216: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga

All right, Mike, how are you feeling now? You've been sick for like the last two months, so are we finally feeling better? The entire year? Yeah. Yeah, I'm feeling better. I am slightly tired.

Being sick threw a monkey wrench in my cohort launch plans, but we made it through, and the first week of the cohort was a little bit... rough because i didn't need all the time to prep everything ahead of time like i wanted to i was kind of building it like the day before i was presenting it because as i mentioned to you i think it was in the pro show maybe it was before that where um

I can't deal with my videos being out of date. So even something as minor as, you know, Obsidian changed the user interface and the gear is no longer in the... lower left-hand corner of the ribbon now it's in the bottom of the file explorer bar next to the vault name that means that i want to redo all of those those videos so that's what i'm what i'm doing yeah that's a lot of work but i'm

I'm getting a little bit ahead of it now. I'm not done editing all of the videos as we record this but I'm about a week and a half ahead so there's light at the end of the tunnel. And no, I don't think it's a train. Well, that's good. Because if it's a train, you should probably run away. Yeah. Well, good. I'm glad you're feeling better. It's good to have.

you know it's good to have somewhat healthy mike back even though you have some we have somewhat tired mike back but that's that's good it's a good tired right you're doing doing good and productive things. Mike mentioned the pro show. So in the pro show today, we talked about challenges and whether or not Mike likes challenges or takes on challenges. And the fact that I do all the time, just as a way to kind of.

kind of push forward so if you're interested in that um you can check us out at bookworm uh sorry patreon.com bookworm fm to check out the but you're you're burying the lead you're bringing the lead here what people will really find in the pro show is we crack the nut on figuring out a way for cory to actually his action items yeah i mean maybe like i don't know i'm not i'm not guaranteeing anything okay i'm not guaranteeing anything okay um okay so um

Speaking of said action items. Yeah, let's talk about follow-up first. So let's get into follow-up. Lead the effort to have a conversation. This is mine. Sorry, this is my follow-up item, my action item. Lead the effort to have a conversation about library co-working sessions. Yep.

In true form, that didn't happen. Well, we sort of did before we even finished the last episode. I think you could actually mark this one as... as done you're too kind we have a strategy we just haven't had time to talk through the implementation details so uh this is this is coming for people who support the the show but Give us a few more weeks to figure out the details. The bottom line is that you're going to get this and the cost is not going to go up. Additional perks.

Yep. All right, Mike. So your follow-up item was to create more checklists. Were you able to do this? And what checklist did you create? I did not create this. I'm on the verge of completing this. If you give me one more week, it probably happens because I mentioned in the pro show. You asked me kind of like what was the area of challenge that I would want, and I said it was probably along the lines of something that I'm trying to crease, like systems that I'm trying to build.

Not going to have the whole conversation here, but my takeaway from this is that I am working with people to help me take my newsletters and publish them other places. One of those is going to be a blog, which is...

PracticalPKM.com is going to get an upgrade soon. And then also to social media. So I am not... uh at the point where this is actually happening yet we've kind of talked through it i i know kind of this is the the things that i'm gonna have this person help me with and the next step then is to create the documentation the sops so we've got the space set up in notion for it i know exactly where they're going to be i know exactly what they're going to be on

But none of those checklists exist yet. Hang in there. Stay strong. You can do it. You can make those checklists. Okay, I will. Okay. All right. So let's move on to today's book. So today's book is The Courage to be Disliked. And the whole title is The Courage to be Disliked, the Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to change your life and achieve real happiness.

Now, this book is an interesting format. I don't think we've read many books of this format, but it's by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. And what you learn at the end of the book, so the very, very end of the book, is essentially what they did was they mimicked what they did in real life and then turned it into a book. So Ichiro Kishima, he writes about... Adlerian psychology, and he's a counselor around the Adlerian psychology. And then Fumitake Koga learned about this, sought out Ichiro.

and then went to visit him and would have these conversations with him. Now, the reason I tell you that background is because the way they structure the book is it's a philosopher, so that would be Ichiro, and then it's a youth. Right. And that in like every section or every chapter of the book, if you haven't read it yet, right, is philosopher says a thing.

youth responds, philosopher responds, and they just have this dialogue back and forth. So it's meant to be this like Socratic dialogue around Adlerian psychology. Mike, I need to stop right now and I'm going to say, if I say Aldirian. at all call me out because for some reason my brain wants to switch the l and the d there and i've messed this up a hundred times personally um so add it's adlerian so it's um adlerian psychology is based off of alfred adler

who was a Venetian psychologist. And he developed... kind of at the same time of Freud and Jung, the psychology, and he was part of the Freudian system, and then he kind of broke away at the time. So if... You're thinking about reading this book, and as you hear us talk about it, we cannot get away from human psychology. The whole book is about human psychology. It's really Adler's. take on human psychology interpreted by these two individuals as they talk as philosopher and um and youth i think

A couple other things that would make sense. The book is super popular. I mean, it's sold 10 million copies. It's described as a TikTok sensation, which I didn't know a book could be a TikTok sensation, but there you go.

And then it's really highly rated on Amazon. So we're talking 18,000 reviews and four and a half stars. So what I'll say is generally... people really like this book and they really like you know the what this book has to say what do you have are we going to really like this book that is the question that is the question and that is why we hold a you know

hour plus long conversation about it and figure that out as we go well i can tell you there are certain people who will not like this book because in the um the wikipedia article which i will link to for people who are interested in adlerian psychology i maybe i pronounced that wrong uh it's also known as individual psychology and it credits alfred adler and it talks through the basic components that we will actually work through in the outline

But also it mentions here that Adler's theory is similar to Maslow. So Madlow's hierarchy of needs. And I know there are people in the bookworm audience who have issues with that theory specifically. Um, so that's kind of what you're getting into and no hard feelings. If you decide to, uh, to not listen to the rest of the episode, I get it, but I think this is kind of interesting and, uh, I'm.

Curious to see where this conversation goes as we work through the the five different nights that are the chapters here in this book. Yeah, I I think what I like about this is, you know, in, you know. the schooling that I've done so far and in my wife's.

counseling work I've heard a lot about Jung and I've heard a lot about Freud and I've heard a lot about those two and I hadn't heard a ton about Adler so the idea that there was this other person and there's even a like sub chapter so the way this book is structured is there are five nights, right? So you have an introduction and then you have the first night, the second night, the third night, the fourth night, and the fifth night. And those are...

the knights that the youth would go visit the philosopher and they would have these discussions. Like that's the way they structure it. And they have a subtitle to them and all that. But in one of the knights, or sorry, all the knights have like sub chapters within those. And one of them is called the Unknown Third Giant. At least for these two individuals, these two authors, they see Adler at the level of...

Jung and Freud, and not being a psychology major, and Mike, you were a business major, so neither of us are psychology majors. I have no idea if that's legit or not, but okay, here you go. This is what they think. Yeah, so my wife started off as a psychology major. I'm not sure why. She wouldn't be able to tell you either, probably, because that was never really her thing. She ended up with an art degree and was a professional photographer.

quite a while. But she did a couple of years of psychology. There was one class in particular, it might have been abnormal psychology, that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for her. But I'd be curious to... To see if our conversation in this episode triggers anything from her studies. I mentioned Adler to my wife who studied counseling and she's like, oh yeah.

She's like, I know of Adler. I've like, I've read individual psychology stuff and blah, blah, blah. And then we just stopped. Like she didn't, she didn't want to carry that conversation on anymore. So I don't know if that's like, it wasn't that interesting or if she was just busy and didn't really feel like talking about it. Maybe all of the above. I don't know. So if we get into the introduction, I think the way I've structured the introduction is, or my thought on the introduction is, it's...

It's really like kind of high level, but there are pieces of information later on in the book that I think are valuable to be brought back up into the introduction. So I'm going to describe some of those here and we'll see where we go from here. But you basically get this idea of people can change and that everybody can find happiness. So, you know, happiness is a key feature of this book and the youth is trying to find happiness.

And then you get the idea of what the heck Adlerian psychology is. And it's the psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others. And it's basically you and no one else. So it's dedicated to your what they call lifestyle, which Adler has this whole thing about what lifestyle is.

There's this idea of interpersonal relationships and everything essentially is based around this interpersonal relationships. And then we get into the idea of courage, right? So there's the psychology of courage and the psychology of use. And then this idea of...

not needing to seek recognition from others and how that plays into it. And then kind of when you get to the very, very end of it, it brings in community, right? So usefulness and usefulness to community and how does all of that play in. From the introduction standpoint, it's really just setting the stage for what the nature of the dialogue is going to be and setting the stage for a little bit about what Adler talked about.

Yeah, the things that I jotted down from this section was really just the format of the rest of the book. I mean, they do kind of sprinkle in some of the core ideas, which you sort of hit on. So just a couple of bullets where this youth is approaching this philosopher to debate that life in the world is simple. He makes the argument that when you're a youth, you're protected by adults. So life is simple. When you become an adult, though, life gets complicated.

mentions that religion no longer has power and people do not have a real belief in God. So people are filled with anxiety and doubt. And the philosopher tells the youth that the world is simple, but you are making it complicated. So that's the setting for the

the rest of the book and then the first night, second night, third night, et cetera, for the different chapters. Those are basically conversations between the youth and the philosopher, which reads like a script for a play. It does. And then, um, gets to a point where the youth is like what how in the world can that be possible and then he's like i got to go home and think about this then comes back and

I talk about it some more. So we'll get into this in style and rating. So I don't want to put the cart too far before the horse, but like, I think that was one of my. you know rubs of the book is like ah like it was almost too scripted it was almost too like play dialogue where it's like how on earth could you ever think that like that is blah blah blah blah blah right and and i was like okay like i don't think people would really talk like that

Like you would disagree, but I don't think you'd really talk like that. And that kind of took the dialogue down a little bit of a notch for me is the overplay of that dialogue. Well, I think it's possible that that is the way that the dialogue would actually go.

But it also feels weird to read it like that word for word. And again, like I don't have a drama background. Both of my oldest sons are currently at the... the rehearsals for uh for newsies so they maybe have a different different opinion but i agree it feels like a little bit a little bit extreme and sort of just like an unbelievable nobody talks that way

But also it sort of reminds me it's not exactly the same. The format is different, but kind of like what people say and sort of the same feeling of nobody talks that way. occurred to me when i would read the patrick lencioni books like the five dysfunctions of a team is one that stands out to me i love that book because the ideas that are in it are really powerful but i remember reading the the story and being like

This is ridiculous. And for whatever reason, in that particular book, I was able to push past that at some point. I couldn't even tell you exactly when it happened. I realized at the beginning I was like, well, this story is absurd. And then eventually I clicked into it and it kept me turning the pages.

you know, mission accomplished from the author's perspective, he was able to impart his message. And I do think that the parable format that Lencioni uses and kind of the back and forth dialogue here that... that is in this book, it can be effective for making these ideas maybe a little bit stickier than they would be if you just presented the information like a normal productivity book would. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. Are you ready to move on to night one?

Let's do it. Okay, so the first night is called Deny Trauma. So again, they're going to get into this dialogue and they're going to start talking about different things. I don't remember what kicked off the... the idea of what the youth brought up but the youth would bring up something and say you know this thing and then the philosopher would come back and respond and respond with um adlerian

principles and ideas so a couple of things i got out of this uh this first section to get us started so realizing that adler was one of the the main you know, psychologists at the time and kind of came from that Freudian school of thought, but, but differed and broke away. The idea that said.

instead of causes which freud was talked about like oh i do this now because this happened to me previously um you know this cause and effect thing uh that adler says no that's that's actually not the way it is I do this now because I have some goal that's actually encouraging me to do this now, or I'm doing this behavior now because I'm trying to achieve some other goal. So he calls it teleology.

And it's creating a state of something as a means to achieve a goal. So the example might have been, because I'm looking at, caught it in my notes now, creating the state of fear or creating the state of anxiety, which...

achieves the goal of being a recluse. So I don't ever leave my house. So I create this state of fear or anxiety. That way I never leave my house. And that's kind of the nature of... you know instead of cause and effect you go to this idea of goal and action or you know lifestyle i guess if you will um because of i want this other thing to occur yeah there's there's a

I don't know how much we want to get into the actual psychology here because there are several points that they make in each one of these nights. The format of the book, they're these tiny little chapters.

I don't even know how many there are in the entire book, but probably like 50. Yeah, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. So we're not going to tackle it that way, but each one of those is kind of encompassing a specific idea. I guess, you know, a couple things that jumped out to me here. Number one. Right at the beginning, he talks about another book by Dale Carnegie, which I've read. What is it? Win Friends. How to Win Friends and Influence People, the famous one, which.

I really like that book. I know that there's maybe some, I don't know, people have maybe some negative feelings just towards the title of it, but that's not really what it's about. It's not a manipulative book at all. There's another Dale Carnegie book that they mentioned, how to stop worrying and start living. And I guess just the stage of life that I'm in, that one jumped out to me. So I actually ordered that book. You can't buy the book.

individually on amazon you have to get like a box set so that's that's what i did okay but that one was interesting to me and i like the idea of from the introduction just life is simple but you're You're making it hard. We're not controlled by our emotion, just like we're not controlled by our past. Our self is determined not by what happens to us, but the meaning that we give those events. I can get on board with...

with those ideas. He uses a quote from Adler that I jotted down because I think it's important. The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment. I feel like... that's uh very much in alignment with my own personal ethos philosophy whatever like it's uh part of like the vision of values piece the life theme uh stuff that that uh

really has clicked for me and i try to try to help other people with but i didn't want to talk about this this thing that he mentions of people living with the possibility of i can do it if i try do you remember that that part of this i do okay So that is one of my pet peeves. Like I don't want to be around people like that just because in my opinion, they're talkers, they're not doers.

And if you're really going to boil it down as to why is that such a big deal, I really think that there's truth to that saying you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Put another way, Jim Rohn said... You know, who are you allowing to speak into your life? What effect is that having on you? And is that okay? I feel like that sort of attitude is dangerous for me because I can fall into that too.

I want when it's all said and done, I want more done than said. So I don't know. I get like specific people that come to mind.

when i hear that phrase like oh yeah you know they've always got this great idea that they want to talk to me about and it's to the point now where i have to catch myself because the minute that you know i see them approaching me to tell me about their latest great idea i kind of want to just like shut them down and not listen and i know that like that's a jerk move and i really shouldn't do that but that's sort of the tendency is like the shields go up basically yep i understand

and let's get this over with you know and then i can get back to actually doing something do you have that sort of visceral reaction to that sort of thing and uh Do you know anybody like that? I do. So as you're describing it, I'm thinking of individuals in my head because I get it. where i'd be a hypocrite is there are certain things in my life where it's like i'm that way and i'm trying to figure out like why am i that way like why do i always talk about or think about wanting to do a thing

And like one of the gut checks here is, I don't remember what night it was on, but one of the gut checks here is like, oh, like there are things that I'll make excuses for, right? And I'll be like, oh, I would do that thing, but... Yada, yada, yada. And Adler, you know, and, you know, for the authors to hear and then Adler's principles would say, no, no, no, no, no. Like you're making an excuse or you're, you actually don't have the goal.

to do the thing your goal is to make the excuse for doing the thing so then you go find it so it's like yes i have those people that i have the same visceral reaction that you do and then i think yeah but

You do that too, Corey. There are certain aspects of life where you do that too. So I think one of the... fun things about this book and I don't mean fun in like a ha ha ha kind of way but one of the things that made this book a challenge to read it made it interesting to read was there were certain times where I was like okay I really agree with that premise there were certain times where I was like I do not agree with that premise at all

And then there were certain times where like the premise really challenged me and I was like, I should think about like how that, that applies to my life and some of the things that, um, that I do. So like another one that comes from this one is. This idea that no matter what's happened in life up until now, it doesn't have a bearing on how I live from now on. I think this is a really good principle. I think this is a really good thing to follow through. Now, where I get...

in a little bit of disagreement here is it should have no bearing on how you live. It's like, well, hold on. It might need to have a little bearing on how you live now, but like... And what I think the point of it is, or the way I took the point of it is, is don't let the things that have happened in the past stop you from making progress or developing habits around those things. Because we like to talk about habits, right? So developing habits around those things that you want it to do.

Silly example. We were talking about running in the pro show. Don't let the fact that you've overeaten for 15 years of your life and you're overweight stop you from... the idea of running now like you can start now you can go now now does it have no bearing no it actually has a bearing like you need to be able you have to start slower you maybe can't run as far you can't you know like those kind of things but that doesn't mean you can't become a runner

You know, as you as you go. And this is where, like, you can see my brain kind of splitting different things in half and trying to figure out what I where I take these ideas and where I don't. Sure. Yeah, one other thing I'll mention from this section that I liked, but not, you know, as it pertains to individual psychology. He mentions that in Greek, the words for good, which is agathon and evil, kakan.

I hope I wrote those right. They simply mean beneficial or not beneficial. That's the big takeaway. Which, as we record this, just went through the ideas week for the Practical PKM cohort. and that's one of the key ideas and i never really heard it phrased that way but the way i describe it in terms of capturing things is you don't want to capture the things that might be important someday you want to capture the things that are useful

But I like this, you know, beneficial because really it's all about capturing the things as, you know, individual mental Lego blocks that you can use then when you are remixing things and making something new. I might adopt this beneficial or not beneficial idea. As it pertains to PKM. So interpersonal relationships. Mike, I'm intrigued. um adlerian psychology says basically it's all about interpersonal relationships and then they'll classify these interpersonal relationships where it's like

You and a loved one or you and a boss or you in the world and like society. Mike, do you think that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems? I do actually. Okay.

so i've heard it said this way people are always the problem and people are always the solution sometimes the the person is you so it's not just like i got to get out of this situation these people are holding me down but Yeah, I think how you view and manage those relationships is probably the most important thing that you can do in terms of your...

i was going to say individual success but it's really not about the success it's really just about fulfilling i think your individual purpose for lack of a better word you know finding meaning in your life another way to put this would be I read this book a while back called The Second Mountain by David Brooks. You familiar with that book? Only because you've talked about it. I've not read it, but only. Yeah, it was really good. And basically the idea is you spend your.

You know, your life climbing this first mountain. You get to the mountaintop. That's a theme that pops up in this book also. Trying to get to the mountaintop. But you get to the top of the mountain. You look around. You're like, is this it? You know, what's next? And then you see there's another mountain.

over there that's the one you should have been climbing the whole time the first mountain it's all about you the second mountain it's all about other people so i didn't make that connection when i read it but i can see the the same sort of uh philosophy uh being communicated here and yeah i think i generally agree with it i do too right so i kind of set it up to see you know where you where you'd land on that um i do too

So I think that if you could live in pure isolation, which they say in the book, you can't, right? Like it's impossible to live in pure isolation. But if you could live in pure isolation, a lot of the problems or all of the problems would go away.

You wouldn't have these problems because you wouldn't be comparing yourself to others. And then these interpersonal relationship problems, now you get rid of this fear of inferiority, this trying to have superiority over other people, that if you're in pure isolation, you don't need to have any of that. Like none of that exists. It's not coming at you. You're not projecting it onto other people. So you can see kind of.

I think there's a fairly good, at least in my perspective, logical chain of reasoning through... the way this works. These are the interpersonal relationship problems. Well, where do they come from? They come from these feelings of inferiority. So what do we do? We act in certain ways based on these feelings of inferiority. Well, then we get this idea of what we want to be.

We want to move forward or gain superiority over people. So what do we do? We act in these other ways, which we cause these problems. And I think as I'm reading this, the whole time, there's these scenarios popping into my head. And some of them were... things I'm doing and some of them were things people do around me or with me or whatever it is and I'm thinking to myself like oh yeah like that makes total sense like I actually understand this this makes total sense so

This was one of those areas where it really, really resonated with me. I had never heard it pitched this way. Again, I knew nothing about Adlerian psychology, but man, like... I thought this was a really, really interesting, you know, night two was a really, really interesting section to me and a really good section to me. Yeah, there's a bunch of cool, cool things in this particular section. So you kind of mentioned the inferiority.

complex but there's also the superiority complex you touched on this a little bit those are i view that as kind of like two ends of the the spectrum and really what the philosopher is encouraging the youth to do at this point is to step off the scale essentially like you don't want either of those things and this is how it's all making it and making everything complicated

talking about how when you're engaged in a power struggle, step down from the conflict as soon as you can. You really don't need to view life as a competition. And when I heard that part, it kind of reminded me of like the abundance versus the scarcity mindset. And scarcity is basically there's only so much to go around. So I have to put other people down so that I can get what I deserve, essentially.

The abundance mindset is basically there's no shortage of success. So, you know, me succeeding doesn't prevent or you succeeding doesn't prevent me from succeeding and vice versa. So we could just chill and cheer each other on.

And that's where I think it's kind of going here. Now, if you're in the middle of this, like he's trying to counsel this youth, basically, and he's in the middle of all of this interpersonal struggle, he's like, well, you got to... you got to change and he's like well i can't change because the people around me won't change which that is a whole interesting

argue a circular argument there so one of the things that i jotted down from this which i i think is interesting is that if you change those around you will change too it's not explicitly saying like it's got to start with you but one of the topics that i'm fascinated in is the whole idea of self-determination, which I don't think exactly aligns with this, but just the history with this. I worked for a long time with the family business and my dad.

has a master's in assessment so he developed these research-based assessment skill building tools in the area of emotional intelligence and part of that is this whole idea of personal responsibility or self-determination and one of my favorite things to do when i worked at the the company is i would do these webinars and i would do them with like academic at-risk programs which are typically

Full of inner city youth that come from single parent homes and they have been told their entire lives. It's not your fault. You were born in this situation. 100% true. You know, there are negative things that have happened to you that. You didn't ask for, you didn't deserve this, but the whole program and like all the research that goes into, uh, documenting, you know, this is where people were, and this is what happened after like getting them to change their mindset.

and take responsibility not for all the things that that happened to them or you know why they are where they are but taking responsibility for changing their path and moving forward and all of the good that can come from that Like it's so, it was so life-giving and encouraging and rewarding for me to hear the stories about the kids who were in the, you know, the terrible situations and they got ahold of this message and they completely turned their.

their lives around but the hard part is like you're in that that this in the the software would talk about this victim thinking cycle you know, where procrastination leads to blame leads to victim thinking. And it's like, well, you know, somebody's got to come in and change this for me. And the sad reality maybe is that no one's really going to do that.

But the encouraging truth is that you have the power to do that yourself. You don't need anybody's permission. So again, this is kind of like tangential to what he's talking about here, but that's what was triggered to me when he's talking about. No, someone's got to change and it may as well be you because if you're waiting for somebody else to do it first, you may be waiting quite a while. Yeah.

But when you do that, just to wrap up the thought, when you do that, it kicks off a positive chain reaction. So it's kind of like we're in this cycle of suck. It's dragging us. down into the the drain you know kind of like the water that's swirling around the the drain in the shower when you when you pull the plug but it's kind of exciting to think about how you can actually reverse that with a

simple perspective choice. And I don't think that's overstating it at all. And he gets at this with the difference between the inferior... inferiority complex and then the feeling of inferiority right so inferior inferiority complex says um a is the situation therefore b cannot be done so that because of the situation it cannot be done and like that's flat Like that is just true. And he says, no, the feeling of inferiority.

is a stimulant to actually have you go and do something and to change what he would then call lifestyle, right? Your actions and the way you behave right now in order to... kind of overcome that feeling of inferiority, which isn't a bad, like it's not a bad thing. So we often look at inferiority and say like, oh, you know, let's use a silly example. Mike has more followers on.

x social media account therefore i feel inferior inferior to him right i can never get as good as as good as mike you know blah blah blah whereas it's like no like

Mike has more followers. Maybe I want more followers. So what am I going to do? I'm going to change my actions every day to try to get more followers or whatever it might be. And I think that's a really... valuable way to think about it because it takes that idea of inferiority which we inherently think of as negative and moves it to do something about it like you said like do do something make that change and adjust things exactly which probably leads us into the third one

Well, hold on. Can we, there's one more key idea that we have to get in here is this idea of tasks. Sure. So in night two, we still were talking about tasks, right? Yep. Well, actually, so the third night. is really where he talks about tasks but he does talk about work in the the second night yeah it kind of sets the stage for it a little bit yeah he talks about work tasks friendship tasks and love tasks and how he delineates these ideas um and then

The reason why that's important is as we get into the third night, so let's go ahead and transition into the third night, is because now we're going to start talking about the fact that we need to separate these tasks. And there are tasks where they're... They're my tasks and there are tasks that are Mike's tasks. And when the interpersonal relationship problems happen is when I try to...

inject myself into Mike's tasks. Or when Mike tries to inject himself into my tasks. And when we do that, we end up... essentially causing these interpersonal relationship problems. And the better option would be to separate those tasks and would be to just be like, no, that's Mike. And if Mike's going to think that way, if he's going to feel that way, if that's the way he's going to respond to that task.

That's not me. And therefore, I shouldn't take that on as my burden, if you will. I don't know if I'm doing it justice, but that's my high level of separation of tasks. I love this section so much. So this isn't exactly what he's talking about, but what it reminded me of is literally in the cohort this week talking about how email is a to-do list that other people can write on. And you've got to disconnect from...

When someone says they want something from you, there's always urgency applied to it and that masquerades as importance. So you have to figure out for yourself, what am I actually going to do with this?

Sometimes it's, yeah, I want to help this person out. Sometimes it's, no, I have important things I need to do and I'm sorry I can't help you. So the whole idea of the... differentiation between my tasks and other people's tasks like i'm 100 on board with that now the way he defines these i don't know i guess i could nitpick it like he talks about the parent-child relationship and how it's the child's task to do the homework i can tell you like that that example is

hits uh hits for me right now like it's real you know we have our classical conversations group that we're a part of and so they work independently throughout the week and we generally are you know did you do this did you do that And so during the week, essentially, it is the child's task. But then on Tuesdays, when they meet in person, my wife is there. She's going to be a director next year.

We don't want to just send our kids to class and, well, if your teachers get mad at you, we'll deal with it. We want to make sure they have their stuff together. And the night before, it's always a scramble. It's like... you got to do this you got to do that like why haven't you done this yet so we fall into the trap that he's describing in the book here here about assuming the task for the kids and

he talks about how there's like emotions that go with that that's 100 real it's 100 the situation that happens i also don't think that we are willing to just disconnect from that be like oh yeah well whatever happens happens it's our kids will figure it out eventually like we're not going to do that

Yeah, I was like, so if you were on the Zoom call, I'm like flagging Mike because it's like I'm in such the same situation here. I'm reading this thinking to myself, well, hold on, hold on, right? Like I can't just completely. you know i'm going to say shirk my responsibility as a parent because that's my child's task right like oh my child's task is to study or my child's task is to work on piano lessons or whatever it is it's like

Oh, but isn't there some level of like my task is to encourage my child to go and do that thing or my task is to hold my child accountable? Now, I can't fault the fact of what you just said or I can't like... refute the fact that what you just said

It causes interpersonal relationship problems, right? So I say, hey guys, have you practiced the piano this week? And they say, no. And I say, you should probably practice the piano before your lesson. And they say, but we don't want to. And I say, yeah, but we're paying. good money for those lessons and they say yeah but we don't want to and they're right there we got an interpersonal relationship problem is it because i'm i'm

I'm invading their task or how does he word it? I'm intruding in their task. Yes, but they're also not doing their task. So this is one of those areas where I don't know like.

i don't know how to resolve this like i don't know what my brain thinks is the right answer to this section well that's the weakest the weakest argument i think um in this section and maybe even the whole book because i struggle to envision a world where and honestly i don't want to be involved in a community where that's tolerated you know that

The kids can just do whatever the heck they want. They're kids. Their brains aren't fully developed. They can't make right choices. Your job as a parent is to help them navigate this and set them up for success. There is a point where you do have to let them go and make their own choice. choices so i think you can you know extrapolate this further and you do have to get to the point that he's talking about but when they're

Young, yeah, they're not making their own choices. I'm sorry. Otherwise, we'd have pizza and ice cream for dinner every single day. And he probably could refute some of this, you know, if we had a conversation. But that's the part where I was kind of like, yeah, I don't really like this. However, the general idea, I think, is really powerful. And is it... possible that I err too much on taking on other people's tasks a hundred percent.

That's one of my action items is I want to start asking whose task is this? I think that's really powerful just in identifying because there are a lot of situations where maybe there's social pressure. Maybe it's. uh legitimate and it's real maybe it's manufactured maybe it's all in my head but i i like people have these expectations of me i i really hate letting people down so

I tend to, if I say I'm going to do something, I'll kill myself to get it done. Come hell or high water, I'm going to do what I said I was going to do. And I recognize part of that is I want to be known as a person of integrity.

That's fine. That's self-inflicted, I guess you could say. But there are other times when, you know, people just... impose something on me i didn't ask for it and there's this this communicated expectation and i have to fight the urge to just say yes to all that stuff i am a recovering people pleaser so i know

how difficult that can be to be like, no, I'm not going to do that. And I think that's really, you know, what he's getting at the heart of this is that what other people think of your choices is not your tasks. And it's impossible to please everyone. You got to decide for yourself where you're going to draw those lines. And he says that proof of freedom is that you are disliked by other people.

I think all of that is true. And then it kind of culminates with the very last thing that I jotted down from this section. The only person you can change is you. Yeah, exactly. So don't try to make everybody else bend to your whims. Do what's right. I think when he states who ultimately is going to receive the result brought on by the choice that is made.

So that's how you determine how you separate tasks. Who's going to receive the result by that? So if we take it from the parent-child situation, we take it to a boss-subordinate situation, I think this becomes a lot more... practical in my life right like okay so boss comes to me and boss says i want you to do x and i think about okay who's going to receive the result from that and i'm going to tell you there's a lot more freedom and a lot more happiness if i go you know what

That's yours. That's not mine, right? Like in, and instead of me taking on that burden, that is the boss's burden, because they're going to receive the result from that. I go, you know what, this actually isn't. Do I think that's actually reasonable in all situations? No, I don't. Like, I don't think I can do that. Or if I do that, I'm not going to have a job. Like at some point, my boss is going to go, you know what?

You did it one too many times and we're going to let you go. So do I get ultimate freedom? Yeah, I get ultimate freedom, but I also suffer the consequence of that. He has a really interesting... Example here about Alexander the Great and the Gordian knot. And basically everybody comes and tries to untie the knot. Nobody can untie the knot. And Alexander the Great comes in and just goes, and he slices through it. And he's like, hey, it's done. You all tried to do it this way.

way i just i just cut the knot right i just cut it in half and that's what he recommends you do is like you don't try to like manipulate or like you know get in there and actually do anything. You just cut it and you say, this is not my task. And that establishes freedom and happiness for this. So are you good to move on to night four? Yep. All right. So night four, where the center of the world is.

All right, so in night four, we bring into this idea of community and the idea that we're somewhat centered on ourselves. And therefore, if we're centered on the community... um he they go and start using the word comrade which i had to go look up what the word comrade actually meant um and uh

It's this idea of people who are in alignment with you and they're in this fight together with you kind of a thing. And we want to make a switch from... an attachment to self or self-interest to a concern for the social interest now i don't know if you read it this way mike and there's no i'm not going to say there's any judgment right here this felt very like

communist socialist kind of like i don't know the right words to say because i i don't study that well enough but i was like oh okay this is getting into that that idea of the time of more of like i guess it would be socialist more than uh than communist but it's like this socialist idea of like put the good of all above the good of yourself well to defend to defend your use of the word communism i mean they

does talk about comrades so that's what i thought of is like soviet union but but at the time that he would have been developing these these things that was a that was a common uh ideology or philosophy you know that that was

working through the world at that time. So I got that feel here. We're going to listen to the voice of the larger community. He gets into this idea of... get out of the the need for somebody to tell you good job instead just tell them thank you right or you stop telling people good job because what it does is it puts you in this place of authority over somebody oh like mike if i tell you that you did a good job today on the podcast

I'm saying I have the power to tell you that you did a good job when really I should say thank you for your effort. And I feel funny about that because... I think encouragement is good. Like I think to say like, hey, Mike, you did a really good job with the podcast today. I'm not trying to be superior over you. I'm just trying to tell you that I think you did a good job.

I want to come back to the communist social thing, but let's unpack that a little bit because I actually agree with you. It feels weird, especially as a parent communicating to your kids. However... have you read mindset by carol dweck i have yes yeah i mean that's kind of what she talks about is like you don't want to tell your kids you're really good at this because then it just enforces this fixed mindset and then the minute that they

encounter a challenge where they're not able to do it or if they're viewing it as a competition which is a theme throughout this whole book they get to the college level and they've been really good at sports in their tiny little community. And now there's a whole bunch of people who are better than them. They have this identity crisis and they don't know how to.

navigate through it. So I think there is some truth to that. I think the word encouragement is actually what they would advocate for and probably Adler would advocate for too, but how it's done. So maybe, you know, I'm just kind of role playing live here. Instead of saying, you did a really good job on the podcast today, Corey, it would be, I like how you did this.

You know, so there's still some positive reinforcement that comes from it, but it's not the good versus bad value judgment applied to the action that you took, if that makes sense. It does. It makes complete sense. yeah now the other thing here with the the community i i think i agree with you where like it kind of uh creates some the the words that they use you know

It kind of implies that picture, but I don't think that's actually what they're saying here. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But they talk about the community feeling and having the interest in the society. they do talk about how you are part of a community but you're not the center of it and i actually think there's there's a helpful element of truth with that so for example um we're involved in a

church community, my wife and I are elders at our church. If you're viewing it through vertical relationships, we have an element of authority. I think it probably is more so in like title than anything practical. And there's like another interesting aspect of this with like John Maxwell and the five levels of leadership, because the higher you go up the levels of leadership, the more you are a servant, you know, the less it's about you.

i was thinking of that when he's talking about these vertical versus horizontal relationships i feel like if you're gonna take john maxwell's model and you're gonna try to climb that that ladder it becomes less and less about you more and more about the people

that you are serving so even though on paper maybe it looks like a vertical relationship in practice uh at least the you know when everything is clicking it's more horizontal than anything else so i think what they're really encouraging us to do here is to embrace horizontal relationships again it feels weird when you use the example of a parent child because there is an element of that we're both humans but for the time being

You know, Susie, two-year-old, I am responsible for you and I am going to be making your decisions in order to keep you alive to the point where you can make your own. Okay, so I have to ask you this one, right? So there's a quote in here, a comment in here, that vertical relationships, the goal of a vertical relationship is to manipulate someone. All right, now I think about this with parent-child relationship.

okay i have a vertical if i have a vertical relationship with my child which i think inherently is the natural stance right a vertical relationship with your child and i say good job cleaning up the living room Am I trying to manipulate my child to continue to clean up the living room or to continue to clean up after themselves? I can't say no. Yes, I'm trying to encourage the good behavior and I'm trying to rebuke the bad behavior.

Adler would say, don't do that. Right. Like he would say like that. Am I wrong in that? Well, I think on face value, you're right. But. I think in that instance, the community, the smaller community is the family, right? So one of the things we talk about in the life theme cohort is family core values. Like my wife and I got away and we established.

uh the schmitz family core values our guiding principles i wanted to call them standard operating procedures she wouldn't let me it's really like a company it's like a like a community and so you know your kids aren't you're employees per se they're they're not gonna get up and go to a different family because they don't like the way that you're running things but i think there is a lot of parallel there now i think where it falls into

vertical versus horizontal is when you lean into the title of, well, I'm the parent, right? So if you tell your kids, you got to clean up the living room, put your toys away, and they say, why?

the example like where it clicks in a vertical relationship in my opinion is when you say because i said so right and rachel and i try very hard not to do that but i think that's where the parent-child relationship is vertical and then the rest of it you know where you're trying again you you can't just try to reason with people all the time but if you can fall back on the the community

guidelines like this is what our community is what our family does this is who we are that's more effective than just well i'm the parent and i said so yeah yeah all right so there's a couple more things that i because this chapter I don't know. I resonated with this chapter a lot. One of the things I disagree with, and I would have to study it more to really understand, but one of the things I disagree with is this idea of

Even if you derive joy from being praised, it is the same as being dependent on the vertical relationship and acknowledging that you have no ability. I don't think that's true at all. I think if you tell me that I did a good job on the podcast today. I don't see that as you or me having no ability. And the only way I can survive is if you tell me I did a good job on the podcast today. I see that as a way of you saying a nice thing to me to encourage me through this.

And he says, when receiving praise becomes one's goal. Now that I'm okay with. If my whole reason for doing a good job on the podcast is because I want you to tell me I did a good job, now we've got a problem. But if that's not my nature...

right? I can understand that. So I think about this at work, right? Like somebody comes and they say like, hey, I observed your class today, right? Like you really did a good job doing XYZ, right? You know, engaging the students in whatever way. I don't think like, oh.

I have no ability, right? So therefore, like, I need you to tell me that. So it's like, I have a fundamental flaw with something about this and the idea of praise and the idea of this vertical relationship. The second one, I really like. this idea of being useful to the community and where worth comes from being useful to the community. And I think if you allow community to expand and contract as needed, right?

I think this is a really, really good concept that would help people project forward. So therefore, like if I'm, you know, if I'm in the, you know, the CCU world, right? Like, so I'm teaching or whatever. When I stop having usefulness in the community, man, it's really hard. It would be really hard for me to engage. Like it'd be really hard for me to keep my self-worth in that community. And I'm going to want to naturally lead away from that community. Or if I feel like...

I come into the podcast and you're carrying the podcast and I'm just here, you know, I'm dead weight, right? It's probably not, I'm probably not going to stay motivated to stay with the podcast. So I really like this idea of worth, right? Like that your worth comes from this idea to have.

or this idea that you have usefulness in the community. And I think you see this with people who retire, right? And I think they might even bring this up in the book. I can't remember if they use this example in the book or not, but like people who retire.

And then they lack this usefulness in community. And if they don't find another way to be useful in the community, I mean, they really struggle. Like they really, really struggle. Yeah. So I want to respond to both of those things. The first part about the... the praise i think again that comes back to growth versus fixed mindset the example that carol dweck uses in that book of somebody who is kind of the poster child for a fixed mindset

is john mackenroe i i played tennis growing up i played college tennis so i know who that is that resonates with me he was a very successful tennis player what caused him to go crazy because he's kind of famous for like trashing his rackets and throwing these, these fits, you know, on the tennis court is when he started to lose when his identity as the best tennis player in the world was threatened. So as long as he was getting the feedback that he needed all good.

you know as long as you're getting praise from the the people who are important in your life all good you know it's a different different flavor of that but i think it is it is dangerous so uh it ideally you know we don't want what we do to determine our own self-worth. And then that kind of ties into like the whole idea of being useful in the community. And this is where it's easy to, if you extrapolate that out.

you get the picture of a socialist society where it's the the good of everybody that matters not the individual i don't that's not how that's not what i took away from this book like i don't know maybe that's just me you know reconciling this and figuring out how i'm going to apply this for myself because that's what i do with every book that i read but i think there's a lot of truth to it's not all about you and the minute that you start

Looking for going back to the second mountain idea, you know, who can I help? That's where real joy and fulfillment comes. It's not about what you can accomplish. It's about how you can help launch other people to greater levels of success and have a bigger impact in the world that way. That's the big takeaway for me from this. I do have another action item from this section.

Which is to avoid comparison. Really easy to do. You know, you were talking about comparing the social media followers and things like that. So that is the... the avenue my brain took as i thought about this is like imposter syndrome i i did that i compared myself to other people that i look up to as creators and i was like well they do a really good job i'll never be able to get to that level why even try you know but

My advice to people now would be just go make your thing. I think we actually talked about that maybe a couple episodes ago when I was doing some free creative coaching with you in the pro show. It's like, just because somebody else has made this thing and you feel like that's a niche that, that you can address, you know, I'm wearing the shirt today, teach everything that, you know, like, I think there's value in that. And you're going to say things in a way that.

other people that you look up to aren't going to be able to do you're going to be able to reach people your style is going to be different you know other people are going to listen to you that wouldn't wouldn't it wouldn't resonate the same way if they just went to to somebody else who you consider to be further along in the journey. But the thing that makes it worthwhile, just using that creator, that creator.

how i just create a business i guess there's a different term for it for people who aren't full-time but just you know personally the reason i create is number one obviously i i want to make a a living and support my family but the real reason that i do it you know i could i could support my family lots of different ways the real reason that i do it ties back to the life theme i want to help people multiply their time and talent leave a bigger dent in the universe if i can

help people get unstuck and actually make their thing and release the creativity that's inside of them that is how that how i do that at scale you know and uh i believe at the end of my life and when i I'm able to see all the impact that I was able to have. That's going to be the most rewarding thing that I could possibly. imagine because you don't see the the fruit of that a lot of times you sow the seeds but yeah you know it's still

Again, maybe a bad analogy, but gets credited to your account. I don't know. Like I choose to believe that at some point I'm going to be able to see everybody's life that I impacted and what sort of impact, ripple effects that was able to. to have on people and that's exciting to me that's what gets me up in the morning not you know go sell a few more life hqs yeah yeah that makes sense that makes total sense all right are we ready to move on to the fifth night let's do it

All right. So the fifth night, there's a lot that they cover in the fifth night, right? So we can think about it as, you know, we had to build up all these sub principles. That way we could get to the fifth night and kind of, you know. hit that last little that little oomph so there's this idea of understanding the eye then figuring out the

one-on-one relationships that you and me, and then figuring out the larger community relationship and where you, where you establish in that. There's a big thing about trust and confidence that I think is a really interesting section that based on your smirk, I think we're going to end up. up talking about at some point. But I want to get into this, the essence of work for the contribution to the common good, right? So they lay out some steps in this essence of work. Accept yourself as you are.

place unconditional confidence in other people, contribute to the community, contribution to the community is necessary. And then work and labor is not about making money. It's about making contribution. It's about being useful to others. And it's about self-worth. I think this is good. I like this framework. So accept yourself as you are doesn't mean don't try to get better. It just means...

If I'm not a sprinter, like if I'm not a world-class sprinter because my body is not made to be a world-class sprinter. Okay, great. Does that mean I can't get better at sprinting? No. It just means I'm not built to be a world-class sprinter. That's fine. So I like that a lot. I like that idea a lot. Now, number two. Oh, Mike. Place unconditional confidence in other people.

Place unconditional confidence in other people. And here's where I'm at is like, I would love to be able to do this. I would love to place unconditional confidence in other people. But here's the key. Trust comes with a set of conditions. confidence does not have any conditions when believing in others. So the key idea between trust and confidence that he calls out here. So one of the things I like about this book is the youth, I see myself in the youth talking to this.

to this philosopher, right? Like, so there are times when the youth brings up a thing and I'm like, yeah, youth, you go, like, give it to him, right? And then he responds. What do you think about unconditional confidence in other people? Like where, how do you resonate with that? Do you agree with that? Oh man, that's hard. I agree with it in principle.

because i feel like i have been shown unconditional confidence at different points by other people what does that mean it means that People believe in me enough to put me in positions where I can do something, maybe even before I'm ready, but it's also kind of the process that gets me ready. One of the stories that comes to mind with this, my pastor has told me multiple times, is that when he was first starting out, he was going to a church and his pastor had him preach at a service.

and after he gets done, goes into the back room, and his pastor tells him, well, you struck out this time, but that's okay. We'll get you back up to bat.

If you're going to develop people, you have to have that sort of attitude where it's like, well, maybe you're not going to do it perfect, but I see something in you, so I'm going to give you an opportunity. And even if you don't... nail it right away like i'll create other opportunities because i believe in you now you can't do that with everybody just like physics i guess

time that you're able to invest in someone, you gotta, there's only so many relationships that you can sow into. So maybe you have to pick and choose the people that you're gonna have unconditional trust in. But I think the idea is essential for personal development. And just talking to like going back to the child parent thing again, you know, your kids are going to mess up, but you still.

want them, I think it's inherent for every parent, they want their kids to go further and to do more than they did. And if that's going to happen, you can't just be like, well, no, you can't do that. You're not ready. You can't do that. You're not ready. You can't do that. You're not ready. And then eventually, okay, I guess now you can do it. Like you, you set them up in situations where.

They can get the experience that they need to become proficient and excellent in whatever it is that they're trying to do. And where if they fail, it's not going to be fatal.

you know you want them to be able to make the mistakes and learn from them when the when the stakes are low so i feel like that's the perspective here and i don't know how to reconcile that necessarily with blanket unconditional trust in humanity but i don't know like i i agree with it i think it maybe the way it gets applied is is

very situation dependent and uh the specifics are missing from this conversation but well and i don't know if if it was a slip right or if it's just the the nature of this topic as being tricky he would not say unconditional trust he would say unconditional confidence. So sure. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So it's like, but I don't know if I can like pull that out. Now I think about unconditional trust. It's easier for me to understand as an engineer, I have.

or I want to have unconditional trust that the bridge will stay up, right? The set of conditions is the bridge doesn't fall down, right? Like I want to have unconditional trust in that situation because the conditions are necessary in that situation. unconditional confidence that like so there's no conditions in uh in believing in others and and where this goes uh everybody is like it goes to the idea of like well aren't people going to take advantage of you then

Right. So if I have unconditional confidence in Mike, that Mike's going to do something, doesn't he have the ability to take advantage of me? Yes, he does. And like, and like, that's kind of the hand is waved and it's like, yep, he can, he can take advantage of you.

what we'll say is that like you need to have the courage so we get back to this idea of courage you have to have the courage that when you place unconditional confidence in somebody in that member of the community they're not going to take advantage of you and that's why you know

you need to have courage in this situation. But it's an interesting concept. Like we could probably talk about this for a lot longer, but we should probably move on to other ideas in the book. Yeah. Well, that's kind of the big one, I think. I guess the other one that's kind of tied to that, because if you have complete confidence in others, whether they succeed or fail is not going to impact.

your value so you're not threatened by somebody's failure and you're also not bettered by somebody's success yeah and that's their task so that makes sense it ties back into the task thing yeah exactly and then the other big thing here is just the sense of happiness and how that comes from living earnestly in the here and now, which that is probably not a whole big conversation required around that. It's pretty simple. But it's not easy.

Yep. So that's my other action item is to live earnestly in the here and now. What does that look like? I have no idea. Well, and let me, cause I like this point too, right? So he describes the idea of this energia. Am I saying it right? Do you think, uh, energia? I think so. Yeah. A kind of movement in which what is now forming is what has been formed. Or, the better way to say it, the easier way to understand it is, the process is the outcome.

which we've talked about this in a bunch of different ways using a bunch of different words. It's like, yes, I have a North Star. Yes, I have a map that I'm shooting to. The video game analogy that you like to use. I have a place that I'm going. But like my enjoyment of the video game is the getting there.

Right. Like, yeah, I can I can then enjoy when I'm there as well. But like the enjoyment of the game is like trying to get to that place. And when we put our emphasis on the right now. So I really like this idea of the here and now. And I really like this idea of like live in the moment, but not. in a futile way of like nothing else matters like it's more of like live in the moment because so often we just think about

getting that degree or achieving that milestone or whatever it is. And this gets into your thing that you talk about all the different, all the times in all the different ways. Habits not. goals right like develop habits because then you focus on the here and now so like i was you know again you can hear me as i talk about this there are aspects of this book that i was like

I don't agree with that. There are aspects of this book that I'm like, yeah, I'm in. That makes total sense. And then there are ones that I'm on the fence with more. Yeah. So the habits versus goals, that's exactly it. I don't know if that's the wrong way to describe this.

maybe i'm doing a disservice by using that framing but that's where my brain goes and it's exactly what how you describe like i think the most most appropriate way to approach this is with the north star this is the direction that we're headed and then

from there it's just focus on the next step so that live earnestly in the here and now that's still something with us that i struggle with you know progress never happens fast enough it's easy and i probably slip into it every single day you know the whole idea the gap versus the gain where the gap is triggered by those goals. I want to achieve this outcome by this time.

And then when it doesn't happen fast, as fast as you think it should, or it's harder, or you take a detour, you get frustrated and like, I should be further than I am. And you start to judge yourself. Whereas the gain is living in the here and now. And then, you know, today I'm going to show up and do the thing.

oh look i can see uh that's what i did yesterday that's what i did last week i've dropped these markers and i can see the the progress that i'm i'm making and that's exciting and motivating i never really anticipated the book, The Courage to be Disliked, especially after the introduction and the framing of the book was going to end up, you know, there.

But I think it's a good encapsulation of the message. Yeah. So I don't have much in terms of the afterward. I think the afterward was pretty straightforward. I didn't get a ton out of that. Did you get anything out of the afterward? No. You kind of hit on it at the beginning. You know, it's a description by the two people who wrote it, who I'm sure I'm going to mess up the names if I try to say them. So I'm not even going to try. The philosopher and the youth and their own experience.

And I think that's kind of cool. You know, I'm kind of curious why they waited till the afterward to explain that. But. Yeah, I jotted down nothing in my outline as it pertains to the afterward. The actual content of the book is all wrapped up by the fifth night. Nice. all right so let's move on to action items from the book i have one action item out of this and i'm wanting your feedback on this action item right uh see i've intrigued what you think i want

to apply these principles to something that is like manageable, right? Or seems like tangible. Whereas if I try to apply it to my life, I feel like that's too big and I'm immediately going to like, just be like, yeah, I'm out. Like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. So I want to use these principles, or I want to try to think about Adlerian principles or individual psychology, right? And think about how...

I could use them to help grow Bookworm's audience. And it's not because I want Bookworm's audience to be a big number for the sake of superiority or anything like that. So I'm trying to already do this. I think that we make a useful thing. for the community and I want more people to get that useful thing right so it's like how do we get the the concepts that we talk about in these books the idea of application to our life how do we get those out to more people

And I don't know what that looks like. I don't even know if this is appropriate, but that is an action item or the action item I'm going to have from this book. All right. Well, I do think it's appropriate. And this is the... valid reason for using social media, in my opinion. Social media isn't about attracting a big audience so you can sell them things.

But if you really believe in your product, you are doing people a disservice if you never talk about it. Yep. Yep. Agreed. So, yeah. Cool. Yeah, we can. I don't have anything right off the top of my head in terms of what that looks like, but I support this action item. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. So I've got three and mine are very conceptual. I went the opposite direction that you did. Okay. So start asking whose task is this really just so I can disconnect from the.

i'm gonna assume by the way that it's mostly inherent expectations that i put on myself like i don't think anyone gets bent out of shape if i say no i can't do that but i am a people pleaser by default so I tend to just be like, oh yeah, yeah, I'll squeeze that in. Avoid comparison. Even now, you know, when I'm focused on the things that I'm making, I can break free from this a little bit. But then the minute that I start.

doing research or come across, you know, other videos that other people have made. I look at, you know, what they do, their camera setup, their obsidian setup, whatever. And I'm like, oh man, I'm just such an imposter. So got to break free from that. And then the last one, live earnestly in the here and now. And this is... People are probably screaming at their podcast player right now saying, Mike, this is the whole reason for mindfulness meditation, you idiot. And yeah, you're right.

So I'm not saying that I never do this. I'm not saying that mindfulness meditation would not help me more with this. But I recognize that there are times when I slip out of this. And, you know, I'm looking, looking forward and just, I'm naturally sort of looking for the next thing to do the next thing on the calendar, the next obligation. And I don't like that.

So I want to try to break free from that a little bit. Maybe that means I'm going to try meditation yet again. I don't know. But yeah, live earnestly in the air. That's the goal. That sounds like a challenge, Mike. That sounds like a challenge. You should take on the mindfulness meditation challenge. Not right now. I will at some point. I know it's a matter of time until it actually clicks for me.

I just because it keeps coming. It keeps coming up. I keep coming back to it. I just have not found the place for it or the right method. I don't know. Like I get it. It's simple. All you do is you focus on the breath, but yeah, I just, I just haven't found the right configuration yet. That's, that's my belief anyways. Well, if you need an accountability partner who is also your podcast co-host, and I don't mean David Sparks, let me know. Okay.

All right, so let's move on to style and rating. It is my book, so I get to go first. So the style of the book was creative, I thought. Like I thought it was, you know, a unique take on the book. I thought it could have gone really, really poorly and been really like boring. or that could be done well. And I think they leaned way more to the side of it was done well, right? Like I enjoyed the dialogue back and forth with the caveat of something I said earlier that I think at times...

It felt forced, like what the youth was saying, not the philosopher. The philosopher I thought was fine, but what the youth was saying sometimes I felt was a little bit forced. So that's my only issue with kind of the style and the way it was written back and forth. I actually think they did a really good job taking...

dry psychology ideas. And if anybody's a psychologist out there and thought like, oh my gosh, psychology, you know, like I think it can be a little bit harder to read and a little bit drier and a little more abstract, right? You got to think through these abstract ideas.

I thought they did a good job actually taking those and wrapping those in examples and making them more meaningful to somebody who doesn't have a very strong psychology background and especially a very strong individual psychology background. So I really, really like that. I think when it comes to the actual content of the book, you're going to like this or you're not going to like this depending on how much you...

want to think about psychology and you want to think about the way you think. So it's like, if you come into this book and you're like, I don't care about psychology. I don't care about individual psychology. I don't care about like really thinking kind of meta about the way I think about the world and the way I think about.

myself and my relationship with other people in society in that I think you're not going to enjoy this book at all. The dialogue might catch you and you might find it fun at times, but I don't think you're going to power through all 50. uh, sub chapters, you're going to get bored and you're going to, you're going to end up putting it down. So if I'm rating this, um, for, I guess both myself and the, and the bookworm audience, um, I'd probably give this book a three.

based on the idea that it's very niche, it's very targeted. I don't give it a three in terms of I didn't get anything out of it. I actually think this is one of those books that you and I talk about every so often that's like, I'm going to think about this book for years. There's going to be something that happens and I'm going to be like, oh.

the courage to be disliked right they talked about that like adlerian psychology talks about that right like i think this is one of those ones that's going to recur so i think this will have a lasting value but i think it was kind of just a middle of the road you know, type book. I don't think it was exceptional and I don't think it was terrible. I'm kind of a middle of the road type book. So Mike, how about you? I'm going to meet you at the three. So I actually enjoyed this book more than I.

Thought I would. And there's a couple of things specifically, though, that make it harder for me to recommend. So, number one.

If you're interested in these ideas, I would recommend you go straight to the source. This is almost like no one's going to like reading this, so we're going to make a more palatable version. It's like a... no one wants to read the textbook so they make a kid's book you know sort of a thing you get the same ideas um example of this is uh ray dalio's principles it's like 400 pages i really enjoyed it there's a ton of stuff in there

but it's too much so he made a much shorter like principles for kids essentially it's like a watered down version of it that's what i feel this is for adlerian psychology that's a hopefully i said it right

Okay, so if you're interested in the topic, there's probably other things that are going to be better for you. Was this an easy, fun, entertaining read that introduced you to some of these ideas? Yeah, but... like unless you're picking this one up off of amazon because i don't know what to read next and i want something a little bit different that's going to be kind of fun

I would ask you, what do you really want to learn about? What are you really curious about? And then let's pick something that's going to go a little bit deeper. And that is not to say that this is a bad book. There are some episodes where I probably sound very negative. I'm like picking things apart as we're working through.

the the book and then we get to the stallion rating and i'm like oh it's a four-star book and you're like oh my gosh that's so much higher than i thought you were going to rate it this was sort of the opposite of that like i really enjoyed the the conversation and uh

the podcast i feel like was was really cool but overall the book i'm kind of like yeah i get it um now how can i reconcile you know this is my approach with this when i talked about patrick lencioni's fables because isn't that kind of the same thing i think it is the difference here i feel is Who is the audience for this type of book? It's an individual. You're not buying this for your entire team. Whereas with some of those business principles. I feel like there's so much...

baggage that goes into the whole, like I'm the boss and you're the employees. And I know people who have bought Patrick, Patrick Lencioni's books, you know, and they've given it to their teams. Like here, this is going to fix all your problems. Like you can't do that either, but. There's so much complexity when you're talking about the interpersonal relationship dynamics of a team like that where wrapping it in a form where it's easier to digest means that...

People who are lower on the corporate ladder who would have no interest in these business topics means that maybe they'll find it palatable and then the stuff in there is actually going to improve their day-to-day. I don't feel like there's a real clear use case like that for this particular kind of book and this book specifically.

I don't know. If you're looking for an introduction to this Adlerian psychology and you like the format, you know, it's an interesting format. We haven't read a whole lot of books like this. I feel like it's not a...

It would be entertaining. And I think anybody who picks this up is going to get something out of it. It's not going to be a waste of anybody's time by any means. But also, I don't think there's... a whole bunch of uh this book isn't going to be life-changing you know it may open some loops to some other books that will be life-changing but this one in and of itself is it's good

It's good, right? Like that's our three, right? It's good. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's put The Courage to Be Disliked on the shelf. Mike, you have the next book. And this was a poll on the social medias. Mike, what is our next book? It was that ended exactly in a tie. It did. So I'm just going to pick one. It is a make it stick by there's a couple of authors here. Let's see. It's.

Peter Brown is the first author listed. Then Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel. I actually can't stand it when there's multiple authors listed for a book, but... You know, that is what it is. The international bestseller that teaches the science of successful learning. We've gotten some recommendations inside of the library from people whose opinion on books I respect.

and said this is the best book they ever read on the topic of learning. I know you picked Learn Like a Pro back in the day because you were interested in this. Wasn't a huge fan of that book. Hopefully this one will be awesome. Amen. Good, good, good. So then my book is next. This book comes from a recommendation from Mark Levison. This one is called Catalyst. So we're going to read Catalyst, How to Change Anyone's Mind. It's by...

It's by Jonah Berger. That'll be the book after. So if you're looking at that. But then the other thing I want to throw out here before we get into Gap Books is you're going to see some links in the show notes. And I'm going to... take the responsibility of doing this.

If you go to any one of those links and you give us a recommendation, I think it'd be fun to see what the audience wants us to read and what they would want us to pick. So I can't guarantee we're not going to promise. Mike and I still get to do the final vetting of the book. But at the same time, I think it'll be fun to get some audience feedback on kind of what books you're interested in, what books you're excited about us reading and talking through.

So look for those in those links and those places to add feedback in the show notes. And I will go through and call all those recommendations and we'll start a kind of a running document on book recommendations from the audience. All right, Mike, do you have any Gap books? I have a book that I'm hoping to read as a Gap book. I'm not going to commit to any sort of Gap books at this point.

But I was listening to the Cal Newport podcast recently, and he mentioned David Brooks, who is kind of a colleague, I believe, for I forget what service he writes for. It's going to say the Atlantic, but that's not it. The New Yorker. That's what it is. The New Yorker. So he knows David Brooks, David Brooks, the second mountain guy. And he made the comment that if you wanted to go straight to the source, the book that.

the second mountain was inspired by is a book called Falling Upward. So this is by Richard Rohr with a foreword by Brene Brown and this one is explicitly spiritual. So a spirituality for the two halves of life. But, uh, when he mentioned that this was kind of the, the source for the second mountain, I knew I needed to pick this one up. So this one just came and I'll probably bring this one, uh, on vacation with me in a, in a few weeks.

Outstanding. I'm cheating on mine. I'm almost through with this book. This book is tied to the day job in terms of a grant that I'm working on and thinking about work. and how work ties in with the Christian world and the kingdom of God. So this one's called The Sacredness of Secular Work by Jordan Rader. And I'm almost done with this one, but I'm going to still count it as a gap book for this period of time. That works. All right, Mike, we...

We did it. We did another one. So as a reminder, put the courage to be disliked on the shelf. Pick up Make It Stick by Peter Brown and Mark McDaniel. If you want to hear more of what we do, we do a pro show.

show today we talked about challenges so i asked mike if he likes to do any any kind of challenges whether they be mental challenges or physical challenges or anything like that and then i talked about some of the challenges that i do just as a way to kind of form new habits, form different habits, or to kind of progress forward.

kind of at a rail. So if you're interested in that, you can also get the bootleg, which the bootleg today was a ton of fun with Mike trying to troubleshoot why my stinking microphone was so quiet. And I'm very, very grateful and I'm very... thankful that he was kind uh during that process so you want to hear 15 minutes of audio troubleshooting check out yeah yeah um so talk about inferiority but anyhow moving on uh so

If you want the bootleg, if you want the pro show, if you want an ad-free version of the show, we've got a Bookworm wallpaper. If you're interested in those type of things, you can go to patreon.com slash bookwormfm. It's $7 a month. And for those of you...

you who already signed up. We really, really appreciate you. It really, really helps with just the production end of the podcast and we're grateful to you. So pick up Make It Stick by Peter Brown and Mark McDaniel and we'll talk to you next time.