Podcast Notes: Jim Collins on rating your days (Tim Ferriss Show)
On the Tim Ferriss Show, Jim Collins talks about his spreadsheet for tracking days:
And so what I started to do is I started creating a code, which is plus two, plus one, zero minus one, minus two. And the other thing I put in — and the key on all this by the way is you have to do it every day in real time. You can’t five days later look back and say, “How did I feel that day?” And what this is, is a totally subjective “How quality was the day?” A plus two is a super positive day.
This is a good reminder that our memory isn’t all that great.
What’d you eat for dinner last Thursday? Are you sure? If you don’t have a system for either planning it beforehand or recording it afterward, you’re probably not sure.
This reminded me of something from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s book, Designing Your Life. In it, they talk about the Good Time Journal:
Bill was surprised that coaching master’s students, the students he likes and spends the most time with, was such a drain on his week. After journaling a bit on that subject, he discovered two things: (1) he was trying to coach in a bad environment (the noisy graduate studio) and (2) his coaching interaction wasn’t effective—his students weren’t “getting it.” Those two observations resulted in a redesign of his Tuesday-night class environment (he changed classrooms) and a shift in the coaching structure from meeting one to one with each student to coaching in small groups, so students could help one another during the interactions.
(If writing about a book is any measure of it being a favorite, then Designing Your Life is definitely up there. Wally and I talked about it on a podcast episode, I also mentioned it on our very first episode, mentioned the ‘bias to action’ mindset in another podcast post, and I mentioned it when writing about LeBron James conserving energy.)
Their scale of energy and engagement is something I think of often. However you score your day or activities, it’s good not to wait too long.
The surprising spots can be the most valuable. You can only find the surprises when your memory of something being positive contrasting with it actually being negative. (Or the opposite.) Those surprises act as good starting points for adding more of what makes your day better or removing things that are draining.
Then you can take your days from [puts sunglasses on] good to great.
Podcast Notes: Hasan Minhaj (The Dave Chang Show)
Check the full episode out: The Dave Chang Show — Hasan Minhaj on Comedy As a Conduit
Okay so I’m going to keep going with the memory palace gimmick that I’ve been doing in the solo podcast episodes. I’m going to start with text descriptions then I’ll draw them and see how that goes.
In the living room there’s a dinner party with Michael Jordan (in a Wizards jersey), Allen Iverson (in a Grizzlies jersey), and Shaq in a jersey but it keeps switching between the Suns, Cavs, and Celtics like the jersey is Shang Tsung — Dave Chang continues with great sports analogies. Hasan Minhaj says he misses just focusing on the craft sometimes since now he has to think about production and staff and has people on his show looking to him for direction. He asks if Dave Chang misses that and I thought Dave had a great response.
I often times feel like I’m doing the worst part of the job. And I have to be comfortable with that. Because I’m a dad at the age of 41 and I think that’s a good thing right now because I’m mature enough to understand the pros and cons and the trials and tribulations.
But for the most part, as a manager, as a growing business, I have to accept that I’ve already had my fun doing what I wanted to do. And now it’s time—much like maybe an athlete… you don’t want to be the clown that’s like, “I can keep on playing!” I have wisdom now and it’s accumulated to the point where I can distribute it out and make other people successful.
Continuing with the memory palace…
…glance over to the kitchen and there are a bunch of cooks sitting around the island chatting drinks — Dave Chang talks about how bad a manager he was early on. And that it took a while to realize and accept that the people that work for him probably weren’t saying good things about him. I like how he describes his goal as a manager now:
Dave Chang: You want to be the kind of manager or boss—when people have drinks and they’re talking about it and they’re always unloading their troubles—that they don’t talk poorly about you.
I mean, that’s a pretty good thing to strive for. I’ll try to remember that if I ever end up becoming a manager.
Ok moving through the memory palace…
…you take a glance through the blinds into the swimming pool and it’s filled with chickens —
Hasan tells a story about wanting to go to UCLA and deciding if he should go to UCLA (which he loved) or UC Davis (where his family lived).
This guy I ran into in the quad got in my head. I got scared. I grew up in a small town. I was on this big campus. I got shook. And I fucked myself over.
I remember the narrative I told a lot of people was like, “Oh my parents were really strict and they made me stay at home.”
It’s fucking bullshit. I fucking chickened out. It’s one of the biggest regrets that I had in my life. It’s not about what school I went to. It’s the fact that I psyched myself out. I didn’t lose on my own terms.
So that became a critical juncture. I’m like I’m never gonna be scared ever again.
Anyway, that’s the end of the palace. (And if you want another story, here are some cards I drew a few months ago when Hasan Minhaj was on J.J. Redick’s podcast.)
F02: Walk, Listen, Talk — “Moonwalking With Einstein”
Note from 7/20/2021 — Going back and adding posts for all the podcast episodes, just to be thorough. I want to revisit this book sometime because I think it’s one with lessons htat have actually stuck.
Memorization is underrated these days because you can look everything up. There’s something to being able to remember, say, 5 good ideas from a podcast you’re listening to without writing it down vs. remembering 2. Especially if the reality is that you don’t end up re-listening, reviewing, and writing notes for everything in your information diet.
Chris Paul: Team dinners (JJ Redick Podcast)
The podcasts that I think are most valuable1 are the fly-on-a-wall kind where you have experts talking to each other. Tobi Lütke described this well on Tim Ferriss’s podcast (At 31:23):
My favorite thing in the world is—books definitely rank up there but there’s one thing which is better, which is being a fly on a wall when two experts talk amongst each other. Right? Which is one of those situations that was almost impossible to line up as an outsider and now suddenly is completely democratized through the wonderful invention of podcasting.
That deserves its own post eventually, but I wanted to help say that I love that professional athletes have their own podcasts. Few people in the world have better access to professional athletes than other professional athletes. It’s great that they’re willing to share their conversations with the rest of the world.
That way, I can hear about Chris Paul reminiscing about team dinners (At 18:45):
Redick: There’s still some level of that. I think the whole group dinner thing—it’s really dissipating.
CP: Yeahh. Honestly I just be thinking that it’s, you know, me and the team that I’m on. Last year, our team—we did that a lot more often than this year. But we’ve had our moments this year. It’s crazy. After we beat Boston and went to Toronto, our whole team did something together. I don’t know if it’s age. I don’t know what it is. I really don’t. I always say, to me, I’m not getting old by no means. But I actually enjoy when we do those dinners on the road and you go out. Because me—you know I’ll just sit in my room and order room service and watch every game that comes on every night.
But those dinners are really good. Even when you’re in the same city… I think that’s probably what I miss more than anything. Like way back in New Orleans when we played there. Tyson, D-West, and all of us. Say we had a stretch of 3 or 4 home games. One of those nights we would all go to somebody’s house. And I don’t know if teams do that or what not.
Redick: Yeah I’m guilty of that, because I don’t even live in the city that I play…
CP: Yeah it’s crazy. Because part of it is life, too. Like life changes. Like, Bubs, you could describe all of the different times in your career.
This year I’ve tried prioritizing spending time with friends. Spending time with people you enjoy being around is a good idea. Figure out ways to do that in all parts of your life.
Even if it’s fun, it can take effort. In Off The Clock, Laura Vanderkam explains that it’s worth it:
“The discipline of joy requires holding in the mind simultaneously that this too shall pass and that this too is good. This alchemy of mind isn’t easy, but the good life is not always the easy life. Happiness requires effort. It is not just bestowed; it is the earned interest on what you choose to pay in.”
Think back to the very best times you’ve spent with friends in the past few years. Some of them took a good amount of planning. (Particularly as you grow older and friends move to different cities or even countries.)
Now I’m just going to pile a few more quotes in here. The topic reminds me of something Tim Kreider says in We Learn Nothing:
I’m more productive now, and more successful; for the first time in my life I’m supporting myself by doing what I’ve always wanted to do. But I laugh less than I used to. Drinking was, among other things, an excellent excuse to devote eight or ten consecutive hours to sitting idly around having hilarious conversations with friends, than which I’m still not convinced there is any better possible use of our time on earth.
I learned about that book from the chapter (Lazy: a Manifesto) that’s included in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. In the comments section of another post (a sample schedule of Tim’s day), he describes core metric (2008):
For example, I would consider time spent eating with family and friends a core metric. If this cuts into e-mail or workout output a bit, it’s a positive trade. Just one example.
I’ve heard him say something similar about counting the number of nights you’re having dinner with people. It can get ridiculous if you try tracking every little thing in your life and having metrics for things. If you read this and scoff because you already spend plenty of time with people you love, then you’re already winning.
Otherwise, bust the calendar out and schedule some time with a friend. Even if it’s just catching up on the phone2.