0:00

Hi Mike. Oh, hello. We're here.

0:02

It's like a regular episode of cortex.

0:05

Ah, yes, just a normal non-special

0:07

episode normal text We

0:10

just ended up having two very

0:13

particular episodes back-to-back Yeah

0:16

This is one of those things where when you make stuff

0:18

Sometimes you have this little moment where it's like oh

0:21

it just so happens to work out that we ended up with

0:23

two special episodes In a row, but

0:25

then what always happens is if you do two

0:28

of something in a row people are like

0:29

Oh my god, this is what it's going to be like forever.

0:32

It's like no. No, it's no No, it's okay guys. Like sometimes

0:34

this just happens. We've been talking Vaguely

0:38

for like a year now maybe

0:40

about trying to do More

0:43

what we're thinking of is like single topic

0:45

episodes. We're like trying to create these

0:47

episodes There are maybe

0:50

Easier jumping on points for

0:52

the show Yeah because we've kind of feel like we

0:54

had them already naturally like state of the

0:56

apps and yearly themes became these Singular

0:59

things which aren't part

1:02

of the month by month timeline

1:04

of the show where we've kind of run Through

1:07

a whole year talking this day like on

1:09

this episode We're gonna do follow-up from previous episodes

1:11

But those episodes don't have any of that and

1:13

we noticed that people seem to really like them So we were

1:15

trying to find ways to add more

1:18

special things throughout the year The

1:21

goal really is to add more

1:23

episodes as opposed to churning

1:25

more of our like regular episodes into these

1:27

specials Yeah, it's one of these things is like thinking about

1:30

the show

1:31

one of the things that's been Interesting

1:33

to see that we talked about before it's just like

1:35

the YouTube channel is doing really well and

1:38

I feel like the YouTube channel has become a way to onboard

1:41

people to the whole rest of the show. Yeah, and

1:44

You know me Mike. I love a good spreadsheet. I

1:47

love looking at some data and I

1:49

was just really aware of like oh a lot

1:51

of our shows that tend to be Dominated

1:54

by a single topic seem like they're

1:56

significantly better for new people

1:59

and so this was also

1:59

realizing like we've been kind of doing

2:02

a lot of

2:03

half special episodes without

2:06

even realizing it so like a lot of our like book

2:08

reviews right or like talking

2:10

about a documentary that kind of stuff was like

2:13

basically half a special and as

2:16

with many things it seems so obvious in

2:18

retrospect but you discover

2:20

oh right when there's a clear topic

2:23

it's just a much easier place for people

2:26

to start with a podcast that they're

2:28

not familiar with and I feel like

2:30

this is always the fundamental problem for podcasts

2:32

is discovery and so many podcasts

2:35

you have the issue of

2:37

oh god there's like hundreds of episodes

2:39

do I need to start at the beginning where do I go

2:42

any individual episode is dominated

2:44

by everything else that came before

2:47

right at the start and so like

2:49

just jumping in at a random point is hard so we

2:51

thought like okay let's just follow the

2:53

data here and see if we can do

2:56

some more of these like individual episodes

2:58

that are clearly focused on a thing

3:00

as a way to get people on

3:03

board nice and easy with the show

3:05

and as I already said I really

3:07

want to underscore this these are extra

3:09

we're not gonna make the show like lose

3:11

all of its through line because

3:14

that's important to me too because I also

3:16

think that this might be a reason somebody comes to the

3:18

show but then they end up sticking

3:20

around for our audio issues

3:22

you know what I mean like comes to think

3:25

and I would just say to you now talking about putting the episode

3:27

in time I wasn't listening to you for about 25 seconds

3:30

there because I just got my invite to

3:32

go to Apple Park for WWDC hey

3:36

congratulations

3:37

exciting

3:39

Wow create the prayer circle

3:42

amongst all core Texans we all

3:44

join hands that Mike actually

3:46

can makes it this time and

3:48

doesn't sit in a hotel room for

3:50

two weeks oh dude I'm so excited

3:53

for you oh that's really great it

3:55

says you're invited like

3:59

I'm not

3:59

I'm not gonna lie, we were talking before

4:02

and the invite hadn't come through. I wasn't

4:04

gonna say anything, but I had a big

4:07

cloud of oh no, fill

4:09

the room. So, oh, I'm

4:11

so pumped. Oh, that's great. That

4:14

is the best news all week. I am so

4:16

happy you got that invitation. So, I'm

4:18

gonna do it. I'm doing it. Nothing's

4:20

gonna stop me now. I'm gonna

4:22

be there. So what are your plans? What's gonna happen?

4:25

What can you share that you're gonna be doing? Well, all I know

4:27

right now is it says I

4:29

will be in

4:29

person to watch the keynote address at Apple

4:32

blog. Ooh, you want to do the keynote? That's all I have.

4:34

That will be, if I actually can do it,

4:37

the realization of 15 years of work. Like

4:40

this is my bucket list item, which

4:43

is why it was so, so crushing

4:45

last year. It's like, this is

4:47

for me, in that part of my

4:50

work of like Apple focused

4:52

podcasting, the one

4:55

thing left. Yeah. One

4:57

goal or one dream left to

5:00

achieve is get to it. Pretty

5:02

much every single one of my colleagues at this point

5:05

has done it. And I nearly had it. And

5:07

I couldn't do it last year because in

5:09

case you're new to the show, because you just found

5:11

the state of the hardware. Last

5:14

year, I was invited to WWDC.

5:17

I made it out and I tested positive

5:19

coronavirus the day before.

5:21

So I couldn't go. And this

5:24

time I'm

5:25

locking myself down. No

5:27

one's coming near me and I'm going

5:29

to go and I'm going to be there. And I'm

5:32

so excited. I want to get some

5:34

photos of

5:35

Mike bubble wrap boy on the airplane.

5:40

Just my whole head covered in 95 months. This

5:43

is the time to be a lunatic and buy

5:45

all of the eight seats around your

5:48

seat. Like you buy a middle seat, right? And buy like

5:50

all of the immediate seats around you. I mean,

5:52

like nobody's here, right? When people

5:54

move over and they go, oh, we're a family.

5:57

We wanted to sit together. There's a free row. How delightful.

5:59

You say no.

5:59

I purchased those seats. Get

6:02

out of here. Oh,

6:06

man, I'm so relieved. It's so

6:08

happy. It's fantastic.

6:11

I've been so nervous about it. All right.

6:13

Because it's just like, I just want to do it. You know,

6:16

like it felt like it was going to happen

6:18

today and it's happened today.

6:20

And I feel like a weight has been lifted

6:22

off

6:23

my shoulders. I just want to get

6:25

there. I'm

6:26

going to go to Apple Park. I'm going to see the

6:28

presentation. All I'm going to be doing is sitting

6:30

in a chair and watching a screen. But I will

6:32

be doing it inside the venue. That's

6:35

all I want to do to like

6:37

I am a media professional.

6:40

Yeah. Going to the thing. Like

6:43

I will be in the media area with

6:45

the other media professionals. I

6:47

have worked

6:48

so hard for so long to achieve

6:51

this thing, to be

6:53

recognized as someone who

6:56

should be there. And my

6:59

hope, Greg, like that I will.

7:01

My first keynote

7:03

is going to be one of the defining

7:06

keynotes, right? Like the introduction

7:08

of a brand new platform. And

7:10

if that's the case, right. And I get that.

7:13

I kind of feel like, you know what? Missing out in last

7:15

year is worth it because I will be able to say

7:17

like my first one was this one.

7:20

Oh, man. Yeah. I'm

7:23

trying to think of a way to phrase something

7:25

right, which is like

7:26

Apple doesn't owe anything

7:29

to anyone, right? Like they can do whatever

7:31

they want. They can invite whoever they want

7:33

for whatever wacky and

7:35

whimsical arbitrary reasons fills

7:37

their little apple heart with joy, whatever. Like

7:40

they can do what they want. But at the

7:42

same time, I can think of.

7:45

I can think of no one else in the

7:47

tech industry who deserves

7:50

to be there more who hasn't

7:52

been there yet. Right. It's like it's the

7:54

intersection of these three things. So

7:57

on next episode,

7:59

we're going to be.

7:59

recording after the WWDC.

8:01

Oh, great, right, of course, yes.

8:04

So not only will it be our WWDC episode, do

8:06

you remember that the last half of last year's, which was really

8:08

sad, this year, it

8:10

should be really happy. I really have the feeling

8:13

that I just keep blocking this story out

8:15

of my brain, because it's too sad to think about.

8:19

A couple of months ago, I went back

8:21

and listened, because there were three shows

8:23

that I did, right? So I did like Upgrade, Connected,

8:26

and Cortex. And I just went back and listened

8:29

to the intro of them all,

8:31

because I just wanted to remind

8:33

myself

8:35

of that moment. And it was just like listening

8:37

back to it, it was like, wow, that just feels like

8:40

a completely different time, like a different

8:42

person, in a way. It was just such

8:44

a strange set of circumstances

8:47

where I had to, I've never

8:49

really had something like this happen to me before,

8:51

where,

8:53

especially with Upgrade, because that was on

8:55

keynote day, where I

8:57

just had to dig deep

9:00

and pull it together

9:01

and get the work done. You have a job

9:03

to do, and you just gotta

9:05

do that job. You are very sad, but

9:08

you've gotta make it happen. And

9:10

yeah, it was, I just was trying

9:12

to recall, how did I sound? I

9:15

actually think I did a good job listening back

9:17

to it,

9:18

and just getting on with it.

9:20

This

9:22

year will be very different, I think. Yeah, yeah,

9:26

we're in the timeline now. I

9:28

was really hoping this was gonna happen

9:30

today, that it would come during

9:33

our recording. Like I was really hoping

9:35

this was a good moment, and then I hope we'll follow

9:37

it up in a few weeks of another good moment.

9:40

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12:15

I have some follow up for you. Oh, okay.

12:17

So I used the backpack. Which backpack? So

12:20

in the last episode, I told you about my

12:22

new Bellroy Venture Ready backpack.

12:25

So I've used it now as my

12:28

traveling bag to replace the

12:30

Peak Design bag. What'd you think of

12:32

it? Super in this bag is fantastic. I'm

12:35

really happy with it. It is way

12:37

better for me for what I

12:39

want out of a bag like this. I

12:42

could get more in it. It was more logical

12:44

for me where like all of the pockets are inside.

12:47

So like, it's not like, where's this, where's that?

12:49

Like it was just much simpler.

12:52

What I will say is, you know, works for me.

12:54

It wouldn't work for you with the way you were describing

12:57

it as like, you didn't want just a big open space.

13:00

But 100% is that. But I like

13:02

that because a lot of the stuff I'm putting in the bag

13:04

goes in its own little pouch or whatever. It's

13:07

just like a bunch of blocks and I just grab the ones that

13:09

I need, right? I have the case that has my AirPods Max

13:11

in. I have the Bellroy tech pouch that has

13:13

my cables in. I have my Nintendo Switch

13:16

case that has my Nintendo Switch in. Right, like I don't need

13:18

that in pockets because it's all very protected

13:21

and it just makes sense. And then I can also just like,

13:23

I have a sweatshirt and just throw it in there.

13:25

I was never able to get that to work

13:28

with the Peak Design. I could

13:30

never have put a sweatshirt in that bag with the way that

13:32

I packed it. Like it was just not gonna happen. But

13:34

this one was much more simple. Like

13:36

the water bottle pocket was easy. I

13:38

hate the side pockets on the Peak Design. Trying

13:41

to get a water bottle in there is almost impossible

13:43

for me, but

13:44

this just was easier. I really liked

13:46

the little secret pocket to put my passport and my keys

13:49

in. And it has the little thing I could clip my keys

13:51

to. These are all simple things. Yeah,

13:53

but it's what makes the difference in backpacks though. Backpacks

13:56

are entirely the sum of small details.

13:59

Yeah.

14:00

And Cortex and Adam wrote in to

14:02

cortexfeedback.com to let us

14:04

know about a line of Bellroy bags that I didn't

14:06

even know existed called the Transit

14:09

Work Pack line. They do a 20, 28, and 38 litre

14:11

of these. This

14:15

is very similar to the bag that I

14:17

have,

14:18

but is more focused on the daily commute

14:20

rather than the... Like, the bag I got is more

14:23

like you're going out into the world.

14:26

But that was kind of perfect for me for

14:28

general travel, like as a travel

14:31

bag. But this is a

14:33

commuter's backpack that you can put overnight

14:36

clothes in. They even have compression

14:38

straps in the backpack, which is like very

14:40

smart, I think. I've never seen that

14:42

in a backpack before, for if you're putting clothes

14:45

in the bag. Oh, okay. Right,

14:47

right. I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, I

14:49

think there's a little bit more structured organisation

14:51

in this bag than the one that I have. I

14:54

don't know why I didn't think to

14:56

look for a Bellroy backpack before now.

14:58

Like, I have so many products,

15:00

including my daily commuter bag. I don't

15:03

know why it never struck me

15:05

to look at them to replace my travel

15:07

bag. So I will thank Instagram

15:09

ads for making this possible. It seems

15:12

like you have gotten quite a lot of value in your

15:14

life out of Instagram ads. Oh, yeah.

15:16

This is a very normal thing. Like, if you

15:19

use Instagram enough, their advertising

15:21

system really just gets to know

15:23

you. I would say Instagram

15:26

ads are the most effective and

15:28

my favourite way to receive advertising

15:31

because I've found so many things on there that

15:33

are genuinely useful and helpful to me. I'm

15:36

happy with advertising if it feels

15:38

like a two-way street. You're going to

15:40

show me the ads anyway. I at least

15:43

want them to work for me. Yeah, it is

15:45

always weird when

15:46

people complain about targeting advertising.

15:48

I partly understand it, but

15:50

I also have the feeling of like, but I want

15:53

the ads to be relevant to me. Like, if

15:55

I have to see them anyway, I would

15:58

way prefer that the ads have...

15:59

something to do with me than are just about

16:02

random products. I don't know anyone

16:05

who thanks an advertising

16:08

platform as much as I hear you thank

16:10

Instagram ads for bringing things into your

16:12

life. It just, it works man. It

16:14

works. Like this is one of, you know when like Apple did

16:16

the app tracking thing? Yeah. When

16:18

it said like, Hey, do you want to,

16:20

you know, like the plus I was like,

16:23

no, I want the ads to remain personalized

16:25

for Instagram. Right. Right. Most of the time I

16:27

say don't track me because it's like you're opening some

16:29

app

16:29

for the first time. It's like, why would I, I have

16:32

no relationship with you app. Like, why am

16:34

I going to let you track me? But with Instagram,

16:36

it's like, no, I want the tracking to continue because

16:39

I'm getting value out of this. If they're

16:41

still going to show me the ads anyway, if they

16:43

become less relevant to me, then

16:46

it's an annoyance. Yeah. Very

16:48

happy with the Bellroy backpack, the venture ready

16:50

backpack. So I'm going to mark

16:52

this up again of like, for

16:54

me, if you buy, you know, if you

16:56

want something and it's on Bellroy, this is how

16:58

I feel like I'm just going to get it. Cause I know I'm going to like

17:00

it because every single Bellroy product

17:03

I've owned,

17:04

I have really enjoyed and used

17:07

and I'm very happy with it. So

17:08

yeah. Yeah. They're good. Also like their little logo,

17:11

their logo is very pleasing to me. It's nice. Yeah. No,

17:13

this, this transit work pack is intriguing

17:15

to me. I like the, this, I guess they're

17:18

calling it like clamshell thing where the whole

17:20

thing opens. If you lay it flat, I find that

17:22

very draw some as a product. This

17:24

design is the same as on my one and what I

17:26

really liked about it. It might be a little complicated

17:29

here cause I have a pocket on the front, but I could just open

17:31

half

17:33

and just like roll half of the bag down. And

17:35

it was like an easy way to get in and out.

17:37

But I guess if you put things in that front pocket, you might not

17:39

be able to fold it in half the same, but

17:42

yeah, I feel like I'm, I

17:44

might be drawn to this one since

17:46

again, backpacks infinite market.

17:48

Like we discussed last time, I neglected to mention,

17:51

I'll just mention it here. Cause it is worth it. Like the

17:54

other backpack that I do have is

17:56

the Tom bin daylight backpack.

17:59

I'll say right away. I do not

18:02

love this backpack, but this is one

18:04

of these cases where I'm trying

18:06

to optimize for light and

18:09

This is like the perfect backpack for that if

18:11

like my primary concern is

18:14

just it being light like this backpack

18:16

works This is interesting. This looks

18:19

to me like I think it's in the way They're marketing

18:21

it as like the backpack you

18:23

have in your suitcase for when you go

18:25

to the place Which is exactly how I have used

18:27

it. Yes So this

18:30

rolls up to nothing like when it when

18:32

it is empty it takes up zero space

18:34

in a suitcase and It's

18:36

funny since that show I kind of remembered

18:38

like oh, right I can go

18:40

out with my laptop And so I've

18:42

actually taken this a couple of times out into the city

18:45

to just like work in some random spots Which

18:47

I haven't done since before covid, but did

18:49

it take state of the harbor to remind you of this?

18:52

Yes, it did.

18:52

Yeah, I Honestly

18:54

think this is one of these things where I

18:57

just gotten into a habit from

18:59

the past several years

19:01

of like oh you just can't go anywhere and Somehow

19:04

there's like lodged it in my brain

19:06

and like oh No, I like

19:09

I totally can I can just throw my

19:11

laptop into my backpack and go somewhere

19:13

sometimes And so it's like oh it's been

19:15

a lovely afternoon at the British

19:17

Museum just like working on a script in their little

19:20

cafe It's like this is delightful right this

19:22

is the advantage of living in a major city and just

19:24

being able to like go somewhere and For

19:26

that purpose. This is like the

19:28

perfect backpack. I Only

19:30

want it to be light that is my primary

19:33

concern because I'm pretty much just putting

19:35

a laptop in there And maybe like a charger and

19:37

a bottle of water, and that's it. That's

19:38

all I want for it Congratulations

19:41

on your promotion. Do we have a job title

19:44

for you? I don't know do

19:46

we have a job title for me I mean we could come

19:48

up with one Maybe you could be like

19:50

chief logistics officer.

19:53

I'll take C.L.O. That works for me at is that

19:55

a C-level office I don't know how C-level

19:57

offices work. It seems like they just pick a word,

19:59

right?

19:59

everybody's like, the whatever

20:02

and companies are just making up whatever they want

20:04

for the C-level stuff. Yeah, you could just make whatever you want.

20:06

It can be whatever you want it to be. Yeah. So,

20:09

yeah, I'll take CLO. I'll take Chief Logistics Officer. That

20:11

works for me. Actually, I'm

20:13

just having a funny moment here. I think this is

20:15

the first promotion

20:18

I have ever gotten in my

20:20

whole life, which I'm just realizing. I'm

20:22

just trying to think of all of my jobs.

20:24

I either never got promoted

20:27

and I got one

20:29

demotion, which was my very first

20:32

job where I worked as a page at

20:34

a library as a kid. I started,

20:36

I think because of some favors my dad pulled,

20:38

in the very prestigious reference

20:41

department of the library working as a page

20:43

and helping people look up stuff. And

20:45

then, like an idiot, I

20:48

needlessly antagonized my boss

20:50

and got demoted to the children's

20:52

library. Wow.

20:55

What were you doing at the children's library? I

20:58

was

20:58

mostly just hiding and

21:00

trying to avoid the shame of it,

21:02

which as a tall teenager

21:05

was really hard because in the children's library

21:07

all the bookshelves were really short. So,

21:09

it was like there was nowhere to hide. The

21:12

children's library was terrible. I

21:14

was mainly just restocking books that little

21:16

kids were returning and that kind of stuff. But,

21:18

yeah, so I'm just thinking, yeah, all of my

21:21

other jobs, like when I worked as a teacher I was

21:23

aggressively avoiding promotions.

21:25

I was offered it a couple of times and like, please

21:28

no, I would just rather stay a frontline teacher.

21:31

So, yeah, this is my very first promotion ever.

21:33

Thanks,

21:33

Mike. Chief Logistics Officer at Cortex Brand.

21:36

I don't even remember how this started, but

21:38

you made a spreadsheet. Yeah.

21:42

This is one of these funny things. I don't really know what this is like

21:44

from your perspective. I kind of feel

21:47

like I have been bullying

21:49

you for the past month

21:51

and a half in some ways slash

21:54

also being a real

21:56

overly explaining nerd.

21:59

This is like my perception of it, but yeah,

22:01

it's a thing that I've just had in the back of my mind for a long

22:04

time that as soon

22:06

as we had a second project

22:09

that was of similar or

22:11

larger size than the theme system journal,

22:14

I thought, oh, at this point, it

22:17

makes sense because there's enough things

22:19

and enough data to start

22:22

building a spreadsheet to try to assist the business.

22:24

Whereas before with just the theme system,

22:27

it always felt to me like there wasn't really

22:29

enough there to work with. So from my

22:31

perspective, what happened is the Sidekick

22:34

Notepad was a surprise success,

22:37

which had the good problem to

22:39

have if we were running out of stock way

22:41

too fast. This is how it started. Basically,

22:46

I built a little spreadsheet

22:46

to try to give you

22:49

some estimates about what was happening

22:51

with the stock because I know

22:54

from experience that when you're looking at data like

22:56

daily sales numbers, it's very

22:59

hard to accurately predict

23:02

where this ends up over a long period

23:04

of time. That what seemed like small

23:06

variations in daily sales over the

23:08

space of two months can make a huge difference

23:10

in like when are you actually going to run out or not. So

23:13

that's what it was. I made this spreadsheet as

23:17

starting as a piece of evidence to

23:19

show you to try to talk

23:21

to you about like, hey, we've got to change

23:23

the way we do logistics around here. So that's

23:26

my perspective on how it got started. And then I

23:28

feel like I was basically bullying

23:32

you and slowly improving this over time

23:34

is how it feels like to me. But how does it feel

23:36

like to you? What happened from your perspective

23:38

here? So I mean, it kind of started

23:41

with a little spreadsheet and a bunch of phone

23:43

calls where you were

23:44

quite manic in explaining

23:47

to me what you were doing. Is that fair? I don't

23:49

know. Yes, you were very excited.

23:51

But I loved the excitement and I love the excitement.

23:54

And it's turned out to be, I think

23:56

over like a six week period or so,

23:59

you've created

23:59

like three spreadsheets.

24:02

They just keep, that's how it feels to me. It's

24:04

like, it looks like this and now it's all gone

24:07

and it looks like this. And now

24:09

we have the restock-o-tron is a thing

24:11

that you've built now, which is like a dashboard

24:13

showing all of the stuff. So we now

24:15

have this huge spreadsheet where

24:18

I input the daily sales figures

24:20

for all of our products and it's doing some

24:23

very, I assume, intense mathematics

24:26

to work out what

24:28

is our expected daily sales rate like

24:30

kind of flattened out, right? Rather than just

24:32

all the peaks and stuff. What are the

24:34

dates that we expect a product's gonna be in stock

24:37

until? How many months of stock do

24:39

we think we have? Like it's doing a bunch of smart stuff

24:41

to predict things. But what I want to explain

24:43

from my side is when

24:45

you make a change to the spreadsheet, you like to explain

24:47

it to me. And so you

24:50

tell me what's going on and

24:52

I get these Slack messages from you that

24:55

have the vibe to me of you're

24:59

at the train station. There are two

25:01

trains coming towards each other. One

25:03

is at 60 miles an hour and one is at 40 miles

25:05

an hour. Which one will find its way to

25:07

Albuquerque quickest? That is how every

25:10

single message you have sent me about the spreadsheet

25:12

reads to me. I cannot

25:14

understand the, I

25:17

know all of the words. Oh no.

25:19

But when you put them together,

25:21

I don't understand

25:24

any of it. Zero, nothing.

25:28

What I understand is the output.

25:32

So like the output is fantastic

25:35

and like just the spreadsheet

25:37

itself is incredible. But as

25:39

you were trying to explain things

25:41

to me, I don't understand

25:45

what it means. I

25:47

just don't, it doesn't make any sense to

25:49

me at all. But

25:52

I love that you love it. Oh

25:55

my.

25:59

Oh, okay. Well,

26:03

that's interesting to take on board because, uh,

26:07

yeah, I've been basically kind of treating

26:09

this as like

26:11

extremely lightweight app

26:13

developments and giving Mike like change

26:16

logs, right? Of like, Oh, here's what's changed

26:18

on the spreadsheet. Here's what's changed on the spreadsheet. Okay.

26:21

So here's what I said. When you give me those, it's

26:23

good, but I want, can I

26:25

read an example? Okay. About 10

26:28

days ago, you completely redid the spreadsheet

26:30

and exploded our slack with

26:33

explaining things for me. Right. I

26:35

woke up with some good ideas. It was fun to

26:38

look unique. I need you to understand

26:40

I am over the

26:41

moon that you have made this and that you

26:44

want to be like this engaged with such specific

26:46

things like this, right? Like I'm

26:48

super excited about that. Okay.

26:52

Penn data is still new, which the error

26:55

range column is telling you by being a shorthand

26:57

for how uncomfortable it is in all of the numbers

26:59

in that row

27:01

edited to add. I should probably reverse

27:03

that to be more human readable. I

27:06

did. I'm reading these things and I'm like,

27:09

Hmm.

27:11

And I get this feeling of like, should

27:14

I understand what that means? I

27:16

don't, I don't know. I should

27:18

understand what it means. You don't

27:21

need to know, but I will just point out that the new

27:23

predictor Tron starts out on column

27:26

BN. So column C through BM are

27:28

all hidden calculations. You

27:32

must hide the calculations. See,

27:36

like, okay. I'm trying to like articulate like

27:38

what is it that I've been trying to express here? And

27:41

I think what it is, is a little

27:43

bit of

27:44

my concern level is very

27:46

high that you won't take

27:48

the spreadsheet seriously. And

27:51

in some ways the spreadsheet is the manifestation

27:54

of my panic over not

27:57

running out of stock. Okay. Like

27:59

I think as a company.

27:59

There's a couple of things that are just

28:02

major problems that people

28:05

often don't consider. And we've talked about this on

28:07

the show before that like running out of

28:09

stock is a thing that sounds like it's great

28:11

because you've sold all your things, but

28:14

it's a real business problem to

28:16

like not have stock in. And

28:19

since I've taken over as like chief logistics

28:21

officer here,

28:23

putting things together in terms of

28:25

numbers to me has been like, Oh

28:28

my God, like being out of stock for a month

28:30

is a disaster. Like, cause we have actual

28:32

numbers of what that means. And

28:34

then I'm trying to predict like, Ooh,

28:37

I think it is non-obvious that

28:40

we need to have much more

28:42

stock on hand than we previously

28:44

thought. And so my

28:46

feeling is like, I'm trying to put together a document of

28:49

evidence that shows this and like makes

28:51

recommendations about how much stock we should be buying

28:53

when, but I'm constantly

28:55

afraid that when I change something,

28:57

you're going to be like, Hey, wait, that estimate

29:00

changed by 50%. Like

29:02

what's even happening over here in this like clown

29:05

logistics department? If like the estimates are

29:07

going up and down 50%. These guys

29:09

in the logistics apartment, they're going wild over

29:11

here. Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm like down

29:13

at the coffee machines slacking you off

29:15

to the other employees. Yeah. But

29:18

like you're, you're, you're going to look at it and you end like,

29:20

so I think the thing with that, like that

29:22

message about the error rate, I know exactly what I was thinking.

29:24

I was like, I was trying to express

29:26

like, Oh, Hey, this, this is

29:29

trying to show you what the anticipated error

29:31

rate in these calculations is. So like the real

29:33

value is this value plus or

29:35

minus 45%.

29:37

And like, that's just something that we need to keep

29:39

in mind. So I think

29:41

that's what it is. Like, I feel the need to explain

29:44

every time I've changed something because

29:47

I don't want you to feel like

29:49

I'm just making random changes

29:52

over here. And it's like, Oh, these numbers keep going

29:54

like up and down. And like today he

29:56

says I need to order X mini units. And

29:58

then tomorrow he says I need to.

29:59

order twice X units. That is like, why,

30:02

like what changed between yesterday and today?

30:05

And then that's where I'm coming in going like, well,

30:07

let me tell you what changed between yesterday

30:09

and today. Like I'm using a different method to

30:12

try to estimate what the resubscribe rate

30:14

is for theme system journals, like that kind

30:16

of thing. Here's the thing that you need to know, right?

30:19

I feel like we're having, this is like business therapy

30:21

at the moment. Yeah, this is exactly

30:23

what this feels like. I

30:25

trust you.

30:27

That's what you need to know. Like this thing that you're

30:29

making, I trust you. If you tell me it's this

30:31

and this is the day, I will just trust you because

30:34

what I know is I don't understand how to do

30:37

this. Like I have been

30:39

doing this stuff on gut. Yeah, yeah.

30:41

Right?

30:43

And we've done, okay. Yeah.

30:44

But I'm doing it on gut. And that's

30:47

not a sustainable long-term thing. And I know

30:49

that at some point we had to get smart

30:51

about this. I didn't know

30:53

that this would be something you would be so engaged in. And

30:56

now I'm super happy that one of us

30:58

is doing this. And I guarantee

31:01

you the best person for the job is

31:03

the guy who's currently doing it. Because

31:06

I don't understand, like you tell me

31:08

these terms and like, and I get what

31:11

they mean, but I don't know how you get

31:13

there. So like one of the things you're talking about a lot is like

31:15

a confidence rate

31:17

of like the amount of data that

31:19

you're putting into the system is allowing

31:22

you to be able to predict things confidently.

31:25

And each product has a confidence

31:27

rating in the restock-o-tron about

31:30

how confident you are in the dates

31:32

that you're giving, right? Of like when it needs

31:34

to be restocked. I don't understand

31:37

how you are able to calculate

31:40

that. Like I know what goes in

31:42

and I know what comes out, but like this

31:44

is when everything in the middle, I don't get it. I've

31:47

never been able to understand things like this, like

31:49

the calculations required. And so like

31:52

you can please feel free to continue

31:54

giving me this information,

31:56

but like there are things of it that are very

31:58

helpful. Like when we had a... conversation

32:00

today about subscriber numbers

32:02

and how they're being calculated and like that I

32:05

understand but like when you're like So

32:07

this is how I did this And

32:10

if you want to tell me because I know

32:12

that like sometimes you just want to Like

32:14

an I'm like this like people just want to say things

32:16

aloud right because it like just helps with Going

32:19

through a thing did you know did I do this right?

32:21

How does this feel when I explain this to someone and

32:24

maybe you're able to work through some Problems

32:27

if I'm asking you questions, but like

32:29

I just need you to know I don't understand it. Okay It's

32:34

also funny that you mentioned about like what you

32:36

put in and like what comes out So

32:39

for any aspiring spreadsheet makers

32:41

out there like this is one of my

32:43

basic pieces of advice is the thing I've done

32:45

on the spreadsheet for Mike Especially

32:47

if you're working in a team, but even on

32:49

your own You need to have two

32:51

colors on your spreadsheet Make the

32:54

background of some cells green and

32:56

that's where information comes in

32:58

and then some cells are blue and

33:00

that's where information Comes out

33:03

and I think like I don't know if this is exactly

33:05

your experience But I feel like that's one way to try

33:07

to make a spreadsheet clear of like what's

33:09

happening because yeah Ultimately,

33:11

it's just a machine where you want

33:13

to put some numbers in and then

33:15

you should get some meaningful actionable

33:18

information out and Everything

33:21

else in the middle doesn't matter especially

33:23

if

33:24

Yeah, cuz again like we're in this position of I'm

33:27

performing a job where I'm trying to give you

33:29

a tool because you're

33:31

ultimately the person who is working

33:34

way more closely with the manufacturers

33:36

than I ever will and So

33:38

you're always going to be the person

33:41

making the final call about

33:43

orders and how much are you willing to pay and

33:45

like when? Is it going to come or if

33:48

we have it shipped this way or that way like

33:50

what will happen? Eventually, these are all data points

33:52

right after a certain period of time We'll

33:54

know

33:54

exactly how long it takes to reproduce every product

33:57

so then it can just maybe put into the system

33:59

You know what I mean?

33:59

Oh, well, I mean, yes, that's one of the things that I

34:02

want to have as an upgrade at some point in the future. And

34:04

I was trying not to bug you earlier today, but I was like,

34:06

Mike, I need historical data about how

34:08

long is it between when you send the first email

34:10

and when like the thing arrives at the warehouse?

34:13

Like, I just want to start having historical data about

34:15

that. But yeah, so there

34:17

is this thing with all spreadsheets of input,

34:20

output, and then calculations in between. And

34:23

I think

34:23

for lots of people, when they make spreadsheets, it's

34:26

not visually clear. Like, you

34:28

need to separate out these parts

34:31

and then all of the, quote, normal cells. A

34:34

user can just completely ignore, like, all

34:36

of the crazy stuff that's happening in the middle. But yeah, I think you're

34:39

partly right. Even

34:41

that little thing that you just read there, you can

34:43

see that I edited to add that

34:46

I was like, oh, wait a minute, this number that I'm giving

34:48

you, it's more human readable if it's

34:50

the opposite direction. I think it's just

34:53

funny to me

34:53

now to hear you say, like,

34:55

Gray, either way, I don't

34:58

know what the hell this number means. But

35:01

I please, I don't want

35:04

to create good working environment. Please

35:07

continue sharing all of the information. There

35:10

is some stuff in there that is genuinely

35:12

helpful to me, but some of it it's

35:14

going over my head. But I am and I

35:17

have where I feel

35:19

like I need to understand I am asking for

35:21

more clarification. This is just not my skill

35:23

set. Like, it just isn't. I don't understand

35:25

how to make a spreadsheet

35:28

like the one that you've made. Like, I know

35:30

how to make very simple spreadsheets. Like,

35:33

I just made one a couple of days ago to

35:35

help me calculate the overall cost

35:38

of a thing because you wanted that. And so I

35:40

figured, well, I've been doing it all manually. So

35:42

I'm actually just making a number spreadsheet that would just

35:44

do a bunch of the calculations for me. But

35:46

that's kind of where my experience starts

35:48

and ends. You know, I know I have to take this cell

35:51

and multiply it by that cell. But

35:53

I know that there's a bunch of things going on in this

35:55

spreadsheet that I just don't

35:58

know how it works. anyone could understand.

36:01

You showed me this book that you bought. Oh no, no. Which

36:04

is just like, maybe the

36:06

worst book for me ever written, but

36:08

you seem very excited about it. Oh,

36:10

right, the book, I was very excited. It was a book

36:12

on statistics, right, or something? Like, logistic

36:15

statistics? Yeah,

36:17

well, so this

36:20

is kind of embarrassing. What's the actual

36:22

book title? Because my wife had

36:24

a completely different reaction to that. So

36:26

both you and my wife were like,

36:28

what the hell is this book that you

36:31

just purchased? Okay,

36:33

so the exact title of the book is called

36:36

Understanding Variation, The Key

36:38

to Managing Chaos. And

36:41

it has a little picture of like

36:43

a nebula on the front, you know, in like

36:45

a spacey kind of image. And

36:48

my wife took one look at this and

36:50

she goes,

36:52

what the hell is this new age crap that you just

36:54

bought? It does look like that. The

36:57

fun on the front cover is very

36:59

new agey. Yeah, so if

37:01

you didn't know anything about it, it was a completely

37:04

acceptable judgment to make of like,

37:06

what happened to my husband that he bought

37:08

this dumb book? Right, like she's

37:11

used to weird books getting shipped to the house

37:13

all the time because of my job. But even

37:16

among someone who buys outlier books,

37:18

this one caught her attention as extremely

37:21

worrying for I

37:22

can't believe this arrived. When I saw this,

37:24

I'm like, what has happened to my co-founder? Why has

37:26

he bought this book? It

37:29

is, I don't understand. And even when you explained

37:31

what it did or what it was for and you sent

37:34

me some screenshots of some pages and

37:36

I don't know what it means. I don't know what

37:38

it even means. How would you describe what

37:40

you think this book is? Like

37:45

the Lord of the Rings for statistics.

37:47

What an interesting description there. Maybe

37:51

that's also saying about how I feel about

37:54

Lord of the Rings. Yeah,

37:56

I feel like you've disparaged two things at once,

37:58

very close to my heart.

37:59

Lord of the Rings. Every count has an

38:02

area of opportunity. Here the area

38:04

of opportunity is the number of closings each

38:06

month. If the area of opportunity remains constant

38:09

over time, then one may directly

38:11

compare the counts. I don't know

38:13

what it means. Okay,

38:18

so to explain for listeners, right? Can you?

38:21

No, no, no, I'm going to explain

38:23

in like a broad way, right?

38:26

Which is, so

38:27

what's happening why did I buy this book

38:30

and what's the deal with the spreadsheet? So long

38:32

time listeners will know I am a big

38:35

booster of getting a physics

38:37

degree if you can. Like I think if you're the

38:39

kind of person who is interested in physics

38:41

at all, I highly recommend you get a physics

38:44

degree. And one of the main

38:46

reasons for that is that

38:49

people with a physics degree are just highly

38:52

in demand in the world of employment.

38:54

Like I know people who will

38:57

hire someone for a job with

38:59

zero qualifications for that actual

39:01

job just because they have a physics degree. And it's like,

39:03

oh, no, they'll be able to like figure it out, right? They

39:05

can, they can apply stuff that they've learned. And

39:10

that's kind of what's going on here is like,

39:12

oh, I did this physics degree, you know, back

39:14

in college. And by

39:18

the nature of the subject is

39:21

that

39:21

it teaches you all of the useful

39:24

parts of math. It's like, it's

39:26

the useful parts of math as they're applied to

39:28

the physical world, but you can just

39:31

take any of these things and

39:33

apply them to other stuff. And

39:36

so this is one of these cases where like

39:39

what I'm doing with the spreadsheet,

39:41

it's very much like, oh, a lot of

39:44

stuff that you would do in physics, if you were like running

39:46

an experiment and you wanted to try to publish

39:49

a results and then also publish

39:51

error bars on that result. Like it's

39:53

the exact same thing is like, oh,

39:55

well, whether I've just taken a hundred measurements

39:58

for like the weight of an electric. or

40:01

it's the like sum of daily

40:03

sales volume for our company. It

40:06

doesn't really matter what the data is. There's

40:09

just like a bunch of tools that you can apply and

40:11

just like general principles

40:13

about how to think about data. And

40:16

so I'd made this spreadsheet just

40:18

sort of off the top of my head with a

40:20

bunch of like old knowledge

40:22

about mathematics and statistics. And

40:26

I bought this book because

40:28

it just sort of happened to come across it also at the exact moment I was

40:30

just thinking about this, which

40:32

was I'm looking for a book, which is kind of like

40:34

the equivalent of

40:38

when I switched over to trying to do an economics minor. I'm

40:41

like, oh, can someone just give me an overview

40:44

of what the mathematics and economics is? And

40:46

then I can just like immediately translate all the physics stuff

40:48

here. And if there's something that they're doing

40:51

in a different way, it's more obvious.

40:54

And so this book, understanding

40:56

variation, key to managing chaos, as

40:58

best I can tell and like having skimmed

41:00

through it, it seems to be the case of

41:03

like, oh, this is someone

41:05

who's just recently written a book that

41:07

is basically business math. Like

41:10

here's just a bunch of business math. And

41:13

so I want to kind of read through it and just

41:16

see like, how are people

41:18

in this field using

41:20

various statistical tools? And

41:23

this is one of those kinds of things of like, if there's

41:25

a single idea in here

41:28

that is novel to me, like the book is completely worth

41:30

it instantly. So anyway, that's

41:32

why I was kind of excited. It was, it was like,

41:34

oh, let me just see, because almost

41:37

all of these tools I'm already familiar with

41:39

in a different context. And it's just

41:41

a bit of like, let me see how does someone apply this

41:44

to business stuff in

41:46

general. So this book, the

41:49

title is the way that it is, which like

41:51

sounds very airy fairy, but it's kind

41:53

of like, I'm trying to get across the concept of like how

41:55

do you get your business under

41:58

control using graphs and spreadsheets? Right.

41:59

you not be surprised? And

42:03

like, and that's exactly the thing that I'm trying

42:05

to do here. Which is what we need. Yeah. Like, how do

42:07

we not be surprised? So important.

42:09

This is so important because we spent the

42:11

first kind of 18 months, realistically,

42:14

of our business

42:15

being very surprised. Yeah. I

42:18

mean, and we were surprised again, and I do

42:20

feel like there is no way

42:22

to apply this kind of thinking to

42:24

a brand new product, right? Like, because there's

42:27

no data. That's exactly it. I mean, I'd

42:29

have to like, double check the way it went. But I feel

42:31

like the first three or four times we

42:33

restocked the journal, we just had no idea.

42:36

And that data would also have been complete

42:38

garbage. Like, it just wouldn't have been very helpful

42:41

at all. So it's,

42:43

there's a lot that goes on with data where

42:45

it's like,

42:47

you need a bunch for it to be

42:49

useful at all. And just like, having

42:51

too little and especially having a thing where

42:54

you're running up against a limit, but you don't

42:57

have even the foggiest idea of like,

42:59

did we just sell out or not? We couldn't have

43:01

done it from the start. Like, one of the things that I like

43:04

that you're doing with the spreadsheet is eliminating

43:06

spikes from some of the data,

43:09

which I think is helpful. But like, if we have

43:11

two days where

43:12

we get a bunch more sales than usual,

43:15

that it's not going to be

43:17

considered like, well, this is the new normal.

43:19

Yeah. Right? Like, I feel like that would be such an easy

43:21

way

43:22

for someone to do it if they weren't trying to

43:25

eliminate chaos. Yeah. And again, that's

43:27

like just straight from a bunch of physics

43:29

stuff is like, oh, you know, when you conduct an

43:31

experiment, you're going to have some

43:33

portion of the data as like outlier data, and

43:35

it just makes sense to get rid of that. Or

43:38

you just know that some results

43:40

was weird for various reasons. And

43:43

that result doesn't help you get to what

43:45

the true thing is. Because in

43:47

some sense, like, what is the goal

43:49

of this? It's really trying to figure

43:52

out

43:52

in kind

43:55

of a platonic ideal world,

43:58

how many units of each

43:59

product do we sell every day? And

44:02

I actually have been just explaining things to you earlier

44:04

today. I realized like, Oh, actually I should bin the data

44:07

by week. That makes totally more sense because our data

44:09

points are actually weekly sales. They're not daily sales.

44:11

Daily sales are introducing too much variation. What

44:13

does bin the data mean? What I'm going to do in the next

44:15

version of the spreadsheet is right

44:17

now you're entering the

44:20

data points of like

44:21

each product, each day, how many sold.

44:24

But so one of the things that we can see

44:26

is that there's a really big variation between

44:29

Monday to Saturday. Saturday's a

44:31

disaster. Yeah. It's so interesting.

44:34

Like no one buys the products on Saturdays every

44:37

Saturday. Yeah, it's

44:39

crazy. So this is also

44:41

where like we sort of knew this by

44:44

just like talking about and casually

44:46

looking at the data. Like this is a thing you told

44:48

me is like, Oh, Saturdays are bad. But

44:50

then what

44:51

you can do with spreadsheets and graphs is be

44:53

like, how bad? And it's like,

44:55

Oh, very bad. Like the, it's

44:57

just so strange. Like Monday

44:59

is great. It drops a little through to

45:01

Friday and then Saturday it just like plunges

45:04

to the center of the earth and then it recovers on

45:06

Sunday. It really isn't like, where

45:08

does everybody go on Saturday? No

45:11

one's thinking about work on Saturday, I guess.

45:13

But then like, are they on Sunday? Like

45:15

I don't get it. Yeah. Shouldn't

45:17

Fridays also be bad? Like I don't get it. I

45:19

would think like Friday and Saturday should look the same,

45:22

but they don't.

45:23

But okay. So whenever

45:25

you're trying to figure out anything,

45:28

there's like a true number, but all you

45:30

can do in the real world is you can take measurements

45:34

and the measurements are just

45:36

like an indication of what is

45:38

the real number. You know, it's

45:40

a bit like even if you take your own weight, right? You can

45:43

step on a scale twice in a row

45:45

and it can be a little different, right? You're like,

45:47

oh, there is some real number

45:49

that is your weight at any point in time,

45:52

but how precisely do

45:54

you care about that? And how many measurements

45:57

do you want to take? Like that's part of the question here.

45:59

variation

46:01

and the bigger the variation

46:03

the more uncertain you are about

46:05

what the real number is. Now

46:08

most time if you step on a scale for example it's like

46:10

oh the the weight will only vary by like

46:12

a tenth of a pound or two tenths of a pound

46:14

on a good scale. So you can be like

46:17

alright I know my weight within

46:19

this small range so that's like good enough

46:21

you only ever step on the scale once and see

46:23

what the actual number is. But

46:25

it's just not like that with things like sales

46:27

data. You can't say like

46:30

how many units are sold on a Monday because

46:32

they're all over the place. And

46:35

the problem with looking at our data

46:37

and

46:38

trying to predict a daily

46:41

sales number is that the

46:43

variation between Monday and Saturday

46:46

is really big. And so

46:49

that like

46:50

artificially creates more

46:52

uncertainty than there really is. Because

46:55

if we were just comparing Saturdays

46:57

to Saturdays the variation between the sales

47:00

would be smaller. So what

47:02

I mean is it dawned on me today

47:04

that we can get more accurate

47:06

measurements of when we're going to

47:09

run out of stock. If instead

47:11

of running all of my analysis on

47:13

a what is the average day

47:16

instead say what is the average

47:19

week because

47:20

the variation between weeks should

47:23

be much smaller because

47:25

we're combining together

47:27

the

47:28

best sales day every time

47:30

and the worst sales day every time. So

47:33

this is what I'm saying is like okay I should redo

47:35

that because there's

47:37

just less variation between those two measurements.

47:40

So in some sense it's like our real

47:43

data is actually weekly even though

47:45

you're entering in daily data. And

47:48

so that's that's the thing that you can do in the spreadsheet is like

47:50

have it filter out like okay before

47:53

we run all the data analysis

47:55

just take the average number for the

47:57

week and then like

47:59

do everything else.

47:59

else is gonna happen afterwards with that. So that's

48:02

gonna be the next upgrade to the spreadsheet,

48:04

Mike. Weekly binning, that's what's happening there.

48:07

But again, I would just say too, I really love the spreadsheet,

48:10

but I don't have a brain for this stuff. But

48:12

I have been thinking recently, it's

48:14

part of another reason why I think we're such a

48:16

perfect partnership, because you understand

48:18

this and I don't. And so

48:21

you are bringing to the business this really

48:23

important thing

48:24

that I just would not be able to do. I

48:27

think you've totally reframed for me

48:29

what problem I'm trying to solve a lot of times

48:32

when I explain it, because my

48:34

mental framing of this is not, you

48:36

should trust me. It's like, well, no, that's ridiculous.

48:39

Like the whole reason to make the spreadsheet is to not

48:41

trust me, right? To not be like,

48:43

oh, Gray says we should buy some amount of stock and

48:46

then you just do it. It's

48:48

like, no, no, I wanna show you. Here's where

48:50

this is all coming from. But

48:52

in a partnership, I think I can reframe this.

48:55

You can just trust me that I'm doing the best

48:57

job on this kind of thing that I

48:59

can in exactly

49:02

the same way that I don't.

49:04

So Mike, when you tell me

49:06

a lot about what's happening with glue binding

49:09

for particular notebooks. Oh, I

49:11

know. I don't know what you're talking

49:13

about half the time, right? But

49:16

it's the same thing. Like I trust

49:18

you to make an amazing notebook.

49:21

That's your skillset. Maybe it's

49:23

the same thing. Like I do ask some questions

49:25

about what's happening, but

49:27

I think,

49:30

yeah, I think maybe that's similar. Like I'm just kind of probing

49:32

your thought process on

49:35

how it is you're putting a thing together. A lot of the

49:37

time you kind of ask me like, why are we

49:39

making that choice? Or

49:40

why do you want it done this way? Like what are the benefits

49:43

of doing it this way? Does it feel

49:45

nicer? Like that kind of stuff you need to ask me,

49:47

which is helpful, right? Cause then if I can

49:49

explain it to you, that's good. If I can't explain it

49:51

to you, then why am I making that decision?

49:54

Yeah, yeah.

49:55

I think we're a good partnership. I think so. This

49:57

is what I think. I have this with. relay

50:00

to, like, if you can find someone

50:03

who, between the two of you, you

50:05

can make a hole,

50:06

then you're great. Because I think that's what

50:08

it takes. To run a business, you need

50:10

good people

50:11

around you,

50:12

because nobody

50:14

can do everything.

50:16

It's just not possible. And I think you are

50:19

best off finding a group of people,

50:21

whether it's two or three or four or more,

50:24

who are all good at certain

50:26

things, and you put them together,

50:29

and you become better as a whole.

50:32

Like I think that's what's truly valuable.

50:35

There is no such thing as an excellent

50:37

all-rounder. You can get someone who might be good at a

50:39

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50:42

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53:07

So I just made a 100%

53:10

year of the weekend focus decision.

53:12

Yeah. Where in it I

53:15

was like, oh I'm super happy

53:17

about the theme that I've chosen.

53:19

So right now I actually

53:21

think I am in the busiest month of

53:24

my year.

53:25

Maybe with the exception of September because

53:28

of podcastathon stuff, right? But

53:30

for regular work this

53:33

month, wild. Right? So two episodes of

53:36

cortex, that's enough. Like

53:39

put two episodes of cortex in one month, that's

53:42

enough for me. Let alone all of the other

53:44

stuff that I'm doing and preparing for

53:46

WWDC. Right? So I have

53:48

big episodes of my regular

53:51

Apple focus shows where we turn

53:53

both of our predictions episodes into games.

53:55

They take a lot of work to do. They're

53:58

really important to me. I love doing them, but it's big. stuff,

54:00

right? This is like trying and then trying to get

54:02

ready for like a basically a two week trip.

54:05

A lot going on right now. But

54:07

I took a mini vacation in the middle of it. Which

54:10

is on paper to me like previous

54:13

Mike, terrible idea. Like if

54:15

you're that busy, would you take four

54:17

days out of your week to

54:19

go and join somebody on a vacation?

54:22

Like

54:23

there's a four days where you could be

54:25

preparing more, where you could be editing, where

54:27

you could be recording. We could have recorded

54:29

this show last week rather than this week, which would

54:32

have given me longer before we got to get

54:34

it out. Like these are things

54:36

where previous me on paper

54:38

would have been like,

54:39

no way

54:40

take the time to work. The year

54:43

of the weekend Mike is realizing

54:45

the value in taking breaks.

54:47

And what has ended up happening is taking

54:50

a three to four day vacation

54:53

in the middle of one of the busiest months in the

54:55

year has put a split down the middle.

54:57

So instead of being a really busy four weeks, it

55:00

was busy too, busy too. And

55:02

I was able to recharge in the middle

55:04

of it. So friend of ours, friend

55:07

to the world, underscore David Smith, the maker

55:09

of widget Smith. He just

55:11

celebrated a big birthday in

55:13

Scotland and he invited me and Adina to come

55:15

along and spend it with him as a family and friends. And

55:18

so that was one of these things. I was

55:20

like, that is an honor. You can't turn down

55:22

something like that. If a friend asks you, I

55:24

feel if it's somebody that you care about and

55:27

they want you to join them on something that's important to them,

55:29

you do everything you can to try and do it. And

55:31

so I did it and I was a couple of days

55:33

into this wonderful time in

55:35

the Scottish Highlands and this beautiful home

55:37

of all these, this wonderful nature around

55:40

me. And I

55:41

was like, this was a good idea

55:44

because it's allowed me

55:46

to have this recharge to

55:48

now this final stint

55:50

before heading off to San Francisco

55:53

for a WBC.

55:54

Oh man. I feel like you've taken

55:56

your theme very seriously. I don't know

55:58

if I could have done that in your. position. You're

56:01

right. When you get a serious invitation, I think

56:03

you're right. You have to take it seriously and say

56:05

yes. But man, I would,

56:07

I would have been very nervous

56:10

about that. Yeah. And I understand it.

56:12

This doesn't fit with you right now. This is the exact

56:14

opposite of the year of work.

56:17

But what I have realized is that I'm just

56:19

at a point where that

56:22

kind of burning the candle at both

56:24

ends is just not good for me right now. And it

56:26

has been. And in the future, it will be again.

56:28

I have no doubt about that. But I

56:31

believe that our lives roll in these cycles

56:33

and the cycle that I'm in right now demands

56:36

of me to take better care of myself.

56:39

So this was like a perfect example of that

56:41

where I will now be

56:43

in a couple of weeks getting ready to go on a plane

56:45

and I'm going to feel nice and prepared and ready

56:48

and fresh where I would

56:51

have felt at my wit's end, I think. Otherwise,

56:54

if I would have been working solid

56:56

all the way through, I mean, it

56:59

does help that I am taking my weekends. But

57:01

similarly, because we've got two episodes

57:03

of Cortex in a month, they are reduced

57:05

weekend times a little bit because

57:07

I do edit mostly on the weekends. So

57:09

again, like having these few days is

57:12

making sure I still make up for those

57:14

days that I'd otherwise be losing, which is I've

57:16

been very good at that. If I'm taking a work

57:19

day on the weekend, I am still taking my weekdays.

57:22

But this has been like a little life hack for me

57:24

now where I've banked four days so I

57:27

can now spend those weekend

57:29

days throughout the rest of the month. Also,

57:31

I saw something I'd never seen before.

57:33

The most incredible rainbow I

57:35

have ever experienced. I'm sending

57:38

you a couple of pictures of this rainbow

57:40

in Scotland, in Scotland, even

57:42

better than Hawaii rainbows as like you've

57:44

been to Hawaii. I have never been this

57:47

close to a rainbow where I genuinely

57:51

felt like I could see where it ended.

57:54

And I also, I sent you another picture, could see the

57:57

entire arc of the rainbow.

57:59

which again is like another

58:02

thing I have never experienced before.

58:04

That's a really good one. It's a good rainbow, right?

58:06

I guess I don't really think of Scotland

58:09

as rainbow territory, but of course it's

58:11

very misty, so it's got to be great rainbow

58:13

territory. Well, the weather was surprisingly

58:16

incredible the entire time.

58:19

Like nice and warm, just

58:21

only a little bit windy, no rain, you

58:23

know? So we didn't get out of the thing, we got the full Thailand

58:26

experience, but overall,

58:28

excellent.

58:29

And that rainbow, man, come on.

58:33

Does look like just past

58:35

the tree line is a pot of gold. It

58:37

actually looks like it's on top of the house

58:40

in this image, because the rainbow

58:42

is in front of those trees. You can see

58:44

the colors of the rainbow is affecting the way those

58:46

trees look.

58:49

This is very charming,

58:51

Mike. I had a great time and it was so helpful

58:54

for me,

58:55

and I think that this is a really,

58:57

really good thing for me

59:00

to consider in the future. I was going to ask,

59:02

it sort of sounded crazy to me when I knew that you were going

59:04

to do this right before

59:07

and right in the middle of this really busy time, but

59:10

it does seem to have worked out great for you. So I

59:14

think if you're thinking that

59:16

this was a good thing and you want to do it

59:18

in the future, this is something you've got

59:20

to lock into the calendar now, because

59:24

future Mike will have plenty

59:26

of reasons why it's not a good time

59:28

to take a break. But that's why I

59:30

feel like

59:31

current Mike needs to lock

59:35

future Mike in in a way where

59:37

it's hard to say no. That's the favor that

59:39

underscore did for you here, which is it

59:41

was not just that, oh, he whisked

59:43

you away to a magical rainbow land. It's

59:46

that you also just couldn't say

59:48

no. And so that makes the trip

59:50

like, this is going to happen. I'm going to make it happen. Yeah,

59:52

I think what I would take away from this is

59:54

like, if I have something like this going on and

59:57

I will try and apply this for say the.

59:59

is to before

1:00:02

like a huge trip like this with it, I'm under a

1:00:04

lot of pressure and there's a lot of expectation.

1:00:07

Maybe take a little short city break, go

1:00:09

to London for the weekend, the weekend before and

1:00:12

just use it as an opportunity to just like switch

1:00:14

off for a couple of days, you know, and

1:00:16

like get out of home, right? Don't just spend

1:00:18

the weekend at home, like go and just

1:00:21

like be in a different environment

1:00:23

and not

1:00:25

have to think about work, try and get out of the

1:00:27

work mode, get out of that mindset.

1:00:29

I think that that is like a nice little addition

1:00:32

to this like year of the weekend mentality

1:00:34

of in these high intense

1:00:37

scenarios, create a

1:00:39

little special weekend in a way. So

1:00:42

I think I'm gonna try and think about more about

1:00:44

how that

1:00:45

will be

1:00:46

because when it's, you know, some of these things, they can be

1:00:48

so intense, like

1:00:50

WWDC is gonna be intense, September

1:00:53

will be super intense, you know, because again, it's like

1:00:55

the podcast I was on and the iPhone tend to line up

1:00:57

with each other. It's like two really

1:00:59

important things. So trying to find

1:01:02

ways to take

1:01:04

these breaks, I think is gonna

1:01:06

be a nice little addition and an important thing to

1:01:09

ensure that the year of the weekend is being observed.

1:01:12

This really is a beautiful rainbow. I'm

1:01:15

just like leaving it on my screen. I've never seen

1:01:17

one like that. Like I've seen some

1:01:19

great rainbows in Hawaii, but that

1:01:22

has got some strong colors. Like

1:01:24

that's the thing about it is the colors are so

1:01:26

strong. So in the first image that

1:01:28

I sent you, I have boosted the color a bit to

1:01:30

like really show it, but this is

1:01:33

akin to how it looked to my eye when

1:01:35

I saw it. But the thing is also, you can

1:01:37

see, like if you look at it, you've got the Roigibiv colors,

1:01:40

but you can see them start to repeat

1:01:42

again, which is like

1:01:43

really shows the strength of the rainbow,

1:01:46

right, that like rainbows, I

1:01:48

forget the exact details of this, but it's like every

1:01:50

rainbow you're looking at

1:01:52

is a multiple rainbow. It's just that the

1:01:54

colors are too faint for you to be able to see,

1:01:57

but it's a repeated effect. But you

1:01:59

can...

1:01:59

only ever see the one. But that's why it

1:02:02

really catches my eye here of like, it must

1:02:04

have been very strong in person to

1:02:06

be able to see like,

1:02:07

immediately below the start

1:02:10

of the pattern again. Very magical.

1:02:12

And it was just one of those things where like 12 adults

1:02:15

were turned into children. Because

1:02:18

we're just like this thing, there's just this unbelievable,

1:02:21

because it really like, seeing the

1:02:23

end like that made it feel

1:02:26

fake.

1:02:27

Yeah. Like I've never experienced

1:02:30

a rainbow that felt so physically close

1:02:32

to me. It was kind of awesome. I'm going to imagine

1:02:35

you and Underscore as the double

1:02:37

rainbow across the sky guy taking

1:02:39

a look at this in Scotland. I've

1:02:42

been asking cortexans to submit

1:02:44

questions over at cortexfeedback.com

1:02:47

where they can submit Ask Cortex questions for

1:02:49

us with our fancy form. Jamie

1:02:51

wrote in to ask, do you have

1:02:53

any advice on how to keep a daily

1:02:55

task list shorter? I'm thinking

1:02:57

about not just the most important tasks,

1:02:59

but also the one-time tasks. At the

1:03:01

moment, I end up having an entire

1:03:03

walkthrough of my day along with a wishlist

1:03:06

of nice to have things that I want to do. Overall,

1:03:09

I'm looking at over 20 task items per

1:03:11

day and it's just unrealistic that I'm going to

1:03:13

get to them all.

1:03:14

No, Jamie.

1:03:17

So I think for all

1:03:19

of us, it's just completely unavoidable that you always

1:03:21

feel like my task list

1:03:23

is way too long, basically no matter what

1:03:26

you're doing. So I think I would suggest

1:03:29

two ideas here. One

1:03:31

for me, the main idea, which I think

1:03:33

I first talked about in my time management

1:03:36

for teachers video, which is still up on my YouTube

1:03:38

channel. Is it still there? Yeah, it's still

1:03:40

there. It's still survived.

1:03:42

Is that a public video? Yeah, it's a public

1:03:44

video. Incredible. It's

1:03:48

also very funny to see like, oh, it still hasn't

1:03:50

hit a million views. It's

1:03:52

like my oldest video. Any day now. Any day now.

1:03:55

But there's an idea that I started to talk about

1:03:57

in there, which I want to like elaborate

1:03:59

on a little bit. bit, which is your

1:04:01

to-do list is functionally infinite in

1:04:04

many ways, but there's like a

1:04:06

clear dividing line in

1:04:08

my mind that's critical. That

1:04:11

dividing line is the like, I can't

1:04:13

go home today, or

1:04:16

I can't finish the workday

1:04:18

until these items are done. Like

1:04:21

that's, that's the one really

1:04:24

hard boundary for

1:04:26

looking at to-do list items. Like it

1:04:29

just has to be mission critical that this gets

1:04:32

done today. I cannot go home. And

1:04:34

the thing that you can kind of like mentally

1:04:37

use to try to identify those items

1:04:39

is like, these are the things that I would

1:04:42

stay late at work for or keep

1:04:44

working longer to finish because

1:04:47

they're just like

1:04:48

absolutely vital. But of course

1:04:50

you don't want to

1:04:52

just do those items. So a

1:04:54

thing that I didn't mention in that old video, but

1:04:56

I think is also useful for the like,

1:04:58

what things have to be on the list is

1:05:00

it's not just those, but it's

1:05:03

also the tasks that you

1:05:05

know,

1:05:06

save you a significant

1:05:09

amount of time and stress

1:05:11

the following day. So like,

1:05:14

I think whenever I'm talking to people about

1:05:16

to-do lists, it's like those are the

1:05:18

two things that I'm looking for for

1:05:20

like when someone's trying to put together, like what am I going

1:05:23

to do today? It's like absolutely

1:05:25

mission critical. And the stuff

1:05:27

that is going to save you a significant

1:05:30

amount of time and stress tomorrow,

1:05:32

even if it doesn't have

1:05:35

to happen today. And I don't know, for

1:05:37

me, like again, in my old teaching job,

1:05:40

the classic example of saving time

1:05:42

and stress tomorrow for me was always

1:05:44

like,

1:05:45

if you need to make photocopies of anything

1:05:47

for tomorrow's classes, don't

1:05:49

wait until tomorrow because

1:05:52

it's just always a nightmare, right? And like causes

1:05:54

you these problems of like, oh, there's

1:05:56

a big line at the copier or the copier

1:05:59

isn't working, right?

1:05:59

Like you can really screw yourself over

1:06:02

by waiting until the last minute with something like

1:06:04

that. I think those are like the

1:06:06

two things that you really want to focus

1:06:08

on.

1:06:09

But for the rest of the list, I'm going

1:06:11

to suggest a kind of mental

1:06:15

reframing of what to do

1:06:17

lists are and

1:06:20

in order to do this, I'm going to use an example

1:06:23

from one of my favorite things to pull

1:06:25

examples from ever Magic

1:06:28

the Gathering. Of course. This doesn't

1:06:30

come up in a while. That's how you know, by

1:06:32

the way, if we're doing a special episode or a

1:06:34

regular episode, is this gray reference

1:06:36

Magic the Gathering as a metaphor or not? That

1:06:39

might not be unfair. Yeah, that might not

1:06:41

be unfair at all.

1:06:43

Okay. So in Magic the Gathering,

1:06:46

my absolute favorite mechanism

1:06:49

of the game is something that most

1:06:51

players consider quite banal and boring,

1:06:54

but it is something called Scry

1:06:57

and Scry is the ability

1:06:59

to look at the top cards

1:07:02

of your deck and rearrange

1:07:04

their order or put some of them on the

1:07:06

bottom. And I love

1:07:09

this so much in the game. And I

1:07:11

love this as an, as a concept that I think

1:07:13

is just applicable everywhere.

1:07:16

It's one of the very few words

1:07:18

of the game that I like has

1:07:20

so

1:07:21

dug itself into my brain. I sometimes

1:07:23

just use it in conversation without

1:07:26

clarification and then feel real

1:07:28

awkward when someone is like, what the hell did

1:07:30

you just say about like scrying

1:07:33

your list? Like, Oh no, this is very

1:07:35

embarrassing. But the thing about

1:07:37

this is like the concept that is

1:07:39

trying to express here is in most

1:07:42

games of Magic, you're never getting

1:07:44

to the bottom of your deck. The

1:07:46

thing that you're really concerned about is

1:07:49

like, what is the order

1:07:51

of the next

1:07:51

two to five

1:07:54

things that's going to happen? And

1:07:56

I think people should just think about their to-do

1:07:58

lists. as a list

1:08:01

of cards that they're scrying

1:08:04

through. Your job is not to get through

1:08:06

all of these to-do items. Your job

1:08:08

is to

1:08:09

arrange them in the correct

1:08:12

order. And sometimes that means like,

1:08:14

oh, you're looking at something and just

1:08:17

like in Scry, you put a card on the bottom

1:08:19

of the deck because you don't want it right now. It's like,

1:08:21

you're gonna take this to-do list item and you're gonna

1:08:23

put it at the bottom of the deck. And

1:08:26

probably you're going to

1:08:28

die before you get to that to-do list item,

1:08:31

right? But

1:08:32

that's fine, right? Like that's just what life is.

1:08:34

Like I think you're doing

1:08:36

life wrong if you're

1:08:39

consistently getting to the

1:08:41

bottom of your to-do list. Damn,

1:08:43

oh, that's good. There

1:08:46

is something about that that is really

1:08:48

interesting to me where I don't know if you're

1:08:50

saying it this way, but like

1:08:52

if it's like an ambition

1:08:54

thing, if you've done all of your to-do items,

1:08:56

then you're not reaching for something else.

1:08:59

That's exactly the way I mean it is if

1:09:01

your to-do list is empty,

1:09:03

something about your life is wrong. And

1:09:06

it's probably that you're not

1:09:08

reaching hard enough or you're just

1:09:10

not thinking about the, just like

1:09:12

the scope of things that you can actually

1:09:15

do. So this is what I'd be like in a game

1:09:17

of magic, the games always end

1:09:19

and like most games, players still

1:09:21

have cards in their deck. You know

1:09:24

that like in an average game, you're only gonna

1:09:26

ever get through like at most,

1:09:28

you're only gonna see 40% of

1:09:30

the cards in your deck in a normal game,

1:09:33

but you still have more

1:09:35

cards in the deck than that. And it's just like, it's

1:09:37

the same with life,

1:09:38

right? And I would imagine you have some in your hand,

1:09:40

right? It's like, oh, I had some plans here. Like

1:09:43

I was gonna do some cool stuff if it came around,

1:09:45

but I just never got the chance. Yeah, exactly.

1:09:47

I like this. This is a good way of thinking about it.

1:09:50

I feel very confident about this of

1:09:52

like,

1:09:52

people are framing this wrong. And

1:09:55

I used to frame this wrong, of feeling guilty

1:09:58

that at the end of every day, I

1:10:00

didn't complete my to-do

1:10:02

lists, but I just, I think that's totally

1:10:04

wrong. Your actual job is like

1:10:07

arranging the correct order

1:10:10

of the next things that you want to work on.

1:10:12

And that means putting

1:10:15

some things at the bottom of the list, which you're

1:10:17

just never going to get to. And

1:10:19

that's fine. That's totally

1:10:21

fine. In fact, it's way

1:10:24

better than the alternative of having

1:10:26

an empty to-do list. Man,

1:10:29

I love that. I really, I'm going to be thinking about that

1:10:31

a lot. That's like a really good

1:10:33

metaphor. Like it's not too dissimilar to

1:10:35

how I am because I'm just realistic

1:10:37

about like, I know I always have more on my

1:10:39

to-do list and I have time to fit into a day,

1:10:42

but I'm able to look at my list and I know

1:10:44

what is like absolutely must be done

1:10:47

and everything else is movable.

1:10:50

Or like I can do a little bit of it today.

1:10:52

I won't finish it. So I'll get it closer to

1:10:54

the point where I can check it off. I

1:10:56

don't feel guilty about

1:10:58

there being things because I know I have

1:11:01

come to accept that I

1:11:04

never have a day where I complete every

1:11:06

item on my to-do list. It just doesn't happen

1:11:09

because I just know that there's always more to go

1:11:11

if I want to find time for it and that

1:11:13

works for me great. But I know, I just

1:11:16

know by being able to look at things, what is

1:11:18

the most important? And sometimes

1:11:20

I flag them, you know, like in to-do list, I can

1:11:22

change the color of the thing if I need to be

1:11:24

able to have something stand out to me, I can do

1:11:26

that. But I do think it's a skill that

1:11:29

you have to learn over time. There are

1:11:31

some truths about the world you have to accept

1:11:33

first. And I think what you have

1:11:36

perfectly encapsulated is one of those

1:11:38

of like, it's realistically just not possible

1:11:40

for you to do it all. Once you've accepted that,

1:11:43

you can then start to better prioritize. Yeah.

1:11:45

And I still want to say like there's just a slightly

1:11:47

different framing here, which is the like,

1:11:50

it's not that you don't feel guilty for

1:11:53

not having completed the thing. No,

1:11:55

no, no. This is the way it should

1:11:57

be. Like you should end every.

1:11:59

day with more things on your to-do list

1:12:02

than you were able to do, the

1:12:04

real question is did you order

1:12:07

things properly for the day, not

1:12:10

did you get everything done for the day.

1:12:12

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thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of

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this show and RelayFM. Jens

1:14:29

asks, Apple

1:14:29

is rumored to be working on a journaling

1:14:32

app. Have you ever considered making

1:14:34

your own digital journaling app?

1:14:37

Have we Mike?

1:14:39

We'll be doing a lot of work with the word

1:14:42

considered. So let me just, I will

1:14:44

rephrase this by saying there is a suggestion that Apple

1:14:46

is going to be making a brand new app which

1:14:48

will be journaling focused. It will prompt you to

1:14:50

write down things in the day but also

1:14:52

like collect up information about

1:14:55

where you've been and who you've been with and like pre-populate

1:14:57

some of that stuff. It's an interesting idea.

1:14:59

Like I actually like it as an idea

1:15:01

for a journaling app. Although I do

1:15:04

have some questions about like, will anybody

1:15:06

else be

1:15:07

able to use this information that Apple's

1:15:09

putting into their own journaling app? But we'll

1:15:11

see about that one. And so I'm super intrigued

1:15:14

to see what that's all about. In regards

1:15:16

to making a theme system journal app,

1:15:19

no. Right? Like I

1:15:21

mean, have we considered it in a sense

1:15:23

of making a decision on it? Yes. And

1:15:26

the decision is we're not interested

1:15:28

in doing it. Yeah, we've discussed it.

1:15:31

But I think every discussion has been

1:15:33

a

1:15:34

rather unambiguous no.

1:15:36

That this just doesn't make sense for us to do

1:15:39

in this company as a project

1:15:41

for a whole bunch of reasons.

1:15:44

The main one for me personally is I

1:15:47

just think that this stuff is better when

1:15:49

you are making an intentional decision to

1:15:51

sit down with a set

1:15:53

of things, a pen and a notepad

1:15:56

or a book or a journal of some kind. Like

1:15:59

get your phone or whatever. away from you and sitting

1:16:01

right down how you're feeling what you're thinking

1:16:03

about. Like I think that that is important.

1:16:06

And it's like, honestly, for me, the

1:16:09

act of doing that thing is

1:16:11

part of what is important about doing

1:16:13

it anyway, that you are choosing

1:16:16

to sit down and do this thing. Where

1:16:19

I feel like if my phone is sending

1:16:21

me a notification to remind

1:16:23

me to write in a journal, and then

1:16:25

I tap that and I write in my journal and press

1:16:27

like, like it just feels like anything

1:16:30

that I have on my phone.

1:16:31

I have a daily to do

1:16:33

task to write in my journal, but

1:16:36

that doesn't then mean that I open good

1:16:38

notes and start writing with the

1:16:40

Apple pencil. Like I've never done that. I

1:16:42

like to be able to sit down with this item

1:16:46

that I care about that I look after that

1:16:48

is mine. And that I can see it's

1:16:50

got my handwriting in it and it's filled up at the

1:16:52

end. I think that that is an important

1:16:55

practice, like a thing to do.

1:16:57

So that is one of the reasons. The other is just,

1:17:00

have you heard about the economics of the app

1:17:03

store? Yeah. It would take

1:17:05

a lot of time and money to make

1:17:08

an app, which has a high enough quality

1:17:10

that we will put our name on. This is similar to

1:17:12

the physical product stuff, right? Me

1:17:14

and you are gonna have an app that's Cortex

1:17:16

brand.

1:17:18

It's got to be really good that we would

1:17:20

be happy with it. So that's gonna be expensive

1:17:22

to make. And then like

1:17:24

trying to run that as a business,

1:17:27

I don't know if I wanna do that, to

1:17:30

be honest. I feel confident in

1:17:32

being able to work with people

1:17:34

to produce these products that we have.

1:17:37

Making an app to a high quality just feels

1:17:39

like a completely different thing, but

1:17:42

also is not a thing that

1:17:44

I particularly want to put my

1:17:46

energy into because

1:17:48

it would feel

1:17:51

like there's no good way of saying this without me sounding

1:17:53

like,

1:17:54

look at this guy. But it would feel

1:17:57

like it wasn't true to what

1:17:59

I believe.

1:17:59

for the theme system. I

1:18:03

believe it is best used

1:18:06

when using our

1:18:08

journal or another notebook I'm thinking

1:18:10

in this way of like I have a yearly

1:18:13

theme and every

1:18:15

day I'm gonna sit and write in my thing

1:18:17

that is focused around my theme and

1:18:20

it's gonna help guide me because I'm taking the intentional

1:18:22

time every day to think about it and just

1:18:24

write down how I'm feeling how I'm getting on. I

1:18:27

think that that is important and I think the

1:18:29

act of writing it down is

1:18:31

the important part by sitting and

1:18:33

making that intention rather than just being like let

1:18:36

me open my app. I don't know I

1:18:38

can imagine so many people are listening to me

1:18:40

and they don't see a difference that's

1:18:43

fine but I feel this

1:18:45

way and I'm part

1:18:48

of the decision-making of the things that we're

1:18:50

doing.

1:18:51

Yeah and I back you on this like I agree

1:18:53

there's a lot of problems with the economics

1:18:56

of this again largely

1:18:59

stemming from how would the

1:19:01

two of us want this to be done. It's

1:19:04

not a question of like is it possible

1:19:06

to make an app that is vaguely this.

1:19:09

It's a question of making

1:19:11

it the way that we would want to be which is very different

1:19:15

but

1:19:15

I do also agree with you that

1:19:17

I think behavior change is

1:19:20

really hard for people. It's especially

1:19:22

difficult in absence of signals

1:19:25

to yourself

1:19:27

that you're really trying to

1:19:29

do something differently and

1:19:32

for most people in

1:19:35

the current modern world

1:19:37

having a notebook that is a physical

1:19:40

object I think is a real signal

1:19:43

to their own brain to pay attention

1:19:45

that something is different here. Yeah. You know

1:19:47

sometimes you try to think about like who are you making

1:19:50

products for and who are

1:19:52

you trying to help with things and

1:19:55

I sometimes imagine a kind

1:19:57

of customer that I can easily imagine

1:19:59

is like a younger

1:19:59

version of myself as well. Like someone

1:20:04

who is like really tech oriented

1:20:07

and spends a lot of time around electronics,

1:20:09

like just like I did, but is also

1:20:12

dissatisfied with life in various

1:20:14

ways. And it's having a hard time

1:20:16

like changing themselves and

1:20:20

to buy a physical notebook, which

1:20:23

itself acts as a physical reminder

1:20:25

in your real life space about

1:20:28

something that you're trying to do. I

1:20:30

think it really shows your brain

1:20:32

like this is different from all of the other

1:20:34

things in your environment, take

1:20:36

it seriously. And so I think

1:20:39

for that kind of customer, the fact that

1:20:41

it is a physical object is

1:20:43

much more helpful to them in terms

1:20:46

of enacting actual change and

1:20:49

that I can

1:20:52

kind of imagine that selling an app,

1:20:54

even if it is profitable might be

1:20:57

a disservice to that exact

1:20:59

kind of customer because it would be less

1:21:01

helpful to them because it is less

1:21:03

distinct and like

1:21:06

something needs to be different is

1:21:08

the whole thing about why you might

1:21:10

be buying this, which is why it helps

1:21:12

that it's a physical product. So

1:21:14

I think we're in agreement, no app

1:21:17

of the theme system. And we sell the theme

1:21:19

system journal, use any notebook you

1:21:21

like. We're not using this to try and sell

1:21:23

you on it. Like watch Grey's video, he

1:21:25

explains it. But like that is an important

1:21:27

part to the two of us. Yeah. And that's also why

1:21:29

like

1:21:30

I've talked about that. We've talked about that. We

1:21:32

obviously sell a notebook, but

1:21:34

I like,

1:21:36

I don't know. I don't, I don't want to get all cheesy here,

1:21:38

but I really do feel it. Like

1:21:40

I feel very strongly about

1:21:44

wanting to

1:21:45

try and help people to be happier

1:21:48

and to live more satisfied

1:21:50

lives because I know I could

1:21:52

have had a really bad time in

1:21:55

life and

1:21:57

these kinds of things. If you

1:21:59

catch someone. at the right time with

1:22:01

them are literally life-changing.

1:22:03

It's important to me that people try this

1:22:05

kind of stuff. Obviously, we want to sell

1:22:07

notebooks, but I care a lot more

1:22:09

that someone who needs it, like,

1:22:12

gives this a try, and maybe it's helpful to

1:22:14

them, and you can just do it on anything.

1:22:17

But not an app. LAUGHTER

1:22:23

Ian asks, a fairy or member

1:22:25

of the appropriate government agency

1:22:27

grants you an extra employee at no

1:22:30

cost to you that has whatever skill

1:22:32

set you need. What part

1:22:35

of what you do now would you offload

1:22:37

to them, and why?

1:22:39

Ooh. What

1:22:42

would you say to this? So,

1:22:44

this is the key of why, like, it's

1:22:46

a fairy, okay?

1:22:47

Because it's like, there's magic involved?

1:22:50

There's magic involved, right, okay. What

1:22:52

I would want is someone who could help

1:22:55

me with show production,

1:22:57

in, like, finding interesting stories

1:23:00

to talk about, helping me think

1:23:03

about and expand on certain topics, like,

1:23:05

what's some interesting stuff that we could talk about. The

1:23:07

reason we need a fairy for this is because this

1:23:09

person needs to think and work like me,

1:23:12

exactly. Because I wouldn't

1:23:14

want to work with anyone like this if they didn't

1:23:16

share my exact thinking,

1:23:17

which

1:23:18

is why I have no actual desire to

1:23:21

find a producer, because

1:23:23

I like the way that I think about topics

1:23:25

for my shows. Would I like it if there were

1:23:28

two of me? Great. Right.

1:23:30

Other than that, this isn't a role that I would

1:23:33

be looking to fill because I

1:23:35

want to still be involved, but if there's

1:23:37

someone who already thinks like me, then I'm

1:23:39

already doing it, you know? That's why, that's the

1:23:41

fairy part. Yeah, okay, if there's magic

1:23:43

involved, this is, in some sense, an easier,

1:23:46

but, Exactly, that's why, One of the

1:23:48

reasons I picked this question is because there's magic

1:23:50

involved. Right. So, if

1:23:53

there's magic involved, what I would want

1:23:55

is a first draft

1:23:58

script writer.

1:23:59

That would be the... the thing that I would want. Right, see there

1:24:01

we go, you know. Again, it's like, do

1:24:04

the first part, but think like me. Yes,

1:24:07

exactly, yeah. It's like,

1:24:09

I've mentioned this before, but like my skill is

1:24:11

not writing, my skill is editing.

1:24:13

And so getting to the point

1:24:15

where there's the first, what I think of as readable

1:24:18

draft, is so

1:24:20

much work and it's so hard. And

1:24:24

the problem is like that first draft, it's the same

1:24:26

thing you have, like there's a certain kind of quality

1:24:28

that I'm looking for. And I

1:24:31

know people are always like, oh, but you can hire

1:24:33

writers. And

1:24:35

it's like, look, I'm just gonna say like, I know

1:24:37

YouTube channels who have brought on other writers

1:24:40

and even when they're reasonably good, it's like, but

1:24:42

they're just

1:24:44

never

1:24:45

quite the same as the person who

1:24:47

started the thing. Of course. And

1:24:49

like you can just feel channels

1:24:52

getting a little bland, or

1:24:54

it just like, it just feels a little different and

1:24:57

very often it's like, ah, they brought on more writers. And

1:25:00

it's like, it's just changed.

1:25:01

So I think that's the thing that I would

1:25:03

want most. If there was like a magic employee,

1:25:06

it would be the like, I'll give you this,

1:25:08

like I'll keep doing the selection. Like I'll pick

1:25:10

something, but if you can give me like

1:25:12

a first draft that I can start

1:25:14

editing from,

1:25:15

that would be amazing. But

1:25:17

that would also be basically

1:25:18

magic.