► - Take-a-tuitiveness, yes, thank you, is good to have.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And I feel like I have good takes,

00:15:42 ◼   ► but they are rarer to the point where sometimes I feel like

00:15:47 ◼   ► I notice it or another thing I notice is that people write

00:15:52 ◼   ► in to tell me my take is good in a way that I feel.

00:15:57 ◼   ► - Oh no, oh right, right.

00:15:58 ◼   ► - They're like, oh, Mike, you had a really good take.

00:16:01 ◼   ► And it's like, I appreciate that comment, I do.

00:16:03 ◼   ► But we're not seeing this for Jason every week,

00:16:07 ◼   ► but he's having lots of good takes.

00:16:09 ◼   ► So yeah, you know.

00:16:10 ◼   ► But this is like a good and bad thing, right?

00:16:14 ◼   ► Where like, by being surrounded by these people

00:16:16 ◼   ► who I respect and look up to,

00:16:19 ◼   ► and this also includes you, of course,

00:16:21 ◼   ► your ability to create content from nothing

00:16:24 ◼   ► is a skill that is almost unparalleled.

00:16:26 ◼   ► Hence why you are one of the most successful in your field.

00:16:29 ◼   ► But looking at the people that I work with

00:16:31 ◼   ► and wanting to be able to get closer to their skill level

00:16:36 ◼   ► pulls me forward, but it is also sometimes where you're like,

00:16:41 ◼   ► God damn it, you know?

00:16:44 ◼   ► Like 'cause you, obviously everybody else is getting better.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And it's a conflict that I feel sometimes

00:16:52 ◼   ► where sometimes this need to be better

00:16:55 ◼   ► can also make me wanna give up on something,

00:16:59 ◼   ► you know, at the same time.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Because it's the kind of double-edged sword of it,

00:17:03 ◼   ► which is at times this desire can actually push you

00:17:06 ◼   ► to make the decisions, but it can also make you

00:17:10 ◼   ► wanna back away from something and not try as hard

00:17:13 ◼   ► because it feels like pushing that boulder

00:17:16 ◼   ► up the hill forever, you know?

00:17:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, again, I feel like there's just like a lot of

00:17:21 ◼   ► separate things to think about here.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Like get kind of muddled up, right?

00:17:25 ◼   ► 'Cause again, that's why it's like,

00:17:26 ◼   ► oh, the moment you start talking about this,

00:17:28 ◼   ► it's like, oh, this is connected to a thousand things.

00:17:30 ◼   ► This is connected to everything.

00:17:32 ◼   ► I think like even that nature of the topic,

00:17:35 ◼   ► like I want to get better at X,

00:17:38 ◼   ► is very overwhelming because of that connectedness.

00:17:41 ◼   ► So just to try to pull a few things out.

00:17:44 ◼   ► One of the things which you already know,

00:17:46 ◼   ► but it is helpful to remind you,

00:17:48 ◼   ► is that other people's improvement

00:17:52 ◼   ► is always more obvious to you than your own improvement.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And this just feels like some kind of human bias.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Whatever new level you reach somehow instantly

00:18:03 ◼   ► becomes the baseline of the skill.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Like that's just, that's how it feels in your brain.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Again, this is harder in a creative field,

00:18:11 ◼   ► but it's why it's good to have objective records

00:18:14 ◼   ► of progress in any area where you're trying

00:18:17 ◼   ► to get better at a thing.

00:18:19 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I've been working on my health

00:18:21 ◼   ► a bunch this year.

00:18:22 ◼   ► And it's a similar thing of like,

00:18:23 ◼   ► oh, no particular day does it feel like

00:18:25 ◼   ► I'm making a ton of progress.

00:18:27 ◼   ► But it's like, oh, I have objective records

00:18:29 ◼   ► that's like, I actually have made a lot of progress.

00:18:31 ◼   ► It's just that with creative stuff,

00:18:33 ◼   ► that's significantly harder.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And especially in a podcast medium,

00:18:40 ◼   ► like that's also very hard to try to like,

00:18:43 ◼   ► think about how you have improved.

00:18:46 ◼   ► It's like, it is still there and it may be good

00:18:49 ◼   ► to occasionally go back and just like,

00:18:52 ◼   ► listen to your old stuff and just like,

00:18:55 ◼   ► see how much has changed.

00:18:58 ◼   ► I think there's also this problem, right?

00:18:59 ◼   ► Like, I feel it, I know you feel this too.

00:19:00 ◼   ► It's like, I know I should do that,

00:19:02 ◼   ► but I really don't want to look at my old stuff.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Like I try to basically like never really watch a video

00:19:09 ◼   ► after it's gone up for publication.

00:19:11 ◼   ► It's like, I just never want to see it again.

00:19:13 ◼   ► But every once in a while, I do have to go back

00:19:15 ◼   ► and look at some old video.

00:19:17 ◼   ► And like, I find it quite startling sometimes,

00:19:21 ◼   ► like how much things have improved

00:19:23 ◼   ► when I look at the old things.

00:19:24 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, oh, there's something I need to reference

00:19:26 ◼   ► in this video, like how exactly did I say that thing?

00:19:29 ◼   ► And I kind of like, wow, those old videos,

00:19:31 ◼   ► like they hold up real well,

00:19:33 ◼   ► but they're just objectively worse

00:19:36 ◼   ► on a lot of these like taste metrics that I do care about

00:19:41 ◼   ► and I have wanted to improve over the years.

00:19:44 ◼   ► So yeah, like I think you would feel that way

00:19:45 ◼   ► with looking at your old work in podcasting.

00:19:48 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:49 ◼   ► One of the things that's very funny to me

00:19:51 ◼   ► and one of the things that I immediately notice is gaps.

00:19:56 ◼   ► So like in people speaking, like so somebody says something

00:20:02 ◼   ► and then nobody says anything.

00:20:03 ◼   ► It's like, that is just like such a thing of like,

00:20:07 ◼   ► this is solved two ways and you didn't do either of them.

00:20:11 ◼   ► - Right, right, and neither of them were taken, yes, yes.

00:20:13 ◼   ► - And that is one of the things that I immediately notice

00:20:16 ◼   ► in like much older work.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I feel like I do need to say,

00:20:20 ◼   ► 'cause I'm like, I'm not really feeling bad about this.

00:20:24 ◼   ► This isn't like I'm disappointed or I'm upset or whatever.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Like I'm not really feeling down.

00:20:30 ◼   ► This is more just like a thing where I've noticed,

00:20:34 ◼   ► just in reflection of watching this show,

00:20:36 ◼   ► of actually thinking about how can I be better

00:20:41 ◼   ► as opposed to I don't think I'm good enough,

00:20:45 ◼   ► if that makes sense.

00:20:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, that sort of was the next part of this.

00:20:49 ◼   ► It's like, just keep in mind that you make more progress

00:20:52 ◼   ► than you think you do.

00:20:53 ◼   ► It's very hard to see.

00:20:54 ◼   ► There's lots of frustrations here,

00:20:56 ◼   ► but this is why I was saying it's connected to everything.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Thinking about, for example,

00:21:00 ◼   ► like the portfolio of podcasting skills, right?

00:21:02 ◼   ► Like how do you get better at podcasting?

00:21:04 ◼   ► Well, you can look at any skill or any process

00:21:08 ◼   ► and break it down and be like,

00:21:08 ◼   ► there's a bunch of sub-processes here.

00:21:11 ◼   ► And the trick is trying to figure out which areas,

00:21:15 ◼   ► in a sense like, can you make the most marginal gain

00:21:20 ◼   ► on the fastest?

00:21:21 ◼   ► Like that's really what you should be trying to think about.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And sometimes that means abandoning one area

00:21:29 ◼   ► and just accepting it as fundamentally unimprovable,

00:21:32 ◼   ► but that's fine because skills exist in a portfolio.

00:21:37 ◼   ► And it's a good thing to know sometimes,

00:21:42 ◼   ► like this is my weakness.

00:21:44 ◼   ► I may be able to improve it,

00:21:46 ◼   ► but it is just not worth actually doing that

00:21:51 ◼   ► relative to where else I could put in the effort

00:21:53 ◼   ► in this portfolio of skills.

00:21:55 ◼   ► And so I think if you kind of like pay attention

00:21:59 ◼   ► to really skilled people at what they're doing,

00:22:02 ◼   ► we all know that this is the case

00:22:03 ◼   ► that they're like skilled people also have

00:22:06 ◼   ► like really deep flaws often

00:22:08 ◼   ► at the thing that they're skilled at.

00:22:10 ◼   ► And really obvious flaws sometimes

00:22:12 ◼   ► at the thing that they're skilled at.

00:22:14 ◼   ► But it's not important because what matters

00:22:17 ◼   ► is the multiplication of all of the values

00:22:20 ◼   ► in this portfolio, right?

00:22:21 ◼   ► Like you're scoring like 10 on a bunch of skills,

00:22:24 ◼   ► but you score 300 on one and two on another,

00:22:29 ◼   ► depending on how that balance goes,

00:22:31 ◼   ► like nobody really cares because like the maxing out

00:22:35 ◼   ► on one ability in this portfolio of skills

00:22:38 ◼   ► is where the value is.

00:22:40 ◼   ► And you're just accepting the cost of like,

00:22:43 ◼   ► oh, but I'm bad at this,

00:22:44 ◼   ► but I'm just not gonna spend any time on this.

00:22:47 ◼   ► I think like that is the delicate trick.

00:22:50 ◼   ► And it's particularly difficult in creative fields

00:22:53 ◼   ► that are public because boy,

00:22:55 ◼   ► will people constantly remind you

00:22:57 ◼   ► the thing that you're bad at.

00:22:59 ◼   ► And because you have good taste and good perception,

00:23:02 ◼   ► you're like, yup, I sure can see that too.

00:23:06 ◼   ► It's right there, staring me in the face every day.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I get it.

00:23:11 ◼   ► But you just have to make a call sometimes about like,

00:23:13 ◼   ► is this worth improving or is this not worth improving?

00:23:17 ◼   ► Is this an area where you're going to be making

00:23:20 ◼   ► the next best marginal gain in whatever it is

00:23:24 ◼   ► that you're trying to do?

00:23:25 ◼   ► And it's like an interesting thing

00:23:26 ◼   ► where really skilled people,

00:23:29 ◼   ► you'll notice that they often will spend

00:23:33 ◼   ► like a dedicated time on some sub area of that skill.

00:23:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna get better at product design

00:23:41 ◼   ► is extraordinarily overwhelming,

00:23:43 ◼   ► but like you can narrow down and be like,

00:23:47 ◼   ► I'm gonna spend a little while just learning

00:23:49 ◼   ► everything I can about this one kind of like

00:23:53 ◼   ► sub kind of paper.

00:23:54 ◼   ► And like, that's where I'm gonna be like pushing forward

00:23:57 ◼   ► the average portfolio.

00:23:59 ◼   ► That's a way to get better.

00:24:00 ◼   ► But I really do think that it is just,

00:24:04 ◼   ► it is critical to know what to let go of

00:24:09 ◼   ► and what to just accept and say like,

00:24:12 ◼   ► this sucks and it's fine.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I'm just going to accept that.

00:24:17 ◼   ► For me, the most obvious thing is like,

00:24:20 ◼   ► I am a slow writer and I spent a lot of years

00:24:24 ◼   ► being really frustrated with that.

00:24:26 ◼   ► But at some point it's like, it's fine trying to like

00:24:31 ◼   ► improve the rapidity of the writing

00:24:35 ◼   ► impinges on the other things in this portfolio

00:24:39 ◼   ► that make the writing good.

00:24:41 ◼   ► I have a different ratio of skills in the area of like,

00:24:46 ◼   ► explaining and creating presentations.

00:24:48 ◼   ► Speed is not one of them.

00:24:50 ◼   ► And that's fine.

00:24:52 ◼   ► But again, I will be constantly and frequently reminded

00:24:56 ◼   ► about how slow I am at all of the things that I do.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, that's what it is to do

00:25:01 ◼   ► this kind of stuff in public.

00:25:02 ◼   ► - And then I guess your problem with the speed is like,

00:25:04 ◼   ► you get better at other things,

00:25:06 ◼   ► which actually makes you slower.

00:25:07 ◼   ► - That's an excellent point, right?

00:25:09 ◼   ► Like it's not even just that it's a weakness.

00:25:11 ◼   ► It's like, it's a weakness that's sort of gotten worse

00:25:14 ◼   ► because other things cause it to be slower.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Because of increases in animation quality,

00:25:20 ◼   ► we can talk about things that we never would before,

00:25:24 ◼   ► but that slows everything down.

00:25:27 ◼   ► The metric paper video is a perfect example.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Like it took forever to write.

00:25:31 ◼   ► But the only reason that that project remotely happened

00:25:35 ◼   ► is because of like a lot of work

00:25:37 ◼   ► on how to animate these things

00:25:38 ◼   ► and how to make them look good.

00:25:39 ◼   ► And how can we have this whole process lined up?

00:25:42 ◼   ► And so getting better at animation,

00:25:45 ◼   ► unlocked harder writing tasks,

00:25:48 ◼   ► which take even longer.

00:25:50 ◼   ► And it's like, yep, as you get better,

00:25:52 ◼   ► it can make your worst parts worse.

00:25:55 ◼   ► But if you are getting significantly better

00:25:58 ◼   ► at the good parts, you're fine.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Like you're still ahead.

00:26:02 ◼   ► You are like on average better

00:26:05 ◼   ► when you're looking at the final product

00:26:07 ◼   ► than you were earlier.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Even if like you're worse at some individual part of it.

00:26:11 ◼   ► - I don't have an end to this.

00:26:12 ◼   ► Like I barely had a start.

00:26:14 ◼   ► My point for having this conversation today, really,

00:26:17 ◼   ► like for bringing it to the show

00:26:18 ◼   ► and not just like talking to you about it,

00:26:20 ◼   ► was I thought that there could be a value

00:26:23 ◼   ► in people that are listening that are creatives

00:26:26 ◼   ► and aspiring creatives hearing

00:26:27 ◼   ► that people who are professional creatives

00:26:29 ◼   ► still feel like they're not good enough sometimes.

00:26:32 ◼   ► But I think that that's okay.

00:26:35 ◼   ► 'Cause I think it is what pushes some people like me,

00:26:38 ◼   ► like you, to try and be better.

00:26:39 ◼   ► And also to like accept the things

00:26:42 ◼   ► that you're maybe not as good at and get help with them.

00:26:44 ◼   ► - The best way to handle weaknesses

00:26:45 ◼   ► is if you can outsource them

00:26:46 ◼   ► and have somebody else do the thing that you're bad at.

00:26:48 ◼   ► But the thing that I always bring up is like,

00:26:52 ◼   ► the more you hire, the more you risk losing the magic,

00:26:55 ◼   ► which is just a thing I feel very sensitive to

00:26:58 ◼   ► with lots of YouTube channels.

00:26:59 ◼   ► There's like tons of them where it's like,

00:27:00 ◼   ► "Oh, I love them."

00:27:01 ◼   ► And they bring on more people.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And it's like, it's mostly the same,

00:27:05 ◼   ► but it's just kind of gotten a little worse

00:27:07 ◼   ► in ways that are hard to define.

00:27:09 ◼   ► As like, that is one of the risks

00:27:11 ◼   ► of like trying to compensate for all of this stuff.

00:27:13 ◼   ► But I don't have an ending either,

00:27:15 ◼   ► but I do want to just go back to the,

00:27:16 ◼   ► like the very first thing you said,

00:27:17 ◼   ► because it always really irritates me,

00:27:18 ◼   ► this thing about like perfection.

00:27:20 ◼   ► I wanted to cheer you on.

00:27:21 ◼   ► Like obviously I haven't seen the show,

00:27:23 ◼   ► but when you say like the show has this message of,

00:27:25 ◼   ► "Oh, he shouldn't aim to be so perfect."

00:27:28 ◼   ► And you feel like you're drawing the opposite message.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I could not encourage you more in that.

00:27:32 ◼   ► I find this real annoying.

00:27:34 ◼   ► There's something about, I cannot pin this down,

00:27:39 ◼   ► but there is some cultural idea around perfectionism

00:27:45 ◼   ► that I find incredibly frustrating.

00:27:48 ◼   ► It is a thing that I see like people who are really skilled

00:27:51 ◼   ► get accused of all the time.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, you're being a perfectionist."

00:27:57 ◼   ► But when I look around, I don't know,

00:28:01 ◼   ► this may be harsh to say, but keep in mind,

00:28:04 ◼   ► listeners, like this is an unarticulated thought.

00:28:06 ◼   ► I just, I can't put words to it.

00:28:08 ◼   ► But the people who I observe are good at things

00:28:13 ◼   ► are not perfectionists.

00:28:15 ◼   ► They're so obviously not perfectionists.

00:28:18 ◼   ► What they're doing is they're trying to get better,

00:28:21 ◼   ► like this exact topic.

00:28:22 ◼   ► They're trying to get better at some skill.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And to get better at the skill requires focusing on details

00:28:30 ◼   ► that to people who don't know anything

00:28:33 ◼   ► about how something is made

00:28:34 ◼   ► seem like crazy obsessive details.

00:28:38 ◼   ► But they really do matter.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I don't know, the people I see who more often

00:28:43 ◼   ► actually talk about like,

00:28:45 ◼   ► "Oh, I have such a hard time getting started

00:28:48 ◼   ► because I'm a perfectionist."

00:28:50 ◼   ► Those people on average disproportionately

00:28:52 ◼   ► don't strike me as very skilled people

00:28:55 ◼   ► who get anything done.

00:28:57 ◼   ► I don't know, it's like the cultural idea

00:28:59 ◼   ► is somehow backwards here.

00:29:01 ◼   ► And I haven't seen the show,

00:29:03 ◼   ► but I am very aware of it as a thing in media

00:29:06 ◼   ► that it's like presented as though perfectionism

00:29:10 ◼   ► is this thing that skilled people

00:29:12 ◼   ► should learn how to chill out about.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And I just don't observe this in reality at all.

00:29:18 ◼   ► Skilled people are not perfectionists.

00:29:20 ◼   ► If anything, they're like very understanding

00:29:23 ◼   ► of the flaws in their thing

00:29:25 ◼   ► and extremely accepting of them.

00:29:27 ◼   ► And meanwhile, it's people who don't do very much at all

00:29:31 ◼   ► who seem like incredibly concerned with perfectionism.

00:29:34 ◼   ► So ill-formed thoughts there.

00:29:36 ◼   ► But yes, that's my general frustration.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I feel like your gut instinct of,

00:29:41 ◼   ► "This show is trying to tell me one thing,

00:29:42 ◼   ► but I feel something else is correct."

00:29:45 ◼   ► - 'Cause he's a really good chef

00:29:46 ◼   ► and I think he has to not be distracted.

00:29:49 ◼   ► - Like it goes right to the core of a bunch of things.

00:29:51 ◼   ► Like, "Yeah, there's trade-offs in life.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Do you want to be really good at a thing?

00:29:57 ◼   ► I have bad news for you.

00:29:59 ◼   ► That means you're going to have to be significantly worse

00:30:02 ◼   ► at a lot of other things in your life."

00:30:04 ◼   ► It's just the way it goes.

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00:31:58 ◼   ► which is one of my favorite features

00:31:59 ◼   ► because I can see what exercises I've got next

00:32:02 ◼   ► and advance them without even needing to look at my phone

00:32:04 ◼   ► but also where I wear smartwatches

00:32:06 ◼   ► and apps like Strava, Fitbit and Apple Health.

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00:32:32 ◼   ► Our thanks to Fitbud for their support

00:32:34 ◼   ► of this show and Relay FM.

00:32:35 ◼   ► (phone chimes)

00:32:36 ◼   ► July is here, we're in July.

00:32:38 ◼   ► - Big month July.

00:32:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's turned into one.

00:32:42 ◼   ► So as of recording, we're about two weeks away

00:32:46 ◼   ► from the Relay FM 10th anniversary live show

00:32:49 ◼   ► that we're having in London.

00:32:52 ◼   ► And it's been a very, very large undertaking.

00:32:57 ◼   ► - How you holding up over there?

00:32:58 ◼   ► - Fine.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Here's my thing.

00:33:00 ◼   ► As I speak to you right now,

00:33:02 ◼   ► I am equally excited and like nervous/stressed about it.

00:33:06 ◼   ► You know, like there was a time,

00:33:08 ◼   ► I think maybe a couple of weeks ago

00:33:09 ◼   ► where I wasn't so excited about it

00:33:11 ◼   ► and was much, much more just stressed.

00:33:14 ◼   ► But as we're getting closer,

00:33:15 ◼   ► the excitement level is increasing.

00:33:17 ◼   ► I think because the amount of things left to do

00:33:19 ◼   ► or the amount of things I can do is just decreasing, right?

00:33:22 ◼   ► As we get closer and closer.

00:33:23 ◼   ► - Right, right, yeah.

00:33:24 ◼   ► There's only so much you can do

00:33:26 ◼   ► when a thousand guests are coming to town.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And one of the things that I have really noticed

00:33:31 ◼   ► in the last week or so,

00:33:32 ◼   ► so we're, you said a thousand,

00:33:35 ◼   ► we're in a big theater, it's called the Hackney Empire.

00:33:38 ◼   ► We've sold over a thousand tickets

00:33:39 ◼   ► and the theater holds up to 1200 people.

00:33:42 ◼   ► We do have some last minute tickets available.

00:33:44 ◼   ► If people wanna come see us in London on the 27th of July

00:33:47 ◼   ► at relay.fm/london, you can go find out more.

00:33:50 ◼   ► The thing that I have come to realize is

00:33:54 ◼   ► I think people like us

00:33:56 ◼   ► shouldn't try and hire a venue of this size.

00:33:58 ◼   ► It's like, it's not--

00:33:59 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

00:34:00 ◼   ► - Just in the sense that the system

00:34:04 ◼   ► is not built in that way.

00:34:07 ◼   ► People that hire the Hackney Empire,

00:34:10 ◼   ► usually their tour manager or some professional

00:34:14 ◼   ► is arranging the show.

00:34:16 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:34:17 ◼   ► - Where luckily for us, the people at the Hackney Empire

00:34:20 ◼   ► have been very understanding

00:34:24 ◼   ► of how little I know

00:34:27 ◼   ► about putting on a show of this scale.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Because they're asking me for things

00:34:34 ◼   ► and I don't even know what they are,

00:34:37 ◼   ► let alone being able to provide it.

00:34:40 ◼   ► I'm like, we've gotten through fine,

00:34:41 ◼   ► but it's just, they're just like,

00:34:43 ◼   ► oh, can you send over this thing?

00:34:44 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know what that is.

00:34:47 ◼   ► I don't even know what that,

00:34:49 ◼   ► you've just used an acronym that I don't understand.

00:34:52 ◼   ► There's been a lot of that.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Can you send over the run list, Mike?

00:34:55 ◼   ► And it's like, ah, yes, the run list.

00:34:58 ◼   ► - Run list, they can't move from run lists around here.

00:35:01 ◼   ► - Typey, typey, typey, what is a run list?

00:35:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there's just been a lot of that, right?

00:35:06 ◼   ► And so it's been a large undertaking.

00:35:09 ◼   ► I mean, let alone the fact that so many hosts

00:35:12 ◼   ► are coming to town and just like working around all of that

00:35:15 ◼   ► and planning stuff and there's a lot going on.

00:35:18 ◼   ► And it's been quite taxing to add this to my workload.

00:35:23 ◼   ► When we originally planned to do this,

00:35:26 ◼   ► I was gonna help and Steven was gonna manage it

00:35:29 ◼   ► because he's always done the live show stuff.

00:35:31 ◼   ► We realized quite quickly into the planning

00:35:34 ◼   ► that that wasn't going to work because Steven is in Memphis

00:35:39 ◼   ► and I happen to be in the city where the show is happening.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - It does feel like that was just inevitably doomed

00:35:45 ◼   ► as an idea.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Can you set it up remotely in the place where I am?

00:35:50 ◼   ► Like, ooh, it's not gonna work.

00:35:52 ◼   ► - The reason is that we've never done a show in Memphis.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Every show we've ever done, it's always been remote,

00:35:57 ◼   ► but it just kind of became a thing quite quickly

00:35:59 ◼   ► where there's just conventions in the UK.

00:36:04 ◼   ► It's just gonna be easier for me to do.

00:36:06 ◼   ► And so we ended up, we made a deal

00:36:09 ◼   ► that I have not been involved

00:36:10 ◼   ► in any of the podcast-a-thon planning

00:36:13 ◼   ► that is currently ongoing.

00:36:14 ◼   ► So like all of our St. Jude stuff,

00:36:16 ◼   ► like I'm not doing any of it and I will join in

00:36:20 ◼   ► kind of in August.

00:36:21 ◼   ► So then like I will then be ready to go.

00:36:23 ◼   ► So like there are, I think, weekly calls happening

00:36:26 ◼   ► about the fundraiser right now

00:36:27 ◼   ► and I've not been on any of them.

00:36:29 ◼   ► And so like that's kind of been the trade, which has worked.

00:36:32 ◼   ► It worked in a sense of I'm not losing my mind

00:36:35 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like I would have been

00:36:36 ◼   ► if I was trying to juggle both of these.

00:36:38 ◼   ► It's been eye-opening for sure,

00:36:41 ◼   ► like trying to put something like this together,

00:36:44 ◼   ► but I'm feeling, right now I'm feeling good about it.

00:36:47 ◼   ► You know, like there's been a lot of emotional weight

00:36:49 ◼   ► and like expectation that I'm putting on this event

00:36:53 ◼   ► and kind of coming to terms with what the event actually is

00:36:58 ◼   ► has made me feel better.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Like basically there was a point where I was like,

00:37:01 ◼   ► there's not enough theatrics for the show, right?

00:37:05 ◼   ► Like we're not doing enough.

00:37:06 ◼   ► And as I was talking this through with people,

00:37:10 ◼   ► I was being reminded a lot of like,

00:37:12 ◼   ► this is not why people are coming to this show.

00:37:14 ◼   ► People are coming to this show to celebrate with us

00:37:19 ◼   ► that we have reached the frankly incredible milestone

00:37:23 ◼   ► of a media business today lasting for 10 years.

00:37:27 ◼   ► - Oh yeah. - Right?

00:37:29 ◼   ► Which is quite a thing.

00:37:30 ◼   ► And so like, you know, the people that are coming

00:37:31 ◼   ► to the show, they're coming to celebrate with us

00:37:34 ◼   ► and then kind of that helped me really rebalance it

00:37:37 ◼   ► of like, ideally this needs to be A, as simple as possible

00:37:42 ◼   ► and B, as close to what people expect

00:37:46 ◼   ► from the people that they're coming to see.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're not putting on the "Eras" tour here, Mike?

00:37:50 ◼   ► - Exactly. - Yeah.

00:37:51 ◼   ► - Turns out it's not what I'm going for anymore.

00:37:53 ◼   ► - Anymore. (laughs)

00:37:55 ◼   ► Mike was dreaming big "Eras" dreams previously.

00:37:58 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:37:59 ◼   ► I just wasn't sure if they needed to be more like

00:38:02 ◼   ► laser light shows or whatever.

00:38:03 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:38:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, more costume changes.

00:38:06 ◼   ► And again, like I get it.

00:38:07 ◼   ► And this also just goes right to the previous thing.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Like it's very easy to dream like the ideal version of this

00:38:13 ◼   ► in very many ways.

00:38:14 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.

00:38:15 ◼   ► - It's a version of this show that existed in my mind

00:38:18 ◼   ► before we ever even thought about doing it, right?

00:38:21 ◼   ► And it was a very, very different affair.

00:38:24 ◼   ► And what I have come to realize is it wouldn't have worked.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Even if I could have managed to do any of the things

00:38:31 ◼   ► that I'd imagined, it just wouldn't have made any sense

00:38:34 ◼   ► for why on earth we all of a sudden were doing this.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And that what we're able to do instead is,

00:38:42 ◼   ► you know, there's gonna be something like 20 hosts

00:38:45 ◼   ► that are gonna be a part of the event.

00:38:48 ◼   ► And it's about actually just making it that everyone

00:38:52 ◼   ► gets to share in that moment together

00:38:55 ◼   ► rather than like giving someone a solo.

00:38:58 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:38:59 ◼   ► So yeah, it's been a lot of effort

00:39:01 ◼   ► and I'm so excited about it now for the same reason

00:39:05 ◼   ► that I wanted to do it in the first place

00:39:06 ◼   ► where being able to put on a show like this in my hometown

00:39:10 ◼   ► is just like, it's incredible.

00:39:13 ◼   ► I just wanted to mention it because this is the last show

00:39:16 ◼   ► before it happens.

00:39:17 ◼   ► - Oh God, right, yeah, yeah, of course.

00:39:19 ◼   ► - The thing that I'm looking forward to the most

00:39:20 ◼   ► and the thing that I can't wait for

00:39:22 ◼   ► and the thing that I think about multiple times a day,

00:39:25 ◼   ► every single day is walking onto that stage.

00:39:28 ◼   ► It was something that I asked Steven for very early on,

00:39:31 ◼   ► like every live show we've ever done,

00:39:32 ◼   ► Steven always comes out first

00:39:34 ◼   ► and he will like kind of MC the show in that way

00:39:37 ◼   ► and like bring everybody out.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And I really, really wanted to come out first for this show

00:39:43 ◼   ► because of what this one means to me.

00:39:45 ◼   ► It means I think something a little extra to me

00:39:47 ◼   ► than it's gonna mean for really anybody else

00:39:50 ◼   ► and that it is to have gotten to a point

00:39:53 ◼   ► where I could do something like this

00:39:54 ◼   ► in the place that I grew up

00:39:55 ◼   ► and to have all of my family there.

00:39:58 ◼   ► I'm counting down the days to be able to get to the point

00:40:01 ◼   ► where I walk out onto that stage

00:40:02 ◼   ► and I'm just so excited about it

00:40:04 ◼   ► and I have no idea how it's gonna feel

00:40:07 ◼   ► and I have no idea how I'm gonna react.

00:40:09 ◼   ► I can foresee four different reactions from me

00:40:13 ◼   ► and I have no idea if I'm gonna have any of them

00:40:15 ◼   ► or a combination of them or what that combination might be.

00:40:18 ◼   ► Like so it's exciting.

00:40:19 ◼   ► - All we know for sure is it is going to be loud

00:40:22 ◼   ► because everybody hearing my voice now

00:40:25 ◼   ► when Mike goes out on stage,

00:40:27 ◼   ► they are going to go wild in that crowd.

00:40:29 ◼   ► - That's what I want, that's what I want.

00:40:32 ◼   ► The last thing I'll say on this,

00:40:33 ◼   ► which is the other reason that this show

00:40:36 ◼   ► is very exciting for me

00:40:38 ◼   ► is my family know what I do for a living, right?

00:40:40 ◼   ► Like from a conceptual level,

00:40:42 ◼   ► they understand that I have a business

00:40:45 ◼   ► where I make podcasts and people listen to those podcasts.

00:40:48 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be something very different

00:40:50 ◼   ► when they see that.

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

00:40:53 ◼   ► - When I walk onto a stage and people make noise for me,

00:40:57 ◼   ► for as much as these things are,

00:40:59 ◼   ► the first time I ever did a live show and that happened

00:41:01 ◼   ► and it was like, wow.

00:41:03 ◼   ► I think I look forward to my mom especially

00:41:07 ◼   ► seeing that and I'm excited about that.

00:41:10 ◼   ► - I don't know what the conversion ratio is,

00:41:12 ◼   ► but it's something like,

00:41:14 ◼   ► you have an audience that is very large,

00:41:15 ◼   ► but is very dispersed, literally all over the world.

00:41:20 ◼   ► It's like, yes, you can tell people these numbers

00:41:23 ◼   ► that it's always abstract.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Like here's how many people hear Mike's voice every week

00:41:28 ◼   ► and it's a big number.

00:41:30 ◼   ► But there's like an impressiveness conversion ratio,

00:41:34 ◼   ► which has gotta be something like 10,000 to one,

00:41:38 ◼   ► a hundred thousand to one of just like getting people

00:41:42 ◼   ► in person is just so much more viscerally impressive

00:41:47 ◼   ► than big numbers of people dispersed all around the world.

00:41:53 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a real effect.

00:41:54 ◼   ► It's like just very impressive

00:41:56 ◼   ► and I imagine also quite emotionally impactful for some.

00:42:01 ◼   ► - One last thing that we decided to do

00:42:03 ◼   ► that I'm now very thankful,

00:42:05 ◼   ► I'm not recording any shows that week.

00:42:07 ◼   ► - Oh my God, what a relief.

00:42:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was a decision that was like,

00:42:11 ◼   ► oh, you know what?

00:42:12 ◼   ► Like we had talking about,

00:42:13 ◼   ► me and Steven were talking about it in January.

00:42:14 ◼   ► It's like maybe we should just take that week off.

00:42:17 ◼   ► And as the closer I get, I am like,

00:42:20 ◼   ► oh man, was that a good decision?

00:42:22 ◼   ► Oh boy, was that a good decision?

00:42:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I bet it was.

00:42:28 ◼   ► - There is a possibility that I'm gonna be at one day

00:42:31 ◼   ► unloading chairs into a theater.

00:42:34 ◼   ► - It's gonna depend on if you got the run list right.

00:42:35 ◼   ► That's what it's gonna depend on.

00:42:36 ◼   ► - You know what it probably does?

00:42:37 ◼   ► - Running chairs out or not.

00:42:38 ◼   ► - You know what, maybe that's what the run list is for.

00:42:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:42 ◼   ► - It's about running out the chairs.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - Oh, oh.

00:42:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:46 ◼   ► - Did you put that on there?

00:42:46 ◼   ► They mean it last week.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - Everyone's getting a stand, I forgot the run list.

00:42:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:52 ◼   ► Should we do some Ask Cortex?

00:42:54 ◼   ► - Let's do some Ask Cortex.

00:42:55 ◼   ► - Taylor asks, what is a piece of technology

00:42:58 ◼   ► that has the most negative impact on your productivity

00:43:02 ◼   ► besides your phone?

00:43:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, phone's the obvious answer there, right?

00:43:06 ◼   ► - I like that Taylor just immediately foresaw the answer

00:43:09 ◼   ► and was like, nope, you can't get out of it that easy.

00:43:11 ◼   ► - I think that's a general good advice

00:43:13 ◼   ► for submitting Ask Cortex questions is,

00:43:15 ◼   ► it's like, well, it's the most obvious thing

00:43:17 ◼   ► and try to be like, except for this, right?

00:43:19 ◼   ► Which makes stuff more interesting.

00:43:21 ◼   ► I remember reading a while ago that,

00:43:23 ◼   ► it was a professional advice columnist

00:43:25 ◼   ► who was writing about their work

00:43:27 ◼   ► and commented how it was just absolutely unbelievable

00:43:31 ◼   ► that when people would like write in and be like,

00:43:33 ◼   ► hey, I want your advice on this,

00:43:35 ◼   ► like in old timey newspapers.

00:43:37 ◼   ► And then the first half of the letter

00:43:39 ◼   ► would be their question and then the second half

00:43:41 ◼   ► would be like very obviously what they're supposed to do.

00:43:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:45 ◼   ► Just like, oh, okay, well, I'll just take the question

00:43:47 ◼   ► and then I'll reword the second part.

00:43:49 ◼   ► And it's like, I'm sure that made the work

00:43:51 ◼   ► as an advice columnist very easy,

00:43:53 ◼   ► but does not produce the most interesting answers.

00:43:56 ◼   ► So I do like this, like foreclose off

00:43:58 ◼   ► the most obvious first thing, like besides the phone.

00:44:01 ◼   ► And I saw this a couple of days ago

00:44:04 ◼   ► and it's kind of been on my mind.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Like I think it's interesting because yeah,

00:44:07 ◼   ► eliminating the phone, it does make it tricky.

00:44:12 ◼   ► I think I have a weird answer,

00:44:13 ◼   ► which kind of falls into the same category of the phone,

00:44:18 ◼   ► which is I am going to say that the piece of tech

00:44:22 ◼   ► that has most negatively impacted my productivity recently

00:44:27 ◼   ► is chat GPT.

00:44:29 ◼   ► And I mentioned this just like in passing

00:44:33 ◼   ► on the previous show, but I started out by using chat GPT

00:44:37 ◼   ► as a thesaurus for like, oh, I need like different kinds

00:44:41 ◼   ► of words was the main thing I was using it while writing.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And it had just been growing on my mind

00:44:48 ◼   ► that something about using this was just increasingly

00:44:53 ◼   ► not good for the writing process.

00:44:57 ◼   ► I still have a hard time putting my finger on what it is,

00:45:01 ◼   ► but I have recently established a rule for myself

00:45:05 ◼   ► of like, while I am writing, I cannot ask a chat GPT

00:45:10 ◼   ► for like alternate wording suggestions or anything else.

00:45:14 ◼   ► It's like, I can just use the Apple dictionary

00:45:16 ◼   ► that's on my computer offline.

00:45:18 ◼   ► This is much better.

00:45:19 ◼   ► And it's like later I can do some of the like fancier

00:45:24 ◼   ► question asking stuff if I want to,

00:45:27 ◼   ► but it has to be like a very different productivity mode.

00:45:31 ◼   ► - Do you find it like derails you?

00:45:32 ◼   ► Like what is the impact that you're feeling

00:45:35 ◼   ► that like for some reason thesaurus is okay?

00:45:38 ◼   ► - So again, it's like, it's hard to put into words.

00:45:42 ◼   ► I think the best way I can describe it is,

00:45:46 ◼   ► so like it starts with thesaurus stuff,

00:45:49 ◼   ► but it slowly started expanding into be like,

00:45:52 ◼   ► this sentence is awkward.

00:45:54 ◼   ► Like, is there a different way to word that?

00:45:56 ◼   ► So I started asking some questions like that.

00:45:58 ◼   ► But here's the thing, like fundamentally,

00:46:02 ◼   ► I just don't think a chat GPT is good at this really.

00:46:06 ◼   ► That's why last episode I made the remark of like,

00:46:08 ◼   ► a lot of the output is like nutritionless food in a way.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Like the problem wasn't, oh, I'm using chat GPT too much.

00:46:17 ◼   ► The problem was more like,

00:46:21 ◼   ► oh, I can use a chat GPT as a thesaurus, which is good.

00:46:26 ◼   ► But then I would always go like one further and be like,

00:46:29 ◼   ► can I ask like this question?

00:46:30 ◼   ► And then it would be like,

00:46:32 ◼   ► like this chat GPT answer is just terrible.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Is there a different way I can ask

00:46:37 ◼   ► to try to get more of what I want?

00:46:39 ◼   ► And I was like, sort of, not really.

00:46:40 ◼   ► But it's like, what am I doing?

00:46:42 ◼   ► I just broke my flow where I was like looking for a thing.

00:46:47 ◼   ► And it's like, why did I go to the thesaurus?

00:46:51 ◼   ► The reason I went to the thesaurus,

00:46:53 ◼   ► which is still hard to say,

00:46:54 ◼   ► the reason I tried to find an alternative word

00:46:57 ◼   ► is because the word that I am looking for

00:47:01 ◼   ► is going to directly impact

00:47:03 ◼   ► the sound of the next few paragraphs.

00:47:06 ◼   ► Like what I didn't realize is when I'm writing

00:47:09 ◼   ► and I'm like, this word is no good, I need a different one.

00:47:12 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:47:13 ◼   ► It's not because it's a one-off word that I want to change.

00:47:16 ◼   ► It's because I'm like setting something up with that word

00:47:20 ◼   ► that is going to reoccur.

00:47:22 ◼   ► So I do need to know the answer now.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Like if I'm gonna say it this way, it sounds like this,

00:47:27 ◼   ► and then the sentence rhythms are this and whatever.

00:47:30 ◼   ► But opening up chat GPT was kind of like,

00:47:34 ◼   ► instead of opening up a thesaurus,

00:47:36 ◼   ► it's a little bit like asking a person,

00:47:39 ◼   ► hey, I wanted to do this, but what about this?

00:47:42 ◼   ► It's like very hard not to just have

00:47:45 ◼   ► some follow-up questions.

00:47:47 ◼   ► But those follow-up questions

00:47:48 ◼   ► are just immediately derailing from,

00:47:51 ◼   ► no, no, what you need to do

00:47:51 ◼   ► is you need to make a quick executive decision.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Like here's five options, which of these is the best?

00:47:57 ◼   ► This one is obviously the best and go with it.

00:48:00 ◼   ► But chat GPT allows you to be picky, right?

00:48:02 ◼   ► Where it's like, I don't really like any of those words.

00:48:05 ◼   ► How many more do you have?

00:48:06 ◼   ► Do you have any more?

00:48:08 ◼   ► Could you just like scrape the bottom

00:48:11 ◼   ► of this half million word vocabulary of English

00:48:14 ◼   ► to find any word related to this word

00:48:17 ◼   ► that I might like better?

00:48:19 ◼   ► It's derailing, that's sort of what it is.

00:48:22 ◼   ► And what popped into my head that I realized,

00:48:24 ◼   ► like, oh, the feeling that it reminded me of,

00:48:26 ◼   ► it reminded me of when I used to have Twitter on my phone.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And just by it being there,

00:48:34 ◼   ► some small part of my brain was always like,

00:48:37 ◼   ► what's a funny thing you could tweet, right?

00:48:39 ◼   ► What's a funny thing you could tweet now?

00:48:40 ◼   ► Is it like, could you take a picture of this thing?

00:48:42 ◼   ► That's kind of funny.

00:48:43 ◼   ► You could put that on Twitter.

00:48:44 ◼   ► And like getting rid of that,

00:48:46 ◼   ► just like shut down that part of my brain.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And that's kind of what like having chat GPT around

00:48:51 ◼   ► was a bit like.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Like some part of my brain at any moment's hesitation

00:48:57 ◼   ► was like, you can ask chat GPT about this.

00:49:00 ◼   ► And in my experience, like, yeah, I could.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And then I'm just gonna like waste five minutes

00:49:05 ◼   ► and more importantly, break flow,

00:49:08 ◼   ► getting like a mediocre improvement

00:49:11 ◼   ► when if I had just sat there and continued forward,

00:49:15 ◼   ► it would have obviously been a thousand times better.

00:49:17 ◼   ► So yeah, that's why I like, I set that as a rule now

00:49:19 ◼   ► of like, basically it's like, is it before noon?

00:49:23 ◼   ► No AI, you have a dictionary and a thesaurus.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Like it's the year 1600 and it's perfectly fine.

00:49:31 ◼   ► In fact, this is the best.

00:49:33 ◼   ► So yeah, chat GPT is my answer.

00:49:36 ◼   ► - My answer is, it's kind of in the spirit of the question,

00:49:39 ◼   ► but not exactly.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So like I would say eight games consoles.

00:49:42 ◼   ► - I mean, yeah, I guess I was like, sure.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I almost feel like that's a bit saying it's like,

00:49:48 ◼   ► what in your life most negatively impacts productivity?

00:49:53 ◼   ► You're like, oh, well, all of my nonworking life

00:49:55 ◼   ► is what most negatively impacts my productivity I guess.

00:49:58 ◼   ► If that's what we're trying to figure out,

00:50:00 ◼   ► what's the most impactful?

00:50:02 ◼   ► All of the times I'm not being productive.

00:50:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think it's of the technology that I have,

00:50:06 ◼   ► it is the thing where I'm most likely to spend time

00:50:09 ◼   ► longer than I intended.

00:50:11 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, that's different.

00:50:12 ◼   ► - So like, oh, I'm gonna take 15 minutes

00:50:14 ◼   ► and play some Mario Kart or whatever and then an hour goes by.

00:50:18 ◼   ► But for me, I have found in the last few years

00:50:21 ◼   ► that it's actually good for me to do that

00:50:23 ◼   ► because otherwise I would just sit,

00:50:25 ◼   ► what else is I gonna be doing?

00:50:26 ◼   ► Just sit and refresh my email inbox for an hour?

00:50:28 ◼   ► Like what was the point?

00:50:30 ◼   ► And I find for me that this stuff is good

00:50:33 ◼   ► even though it is the thing where I'm most likely

00:50:35 ◼   ► to spend time unintentionally.

00:50:40 ◼   ► But when it comes to unintentionally spent time,

00:50:44 ◼   ► gaming is preferable for me in a way.

00:50:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's better than that kind of like nothing

00:50:50 ◼   ► like you're describing, that sort of vague,

00:50:52 ◼   ► like I'm sitting in front of the computer,

00:50:54 ◼   ► I'm not really getting anything done

00:50:56 ◼   ► and I feel bad about that, which is just like a negative loop.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it's better to just like take a real break.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I do find it kind of miraculous

00:51:04 ◼   ► that you can actually take a gaming break

00:51:06 ◼   ► and even if it lasts longer than you expect,

00:51:08 ◼   ► then go back and do something after.

00:51:10 ◼   ► I was just like, I'm completely incapable of doing that.

00:51:13 ◼   ► It's like, if I'm gonna pick up a game, the day is over,

00:51:15 ◼   ► so I better have finished everything.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Like there's no universe in where I'm playing

00:51:20 ◼   ► 15 minutes of Mario Kart.

00:51:22 ◼   ► It's like I'm playing four hours of Mario Kart

00:51:24 ◼   ► or I'm playing no hours of Mario Kart.

00:51:26 ◼   ► Those are the only options.

00:51:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's one of the differences

00:51:29 ◼   ► between mine and your work life

00:51:31 ◼   ► where I have more things on the schedule

00:51:33 ◼   ► than on the calendar.

00:51:34 ◼   ► So like at some point I have to stop

00:51:36 ◼   ► because otherwise I'm not going to the next meeting.

00:51:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, whereas it's like I just have blown off meetings

00:51:42 ◼   ► where it's like, sorry, this can't happen.

00:51:45 ◼   ► - Maybe there's a combination of difference

00:51:48 ◼   ► in personality and calendar.

00:51:50 ◼   ► - I guess I'm trying to say, Mike,

00:51:51 ◼   ► you have a more iron will when it comes to gaming than I do.

00:51:55 ◼   ► - Hannah says, has the 2 million view Instagram reel

00:51:58 ◼   ► translated into a spike in sales at the Sidekick notepad

00:52:01 ◼   ► according to gray spreadsheets?

00:52:03 ◼   ► There is some context required here, I think.

00:52:06 ◼   ► So. - What's the context?

00:52:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, last year I was working with a variety

00:52:10 ◼   ► of content creators and producing media for Instagram,

00:52:15 ◼   ► photos and videos and stuff like that.

00:52:17 ◼   ► And we're trying out a bunch of different styles

00:52:18 ◼   ► and I got in contact with a company based in Australia

00:52:21 ◼   ► called Yuzu and they made a reel for us.

00:52:26 ◼   ► They made a selection of reels for us actually

00:52:28 ◼   ► using the Sidekick notepad.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And I really loved them, but we couldn't use them

00:52:34 ◼   ► because we were waiting on your video, right?

00:52:36 ◼   ► So we were beefing up stock

00:52:38 ◼   ► and not really messing around with anything

00:52:40 ◼   ► because we wanted to make sure that we had stock in place

00:52:44 ◼   ► and that for the video that you were producing.

00:52:46 ◼   ► So I kind of sat on them.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And then a few months ago, I was like, okay,

00:52:50 ◼   ► we're into a kind of like, things are stable now.

00:52:53 ◼   ► Like we've got our stock back in again.

00:52:56 ◼   ► I would like to post these stuff now

00:52:58 ◼   ► and then maybe boost them on Instagram

00:53:00 ◼   ► and stuff like that, right?

00:53:02 ◼   ► And so we posted this reel and it's,

00:53:07 ◼   ► I think the first piece of content

00:53:10 ◼   ► that I've ever been a part of that went viral in this way.

00:53:15 ◼   ► - I feel like there's a lot of asterisks around that,

00:53:17 ◼   ► but yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.

00:53:18 ◼   ► - I mean, this is the highest view count

00:53:20 ◼   ► of anything I have been related to

00:53:22 ◼   ► for a single piece of media.

00:53:24 ◼   ► - I guess my hesitation around that is,

00:53:25 ◼   ► I feel like it's kind of like shorts.

00:53:26 ◼   ► I don't really know how to weigh the view count

00:53:29 ◼   ► on Instagram reels. - I know, I know.

00:53:31 ◼   ► - But yeah, it's like, I will grant that to you,

00:53:33 ◼   ► but I do feel like you have to think about it

00:53:35 ◼   ► in a certain way for that to be true.

00:53:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, cut it in half

00:53:39 ◼   ► and then that's maybe closer to the actual amount

00:53:42 ◼   ► like the view count.

00:53:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - Because people watch reels twice by accident,

00:53:49 ◼   ► it just starts again, but it's definitely like,

00:53:52 ◼   ► from a virality perspective of just the speed

00:53:56 ◼   ► and the fact that it was kind of disconnected

00:54:00 ◼   ► from anything that could have otherwise really boosted it

00:54:03 ◼   ► as such.

00:54:04 ◼   ► Now we ended up putting money behind it

00:54:06 ◼   ► as a piece of boosted marketing,

00:54:09 ◼   ► but it hit nearly a million views all on its own.

00:54:14 ◼   ► It just got sucked into the algorithm and that was that.

00:54:17 ◼   ► And this was incredibly exciting for me.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Like it was just fun to watch the numbers go up.

00:54:22 ◼   ► From a sense of like spike of sales,

00:54:25 ◼   ► it was kind of interesting really.

00:54:27 ◼   ► The sales for like, I don't know,

00:54:29 ◼   ► maybe the first couple of weeks of the reel

00:54:32 ◼   ► when it was hitting its highest virality,

00:54:35 ◼   ► it maybe doubled our daily sales,

00:54:37 ◼   ► but that is a minute fraction compared to the response

00:54:42 ◼   ► of anything that we're able to generate

00:54:44 ◼   ► from either the podcast or from the video that you made.

00:54:49 ◼   ► Which makes sense, right?

00:54:50 ◼   ► Like I wouldn't have expected anything really different

00:54:53 ◼   ► because if somebody sees you talking about the products,

00:54:58 ◼   ► it comes with like the relationship you have with the viewer

00:55:02 ◼   ► that they trust you,

00:55:03 ◼   ► rather than here's like a random piece of media as an ad.

00:55:06 ◼   ► It's just another ad you've seen.

00:55:08 ◼   ► But the thing that was very beneficial

00:55:11 ◼   ► is it massively boosted our Instagram following,

00:55:14 ◼   ► which for me was like the perfect thing

00:55:17 ◼   ► that I could have wished for out something like this,

00:55:18 ◼   ► honestly, 'cause that's,

00:55:19 ◼   ► as we've spoken about on the show in the past,

00:55:22 ◼   ► it's something that I've wanted to increase over time

00:55:26 ◼   ► and this did it.

00:55:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, the conversion ratio between,

00:55:30 ◼   ► it's like, oh, we talked about the sidekick on the podcast

00:55:32 ◼   ► or I make a video about it.

00:55:34 ◼   ► That conversion ratio of like, oh,

00:55:37 ◼   ► how many listens equals a sale or how many video views

00:55:41 ◼   ► equals a sale, like that conversion ratio is much higher

00:55:44 ◼   ► than the Instagram views because like you said,

00:55:47 ◼   ► like quite obviously, most people on Instagram

00:55:50 ◼   ► are coming to it without any context at all.

00:55:52 ◼   ► They don't know who we are and there's like,

00:55:54 ◼   ► there's no background.

00:55:55 ◼   ► So the conversion is much, much lower

00:55:57 ◼   ► for like per million views on Instagram into sales.

00:56:01 ◼   ► But like, this is one thing where it always has been

00:56:05 ◼   ► like a slight point of disagreement between us

00:56:07 ◼   ► because I am just like significantly less convinced

00:56:11 ◼   ► by a lot of the social media stuff than you have been.

00:56:14 ◼   ► It's interesting, it's like on my head of logistics

00:56:17 ◼   ► to-do list is like, I've been meaning to like rework

00:56:19 ◼   ► a bunch of the data so I can run like regression analysis

00:56:23 ◼   ► on like, what are we doing

00:56:24 ◼   ► and what's having an impact on sales

00:56:26 ◼   ► and what are the exact conversion ratios

00:56:28 ◼   ► and how should we think about that?

00:56:30 ◼   ► But when something like this happens, it's like, oh, yeah,

00:56:33 ◼   ► I don't need to run some fancy analysis.

00:56:36 ◼   ► I can immediately see that like this is converting

00:56:38 ◼   ► into sales at a positive ratio.

00:56:40 ◼   ► And it's like, sure, that Instagram conversion factor

00:56:43 ◼   ► is much worse than other mediums.

00:56:45 ◼   ► But like, I don't need to tease out the data

00:56:47 ◼   ► when sales double and stay doubled for exactly the duration

00:56:51 ◼   ► that this video is getting a ton of views.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And that also to me was like,

00:56:56 ◼   ► it was just a great proof of concept to see,

00:57:00 ◼   ► yes, like this is what we want to know

00:57:02 ◼   ► that without context, without the background of knowing us

00:57:06 ◼   ► and like what's gone into the product

00:57:08 ◼   ► and like all of the details and everything else.

00:57:10 ◼   ► Even just the like, listener knows Mike has great tastes

00:57:14 ◼   ► so trusts to like try out a product that he has designed.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Like without any of that, people just see the thing

00:57:19 ◼   ► and think, yes, like I would like to try that product.

00:57:22 ◼   ► So it was very interesting to see

00:57:24 ◼   ► and like behind the scenes, we had some conversations

00:57:27 ◼   ► where it was like, I just don't know if I trust

00:57:29 ◼   ► any of this Instagram malarkey.

00:57:30 ◼   ► And then like along comes a mega viral Instagram video

00:57:34 ◼   ► with like obvious impact on spreadsheet sales.

00:57:36 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, Mike might be onto something here.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:57:40 ◼   ► - Oh, but this is the thing though,

00:57:41 ◼   ► where like this was actually valuable to me

00:57:44 ◼   ► for the same reason, because our yearly theme

00:57:47 ◼   ► for Cortex brand is the year of basics, right?

00:57:49 ◼   ► And one of the things in the year of basics was like,

00:57:52 ◼   ► let's actually try and get a better handle over this idea.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Because you know, the idea of having an Instagram account

00:58:00 ◼   ► and it being a sales marketing funnel and da, da, da, da, da.

00:58:04 ◼   ► It's a thing that I know businesses do,

00:58:06 ◼   ► but I don't know how to do it.

00:58:07 ◼   ► And I don't know if it actually works, but everybody does it.

00:58:10 ◼   ► So surely there must be some value to it was my thinking.

00:58:13 ◼   ► But like trying to extract that and understand that

00:58:16 ◼   ► is incredibly complicated

00:58:18 ◼   ► and still kind of remains complicated.

00:58:20 ◼   ► But at least from this video

00:58:23 ◼   ► and then a couple of other pieces of marketing

00:58:25 ◼   ► that we've done, I've been able to see

00:58:28 ◼   ► that there is the ability to increase effectiveness

00:58:32 ◼   ► and get a metric out of the end of it.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And that has been really interesting to me

00:58:40 ◼   ► for that same thing you're saying of like,

00:58:42 ◼   ► I know that there is a higher conversion

00:58:45 ◼   ► over our personalities leading to the sale.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Like people being familiar with us.

00:58:49 ◼   ► But the thing is we actually can't easily

00:58:54 ◼   ► put a number on that.

00:58:55 ◼   ► It's like very hard to do.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And then also, even if we were able to,

00:58:59 ◼   ► it's incredibly hard to just keep putting the money in

00:59:03 ◼   ► and getting more people.

00:59:04 ◼   ► And that is exactly what Instagram provides, right?

00:59:07 ◼   ► We can get the number and we have the number.

00:59:10 ◼   ► So like at the moment,

00:59:11 ◼   ► I'm running this video as an ad on Instagram

00:59:15 ◼   ► with the call to action to go to the Sidekick Notepad website

00:59:19 ◼   ► and read more about it.

00:59:20 ◼   ► At the moment, this piece of media,

00:59:24 ◼   ► it's seven pence per click.

00:59:27 ◼   ► So for every seven pence we put in,

00:59:29 ◼   ► we get someone to click and go and watch it.

00:59:31 ◼   ► And this is better than any other piece of media

00:59:34 ◼   ► that we've done.

00:59:35 ◼   ► We had some that were two times,

00:59:36 ◼   ► three times, four times that amount.

00:59:38 ◼   ► And so like it's helping me understand

00:59:40 ◼   ► that like whatever it is about this video,

00:59:42 ◼   ► people like it.

00:59:44 ◼   ► It encourages them to go and learn more.

00:59:45 ◼   ► And we have one other thing at the moment,

00:59:48 ◼   ► like which is we made a post about the Ink Magazine article

00:59:52 ◼   ► that was written about the Sidekick Notepad

00:59:55 ◼   ► that is also performing at seven pence per click

00:59:57 ◼   ► to go and find out more about the product.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I was like, this is interesting stuff to me

01:00:01 ◼   ► because there's two things.

01:00:02 ◼   ► One, all right, so whatever it is about these pieces

01:00:05 ◼   ► of media, they resonate with people.

01:00:07 ◼   ► And also just because of the way Instagram works,

01:00:10 ◼   ► it's not like it has to stop.

01:00:12 ◼   ► You just keep it going.

01:00:14 ◼   ► And we keep getting the same results.

01:00:16 ◼   ► We keep putting money in, we keep getting the same result.

01:00:19 ◼   ► And that's really interesting.

01:00:20 ◼   ► That is not something we can do with a podcast.

01:00:22 ◼   ► And it's not something we could do with a YouTube video.

01:00:24 ◼   ► We cannot keep replicating the same result

01:00:27 ◼   ► because both of those pieces of media,

01:00:32 ◼   ► the effectiveness is capped out at the exact maximum already.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Right, like we can only talk to the same amount of people

01:00:40 ◼   ► on the show as we can every month essentially.

01:00:43 ◼   ► And for your video, it's already hit the highest amount

01:00:47 ◼   ► of people with the highest amount effectiveness.

01:00:50 ◼   ► We can't just, if we took that video of yours on YouTube

01:00:54 ◼   ► and put money behind it, you know,

01:00:55 ◼   ► it was promoting on YouTube, we wouldn't get the same result.

01:00:58 ◼   ► We'd probably get a similar result to the Instagram ad.

01:01:01 ◼   ► And I think that that's been really interesting to me

01:01:03 ◼   ► to kind of finally have something

01:01:05 ◼   ► that broke out a little bit to be able to teach me

01:01:09 ◼   ► this lesson about why people do this kind of stuff

01:01:12 ◼   ► because basically everybody in the world

01:01:14 ◼   ► is on this platform.

01:01:15 ◼   ► You can just keep reaching them.

01:01:16 ◼   ► And also because of the way these kinds of things work,

01:01:19 ◼   ► we'll hit the same person like four times

01:01:21 ◼   ► and then they'll finally click on it

01:01:22 ◼   ► and now they've become one of the seven pence clicks.

01:01:25 ◼   ► It's just been really interesting for me.

01:01:27 ◼   ► I don't know what to do with it still,

01:01:29 ◼   ► but it's been very beneficial.

01:01:31 ◼   ► And also just the style of that video

01:01:34 ◼   ► and the way it looks visually is something

01:01:37 ◼   ► that we're gonna start leaning more towards

01:01:39 ◼   ► because I really love the style

01:01:41 ◼   ► and clearly so do the people that wanna buy our products.

01:01:43 ◼   ► So that's very good.

01:01:44 ◼   ► - Like a viral success.

01:01:46 ◼   ► They can be inexplicable and they can be irreplicable,

01:01:50 ◼   ► but they can also point you like,

01:01:52 ◼   ► this is generally the right direction to head.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Think about what happened here and what worked here

01:01:58 ◼   ► and now start trying to iterate on that

01:02:01 ◼   ► and see where you can go from there.

01:02:03 ◼   ► - This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace,

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01:04:45 ◼   ► Mark asks, "How do you handle failure?

01:04:49 ◼   ► "You often talk about the systems and practices

01:04:51 ◼   ► "you have in place to succeed in your work,

01:04:53 ◼   ► "but when things don't go to plan,

01:04:55 ◼   ► "how do you deal with it and get back to work?

01:04:58 ◼   ► "I'm a scientist, so it's my job repeatedly

01:05:00 ◼   ► "to fail and learn from it,

01:05:02 ◼   ► "but I'm also a human being,

01:05:04 ◼   ► "so this can be a tough thing to keep doing."

01:05:06 ◼   ► - Flashbacks to my working at a physics lab days

01:05:10 ◼   ► that it was like, yep, your default assumption

01:05:12 ◼   ► at the start of every day is like,

01:05:14 ◼   ► well, none of this is going to work.

01:05:16 ◼   ► It's gonna be a whole day of like doing stuff

01:05:19 ◼   ► and none of it works.

01:05:21 ◼   ► I know that feeling very well.

01:05:23 ◼   ► I mean, partly for me,

01:05:24 ◼   ► I feel like there's a cheat answer I have, which is true,

01:05:27 ◼   ► which is just, I'm not a very looking backward kind of guy.

01:05:32 ◼   ► That is just not the way my personality is.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And so I am just temperamentally inclined

01:05:40 ◼   ► to move on immediately and not care at all about failures.

01:05:45 ◼   ► I've made some real bad decisions sometimes,

01:05:49 ◼   ► and it's funny, I was just talking to someone

01:05:51 ◼   ► about a thing came up about something that happened

01:05:53 ◼   ► in the past and it was like,

01:05:54 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, that was a real bad decision."

01:05:56 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh yeah, I just haven't really thought

01:05:58 ◼   ► "about that at all in forever."

01:06:01 ◼   ► It just doesn't come up.

01:06:01 ◼   ► So I think I am a bad person to ask

01:06:05 ◼   ► because it's just like it's

01:06:06 ◼   ► because of temperamental indications.

01:06:08 ◼   ► But I do think there's a different thing

01:06:11 ◼   ► that I wanna pull out,

01:06:13 ◼   ► which is like expected failures and unexpected failures,

01:06:18 ◼   ► particularly being a scientist here.

01:06:21 ◼   ► That's like the key example of expected failures.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, you're gonna be running an experiment

01:06:26 ◼   ► "where you're testing different materials,

01:06:28 ◼   ► "looking for property X, you know going into that,

01:06:33 ◼   ► "you're gonna have months of just like,

01:06:35 ◼   ► "Oh, none of this worked."

01:06:36 ◼   ► Every day in a sense was a failure every time.

01:06:39 ◼   ► But that's just like part of the thing.

01:06:42 ◼   ► And I don't know, I feel like if it was an expected failure,

01:06:47 ◼   ► if you started some process in your work or in your life,

01:06:50 ◼   ► and you know extremely confidently ahead of time

01:06:54 ◼   ► that there's going to be like percentage X of failures,

01:06:59 ◼   ► I just feel like that's not even a failure at all.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It's something more like grinding, right?

01:07:04 ◼   ► You're like grinding through to get where you want to.

01:07:08 ◼   ► And it's like grinding is not a lot of fun,

01:07:10 ◼   ► but you just have to do it for certain kinds of things.

01:07:14 ◼   ► So if a failure was well expected,

01:07:17 ◼   ► I just feel like it should be mentally reframed as,

01:07:20 ◼   ► was this part of a grind?

01:07:22 ◼   ► Or I guess the other way it can be is like,

01:07:24 ◼   ► was this part of a calculated risk?

01:07:26 ◼   ► And you had some notion in your head of like,

01:07:28 ◼   ► "Oh, okay, here's the probability of failure."

01:07:32 ◼   ► And I just like knew that going in.

01:07:35 ◼   ► I feel like, oh, it's like there's nothing to deal with there at all.

01:07:38 ◼   ► But the thing that's more like,

01:07:42 ◼   ► what do you want to pay attention to?

01:07:44 ◼   ► And what do I pay attention to?

01:07:45 ◼   ► Is more like unexpected failures.

01:07:48 ◼   ► Like something has gone wrong in a way

01:07:50 ◼   ► that you didn't predict at all and didn't see coming.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Like that is a very different thing that feels more like,

01:07:58 ◼   ► oh, this is an actual failure.

01:08:00 ◼   ► And you just have to do like a retrospective analysis

01:08:05 ◼   ► of what was missed in the lead up to this.

01:08:10 ◼   ► How did this come out of nowhere?

01:08:12 ◼   ► What led to this occurring?

01:08:14 ◼   ► And then, I mean, kind of going to the discussion earlier

01:08:17 ◼   ► about deciding the things that you're improving on

01:08:20 ◼   ► and not improving on.

01:08:22 ◼   ► Sometimes the result is like, well, that's what happens.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Unexpected failures, by definition,

01:08:27 ◼   ► they're unexpected, they can be unpredictable.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And it just might not be worth changing anything

01:08:34 ◼   ► to try to avoid that in the future.

01:08:38 ◼   ► I feel like this is one of the many slow poisons

01:08:42 ◼   ► and slow deaths of like big companies and big bureaucracies

01:08:47 ◼   ► is they ossify in trying to make it

01:08:52 ◼   ► so that every unexpected failure

01:08:55 ◼   ► that they have ever encountered can never happen again.

01:08:59 ◼   ► This is why you get terms of service.

01:09:01 ◼   ► They're like 20,000 pages long.

01:09:03 ◼   ► It's like, what is this document?

01:09:05 ◼   ► Oh, it's like a historical record of everything bad

01:09:08 ◼   ► that ever happened to this company

01:09:10 ◼   ► and also everything bad that ever happened

01:09:12 ◼   ► to all of their friends that they ever asked about.

01:09:15 ◼   ► So you get like this enormous document

01:09:17 ◼   ► trying to cover like every possible corner case.

01:09:19 ◼   ► And it's the problem that bureaucracies get of like,

01:09:22 ◼   ► there's a million steps because each one was added

01:09:25 ◼   ► because sometime there was a problem

01:09:27 ◼   ► and they put in an institutional fix

01:09:30 ◼   ► and everything just gets slower and slower.

01:09:33 ◼   ► So I know like with unexpected failures,

01:09:36 ◼   ► I think it is also just worth considering.

01:09:38 ◼   ► It could just be better to eat it as a failure

01:09:41 ◼   ► and accept that you're gonna go forward

01:09:44 ◼   ► and not try to plan for this.

01:09:46 ◼   ► But I know it's just, it's so variable, right?

01:09:48 ◼   ► It depends on the nature of what the failure is.

01:09:51 ◼   ► But I think it's good to mentally separate them

01:09:54 ◼   ► into expected versus unexpected.

01:09:56 ◼   ► And then if it's unexpected,

01:09:58 ◼   ► is it worth attempting to prevent something similar

01:10:01 ◼   ► in the future or is it not?

01:10:04 ◼   ► So that's the decision tree for failures

01:10:07 ◼   ► off the top of my head.

01:10:08 ◼   ► That's what you can do and then pick one

01:10:11 ◼   ► and don't worry about it.

01:10:12 ◼   ► That's how you handle failure.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - So if I have an unexpected failure of a project

01:10:16 ◼   ► that I'm working on or whatever,

01:10:18 ◼   ► I will be bummed out about it,

01:10:19 ◼   ► especially if I thought that it could have led

01:10:21 ◼   ► to something more or I had a greater idea for it.

01:10:24 ◼   ► And so I've experienced that enough throughout my career.

01:10:28 ◼   ► But in having had those experiences early on,

01:10:31 ◼   ► it kind of got me to the point now

01:10:34 ◼   ► where my preparations for a project

01:10:37 ◼   ► include the ways in which the failure is dealt with.

01:10:42 ◼   ► And essentially my two systems for dealing with failure

01:10:46 ◼   ► is commitment and experience.

01:10:49 ◼   ► So if I'm embarking on a project,

01:10:53 ◼   ► I understand that that project may not succeed,

01:10:57 ◼   ► but what I won't do is just abandon it.

01:10:59 ◼   ► I will take it to a point in which it will end,

01:11:04 ◼   ► but that it won't just be like, well, that didn't work

01:11:06 ◼   ► and then just get rid of it.

01:11:08 ◼   ► Because then I feel like I'm not gonna learn anything

01:11:09 ◼   ► from that project.

01:11:11 ◼   ► And if I just abandon everything that fails,

01:11:14 ◼   ► I'm also gonna keep starting too many things, right?

01:11:17 ◼   ► So this is a thing I've learned over time,

01:11:19 ◼   ► which is now why I'm like, no more podcasts, none,

01:11:23 ◼   ► no more, done, right?

01:11:25 ◼   ► Because I just learned over time,

01:11:27 ◼   ► it just became harder and harder to be successful

01:11:30 ◼   ► with new shows that are made the way

01:11:32 ◼   ► that I like to make podcasts.

01:11:34 ◼   ► And to try and get a success now

01:11:38 ◼   ► to the level that the successes that I have

01:11:40 ◼   ► is really, really hard and takes more time

01:11:44 ◼   ► than I have to give to a project.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And so having that commitment to be like,

01:11:49 ◼   ► well, if this doesn't work,

01:11:51 ◼   ► I will see this project through to an end state.

01:11:54 ◼   ► That is a thing that is a commitment to the people

01:11:56 ◼   ► that are there or that have bought into it,

01:11:59 ◼   ► but also not to a point where I'm just

01:12:01 ◼   ► dragging something behind me forever, right?

01:12:04 ◼   ► And then that also leads to gaining the experience

01:12:10 ◼   ► for how to make something successful

01:12:14 ◼   ► and or successful enough that you can find the time

01:12:18 ◼   ► at which to bail out from it.

01:12:20 ◼   ► That kind of my two ways that I deal with projects now

01:12:23 ◼   ► so that they're less likely to fail, I feel like.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Like for example, we've done enough now

01:12:33 ◼   ► for the promoting of products to understand

01:12:37 ◼   ► how to make them successful,

01:12:40 ◼   ► because we've had some stuff that didn't necessarily

01:12:42 ◼   ► go the way that I thought they were going to

01:12:44 ◼   ► because I made too many assumptions.

01:12:46 ◼   ► And now we have like a better idea of how to do stuff

01:12:49 ◼   ► and I think is getting better all the time.

01:12:52 ◼   ► And it's also just informing that some of the bets

01:12:55 ◼   ► that we make on things can be reduced.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And like you can start off ordering less units of a product

01:13:01 ◼   ► and you can see if it resonates with people

01:13:03 ◼   ► and then use that to improve it or change it

01:13:06 ◼   ► and or to then build the way to announce it

01:13:09 ◼   ► bigger to the world.

01:13:10 ◼   ► Like that is the kind of experience portion,

01:13:13 ◼   ► which means that like something can succeed

01:13:15 ◼   ► but succeed less and it not be a failure

01:13:17 ◼   ► because you're not carrying around the same stock

01:13:20 ◼   ► or the same item for like six years or whatever.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, actually, that's a good point

01:13:24 ◼   ► 'cause I was, as you were talking,

01:13:26 ◼   ► I was sort of thinking like, again,

01:13:28 ◼   ► it's easier to talk about with physical products

01:13:30 ◼   ► like with Cortex brand, but it's like,

01:13:32 ◼   ► oh, our products have done well,

01:13:36 ◼   ► but at some point we're going to have like a failure, right?

01:13:40 ◼   ► We're going to have something where it's like,

01:13:41 ◼   ► oh, this just didn't go very well.

01:13:43 ◼   ► If you keep launching products, it's bound to happen.

01:13:46 ◼   ► - I mean, look, I think it already did happen,

01:13:49 ◼   ► but nobody else will agree with me or will allow me to agree.

01:13:52 ◼   ► The subtle notebook was a failure.

01:13:53 ◼   ► - I was like, are you still hung up

01:13:55 ◼   ► about the subtle notebook? - I'm talking about

01:13:56 ◼   ► the subtle notebook, yes.

01:13:57 ◼   ► I'm talking about the subtle notebook.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - Okay, listen, everybody.

01:14:00 ◼   ► I just completely disagree with Mike about this.

01:14:02 ◼   ► I feel like Mike's brain is all like weird

01:14:05 ◼   ► about the subtle notebook.

01:14:06 ◼   ► Subtle notebook is great.

01:14:08 ◼   ► By the way, your head of logistics says

01:14:10 ◼   ► we need to order more very soon.

01:14:12 ◼   ► - For a variety of reasons, it can't happen.

01:14:15 ◼   ► So like, we're just going to have to deal with this later on.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - Listen to me, I will not let subtle notebook die.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - No, no, but this is the point though.

01:14:23 ◼   ► This is my experience.

01:14:23 ◼   ► So, okay, so what happened was

01:14:25 ◼   ► we made the theme system journal and I was like,

01:14:27 ◼   ► an easy next product is a notebook

01:14:29 ◼   ► that is basically the same construction,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but blank inside, right?

01:14:33 ◼   ► And it was like, this can only surely succeed

01:14:36 ◼   ► to the exact same level that the theme system succeeded.

01:14:39 ◼   ► No, it didn't because we ordered an amount

01:14:42 ◼   ► that was way too high and we're still selling

01:14:44 ◼   ► from that initial stock amount.

01:14:46 ◼   ► We significantly over ordered

01:14:48 ◼   ► and over committed to that product.

01:14:50 ◼   ► I don't think that the idea of a product

01:14:53 ◼   ► like the subtle notebook is a bad one,

01:14:55 ◼   ► but whenever we get to the point

01:14:57 ◼   ► that we're going to replace it or like reorder for it,

01:15:01 ◼   ► I'm not going to order that same amount again.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Like the failure. - Okay, yeah, yeah.

01:15:04 ◼   ► - We bet way too hard on that product and it did not work.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Like it did not work.

01:15:10 ◼   ► - Okay, I guess would you remind me again

01:15:12 ◼   ► that we overbought by literally many years worth of stock.

01:15:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess that did go bad.

01:15:19 ◼   ► I just really liked that product.

01:15:21 ◼   ► And I also just think it's kind of funny.

01:15:23 ◼   ► - I like it too.

01:15:24 ◼   ► And that we have fans of that product,

01:15:25 ◼   ► including some friends of like, not just you,

01:15:28 ◼   ► I have other friends who are like,

01:15:29 ◼   ► please never get rid of this

01:15:30 ◼   ► 'cause I use it all the time.

01:15:31 ◼   ► It's like, I get it,

01:15:33 ◼   ► but it's going to be replaced at some point

01:15:36 ◼   ► with something else.

01:15:37 ◼   ► But we will deal with that the same way

01:15:39 ◼   ► that we have like are dealing with variants

01:15:41 ◼   ► of the Sidekick notepad, right?

01:15:42 ◼   ► So we have the calendar companion.

01:15:44 ◼   ► We ordered way less and it's going great

01:15:48 ◼   ► because we are less financially committed to that product.

01:15:52 ◼   ► - Okay, so concede you're more right

01:15:55 ◼   ► about the subtle notebook that I give you credit for.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Hashtag Mike was right.

01:16:00 ◼   ► - But it's just the experience.

01:16:01 ◼   ► We'd learned something from it.

01:16:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's where I was sort of going with that

01:16:04 ◼   ► is what I was thinking about.

01:16:05 ◼   ► Just again, like sort of thinking forward,

01:16:07 ◼   ► it's like, oh right, like projects,

01:16:09 ◼   ► like we'll definitely have some projects

01:16:10 ◼   ► that are like failures in some sense.

01:16:14 ◼   ► But like I already feel so much better

01:16:17 ◼   ► and partly because of the calendar companion.

01:16:19 ◼   ► I'm just like, oh, but the way that we're thinking

01:16:21 ◼   ► of rolling out stuff,

01:16:22 ◼   ► we've made a bunch of structural changes behind the scenes

01:16:26 ◼   ► and it's like, oh right.

01:16:28 ◼   ► I didn't really think about this.

01:16:29 ◼   ► But like we have definitely put a lot of effort

01:16:31 ◼   ► into downside mitigation of if it goes wrong

01:16:35 ◼   ► while maintaining the ability to get the benefits

01:16:39 ◼   ► of the upside if it does go right.

01:16:41 ◼   ► So yeah, that is a thing that like,

01:16:44 ◼   ► we've gotten significantly better over time with that.

01:16:47 ◼   ► So yeah, that's like totally like learning

01:16:49 ◼   ► from failure experience and incorporating it going forward.

01:16:52 ◼   ► - And that's also like the commitment thing, right?

01:16:54 ◼   ► So when we were struggling handling all of the eels

01:16:56 ◼   ► and ordered like just a obscene amount of sidekick notepads

01:16:59 ◼   ► to prepare for your video,

01:17:01 ◼   ► there was a conversation that we had, which was like,

01:17:03 ◼   ► okay, if this video doesn't work, like we will sell these.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Like we will do everything in our power to sell these,

01:17:12 ◼   ► which is just like not a thing that we thought about before.

01:17:14 ◼   ► But like that is the commitment part of it

01:17:17 ◼   ► to make sure that even if this does not go the way

01:17:19 ◼   ► that we hope, we won't allow it to like fail

01:17:23 ◼   ► because we know we can sell them.

01:17:25 ◼   ► It's just gonna take a different commitment level

01:17:26 ◼   ► to make that work.

01:17:28 ◼   ► - I have a question for you via Chris.

01:17:32 ◼   ► Chris writes in to ask, "Given both of your inclinations

01:17:35 ◼   ► to track your time and calculate ROI,

01:17:38 ◼   ► are you able to figure out the ballpark returns

01:17:40 ◼   ► on your time spent watching Lord of the Rings for Mortex?"

01:17:45 ◼   ► And I feel like, are we Mike?

01:17:47 ◼   ► I actually haven't even, I haven't thought about this at all.

01:17:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:51 ◼   ► I don't know if we like have the data

01:17:53 ◼   ► to even calculate something like that.

01:17:55 ◼   ► - I mean, I have the data,

01:17:56 ◼   ► but it's about what's the question in a way where like,

01:18:00 ◼   ► obviously that was an incredible outlay of time.

01:18:05 ◼   ► So if you consider the movies and the episodes

01:18:09 ◼   ► and the edit, it's probably like 50, 60 hours of work,

01:18:14 ◼   ► probably something like that.

01:18:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I will again flag up.

01:18:17 ◼   ► I had the funny experience during the time

01:18:20 ◼   ► that we decided to do that.

01:18:22 ◼   ► At one point just,

01:18:24 ◼   ► must've been around the two towers time,

01:18:26 ◼   ► but I was complaining to my wife.

01:18:28 ◼   ► I was like, "God, I just feel so like busy and overloaded.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Why is that?"

01:18:33 ◼   ► And she's like, "You just doubled the recording of Cortex

01:18:35 ◼   ► with this stuff where you wanna watch like 12 hours

01:18:39 ◼   ► of behind the scenes footage to prepare."

01:18:41 ◼   ► It's like, "Yeah, you just dropped a like bomb of hours

01:18:45 ◼   ► in the middle of what you're trying to do."

01:18:47 ◼   ► That's why this question is kind of funny

01:18:49 ◼   ► because it is strange in the nature of our work

01:18:54 ◼   ► that it's like, "Oh, this totally does count as work time."

01:18:57 ◼   ► But my brain just doesn't really frame it that way.

01:19:01 ◼   ► And so that's why I had like a kind of confused experience

01:19:05 ◼   ► of like, I just feel like I'm so busy and overloaded

01:19:09 ◼   ► all of a sudden because my brain was just like,

01:19:11 ◼   ► "You're just watching Lord of the Rings, man?

01:19:13 ◼   ► You're making some notes?"

01:19:15 ◼   ► So yes, but I was because of time pressure,

01:19:18 ◼   ► like doing some of the extras watching,

01:19:20 ◼   ► like during what would have otherwise been

01:19:23 ◼   ► like normal working hours.

01:19:24 ◼   ► But my brain was like hiding all of that from me.

01:19:27 ◼   ► But I like this question because it is a funny thing

01:19:30 ◼   ► to sort of think about.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And I know people ask this a lot,

01:19:35 ◼   ► but I think I don't do the time tracking

01:19:38 ◼   ► and the return on investment in the way

01:19:41 ◼   ► that people think that I do.

01:19:43 ◼   ► So it's like, no, I like I time track for Cortex

01:19:47 ◼   ► just like as a whole.

01:19:49 ◼   ► And I do think about that in terms of like,

01:19:52 ◼   ► "Oh, where does this fit in my life?"

01:19:55 ◼   ► But it feels like I would not have time tracked

01:19:58 ◼   ► the Lord of the Rings project and then been like,

01:20:02 ◼   ► "Oh, let's see if the ROI was positive on that."

01:20:05 ◼   ► Because one, it's a thing that we'd just been talking about

01:20:08 ◼   ► for years that was two, a good excuse for me

01:20:12 ◼   ► to rewatch the movies, which I wanted to do anyway.

01:20:15 ◼   ► And like you wanted to see them at some point.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And then like three, I just thought it was a good idea

01:20:22 ◼   ► for the more tech subscribers.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Like here's a bunch of stuff that we can talk about

01:20:26 ◼   ► that I think is fun.

01:20:27 ◼   ► And like, I think we did a really good job

01:20:28 ◼   ► on those episodes.

01:20:29 ◼   ► I just think this is a way in which it's like,

01:20:31 ◼   ► I always encourage people to time track,

01:20:33 ◼   ► but this is the danger is I think people naturally

01:20:37 ◼   ► want to over time track that I think can,

01:20:41 ◼   ► like you lose the big picture here.

01:20:45 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yes.

01:20:46 ◼   ► - And the big picture is we think this was a good idea

01:20:51 ◼   ► for the people who sign up for more techs

01:20:53 ◼   ► and it makes sense on like a bunch of axes,

01:20:56 ◼   ► we should do it.

01:20:57 ◼   ► And like, that's sort of the end of the conversation

01:20:59 ◼   ► and I'm very glad we did it.

01:21:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, so like, I know that right now, like to date,

01:21:04 ◼   ► no, it has not been ROI positive.

01:21:08 ◼   ► And it probably won't be for a long period of time.

01:21:10 ◼   ► If all we're basing it on is incremental new subscribers.

01:21:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:21:16 ◼   ► - Where to have done that amount of work

01:21:20 ◼   ► and then generate a positive ROI

01:21:23 ◼   ► compared to regular more techs would be,

01:21:27 ◼   ► it's impossible to do.

01:21:29 ◼   ► - I guess if I was thinking it through,

01:21:31 ◼   ► it's like, what's the comparison I guess?

01:21:33 ◼   ► I guess the comparison would be like ROI compared to,

01:21:38 ◼   ► we recorded three extra episodes of Cortex

01:21:41 ◼   ► and put ads on them.

01:21:42 ◼   ► And just because of the economics

01:21:44 ◼   ► of the way these things work is like,

01:21:46 ◼   ► oh yeah, those Lord of the Rings episodes

01:21:48 ◼   ► will probably never pay off if that's the comparison.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Like no way will they ever pay off,

01:21:54 ◼   ► but that's like, it's just not the right way

01:21:56 ◼   ► to think about it at all, yeah.

01:21:58 ◼   ► - Because the way that I considered it

01:22:00 ◼   ► and I do consider it is what we're doing with that

01:22:03 ◼   ► is making the more techs proposition more appealing

01:22:07 ◼   ► to people because this content lives there now.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Because more techs existing is very beneficial to my ROI.

01:22:16 ◼   ► And what it provides for me financially is it's fantastic.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And so doing anything to increase that,

01:22:26 ◼   ► which is also a fun thing to,

01:22:28 ◼   ► like if you can think of a fun thing to do

01:22:31 ◼   ► that also makes that part of my business

01:22:34 ◼   ► more attractive to the people that are there, fantastic.

01:22:37 ◼   ► And if what we ended up doing was by providing that,

01:22:40 ◼   ► a bunch of people decided to stick around for longer, great.

01:22:44 ◼   ► That was the whole reason to do it.

01:22:46 ◼   ► But if we were like, all right,

01:22:48 ◼   ► we need to make this 40 hours worth,

01:22:53 ◼   ► it was impossible to do, right?

01:22:56 ◼   ► If we give like half an hour for each episode

01:23:00 ◼   ► to get to 40 hours, you know what I mean?

01:23:04 ◼   ► Like we would have had to, I don't know,

01:23:05 ◼   ► like 20, 40 X the amount, like it wouldn't,

01:23:10 ◼   ► it doesn't work out like that.

01:23:12 ◼   ► It doesn't work out like that, but like,

01:23:14 ◼   ► this is just kind of the point.

01:23:15 ◼   ► It is like a thank you to the people that have subscribed

01:23:18 ◼   ► and will subscribe in the future.

01:23:20 ◼   ► Like not only do you get this part,

01:23:21 ◼   ► but also that bigger part.

01:23:23 ◼   ► And like, it kind of is one of those things where

01:23:25 ◼   ► I wouldn't want to do a hard ROI calculation on that.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And neither should you always,

01:23:30 ◼   ► I don't believe that that is a thing.

01:23:32 ◼   ► It's like, for me, I only review as listeners of the show.

01:23:35 ◼   ► No, right?

01:23:36 ◼   ► Like I reviewed my time tracking on an annual basis.

01:23:40 ◼   ► I don't look at month to month stuff.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I look at a year and then every year I do an ROI calculation

01:23:47 ◼   ► on all of the various projects that I'm a part of.

01:23:50 ◼   ► Now it happens once a year.

01:23:51 ◼   ► - This is like totally appropriate time scale.

01:23:53 ◼   ► - So it can help me make big decisions, much bigger decisions

01:23:57 ◼   ► I think if you're ROI calculating every little thing you do,

01:24:01 ◼   ► you'll never be able to focus on anything

01:24:03 ◼   ► 'cause you won't allow for big change.

01:24:06 ◼   ► - So I guess if you want to listen to

01:24:08 ◼   ► the Lord of the Rings episodes, go to getmoretext.com.

01:24:12 ◼   ► And Mike and I are now, we're now going to transition

01:24:16 ◼   ► into Moretext where, I don't know,

01:24:18 ◼   ► I guess I could tell you a little bit of what I've been doing

01:24:21 ◼   ► the last couple of months, I'm not sure.

01:24:23 ◼   ► We'll find out in a few minutes.

01:24:25 ◼   ► - Getmoretext.com.