Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

Joe Rogan: Podcasting as an art form

Joe Rogan had Mike Tyson on his podcast. After the interview wraps up, Rogan talks about how big a moment it was for him:
Whoo, we did it. Damn. I just sat down and got high with Mike Tyson. I gotta tell you, out of all the podcasts that I’ve ever done that were weird, that might’ve been one of the weirdest ones. Because… you know podcasts are strange anyway. I’m trying to steer the conversation. It seems a highfalutin word to call it an art form. But there is some artistic and creative aspect to it. There’s some engineering to it. Not always, sometimes it just flows. Sometimes it’s just fun.
It’s great that all these conversations are available free through podcasts.
I’m currently reading How to Speak How to Listen by Mortimer J. Adler. In it, he explains how to be effective in one-way communication (speaking, listening) and two-way conversation. He breaks the two-way talk into four types:

This gives us four main types, as follows: (1) social conversation; (2) the personal, heart-to-heart talk; (3) the impersonal, theoretical talk that is instructive or enlightening; and (4) the impersonal, practical talk that is persuasive with respect to action.

Podcasts come in all of these forms (along with some of the one-way types from solo, non-interview shows).

I like that Joe Rogan is able to move between those different types of conversations between episodes (and sometimes within an episode).

  • Social conversation — Most of Rogan’s episodes have some element of this. His MMA-focused episodes usually have some upcoming PPV as the overall topic for him to discuss with a fighter. He’s got deep knowledge about fighting so this allows you to listen in on two experts talking to each other.
  • Heart-to-heart — Of course, you won’t get the full heart to heart on a public episode. There’s always going to be a difference between fully private conversations and a conversation that millions will listen to. Still, he has friends on that he’s known for years, sometimes decades. It’s great to hear how two stand-up comedians talk when they’re not talking about comedy. That said, go listen to Joe Rogan breaking down Brendan Schaub for something close to a full heart-to-heart conversation. (Schaub walked away from fighting shortly after this. Not entirely because of it, but it’s an element.)
  • Impersonal, theoretical — I admire that Rogan is so enthusiastic about talking to smart people. He knows that he knows very little about certain fields and that the best way to learn about it is to talk to an expert. (Sometimes he’ll have two experts on and will act as moderator. These can end up pretty infuriating.)
  • Practical two-way talk — Adler describes this as “Practical two-way talk may also be motivated by one person trying to get another or others to do something”. Rogan isn’t trying to hard-sell the audience on things (except when literally doing ad reads). But in some episodes, he’ll be pretty persuasive in getting guests to try floating, cryotherapy, going hunting, or whatever else he’s up to lately.

I added a new “Podcasting” category that I’ll try to add to with thoughts on podcasting as an activity.

You don’t have a choice (Yes you do!)

My new TV came in last night and I threw Creed on it while cleaning up the styrofoam and box. 

Creed says he doesn’t have a choice. He has to fight. 

The people around him remind him that, hey, it’s actually a choice. You’re kind of stretching “have to” here.

It’s nice when a choice is clear. I gave in to Black Friday ads and bought a TV. That was clearly a choice. (Though I’m sure you’ve seen a deal that made you feel like you had no choice. Time to buy.)

Sometimes you don’t realize you had a choice. If you’re unhappy, you’ve made some choices leading to that state. There are choices you’ll make today that can continue that. Or you can make choices to start turning the ship around.

This reminds me of a question Tim Ferriss brought up in a podcast episode with DHH. He also mentions it in Tools of Titans:

TF: Have you outgrown your systems or beliefs? Is it time that you upgraded? Or, on a personal level, as Jerry Colonna, executive coach to some of the biggest tech stars in Silicon Valley, would ask: “How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?”

A lot of things feel automatic but you probably made choices to create whatever system it is that made it automatic.

In Choose the Life You Want: The Mindful Way to Happiness, Tal Ben-Shahar explains that you have choices all the time:

“In fact, at every moment in our life we have a choice.

RMaybe this realization shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to me. After all, research in psychology illustrates that about 40 percent of our happiness is determined by the choices that we make—what we choose to do and how we choose to think directly impact the way we feel.”

But they’re still choices. And the accumulation of your small choices day in and day out has a lot more power over a lifetime than most single choices.

To make a good choice, practice recognizing that everything is a choice in the first place. 

And be grateful that your choices today will probably be smaller than choosing to live your GOAT-boxer father’s legacy and try to rise out of his shadow. 

Atomic Habits, Chrono Trigger, and making time your ally or enemy

Chrono Trigger used time travel really well so that your actions in the past affect the world in the present and future.

Compared to today’s huge open world games and MMOs with no fixed narrative, though, Chrono Trigger is actually pretty linear. Some of the choices actually do matter, though.

Magus is initially presented as one of the main villains in the game. Depending on your actions, you kill him or he joins you as one of the good guys.

Magus came to mind after reading this passage in Atomic Habits:

Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

Like Magus, time will be your ally or your enemy.

However you define success, you’ll get there based on your habits over time. We’re not in Chrono Trigger. You can’t change the progression of time, but you can change your habits.

The tiny things compound over time. That goes for tiny good things and tiny bad things. If you want to make a big change, there’s a tiny chance that you can make a giant change overnight. Otherwise it’ll be that tiny positive change over and over. Time becomes your ally and works in your favor.

Another great book about small things is The Slight Edge, by Jeff Olson. While we often think about good and bad habits, what if you just stay neutral? Stay on a level course. The Slight Edge emphasizes that stagnation over time can end up negative:

You know what you need to do to stay healthy and feel fit and live a long life. Get your heart rate up, a little over normal, for twenty minutes, three times a week. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. And it’s easy to do.

But it’s also easy not to do. And if you don’t do it today, or tomorrow, or the next day, you won’t suddenly drop dead, and you won’t suddenly put on twenty pounds, and you won’t suddenly lose all your muscle tone.

The next time you face a small choice, imagine that choice propagated over weeks and years. How does that affect your decision?

63: “Atomic Habits”

14:02 — Topical three
18:48 — Book of the week intro
21:45 — 4 step to building good habits and breaking bad habits
29:40 — Stop eating bad food, start working out and vlogging

Links

– Atomic Habits (James Clear, Amazon)

– Better Than Before (Gretchen Rubin, Amazon)

– The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg, Amazon)

Also check out this video I made about Atomic Habits:

Other posts about Atomic Habits:

http://active-recall.com/atomic-habits-initial-impressions/

http://active-recall.com/end-bad-habits/

http://active-recall.com/focus-on-two-minutes/

Other related episodes:

“Better Than Before”: http://active-recall.com/better-than-before/

Build good habits: http://active-recall.com/build-good-habits/

Resolutions from last year: http://active-recall.com/resolutions/

How to follow-through on projects (re-frame, remove reasons, and start moving)

Dr. Bernard Roth was on The Science of Success (Feeling Stuck? This One Question Will Create The Change You Need with Dr. Bernard Roth).

I really enjoyed the framework discussed throughout the episode for solving problems of all sorts.

  • First, recognize there’s a good chance that the problem isn’t actually the problem — You might be able to solve an adjacent problem or something at a different level so that the problem disappears. You might think work is causing most of your stress but it might be that you actually aren’t sleeping enough and are less effective at work as a result (which then leads to underperforming and stress).
  • Ask what this will open up (but don’t go too far up the chain) — You can start looking at what solving this problem would open up for you. Then what would happen if the next level was solved as well? But you don’t want to go so high up this chain to where you’re considering your existence.
  • Don’t let B.S. reasons get in the way — Everyone has reasons for everything. Is traffic the reason you were late or is it that you budgeted enough time to arrive exactly on the dot if there’s absolutely zero traffic? (George Lucas talks about not getting into a film school class but making films anyway while his friends just complained they couldn’t make films because they didn’t get into that class.)
  • Operate from a place of doing — I’ve heard this described in Designing Your Life as “bias to action”. You have to do things and see how they go. If you’re planning your year, the goals you come up with in 20 minutes are probably good enough to get moving on. There’s no need to spend 8 hours polishing them at this point. You’ll be better moving forward and gathering more information. Get moving.

The one connection I have here is the book Are Your Lights On? It’s a bunch of stories (a few pages each) that demonstrate some aspect of business. The book is really helpful for re-framing problems and identifying what the real problems are.

You don’t need two separate signs to let drivers know the hours when they should turn their lights on and off. All you need to do is remind the driver to check their lights—they’ll know whether they should be off or on but they just need the nudge.

Trace, freehand, and then draw from memory

I wanted to share some notes to go with this drawing I posted a few minutes ago.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Brg2mGkHaR9/

I’ve been meaning to post this description and a quote from it ever since walking by it at The Met:

In his only statement on drawing practices published during his lifetime, Delacroix endorsed a three-step pedagogical method: beginning with tracing, progressing to freehand copying, and then drawing from memory.

Happy to repost anything that makes me feel better about drawing other drawings. I also always find it interesting when copywriters suggest copying old sales letters longhand to learn and practice.