00:00:00 ◼ ► It is time once again for a yearly theme. Yearly theme episode 2025. So in case you're new to
00:00:08 ◼ ► yearly themes you would like a refresher, allow me to provide you with one. What we recommend here at
00:00:14 ◼ ► the Cortex Podcast is setting a theme for your year. Instead of new year's resolutions, which we
00:00:20 ◼ ► can all agree are bad, we recommend that you set up a yearly theme that will act as a guide for your
00:00:26 ◼ ► life throughout that period. So I want to give the key example, this is the easiest example, I think
00:00:31 ◼ ► we give this one every year. Instead of saying to yourself, "Oh I want to read more books, I'm going
00:00:36 ◼ ► to read 20 books in 2025," that's bad. Because if you read 19 books, hooray you've read 19 books,
00:00:42 ◼ ► but you didn't read 20 and then you failed your new year's resolution. What a failure. Indeed. So
00:00:48 ◼ ► we, and your year is ruined by that, absolutely ruined. But we would recommend that instead you
00:00:54 ◼ ► would set a year of reading. Because if you have year of reading as your yearly theme, any reading
00:00:59 ◼ ► that you do throughout the year is positive. Like you may decide you want to read biographies,
00:01:04 ◼ ► that might be where you want to start, "I have a bunch of biographies that I want to read,
00:01:07 ◼ ► I want to read those this year." But then halfway through the year maybe you get big into science
00:01:11 ◼ ► fiction. It's all reading, so it's all part of your year of reading. Yearly themes are broad,
00:01:17 ◼ ► they're adaptable, it's something that helps you shape the decisions in your life and it acts as a
00:01:21 ◼ ► guide for you. It is not a destination, it is not a fixed thing, but it's something that can help you
00:01:26 ◼ ► when it comes to making decisions. Like if you're maybe picking up the remote to turn on Netflix,
00:01:31 ◼ ► why don't you pick up your book instead? Because it is the year of reading and your yearly theme
00:01:35 ◼ ► will nudge you towards the thing that you're looking to do. Yeah, you really want to have it
00:01:39 ◼ ► be that there's not a fail state. I actually heard a great tip from someone who did do a year of
00:01:44 ◼ ► reading and they came up with what I thought was a genius thing, which was simply tracking
00:01:50 ◼ ► word count. So it's like, ah, it encouraged the ability to be reading a book and then go,
00:01:57 ◼ ► "This book is terrible, I don't want to finish it." But you still get to count like how many pages,
00:02:02 ◼ ► roughly how many words was that, and that's what they were tracking. Love it. And actually a thing
00:02:08 ◼ ► that changed over time was they realized, "You know what I actually want to read more of? I wanted
00:02:12 ◼ ► to read more long form articles," is what they were telling me. And it's like, ah, and that
00:02:17 ◼ ► totally worked as well. They were just tracking like, "What's the word count that I'm reading
00:02:21 ◼ ► on a bunch of like well-written articles that I like online?" It's like, and all of that just
00:02:26 ◼ ► worked in year of reading. And they felt like, oh, this really did encourage them so much more
00:02:31 ◼ ► than if they had set out a particular goal of, "Oh my God, I'm going to read X books per month."
00:02:38 ◼ ► It's like, ah, no, that's not actually what you want to do. Like you can find the change halfway
00:02:42 ◼ ► through and just roll with it. Your yearly theme can be about whatever is important to you. It's
00:02:47 ◼ ► going to help something in your personal life, your professional life, maybe both. It will always
00:02:52 ◼ ► act as a guide, something for you to think about every day. Your yearly theme provides you with
00:02:57 ◼ ► a framework in which you can consider any new opportunities, how you're spending your time,
00:03:02 ◼ ► how you're making decisions. You know, sometimes you may be posed with a decision and if you feel
00:03:06 ◼ ► like it can affect and change your yearly theme for the positive, it becomes something that you
00:03:11 ◼ ► can take on for your year. It's just a tool that helps us change. And it's hard to recognize change,
00:03:17 ◼ ► but I know as we're going to go through this episode, as we do every year, that my yearly
00:03:22 ◼ ► themes, especially reflecting on them too, they act as this way for me to be able to see,
00:03:27 ◼ ► how did I do over this year? Did I make the impact that I was looking for? They're just a truly
00:03:33 ◼ ► wonderful tool. It's been life-changing for me to think about my years this way. And we hope that
00:03:38 ◼ ► you'll join us. Mike, what was your 2024 yearly theme? My theme for 2024 was the year of people.
00:03:46 ◼ ► So essentially what I set out to do for this year was to think about ways to find capable people who
00:03:54 ◼ ► could help me with my work, to help me push my work forward, but not always with me being actively
00:04:01 ◼ ► involved in the work being moved forward. And so I knew I needed more help to start to take my life
00:04:08 ◼ ► into some places that I wanted to go to. And that meant that I also needed to be able to let go a
00:04:13 ◼ ► little bit more and seek help from some experts. And I'm very happy with the way that this year
00:04:26 ◼ ► involved really came to be this year. And so I want to run through with you, Gray, a few key
00:04:31 ◼ ► areas, like looking back over my year of the year of people. So a lot of this has been enabled by me
00:04:38 ◼ ► hiring a new assistant. So I have a new virtual assistant and she has been helping me with various
00:04:43 ◼ ► projects throughout the year. But we have a call every Monday, which is called the Air Traffic
00:04:48 ◼ ► Control Meeting. And this is all about helping me build better structures and kind of like a
00:04:54 ◼ ► better flow of my work. Just on a fundamental level, it's been really helpful to have someone
00:05:01 ◼ ► who I talk through my work with, who's just there to listen, ask questions and see if things could
00:05:06 ◼ ► be done better and to maybe challenge me a little bit if I seem to be doing something that is not a
00:05:12 ◼ ► priority or I'm doing something that really I should do later or I should have done sooner.
00:05:17 ◼ ► Like it's good to have someone take that external view of my work and kind of be a positive critic
00:05:24 ◼ ► of it. This is a relationship that is developing in that way, right? Because she has to really
00:05:30 ◼ ► understand a lot about my habits and what works for me and what doesn't and over the space of a
00:05:35 ◼ ► year. And we've learned a lot together so far. But then also having her then help build me some
00:05:41 ◼ ► systems. A lot of it has been in Notion, as I've mentioned before, and then having her coordinate
00:05:46 ◼ ► with other people to progress the projects on my behalf has really been amazing. There's stuff
00:05:51 ◼ ► that's happened this year. It's all mostly Cortex Brown work and I'll get onto why in a bit, but
00:05:56 ◼ ► it's stuff that I would have had to have given up on if she wasn't pushing it forward because I
00:06:02 ◼ ► didn't have the time to progress it, but it was stuff that was important. I think it's been helpful
00:06:07 ◼ ► in me assessing some priorities. It's also been helpful in me realizing something. One of the
00:06:13 ◼ ► things that has been a... We've spoken about it a few times on the show over the last year or two
00:06:26 ◼ ► I thought, we thought it was just an anomaly. That the year had just conspired in such a way
00:06:36 ◼ ► that towards the end of the year, everything was crashing together. This year has proven to me
00:06:42 ◼ ► that no, that's going to keep happening every year. And it's starting to establish itself as
00:06:48 ◼ ► a bit of a pattern. And this is a combo of things. So it comes from my podcasts. So this show,
00:06:55 ◼ ► our two biggest episodes of the year happen in Q4 and they take a lot of work to really do them
00:07:01 ◼ ► the way that we want to do them. And it's also some of my other shows. We have special episodes
00:07:06 ◼ ► around the holidays. There's also just a lot of live stuff that's going on around this period
00:07:10 ◼ ► of time, but then also running a product business. I think we thought we could maybe be some kind of
00:07:17 ◼ ► unicorn business that didn't have to worry about Q4 as being so important, but yeah, Q4 is super
00:07:23 ◼ ► important. And so this year has kind of helped me highlight that. And I've been looking at that and
00:07:29 ◼ ► I know that's going to be a focus for the next, for every year basically of doing a better job
00:07:33 ◼ ► of planning that. But that has really taken me having this like bird's eye view of my projects
00:07:40 ◼ ► to realize how these strands were coming together that led to this being a very, very, very busy
00:07:46 ◼ ► time again at the end of the year. You feel like you have a better understanding of it because of
00:07:50 ◼ ► the air traffic control meeting? Is that like, is that what you're saying? I could see it happening
00:07:53 ◼ ► again. Right. Okay. Yeah. As things were starting to unfold, I could see it. And then now that I
00:08:00 ◼ ► have like the groundwork of this system, it's how I know it can be better next time. Because like,
00:08:04 ◼ ► for example, we now have tasks for like, it's kind of coming around to like April, May and it's like,
00:08:09 ◼ ► all right, what's happening at Christmas? And like really making that like a priority then rather
00:08:15 ◼ ► than in July or August as it has been before. Because really it's just one of these things.
00:08:21 ◼ ► If we just gave ourselves one month more, like as a runway for taking it serious, then the situation
00:08:28 ◼ ► right now would feel a lot easier. I think the vast majority of the year of people has been
00:08:35 ◼ ► related to Cortex brand because it is the growing part of my businesses. Like Relay is 10 years old
00:08:41 ◼ ► this year, which is being an incredible thing of its own. And I have definitely taken the time this
00:08:47 ◼ ► year to think about the people that have gotten me to this point. Like from the people that I work
00:08:51 ◼ ► with to the people that listen to my shows. But Relay is established. There are a bunch of people
00:08:56 ◼ ► who know their roles and we've been doing it for 10 years. So at this point it is a somewhat stable
00:09:03 ◼ ► business from an organizational perspective. But Cortex brand is growing and has grown in complexity
00:09:13 ◼ ► and possibility quite a lot in the last 12 months because the Sidekick notepad has been a great
00:09:19 ◼ ► success for us. Like it's proven the business as being a business and it isn't just like a fluke
00:09:26 ◼ ► that we had a journal that people like. But it's proven we can have another successful product,
00:09:31 ◼ ► which I think in turn proves to both of us that oh this can actually work. And so we've kind of
00:09:37 ◼ ► put our foot down on that like pedal to the metal or whatever the phrase is. And that takes a lot
00:09:44 ◼ ► of effort. And so it has required for us and me especially to work with more people to try and
00:09:55 ◼ ► realized like what is the big thing that the Sidekick notepad did is it proved like ah we've
00:10:02 ◼ ► done this twice so it wasn't just a fluke. The second time was even more successful than the
00:10:08 ◼ ► first. And it's like yes that has directly fed into a whole bunch of growing Cortex in lots of ways.
00:10:16 ◼ ► It's like yeah it's like we've talked about it but I think that just really clarifies the thing of
00:10:21 ◼ ► ah what has happened? Why does Cortex need more people? Why is Mike having the year of people?
00:10:27 ◼ ► Is because what are we aiming to do? We're now aiming to have something that is much more like
00:10:32 ◼ ► a repeatable process because we have repeated it once. And that's just so structurally different
00:10:39 ◼ ► from the very first time of doing these kinds of things. Yeah so like one of the things that I
00:10:44 ◼ ► really wanted to do this year was improve the imagery that we use on product pages and on our
00:10:50 ◼ ► social media and really kind of try and like get a feel. And I started working with a selection of
00:10:55 ◼ ► content creators like a lot of people that I found through the keyboard community because they know
00:10:59 ◼ ► how to take photos of things on desks. I'm only laughing because that sentence makes it sound like
00:11:06 ◼ ► how hard can it be to take a photograph of a thing on a desk? It sounds so easy until the moment you
00:11:13 ◼ ► try it. Like I've got like post-traumatic stress disorder from just some of the very short shots
00:11:19 ◼ ► that I did for myself for the journal of like and I have all this equipment. I was like oh my god
00:11:25 ◼ ► just like getting a video shot of this journal to look good is impossible. So that's why it's like
00:11:30 ◼ ► yeah you need people who this is the thing that they're doing because it is surprisingly deceptively
00:11:38 ◼ ► hard to take a good looking photo of a thing on a desk. Yeah and through this process we found a
00:11:42 ◼ ► small team that we're now working with to kind of really revamp the imagery. And it's been really
00:11:48 ◼ ► great because this has been for me an example of finding really talented people who and this is one
00:11:58 ◼ ► of the things that I like about collaborating with people in general is sometimes you know what you
00:12:04 ◼ ► want you just don't know how to communicate it. You have like a feeling for how you want to create a
00:12:09 ◼ ► project to come to life but trying to get from step a to step f is very complicated. Like you know
00:12:16 ◼ ► where you are now you know what the end result is but like how do you get through the many decisions
00:12:22 ◼ ► that you have to get through. And I found this to be really great because I feel like I've found
00:12:28 ◼ ► people who truly understand how I see our products and then are helping us communicate that visually.
00:12:37 ◼ ► Because we sell things that are tactile and it's hard to get that across in visual but I think that
00:12:44 ◼ ► they're doing a very good job of helping us bring that to life and it's definitely taking us to a
00:12:49 ◼ ► place that me and you could not get to on our own right like as described like we've both tried and
00:12:55 ◼ ► we've both done an okay job but it's not good enough it's not good enough to really sell what
00:13:00 ◼ ► we're doing very much like this will do kind of stuff which is really not what we're trying to
00:13:06 ◼ ► portray if like good enough. Yeah the escalation was I need something that can work right now and
00:13:16 ◼ ► then you made the pass and it's like you were going to do it and you made it look much better
00:13:23 ◼ ► but there's still that next level of like does this look truly professional and it's like ah
00:13:27 ◼ ► that's what you need a professional for is yes is the progress of like I tried it it's like I cannot
00:13:32 ◼ ► possibly do this you tried it you're like better but still not what we're looking for so yeah it's
00:13:37 ◼ ► like more people just have to come in to be part of this. And then it's like the communication and
00:13:42 ◼ ► the sharing of it right like content has to be written we have an email newsletter now which
00:13:47 ◼ ► unbelievably we did not have until this year we're like taking social media more seriously rather than
00:13:51 ◼ ► me just remembering to post something every now and again like and that takes people that takes
00:13:56 ◼ ► management and it takes planning that takes copywriting that takes testing it takes sending
00:14:01 ◼ ► and that I am involved but I am not responsible for these things which is the way that it has to
00:14:08 ◼ ► be because there's there's zero way that I would be able to do this alongside Relay that is two
00:14:16 ◼ ► probably more than full-time jobs together if I was trying to do all of these things and so
00:14:24 ◼ ► being able to get a team it was like nobody is full-time on Cortex brand but I think now there
00:14:31 ◼ ► are about eight people that work on Cortex brand and last year it was like two and a half so like
00:14:38 ◼ ► we're really trying you know but like this is what it is taking and it has been for me so rewarding
00:14:46 ◼ ► and interesting and thought-provoking to work with all of these people right so there's me and you
00:14:54 ◼ ► but then there's also these other people who are like outside and they ask questions of us right
00:15:00 ◼ ► and then we have to try and explain to them and it helps me rethink stuff and reshape things there
00:15:07 ◼ ► are days now where I'm having meetings with like three or four people multiple meetings like three
00:15:14 ◼ ► or four meetings with different people who are all really engaged and active and trying to push it
00:15:18 ◼ ► all forward but the thing that has been the most amazing is it's happened there are meetings and
00:15:24 ◼ ► working sessions that are occurring that I am not involved in like they're just happening we have
00:15:31 ◼ ► two people working together on a project that we care about and neither me or you are involved in
00:15:40 ◼ ► the work that is being done and it's just happening honestly like this is what I wanted
00:15:45 ◼ ► I didn't know that I could get to this point this year because that felt like so much effort
00:15:52 ◼ ► in trying to bring together the people that I felt would work together and I'm so pleased that we've
00:16:00 ◼ ► been able to do it and then I've been able to set these people up give them what they need
00:16:04 ◼ ► and kind of just trust them to go out there and do it and it's hard right it's letting a little
00:16:10 ◼ ► bit go I mean I had this last year which kind of bled into your people like letting go the edit of
00:16:16 ◼ ► this show you know it's been an incredible like benefit from my life and it was the same as all
00:16:22 ◼ ► of the other like editing projects that I've given away over years is you are letting go a piece of
00:16:28 ◼ ► your creativity but you're letting it go to people that you trust and they can go away and do
00:16:34 ◼ ► something with it and get it to a point that you couldn't get to or get it to a point that is just
00:16:40 ◼ ► what you're happy with but then you were able to put your time somewhere else and not be actively
00:16:46 ◼ ► involved in it so this is one of these things where you know I worked for a big company and
00:16:52 ◼ ► I knew what this stuff was like and I used to sit in meetings or tell people and everyone go away do
00:16:57 ◼ ► their thing come back the reason that this is so amazing to me is like this is my stuff now
00:17:04 ◼ ► you know I have these businesses now where they're full of people working on their creative projects
00:17:11 ◼ ► and working on projects that I care about and making it happen and putting it out there like
00:17:17 ◼ ► I've been so happy with it with the way that this has gone and I feel like this is one of those
00:17:23 ◼ ► themes where they're not all like this but I've had a couple of these in the last few years where
00:17:29 ◼ ► the effects of the theme are felt for a long time afterwards like I don't need to have the same
00:17:35 ◼ ► like focus next year on like thinking about people because the people are already there now
00:17:41 ◼ ► we're all got our projects we're all working away we've set up what we need to do and now it just
00:17:47 ◼ ► continues moving forward and yeah one of the things that I was pleased about that came in
00:17:52 ◼ ► unexpectedly through the year but again it ended up being something that I could think about because
00:17:57 ◼ ► of my theme was the way in which I allow people to contact me right so bringing in all these people
00:18:05 ◼ ► one of the downsides of it is there's now a lot of people who need a lot of things from me
00:18:10 ◼ ► I think this ended up coming out as a frustration in the year of like I was kind of fed up with my
00:18:16 ◼ ► email and the notifications that I was getting and you pushed me to really rethink a lot of that
00:18:23 ◼ ► and that has been like a great thing of like okay I'm bringing more people in more people need
00:18:28 ◼ ► things from me I've got to work with more people how can I be the most effective for them and for
00:18:34 ◼ ► me and a lot of that is in setting up boundaries guidelines for how communication is done and that
00:18:42 ◼ ► has been like a great thing for me to consider as the year has gone on I've been really happy
00:18:46 ◼ ► with where I am with that now it's funny you got there because my brain was reaching for the same
00:18:49 ◼ ► word of like boundary issue as we spoke about it at the time it's a big identity issue was like
00:18:56 ◼ ► recognizing a change in role and a change in like how you need to work I think that that kind of
00:19:02 ◼ ► stuff can just get quite sticky in your brain and then it does action out as as a kind of boundary
00:19:09 ◼ ► issue of like oh when am I going to be available when am I not going to be available I think it's
00:19:14 ◼ ► a genuinely big deal that you were able to do that and that it worked so well for you I think
00:19:21 ◼ ► it's because you were truly open to like doing this and reassessing and recognizing like where
00:19:27 ◼ ► you are I'm feeling so happy for you in this moment because I didn't realize until just now
00:19:32 ◼ ► that there's a way in which this could have gone in the reverse because by bringing on more people
00:19:40 ◼ ► you could have started to tell yourself a story that this is the year of people I need to be
00:19:47 ◼ ► accessible to these people I'm hiring them like and the moment that they haven't gotten a reply
00:19:53 ◼ ► from me we're just like burning time where they're not doing something like there is a very valid
00:19:59 ◼ ► story you could have told to keep yourself in the same role that you were in 10 years ago in a way
00:20:06 ◼ ► or like not the same role but the same actions and it's like ah that's not really what you needed
00:20:12 ◼ ► so I feel like doubly pleased that you were able to do this because I just I didn't even realize
00:20:16 ◼ ► there was like a there was a real danger here that I wasn't picking up on so I didn't really
00:20:22 ◼ ► think of it either but then when I did start considering these changes it also the other part
00:20:28 ◼ ► of it is I don't want to model upon the people that we're working with that they should be
00:20:34 ◼ ► available to me 24/7 right right like this is a consideration that now we're working with more
00:20:42 ◼ ► people I want them to see that I am not always around in the same way that I don't expect them
00:20:48 ◼ ► to always be around also and so like that is a new area of moving into that like the more people that
00:20:56 ◼ ► you work with or that you have performing work for you setting the expectations and the models
00:21:02 ◼ ► and the behaviors are important you can choose whatever you want right yeah but I choose this
00:21:09 ◼ ► way right like it because it's up to you right like if you decide that the people that you want
00:21:14 ◼ ► to work for you should be available to you 24/7 and you say to them that's what you expect and
00:21:20 ◼ ► they say I'm willing to do that that is a choice that everybody is making I don't believe that that
00:21:25 ◼ ► kind of choice leads to very good long-lasting productive relationships so I choose the other one
00:21:32 ◼ ► right so for me it is that I want people to set their own time they're available to work for me
00:21:39 ◼ ► when they are but they also understand that sometimes there are projects that are important
00:21:42 ◼ ► right and so like that's really good like to have the kind of flexibility to two and throw
00:21:47 ◼ ► and that they get that from me as much as I get that from them that it's just about communication
00:21:52 ◼ ► that you know you can do whatever work you're going to do in the time frame you're going to do
00:21:56 ◼ ► it that we agree to but every now and then there might be like a project where it's all hands on
00:22:01 ◼ ► deck and we understand that and we've all spoken about that like I like that kind of flexibility
00:22:06 ◼ ► in my work and to find people that want to work with me that way is really good okay you know I
00:22:10 ◼ ► also just realized Mike what are you doing you're setting company culture right there's more people
00:22:17 ◼ ► so this is again another one of these phrases that I can have rolled my eyes at previously but it is
00:22:23 ◼ ► trying to get in at an idea now that there's more people and because you are the primary interaction
00:22:30 ◼ ► point for them like you are setting the culture of how does this work is everybody expected to be
00:22:37 ◼ ► available at all times or is that not the case can we have this greater asynchronicity and it's
00:22:43 ◼ ► like yeah this year of people you are the only person because of your role at cortex who can
00:22:49 ◼ ► truly set that culture as like people have to see you doing it they have to see you not being
00:22:57 ◼ ► annoyed if there wasn't an instant response they have to see you not replying immediately through
00:23:03 ◼ ► your year of people and people management it's like ah you are creating the communication culture
00:23:08 ◼ ► at cortex but it's funny because this has also changed me and you and how we work though too
00:23:13 ◼ ► so the way that me and you would discuss products is very similar to the way that we work on the
00:23:19 ◼ ► podcast where it's once a month for a very long time right that's what we would do and so we would
00:23:26 ◼ ► we had like a separate meeting once a month and we would talk for hours and hours and hours and
00:23:30 ◼ ► hours going over absolutely every possible thing but as the year of people was unfolding and I was
00:23:35 ◼ ► bringing in all these people I was realizing that worked for me and you it does not work when there's
00:23:40 ◼ ► a whole team and so now we meet weekly with our respective assistants and we have a very quick
00:23:48 ◼ ► meeting and we go for everything we get the decisions done and we're in and out because
00:23:52 ◼ ► that is what the rest of the business and the team now requires because you know people can't wait
00:23:58 ◼ ► for three weeks for me and you to sit down for four hours to talk about something like it doesn't
00:24:03 ◼ ► it just doesn't work like that anymore and so it's also changed that up too which I think is good
00:24:10 ◼ ► that like communication it's good it's it's forcing a different way for the two of us to work together
00:24:14 ◼ ► which is just very abnormal to how we work together normally and how we've worked together for so long
00:24:20 ◼ ► but I've found it to be very beneficial I think. On a funny meta point like doing this theme episode
00:24:28 ◼ ► it's always interesting to me how I was like ah because you and I don't really talk about this
00:24:33 ◼ ► through the course of the year there's always this way in which I feel like oh a bunch of things come
00:24:38 ◼ ► together for me in these moments and this is another one of these things of like ah your correct
00:24:45 ◼ ► desire to increase like the communication frequency that we have about Cortex brand it's like that is
00:24:52 ◼ ► being driven by the fact that there are all of these other people as well again obvious in
00:24:58 ◼ ► retrospect but because we we sort of stay away from these topics in some way it's like this is
00:25:02 ◼ ► where it just like really becomes clear it's like yes yes it's about clearing the path not just for
00:25:08 ◼ ► Mike but like Mike as the person on top who is also like making the decisions and communicating
00:25:15 ◼ ► to everybody else about like what needs to happen and this is the reason that the communication
00:25:20 ◼ ► frequency goes up is because it is a natural byproduct of more and more people coming on board
00:25:26 ◼ ► the other byproduct for me which was something that I thought would occur and has definitely
00:25:30 ◼ ► occurred is that like the year of people has also created like the year of systems along with it
00:25:35 ◼ ► and this was I think really shown in the state of the apps episode where I had so many team and
00:25:40 ◼ ► communication apps because if you're going to be working with people and sharing documents and
00:25:45 ◼ ► sharing work together it requires a way of working which has to be different right like the way in
00:25:52 ◼ ► which there are meetings that weren't happening before that people were sharing documents back
00:25:56 ◼ ► and forth that there is planning there are deliverables there are agreed upon things you
00:26:02 ◼ ► know there are voices flying around like it requires more administration but that is part
00:26:09 ◼ ► of running a distributed team like this and it's been very interesting to watch it unfold I
00:26:15 ◼ ► continue to feel I think as I always will that like none of the tools get me where I want but
00:26:21 ◼ ► it it feels like that is just what team communication apps are always about yeah yeah but I
00:26:28 ◼ ► think I've found in notion a tool that works well enough for getting most people together and I
00:26:34 ◼ ► actually think what has been very beneficial about notion specifically is so many people use it for
00:26:41 ◼ ► their own stuff that it becomes a tool that a lot of people are very comfortable with using for work
00:26:50 ◼ ► stuff because they understand how to use it yeah I guess that makes sense not the same as some other
00:26:55 ◼ ► tools that I've used like different communication apps or different like project sharing apps
00:27:00 ◼ ► that because people build their own personal knowledge management systems in notion that
00:27:06 ◼ ► they're more used to using it like I feel like out of everybody that I work with I understand how to
00:27:11 ◼ ► use notion the least because I never did anything like that but I have the parts of it that I need
00:27:17 ◼ ► and it's been very very effective for me and then just like one like personal note on this like
00:27:23 ◼ ► so year the weekend was 2023 and that was a lot about establishing better relationships with the
00:27:32 ◼ ► people that I care about in my life and I've kind of brought that forward to the year of people and
00:27:37 ◼ ► I I feel like with some of the additional structure that this year has provided me I feel like I've
00:27:43 ◼ ► been able to be a lot more emotionally available to people that need me in my life and it's been
00:27:50 ◼ ► challenging at times to get all of my priorities in order but I think something I've been happy with
00:27:57 ◼ ► this year and I want to continue again further is to make sure that I am doing this like being
00:28:05 ◼ ► available to people that need me and reaching out to people one of the other things that's kind of
00:28:11 ◼ ► come along this year is I have realized I'm a very bad texter now I know that must seem insane to you
00:28:17 ◼ ► gray so I would say that it just makes me feel terrible about myself but like I can believe that
00:28:25 ◼ ► though I feel like this is a byproduct for like many successful and busy people can actually be
00:28:30 ◼ ► quite bad at this kind of base level human communication sometimes I often feel like I'm
00:28:38 ◼ ► thinking about somebody but I don't contact them like I don't communicate with them and I've been
00:28:45 ◼ ► working hard at this this year because it's not something that I want to do it's just I don't know
00:28:51 ◼ ► what it is I just like I think oh I wonder how such and such person is doing or I wonder what
00:28:55 ◼ ► they would think about this and then it just ends there like I don't actually do the thing
00:29:00 ◼ ► and I've been trying to reach out to more people this year and I really want to do more of that
00:29:06 ◼ ► and I think that my 2025 theme is going to enable more of that and so that's just like a little
00:29:12 ◼ ► byproduct of a thing that's came out this year what I've been thinking about people is that
00:29:16 ◼ ► there's also a lot of people in my life that I care about and I kind of want to make sure I'm
00:29:20 ◼ ► doing a better job of checking in with them so that's the year of people I mean it sounds like
00:29:24 ◼ ► it went really well hey look themes can't fail but this one succeeded you know okay there's the thing
00:29:29 ◼ ► I always talk about like ah the themes can't fail this is one of my favorite things about this but
00:29:35 ◼ ► there is a little bit of like ah but I feel like it's slightly different for us doing the podcast
00:29:41 ◼ ► because we're talking about this but we also have to kind of like we're meta thinking about it in
00:29:46 ◼ ► the context of the audience and like uh what seems to work and what doesn't so I do think we kind of
00:29:52 ◼ ► have to focus a little bit more on the like success or failure part than a person actually doing this
00:29:59 ◼ ► would however I do also say that we get the benefit of actually doing a real deep reflection
00:30:04 ◼ ► yes yes that is true but I think it's why like when I'm listening to you all I'm hearing is like
00:30:10 ◼ ► ah this seems like it was just a real success and that last point of it that you just made like on
00:30:16 ◼ ► the personal side about being more emotionally available to people that feels to me again like
00:30:21 ◼ ► just the kind of thing that I really love that can come out of these themes it's like was that
00:30:24 ◼ ► was that an explicit goal no but it's a thing that developed through all of these interactions and
00:30:30 ◼ ► like just causing your brain to think about like what am I doing in these different interactions so
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00:32:50 ◼ ► our thanks to fitbod for the support of this show and relay so gray what was your 2024 theme so my
00:32:57 ◼ ► 2024 theme was year of small improvements it's a funny thing often i'm i feel like i'm the weird
00:33:06 ◼ ► one with the names of the themes yeah you are yeah you don't need to feel like that uh how dare you
00:33:13 ◼ ► my god this is an entirely subjective feeling it's nothing to do with the reality of i always pick
00:33:19 ◼ ► weird names or i always over complicate the names or all these kinds of things year of small
00:33:24 ◼ ► improvements is better than what you wanted to do which was quality of life update not even year of
00:33:30 ◼ ► that was your original pitch for 2024 so we at least found a decent name rather than what you
00:33:37 ◼ ► wanted to go with that's why i was like i was sort of working towards that's like it's very
00:33:40 ◼ ► funny in retrospect it's like yes i came to the show with this idea of like what do i want to do
00:33:45 ◼ ► i want to do a quality of life release and in the show bumbling around we eventually stumbled upon
00:33:52 ◼ ► i think you were the one who said it like year of small improvements which i did like but in that
00:33:57 ◼ ► show i kept feeling like slightly grumpy like i cannot really um i'm not really expressing the
00:34:04 ◼ ► kind of thing that i want to do here but in retrospect that seems wild to me now because
00:34:10 ◼ ► like year of small improvements is i think a really good name like i feel like this is one of
00:34:17 ◼ ► the years that i have most intensely resonated with the name itself and it's quite interesting
00:34:24 ◼ ► like there's a thing that i'm really tuned into when i'm talking to people especially people who
00:34:28 ◼ ► are more on like the periphery of my social groups like people i know but don't necessarily know well
00:34:33 ◼ ► what phrases do people react to like or like what sequence of words are kind of like getting a
00:34:39 ◼ ► response out of someone where you can see someone's like interestingly intrigued and i think year of
00:34:44 ◼ ► small improvements has got to be one of the ones that i feel like most intrigued other people like
00:34:50 ◼ ► i felt like almost everyone i mentioned to it like resonated with that quite strongly and so
00:34:56 ◼ ► i wanted to mention that now because at the end of this section it's like ah there's something i want
00:35:01 ◼ ► to say about the year of small improvements as a theme if people are considering it but i just
00:35:07 ◼ ► noticed that and i was like ah i loved this name i felt like oh this actually really did get right
00:35:15 ◼ ► at the core of what was i thinking about last year and what was i trying to do and fundamentally the
00:35:23 ◼ ► position that i was in was i was feeling like i was like ah cortex brand had been growing like
00:35:29 ◼ ► there's a bunch of stuff going on and like business life and personal life and i felt like ah i've
00:35:35 ◼ ► built up kind of like um what people sometimes call like technical debt it's like oh you're just
00:35:41 ◼ ► trying to solve a problem in code right now and like ah but it's like is this the perfect way to
00:35:47 ◼ ► do this no you're just kind of getting a thing done right now it's like oh is this thing set up
00:35:52 ◼ ► the most optimal way no but you just need to get it done right now and i felt a little bit like
00:35:57 ◼ ► oh i had kind of recognized that i had built up a lot of this like technical debt in life none of
00:36:10 ◼ ► about state of the hardware that really got it in my brain of realizing like oh i'm going through
00:36:16 ◼ ► when we were thinking about all of the stuff in our lives and it just really had me recognize like
00:36:20 ◼ ► ah i have not done a true and deep physical and mental sweep of my environment in a long time and
00:36:32 ◼ ► no surprise as a result there's a lot of small frustrations and frictions in like the physical
00:36:38 ◼ ► and virtual worlds that is like ah it's just annoying like it had gotten to a point where
00:36:43 ◼ ► it's like i need to look at this in aggregate and boy i feel like this has just been one of the most
00:36:53 ◼ ► like successful and impactful themes that i have done in a really long time and i kind of like that
00:37:02 ◼ ► it has had that impact when it is also the theme that was targeting the smallest thing so my my
00:37:09 ◼ ► idea was with a lot of this is like ah what is the plan the plan about like year of small improvements
00:37:15 ◼ ► is it's not even necessarily about adding things into life it should be the opposite it should be
00:37:22 ◼ ► about simplifying it should be about making things smoother that's why i was trying to go with like
00:37:27 ◼ ► the quality of life release idea like you're not adding major features you're just trying to make
00:37:33 ◼ ► everything a little bit nicer so i've come to think when we talk about themes this one that i
00:37:39 ◼ ► have done what i'm going to do next year so i've been trying to kind of think about how
00:37:43 ◼ ► there's kind of like five broad families of themes that you could maybe fit everything else into and
00:37:51 ◼ ► i didn't realize it at the time but year of small improvements was a variation on what i think is
00:37:59 ◼ ► one of the best themes just year of intentionality so many people pick that one being like intentional
00:38:06 ◼ ► like focusing on something being present like that is like a very popular theme for people yeah and i
00:38:11 ◼ ► think there's a good reason for that like we get a lot of positive feedback when people do that one
00:38:17 ◼ ► and so it's like oh i kind of backdoored myself into a intentionality family theme with year of
00:38:24 ◼ ► small improvements that's what it was and i just didn't know and so i felt like i had an entire
00:38:30 ◼ ► year what i was doing is like kind of viewing myself from the third perspective a little bit
00:38:37 ◼ ► and be like ah notice what you're doing look at the thing and like re-evaluate each part of it
00:38:45 ◼ ► every time and this goes from like business processes it's like oh we're having a having
00:38:50 ◼ ► a meeting about like what's going on with the business it's like okay how did this meeting get
00:38:55 ◼ ► set up was it smooth could it have been done better is there like a better order that we
00:38:59 ◼ ► could have arranged things to even just like the thing that i really started with was a lot of like
00:39:06 ◼ ► stuff in the house like just notice the high contact items that you're interacting with
00:39:13 ◼ ► that's a kind of small improvement is this door handle that you work on every day slightly sticky
00:39:20 ◼ ► why don't you just fix that right now and that's what i felt like i just kept doing oh these light
00:39:27 ◼ ► bulbs do you actually like the way they look in this bathroom notice that it can catch your
00:39:33 ◼ ► attention like look at the light bulbs and then re-evaluate if i uh if you were starting from
00:39:38 ◼ ► fresh is this what you would want to do and so that's how i found myself really just like moving
00:39:44 ◼ ► through the world and it's just been fantastic and so like one particular area which i mentioned at
00:39:53 ◼ ► the time was like oh this is a thing that i want to do and it's a perfect example like how does
00:39:57 ◼ ► stuff build up slightly slowly was just looking at my wardrobe and realizing oh of course like
00:40:04 ◼ ► over the years you just naturally build up a bunch of one-off items and so then you have like a
00:40:09 ◼ ► closet and it's got a bunch of shirts in it and and it's like do you like all of these shirts do
00:40:14 ◼ ► you like all of these items is this what you would do if you were starting a closet over like probably
00:40:20 ◼ ► not you could probably rethink this and so uh backing up what's the thing that i'm aware of
00:40:26 ◼ ► for like the person hearing this none of the individual frictions or like minor frustrations
00:40:33 ◼ ► in life or like the squeaky door handle does it matter no it doesn't but in aggregate they do
00:40:38 ◼ ► and there's the flip side of this of like oh do i like my socks it doesn't really matter
00:40:46 ◼ ► but in the aggregate it does and this is the experience that i keep having with like various
00:40:52 ◼ ► areas of like things that i have noticed and paid attention to over the course of the year it's like
00:40:56 ◼ ► uh make some small improvements here you make a small improvement there and at some point it kind
00:41:02 ◼ ► of flips it crosses a line where now like ah the aggregate of all of these changes has really made
00:41:09 ◼ ► a difference and like oh in my wardrobe that is one of the areas where it's like i can feel this
00:41:15 ◼ ► so strongly getting rid of some one-off shirts that i don't like and then i'm not going to wear again
00:41:19 ◼ ► trying to simplify down the actual items does any of these steps do they actually matter no but in
00:41:26 ◼ ► the aggregate it's like they create something that just feels different and so that is like the
00:41:32 ◼ ► experience that i've been having in like so many physical and virtual areas is like think this over
00:41:39 ◼ ► from the start again as example with the clothing one of the things i was thinking of is i should
00:41:46 ◼ ► just have all of my clothing optimized to be good clothing that i could take while traveling why am
00:41:54 ◼ ► i going to have different kinds of clothes of like these are the clothes that i normally wear and
00:42:00 ◼ ► these are the clothes that i will pack for trips i was like because maybe if i just think about it
00:42:10 ◼ ► down like in the future i have removed a kind of like oh where's the other thing that i use less
00:42:16 ◼ ► option it's like no no just try to make it simple try to make it work better and again does that
00:42:22 ◼ ► matter no but in the aggregate it does for me anyway i feel like it makes a huge difference
00:42:28 ◼ ► to get those kinds of things running very smooth so i mentioned the clothing one because i think
00:42:34 ◼ ► it's an easy one to think about at the start of the year when i was thinking about like oh
00:42:38 ◼ ► uh we're going to talk about this at the end of the year i had this idea where i was like i have
00:42:42 ◼ ► a cute idea for what i'm going to do for a year of small improvements i'm going to this is crazy
00:42:48 ◼ ► now i'm going to make a list of each small improvement i've done over the course of the year
00:42:54 ◼ ► and i thought that could be like a funny update at the end i realized after like three days it's
00:43:01 ◼ ► like no i am aborting this project because it's like the whole point of it is it should be an
00:43:07 ◼ ► extremely large number of small changes and it was just going to be like this endless list of like
00:43:14 ◼ ► things nobody cares about but just stuff i noticed and changed when you started talking about it was
00:43:20 ◼ ► like oh i hope he has a list but then in hearing you mention it now i realized that that actually
00:43:26 ◼ ► goes against the theme because like yes one of the things that is really interesting about this
00:43:31 ◼ ► theme is that we all have these projects in our lives usually around our homes where it's like
00:43:37 ◼ ► i gotta do the thing right like i got to do the thing and we don't do them because we don't want
00:43:46 ◼ ► to do the thing because the thing is boring annoying it gets in the way of us doing other
00:43:51 ◼ ► stuff but with the year of small improvements you get the extra credit of doing the thing for
00:43:57 ◼ ► your theme right so you're like oh look at me i'm such a good theme boy i'm doing the light switch
00:44:03 ◼ ► right but then if you then had to write it down in a list now you've made it back into boring again
00:44:09 ◼ ► that was exactly what i i felt straight away it was like oh a big part of this is about finding
00:44:14 ◼ ► ways to reduce friction and this list trying to keep a running list is introducing friction
00:44:21 ◼ ► that's what's happening here it's like ah it's just a small point of they don't have this extra
00:44:27 ◼ ► thing because i feel like it really does sound crazy but uh it's like oh mike trying to fix the
00:44:34 ◼ ► house and my wardrobe and a bunch of stuff on my computer and also business checklists and all of
00:44:40 ◼ ► the rest of it i feel like it created an intensely present mind focus all year because i was really
00:44:49 ◼ ► aware of the way only way this works is when i notice i do the thing essentially right away
00:44:56 ◼ ► because that's the whole problem like you just said it's like you have these mental loops of like
00:45:00 ◼ ► i need to get to that at some point and that's like the whole thing i was trying to fight against
00:45:06 ◼ ► is like don't do that just notice the thing but when you are constantly doing that it creates a
00:45:14 ◼ ► very very now focused like what is happening presently right in front of me kind of mental
00:45:22 ◼ ► space and that's also where the list in a very very small way was like kicking me into some kind
00:45:28 ◼ ► of like forward future there and it's like no no no don't also now be thinking about how are you
00:45:34 ◼ ► going to talk about this in six months at the end of the year like stay noticing stay paying
00:45:42 ◼ ► attention like i see how the intentionality comes into it right because if you're focused on fixing
00:45:50 ◼ ► the things when they come up you end up in this loop of like why did it just come up like if this
00:45:57 ◼ ► is the thing that's been broken for months why am i noticing it now like what is happening right
00:46:04 ◼ ► now that is making me realize i do need to set up the ftp server the way that i want it to be
00:46:09 ◼ ► i do need to do my gmail rules correctly like what is the thing that has made you realize that and i
00:46:17 ◼ ► guess there are other things that can come out of that of like the fix can actually be larger than
00:46:22 ◼ ► small like i don't know if anything like that came up for you this year but like something you start
00:46:26 ◼ ► thinking like oh this is just a small fix and then you're like oh actually there's something bigger
00:46:31 ◼ ► here that i would like to address than a tiny thing or whatever oh yeah exactly like that is the thing
00:46:37 ◼ ► of like often what catches your attention is like related to other things like that's why there is
00:46:42 ◼ ► very much like present focused thing there like keep yourself in the mental space i just didn't
00:46:48 ◼ ► realize how much this is addressing some kind of like small problems build up precisely because
00:46:58 ◼ ► you're like can't do that now so the only way something like year of small improvements works
00:47:04 ◼ ► is you have to constantly remind yourself do it now like do the thing now i mean like one area
00:47:14 ◼ ► where this is just like the real madness is i wanted to properly sort out a bunch of automations
00:47:23 ◼ ► the way things like work automatically in my life of like i know that there's so many little things
00:47:30 ◼ ► i can just make smoother through some minor automation but this is the whole thing it's
00:47:36 ◼ ► like ah but in the moment automation might be the most pure example of this why do you notice
00:47:43 ◼ ► a thing can be automated because you're trying to do the thing right now and so what will always
00:47:51 ◼ ► happen is you go like ah i can do the thing right now fast or i can try to create the automated
00:48:01 ◼ ► version of this and it is going to take longer and so you almost always go like i'll just i'll do it
00:48:07 ◼ ► next time or i will do it later and you don't and so that was another area of like i was quite aware
00:48:13 ◼ ► of like noticing myself using my devices how am i doing things and just being deeply aware of the
00:48:20 ◼ ► way that like this can be automated so you don't have to do that and if this automation is ever
00:48:27 ◼ ► going to exist you have to do it now you will never do this in the future it will always be
00:48:33 ◼ ► like a fleeting thought you have of like every time i sit down to do the writing stuff like why
00:48:39 ◼ ► am i manually arranging where i want all of the windows to go and what music i want to play and
00:48:45 ◼ ► how i want the house lights to go it's like there's actually like six steps that i want to do every
00:48:52 ◼ ► time i'm like opening up obsidian to work on a thing it's like i can just have that happen
00:48:57 ◼ ► hearing you say this because i'm thinking of all the things like i have like window management that
00:49:03 ◼ ► i do with moom and i have it set up into certain sections right but there is like a couple of extra
00:49:11 ◼ ► sections i'd like to add but i'm like i'll just drag it yeah but like that's it though right that
00:49:17 ◼ ► thing that you're saying right there is the thing that i kept bringing myself back to all year like
00:49:24 ◼ ► i just realized right now i reached for the language of meditation because like this is
00:49:29 ◼ ► what people talk about with meditation which again i tried like didn't really work for me
00:49:33 ◼ ► they're always like oh the whole trick is you've like got to keep reminding yourself that there's
00:49:38 ◼ ► some point of focus you are bringing your mind back to and i have uh just realized it's like
00:49:44 ◼ ► that is what i was doing all year it's like why does this feel like it was a meditative year in
00:49:49 ◼ ► a way because that is literally what was happening a constant reminder to like be in the present and
00:49:57 ◼ ► notice things that could be easier notice things that could be simpler look at you find a
00:50:03 ◼ ► mindfulness through the help of automator and shortcuts yeah it's like uh guys the the path to
00:50:10 ◼ ► enlightenment is not through following the breath the path to enlightenment is shortcuts but yeah so
00:50:15 ◼ ► this is another one of these like oh i will not uh i will not possibly go into like the absolute
00:50:19 ◼ ► boringness in some ways of like what are these automations because they're all so very specific
00:50:24 ◼ ► but there was a thing of just like what really helped was again knowing for years but never fully
00:50:33 ◼ ► bothering to do the thing of there's always a even in automating stuff there's always a sloppy
00:50:39 ◼ ► fast way to do it and then there is the proper long-term way to do it and like the proper
00:50:46 ◼ ► long-term way to do it is designing basically everything as a sub function you have an automation
00:50:52 ◼ ► that does a thing but it is also designed so that it can be a sub function of some other automation
00:50:59 ◼ ► so you can just like roll this in to everything else that happens and i guess the example that i
00:51:06 ◼ ► will give is related to when we were doing state of the apps i was going through all of my focus
00:51:13 ◼ ► modes and it's like ah we all like to have a good laugh at gray it's like why are my focus modes
00:51:18 ◼ ► so crazily complicated this year the reason is because of this automation focus and because of
00:51:27 ◼ ► designing a bunch of different things as sub functions of each other it ended up being much
00:51:34 ◼ ► much easier to very quickly use the focus modes as a tool like how to set up things and so it's like
00:51:41 ◼ ► ah i designed a like what should my phone look like now shortcut what should my mac look like now
00:51:50 ◼ ► keyboard maestro shortcut basically the same idea and that is a thing which is like oh i can create
00:51:59 ◼ ► this as a function that can be called by any other automation so when i'm doing anything else i can
00:52:06 ◼ ► just run the like what should the phone look like now automation and that one will automatically
00:52:11 ◼ ► change every single possible setting that i do want to be different in a particular mode
00:52:16 ◼ ► right then so you're not doing the like fast and sloppy thing of like i i'm doing an automation i
00:52:22 ◼ ► want something to happen now it's like oh and what else do i want to have happen i know what i want
00:52:26 ◼ ► to have happen i want the computer to be in light mode at this moment not dark mode that's what i
00:52:30 ◼ ► want and so you like manually put that in it's like no no no the long term correct actually
00:52:37 ◼ ► simpler way is just call the sub function that says what should the computer look like now and
00:52:43 ◼ ► that deals with it it deals with it every time in the same way in all cases so you don't end up with
00:52:51 ◼ ► a bunch of technical cruft all over the place where you've got random shortcuts like randomly changing
00:52:56 ◼ ► settings and then you can't figure out like where is this happening why is this it's like no no
00:53:01 ◼ ► do the one thing that does it properly it looks like what time of day is it where am i what is the
00:53:07 ◼ ► current focus mode what is the previous focus mode what is the timer that is currently running
00:53:15 ◼ ► and what is the previous timer that was running it's like those pieces of information answer every
00:53:20 ◼ ► single picky question about what do i want my computer to look like but you can never get it
00:53:26 ◼ ► right if you're doing it the sloppy fast way every single time so that's the automation stuff that as
00:53:33 ◼ ► you can imagine actually took up a huge amount of time kind of thinking about it but is also the
00:53:39 ◼ ► thing that was paying the biggest dividends it's like i actually feel like we talked about the
00:53:45 ◼ ► difference between programming and automating in previous years and how they are not the same thing
00:53:50 ◼ ► but i do think this year i have gotten about as close as one can to programming in terms of
00:53:56 ◼ ► automating what i'm doing on my computer and the dividends to me are just like off the charts this
00:54:02 ◼ ► is like absolutely pleasing to like get up in the morning press like a single i'm up button and like
00:54:10 ◼ ► 20 things happen from like what's the temperature of the room supposed to be like what timer is
00:54:15 ◼ ► currently running what are all the lights what does the phone look like is the car getting ready
00:54:20 ◼ ► to go somewhere because it knows like what day it is and where i'm gonna go the directions are
00:54:25 ◼ ► automatically there the thing starts getting the temperature right it's like all of that happens
00:54:29 ◼ ► and i just press it like i'm awake thing that calls a bunch of sub functions that can figure
00:54:34 ◼ ► all the rest of that out it's like fantastic just sort of like a quality of life friction reducing
00:54:39 ◼ ► perspective so yeah there's a bunch of other like minor stuff it's like i've done just major cleanup
00:54:45 ◼ ► of a bunch of again like the digital areas of my life doing the thing of like re-evaluating the
00:54:49 ◼ ► businesses like none of those are are particularly remarkable i think the other area of thinking
00:54:56 ◼ ► about small improvements and how can i change things was also just around my health and exercise
00:55:03 ◼ ► and diet and all the rest of this and i was kind of applying the same sort of thinking of like
00:55:08 ◼ ► what can be simpler what can be easier what reduces the number of decisions in terms of
00:55:16 ◼ ► food and fitness and as a result this year i lost 50 pounds and in preparation for this episode i
00:55:25 ◼ ► went through like my health data and as long as i have worn the watch i have never been as physically
00:55:33 ◼ ► fit as i am right now i was like i was actually kind of shocked to see that i thought like oh
00:55:39 ◼ ► surely i was like better off like when i first bought the watch it's like oh no no i've like
00:55:45 ◼ ► gone better than the point that i was like years ago when that watch like first showed up and
00:55:50 ◼ ► there was no point in the middle where it's like all of the metrics are in as good of a spot as
00:55:54 ◼ ► they currently are and i feel like more than anything else i'm very aware when like the
00:56:02 ◼ ► listeners hear these sorts of things there's a question of like what is this like action out to
00:56:07 ◼ ► and particularly because my kind of work has what it can describe as a huge amount of latency that
00:56:17 ◼ ► changes take a long time to show up like it's not fast work things are very slow and also things
00:56:25 ◼ ► that have changed take a long time to actually show up and so i'm very aware that people are
00:56:30 ◼ ► always a bit like like lol what's really happening over there but that's why the health one is like a
00:56:36 ◼ ► place that it's like oh the impact was actually much more immediate and like quite visible very
00:56:42 ◼ ► fast of friction is a much bigger deal than people think minor complications are a much bigger deal
00:56:51 ◼ ► than people think and by focusing on that it's like oh my god the health stuff is just unbelievably
00:56:59 ◼ ► improved over this same period of time like i look at photos of myself now versus a year ago and it's
00:57:05 ◼ ► like absolutely shocking the difference in my appearance between those two points in time it's
00:57:10 ◼ ► like and this wasn't even the primary goal of this theme it's kind of like a byproduct of what
00:57:16 ◼ ► happened and just do the thing of like notice look and re-evaluate as a loop that is applied just
00:57:26 ◼ ► constantly throughout my day to every single part of what i'm doing so yeah in conclusion i think
00:57:34 ◼ ► i'm not sure how good of a job i have done talking about this because it's like oh this is a theme
00:57:39 ◼ ► that uniquely has touched basically every single area of my life in some way i'd have to go back
00:57:44 ◼ ► through the rolodex of themes to double check but like oh this is easily top three like most
00:57:50 ◼ ► impactful themes that i have ever done but what i want to say to anybody listening is precisely
00:57:57 ◼ ► because i people were like resonant with this theme people really liked it i feel like i just
00:58:02 ◼ ► want to say though that i think in our pantheon of themes this is not a beginner theme i think this
00:58:09 ◼ ► is not a thing that is good to do as your very first one because i think if you are doing it
00:58:16 ◼ ► right it will be surprisingly all-encompassing and also it is a theme that ends up needing like
00:58:25 ◼ ► a lot of space in your life and i think if i didn't happen to have like a bunch of time as a
00:58:32 ◼ ► result of like the travel where i was out in the west for forever uh like a bunch of other reasons
00:58:36 ◼ ► like i don't think that i would have been able to do this properly like without a lot of space in my
00:58:42 ◼ ► life to do this like evaluation to be able to take the time to like do that quality of life release
00:58:50 ◼ ► of like get things in order and i will also say i guess again there's like a comparison to
00:58:57 ◼ ► meditation here which i think i've heard like beginners talk about like oh it can be quite
00:59:00 ◼ ► tiring i do feel like while this theme has been amazing it has also been in many ways quite tiring
00:59:08 ◼ ► to be in this little like constantly evaluate loop because just making decisions all the time or like
00:59:16 ◼ ► rethinking things from the start is quite a lot just like mentally to be doing and to constantly
00:59:22 ◼ ► bring yourself back to so that's why i've been thinking about this for like the last month of
00:59:28 ◼ ► like oh i'm probably going to be selling this theme quite hard in a way of like ah this is
00:59:33 ◼ ► easily one of the best and like one of my most favorite themes uh just absolutely love it how
00:59:37 ◼ ► on earth did i not like the name at the beginning i don't even know that seems ridiculous now
00:59:41 ◼ ► but also feeling like with that hard sell i feel like it's not a beginner theme if you're thinking
00:59:48 ◼ ► about this like it probably shouldn't be the first time you try to do this and also i think you
00:59:53 ◼ ► should just be kind of cognizant of the sort of year you expect to be coming up like don't do this
01:00:00 ◼ ► in the middle of like what you know will be some frantic time i think it could just go like really
01:00:06 ◼ ► badly if you tried to do this in a year that you knew was like a crunch year for some reason that's
01:00:12 ◼ ► like a thing that i just feel quite strongly is like i just don't think that would work
01:00:16 ◼ ► i think that is oppositional to being able to do this well it's almost like uh if you had a
01:00:24 ◼ ► theme that was something like a year of serenity but you absolutely for sure knew that like ah my
01:00:29 ◼ ► next 12 months are going to be a complete disaster right it's like that's just a terrible mismatch
01:00:35 ◼ ► that's what i'm feeling is like i just the thing that i just wanted to kind of like signpost with
01:00:39 ◼ ► this as a theme it's like the year of travel but the government took women passport you wouldn't do
01:00:44 ◼ ► that perfect yeah yeah well i would say for this though right is to bring it back to your beginning
01:00:49 ◼ ► which is if you've listened to this and you're like this sounds really great then what you
01:00:53 ◼ ► probably should do is a year of intentionality which you can bring some of these elements into
01:00:58 ◼ ► and i was just doing something real quick and it's reminded me of a thing i have a friend for the
01:01:03 ◼ ► show ian who was thinking about his yearly theme with his partner which was great and he was telling
01:01:09 ◼ ► me that he was using chat gpt to help him workshop his theme this is a new thing that i will actually
01:01:15 ◼ ► recommend to people that they could do for this year which i would not have recommended in previous
01:01:19 ◼ ► years of like if you if you need somebody to help you come up with a yearly theme you can talk to
01:01:25 ◼ ► the llms they have language like this is what they do and what i like about these tools is that you
01:01:32 ◼ ► can have a two and throw with them a little bit so i want to just give you very quickly if you would
01:01:42 ◼ ► recommends that could be as part of a year of intentionality it could help you break free from
01:01:47 ◼ ► mindless habits and routines deepen your relationships by being more present reduce stress
01:01:53 ◼ ► by saying no to non-essential commitments like you don't have to if you're being intentional it's not
01:01:58 ◼ ► going to bother you if you say no you can improve focus by eliminating some distractions and then i
01:02:04 ◼ ► would add on to that of like you can do some of these little things like gray is doing of like
01:02:08 ◼ ► here's the thing that is frustrating to you and you want to fix it and you can better manage your
01:02:12 ◼ ► energy and avoid burnout with this so i think these tools can be good of like hey i'm feeling
01:02:17 ◼ ► like this i'm feeling like that help me come up with a yearly theme it could come up with some
01:02:22 ◼ ► stuff for you because these llms have ingested the entire internet they actually have a pretty good
01:02:26 ◼ ► grasp of yearly themes but if you need to give it some prompts like you can recommend like if you
01:02:32 ◼ ► reference this show it surprisingly knows quite a bit about yearly themes like you can just kind of
01:02:40 ◼ ► prompt the tools in that way and they can help you there's an interesting connection there like which
01:02:45 ◼ ► at the beginning when you were talking about the things with resolutions and how we don't like you
01:02:49 ◼ ► don't like resolutions i was thinking oh i feel like culturally people aren't actually better at
01:02:55 ◼ ► this idea of like recognizing that the resolutions are some kind of bad way to do this and without
01:03:00 ◼ ► being too egomaniacal about it i do feel like we have had an impact on that talking about like why
01:03:06 ◼ ► this doesn't work and importantly what is an alternative and i feel like ah is that crazy maybe
01:03:12 ◼ ► but the very fact that you're right the llms do have some kind of knowledge in this area is like
01:03:20 ◼ ► oh right because they've hoovered up everything like it is out there in the world as an oppositional
01:03:25 ◼ ► idea to the resolutions so yeah that's interesting i think also if if people are going to try that
01:03:31 ◼ ► like with something like i would at this point in time i'd recommend claud in particular i think is
01:03:35 ◼ ► the best at this kind of like soft thinking language and stuff i think it's good to like
01:03:43 ◼ ► i would suggest you should probably ask it to ask you questions like i find that just yeah but i
01:03:50 ◼ ► find that very useful of like try to zone in on a thing that you yourself might not be thinking so
01:03:58 ◼ ► just off the top of my head i'd probably recommend a prompt of something like you tell it like i'm
01:04:02 ◼ ► working on it i'm working on my themes you know it's like you know the style of cortex blah blah
01:04:07 ◼ ► blah and then i probably start with something like please ask me like the 10 questions that you think
01:04:15 ◼ ► will help you zero in on the most useful theme to me right like that's the kind of thing if i was
01:04:22 ◼ ► going to try to brainstorm with claud i would probably do that that'd be my suggestion for
01:04:26 ◼ ► anybody thinking about this because yeah i can sometimes ask like quite surprisingly insightful
01:04:31 ◼ ► questions i never thought to have it ask me questions that's really cool i like that as
01:04:35 ◼ ► an idea because you're essentially then you're feeding the context right like that that's what
01:04:40 ◼ ► you're you're helping it do and so like you're giving it some information that it can then try
01:04:45 ◼ ► and scour the internet to give you more good recommendations i'm coming to this because i think
01:04:50 ◼ ► it's a variation on the thing that is a hundred percent for sure useful which is on some of the
01:04:56 ◼ ► like script or writing work i've tried different variations of this kind of thing of like ask me
01:05:03 ◼ ► a question i'm not thinking to ask about this script like trying to go into those kinds of
01:05:10 ◼ ► things or like what is a question that you could ask which would most clarify the most confusing
01:05:19 ◼ ► point in this script like that kind of thing of like prompt it to give questions that are
01:05:24 ◼ ► clarifying i think is quite helpful but um i think that's really great advice mike and uh yes i feel
01:05:31 ◼ ► i feel kind of like uh much better now like yes that's exactly the thing it's like ah people
01:05:35 ◼ ► year of small improvements absolutely fantastic intermediate to advanced theme if you haven't done
01:05:43 ◼ ► something like this first this is where i was focusing on the family of themes the actual place
01:05:48 ◼ ► to start is year of intentionality and think about what does that mean for you that's the version if
01:05:56 ◼ ► you were like interested by what i said today i think that is the thing that you should try
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01:08:09 ◼ ► continued support of cortex and relay so what is your theme for 2025 then okay so often when i
01:08:20 ◼ ► think about what is the theme for next year going to be i frequently feel like i want to do what i
01:08:26 ◼ ► just did again it makes sense sometimes why i want to do that's like ah thing has just been very
01:08:30 ◼ ► successful what if it was more like keep doing it more it's like no no no that's not the thing to do
01:08:36 ◼ ► two years is too long of a period of time for something like this it's just like it's no good
01:08:42 ◼ ► but the reason i was thinking about this concept of like theme families is i think the actual thing
01:08:49 ◼ ► that i've been trying to get at many years is something much more like do you want to stay
01:08:54 ◼ ► within the same theme family or do you want to move to a different theme family that's what i
01:09:00 ◼ ► think i'm actually like getting at a lot of times just kind of off the top of my head i guess i feel
01:09:05 ◼ ► like most of the themes probably fit into these categories of like okay they're an intentionality
01:09:12 ◼ ► theme you have themes that are novelty themes right stuff is new and different i think you have
01:09:19 ◼ ► themes that are about like stability versus change like are you trying to make things like more
01:09:28 ◼ ► stable and solid or are you trying to like mix things up or do you have some theme that's like
01:09:33 ◼ ► about growth i feel like those are probably the ones off the top of my head that i feel like
01:09:44 ◼ ► asking a question like when you're doing the next thing is like uh if you've had something like
01:09:49 ◼ ► stability do you feel like you now want to move into something that's in the novelty area i don't
01:09:54 ◼ ► know maybe we can workshop this a bit more about like what they actually are but that's the thing
01:09:58 ◼ ► that i think i'm often trying to like resolve for myself do i want to stick in the same family
01:10:04 ◼ ► we don't want to move to a different family and this year once i thought of that it's incredibly
01:10:11 ◼ ► clear to me they're like ah i want to stick in the same family of theme i want to stick with
01:10:16 ◼ ► something that is intentional and as is often the case i feel like i'm going along through the year
01:10:25 ◼ ► and it's like what's what is the theme i don't know and then it just like ah it arrives and you
01:10:31 ◼ ► go ah yeah i don't choose the theme the theme chooses me but so the thing that i noticed was
01:10:38 ◼ ► just like a phrase that kept kind of like popping into my head as a byproduct of doing the year of
01:10:45 ◼ ► small improvements and the phrase was am i running the routine is this a day where i can run the
01:10:54 ◼ ► routine and so what i mean by that is as the year went on there's obviously less things that i'm
01:11:04 ◼ ► still changing or like things that i'm making small improvements to because i have changed a
01:11:09 ◼ ► bunch of things already there's only so many things you can change there's only so many
01:11:12 ◼ ► automations that are actually worth doing and so there there started to become a kind of transition
01:11:17 ◼ ► particularly like in the last maybe two and a half months or so of noticing something like ah i feel
01:11:25 ◼ ► like i'm slightly in a different mode today which is something like run the routine actually i'm
01:11:31 ◼ ► suddenly self-conscious because i'm realizing it's like i guess the actual theme name is like
01:11:35 ◼ ► year of the routine but in my head is like i just always uh always have to always have to be weird
01:11:41 ◼ ► with the theme names and make it difficult it's like the actual thing that i'm resonating with
01:11:45 ◼ ► really hard is like run the routine i mean it could just be the year of running routine
01:11:49 ◼ ► or running routines or just a year of routine that works yeah year of routine is the thing
01:11:54 ◼ ► also how quickly did that become one of those words where saying it didn't feel right anymore
01:11:59 ◼ ► you know you say a word enough and it loses it routine goes real quick i just realized that
01:12:04 ◼ ► wow i only said it like three times and i felt like i was saying a french word i've never said
01:12:09 ◼ ► before yeah i wonder uh there's got to be some rule right like the um semantic satiation is
01:12:15 ◼ ► inversely proportional to word frequency has to be the thing like routine is not a word you would
01:12:20 ◼ ► very often say back to back a bunch so it's got to see way faster that's what it's got to be but
01:12:25 ◼ ► yeah so that's what i was thinking about and it also felt like oh after this whole year about like
01:12:32 ◼ ► simplifying and streamlining i think i was partly resonating with this very hard because what i
01:12:44 ◼ ► decade's dawn of the new year i didn't want to do these things and that's why i felt like ah this
01:12:50 ◼ ► thing kind of came to me of what am i naturally trying to do i'm naturally trying to do something
01:12:55 ◼ ► that is in the same family and i feel like year of small improvements naturally leads into this
01:13:03 ◼ ► just as with like ah with the health stuff if you are making small improvements it has to cash out
01:13:10 ◼ ► into change and so that's what i felt was kind of like happening a little bit with year of small
01:13:15 ◼ ► improvements it's like where is this all cashing out it's cashing out in a higher number of days
01:13:21 ◼ ► where i feel like i am running a smooth routine this is a thing that exists because i have made
01:13:27 ◼ ► a bunch of small changes that is the intended consequence of making all of these little changes
01:13:34 ◼ ► but i just wasn't thinking about it at the start it's also one of these things like i specifically
01:13:38 ◼ ► didn't want to go back and look i know that i tried something like this in a previous year i
01:13:45 ◼ ► had a similar like i want to just like run a routine kind of theme didn't have those words
01:13:50 ◼ ► i do have this memory like that was one of the ones that when we talk about like what is success
01:13:55 ◼ ► and what is failure i feel like that is probably one of my like failed hardest ones i feel like i
01:14:00 ◼ ► had a very disruptive year i don't remember the details and i was like i don't really care anyway
01:14:03 ◼ ► it's a very like future focused but i think my feeling is like i tried to do that out of the blue
01:14:10 ◼ ► and this is actually the kind of like set up to the next thing it feels like this yeah you should
01:14:15 ◼ ► be able to do routine more easily now if you've taken a lot of minor frustrations and speed bumps
01:14:20 ◼ ► out of your way yes exactly like that's the thing that should be happening and it's the thing that
01:14:24 ◼ ► i noticed was like actually starting to happen but so what i wanted to do is like ah what i want to
01:14:29 ◼ ► do like what does this phrase mean to me it's like it does mean two things it means a kind of narrowing
01:14:36 ◼ ► of like year of small improvements this is not what i'm doing anymore but that mindset is being
01:14:42 ◼ ► somewhat redirected towards like what is the better day this is where i keep finding myself
01:14:50 ◼ ► like really circling these thoughts of what is the ideal sort of day that i want to have like back to
01:14:59 ◼ ► back like right from the start right to the end and very critically not like an aspirational i put
01:15:07 ◼ ► this on the calendar i can't wait to do uh eight hours of writing today kind of like unrealistic
01:15:12 ◼ ► expectations things like no no the real deal of like look notice observe like re-evaluate all
01:15:20 ◼ ► these things like pay attention to the real details of like what works and what doesn't
01:15:25 ◼ ► and i feel like i have the initial framework of this in place already but this is the thing that
01:15:31 ◼ ► i want to really dial in on as like the thing that i am redirecting attentionality to this year so
01:15:40 ◼ ► that's the high level part of what this is and then just on a lower level of like what do i
01:15:45 ◼ ► expect that that kind of means is i feel like with year of small improvements i like i really
01:15:51 ◼ ► rediscovered the love of a slightly absurdly long checklist of like here are the items that you're
01:15:58 ◼ ► doing in exactly this order in in the day it's like that is the kind of thing that most people
01:16:03 ◼ ► look at it as being like quite ridiculous but is the thing that to me is obviously so helpful like
01:16:10 ◼ ► work out the exact order that you're doing things and that was one of these things like oh i didn't
01:16:14 ◼ ► even realize i had kind of lost that at some point i wasn't really doing that as aggressively as i
01:16:20 ◼ ► was before and so that's part of like ah this is what the intentionality is focusing in on it's
01:16:24 ◼ ► like i'm running with the routine i'm doing the thing but i'm also noticing it's like is there a
01:16:31 ◼ ► different sequencing of these events right does it make sense if this goes before this and the
01:16:37 ◼ ► other thing that i just want to say here that like i am very aware of and i want to make clear for
01:16:40 ◼ ► listeners again if they're like thinking about something like this is the key thing about this
01:16:46 ◼ ► stuff is the reality of it like it sounds so inflexible but the important thing to me is like
01:16:54 ◼ ► run the routine means like the routine has to be adaptable to whatever else is going on and there's
01:17:02 ◼ ► a big difference between like this is the minimum viable amount of stuff that you do on even the
01:17:08 ◼ ► most disruptive days like making those decisions in ahead of time that makes a really big difference
01:17:15 ◼ ► thinking about like oh even what is the routine on an off day there is some ideal number of things
01:17:22 ◼ ► you should be doing even on a day that you're relaxing and like that's where i want to really
01:17:26 ◼ ► focus my attention towards like thinking about how does this work and just really zeroing in on like
01:17:33 ◼ ► run the routine pay attention to the real outcomes of this how does this actually work are there ways
01:17:41 ◼ ► that this can be improved how can it be made sure to be flexible and not fragile so that is what i
01:17:48 ◼ ► am focusing on in 2025. So from a practical perspective is it the case that you were like
01:17:55 ◼ ► building a bunch of new checklists that enable you to get work done in a way that you find efficient
01:18:03 ◼ ► or like what are the things that you're hoping are going to fall out of this by the time that the year
01:18:08 ◼ ► ends? This is actually a byproduct of like oh just simply getting better at a bunch of automation
01:18:12 ◼ ► stuff is the things that i have already started to work at is okay so like high level what am i
01:18:19 ◼ ► trying to achieve with tools like omniFocus and tools like my calendar which i've also done a
01:18:24 ◼ ► bunch of like make these more visible i talked last time i think about how like oh with the new
01:18:30 ◼ ► kind of omniFocus i'm basically always having it available on my watch like there's the top two
01:18:34 ◼ ► items that i'm looking at like you should be reminded of these things i've just made my
01:18:40 ◼ ► calendar much more visible of like what is it the thing that you should be doing at this point in
01:18:44 ◼ ► time but the frustrations that i've always had in the past with this kind of stuff is it's like a
01:18:51 ◼ ► house of glass in a way it's like oh you design your ideal day but then you wake up an hour later
01:18:57 ◼ ► or like something else is disruptive and now like the reminder system is subtly off from where it
01:19:04 ◼ ► should be because like you're an hour behind or like some other kind of disruption occurs and so
01:19:09 ◼ ► on a real practical level the thing that i am focusing the intentionality time on like get this
01:19:16 ◼ ► to work right that i have a basic version of right now is this kind of like flexible routine i made
01:19:25 ◼ ► an off-handed remark uh forever ago we were talking about like siri intelligence thing of like
01:19:29 ◼ ► what's the thing that i really want is like i want to be able to tell siri to like clear my calendar
01:19:33 ◼ ► nothing's happening today i said that because i was already at that point in time kind of working on
01:19:38 ◼ ► an automation that i can be like what kind of day is this is this the kind of day where i actually
01:19:43 ◼ ► just want to clear everything is this the kind of day where everything started like two hours later
01:19:49 ◼ ► and i just want to like re-evaluate and figure out what is the minimum viable thing it's like my
01:19:55 ◼ ► calendar and my top two checklist items should always represent the real reality of what i have
01:20:09 ◼ ► impossible to do with extant tools because you don't have the ability to say like automatically
01:20:17 ◼ ► push all of this stuff oh actually i need to compress like work and exercise time into a
01:20:23 ◼ ► smaller thing now because i have been delayed or whatever so turns out again it's like it's
01:20:29 ◼ ► mindfulness in the same way the thing that should happen is i'm like trying to lock in a loop of
01:20:34 ◼ ► at every transition moment it's like i should be looking at the calendar or list and that calendar
01:20:42 ◼ ► or list should accurately represent what a past version of me has pre-decided is the optimal thing
01:20:49 ◼ ► to do under these circumstances and that includes the considerations like you are sick and cannot
01:20:57 ◼ ► work right now or like other sorts of things it's not the like feel bad because you're not doing
01:21:03 ◼ ► what you had as the ideal day make sure this really cashes out because there is an answer
01:21:09 ◼ ► to something like oh you're having an off day what is the correct sequence of things you should do
01:21:15 ◼ ► in an off day and those sequence of things can be like what steps are you taking to recover and so
01:21:22 ◼ ► that's how i'm focusing on this is i feel like this is the missing part that i've just honed in on
01:21:30 ◼ ► so most people talk about the routines they're intrinsically talking about a kind of ideal day
01:21:37 ◼ ► when most tools are trying to assist you in getting things done they are implicitly setting
01:21:44 ◼ ► up an expectation of the most perfect thing but i think there is a way to do this which is more
01:21:50 ◼ ► accurate toward reality more accurate towards what is the like possibility of options of what
01:21:57 ◼ ► is occurring in a particular day and so on the details level that's what i'm focusing on it's
01:22:04 ◼ ► like that is what i am doing is like notice is there a mismatch between what you feel like you
01:22:09 ◼ ► should be doing and what the checklist is saying notice it's like oh yesterday's routine like i
01:22:15 ◼ ► ran the routine but i just don't feel like it went well why like what could be different about the
01:22:22 ◼ ► sequence of steps what was different about the starting state pay attention to like all of these
01:22:27 ◼ ► little parts in a very intentional way and that should cash out and like achieving the things that
01:22:35 ◼ ► you want to do in the same way that like all the small improvements really cashed out quite
01:22:41 ◼ ► directly into huge health improvements and other improvements and just like reducing the friction
01:22:47 ◼ ► of my life so that's the details and the high level is just like this concept of like i should
01:22:54 ◼ ► be running the routine it should be going smoothly notice when it doesn't and there isn't any kind of
01:23:02 ◼ ► like blame or feeling bad about yourself for not doing the optimal thing it's about onboarding what
01:23:09 ◼ ► does that mean what is the optimal thing to do in a suboptimal state but i've had more than enough
01:23:17 ◼ ► of me in a row here mike i want to know what are you doing in 2025 anything new on the horizon
01:23:24 ◼ ► what's happening what's going on what's your theme oh boy so oh man i have waited for this
01:23:33 ◼ ► for a long time this theme i've set months ago i've known what my theme was going to be
01:23:40 ◼ ► i live my life online and have done so for like 15 years and i share a lot it's kind of what i've
01:23:49 ◼ ► always done but i've had a huge secret that i've kept from the world and it's the biggest secret
01:23:57 ◼ ► i've probably ever kept from listening to any of my shows i am so excited to share that i'm gonna
01:24:05 ◼ ► be a dad congratulations mike thank you it's a big moment it is the biggest most life-changing moment
01:24:15 ◼ ► a human can have oh man you can take your time on this because it is a big deal i will also just say
01:24:23 ◼ ► at this moment it's like uh many times i don't know what is coming up on my seerly theme for the
01:24:31 ◼ ► record i did know that mike was having a baby so i'm publicly congratulating you here but for the
01:24:38 ◼ ► listeners i did know this wasn't a complete surprise to me i think i would have been absolutely
01:24:43 ◼ ► appalled that would be like you know there are a lot of things that when you work with someone
01:24:49 ◼ ► from a creative perspective that you kind of you want to keep the real reactions for the show this
01:24:55 ◼ ► would be one of the worst things i could do to you especially because okay so the next part so my wife
01:25:01 ◼ ► edina is expecting a baby girl and she is due in february so it's so soon this is the other part
01:25:10 ◼ ► of this like this has been a really long journey for us for many years full of lots of downs so
01:25:17 ◼ ► this was something that when we were getting around to telling the world like this is the first place
01:25:24 ◼ ► in which i am speaking about it i wanted to feel as confident as someone can feel and everything
01:25:30 ◼ ► has been great my wife is doing fantastic and i'm so proud of her she's taken this so well and is
01:25:38 ◼ ► doing an incredible job yeah so it's super soon this has been so hard to keep to myself i even like
01:25:46 ◼ ► now feel weird talking about it because it's like i have spent so much mental energy to not slip
01:25:54 ◼ ► up for the last seven months to not share this information so like it's a weird thing for me to
01:26:01 ◼ ► even talk about but yes yeah it's very counter to you but like i feel like you did need to do that
01:26:06 ◼ ► like that was an important thing to do but that's also why it's like this is a big release to be
01:26:12 ◼ ► able to just like say this publicly to have the announcement to be able to accept congratulations
01:26:18 ◼ ► from the world about becoming a father again i'll say it again like it's just it's like such a big
01:26:24 ◼ ► deal i'm so happy for you it's been a long road to get here that makes it even so much more of a
01:26:29 ◼ ► big deal now that it's really happening so because surprisingly no one my 2025 yearly theme is the
01:26:35 ◼ ► year of fatherhood that is the theme name that's really beautiful some themes skew more personal
01:26:42 ◼ ► some themes skew more work this is the most personal any theme can be for me in the sense of
01:26:50 ◼ ► like every decision in 2025 goes through how will this affect my ability to be a dad right i mean
01:27:00 ◼ ► and this is for me not just new stuff this is all stuff so this year was originally called the year
01:27:08 ◼ ► of priorities this was when we were still hoping that this would happen for 2025 before we were
01:27:16 ◼ ► lucky enough for it to happen for 2024 because i was really still hoping that this would be a thing
01:27:21 ◼ ► for us and priorities is kind of the biggest function in the year of fatherhood so i expect
01:27:32 ◼ ► that my becoming a dad will be all-encompassing for probably the rest of my life but like
01:27:43 ◼ ► especially for 2025 and so i know i'm gonna need to spend a lot more time mentally assessing what
01:27:53 ◼ ► has to be done what is the most important thing who does this as like it is a general rule for a
01:28:01 ◼ ► lot of things that are going to be coming my way next year especially new stuff but even the older
01:28:06 ◼ ► stuff because for 2025 being a dad is the absolute most important thing to me above everything else
01:28:14 ◼ ► everything else and like if i want to start this new chapter of my life correctly i think that has
01:28:24 ◼ ► to be the thing now the next year could throw any amount of challenges at me what this doesn't mean
01:28:32 ◼ ► is that like i'm not gonna work in 2025 because i want to be a dad like it might mean the challenge
01:28:39 ◼ ► requires more work because it's important for my function as a provider for my child right so like
01:28:47 ◼ ► it doesn't mean like all of my time is going to be focused on the baby even though that is what
01:28:52 ◼ ► i want it to be it is just that like what is the best decision i can make in any moment to best do
01:28:59 ◼ ► for my family but this impacts like everything i do in my work how much time am i spending on my work
01:29:06 ◼ ► where am i working when am i working all of this stuff is going to become the priorities but also
01:29:12 ◼ ► like i don't really know how much time it takes to be a dad right i expect a lot of it i expect
01:29:22 ◼ ► sometimes more than i think sometimes less than i think i don't really know so like i also feel like
01:29:27 ◼ ► again unlike a lot of yearly themes this one is so unknown for me because i have no experience with
01:29:34 ◼ ► it none where like i might have experienced some things before like i've worked like year people
01:29:40 ◼ ► i've worked with people right the year of the weekend i've taken weekends you know like i have
01:29:46 ◼ ► never been a dad like i don't know what it means yet and so like there's a lot of like nebulousness
01:29:52 ◼ ► to it that's the thing that's fundamentally different here and the way that i think about
01:29:56 ◼ ► this and the way that i've talked with people about having children and like talking to parents about
01:30:00 ◼ ► the experience is there is some aspect of this that is fundamentally unlike any other human
01:30:09 ◼ ► decision and unlike any other change you could go through you can pick any of the biggest other
01:30:17 ◼ ► things it's like what's probably the next biggest one is getting married but even that is like i've
01:30:23 ◼ ► had a girlfriend before right like you have some mental framework for what this is and i think to a
01:30:29 ◼ ► greater or lesser effect everyone who becomes a parent goes through a kind of phoenix-like moment
01:30:37 ◼ ► where like some part of the old you is like burned away then there's a new part of you that takes its
01:30:44 ◼ ► place and that is just a shift that happens but it's also why it makes it very hard to forward
01:30:52 ◼ ► project about what is this going to be like what is this going to be like in terms of the practicalness
01:30:59 ◼ ► of your life but also what is this going to be like as the literal experience of you it's the
01:31:06 ◼ ► most uncertain thing to try to think about how it's going to be you mentioned a word there that is in
01:31:13 ◼ ► my mind a lot which is uncertain looking ahead at the next year like one of the things that i am
01:31:27 ◼ ► like this time of year is always a strange time of year especially a content creator who sells
01:31:34 ◼ ► advertising as advertising focused businesses that you don't really know what your next year's going
01:31:39 ◼ ► to look like and you don't know until you're pretty much into the next year but i know it's
01:31:44 ◼ ► getting harder that is a function that has occurred for like two or three years now every
01:31:50 ◼ ► year it's getting a little bit harder and the feeling of uncertainty right now is much stronger
01:31:57 ◼ ► in me because of the effect of failure honestly right like that feeling to me right now is much
01:32:02 ◼ ► much stronger than it has been before because the ramifications for failure are bigger now yeah
01:32:08 ◼ ► you've increased the downside of failure massively that's that's what it is yeah it's like every
01:32:13 ◼ ► business and every life is a narrow walk across a vast canyon but you have made the canyon much
01:32:20 ◼ ► vaster that's what has happened like the way i've kind of been talking about it like you know me and
01:32:26 ◼ ► adena have made these choices together about the life that i live and you know the way that our
01:32:34 ◼ ► money is made as a family and kind of like we take the good and we take the risk and we take the bad
01:32:41 ◼ ► right like that that's the thing that we decided together my child has no say in this right so like
01:32:48 ◼ ► things going wrong in our family as a source of my if something goes wrong in my business
01:32:54 ◼ ► she had no say in that so like that that is like a thing that is really weighing on me a lot so
01:33:03 ◼ ► i am going to try my best next year to find stability in my work and in my income where i can
01:33:13 ◼ ► like this is something that i don't have a full plan for and i've been trying to think of things
01:33:21 ◼ ► to make it better but it's this is very difficult i mean one of these things is developing cortex
01:33:27 ◼ ► brand more for the future you know the further we go down this the better it can be as a business to
01:33:35 ◼ ► help kind of like level out any bad times in advertising and stuff like that right like it
01:33:40 ◼ ► becomes kind of like a part of my overall puzzle but the other thing is like i want to focus more
01:33:49 ◼ ► on membership next year the direct support that i get from the listeners of my shows of this one
01:33:56 ◼ ► and of the other shows that i do that have a good direct support model that is very reliable like
01:34:03 ◼ ► people become members and they stay members for a long time or if people leave we get new people to
01:34:08 ◼ ► come in and that reliability is more reliable than the advertising market which has various
01:34:13 ◼ ► fluctuations just in the market each year there is fluctuations so like they are micro and macro
01:34:20 ◼ ► fluctuations so that is something that i want to put focus on but this is also heightened by the
01:34:27 ◼ ► fact that i want to take paternity leave and i'm going to take paternity leave so i will be away
01:34:32 ◼ ► from my businesses and won't be able to focus on them in the same way so that is like a here is just
01:34:38 ◼ ► a set of things that i'm feeling i don't have any beginnings of solutions for them really but they're
01:34:45 ◼ ► just things that i've identified what i consider to be a concern like a threat and i can see the
01:34:51 ◼ ► two areas in which i could make an impact but i don't as of yet really know what the solutions are
01:35:06 ◼ ► considering and i'm thinking about i wonder what my schedule is like for a family yeah where is it
01:35:14 ◼ ► good and where is it bad like for example i work late a number of evenings is that bad i mean
01:35:23 ◼ ► probably like probably in the long term but maybe not because i also only need to be at the studio
01:35:30 ◼ ► three or four days a week and i also don't need to be here all day so i think that there's going
01:35:36 ◼ ► to be an element of like time shifting like i might spend more time with the family in the
01:35:42 ◼ ► morning because i'm sure i'll be awake earlier and like i'll have more time and we'll maybe leave for
01:35:48 ◼ ► the studio midday and then work until the evening there's a lot of things that i'm wondering about
01:35:55 ◼ ► how i move stuff around and maybe condense things more than i've done before so like sometimes i
01:36:02 ◼ ► will come to the studio i'll be here at like 10 and i will leave at like seven but there might be
01:36:08 ◼ ► like an hour or two in the middle where i'm like hanging out or i'm playing a game or something
01:36:13 ◼ ► because i've done my morning work and i still have my evening show to record but there's just time in
01:36:18 ◼ ► the middle of the day where i can imagine that it might turn into a scenario where that kind of
01:36:25 ◼ ► middle time doesn't exist anymore it's done before and that's my home time and i get to the studio
01:36:31 ◼ ► say at two o'clock in the afternoon and i do all my work and record my show and leave that like
01:36:37 ◼ ► my time here may become more condensed and purpose driven for at least for show stuff because they
01:36:45 ◼ ► are very structured very understandable and kind of reliable in like the way that my work days fit
01:36:53 ◼ ► i don't really know yet but i know that that is something that i want to focus on and kind of like
01:36:59 ◼ ► there being an intentionality to that honestly like yeah if i'm at home i'm at home if i'm at
01:37:05 ◼ ► work i'm at work and kind of like making sure that there is a very good divide between these things
01:37:11 ◼ ► so that when i am in these two locations i am doing the best things that i should be doing when
01:37:17 ◼ ► i'm in these locations right so not working at home and not kind of like not working at work
01:37:24 ◼ ► the difference from a normal year of priorities is again like a normal one you're just sorting
01:37:32 ◼ ► for yourself but this is like ah i was thinking oh it's just simply good because it's the biggest
01:37:38 ◼ ► change in priorities that can possibly happen but what it also is is it is the addition of like
01:37:45 ◼ ► other people's priorities in such like a deep way that yeah i think while everything is is uncertain
01:37:54 ◼ ► and unpredictable that basically has to translate into something like all of your priorities that
01:38:01 ◼ ► existed before they have to become more efficient to make space for these other things and so yeah
01:38:10 ◼ ► like you're thinking about the time of the studio that really makes sense like i was i was kind of
01:38:14 ◼ ► thinking like oh i know mike really likes to have these breaks like it works it sounds like it works
01:38:17 ◼ ► really well for you but this is one of these cases like ah yes but i think he's right that is going
01:38:22 ◼ ► to almost certainly have to change because you need to make the per hour time at studio
01:38:28 ◼ ► more efficient in order to be able to do all of these other things like what will be the bigger
01:38:34 ◼ ► priority playing 30 minutes of the new call the duty campaign or spending time with my child
01:38:44 ◼ ► right like and you know who knows different times of the year depending on the day there may be a
01:38:50 ◼ ► question there right like yes of course mike each additional hour of anything has a decreasing
01:38:57 ◼ ► marginal utility like that is just the case you're not going to spend all of your time with your
01:39:02 ◼ ► child nobody does that it wouldn't even make sense to do but the flip side of that is like ah the
01:39:10 ◼ ► first quality hour with your child is like probably insanely valuable on any given day and
01:39:16 ◼ ► that's a thing that's like ah you just have to think about that in a way of like how does this
01:39:19 ◼ ► fit into your life the boundaries thing that i was talking about from year of people that is
01:39:34 ◼ ► boundaries that i wanted to set was because of this so i knew this was happening then and so
01:39:39 ◼ ► you know kind of laying the groundwork for i may be less available what is the right way to deal
01:39:47 ◼ ► with that like that's part of it and then the second part of this was one of the reasons i
01:39:52 ◼ ► wanted to bring in my assistant was for stuff like this is trying to get someone to a place
01:39:56 ◼ ► who can maybe answer questions for me to others because she understands what's going on oh this
01:40:02 ◼ ► is why i got the small iphone i need to use my phone in one hand i wasn't putting those puzzle
01:40:10 ◼ ► pieces together of course all right that makes sense i've been keeping this in my head for ages
01:40:14 ◼ ► of like oh i've got to remember to mention this yeah this is why i got the small iphone this year
01:40:18 ◼ ► because it's harder to use the big iphone with one hand and i'll be using my iphone that's really
01:40:23 ◼ ► funny i was i was thinking before like what what an end of an era of mike going to small phone
01:40:28 ◼ ► this really um retroactively put some additional context on like uh yeah it sure is the end of an
01:40:34 ◼ ► era mike can't count on using his phone with two hands anymore i love it that's great like i have
01:40:41 ◼ ► a lot of little bits to this too right like the year of people and and putting people around me
01:40:46 ◼ ► to help me take an extended parental leave one of the things i've been thinking about and i might
01:40:50 ◼ ► do this or we can maybe talk about this i'll get back to this another point my assistant said to
01:40:55 ◼ ► me you know when you're on parental leave you could just give me access to your email and i
01:40:59 ◼ ► could just read it for you and like my initial feeling to that was oh god no someone reading
01:41:05 ◼ ► my email and then like the more i thought about it was like there is absolutely nothing wrong with
01:41:09 ◼ ► somebody reading my email mike 100 you should do that yeah that's a no-brainer yeah you should do
01:41:14 ◼ ► that it was just one of these things where like she said it to me and like i couldn't believe that
01:41:18 ◼ ► somebody suggested it but then by like two minutes later i was like no this is like a really good
01:41:23 ◼ ► idea so like this is something i'm thinking about so stuff like that but yeah there's a lot of other
01:41:27 ◼ ► little bits right health and fitness you kidding me i mean i gotta live forever now uh so that has
01:41:33 ◼ ► become like a thing that i'm thinking a lot more about finances in general like i gotta be more
01:41:39 ◼ ► responsible like it's kind of like responsibility is part of it too and health fitness finance is
01:41:43 ◼ ► like responsibility because i am responsible for another person like in a way that i have never
01:41:49 ◼ ► been responsible before especially because especially at the beginning she won't be able
01:41:53 ◼ ► to do nothing she can't do nothing and so i have this responsibility to her and so i'm starting to
01:42:00 ◼ ► think about different areas of my life differently like in a way that you know i have lots of friends
01:42:07 ◼ ► who have kids and they would make decisions and i would kind of be like why are you making that
01:42:12 ◼ ► decision that way and now i'm starting to realize like oh they were being responsible parents
01:42:17 ◼ ► i was going to ask for an example here but it sounds like this is a broad category of they
01:42:22 ◼ ► were making a slightly boring feeling decision yeah is that what you're getting yeah yeah like
01:42:27 ◼ ► why won't you take that trip now you know or like come on how hard can it be no there's just being
01:42:33 ◼ ► responsible parents so i retroactively apologize to all of my friends who have children this is
01:42:39 ◼ ► without a doubt the most north star-iest north star theme that i've had yes yes this is how i've
01:42:45 ◼ ► often explained what a yearly theme is it's like it's just this thing and you're just always moving
01:42:51 ◼ ► towards it it's up in the sky it is your destination it's how you find where you gotta go
01:42:55 ◼ ► you're never gonna get to it like but it guides you like some themes that i've had they have a
01:43:03 ◼ ► result in a way that i could imagine like oh if i do this stuff i reckon i could be this person
01:43:10 ◼ ► at the end of this year i have no idea what this looks like and also it's not there is no world in
01:43:18 ◼ ► which this is just like oh this is just like a one-year thing you know no no no this is a theme
01:43:24 ◼ ► that is about crafting the newest biggest most permanent part of your personality and your
01:43:34 ◼ ► identity it's not a one and done theme by any measure it's the first exploration of what does
01:43:42 ◼ ► this mean for you how do you change what are you changing in your life but it's different from
01:43:48 ◼ ► other things because it is a new identity that will just be unchanged and i'm excited for that
01:43:56 ◼ ► like maybe this is terrible but like as a content creator i'm also excited about all of the ways in
01:44:02 ◼ ► which i'm going to have a new perspective on things and there will be an element of our
01:44:07 ◼ ► audience that i will be able to relate to differently and they will relate to me differently
01:44:11 ◼ ► the way that i think about the work that i do is going to change and i'm intrigued to see how all
01:44:17 ◼ ► of those things kind of shake out as well like i do not know what 2025 is going to look like all i
01:44:24 ◼ ► know is that fatherhood is the guiding principle upon which all decisions and considerations have
01:44:30 ◼ ► to be made so i can't wait oh god i'm so excited like i you know i'm sure people i know i'm gonna
01:44:38 ◼ ► get into this in more places and in more ways over the next few months or whatever but i am not scared
01:44:45 ◼ ► about being a dad like i have no apprehension for it all i'm incredibly excited i wished i didn't
01:44:51 ◼ ► even have to wait you know like i i've been ready for this for months i want it to be now i'm happy
01:44:58 ◼ ► to get the last few months of my marriage the way that it is right now like i'm happy to be living
01:45:05 ◼ ► in that before it changes forever but we are so ready to be parents and i'm so excited and i'm so
01:45:15 ◼ ► pleased that i get to share this with everybody yeah i can't wait listener i think this year more
01:45:24 ◼ ► than maybe any other year you could feel how big and impactful themes are mike and i have done this
01:45:32 ◼ ► together for so long and i continue to be surprised and delighted at how much this can really
01:45:39 ◼ ► improve our lives how much it can be used as a tool to like focus your thoughts in a long way
01:45:47 ◼ ► over a long time this is our pitch to you that you should try a theme and if you want to try a theme
01:45:58 ◼ ► we do obviously suggest that the best tool for this is the theme system journal i always like
01:46:04 ◼ ► to say you can do this with anything but we have designed the journal to be the best tool that can
01:46:13 ◼ ► help you in the way that you want to think about progress and check back in on your theme
01:46:21 ◼ ► over the course of a year what i like most about journaling around my theme every day is it doesn't
01:46:29 ◼ ► let me forget it so every day i sit down my theme system journal and each journal page is divided
01:46:36 ◼ ► into four sections and i write down things in these sections that are repeatable and chosen by
01:46:43 ◼ ► me of how my day has gone and then in the back of the journal we have an area called the daily
01:46:48 ◼ ► actions which is almost like a habit tracker and these are some things that i kind of tick off each
01:46:53 ◼ ► day that if i hit each 10 of these things and i have progressed my life in the way that i want
01:46:57 ◼ ► and then the way that lines up to my theme what i also love about the theme system journal in this
01:47:04 ◼ ► way is it sits on my desk and it is the constant reminder of my yearly theme it is a flexible
01:47:10 ◼ ► adaptable high quality journal it supports you throughout the year the structure is designed to
01:47:15 ◼ ► grow with you it can evolve as you do as your theme may shift and change it's fine because you
01:47:23 ◼ ► set your own pattern with how you journal every day we're not forcing you to do anything you can
01:47:29 ◼ ► just choose to do it however you like every page has a perforated corner for you to tear out once
01:47:35 ◼ ► you complete each page which is very satisfying but also makes it incredibly easy to pick up where
01:47:41 ◼ ► you left off now as gray mentioned it is essentially just a nice journal you can do this with any
01:47:49 ◼ ► journal and we have tons of information about the theme system journal and about how we journal with
01:47:55 ◼ ► themes at theme system.com and you can go and read all about it now we made the product that
01:48:00 ◼ ► i think best reflects this and so i recommend that you give it a go but hey if you already have a
01:48:07 ◼ ► journal that you want to use you can use that too yeah and i will also just make the pitch for what
01:48:13 ◼ ► i know is a certain kind of listener who's going to be interested in trying this and wants to just
01:48:17 ◼ ► do it digitally again it's totally fine like if that works for you you do that but i think
01:48:22 ◼ ► especially for anyone who's doing this for the first time the presence of a physical object in
01:48:30 ◼ ► your life that is like on your desk or in some other visible place i think you just cannot
01:48:37 ◼ ► discount the impact that that has and it's one of the reasons why it's like i love that we made this
01:48:44 ◼ ► journal because the physicalness of it really matters it is a facilitator to go with my own
01:48:52 ◼ ► theme for the year i think it reduces friction to simply have that thing on your desk in a visible
01:48:59 ◼ ► place you have a pen nearby and you write in it and again they like the act of writing with your
01:49:05 ◼ ► hand on an actual piece of paper does something different to your brain it forces you to slow down
01:49:12 ◼ ► it forces you to really think about it i feel like even the moment of when you like open something up
01:49:17 ◼ ► that is paper it's like it's a small bit of preparation for your mind to be like hey we're
01:49:24 ◼ ► going to do this thing now and it just like gets you in a different mode so that's also why i feel
01:49:30 ◼ ► like if you're doing this for the first time i highly recommend you do it with a physical journal
01:49:38 ◼ ► one that you like or one that we have purposefully made to do this as well as possible it absolutely
01:49:47 ◼ ► makes a mode shift where you become reflective when you put down your phone or you move your
01:49:54 ◼ ► keyboard or you even close the notebook you were previously using to open your specific journal
01:50:00 ◼ ► like it really makes it intentional and i think that you can make your theme an intentional thing
01:50:06 ◼ ► by reflecting on it every day of a theme system journal so i said you can learn more at themesystem.com
01:50:12 ◼ ► and you can buy now at cortexbrand.com cortex sense the show may be over but it doesn't have to be
01:50:19 ◼ ► go and subscribe to moretex and you will get more content for this episode in this episode we're
01:50:25 ◼ ► actually going to review our 2024 cortex brand theme which is the year of basics and set our
01:50:32 ◼ ► theme for 2025 so you can hear us talk about that all you need to do is go to get moretex.com and
01:50:37 ◼ ► you can sign up and become a member and you will get longer ad-free episodes of cortex if you sign
01:50:44 ◼ ► up before december 18th you can also get 20% off an annual plan by using the code 2024 holidays at