1
00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:03,680
Speaker 1: Welcome to two percent. I'm your host, Michael Easter. Summer

2
00:00:03,720 --> 00:00:06,160
Speaker 1: happens to be peak reading seasons, So today we're going

3
00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:09,399
Speaker 1: to be talking books with Alex Bakowski. Alex runs the

4
00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:13,039
Speaker 1: popular Alex and Books channels. They're on Twitter, they're on Instagram,

5
00:00:13,119 --> 00:00:16,440
Speaker 1: TikTok YouTube, awesome resource for books and a guy happens

6
00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:18,560
Speaker 1: to read two books a week and has done so

7
00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:20,800
Speaker 1: for a decade. So Alex and I are going to

8
00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:23,400
Speaker 1: share our favorite books of all time, the lessons we

9
00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:25,800
Speaker 1: learn from them, and the lessons that you can take

10
00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:28,479
Speaker 1: right now and apply to your life without even having

11
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:30,560
Speaker 1: to read the book. So with all that said, we'll

12
00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:43,760
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll bring on Alex. Well, Alex,

13
00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:44,960
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us.

14
00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:46,640
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, happy to be here, Michael.

15
00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:48,839
Speaker 1: All right, first question I have, how do you decide

16
00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:51,800
Speaker 1: what books to read? Because you read seventy five to

17
00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:53,920
Speaker 1: one hundred books a year, there's a lot of books.

18
00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:55,920
Speaker 1: But how do you filter that in a world where

19
00:00:55,960 --> 00:00:58,480
Speaker 1: there's thousands and thousands of books coming out every year?

20
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,200
Speaker 3: Frameworks I like to follow the first I call read

21
00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:04,520
Speaker 3: it when you need it. So like whatever problem I'm

22
00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:06,679
Speaker 3: having in life or whatever skill I want to learn

23
00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:08,920
Speaker 3: right now. So like right now I'm writing a book,

24
00:01:08,959 --> 00:01:10,360
Speaker 3: so I'm reading a lot of books about how to

25
00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:13,440
Speaker 3: write a book. The other framework I call is just

26
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:15,959
Speaker 3: like read what you like and you'll always like reading.

27
00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:18,840
Speaker 3: So whatever topic I'm just like genuinely interested in or

28
00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:21,360
Speaker 3: curious about, I'll just pick up a book about that

29
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:22,479
Speaker 3: and just read it for like fun.

30
00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:25,160
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to mainly focus. We'll go

31
00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:27,440
Speaker 1: through all sorts of books. We're going to go back

32
00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:30,080
Speaker 1: and forth. This is going to be fun. We'll focus

33
00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:33,160
Speaker 1: a bit on self improvement books because I'm sort of

34
00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:35,200
Speaker 1: in that lane with my own books, and I know

35
00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:38,039
Speaker 1: you tweet and post and write about a lot of

36
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:41,240
Speaker 1: books in that space. So first question is what is

37
00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:45,600
Speaker 1: the best off the ratear self improvement book you've read.

38
00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:48,560
Speaker 3: So this might surprise people, but it's a Calendar of

39
00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:51,680
Speaker 3: Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy. So everyone knows Tolstoy as like

40
00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:55,240
Speaker 3: this famous fiction writer, but this was actually his most

41
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:58,720
Speaker 3: impactful book. And he said himself and basically for fifteen years,

42
00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:01,960
Speaker 3: whenever he came across a like interesting quote or piece

43
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:04,560
Speaker 3: of wisdom, he just jotted that down in his journal

44
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:07,520
Speaker 3: and over you know, fifteen years he basically compiled all

45
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:10,720
Speaker 3: of these lessons, these quotes into this bugs. So you

46
00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:12,919
Speaker 3: could think of this book as like the original Daily Stoic,

47
00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:14,680
Speaker 3: where it's one page a day, so it's like super

48
00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:17,200
Speaker 3: easy to read. Now everyone has a minute to read

49
00:02:17,520 --> 00:02:20,240
Speaker 3: and it's like three to four quotes from like Eastern

50
00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:23,280
Speaker 3: philosophy or this philosopher, and then he just has like

51
00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:25,880
Speaker 3: a paragraph about like the topic for this day that

52
00:02:25,919 --> 00:02:28,480
Speaker 3: he wants to discuss. So this is definitely one of

53
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:31,160
Speaker 3: those bugs. I think people will be surprised to know

54
00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:33,400
Speaker 3: that tol Sarve wrote non fiction book, but I highly

55
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:36,360
Speaker 3: recommend it super easy to read and definitely think is

56
00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:39,040
Speaker 3: like a the under the radar type of book.

57
00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,960
Speaker 1: I haven't even heard of it, but it sounds absolutely awesome,

58
00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:44,720
Speaker 1: especially the fact that, like you said, you got like

59
00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 1: a minute a day, two minutes a day, and you

60
00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:48,640
Speaker 1: just read it, you'll learn something you walk away, all right.

61
00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:51,040
Speaker 1: So my answer on this I had to think about this.

62
00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,519
Speaker 1: I went back and forth in my head. My answer

63
00:02:53,560 --> 00:02:56,960
Speaker 1: is the power of myth. So caveat is that this

64
00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:00,640
Speaker 1: is this is a book, but it started as a

65
00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,640
Speaker 1: series of interviews between Joseph Campbell and the journalist Bill Moyers,

66
00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:06,320
Speaker 1: and they basically transcribed it and put it in book form.

67
00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,080
Speaker 1: But what I like about this is Campbell, who's this mythologist,

68
00:03:10,480 --> 00:03:12,840
Speaker 1: studied all these myths from around the world and he

69
00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:17,200
Speaker 1: basically walks through how myths work and how they can

70
00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:19,600
Speaker 1: help you in life. So a lot of it hinges on.

71
00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:22,480
Speaker 1: I think the opening section is about the hero's journey,

72
00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:24,960
Speaker 1: which is basically when you look at all these myths,

73
00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: everything's good in the main character's life at first, and

74
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,840
Speaker 1: then some problem happens, something comes up where they have

75
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:33,240
Speaker 1: to solve. They don't want to do it, but then

76
00:03:33,280 --> 00:03:35,160
Speaker 1: they do it and they get pulled into this world

77
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:39,600
Speaker 1: of hardship, a venture, trials, all this bs. But by

78
00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:41,160
Speaker 1: going through that, they come out the other side a

79
00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:43,760
Speaker 1: better person. And you see that in all these different myths.

80
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:46,120
Speaker 1: So to me, I think what that book did for

81
00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:50,400
Speaker 1: me is it really helped me understand why problems are

82
00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:53,880
Speaker 1: actually opportunities like that is fundamentally where humans learn, and

83
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:57,960
Speaker 1: like myths identified this thousands of years ago, and then

84
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,040
Speaker 1: subsequently we have psychology just come in and go, Yeah,

85
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:04,720
Speaker 1: people who view challenges in their lives as opportunities or

86
00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:06,600
Speaker 1: reflect back on them and go, hey, what did I

87
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:09,080
Speaker 1: learn from this? Those are the people that tend to

88
00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,480
Speaker 1: grow more and just have better outcomes across the board.

89
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:14,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just to add to that, I think Campbell's

90
00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,560
Speaker 3: most known for his A Hero with a Thousand Faces.

91
00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:19,800
Speaker 3: That's like his most popular book. And like, I tried

92
00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:23,000
Speaker 3: to read that book, but it's so complex and goes

93
00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:25,159
Speaker 3: really deep into the details. I actually tell people the

94
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:26,880
Speaker 3: same thing, like, check out the Power Myth because like

95
00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:29,880
Speaker 3: an interview, so it's way easier to read. And basically

96
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 3: you get ninety percent of that book in like a

97
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:33,640
Speaker 3: short amount of time.

98
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Here with a Thousand Faces is rather dense.

99
00:04:37,320 --> 00:04:39,800
Speaker 1: It uses a lot of like complex academic I mean

100
00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:42,640
Speaker 1: it's awesome, but Power Myth is way more approachable. Another

101
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:44,919
Speaker 1: thing is I'm usually more of a I want to

102
00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:48,640
Speaker 1: read paper books or at minimum of Kindle. I'm not

103
00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:51,039
Speaker 1: a huge audiobook person, but I will say that book

104
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 1: in audio form is actually amazing because it's the actual

105
00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 1: audios of the interviews, so you have the two going

106
00:04:56,760 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 1: back and forth. They put some like interesting music behind it.

107
00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:01,640
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's awesome, So I'll give that one props.

108
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:04,360
Speaker 1: This is a good audiobook, all right. Next question, best

109
00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:08,760
Speaker 1: book that isn't about self improvement but that actually provides

110
00:05:08,839 --> 00:05:09,919
Speaker 1: good lessons for living.

111
00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,880
Speaker 3: So I'll go with A Forgotten Highlander by Ali star

112
00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:15,120
Speaker 3: Oukri Heart.

113
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:16,120
Speaker 2: I hope I'm saying that right.

114
00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:20,800
Speaker 3: But this guy, basically he turns twenty and he gets

115
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:23,920
Speaker 3: drafted into World War Two. So he gets sent to Singapore.

116
00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:27,000
Speaker 3: They get attacked by the Japanese, and Japanese end up

117
00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,039
Speaker 3: overtaking them, and he becomes a prisoner of war and

118
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:31,599
Speaker 3: he ends up being in prison of war for seven

119
00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:34,839
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty days correct, And his story is just

120
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,920
Speaker 3: absolutely crazy. So first he gets captured, he gets sent

121
00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:40,159
Speaker 3: to like a late labor camp. He's forced to you know,

122
00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,839
Speaker 3: work seven days a week, barely any food. The food

123
00:05:43,839 --> 00:05:46,480
Speaker 3: that they do get, you know, has maggots. They're in

124
00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:50,119
Speaker 3: like the jungles. So like, the conditions are absolutely terrible.

125
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:53,479
Speaker 3: He gets all these seasons. But the worst part is

126
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:55,599
Speaker 3: like after like a year and a half, they finally

127
00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 3: start moving some of the prisoners and they put them

128
00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:01,720
Speaker 3: on a Japanese ship and that actually gets torpedoed by

129
00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:05,599
Speaker 3: the US military, and so then he's yeah, so he

130
00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:08,839
Speaker 3: somehow survives that, and he's on a life raft or

131
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 3: like you know, some piece of metal for five days

132
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:13,160
Speaker 3: out in the sea and you know, no food, no water,

133
00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:16,279
Speaker 3: just baking in the sun. And after five days, like

134
00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:18,040
Speaker 3: a ship finally founds them and he's like, oh, I'm

135
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:22,360
Speaker 3: finally getting rescued. Nope, is a Japanese navy again. So

136
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,479
Speaker 3: he becomes a prisoner again, and he gets sent to

137
00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:28,440
Speaker 3: a mine and you know, he's forced to do more labor,

138
00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,560
Speaker 3: and that mine was actually near Nagasaki, so when the

139
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:35,480
Speaker 3: atomic bomb drops, he actually feels that. So he's also

140
00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:36,560
Speaker 3: somehow like survives that.

141
00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:37,240
Speaker 1: Wow.

142
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 3: And then finally like you know, the war ends, the

143
00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:43,520
Speaker 3: American forces come, he's finally freed, and he actually goes

144
00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:46,360
Speaker 3: back lives like a relatively normal life, you know, marries

145
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,200
Speaker 3: an amazing woman, and he lives to like one hundred

146
00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 3: and one or one.

147
00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:50,960
Speaker 2: Hundred and two.

148
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:53,680
Speaker 3: And the fact, yeah, and the fact that this guy

149
00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,000
Speaker 3: had this like such a crazy life, like horrible conditions

150
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:58,719
Speaker 3: like came begins to describe and then goes on to

151
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 3: have like like pretty decent and good life, Like I

152
00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:02,479
Speaker 3: don't know if he's the luckiest man in the world.

153
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:05,159
Speaker 3: Or the unluckiest. But like, this story just puts like

154
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:06,520
Speaker 3: your entire life from perspective.

155
00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:09,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did that? So after you finish that book,

156
00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:12,960
Speaker 1: what was your reflection period? Like, how did that? How

157
00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:15,280
Speaker 1: did you change immediately after reading it?

158
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:17,760
Speaker 3: So for the next few months, I just didn't complain

159
00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:20,920
Speaker 3: as I like I would say. I couldn't complain like oh,

160
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:22,800
Speaker 3: it's just you know, it's really hot today, or I'm

161
00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:24,680
Speaker 3: like kind of hungry, or I have like a bunch

162
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:27,080
Speaker 3: of work to do. It's like I'm not at a

163
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:29,600
Speaker 3: labor camp. I'm not being forced to work. There was

164
00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:31,320
Speaker 3: this one punishment where they put him in like a

165
00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:33,679
Speaker 3: cage and the cage was so small, like you couldn't

166
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 3: even sit, so you're just standing for like hours and

167
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:39,480
Speaker 3: days at end. So just it's just hard to complain

168
00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:40,960
Speaker 3: about your life after you read a book like this.

169
00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally all right. So my answer on this question

170
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,960
Speaker 1: is a book called Good Reasons for Bad Feelings and

171
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:52,120
Speaker 1: it's by doctor Randolph Ness. So this guy is basically

172
00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:55,960
Speaker 1: considered the godfather of evolutionary psychology, and so what he

173
00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,320
Speaker 1: does is he really pulls back and he takes an

174
00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 1: evolutionary look at mental health problems, and I would say

175
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:07,679
Speaker 1: that with the rise of modern science, we've really pinned

176
00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 1: any psychological issues on neuroscience and you know, chemicals in

177
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:15,120
Speaker 1: the brain. But this guy says when you pull back,

178
00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:19,200
Speaker 1: he sort of asks, all right, if mental issues are bad,

179
00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:23,200
Speaker 1: why wouldn't they have been weeded out by evolution? Right?

180
00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense, So they had to have some purpose.

181
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:28,240
Speaker 1: And so then he walks through a lot of things

182
00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:32,680
Speaker 1: like anxiety, depression, and he helps you understand why these

183
00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,040
Speaker 1: things happen in the first place. A good example is depression.

184
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:40,400
Speaker 1: He theorizes, yes, some amount of depression is biological, but

185
00:08:40,520 --> 00:08:43,640
Speaker 1: probably a larger part of it is just people living

186
00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:46,439
Speaker 1: a life that's not aligned with what their ultimate goals

187
00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:48,840
Speaker 1: for living are. They're just kind of stuck, and so

188
00:08:48,880 --> 00:08:51,480
Speaker 1: it kind of provides a pathway out for people that

189
00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:54,800
Speaker 1: I think is really practical. And I also like that

190
00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:58,679
Speaker 1: he was really clear on what we can say and

191
00:08:58,760 --> 00:09:01,480
Speaker 1: can't say about this Sien. He's like, yes, there's definitely

192
00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:03,800
Speaker 1: something that's biological, because a lot of times people will

193
00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:05,800
Speaker 1: be like, oh, it's all on your head, right, But

194
00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:08,280
Speaker 1: he's also pointing a lot of it is just how

195
00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 1: you're living and turns out there's a really good reason

196
00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:12,559
Speaker 1: for that. So if you can reframe that in your

197
00:09:12,600 --> 00:09:15,480
Speaker 1: mind as more of a signal than a problem, a

198
00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:18,160
Speaker 1: signal to change course or do something else. I just

199
00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:20,360
Speaker 1: thought I was like, this is great because it just

200
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,760
Speaker 1: it gives you, like, you learn a ton, it's fascinating.

201
00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:25,920
Speaker 1: But along the way you're like, oh, here's what I

202
00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:28,680
Speaker 1: can do if I ever feel down or xyz. So

203
00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:29,840
Speaker 1: I thought that was an awesome one.

204
00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:31,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one sounds fascinating. I'm going to add that

205
00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:32,560
Speaker 2: one to my reading list.

206
00:09:32,679 --> 00:09:36,199
Speaker 1: He did another book years before that was called Why

207
00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:39,120
Speaker 1: We Get Sick. He wrote it with a co author

208
00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:43,360
Speaker 1: who was looked at sort of evolutionary reasons around health problems.

209
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:45,360
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the book that I would say

210
00:09:45,679 --> 00:09:47,960
Speaker 1: made him famous. But then he sort of took that

211
00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:50,599
Speaker 1: same idea and really just focusing on mental health. So

212
00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,200
Speaker 1: it's a good one. A fiction book that actually changed

213
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:57,440
Speaker 1: your behavior. That is to say, you read this fiction book,

214
00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:00,680
Speaker 1: it's all made up, but then you it's something different

215
00:10:00,679 --> 00:10:01,480
Speaker 1: and your life improved.

216
00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:04,079
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with the Picture of Dorian Gray by

217
00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:07,920
Speaker 3: Oscar Wilde to give those synopsis. It's basically like this rich,

218
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,880
Speaker 3: young dude. He loves his life, and one day he

219
00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 3: gets someone to paint a portrait of him, and he says, like, wow,

220
00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:15,480
Speaker 3: this portrait is so beautiful.

221
00:10:15,520 --> 00:10:16,280
Speaker 2: I look so good.

222
00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:19,040
Speaker 3: I wish that I could look this way forever, and

223
00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:21,480
Speaker 3: he basically kind of yeah, spoiler. He kind of cruises

224
00:10:21,559 --> 00:10:25,679
Speaker 3: himself because he realizes that he can go and do

225
00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:29,320
Speaker 3: things like bad things and he doesn't get affected by it.

226
00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:30,160
Speaker 2: His portrait does.

227
00:10:30,679 --> 00:10:33,720
Speaker 3: So something happens where I think he drops like a

228
00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:35,880
Speaker 3: glass and like cuts it cuts his face or something

229
00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,160
Speaker 3: like that. But then it like heals like right away,

230
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,560
Speaker 3: but the portrait has like a scar in his face.

231
00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:44,640
Speaker 3: And over the next you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years,

232
00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:46,960
Speaker 3: he goes gambling, he starts drinking.

233
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:48,720
Speaker 2: He's just hooking.

234
00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:50,439
Speaker 3: Up with everyone left and right, going to all these

235
00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:53,200
Speaker 3: parties and just living this life with sin basically, but

236
00:10:53,559 --> 00:10:55,079
Speaker 3: he stays the same forever.

237
00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:55,880
Speaker 2: He looks the same.

238
00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:00,240
Speaker 3: But he realizes the portrait gets uglier and uglier and uglier,

239
00:11:00,640 --> 00:11:04,360
Speaker 3: and he basically starts to realize he could almost get

240
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:06,360
Speaker 3: away with anything. But that kind of takes him like

241
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 3: he has downward spiral where he keeps doing worse and

242
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:13,520
Speaker 3: worse things, and eventually it commits murder and to give

243
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:16,960
Speaker 3: the ending away, he tries to destroy the portrait, but

244
00:11:17,360 --> 00:11:19,720
Speaker 3: in the end he ends up just killing himself because

245
00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:22,160
Speaker 3: he the portrait is him. Well, I basically took away

246
00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:24,840
Speaker 3: with that is like, you could do bad stuff in

247
00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:28,080
Speaker 3: life and it might not reflect on you immediately, but

248
00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 3: internally it is kind of like destroying you. It's hurting you,

249
00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,360
Speaker 3: and in the long run, the actions you take will

250
00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:36,560
Speaker 3: have impact on you in your life. And I kind

251
00:11:36,559 --> 00:11:39,080
Speaker 3: of have a theory that the more aligned you are

252
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:41,760
Speaker 3: with your purpose, like you were saying, the less vices

253
00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:44,840
Speaker 3: you have. And that book basically like impacted me to

254
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:47,760
Speaker 3: try to stay on the right path, do the right thing,

255
00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:51,200
Speaker 3: you'll have a good life and like you basically don't

256
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:52,800
Speaker 3: want to fall to temptations in life.

257
00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:54,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. And the fact that probably the

258
00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:56,800
Speaker 1: fact that it's all you're seeing this all unfold in

259
00:11:56,880 --> 00:11:59,640
Speaker 1: this main character's life and you know you of course

260
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:02,360
Speaker 1: aren't going out going Oh I gamble a ton, I

261
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:04,959
Speaker 1: do all these crazy things, but you're like, oh, you

262
00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:08,240
Speaker 1: see one step lead to another. It's a it's an unfolding.

263
00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:09,760
Speaker 1: He doesn't go out and murder someone on day one.

264
00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:12,240
Speaker 1: It's just this sort of downward spiral of acceptance and

265
00:12:12,280 --> 00:12:14,720
Speaker 1: then you just see him slowly devolve because of these

266
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,079
Speaker 1: small choices he makes every day.

267
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:17,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

268
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,040
Speaker 3: Now, like I'm in my thirties and I see like

269
00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:23,000
Speaker 3: all the kind of friends I was with in my twenties,

270
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:25,679
Speaker 3: like the small actions daytok. Like maybe the friend that

271
00:12:25,840 --> 00:12:28,880
Speaker 3: kind of went out drinking multiple times a week. Now

272
00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:31,120
Speaker 3: I see them and they're like overweight or on Hyppi

273
00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:33,440
Speaker 3: in life. Or this kid that you know really got

274
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:35,959
Speaker 3: into like sports gambling, you know, spends way too much

275
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:37,800
Speaker 3: money and now it affects him like a negative way,

276
00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:40,679
Speaker 3: and you like you don't see the actions over a

277
00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:42,680
Speaker 3: day to day, but over the years, over the decades,

278
00:12:42,679 --> 00:12:45,120
Speaker 3: they're really build up. And so like everyone has like

279
00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:47,920
Speaker 3: this portrait of themselves, but you won't see it until, like,

280
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:49,480
Speaker 3: you know, decades down the road.

281
00:12:49,800 --> 00:12:52,199
Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense, all right. I think my answer

282
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:54,600
Speaker 1: I had to think on this because I will admit

283
00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:57,640
Speaker 1: I don't read a ton of fiction, always in the

284
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,120
Speaker 1: trenches reading nonfiction stuff because it kind of inflo it

285
00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:02,720
Speaker 1: says my own work. But I would say East of

286
00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:07,400
Speaker 1: Eden had a big impact on me. One just extremely

287
00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:10,520
Speaker 1: well written, you just feel like you're in the place

288
00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:14,520
Speaker 1: it's set, which is kind of the farming area of California,

289
00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:17,080
Speaker 1: and it has this like big arc of time following

290
00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:21,120
Speaker 1: this family across time, and as the book unfolds, you

291
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:25,280
Speaker 1: start to see how the past and sort of your

292
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:29,080
Speaker 1: roots don't necessarily have to impact the choices that you

293
00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:31,160
Speaker 1: make in day to day life. So it's like, I

294
00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:33,880
Speaker 1: think the lesson of the book is that you do

295
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:37,120
Speaker 1: have agency and just because something happened in the past,

296
00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:39,080
Speaker 1: that doesn't have to steer your future, almost like with

297
00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:42,000
Speaker 1: what you said with the last book, and so for

298
00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:44,440
Speaker 1: me when I walked away, it was like to what

299
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:47,000
Speaker 1: you just said, it's like you can reset any time

300
00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:49,680
Speaker 1: and you have agency of how you're going to steer

301
00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:52,280
Speaker 1: your life. And not to mention, it's just a really

302
00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:57,319
Speaker 1: great read. Yeah yeah, okay, next one a fiction book

303
00:13:57,320 --> 00:14:01,880
Speaker 1: that delivers zero utility other than pure entertainment.

304
00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:03,480
Speaker 3: I'm gonna cheat a little bit on this one because

305
00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:05,720
Speaker 3: it's like you, I don't read that much nonfiction, so

306
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,640
Speaker 3: technically it's a nonfiction book. It's called Disappointing Affirmations by

307
00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:12,760
Speaker 3: Dave Tarnowski, So we all know there's like all these

308
00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:15,920
Speaker 3: positive affirmations and like books like that, this guy took

309
00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:18,079
Speaker 3: the exact opposite approach where he's going to give you

310
00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,640
Speaker 3: like a disappointing affirmation. So like one is, don't be sad,

311
00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:25,800
Speaker 3: you're making everyone uncomfortable, or things didn't work out for

312
00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,480
Speaker 3: a reason. The reason is you make terrible decisions. And

313
00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:32,320
Speaker 3: this guy, just like he was I'm getting the story correctly,

314
00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:35,080
Speaker 3: he was also like depressed, like in bad position in life,

315
00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:36,720
Speaker 3: and he was tired of all these positive affirmations that

316
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:40,040
Speaker 3: weren't helping. So he wrote all all these disappointing affirmations

317
00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:41,760
Speaker 3: where he's like you laugh, you cry a little bit,

318
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:44,200
Speaker 3: they have true to them. So although it is a

319
00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:46,920
Speaker 3: nonfiction book, it is highly entertaining and it'll make you

320
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:48,400
Speaker 3: laugh and maybe like cry.

321
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:49,520
Speaker 2: So that's a good one.

322
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 1: Awesome, I'm already laughing after two sentences you've read. So

323
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:55,400
Speaker 1: that's that's going to go high on the list. So

324
00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:59,480
Speaker 1: mine is Confederacy at Dunces. So it was written in

325
00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:03,160
Speaker 1: I think of fifties or sixties. It's about this character

326
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:08,000
Speaker 1: named Ignacious Riley who lives in New Orleans and he

327
00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 1: lives with his mom. He's way over educated and he

328
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:14,800
Speaker 1: has just this view of himself, like he is the

329
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:17,200
Speaker 1: smartest person in the world, he's the most important person

330
00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:19,480
Speaker 1: in the world, and he's just the most absurd character

331
00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:22,400
Speaker 1: of all time. And it follows him and various other

332
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 1: characters as they're sort of navigating New Orleans. But literally,

333
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:31,480
Speaker 1: nothing has ever made me laugh harder, not a stand

334
00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:36,640
Speaker 1: up routine, not a movie. This book is just so funny.

335
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:38,360
Speaker 1: Like if you are you have to have a little

336
00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 1: bit weird sense of humor for it to hit. But

337
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:43,760
Speaker 1: if you like Seinfeld, I would say, like, this is

338
00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:48,240
Speaker 1: the book that would most tightly align with Seinfeld, but

339
00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:51,520
Speaker 1: even funnier because it's far more absortive. So a few

340
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:54,360
Speaker 1: quotes that I love from the book that I'm going

341
00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:57,800
Speaker 1: to read, and these are quotes from the main character.

342
00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:03,640
Speaker 1: Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking,

343
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:07,560
Speaker 1: and that's when he gets fired from his like fiftieth job. Next,

344
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:10,160
Speaker 1: you can tell by the way he talked though, that

345
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,200
Speaker 1: he had probably gone to school a long time. That

346
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:14,840
Speaker 1: was what was wrong with him.

347
00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:16,640
Speaker 2: Like, that's so true.

348
00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:19,720
Speaker 1: And then finally, you can always tell employees of the

349
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:22,880
Speaker 1: government by the total vacancy, which occupies the space where

350
00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:28,480
Speaker 1: most other people have faces unbelievable. So that is one

351
00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:31,160
Speaker 1: if you just want, like purely I want to laugh,

352
00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:35,040
Speaker 1: I want to be entertained. The story really goes kind

353
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:39,000
Speaker 1: of nowhere, but it's amazing nonetheless. And I also say

354
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote it, John Kennedy Toole, really fascinating character,

355
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:46,680
Speaker 1: but totally tragic. So he writes I think he was

356
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:50,520
Speaker 1: a professor at Tulane or something in literature. He writes

357
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:53,160
Speaker 1: the book, he takes it out to all these publishers.

358
00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:56,200
Speaker 1: He gets rejected by every single publisher sends him into

359
00:16:56,200 --> 00:17:00,000
Speaker 1: this crazy depressive spiral. He ends up committing suicide unfortunately,

360
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:03,200
Speaker 1: and then his mom years later finds the manuscript like

361
00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,080
Speaker 1: in their attic, she reads it, she starts handing publishers.

362
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:09,959
Speaker 1: One says yes, they publish it, and it ends up

363
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:12,520
Speaker 1: winning the Pulitzer in like nineteen eighty two or something

364
00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:14,119
Speaker 1: like that. Just crazy story.

365
00:17:14,359 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there was some of a story with

366
00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:17,760
Speaker 3: like Moby Dick, the guy that wrote it. It was

367
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 3: like a failure. And the amount of like authors who've

368
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,400
Speaker 3: written books where they didn't publish it or it didn't

369
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,680
Speaker 3: become like a hit during their time until after they died.

370
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:27,280
Speaker 3: It's so crazy because you think you think you're a

371
00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 3: failure and then your book is like the classic or beloved,

372
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:31,800
Speaker 3: so that that's just wild.

373
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a there's a book by Chuck Klosterman called

374
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:37,760
Speaker 1: but What If We're Wrong? And it just looks at

375
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,560
Speaker 1: how wrong we often are in retrospect, and he actually

376
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:43,760
Speaker 1: uses Moby Dick as an example of you know, book

377
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:47,040
Speaker 1: is amazing, get to published, totally fails, But then World

378
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:49,640
Speaker 1: War One happens, and there's something about the cultural conditions

379
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:51,399
Speaker 1: of World War One where that book just all of

380
00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:53,639
Speaker 1: a sudden starts to resonate and that like pushes it

381
00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:57,439
Speaker 1: into the classic that it is. Now. Wow, all right,

382
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:01,840
Speaker 1: now we're doing overrated or under in terms of self

383
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:05,600
Speaker 1: improvement books. So tell us if they're overrated or underrated,

384
00:18:05,960 --> 00:18:08,240
Speaker 1: And if you want to throw on a sentence or

385
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:11,800
Speaker 1: two of why, feel free to atomic catics.

386
00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:16,360
Speaker 3: James Claire underrated, still underrated? I have I have three

387
00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,840
Speaker 3: copies of the book. I've read it at least five times.

388
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:23,439
Speaker 3: I'm reading it now. And the fact that he's able

389
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:25,760
Speaker 3: to structure the book in such a way where it's

390
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:28,760
Speaker 3: so simple to follow. It's always like an interesting story.

391
00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 3: It starts with and the way he makes like even

392
00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:33,919
Speaker 3: scientific studies interesting. That's why I've been like trying to

393
00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,400
Speaker 3: borrow from him, Like I'm reading the study and I'm

394
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 3: reading the actual study, I'm like, this is so boring,

395
00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:42,040
Speaker 3: but he just makes it sound so cool and just

396
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 3: so actionable, Like every other sentence you want to highlight

397
00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:46,359
Speaker 3: is like, oh, this is such a good line. Like

398
00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,800
Speaker 3: he was kind of like the original, like tweeter or

399
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:52,640
Speaker 3: like the original like not in the ball, like capturing

400
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,560
Speaker 3: like a whole chapter in a sentence. And I have

401
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:57,800
Speaker 3: had the chance to meet him in person a couple

402
00:18:57,760 --> 00:18:59,200
Speaker 3: of times, and he just like super smart.

403
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did a nice job like tightening that, not

404
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:05,280
Speaker 1: over explaining that, and make it making it very readable.

405
00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:08,160
Speaker 1: To that note, I would say, if you love that book.

406
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:11,680
Speaker 1: There's a book called Don't Shoot the Dog, and it's

407
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:15,880
Speaker 1: by this lady whose name is Karen Pryor. I think

408
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:18,640
Speaker 1: she might have passed away recently at like ninety five

409
00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:22,000
Speaker 1: or something, but she was a behavioral psychologist, kind of

410
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 1: one of the ogs in the field. She did a

411
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 1: lot of training with animals, and so it really looks

412
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:32,919
Speaker 1: at behavioral psychology how to instill habits in animals or

413
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:35,800
Speaker 1: humans and also how to break habits. And it's just

414
00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:38,480
Speaker 1: it's great because she's been in the trenches. She's got

415
00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:41,159
Speaker 1: all the academic background, but she's actually like on the

416
00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:42,760
Speaker 1: ground doing the work. So you get a lot of

417
00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 1: cool anecdotes. So I would check that one out if

418
00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:45,199
Speaker 1: I of you.

419
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:46,119
Speaker 2: We'll do.

420
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,440
Speaker 1: Next book, seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

421
00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:52,920
Speaker 2: So this might surprise you. But I actually haven't read

422
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:53,320
Speaker 2: that book.

423
00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:55,920
Speaker 1: Okay, I read it a long time ago. I can't

424
00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:58,160
Speaker 1: even remember much about it. So we'll call it neutral,

425
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 1: I guess man search for meaning, underrated, way underwriting.

426
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, even though it's also so like millions of copies,

427
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,840
Speaker 3: Like again, incredible story gets then so like you know,

428
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:15,200
Speaker 3: concentration Camp survives. It is able to motivate himself to survive,

429
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:18,160
Speaker 3: and he basically because he was a psychoanalyst. He starts

430
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:20,680
Speaker 3: looking at why do some people give up while others don't?

431
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:22,119
Speaker 2: Was the reason for doing so?

432
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 3: And then yeah, he also goes on to become a professor,

433
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,520
Speaker 3: you know, and write multiple books and able to live

434
00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 3: like a really normal life compared to other people that

435
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:32,400
Speaker 3: also survived and then weren't able to so the way

436
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 3: he kind of has a lens on life and just

437
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,280
Speaker 3: such a crazy experience. That's the book that I think

438
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:39,240
Speaker 3: literally everyone should read.

439
00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And I think what makes that book

440
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:44,080
Speaker 1: so strong is he did he had the experience, but

441
00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:48,400
Speaker 1: then he also had the academic background and like the

442
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:51,520
Speaker 1: therapy background, so he could really take this extreme experience

443
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:53,600
Speaker 1: which thank god most people are not going to go through,

444
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:55,919
Speaker 1: but apply it to help you understand. Oh, here's how

445
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: this applies to my life, which was which was awesome.

446
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,920
Speaker 1: Did you read Twelve Rules for Life Jordan Peterson?

447
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 2: Yeah?

448
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:08,000
Speaker 3: Also, I would say his best book underrated. What I

449
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 3: love most about him is that he took a psychology

450
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:15,920
Speaker 3: lens on religion and even like Disney movies, like analyzing

451
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,520
Speaker 3: in a unique way, and like you said, the Hero's Journey,

452
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:22,360
Speaker 3: Like he has this great lecture on the Lion King,

453
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:24,680
Speaker 3: and how that's like the Hero's Journey, it is a

454
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:27,960
Speaker 3: little bit harder to read. I kind of think of

455
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 3: his book as like a more advanced version of the

456
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:34,080
Speaker 3: Subtle Art, where the lessons are super similar. It's just

457
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 3: he has a lot more psychology and the academic background,

458
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 3: and he just has like more religion and philosophy in

459
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 3: his book compared to Mark Manson's book. But those two

460
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:43,199
Speaker 3: books I feel find like super similar.

461
00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:49,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. We actually inspired by Peterson's lecture

462
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:52,200
Speaker 1: using the Lion King on the Hero's Journey. I would

463
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 1: actually make my when I was a professor at UNLV

464
00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 1: and I taught like this four hundred level writing class

465
00:21:57,320 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: on how to structure narratives, I would make them wat

466
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 1: watch The Sandlot because the Sandlot is if you watch

467
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: the first like twenty minutes of that, it is perfectly

468
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,439
Speaker 1: structured for how to build a story. It's like, you

469
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,000
Speaker 1: take this character, things are fine, Oh, but now we

470
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:14,880
Speaker 1: have to move and stuff sucks, and then like, oh,

471
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,640
Speaker 1: now this guide comes in in the form of, oh,

472
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,320
Speaker 1: I forget his name, is it Vinnie or something? The

473
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: kid who's really good at baseball, and then he sort

474
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 1: of sets off on this new course. But then we

475
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 1: have a problem with like the ball that his was

476
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 1: signed by Babe Ruth gets hit into the dog's yard.

477
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:34,680
Speaker 1: It's just like amazing four hour work week.

478
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 3: I have to say maybe slightly overrated just because it's

479
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 3: a bit outdated. I think it was published in two

480
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 3: thousand and four, so like a lot of the lessons

481
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 3: or the principles are still applicable, but a lot of

482
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 3: the he has like a lot of links to things

483
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:51,879
Speaker 3: and he tells you, like, you know, you could do

484
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:54,439
Speaker 3: this instead of that. So now that has been like

485
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 3: twenty years ago, I feel like and he's like an update.

486
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:57,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

487
00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 3: So actually my friend NOA. Kagan wrote but the Million

488
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 3: Dollar a Week, which I feel like is an updated version

489
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 3: of that book. But I have huge respect for Tim

490
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 3: Ferrier's love his books in his podcast.

491
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's just the point in time. It

492
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 1: was like it was probably underrated at that time, and

493
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: then twenty years later, I'm like, Okay, maybe doesn't apply

494
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: as much today. So you got no okag in there?

495
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 1: Do you have Do you have any strong thoughts on

496
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: self help books that are very overrated? Is there one

497
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: you're like that one's a way overrated right now?

498
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 3: I think some of the just the mindset books, so

499
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:28,920
Speaker 3: like the uh, I might get a lot of hate

500
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 3: for this, but the power of now I try to

501
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 3: get into I just wasn't able to. I know a

502
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 3: lot of people like The Secret some of those like

503
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 3: spiritual books or where it's just like you just need

504
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 3: to change your mindset. It's like, that's change your mindset

505
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,200
Speaker 3: just step one. Step two is actually like taking action.

506
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 3: You can't just all right, I'm gonna think positively in

507
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 3: my life's gonna get better. It's like, no, that that's

508
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 3: the first step, but then you actually have to make

509
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 3: it better.

510
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I would argue that the mindset comes after

511
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: the doing something like you have to do something because

512
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 1: you learn earn by the doing, and then the lesson

513
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 1: becomes like, oh, can I now think differently about myself?

514
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I agree.

515
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: All right, let's say you're going to start a cult,

516
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: as we all do every now and then think about, yeah,

517
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:14,399
Speaker 1: I can you know what I could do lead a cult?

518
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:16,360
Speaker 1: What book would you assign if you're going to start

519
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: a cult?

520
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 3: I have this book, The Elephant in the Brain, so

521
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 3: basically is written by one of the people or the psychologists,

522
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 3: other ones like a blogger. And what's fascinating, like the

523
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:27,719
Speaker 3: two sent of the summary is that everything we do

524
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 3: in life, you have the reason you tell people and

525
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 3: kind of like a deeper, maybe sometimes darker reason. So

526
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 3: one of the favorite, one of my favorite examples in

527
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 3: the book is that only one percent of the charitable

528
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 3: genations are anonymous, so you would think that people that

529
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:44,199
Speaker 3: donates charity they're just doing it because they want to

530
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 3: do good, but actually they want to be seen doing good.

531
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 3: So if you look at universities, hospitals, libraries, they always

532
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 3: have like some billionaire's name or something because they want

533
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 3: to not just give them money, but they want other

534
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 3: people to know like, hey, I'm a good person. And

535
00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 3: so you know, people always have this double motivation. And

536
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 3: even the authors say, like, we wrote this book because

537
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 3: we want to educate people about this topic. But if

538
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 3: we actually wanted to reach the most amountain people, we

539
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:08,959
Speaker 3: would have made an ebook and made a free so

540
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,360
Speaker 3: anyone could read it. But because we wanted to get

541
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 3: paid and we wanted like some prestige and status, we

542
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,400
Speaker 3: went with like a big five publisher. Yeah, and they

543
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 3: give so many examples of like there's always two reasons

544
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 3: for people doing things, and they're super transparent with their

545
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 3: own book. So yeah, if I want to start a CULL,

546
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 3: I would have like, hey, I want to accomplish this

547
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 3: good thing, but actually I want to accomplish this good

548
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 3: thing because I want to have power where I want

549
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 3: to like lead people in this way or something like that.

550
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 3: So this was a super fascinating read.

551
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: Awesome. I love it. This sounds like when my tax

552
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: guy calls me and says, hey, you should donate to charity.

553
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, and

554
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: he goes, it's a giant tax right off too. I go,

555
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 1: it's definitely a good idea. Now, yeah, all right, So

556
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 1: I think my response would be The True Believer by

557
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 1: Eric Hoffer. So Eric Hoffer was this guy, and I

558
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: think he wrote it in the forties fifties. He was

559
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: a longshoreman, I think in sam Francisco, but like super

560
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:04,120
Speaker 1: bright guy, like no academic training, but he would go

561
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: do his long shoreman duties in the day'd write this

562
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 1: book at night. And basically his core argument is that

563
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,959
Speaker 1: mass movements, whether they be religious, whether it be a cult,

564
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: a revolution, they all draw from the same pool of people.

565
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: It's not the super poor people, it's not the people

566
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:24,919
Speaker 1: whose lives are going super great. It's this sort of

567
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: middle group of people who are frustrated and they're dissatisfied

568
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: with life and they can't figure out how to get

569
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: out of it. So when a mass movement comes in,

570
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: they get attracted to this because it allows them to

571
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: sort of offload their thinking and their pain and whatever

572
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: to this one goal of the movement. So he argues,

573
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: when you look at where these sort of extreme movements

574
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 1: pop up, they're always among groups that have a lot

575
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: of dissatisfied people. And so the sort of the leader

576
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 1: comes in and goes, hey, here's the solution to all

577
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: your problems, join me doesn't a lot of times, he argues,

578
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: it doesn't even matter what the message is, just needs

579
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: to be like this collective, we're going to get out

580
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 1: of this together, and you can just offload that. So

581
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 1: the reason I would have signed that where I'd start

582
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 1: a cult is that joining a cult is a terrible idea,

583
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,719
Speaker 1: And so I would have signed that book because it

584
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: is the anti cult book. And so people would see me,

585
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: they would read that book and they go, you know what,

586
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,479
Speaker 1: I don't want to join join your cult. I'm going

587
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: to go do something with my life. So that is

588
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: my answer.

589
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good answer.

590
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say that you are a coach of a

591
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 1: pro sports team. What book are you signing.

592
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 3: I'm going with a Mindset by kel Jwack. Awesome, I've

593
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 3: read that this book. Yeah, completely life chaining too minute.

594
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 3: Summary is that people you have two mindsets. One's a

595
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 3: limited belief where you think like, oh, I'm just not

596
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 3: good at this thing and I'll never be good at

597
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 3: this thing. Or you can have a growth mindset where

598
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 3: it's like, I'm not good at this thing because I

599
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: haven't had enough practice or enough reps. And I've noticed

600
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 3: this in myself. So like, growing up, I'm pretty tall

601
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: guy and I played basketball, so I was always like

602
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 3: what they would call the censor, the guy that's closest

603
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 3: to the basket who does like a or a dunk

604
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 3: or like a short jump shot. And I would never

605
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 3: be considered like a shooter until I started taking this

606
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 3: basketball class where you literally spend like an hour just

607
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 3: doing shooting drills, and that really helped improve my jump shot.

608
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 3: And now, like, you know, I'm not an amazing shooter,

609
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 3: but I'm like decent. And if you look at the NBA,

610
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 3: like now, like Wemby, one of the tallest guys in

611
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 3: the league, he's taking three pointers. All these big guys

612
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 3: are taking three pointers. So it's been like this huge

613
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 3: mindset belief like oh, just because I'm tall, it doesn't

614
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 3: mean I can't shoot.

615
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: I just haven't had enough practice.

616
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 3: So yeah, I would sign that out to whatever team

617
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 3: is like, Hey, if you're bad at this, you just

618
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 3: got to put more reps and you'll.

619
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 2: Get better at it.

620
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: Yeah that makes sense. How tall are you?

621
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 2: Six six six seven you?

622
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:39,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see how you end up playing center,

623
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: center and high school, college, whatever it might be. I

624
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: think the book that I would assign where coaching a team,

625
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: and this is kind of a totally out there I

626
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: would guess that probably no one has read this. It's

627
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: called Practical Shooting Beyond Fundamentals. It's by a guy named

628
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: Brian Enos. So this guy it's not Brian Eno. The

629
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: musician is Brian Enos. This guy was a He did

630
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: competitive shooting in the eighties. So competitive shooting where you

631
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 1: kind of go through these courses you get scored based

632
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: on your time and where in the target you hit.

633
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: It was really popular in the eighties. This guy was

634
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: one of the best in the game. But what makes

635
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: him interesting is that he's super deep into zen and

636
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: he'd always like he'd picked up zen I think when

637
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: he was maybe in his teens and had always practiced it,

638
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: I mean like deep, and so a lot of his

639
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: argument is that good shooting and perfect performance comes from

640
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: like basically the self dissolving and you just have these

641
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: complete flow states. And he really walks through how do

642
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: you find that? And he writes about matches where he's like,

643
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: you know, the buzzer started, and he's like everything slowed

644
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: down and it was like it felt like this ten

645
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: second twenty second thing just felt like an hour, and

646
00:29:56,880 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: I remember every moment and I would just be far

647
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: ahead of the competition, and he kind of walks in like,

648
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: how do you find that perfect state? So I think

649
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: that's what I would assigned. I hung out with him

650
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: for a little bit and he's just like the most

651
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: fascinating dude ever, Just just amazing, and especially I also

652
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: love the combination of like, on one hand, we have zen,

653
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: but we're applying it to shooting, and of course the

654
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: book is guns. Yeah, shooting guns, like you know, you

655
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 1: have to be like totally mindfully zen, like focused as

656
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: there's an explosion going on at the end of your hand. Yeah,

657
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: but he argues in the book, you can really apply

658
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: it to anything. Yeah, do you have kids?

659
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 2: That sounds a good one.

660
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't either, So this question might be

661
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,239
Speaker 1: we may cut this, but we'll go with it. If

662
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: you if you had kids, what would you sign your

663
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: kids to read?

664
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 3: So we have learned like a Pro by Barbara Hoakley.

665
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,479
Speaker 3: So Barbara's known for she has this viral online course

666
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 3: like learning how to learn. She's written several books on

667
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 3: the topic. This one's actually one of my phrase just

668
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 3: because of how short it is. It's like on their

669
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty pages, and it's a skill. Like

670
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 3: you know, we're sends a school to learn, but we're

671
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 3: never taught how to learn. So, like one biggest lesson

672
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 3: is I took away from this book and it took

673
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 3: me so long to realize this is that reading a

674
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 3: book or text or whatever the difference between understanding it

675
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: and remembering it. So when you read it, it goes

676
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 3: into your working memory, which you could kind of think

677
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 3: of like your short term memory, and you think you

678
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 3: know it because you just read it and you understand it.

679
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 3: But memory is actually a result of recall. So it's

680
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 3: not about putting information in your mind. It's about recalling

681
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 3: information like retrieving it. So if you actually want to

682
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 3: remember something, you know, put the book down and think about, like,

683
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 3: what's one lesson I learned from this, and you want

684
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 3: to repeat that the next day, the next week, and

685
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 3: you constantly want to pull that information to the front

686
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 3: of your mind. And if you do that enough times,

687
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 3: it goes from your short term memory or your working memory.

688
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 2: To your long term memory.

689
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 3: And that's like, that was like a big unlock because like, oh,

690
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 3: like I've been reading books wrong for years and it's like,

691
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 3: now I know how to do it. And she covers

692
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 3: all these other topics. So any anyone who's a student

693
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 3: should check out this book.

694
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: I love it. I think my answer would be I'm

695
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: not going to say the Comfort Crisis because I wrote

696
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: that book and it would be And also, if I

697
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: had children, they'd be living with me and I'd probably

698
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: be telling them about that. Well I have, yeah, they'd

699
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: be living it. I have had a lot of parents

700
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: assign that to their kids. I think I would say

701
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: a book called The Score by t Win. We recently

702
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: actually had him on the podcast, and he's a philosopher

703
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: at the University of Utah, and he basically argues that

704
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: in daily life, when we quantify things and put a

705
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: number on it, it tends to capture why we're doing

706
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: the thing in the first place. So I think the

707
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:36,959
Speaker 1: example for kids is great. So why do you go

708
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: to school? There's like a million reasons, right, It's why

709
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: I want to learn some stuff. I want to learn

710
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: how to think, I want to make friends, I need

711
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: to learn social skills, I need to do all these

712
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: complicated things. But what do students really care about. They

713
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: only care about their A and their GPA, and so

714
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: they get overly focused on this thing while missing the

715
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: overall plot. But you can apply that to salary, how

716
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: people will just obsessed about making more money at the

717
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: expense of their happiness. You can apply it to all

718
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: these government metrics. I mean, it's just everywhere. And so

719
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: I think I would assign them that because I think

720
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: it helps people keep their eye on the larger ball

721
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: of why am I doing this thing in the first place,

722
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: and just generally make better decisions and not get captured

723
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: by like, oh, I just need this number to change

724
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 1: and my life will be better.

725
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's I'm baking out on the mental model of it.

726
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 3: But it's like, once a measure becomes a measure, it

727
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 3: becomes a bad measure because you only measure that one thing. Yeah,

728
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 3: all the other factors around it.

729
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's called Goodheart's law. Yeah, yeah, so it aligns

730
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: a lot with that. We'll take a break and then

731
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: Alex and I will talk about if we could choose

732
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: any author to spend a day with. Who that would be? Okay,

733
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: author can be living or dead, can be anyone author

734
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: that you would want to spend a day with.

735
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 3: This might be under the radar, but I'm gonna go

736
00:33:58,120 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 3: with Alex Hermosi.

737
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: Awesome.

738
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say, like he's so I'm really fascinated

739
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 3: by people like super articulate, and he would put him

740
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 3: up there with like Jordan Peterson and a couple of

741
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 3: the authors where they choose their words so carefully. And

742
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 3: one thing Hermosi does, he like he actually defines the

743
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 3: words he talking about so that way people are on

744
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 3: the same page and understand it. So that's like one

745
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 3: of the skills I really want to develop, just being able,

746
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 3: like being able to communicate effectively, you know, being able

747
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:33,399
Speaker 3: to describe situations, feelings, events, like just in a way

748
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,879
Speaker 3: that everyone can understand it and communicate that. I think

749
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 3: that's such a powerful skill and also be cool to

750
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 3: work out with him.

751
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:41,839
Speaker 1: So I'm like minor friends with him. We've hung out

752
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: a few times because we have we share a best

753
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: friend in common, and so he's a really nice guy. One.

754
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 1: He's nice, he's like that in person. I did lift

755
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: with him. I'm going to tell you you may want

756
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: to regret, you may not want to do that.

757
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 2: You going to feel it.

758
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 1: You're going to feel it. He you know, he's lifting whatever,

759
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,879
Speaker 1: and we're doing like it's the me, my friend Trever

760
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: Cashy Alex, and we're doing like a you know, cycle

761
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: through weights. And so then I was behind Alex, so

762
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: I would have to go try and lift what he

763
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,879
Speaker 1: was lifting. And I remember those a few times where

764
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: he just looked over at me and just was like, oh,

765
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: you're so weak, but he was right, Yeah, he's a

766
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: good guy. I think my answer would be Edward Abbey,

767
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: who wrote Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang. So

768
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: Edward abby was this like desert rat and sort of

769
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: anarchist who was really just obsessed with like protecting nature,

770
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: the value of nature, why the government is screwing up nature,

771
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: and his most famous book, Desert Solitaire. He lived in

772
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 1: Arches National Park before it was a national park, I believe,

773
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: but they were starting to pave it and it's just

774
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: this like meditation on the value of nature. But it's

775
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: also he's got so much attitude and humor, and he

776
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:58,760
Speaker 1: was just this like big rough redneck who drank beer

777
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: all day and really like fought for the wilderness. And

778
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: I would just love to hang out with him.

779
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:06,439
Speaker 3: I'm actually a big fan of like books about nature,

780
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna check that one out too.

781
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd like that. I would say, start with Desert

782
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,760
Speaker 1: Solitaire and then The Monkey Ranch Gang is actually fiction,

783
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: but it's awesome. It's awesome, you'll like.

784
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 2: It all right, Cool?

785
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: Okay? Is there anything you think that the self improvement

786
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: genre gets wrong?

787
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 3: Tim Ferra has had to post about this a few

788
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 3: months ago, talking about like the toxic productivity. Yeah, and

789
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 3: I think that's actually.

790
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 2: Like I never viewed it that way.

791
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 3: I think so many people think, like, oh, I need

792
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 3: to become productive or better and then my life starts.

793
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 3: I think it's your life starts. There will always be

794
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 3: room for improvement, but you will never achieve like that perfection.

795
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 3: Like I know I'm never going to play in the NBA,

796
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 3: just like not good enough, too old. But I still

797
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,439
Speaker 3: like to work out to get better in fitness, get

798
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 3: better in CARDIOSI that way I can play better at basketball.

799
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 3: And I think like people might say, like, oh, I'm

800
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 3: not going to start dating until, like I love myself

801
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 3: where I fix all these problems, Like, well, you're never

802
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 3: going to fix all the problems. So the point is

803
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:04,879
Speaker 3: like to start dating and you know you might find

804
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 3: a partner that helps you, which is what happened to me.

805
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 3: So I think you should be able to read, probably

806
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 3: to be in all these self improvement books and know

807
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 3: that you're not. You're never going to achieve perfection and

808
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 3: you shouldn't try to, but you can constantly improve yourself

809
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 3: just to time you a bit better and be happy

810
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 3: with where you are, but also be motivated to become

811
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 3: better version of yourself. But you've got to be able

812
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 3: to hold those two thoughts together.

813
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think sometimes too people can read too

814
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: many books before they actually act on them. Like the

815
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: key is like obviously read books that are going to

816
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 1: help you, but then afterwards you kind of have to go,

817
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: all right, how am I going to use this in

818
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:41,919
Speaker 1: the world and actually go out and do it, because

819
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: that's where it actually the magic happens.

820
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the other thing I call like next book syndrome.

821
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, this next book that I read will

822
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 3: solve my life and all my problems.

823
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 2: But if you've.

824
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 3: Already read, you know, dozens or hundreds of bucks, and

825
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 3: you haven't taken action, the reading is and the problem

826
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 3: is the taking action part, you know. And I think

827
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 3: for fiction books, if you just the book, that's totally fine.

828
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 3: That's the goal of reading non of fiction. But the

829
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 3: goal of reading nonfiction is action, not just finishing the book.

830
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 3: So you know, if you finish a book, just try

831
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 3: to take one idea or one lesson from it and

832
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 3: go imply that one lesson. And even if you can

833
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 3: just do one thing when chained in your life, I

834
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 3: think that makes the time spend reading the book worthday.

835
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you. I think for me in the

836
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: nonfiction and self improvement space, sometimes there's too much certainty, right.

837
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: It's like, here's the one big idea that's going to

838
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: just completely overhaul everything. But there's you know, competing books

839
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: with that are all saying same big idea. So when

840
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: I'm writing books, I try and like hedge, you know,

841
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: there's other reasons for things. I also think that especially

842
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: books that try to use narrative. I think that authors

843
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: would maybe be better served if they did more on

844
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: the ground reporting and talk to people instead of solely

845
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: reading studies, because I've found in my own work, like

846
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,280
Speaker 1: I could read a study about, you know, some group

847
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: somewhere in the world, but when I go and travel

848
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:04,919
Speaker 1: and actually meet that group, you find that, like there's

849
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in the study that's like completely

850
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: wrong because things have changed over time, or like the

851
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: scientists were there for like twenty four hours, so they

852
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 1: didn't really get to the bond of things. So I

853
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: think that more authors would be better served to just

854
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: kind of get out in the world and learn things.

855
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just to give an example for your book,

856
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 3: at the Comfort Crisis, I remember or the two biggest

857
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 3: takeaways were one, take the stairs as much as possible.

858
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 3: So like whenever I'm going through like the New York

859
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 3: City subway, I'm like, all right, let me just take

860
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 3: the stairs instead of the escalator or the elevator. And

861
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 3: one is faster too. You get your steps in your

862
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 3: cardio and it's like, like I think you said it

863
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: was only two percent of people to take the stairs,

864
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 3: and you actually see in real time, so that's like

865
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 3: kind of cool to see. And the second one was

866
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 3: like the mesogi like picked something really hard to do

867
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 3: for that year. So like when I got knee surgery

868
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 3: like two years ago and I'm set a goal to

869
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 3: be able to dunk again and that was like really hard,

870
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 3: but now I could do it. Now my goal for

871
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 3: this year is like to be to finish my book manuscript. Yeah,

872
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 3: so like just those two less from your book. If

873
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 3: that's the only two lessons I took away from it,

874
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 3: I'm like super happy with that.

875
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 1: Awesome. I love it. I love to hear you apply

876
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: to it. That's that's a secret sauce. All right. Final question,

877
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: This one's semi off topic, going in a different direction.

878
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:14,439
Speaker 1: So the New York Times recently did a thing where

879
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 1: they showed people AI writing versus human writing, and a

880
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: lot of the readers actually preferred AI. What do you

881
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 1: think the implications of that are for books and where

882
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 1: books are going?

883
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 3: I think if I find out someone didn't take the

884
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 3: time to write something, why would I take the time

885
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 3: to read it? And yeah, I think experienced readers are

886
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 3: able to tell like what sounds like AI. I'm worried

887
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 3: in like five ten years from now, when it's like

888
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 3: as good as a person. But I think AI is

889
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 3: really a tool maybe for enhancing writing. But anyone that

890
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 3: uses it just to like replace writing, you're also replacing

891
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 3: the experience of writing. Where So, to give an example,

892
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 3: if you use AI to summarize the book, you understand

893
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,720
Speaker 3: the book, but you don't have that change in experience

894
00:40:58,760 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 3: because you don't have that story.

895
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 2: So you might use it to.

896
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 3: Summarize atomic habits, but because you didn't read a story

897
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 3: about the British cycling team getting one percent better like that,

898
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 3: just having the lesson isn't enough to like change your life.

899
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 3: So I do kind of worry about like AI writing

900
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,399
Speaker 3: getting too good, But right now I think people can

901
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 3: still realize when it's AI.

902
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. When do you have to turn in your book?

903
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 2: When you can be finished the manuscript?

904
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 3: I have to submit by the end of this month

905
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 3: and hopefully it will be out sometime next year.

906
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: And tell people your handle.

907
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 3: So just Alex and books you can search on any platform. Yeah,

908
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 3: I'm the guy that I just reads books and posts

909
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 3: about it on social media. I've been doing it for

910
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 3: almost ten years now, so yeah, I've been been doing

911
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 3: it for a while.

912
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:40,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got you have an awesome feed. I learned

913
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: a time from it and I appreciate you coming on

914
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: the show Man. This is a lot of fun.

915
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love I love reading books. I love talking

916
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 3: about books though, got to do the second part today.

917
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: So thank you for having me on, Michael, thanks for

918
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,240
Speaker 1: checking out the show, and thanks to Alex and Books

919
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: for coming on. Don't forget to check out his channels,

920
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: and don't forget to subscribe to two percent. We're coming

921
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: at you twice a week, so if you subscribe, you'll

922
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: get those updates and get episodes right as they hit

923
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 1: your feed. Check out the iHeart app which has videos

924
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: of every single one of our episodes, and as always,

925
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: have fun, don't die. Read more books.