AI Hallucinations, Business Lessons in 90 Days, and A Voice Crying in the Wilderness with Tom Libby

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership

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Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number one

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forty six. So this is going to be a catch

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up episode. If I sound a little bit hesitant, that’s because it’s been a heck

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of a first quarter here, around the, the podcast

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area. And so, we should probably do these, like, once a

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quarter. Just catching up, answering some listener

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questions, talking about some things that are going on behind the scenes of the podcast.

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And, I’ve got a little special treat that I’ll be talking about with you all

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today as well. And, of course,

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my good friend and partner in crime, Tom

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Libby, is joining us today. How are you doing, Tom?

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I’m doing well. You you cut me off in that last rant just before you

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hit the the record button, but that’s okay. We could go back to it

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if you want. No. No. So we’re gonna we’re gonna go we’re gonna go back

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to the this is what we’re gonna start. This is where we’re gonna start. So

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so let me let me set the table for people who are just tuning in.

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If you are just tuning in and you are scoring at home, which

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you should be, by the way, if you are scoring at home. I remember when

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Dan Patrick used to say that back in the day.

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If you go into Google, like, I I have my my

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my curated discover on my Google tab. And the first thing that’s at

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the top of my discover tab is the headline from the New York Times. It

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says, and I quote, AI hallucinations are getting

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worse even as new systems become more powerful.

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Alright, Tom. Go.

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Well, as I was saying, a few minutes ago, I mean, this is not

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surprising to me. Right? Like, we’ve been talking about this. I mean, you and I

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probably spoke about this several times in the past six months when

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people what was it? Probably a year ago or so where

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the world first started kinda getting, AI

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crazy. Right? Like like, AI has been around for a long time. This is not

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anything new for us. We’ve seen No. We’ve seen versions of AI coming out

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for, give or take, fifteen or twenty years. Right? Like,

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we’ve seen some of this stuff coming out. But it’s really hit the

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the tip of the tongue of the public the last year or so. And Yes.

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And and we’re talking in the what some of the stuff that’s what they’re talking

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about, hallucinations and this and that and the other thing. Right? So about a year

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ago, we were talking about it, and we were we’ve said, it’s only

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going to get worse. And they believed us, and now they’re seeing what they’re

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and and and here’s why. And this is this was the this is the rant

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I was on a few minutes ago. So people are using

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AI to generate content. Great. I wanna create

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a a a you know, what are the five best things about

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marketing in 2025? And Sure. I put it in

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the the AIs of the world. I’m not gonna name any

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specific because I won’t I won’t, you know, I don’t wanna say We don’t wanna

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be we don’t wanna besmirch any comp…any competitors. Exactly.

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Exactly. So we put it into the AI, and it spits out a blog.

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We go and we read it, and we go, oh, that sounds great, and you

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publish it. Mhmm. Now if we do

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real due diligence and we fact check it and we do all this stuff and

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we make alterations to it and we fix it, great. But I guarantee

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you, a small percentage of people are actually doing that. Most people are

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reading it real quick. They’re perusing it, and they’re going,

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that’s close enough, and they publish it. So the next time

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somebody puts in the the bet so let’s say we do that

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in February. And now in May, another person says, give

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me the five best marketing ideas of 2025.

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That AI generated gobbledygook that’s a bunch

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of BS is now part of the web

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scrape that the AI is doing for the for the content. So it’s

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going to read stuff that wasn’t validated, which means it’s just gonna

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produce more crap. Excuse the language, but it it

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and and it’s gonna continue on that. It’s gonna compound on itself. We all we

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all talked when we were little kids, we we learned about compound interest. Right? We

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did. This Oh, yeah. This is the same thing with with compound crap on

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the on the output of the AI on

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the AI infrastructure. And by the way, the idea behind having

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more powerful system just means we get more powerful

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crap. But we we get more crap delivered to us out of the fire hose

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faster and better. There’s a guy there’s a guy who who works in the,

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place where I work at now, the the desk literally

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behind me. And he has a side that says caffeine,

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doing stupid, pardon my use of the term, but doing stupid “shit” faster.

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Exactly. Like the lady holding the cup of coffee or whatever. That’s what you’re talking

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about, though. Like like Exactly. Okay. Okay. So

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how was it that you and I, who are two sane

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thinking individuals? I mean, we may not

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agree on everything, but we’re sane thinking individuals. Right?

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How is it that you and I managed to figure this out and yet

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yet Sam Altman, it still gets billions of

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dollars? This is the question. If we’re so smart,

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why aren’t we richer? I think part I think

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part of the problem is, think about this for a second, Hayson. We both

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work we both work and help we we we help the startup ecosystem in a

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in a sense. Right? We we have we have a whole startup ecosystem. And

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what are we always telling people? That their startup has to you

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have to solve a problem or you don’t go anywhere. Right? Correct. That’s right. The

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Sam Altman’s of the world think about it. The the the solution

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to the to to what he’s giving people is ease of

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use, speed of use, and

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the the and and without the like, there’s no complexity to it. It’s so

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simple in it in his theory, and he says, just put in a prompt.

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It spits out the information. If you like it, it’s yours.

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Like so there’s no thinking involved. That’s

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why he’s rich and we’re not because we use our brains, and we’re trying to

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get people to think these things through. And, like So so

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what you’re saying is we’re too smart to be rich.

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Oh, maybe the word smart is a tough one to solve. It’s

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it’s we’re too complicated. I think it’s it’s like

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we we we complicate as as much

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as we try to simplify our own way of thinking and our own thought process,

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and then you and I talk a lot about a lot of different things. But

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it’s Oh, yeah. But it’s it’s he

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totally simplified the output of content. If that

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like, if you think about that from that statement, like Well, I will yeah. But

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he never end he never he never suggested

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or or projected or

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or gave people the false sense of security of thinking that

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what the AI is producing is really

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good or really, like,

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like, there’s no he tells people right up front, you have to fact check this

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stuff that AIs hallucinate, but yet we’re not. We’re just

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throwing crap at the wind and seeing what sticks. So I think you’re I think

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you’re onto something here on a semi serious note. I think you’re onto

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something here because a few years ago, maybe about

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four or five years ago coming out of COVID,

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it occurred to me like a lightning bolt out of the sky

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or like a phoenix rising out of Arizona that

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I that I had overcomplicated my business

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Yeah. And that everything could be simple.

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And I thought, because this is how my brain works, the

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complication part, I went, okay. I’m overcomplicating

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my business. I immediately, in my brain, leapfrogged all these other people that were

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overcomplicating their businesses, all these other businesses that overseeing.

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And I started thinking, how many businesses are just built on

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simple, to your point, simple concepts? And

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the simpler the concept, I think this is a business

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idea that folks should take from from listening to this. The simpler the business

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idea, actually, the more money it will generate. And

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when I had that epiphany,

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I immediately went back to my complicated business.

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But, like, but, like, it it’s it’s true. Like, you’re right. Like, I think there’s

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a nugget of a semi series. I think there’s a nugget I mean, nugget. I

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think there’s there’s that’s an element of truth. And and you’re the guy on the

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project that we’re involved in. You’re the guy who

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is always, like, how can we simplify this? How can we simplify this? How can

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we simplify this? How can we scrape more garbage away from

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this to get to its genuine essence? And I will say, I

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mean, you’re right. Like, I see this in and and I’m gonna mention this

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early because it’s once a podcast I have to mention it. I see this in

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jujitsu. Like, it’s it it it looks so simple.

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And then I complicate it, the move, whatever the thing is that I’m supposed to

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do. And I know that at a certain point in time down the road, it

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will be simplified, but it’s not simple to me now. It doesn’t look simple to

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me now. And I think a lot of amateur

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athletes, amateur business people, and now AI,

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amateurs with AI, don’t understand that that

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simplicity concept. But But that goes back to what Einstein said, which is if you

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could explain relatively and I’m paraphrasing here. I’m sure he never said this. But if

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you could explain relatively to a five year old, then you understand

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it. Yeah. Because it has to be simple. Oh, and we

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recently had one of our, one of our

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joint colleagues, and we we told her that she

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should simplify simplify her pitch deck so that a three year

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old could understand it, and she had no idea how to do

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that. Right. She’s like, what does that mean? How do I do that? And

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I was like, okay. So, okay, just take a step back. Take a step back.

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Take a layer off. Take a layer off. What is it at the core? What

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is that at the foundation? Like, tell and we went through this whole process with

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her. And, eventually, she was like, oh, so if I say it this way, and

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we’re like, yes. Say it that way. Because it

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it’s just you know? And and again, it I’m I’m

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I’m speaking in riddle here just because it’s Mhmm. Yeah. What the content is.

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But but it it applies to pretty much everything. And in your and in your

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case, with me, and I do it with everything. It’s not

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even just like theories or ideas or thought. I mean,

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somebody sent me god bless him. But another one of our colleagues

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sent me a new book that he wrote, and he’s like, what do you think

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of this? And I read it, and I was I I started reading, and I

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I read I got through two chapters, and I stopped. And I and I scheduled

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a a call with him, and I go, you you need to stop with the

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words. What are you doing? Like, why like so I pointed out

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particular words in here in there, and I go, who are you trying to send

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this to? Like, college professors? Like, who’s reading? Because if I’m reading

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this, I don’t want any of these words in here. And he goes he goes,

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well, you understand what those words mean. I go, yeah. But they’re SAT words. Like,

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you’re throwing those words in there just to make sure that people know you’re smart.

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Who cares? The the smartest people on the planet know how to say what they

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need to say at a fifth grade reading level. Like, that’s

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like, the the even, like, the best authors in the world, the Stephen Kings of

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the world. Like, the these guys write at a level where the

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masses can understand it, not a handful of people. I will

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I will tell you. So I picked up, I’ve had I’ve had this

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book for a while, but I finally pulled it off my bookshelf because I

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have so in case you folks don’t know, I have bookshelves at my home.

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You probably imagine. I have a lot of them. A lot of books all over

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my house. It’s not a goodwill hunting piles on top of piles of

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books kinda situation yet, but I have lived in

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something similar to that. I wasn’t quite there, but I I could see they’re coming.

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I could see the exit coming up on the highway. Anyway, so I under Good

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Will Hunting, absolutely. Man after my own

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heart. And I have books on those shelves that I have

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never read. I never cracked the cover of them. I just get them. I’m like,

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oh, I know this author. Oh, I know this title. Oh, this is something that

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might be interesting. I put it on the shelf, and I’ll revisit it later. Okay.

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Cool. But I did pick up recently

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well, not recently, but I opened up, the book, A Song of

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Significance by Seth Godin, which was not his

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latest book, but his book before this one, whatever. Because the man’s

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publishing he publishes books like it’s a bodily function.

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And, he does. He would he would admit that. And,

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after swearing that he was never gonna publish a book again, I heard him talk

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about this on a podcast years ago. And he’s like, oh, I don’t have any

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more books to publish because all publishing is dead, and nobody reads anything and

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and then he sees published three more books since then. I’m like, shut up, Seth.

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It’s in the blood. But I picked up the book. And

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the interesting thing about the book is the cover is complicated

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and it’s a put off. And then

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you open but you open up the book itself, and the content inside is simple.

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And I’m interested in his books, not necessarily for

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the content because I I got the joke. He’s been saying basically the

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same exact things in marketing and in leadership and in

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people being good human beings. And and you probably know some of Seth

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Godin’s work, Tom, from the space that you’re in. But

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the man’s been blogging for, jeez, thirty

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years, forty years on the Internet. He’s an

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institution by this point. So he understands I’ve got the joke, basically, is

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what I’m saying. I’ve got the joke

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and understand, what he’s talking about, complicated,

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but the word’s simple. And that goes to your point about about authorship, and I’ll

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talk a little bit about a book that I’ve got upcoming. I go in the

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opposite direction. I make I try to make the cover as

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appealing as possible and as simplistic as possible. And

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then one of the greatest compliments I ever got on a book I published years

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ago was the guy started reading it, and he stopped. He

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said, I have tried to read this book five times,

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and I cannot finish it. And you know how thick the book is? It’s only,

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like, 90 pages.

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And I was like, it’s it’s okay. That means that on the sixth

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time, you’ll finish it. And then, by the way, there’s some movies like this. You’re

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a movie guy. So A Clockwork Orange is like

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this. Oh my God. Like, I’ve watched that I watched that movie literally 10

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times before I,

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before I worked in an independent theater way back in my twenties when I was

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a film projectionist when they still had people manually

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create the films. And it wasn’t just, like, plug it into a projector and then

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go, like, your DVD player at home. And, we got an

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original silver nitride version of

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A Clockwork Orange. And here’s what people don’t know if they never did film projection.

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So back in the day, when people would build films, films would come in

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canisters. Like, Lord of the Rings came in, like, 13 canisters. It was

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gigantic. It was stupid. And they had security and all this other kind of stuff.

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Right? Because they’re delivering film. If anybody rips it off, then it’s a problem. Okay.

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Well, old school films all come in these gigantic canisters. And

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so Clockwork Orange, I think, comes in at a little

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under two hours. I think it’s somewhere around there, which is about, six

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to eight reels of film, which means it’s gonna come in, like, two cans, two

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of the old school metal cans. Right? And so the

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job of the film projector projectionist is to put

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together the film and to cut it and make sure everything links together.

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Martin Scorsese once said that, the film projectionist is the final

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editor, has final edit over his film every single time. It drove him

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crazy. That’s why that’s why Scorsese and

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Coppola and Lucas and Spielberg, all those guys,

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they all love to digital, and they all push for digital. Well, not Scorsese. Scorsese

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likes film preservation. But they all push for digital because they didn’t want that final

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edit from guys like me. Go ahead. Yeah. Sorry. No. No. I said they they

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pushed it. They wanted it quickly. Just Oh, yeah. They wanted it real quickly. Yeah.

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Especially Lucas. Lucas was pissed at guys like me. He hated us.

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He hated all all projectionists everywhere. He said you’re ruining my vision.

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Lucas, palm your cheese.

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Chill out. Telling a space opera story for god’s

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sakes. Yeah. Yeah. You’re the Jack Sparrow Lucas. Story

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that was sold for $4,000,000,000. That you sold it for yeah. And then Disney

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ruined it. Don’t get me started. Anyway Yeah. So okay.

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So I’m there. Right? I

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put together the film. It’s Stanley Kubrick. I know it’s A

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Clockwork Orange. I’ve seen it five times on TCM. I can never get through it.

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I have to watch the whole movie to make sure I didn’t screw up the

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final edit. Right? So I put the movie on. I go in a theater.

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I sit down. I watch all of A Clockwork Orange. And on that

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sixth viewing, I finally got it. I was like, got it. I

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got Rick’s joke. Finally. And after that, I

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have never watched that movie ever again, and I

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never will.

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And my books are kind of like that. I’m the Stanley Kubrick of book

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writing. Like, if you look at any of Kubrick’s films, Paths of Glory,

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Doctor Strangelove, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which by the

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way is my favorite film of his Eyes Wide Shut,

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Full Metal Jacket, which is, like, parts of full metal

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jacket that everybody remember are Lee Ermey yelling at everybody, the drill

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sergeant yelling at everybody, and then the movie falls apart after that. Like, all

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the Vietnam parts are, like, shot on a back lot in, like, England somewhere

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because he didn’t wanna leave his house. You know? You know?

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I even watched a biography about Kubrick on Amazon Prime

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recently. This is why I have it in my head. And I still don’t know

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what the hell the man was doing. I still have no clue what the hell

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he was doing with him. And, apparently, nobody else does either

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as a director. So, anyway, I’m more in that direction. And the

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reason why I’m bringing all this up is because you’re right. If you could explain

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something simply, you will sell

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billions of copies. If your business is simple, you will make billions

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of dollars. If you were Sam Altman and you were doing simple AI, you will

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make billions. But if

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you’re more complicated and you wanna thrust your complication upon people, you

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will not make billions. You will be lucky to make hundreds of thousands. That’s the

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only lesson that I can think of out of that entire land. You’ll be you’ll

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be Jesan and I. And I’ll be Jesan. Yeah. Exactly. It’ll be a hundred thousandaire.

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Slumdog Hundred Thousandaire.

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Anyway, speaking of speaking of that, so

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we’ve got, a couple of different things that we’re gonna do here today. That’ll be

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started with the AI thing. We’re gonna transition

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into this little gem of an

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adventure. So speaking of starting a business, I

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had a podcast media agency recently that I

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started. So to to rewind this, sort of lay the foundation because Tom

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doesn’t even know the story. So back in

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July of last year, June of last year, I started

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talking to the owner of a local coworking space in the town that I live

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in, because I was recognizing that podcasts were coming

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along. People wanted to do podcasts. People wanted

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to experience podcasts, and that I thought podcasts could be a

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part of a local community. In particular,

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moving away from sort of a Joe Rogan big idea

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podcast and moving more into local podcasts that

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serve a local market with local people doing interesting local things. Sort of

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like a re a regeneration of local media that

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has, that has been hollowed out just

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like local newspapers. Right? Now Tom lives

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in the Northeast, in a large city in the Northeast, large metro

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area of the Northeast, so he probably doesn’t notice this as much. But I live

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in a rural area in the, in the Southwest,

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and, you know, if it ain’t if it ain’t breaking on Facebook, people ain’t

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people don’t know anything about it. You know? That has, like, substituted for all that.

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And I’m sure this is happening other places. I’m sure it’s not just my my

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spot. Or I’m not ego driven enough to think that it’s just my spot.

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Anyway, so I looked at this and I said, there’s a market. We

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could do podcasts. And because podcasting was the hammer, there was

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a nail, hammer meet nail, boom. And so I met this

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guy, started working with him. We started doing we did a couple of work I

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did a couple of workshops to convince the local people that, you know,

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podcasting was something that you wanted to do. Got a lot of interest out of

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those workshops. Made a little money off the workshops. Sort of a proof of concept.

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Right? It was a proof of concept tool. That was in July, August,

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September, and then we launched the

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well, not we launched. We we began the process of building a podcast

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studio, and that took us from, like, September to January because they had to put

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together the studio. There’s a lot of complications involved with that. Whatever.

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January, we go out and get our first clients based on our podcast

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workshop, start pitching it to the local

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community. Bunch of people signed up, at max

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because, you know, this is not a thing that you do at scale. I

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figured I could probably handle 10 podcasts. Right?

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And by the way, from soup to nuts. So doing everything from the editing

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to the, the video editing, audio editing, distribution,

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setting things up, setting accounts up, doing all the things that people don’t wanna do,

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making it turnkey for the creator to just come in, sit

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down, do their thing, and then leave. Right?

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And started in January. January ‘1 is when we start well, January 6 was

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when we started and shut that business down two weeks ago

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as of April yeah. April 20

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no. March March thirtieth. March thirtieth. April first was our last

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our last client day,

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basically, or less day of client work. So March 29, March thirtieth, March

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’30 first was done. I have

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never started a business, opened a business, and closed a business that

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fast. And there are some lessons

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that I can I think I can impart on this show,

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particularly for leaders? And I I don’t know if any of this will resonate with

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Tom. But one of the biggest lessons I learned is this one.

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Just because it’s an idea in your head doesn’t mean that it needs to be

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a business. Yeah. For

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sure. That was probably

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the hardest one because the way I wired,

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I would just keep going. I would just keep I think I I’m like, I

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can make this better. It’s fine. Like, I’ll just dig in. I’ll put in

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personal will. I’ll sacrifice

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time with family, other businesses. I’ll do all of that

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to make this work because, well, it’s a good idea. Of course, it should

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work. And I realized I had a sort of a again, another

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flash. I’m getting life lessons all over the place this year,

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actually. But yeah. But I had another flash.

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And the flash was that’s just ego.

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And how many of us are running businesses that don’t need to

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be run for a population or a market

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that doesn’t need our product or service and wasn’t crying out for it just

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based on ego? And I don’t think that’s a minority

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report thought. No. I agree.

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So that was the first big lesson. The second big lesson was that

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just because you’re good at something for what you do,

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like, I’m really good at what I do for this podcast. And I thought, well,

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I could take what I do good that’s what I do good with this

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podcast and scale it up to other people. Right? Because other people need it. But

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just because you do something good doesn’t mean that other people need to take

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advantage of you doing that thing good. Oh, well, in in the

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same sense, like, just because you do something well for yourself does not mean that

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you can replicate it and do things well for somebody else. Bingo. I I

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like one of the things that started bugging me in, like, February and and early

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March before I finally decide to pull the trigger was thinking about Joe

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Rogan. Like, thinking about how successful Joe Rogan has been with podcasting.

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Right? Yeah. And yet he doesn’t produce anybody else’s show.

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He’s like, y’all go off. Good luck to you. Like, you figure it out.

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But his secrets, his tips, his tricks, how he’s doing, what he’s doing,

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all of that, he’s not sharing that with anybody. And he’s got a

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crew of, like, four, four, five people. He’s doing that well himself, and he’s

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done. And he’s like, I keep it small.

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And I think that’s I think that’s lesson number two. Keep it

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small. He kept it simple. I knew you

401
00:24:52.405 –> 00:24:56.220
would love that. It’s like, why

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00:24:56.220 –> 00:24:59.660
overcomplicate this by making it a big production company. Right? Like, it’s

403
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Right. And he’s making millions off of the podcast even. Like, he

404
00:25:03.500 –> 00:25:07.100
like, it’s so, yeah, I I I I like

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again, it’s it’s a good lesson to learn. And then

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the third lesson I think I learned, because it always comes in threes with me.

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The third lesson I learned is, and you’ll appreciate this because

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Tom just had a birthday. Tom went to, went to a

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foreign location, and, ate

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fermented shark. And, he did not drink vodka out of

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an igloo, although we did encourage I did encourage him to do so.

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Because I hear at that location, the vodka is pretty good.

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And I know he’s not a drinking man, but, really, like, sometimes you just gotta,

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like, take a sip of something just, like, have the experience and say, yeah, the

415
00:25:43.195 –> 00:25:46.155
experience. We call it in our house a “no thank you” bite. You take the

416
00:25:46.155 –> 00:25:48.815
bite. You go, no. Thank you. I’ve I’ve now tried it.

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00:25:51.290 –> 00:25:54.490
That’s just being polite. You don’t wanna offend an entire country. We’re doing enough of

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00:25:54.490 –> 00:25:57.049
that later on. We’re doing enough of that right now. We don’t need to we

419
00:25:57.049 –> 00:25:58.970
don’t need Tom to be doubling down. But,

420
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I’m with you on this too. We don’t need you don’t need Ukrainian international

421
00:26:06.985 –> 00:26:10.205
incident. But he he did eat fermented

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shark. So if you know where fermented shark comes

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from. But, the third lesson that I learned

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was that

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I’m too old to put up with nonsense.

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I finally and and I don’t have to be

427
00:26:31.495 –> 00:26:32.555
so I thought I

428
00:26:40.295 –> 00:26:44.130
ten years ago. I did. I thought I was too old to The thing

429
00:26:44.130 –> 00:26:47.570
is, I realized I don’t have to be loud about not wanting to put up

430
00:26:47.570 –> 00:26:51.270
with nonsense. Yeah. I just have to say very quietly

431
00:26:51.570 –> 00:26:55.350
and respectfully to everybody, it’s not you, it’s me.

432
00:26:56.825 –> 00:27:00.665
It really is me. It’s really not you. You’re fine. You’re doing what

433
00:27:00.665 –> 00:27:03.485
you need to do as a client or as a partner

434
00:27:04.265 –> 00:27:08.105
or as a sponsor or as a vendor or whatever. That’s fine.

435
00:27:08.105 –> 00:27:10.900
You’re doing you. I don’t have to own your business. I don’t have to run

436
00:27:10.900 –> 00:27:14.660
your business. I don’t have to do any of that. But it’s me. It’s

437
00:27:14.660 –> 00:27:18.260
me. I don’t wanna put up with this nonsense, and I don’t have

438
00:27:18.260 –> 00:27:21.880
to. Even if it like, there’s there was a potential

439
00:27:21.940 –> 00:27:25.375
inside of that idea for at least a half million bucks,

440
00:27:25.915 –> 00:27:28.655
which is not life changing money for a person like myself.

441
00:27:29.515 –> 00:27:33.115
But if I put it into a, you know, interest bearing

442
00:27:33.115 –> 00:27:36.955
account, that might be life changing money for, like, one of my kids. You

443
00:27:36.955 –> 00:27:40.580
know? And so the stage of life I’m at,

444
00:27:42.000 –> 00:27:45.760
the level of, for lack of a better term, material comfort that

445
00:27:45.760 –> 00:27:49.460
I have, the level of confidence that I’ve got,

446
00:27:54.235 –> 00:27:57.115
I was like, I don’t I don’t need this this kind of stuff when I

447
00:27:57.115 –> 00:28:00.795
go home to, like, my homestead, and I’m like, I wanna punch a cow.

448
00:28:00.795 –> 00:28:03.900
Like, I shouldn’t have to I shouldn’t have to thanks. You know, I shouldn’t have

449
00:28:03.900 –> 00:28:07.660
to have that desire. You know? And a cow can handle it. I mean, it’s

450
00:28:07.660 –> 00:28:10.000
2,500 pound animal. It’s fine. But

451
00:28:11.660 –> 00:28:13.980
all it’ll do is try to kick me, and then, like, we’re gonna have a

452
00:28:13.980 –> 00:28:17.605
whole thing. Yeah. We we

453
00:28:17.605 –> 00:28:21.045
are the mosquito in that in that equation. We are the mosquito in that equation.

454
00:28:21.045 –> 00:28:24.745
We’re the small thing. Yeah. Small, annoying thing.

455
00:28:25.285 –> 00:28:29.125
I have a brother I have a brother that, that was, he

456
00:28:29.125 –> 00:28:32.570
lives in the in Missouri. Mhmm. And,

457
00:28:32.750 –> 00:28:36.590
he was telling me that he worked on a cattle ranch, and he was

458
00:28:36.590 –> 00:28:40.110
trying to get the cow ready to do something that the cow just did not

459
00:28:40.110 –> 00:28:43.957
want to do and ended up getting he ended up getting kicked. And

460
00:28:43.957 –> 00:28:47.605
he was, like, out of work for, like, a week and a half. We are

461
00:28:47.605 –> 00:28:51.445
the mosquito in that that circumstance. I always tell

462
00:28:51.445 –> 00:28:55.205
my daughter who loves horses. She’s a horse person, my youngest daughter. I always

463
00:28:55.205 –> 00:28:58.300
tell her I’ve been telling these kids this for years. You don’t wanna be caught

464
00:28:58.300 –> 00:29:02.140
on the north the southbound end of a northbound cow. Like, you just don’t.

465
00:29:02.140 –> 00:29:05.740
You don’t wanna be down there. So, especially not to get kicked because that’s where

466
00:29:05.740 –> 00:29:09.415
they kick you from. Like, they don’t kick you from the side. You know? So,

467
00:29:09.655 –> 00:29:12.855
but those are the three big lessons. Right? I don’t have to put it with

468
00:29:12.855 –> 00:29:16.535
nonsense. Just because I do something well for myself

469
00:29:16.535 –> 00:29:20.215
doesn’t mean I have to do it well for others. And every idea should

470
00:29:20.215 –> 00:29:23.435
not necessarily go to scale and be a a business.

471
00:29:24.790 –> 00:29:28.330
And I learned how to check my ego in the last, like, three months.

472
00:29:28.950 –> 00:29:32.710
And that’s like I’m a bit a major business turning point. So I

473
00:29:32.710 –> 00:29:35.030
don’t know if you have any thoughts on that or any any Oh, I think

474
00:29:35.030 –> 00:29:38.784
I think it’s interesting because, you know and I’ve known you for

475
00:29:38.784 –> 00:29:42.465
a little while now, and, like, we’re you know, if we had this

476
00:29:42.465 –> 00:29:46.225
conversation two years ago, I might have a different perspective. But

477
00:29:46.465 –> 00:29:50.269
Yeah. You know, knowing you for a while now, I

478
00:29:50.269 –> 00:29:53.710
think it’s interesting the way that you were, you know, checking your ego because I

479
00:29:53.710 –> 00:29:57.230
feel like when you interact I’m just talking about you

480
00:29:57.230 –> 00:30:01.070
personally, not necessarily, you know, the the podcast per se or this

481
00:30:01.070 –> 00:30:04.830
particular venture that you’re talking about. Sure. But but when you

482
00:30:04.830 –> 00:30:06.985
interact with people,

483
00:30:08.805 –> 00:30:12.585
it’s not it it’s very rarely egotistical, and I mean very rarely.

484
00:30:12.805 –> 00:30:16.505
So when when you say that, I’m thinking you’re talking about within.

485
00:30:16.565 –> 00:30:20.380
Meaning, like, you can check your ego from within, not necessarily with

486
00:30:20.380 –> 00:30:24.140
with your interactions with people. And that is a different ball of

487
00:30:24.140 –> 00:30:27.820
wax. Being able to check your ego from within and and,

488
00:30:27.820 –> 00:30:30.720
like, check yourself and be able to

489
00:30:31.740 –> 00:30:35.345
know, understand know, observe, recognize and

490
00:30:35.345 –> 00:30:38.705
understand that you that your ego needs to be checked is damn near

491
00:30:38.705 –> 00:30:42.225
impossible. So the fact that you figured that out is pretty

492
00:30:42.225 –> 00:30:45.925
good. It’s pretty good. You know, it’s it’s it’s

493
00:30:49.429 –> 00:30:49.830
it’s it’s

494
00:30:53.990 –> 00:30:57.830
so there’s a great moment in the Old Testament when the prophet Elijah, who

495
00:30:57.830 –> 00:31:01.030
literally is a man from nowhere. Like, he comes out of nowhere. How he’s introduced

496
00:31:01.030 –> 00:31:04.650
to first Kings is amazing. Just he just shows up at, like, Ahab,

497
00:31:04.985 –> 00:31:08.525
king Ahab’s, palace, and he says, listen.

498
00:31:09.945 –> 00:31:12.905
The Lord God’s gonna shut up the sky and not give you rain for three

499
00:31:12.905 –> 00:31:16.205
years. You’re gonna have famine because you’re basically worshiping idols ridiculously.

500
00:31:16.985 –> 00:31:18.685
And then he just walks out the court.

501
00:31:21.510 –> 00:31:25.110
It’s like the most it’s the most sort of thug move

502
00:31:25.110 –> 00:31:28.549
ever. Sort of like a prophet in the Old Testament. No. No. No. No. It’s

503
00:31:28.549 –> 00:31:31.990
not the it’s like the it’s like the the first thug move. Like It is

504
00:31:31.990 –> 00:31:34.809
the first thug move. Like the OG thug. The OG thug move.

505
00:31:36.215 –> 00:31:39.975
It was. And, actually, Elijah would probably appreciate that. And then, of

506
00:31:39.975 –> 00:31:43.735
course, at the end of Elijah’s story, God just takes him up in the

507
00:31:43.735 –> 00:31:46.295
sky in a chariot. Like, Elisha’s just standing there and he just goes up in

508
00:31:46.295 –> 00:31:49.020
the sky in a chariot because God’s like, “I can’t even with this guy.” I

509
00:31:49.020 –> 00:31:52.128
just gotta go grab him. Thank you. It’s

510
00:31:52.412 –> 00:31:56.220
amazing. Gabriel, put down that horn. I’m gonna call him myself. Okay.

511
00:31:56.220 –> 00:31:57.120
Go get it.

512
00:32:01.195 –> 00:32:04.975
That’s right. I gotta go I gotta go snatch that Negro.

513
00:32:05.275 –> 00:32:08.715
I can’t let anybody else take take on this one. Sometimes you gotta go take

514
00:32:08.715 –> 00:32:12.175
it and stuff personally. Like I said, that man arrives. Yeah.

515
00:32:12.395 –> 00:32:16.039
Oh my gosh. Anyway, so after Elijah,

516
00:32:16.580 –> 00:32:19.480
puts on a show basically for the people of Israel,

517
00:32:20.340 –> 00:32:23.539
and he has a fight not a fight, but he has a showdown of the

518
00:32:23.539 –> 00:32:26.980
Pepsi challenge of prophecy in the old testament with the prophets of

519
00:32:26.980 –> 00:32:30.315
Baal. And he, like, oh, and he’s talking smack. If you ever have an opportunity,

520
00:32:30.315 –> 00:32:33.915
it’s in first Kings. Just read it just for the narrative structure of the

521
00:32:33.915 –> 00:32:37.295
story. It is so good. Like, you read the story to, like, middle schoolers,

522
00:32:37.915 –> 00:32:41.135
and they’re, like, particularly middle school boys.

523
00:32:41.539 –> 00:32:45.220
They go, that’s the coolest story in the freaking Bible. Why don’t we

524
00:32:45.220 –> 00:32:49.059
ever hear about this? I’m like, well, because they don’t want you

525
00:32:49.059 –> 00:32:52.520
calling down fire from heaven. Like, chill out. You’re 10.

526
00:32:57.294 –> 00:33:01.135
But, but he does that. Elijah winds up in

527
00:33:01.135 –> 00:33:04.895
a cave because he’s running away scared from Jezebel, proving that

528
00:33:04.895 –> 00:33:07.534
even a prophet out of a man out of nowhere could be afraid of a

529
00:33:07.534 –> 00:33:10.510
woman. One could still still put fear into a man.

530
00:33:11.210 –> 00:33:14.810
Anyway, but, there’s like a

531
00:33:14.810 –> 00:33:18.410
there’s like a wind, but god was not in the wind. I love this quote.

532
00:33:18.410 –> 00:33:21.690
God was not in the wind, and there was a fire outside. God was not

533
00:33:21.690 –> 00:33:24.965
in the fire. There was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. And

534
00:33:24.965 –> 00:33:28.745
then Elijah went out, he wraps himself in this cloth. And,

535
00:33:29.284 –> 00:33:32.965
it says in, it says in first Kings that

536
00:33:32.965 –> 00:33:36.105
Elijah paused, and he heard a still small voice.

537
00:33:37.020 –> 00:33:39.760
And, basically, the still false voice is, Elijah, what are you doing?

538
00:33:40.460 –> 00:33:44.300
Like, what what are we doing here? Like, stop

539
00:33:44.300 –> 00:33:47.920
feeling sorry for yourself. Stop

540
00:33:48.140 –> 00:33:51.855
hiding in the cave. Yes. I understand that you think you’re

541
00:33:51.855 –> 00:33:55.695
the only one in Israel that worships god, basically. And everybody

542
00:33:55.695 –> 00:33:59.134
else is in idolatry and is terrible. And go get a disciple

543
00:33:59.134 –> 00:34:02.894
already. There’s a there’s a guy named Elisha. Go go bother

544
00:34:02.894 –> 00:34:06.540
him. You need you need a friend. I like him who

545
00:34:06.540 –> 00:34:10.320
needs a friend. Use the buddy system. Use the buddy system.

546
00:34:10.540 –> 00:34:13.900
That’s right. And I don’t I don’t wanna minimize the story because it’s a very

547
00:34:13.900 –> 00:34:17.594
powerful story. And at the same time, that’s for me

548
00:34:17.594 –> 00:34:20.395
what an ego check sounds. It’s a still small voice. That’s why I said all

549
00:34:20.395 –> 00:34:23.995
that. It’s a still small voice inside of myself. I think

550
00:34:23.995 –> 00:34:27.755
other leaders if there were any tip that I could

551
00:34:27.755 –> 00:34:30.570
give, there would be a practical tip out of this entire sort sort of nonsense

552
00:34:30.570 –> 00:34:34.170
that I’ve given about the media agency and all this stuff, this

553
00:34:34.330 –> 00:34:38.090
no. Not stuff. But all this story that I’ve related is you have to find

554
00:34:38.090 –> 00:34:40.670
that still small voice. Because if you don’t,

555
00:34:41.930 –> 00:34:45.324
you you and then you have to listen to it. That’s the other piece. But

556
00:34:45.324 –> 00:34:49.005
first, you gotta find it. And moving away all the

557
00:34:49.005 –> 00:34:52.765
noise and stuff that’s inside your own head and inside your

558
00:34:52.765 –> 00:34:56.445
own heart and that’s outside for even just the outside noise. It’s

559
00:34:56.445 –> 00:35:00.250
just it’s just really hard. And so if you

560
00:35:00.250 –> 00:35:02.890
could do it, you’ll hear that voice, and then you’ll be able to check your

561
00:35:02.890 –> 00:35:06.730
own ego and check yourself. Here’s the thing, though, Jesan. Everything you

562
00:35:06.730 –> 00:35:10.410
just said, like, if you think about it, like, you should be doing if

563
00:35:10.410 –> 00:35:13.915
you if you are part of the small business world and you are or an

564
00:35:13.915 –> 00:35:17.295
entrepreneur and you’re you’re trying to get something started or whatnot,

565
00:35:19.515 –> 00:35:23.275
all of what you just said applies. Right? Like, you have to you have

566
00:35:23.275 –> 00:35:26.710
to clear away all the clutter, select

567
00:35:27.010 –> 00:35:29.589
select what you are going to be

568
00:35:30.450 –> 00:35:34.210
leveraging as your North Star, and you

569
00:35:34.210 –> 00:35:37.970
go forward toward that North Star, and you keep all the clutter out of

570
00:35:37.970 –> 00:35:41.505
the way. Right? Like, so so to your point, that inner

571
00:35:41.505 –> 00:35:44.865
voice is your North Star in your company’s growth

572
00:35:44.865 –> 00:35:48.465
pattern. Mhmm. And you you point and go. And if something

573
00:35:48.465 –> 00:35:51.985
deviates you from that from that direction, then you don’t do it.

574
00:35:51.985 –> 00:35:55.540
Like, we we’ve talked about this too in in a couple of the,

575
00:35:56.320 –> 00:35:59.780
in a couple of the ventures that we’ve got going on, which is,

576
00:35:59.920 –> 00:36:03.360
like, we’ve got all these people throwing tasks at

577
00:36:03.360 –> 00:36:07.005
us. Do this. Do that. What about this? What about that? And we never

578
00:36:07.005 –> 00:36:10.385
stop well, we we do now. But we didn’t stop and think,

579
00:36:10.685 –> 00:36:14.205
like, oh, that’s a good or or sorry. We kept oh, that’s a good idea.

580
00:36:14.205 –> 00:36:16.685
Oh, let’s try that. Let’s try that. Let’s try it. What what do we think?

581
00:36:16.685 –> 00:36:18.225
We never stopped and said,

582
00:36:20.310 –> 00:36:23.910
does it satisfy our North Star? Like, is it does it keep us

583
00:36:23.910 –> 00:36:27.750
moving in the direction that we’re supposed to be moving? Because if not, then we’re

584
00:36:27.750 –> 00:36:30.550
gonna skip that for now. We can come back to it later if it if

585
00:36:30.550 –> 00:36:33.995
it if the idea or go simmer on the

586
00:36:33.995 –> 00:36:37.675
idea. Fix it. Like, so to your point, now you might have gone

587
00:36:37.675 –> 00:36:41.435
through all of that whole process in your head without realizing it coming to the

588
00:36:41.435 –> 00:36:45.130
understanding that you need to shut it down because maybe there was no

589
00:36:45.130 –> 00:36:48.730
North Star. Maybe there was no may maybe there was no there there was

590
00:36:48.730 –> 00:36:52.570
no, you know and I understand what you’re saying. Like,

591
00:36:52.570 –> 00:36:56.410
maybe something you do well for yourself, you can’t do for other people

592
00:36:56.410 –> 00:36:59.825
or shouldn’t do for other people. But, again, that means it has no direction, has

593
00:36:59.825 –> 00:37:03.184
no North Star. Right? Like, there’s, like, it’s the same like, we’re saying the same

594
00:37:03.184 –> 00:37:06.464
thing, but we’re coming at it from a different angle. Well, and how many how

595
00:37:06.464 –> 00:37:08.724
many people how many businesses do you think

596
00:37:10.065 –> 00:37:13.510
just operate on, for lack of a better term,

597
00:37:14.369 –> 00:37:17.990
directionless money, directionless revenue.

598
00:37:18.530 –> 00:37:22.130
Like, they’ve lost their North Star, but they still get so

599
00:37:22.130 –> 00:37:25.590
much revenue from when they last had their North Star

600
00:37:26.055 –> 00:37:29.194
that they’re just running on that inertia of directionless

601
00:37:29.494 –> 00:37:33.175
revenue. And I I I I mean, obviously, you could think of big

602
00:37:33.175 –> 00:37:36.395
organizations that do this, but I’m thinking of, like,

603
00:37:36.694 –> 00:37:40.260
small from maybe your your

604
00:37:40.260 –> 00:37:43.860
family size to, like, a mid level size company in that

605
00:37:43.860 –> 00:37:47.300
range. Right? Because those are the kinds of people listed as podcast. How many of

606
00:37:47.300 –> 00:37:50.820
them like, I was talking to a guy, the other

607
00:37:50.820 –> 00:37:54.434
day who whose company is a second generation

608
00:37:54.434 –> 00:37:58.135
robotics company, and the tariffs are

609
00:37:58.674 –> 00:38:02.515
crushing them right now Oh, yeah. Because they didn’t they didn’t but

610
00:38:02.515 –> 00:38:06.160
they all but but but but they all voted for Donald Trump. So they’re all,

611
00:38:06.160 –> 00:38:09.600
like, on board, at least everybody in the company. And I’m it’s not about voting,

612
00:38:09.600 –> 00:38:12.880
by the way. They’re all on board with, yeah, we’re gonna have to go through

613
00:38:12.880 –> 00:38:16.480
some pain. And that, by the way, case come from leadership. Right? But I

614
00:38:16.480 –> 00:38:19.940
wonder where the minority report, to use that term again underneath,

615
00:38:20.000 –> 00:38:23.654
is does your company really still need to exist? Like,

616
00:38:23.654 –> 00:38:27.255
yes. I get second generation company, but have you made so much

617
00:38:27.255 –> 00:38:30.775
revenue that you’ve lost your North Star? I wonder that. I don’t know what the

618
00:38:30.775 –> 00:38:33.174
answer to that is. I never I didn’t ask that person that question because it

619
00:38:33.174 –> 00:38:36.940
wasn’t appropriate for the for the the thing that we were doing, but it

620
00:38:36.940 –> 00:38:40.619
is something that occurred to me. But you can definitely see that in companies that

621
00:38:40.619 –> 00:38:44.299
have recurring revenue models. Right? Like, some some sort of, like, monthly

622
00:38:44.299 –> 00:38:48.140
subscription or annual subscription or what like, any kind of

623
00:38:48.140 –> 00:38:51.905
thing like that. I think that happens a lot more frequently than people

624
00:38:51.905 –> 00:38:55.585
think it does. The company’s just lost its way, but it’s got, you know, it’s

625
00:38:55.585 –> 00:38:59.105
got 15,000 customers spending a hundred bucks a

626
00:38:59.105 –> 00:39:02.890
month. Let it ride out. Why not? You’re

627
00:39:02.890 –> 00:39:06.330
not you’re not you you’re just gonna keep pocketing profit. Why not? Like

628
00:39:06.730 –> 00:39:08.750
but but does the company actually

629
00:39:10.250 –> 00:39:14.090
still solve problems? Does it is it is it going to is it

630
00:39:14.090 –> 00:39:17.690
gonna create generational wealth? Is it gonna, like Right. There’s a lot of other things.

631
00:39:17.690 –> 00:39:20.145
Now if if that’s not important to you and you’re just gonna run it into

632
00:39:20.145 –> 00:39:22.545
the ground, then god bless you and keep going. You know, do what you gotta

633
00:39:22.545 –> 00:39:26.325
do. But, but I no. But I to your point, though,

634
00:39:26.625 –> 00:39:30.305
I and and by the way, I’m not suggesting that the North

635
00:39:30.305 –> 00:39:33.770
Star can’t change. That’s Right. Yeah. That’s what we

636
00:39:33.770 –> 00:39:36.830
call a pivot. You can pivot. Like,

637
00:39:38.170 –> 00:39:41.630
sure. But if your pivot is to nowhere,

638
00:39:42.410 –> 00:39:46.065
that’s not a pivot. That’s giving up. Right? Like, that’s just saying I’m gonna let

639
00:39:46.065 –> 00:39:48.385
it ride, and I’m just gonna take all the money I can out of it.

640
00:39:48.385 –> 00:39:50.785
Maybe you have some IP that you can sell at the end of the day

641
00:39:50.785 –> 00:39:54.465
or whatever. I don’t know. But I’m just saying, like but if you don’t

642
00:39:54.465 –> 00:39:58.140
have some sort of driving factor, some sort of North Star,

643
00:39:58.140 –> 00:40:01.420
some sort of way to, you know, mechanism to make sure that you’re on the

644
00:40:01.420 –> 00:40:05.020
right path with whatever goals are or that you’re

645
00:40:05.020 –> 00:40:08.460
trying to accomplish, then what’s the point? Like, what is the

646
00:40:08.460 –> 00:40:12.175
point? Like, like, and to your point, when do you decide to wrap it

647
00:40:12.175 –> 00:40:15.955
up and close it up and whatever? I mean, to me, that’s it. Like,

648
00:40:16.255 –> 00:40:20.095
now now your wrap up could could be, as we just said a

649
00:40:20.095 –> 00:40:23.730
second ago, just letting it ride out. And as customers fall

650
00:40:23.730 –> 00:40:26.690
off, they just fall off and you just walk away and you walk into the

651
00:40:26.690 –> 00:40:30.210
sunset with whatever money you ended up making. Yeah. You don’t that doesn’t

652
00:40:30.210 –> 00:40:33.250
necessarily mean that you have to literally quote, like, the way you did the the

653
00:40:33.250 –> 00:40:36.895
media agent, the podcast media agency where you literally closed up shops,

654
00:40:36.895 –> 00:40:40.654
stopped taking customer. Like, you’re done. Bam. All done. Nothing else. Like, you

655
00:40:40.654 –> 00:40:44.015
know, there are ways there there are come a lot of companies out there that

656
00:40:44.015 –> 00:40:47.615
don’t have to do that. They just let their come their let their, you know,

657
00:40:47.615 –> 00:40:50.434
their customer base ride it out. Now

658
00:40:51.810 –> 00:40:55.570
I’m not a big fan of that, but that’s just me. Well and

659
00:40:55.570 –> 00:40:58.130
and when you let your when you let it you talk about the so I

660
00:40:58.130 –> 00:41:01.650
like that you mentioned the recurring model or the subscription model because that’s the place

661
00:41:01.650 –> 00:41:05.030
where it’s the most notorious Yes. Particularly in

662
00:41:06.075 –> 00:41:09.835
large media companies that are built on subscription models. And I’m gonna

663
00:41:09.835 –> 00:41:13.595
say too that everyone will know, Hulu and

664
00:41:13.595 –> 00:41:17.375
Netflix. Like, you could see this in both of them. Like, the level,

665
00:41:17.515 –> 00:41:20.015
like, the level of content.

666
00:41:22.740 –> 00:41:26.580
Well, this ties back into the AI thing. The level of content slop that’s on

667
00:41:26.580 –> 00:41:30.120
that platform that didn’t used to be there when they were mailing out DVDs

668
00:41:30.820 –> 00:41:34.580
Right. Is is kind of astonishing now. Like, I I I mean,

669
00:41:34.580 –> 00:41:38.085
I pay for Netflix. I

670
00:41:38.085 –> 00:41:41.925
can’t think of the last time I actually sat and watched an

671
00:41:41.925 –> 00:41:44.905
original Netflix anything that was good.

672
00:41:45.525 –> 00:41:49.285
Mhmm. And that’s because they’re letting the

673
00:41:49.285 –> 00:41:53.039
model just run. Did you see And by the

674
00:41:53.039 –> 00:41:55.680
way, they’ve got enough they’ve got enough money to for run it for another twenty

675
00:41:55.680 –> 00:41:58.880
years. I’m I’m not knocking that. They got enough money for twenty years. So maybe

676
00:41:58.880 –> 00:42:01.700
they’ll find a North Star in the next twenty years. I don’t know.

677
00:42:02.735 –> 00:42:06.575
Did you see so speak Netflix and and to your point, the the

678
00:42:06.575 –> 00:42:10.195
last Netflix original movie that is currently in the top 10

679
00:42:10.335 –> 00:42:14.095
is a new movie with Tom Hardy called Havoc. And I

680
00:42:14.095 –> 00:42:17.010
read a couple heard of this. Yeah. I’ve read a couple of blog posts about

681
00:42:17.010 –> 00:42:18.930
it, and then I was talking to my wife. I was like, oh, we should

682
00:42:19.010 –> 00:42:22.390
we’re both Tom Hardy fans, so whatever. Like, we’re like, alright. We should watch this.

683
00:42:25.810 –> 00:42:29.565
It was Netflix produced, and I

684
00:42:29.565 –> 00:42:32.605
said I leaned over I I looked over my wife at one point about halfway

685
00:42:32.605 –> 00:42:36.225
through the movie. I go, this looks like a live action version of Sin City.

686
00:42:36.285 –> 00:42:40.125
Do you remember the the like, the Yes. I I couldn’t

687
00:42:40.125 –> 00:42:43.410
think of an a better way to explain it, and it was just not good.

688
00:42:43.410 –> 00:42:47.090
I don’t understand. Like and here’s the worst part. Here’s the worst

689
00:42:47.090 –> 00:42:50.850
part. And I don’t know if it’s because we’re just you know, we’re we’re

690
00:42:50.850 –> 00:42:54.610
we’re a we’re a solid fan base for Tom Hardy. Right?

691
00:42:54.610 –> 00:42:57.595
Like, I I like I like a lot of his characters. I like what he

692
00:42:57.595 –> 00:43:00.555
does in movies. He’s really good in Mobland. I don’t know if you’re watching the

693
00:43:00.555 –> 00:43:04.234
show the series show right now on on Showtime. I saw I saw an ad

694
00:43:04.234 –> 00:43:07.275
for it on Paramount plus or wherever, and I was like, oh, what’s that? You

695
00:43:07.275 –> 00:43:10.870
know? So He’s good at he’s good at Mobland. My daughter my daughter and wife

696
00:43:10.870 –> 00:43:14.070
loved him in Peaky Blinders. Like, he’s a good actor. Right? So I don’t know

697
00:43:14.070 –> 00:43:17.750
because I just like him. I thought his character in the

698
00:43:17.750 –> 00:43:21.350
movie was good. The movie around him was

699
00:43:21.350 –> 00:43:24.944
bad. Was bad. Yeah. You know? And, like Yeah. And they I think they

700
00:43:24.944 –> 00:43:28.145
tried to get a little star power in there too because they had Timothy Olyphant

701
00:43:28.145 –> 00:43:31.904
in there, which, again, usually No. He’s usually pretty good. I I think

702
00:43:31.904 –> 00:43:34.085
Timothy Timothy Olyphant’s a pretty good actor.

703
00:43:50.155 –> 00:43:53.675
But the movie itself, what were they thinking,

704
00:43:53.675 –> 00:43:57.355
man? I was like I was like, what are they doing? So there’s a there’s

705
00:43:57.355 –> 00:44:01.115
a phraseology that I’m gonna dump into your brain that you will that

706
00:44:01.115 –> 00:44:04.635
will that will identify what you just saw there with Tom Hardy. And by the

707
00:44:04.635 –> 00:44:08.140
way, I’m a fan of Tom Hardy only in that he does jiu jitsu. He’s

708
00:44:08.140 –> 00:44:11.980
a blue belt in jiu jitsu. Yeah. And he, he’s might he might be a

709
00:44:11.980 –> 00:44:15.660
purple belt by this point. And, he was once interviewed about doing jiu jitsu, and

710
00:44:15.660 –> 00:44:19.325
he said that his favorite part of it was, that he got to crush people.

711
00:44:21.465 –> 00:44:24.265
And I was like, oh, okay. I see what kind of game you play. You

712
00:44:24.265 –> 00:44:27.405
play a pressure pass game. Got it. Got it.

713
00:44:28.025 –> 00:44:30.825
I do not play that game. I don’t I don’t play that game, but I

714
00:44:30.825 –> 00:44:33.640
understand. I understand you played that game. Alright. Anyway,

715
00:44:35.220 –> 00:44:38.980
but, he, he the the phrase

716
00:44:38.980 –> 00:44:42.440
that’s used typically when an actor is better than the material

717
00:44:42.579 –> 00:44:46.279
around him from the directing to the sets to the whatever

718
00:44:47.105 –> 00:44:50.404
is he elevated the material. Right?

719
00:44:50.865 –> 00:44:54.224
Now we typically think of elevated as in he brought everybody else up with him,

720
00:44:54.224 –> 00:44:58.065
but increasingly not increasingly. For probably the last twenty five years in

721
00:44:58.065 –> 00:45:01.045
Hollywood, it’s been it’s with increasing

722
00:45:04.520 –> 00:45:08.280
frequency, you get these actors that come

723
00:45:08.280 –> 00:45:11.800
in, and they are like mercenaries. And and Hardy’s

724
00:45:11.800 –> 00:45:15.115
definitely one of those guys. Colin Farrell probably

725
00:45:15.174 –> 00:45:18.855
started this. One. Yeah. Yeah. Started this path really,

726
00:45:19.174 –> 00:45:22.855
about twenty years ago now with his career, where he just comes

727
00:45:22.855 –> 00:45:26.694
in and he just chews scenery, and he just eats up everything. It

728
00:45:26.694 –> 00:45:30.210
eats up everybody, and everybody collapses, You know, it’s it’s not

729
00:45:30.210 –> 00:45:33.750
meeting his level, and he’s okay with that. And Tom Hardy just

730
00:45:33.810 –> 00:45:37.490
just go through it, like, hot like, pooped through a goose, and I did my

731
00:45:37.490 –> 00:45:41.010
job to the highest freaking possible level, and all of you are being players. And

732
00:45:41.010 –> 00:45:43.490
now everybody can see it. And I don’t know what you do with that, by

733
00:45:43.490 –> 00:45:46.465
the way, as a film editor and as a director. When you’re in

734
00:45:47.245 –> 00:45:50.625
the, when you’re in the room looking at the rushes and the dailies

735
00:45:51.005 –> 00:45:54.685
and you recognize that, like, oh my god. He’s elevating the material, and

736
00:45:54.685 –> 00:45:58.260
everybody else is, like, just standing around. They’re like five year

737
00:45:58.260 –> 00:46:01.940
olds. Yeah. Like, but how do you not recognize that as a director? Right? Like,

738
00:46:01.940 –> 00:46:05.540
you’re looking at this from, like, the, like, from the lens of how do I

739
00:46:05.540 –> 00:46:08.820
make this movie better as we go? How do I how do I direct people

740
00:46:08.820 –> 00:46:12.665
to be better? But that’s your job. You’re the person who directs people to be

741
00:46:12.665 –> 00:46:16.505
better. So I think it’s hard in a creative so we saw

742
00:46:16.505 –> 00:46:18.905
the I saw this in my media agency. This is sort of the one of

743
00:46:18.905 –> 00:46:22.590
the sub lessons. Right? Because and I’ll

744
00:46:22.590 –> 00:46:25.550
frame it out this way. The person who gave me the space in the studio

745
00:46:25.550 –> 00:46:28.370
was like a producer. He was a sort of a producer role. Right?

746
00:46:29.230 –> 00:46:32.850
Then we had the creative talent that was coming along

747
00:46:32.990 –> 00:46:36.695
and hosting the podcast or writing it or whatever. So that’s your that’s

748
00:46:36.695 –> 00:46:40.375
your actors and your writers. Right? What’s my role? Well, my

749
00:46:40.375 –> 00:46:43.835
role is to direct. And so I’m thinking of one particular client

750
00:46:44.055 –> 00:46:44.555
where

751
00:46:49.130 –> 00:46:51.550
I had to be very careful how I talk to them

752
00:46:53.370 –> 00:46:56.910
because they’re creatives. And so

753
00:46:57.370 –> 00:47:00.730
the way you talk to a creative person who is

754
00:47:00.730 –> 00:47:04.305
not engaging

755
00:47:04.525 –> 00:47:08.365
seriously with the content is

756
00:47:08.365 –> 00:47:12.045
different than the way that you talk to a creative

757
00:47:12.045 –> 00:47:15.839
who is engaging seriously with the content. Particularly if the

758
00:47:15.839 –> 00:47:19.539
one who is not engaging seriously with the content is considered to be the linchpin

759
00:47:19.839 –> 00:47:23.519
of the entire project. Yeah.

760
00:47:23.519 –> 00:47:27.059
For whatever reason. Maybe they bring a certain charisma

761
00:47:27.279 –> 00:47:31.065
or they have an ego or whatever. Right? Or maybe

762
00:47:31.065 –> 00:47:34.605
they’re bringing money. I don’t know. But they’re not elevating

763
00:47:35.385 –> 00:47:39.065
even though they have status. Meanwhile, you got this person over there

764
00:47:39.065 –> 00:47:42.780
who you can sort of jerk their chain a little bit, and you do,

765
00:47:42.780 –> 00:47:46.380
and they elevate. And now you’ve got a weird dynamic in the creative

766
00:47:46.380 –> 00:47:50.220
process that directors struggle with. And I think there’s and so I had a

767
00:47:50.220 –> 00:47:53.660
mini version of that, a very, very tiny version of that, very small.

768
00:47:53.660 –> 00:47:57.444
Right? But you see it, I think, at much

769
00:47:57.444 –> 00:48:00.805
larger versions in its scale in, in Hollywood

770
00:48:00.805 –> 00:48:04.565
productions. And I think these young directors if you’re a director

771
00:48:04.565 –> 00:48:06.105
who’s under the age of, like,

772
00:48:08.244 –> 00:48:11.940
65, you probably have

773
00:48:11.940 –> 00:48:15.140
never really not even younger than that. Let’s say

774
00:48:15.140 –> 00:48:18.740
55. If you’re under the age of 55 in Hollywood, you’ve

775
00:48:18.740 –> 00:48:20.600
never really had to deal with, like,

776
00:48:23.075 –> 00:48:26.755
a Gene Hackman or Clint Eastwood type. Those guys are

777
00:48:26.755 –> 00:48:30.115
long gone. Even even someone like, a

778
00:48:30.115 –> 00:48:33.714
Lily Tomlin, right, or a, Gilda

779
00:48:33.714 –> 00:48:35.974
Radner, right, who would elevate material,

780
00:48:37.200 –> 00:48:40.580
or a Glenn Close or a Meryl Streep. Okay?

781
00:48:43.680 –> 00:48:47.520
Blake Lively is not Meryl Streep. Yeah. She

782
00:48:47.520 –> 00:48:51.335
thinks she is. I shouldn’t I shouldn’t laugh. No. Go ahead. Laugh. It’s fine. Like,

783
00:48:51.335 –> 00:48:54.855
her and her husband are getting exposed right now because of their nonsense. Because they

784
00:48:54.855 –> 00:48:58.475
finally ran across a director that was like, oh, really?

785
00:48:59.255 –> 00:49:00.715
I have Instagram too.

786
00:49:03.920 –> 00:49:07.560
Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. Like, you wanna you wanna go

787
00:49:08.000 –> 00:49:11.540
I was thinking of the movie Tombstone. You go ahead. You pull that smoke wagon.

788
00:49:11.920 –> 00:49:15.520
You go right ahead. You pull that and you watch what happens. And she did.

789
00:49:15.520 –> 00:49:18.675
She went ahead and she pulled that smoke wagon. And she’s gonna get some. She

790
00:49:18.675 –> 00:49:22.355
found her Huckleberry. And, you know, someone is like, oh, yeah. That’s just my game.

791
00:49:22.355 –> 00:49:26.035
I got the receipts. What do you wanna do? And this is the

792
00:49:26.035 –> 00:49:29.715
dynamic, I think, in the Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and

793
00:49:29.715 –> 00:49:33.440
whatever that director’s name is, triangle of nonsense

794
00:49:33.440 –> 00:49:36.960
in lawsuits that you’re seeing the inability of a

795
00:49:36.960 –> 00:49:40.720
director to wrangle someone who has the ego but doesn’t

796
00:49:40.720 –> 00:49:44.480
have the chops. Yeah. And he saw the gap between the

797
00:49:44.480 –> 00:49:46.695
ego and the chops, and I bet he tried to control

798
00:49:52.215 –> 00:49:55.835
yelled at her on day one. But then, like, Ryan Reynolds is standing back there.

799
00:49:56.775 –> 00:49:59.175
And, you know, you gotta deal with that guy, which, by the way, there’s an

800
00:49:59.175 –> 00:50:02.040
easy simple way to deal with that guy, but I’ll just leave that aside for

801
00:50:02.040 –> 00:50:05.720
just a minute. You know, you gotta be the director who’s

802
00:50:05.720 –> 00:50:09.420
like, no. No one comes on my set unless they’re actually on the movie.

803
00:50:10.040 –> 00:50:13.740
Right. Oh, your name is Ryan Reynolds? I don’t care. This is not your movie.

804
00:50:13.880 –> 00:50:17.565
Go do another Deadpool four. Leave me alone. Go hang out

805
00:50:17.565 –> 00:50:21.325
with Hugh Jackman or whatever it is you do. Like,

806
00:50:21.325 –> 00:50:25.165
go away. But you don’t have that kind of dynamic, I think, in young directors.

807
00:50:25.165 –> 00:50:28.945
I think that’s one aspect of it. Yeah. But so in Havoc,

808
00:50:29.360 –> 00:50:32.640
you get a director who’s just sort of letting Tom Hardy just eats eats scenery,

809
00:50:32.640 –> 00:50:36.320
and Tom will will he’ll accommodate. If he’s a

810
00:50:36.320 –> 00:50:39.680
Brazilian jiu jitsu guy, I know how his brain works. He’ll accommodate

811
00:50:39.680 –> 00:50:43.225
you. But, you know, it’s funny

812
00:50:43.225 –> 00:50:46.265
too because, like, I was even saying to my wife, I was like, not not

813
00:50:46.265 –> 00:50:50.025
only that, like, I I like his American accent. Like, I think he’s good.

814
00:50:50.025 –> 00:50:53.305
I I I think, you know, he’s got that, but he he’s got a charisma

815
00:50:53.305 –> 00:50:56.665
to him that I just think is is missing in a lot of people in

816
00:50:56.665 –> 00:51:00.310
the in the the diver the diversity of his of his craft.

817
00:51:00.310 –> 00:51:04.150
Right? So, like, he’s it’s not like he’s like, he did a movie like

818
00:51:04.150 –> 00:51:07.990
Venom, and he didn’t get typecast like everybody else did when they

819
00:51:07.990 –> 00:51:11.835
did those MCU movies. Right? Like, everybody else Right. Kinda like Yeah.

820
00:51:11.835 –> 00:51:14.895
You know, they got stuck in or whatever. Or, like,

821
00:51:15.595 –> 00:51:19.435
like, the Jason Statham’s of the world. Right? That just kinda, like, he’s your action

822
00:51:19.435 –> 00:51:23.195
guy, and Tom Hardy ended up doing some action stuff. So now he’s your action

823
00:51:23.195 –> 00:51:26.300
guy. And he was like, oh, hell no. I’m gonna go back, and I’m gonna

824
00:51:26.300 –> 00:51:29.980
do another TV series. And I’m gonna do a small screen, and I’m

825
00:51:29.980 –> 00:51:33.180
gonna show you that I’m not just an act just an action guy, and I

826
00:51:33.180 –> 00:51:37.020
can actually act. Like, you know, like so I don’t know. I just I

827
00:51:37.020 –> 00:51:40.545
I like them. Anyway No. No. I I I think you’re I think you’re onto

828
00:51:40.545 –> 00:51:43.984
something. So, like, the the whole but, again,

829
00:51:43.984 –> 00:51:47.424
this how do you go

830
00:51:47.424 –> 00:51:50.385
ahead. So I was just gonna say, so on the flip side to that, that’s

831
00:51:50.385 –> 00:51:54.005
why I brought up the the Netflix, you know, top 10 movies.

832
00:51:54.385 –> 00:51:57.839
On the flip side of that, the movie that just took over number one is

833
00:51:57.839 –> 00:52:01.680
called exterritorial. It’s actually a German

834
00:52:01.680 –> 00:52:05.460
based film where Okay. The filmography and the cinematography

835
00:52:05.680 –> 00:52:08.805
is mediocre at best. The dialogue

836
00:52:09.505 –> 00:52:12.485
was mediocre at best. The acting was

837
00:52:12.945 –> 00:52:16.705
okay, but the story was great. Like, it was

838
00:52:16.705 –> 00:52:20.305
it was weird. Like, the concept of the story carried the

839
00:52:20.305 –> 00:52:23.480
movie. Like, it was it was kind of an interesting

840
00:52:24.100 –> 00:52:27.940
now there are some Farfetched BS stuff that happened, and anybody who watches

841
00:52:27.940 –> 00:52:30.420
it is same as my wife and I did. We watched it, and we were

842
00:52:30.420 –> 00:52:34.180
like, let me get this straight. You’re in

843
00:52:34.180 –> 00:52:37.725
this type of environment, and there is no human being around? Like, what is going

844
00:52:39.725 –> 00:52:41.285
on here? Like, that’s stupid. Like, you know what I mean? Like, rent parts but

845
00:52:41.645 –> 00:52:45.405
so that was in a case where the material was probably better

846
00:52:45.405 –> 00:52:49.085
than the environment and the actors. So it’s like the

847
00:52:49.085 –> 00:52:51.860
opposite effect, but but it was still a decent movie. In my opinion, it was

848
00:52:51.860 –> 00:52:55.620
better than Havoc. There’s a reason it it took its place at number one. It’s

849
00:52:55.620 –> 00:52:59.220
it’s it was just a better movie, but it wasn’t better acting. I thought Tom

850
00:52:59.220 –> 00:53:02.900
Hardy was better than anybody in that other movie. The script writing

851
00:53:02.900 –> 00:53:06.415
was not all that much better than

852
00:53:06.415 –> 00:53:10.195
Havoc. The act it just it was the storyline.

853
00:53:10.255 –> 00:53:13.935
Like, the actual story was compelling. Okay. Let me ask you one

854
00:53:13.935 –> 00:53:17.695
question, and then we can we can switch to another we transition to another topic

855
00:53:17.695 –> 00:53:19.820
because I wanna talk about the books and the format of the show because we’re

856
00:53:19.820 –> 00:53:23.340
gonna do do do some different things. They’re going into the, the remainder of the

857
00:53:23.340 –> 00:53:27.180
second quarter, and, the third quarter and the fourth quarter of this

858
00:53:27.180 –> 00:53:30.560
year. I’m gonna shift some things around. I wanna talk about that for the listeners.

859
00:53:32.220 –> 00:53:35.785
So here’s my question. Which matters to you

860
00:53:35.845 –> 00:53:39.365
more, the acting or the writing in a

861
00:53:39.365 –> 00:53:42.964
film? I don’t

862
00:53:42.964 –> 00:53:46.664
think there is one over the other. I think it I think, ultimately,

863
00:53:46.964 –> 00:53:50.080
I would love to have good acting, good writing. I mean,

864
00:53:50.460 –> 00:53:54.300
obviously. Right. As long as one is really good,

865
00:53:54.300 –> 00:53:58.060
I can tolerate the movie. Okay. So I don’t I don’t have

866
00:53:58.060 –> 00:54:01.760
a preference of one over the other, but I one needs one

867
00:54:01.980 –> 00:54:05.675
one has to be there. One has to be good in this either

868
00:54:05.675 –> 00:54:09.515
the storytelling or the the story or the acting is just so

869
00:54:09.515 –> 00:54:13.275
much better than than, you know, than the the material. As long as one

870
00:54:13.275 –> 00:54:16.715
is present, I can tolerate the movie. Okay. It’s

871
00:54:16.715 –> 00:54:20.460
interesting. See, I I used to I started out

872
00:54:20.460 –> 00:54:24.300
with actors, like, way back in the day when I was, like, 12,

873
00:54:24.300 –> 00:54:27.100
13, 14 years old. And I started watching a few more movies, and then it

874
00:54:27.100 –> 00:54:30.800
switched to, like, directors. I was like, okay. This director will elevate

875
00:54:30.860 –> 00:54:34.625
material. Right? And that’s where I go into, like, Kubrick and not

876
00:54:34.625 –> 00:54:38.465
understanding him and going through this whole oeuvre. Oh, but then also directors

877
00:54:38.465 –> 00:54:42.065
a lot, whether it’s Jordan Peele or, like, you know, Christopher Nolan. Like, you know,

878
00:54:42.065 –> 00:54:45.425
Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan. Directors a lot. So I totally get that. I

879
00:54:45.425 –> 00:54:49.089
definitely get that. Like, directors still do matter to me. I

880
00:54:49.089 –> 00:54:52.550
agree. But at a certain point,

881
00:54:52.930 –> 00:54:55.910
and I don’t know it’s if it’s when I crossed over my thirties,

882
00:54:56.609 –> 00:55:00.450
I started caring more about writing. Mhmm. And I started

883
00:55:00.450 –> 00:55:01.750
recognizing that

884
00:55:05.625 –> 00:55:08.445
there’s some writing and some stories

885
00:55:10.905 –> 00:55:14.445
that the ways modern scripts are written

886
00:55:16.025 –> 00:55:19.785
make no sense and probably didn’t need to be

887
00:55:19.785 –> 00:55:21.920
made. So for instance,

888
00:55:25.180 –> 00:55:28.780
what’s a movie where the writing doesn’t hold again, doesn’t hold up? This is a

889
00:55:28.780 –> 00:55:32.460
modern more modern movie in the last ten years. Oh,

890
00:55:32.700 –> 00:55:36.395
mister and missus no. Well, no. Not mister and missus Smith. Well, no. No.

891
00:55:36.395 –> 00:55:40.155
Not that one. Because action movies are too easy to, like, bang on.

892
00:55:40.155 –> 00:55:43.115
I was just gonna I was just gonna say that. No. No. It’s like action

893
00:55:43.115 –> 00:55:46.875
movies shouldn’t apply. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, it’s kinda writing

894
00:55:46.875 –> 00:55:50.620
and action movies are terrible. They’re terrible. Okay. I I gotta go back I gotta

895
00:55:50.620 –> 00:55:53.100
go back at least ten years just to make it sort of a movie that

896
00:55:53.180 –> 00:55:56.940
or more than ten years, make it a movie that, that no one will will

897
00:55:56.940 –> 00:56:00.700
recognize. So

898
00:56:00.700 –> 00:56:04.540
Mulholland Falls Mhmm. Which had Nick Nolte in it back in the day

899
00:56:04.540 –> 00:56:07.575
and whatever. That movie

900
00:56:08.355 –> 00:56:11.015
doesn’t hold together. Yeah.

901
00:56:12.755 –> 00:56:16.595
Matter of fact, if I remember correctly, it’s been a little while since I

902
00:56:16.595 –> 00:56:19.235
saw it. Although, recently did pop up in my Amazon Prime, so I might go

903
00:56:19.235 –> 00:56:23.080
revisit it. But, it it falls

904
00:56:23.080 –> 00:56:26.840
apart in the third act. And that’s typically, by the way, where most movies

905
00:56:26.840 –> 00:56:29.960
fall apart is in the third act. Like, this is why one knock with Christopher

906
00:56:29.960 –> 00:56:33.500
Nolan when he tried to break the three-act structure as a director,

907
00:56:33.960 –> 00:56:37.765
with Batman, particularly the third Batman movie. The

908
00:56:37.765 –> 00:56:41.065
three-act structure exists for a reason, Chris. Like, don’t

909
00:56:42.245 –> 00:56:46.025
mess with it. You have to have three acts.

910
00:56:46.885 –> 00:56:50.280
You have to have beginning, a middle, and an end, and you can’t crack the

911
00:56:50.280 –> 00:56:53.960
middle and have, like, a full, like, throated ninety minute beginning

912
00:56:53.960 –> 00:56:57.320
and a full throated ninety minute end. Like, he just doesn’t the only

913
00:56:57.320 –> 00:57:01.000
person direct that I’m aware of who is able

914
00:57:01.000 –> 00:57:04.845
to successfully crack the three-act structure and do it in a way

915
00:57:04.845 –> 00:57:08.305
where you don’t notice it was Alfred Hitchcock in Psycho.

916
00:57:09.885 –> 00:57:13.725
Sorry. Two, I think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. There you

917
00:57:13.725 –> 00:57:17.325
go. Yeah. I’ll throw that one in there too. Yeah. Yeah. He’s the

918
00:57:17.325 –> 00:57:21.130
only one. Spielberg doesn’t even doesn’t even screw with the

919
00:57:21.130 –> 00:57:24.810
Three-act structure. Yeah. So in the

920
00:57:24.810 –> 00:57:28.590
third act, the writer has to either, like Chekhov’s gun,

921
00:57:28.890 –> 00:57:32.190
has to give me something and work with it

922
00:57:32.945 –> 00:57:36.705
and bring it to conclusion or not. And if things

923
00:57:36.705 –> 00:57:40.065
aren’t working, and I’m noticing this increasingly in movies, if things aren’t working in the

924
00:57:40.065 –> 00:57:42.625
first act and then the second act, like, if people aren’t saying the right things

925
00:57:42.625 –> 00:57:45.345
and behaving in the correct ways and ways that and by correct, I just mean

926
00:57:45.345 –> 00:57:49.060
correct for the script to correct that it’s believable. Yeah. Like Snowpiercer, the

927
00:57:49.060 –> 00:57:52.820
movie that entirely took place with Captain America on the train. Those, like,

928
00:57:52.820 –> 00:57:56.040
going around the globe or whatever. Yeah. I know. Yeah. I don’t like

929
00:57:57.619 –> 00:58:01.380
nobody understood how right. Like I had the same feeling with Knives

930
00:58:01.380 –> 00:58:05.065
Out. Like Oh, well, there. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Like,

931
00:58:05.065 –> 00:58:08.905
knives out. And and even worse off because the star power

932
00:58:08.905 –> 00:58:12.665
that was in that movie. Right. Right? Like, I had really good

933
00:58:12.665 –> 00:58:16.345
actors in that movie. How did how as a director, are you not able to

934
00:58:16.345 –> 00:58:20.040
make that movie phenomenal? Like but it wasn’t. I I

935
00:58:20.040 –> 00:58:23.800
I thought it fell into your point about connecting the dots

936
00:58:23.800 –> 00:58:27.640
between the three acts. I thought act one

937
00:58:27.640 –> 00:58:31.320
was actually okay, and then it just got

938
00:58:31.320 –> 00:58:34.815
worse for me. Like, like, it just it just moved more from,

939
00:58:34.955 –> 00:58:38.795
like, right right after the like, because they did a good job

940
00:58:38.795 –> 00:58:42.635
with some of the introductions and why the why the family members,

941
00:58:42.635 –> 00:58:45.915
who why they were the way they were, why who they were who was who,

942
00:58:45.915 –> 00:58:49.410
and, like, that was all fine. And then it just

943
00:58:49.410 –> 00:58:52.710
continued to go down downhill from there for me.

944
00:58:53.330 –> 00:58:56.710
I’m gonna look up Knives Out, but I think that was directed

945
00:58:56.850 –> 00:58:59.990
by, yeah, 02/2019.

946
00:59:00.725 –> 00:59:04.245
That was directed by let me see just so that

947
00:59:04.245 –> 00:59:07.845
I’m actually correct. Because that had Daniel Craig in it and all that.

948
00:59:07.845 –> 00:59:11.525
Yep. Yep. And it was directed by

949
00:59:11.685 –> 00:59:14.745
I’m pulling this up. Chris Evans. Christopher Plummer.

950
00:59:15.205 –> 00:59:18.930
Mhmm. Rian Johnson. Okay. Can I tell you something about

951
00:59:18.930 –> 00:59:22.770
Rian Johnson as a director? Well, Jamie Lee Curtis I

952
00:59:22.770 –> 00:59:25.490
mean, I can already tell you I’m I’m probably not gonna watch a lot of

953
00:59:25.490 –> 00:59:28.290
his movies. Well, you go ahead. Okay. Well, I’ll tell you a movie that that

954
00:59:28.290 –> 00:59:31.845
he should not have been allowed to touch, and and everybody that the next movie

955
00:59:31.845 –> 00:59:35.685
that came in the series had to undo everything that he did in

956
00:59:35.685 –> 00:59:38.185
the movie, and it wrecked the entire series.

957
00:59:39.285 –> 00:59:42.930
Rian Johnson directed the last Jedi. Oh. A

958
00:59:42.930 –> 00:59:46.770
movie that totally and completely has turned me off of Star

959
00:59:46.770 –> 00:59:50.530
Wars films for the rest of my life because they let him touch

960
00:59:50.530 –> 00:59:53.190
that. Yeah. He believes

961
00:59:53.890 –> 00:59:57.515
fundamentally in subverting expectations.

962
00:59:57.815 –> 01:00:00.875
That’s his whole, like, shtick as a director.

963
01:00:01.895 –> 01:00:05.435
Except the problem is, Rian, you’re not talented

964
01:00:05.575 –> 01:00:06.955
enough to subvert anything.

965
01:00:09.760 –> 01:00:13.120
And you can record this and send it to him. He won’t care. He’s

966
01:00:13.120 –> 01:00:16.800
European. He doesn’t care. He’s gonna

967
01:00:16.800 –> 01:00:20.480
keep getting stuff because he’s whatever. He’s paid up with the right

968
01:00:20.480 –> 01:00:23.840
people, however it works in Hollywood. I don’t know. But my point

969
01:00:23.840 –> 01:00:27.385
is, he has a history or track record of

970
01:00:27.385 –> 01:00:30.984
looking at a script and going, I will do whatever the hell I

971
01:00:30.984 –> 01:00:33.065
want. And then he just goes off and does whatever the hell he wants. I

972
01:00:33.065 –> 01:00:36.345
mean, he thinks that makes him an auteur as a director. So he breaks the

973
01:00:36.345 –> 01:00:39.990
three act structure or in The Last Jedi, he totally

974
01:00:40.690 –> 01:00:44.450
undo undoes all of the character motivations that were set up,

975
01:00:45.010 –> 01:00:48.770
quite nicely, actually, weirdly enough in the first,

976
01:00:48.770 –> 01:00:52.530
you know, of those three movies, and just totally train

977
01:00:52.530 –> 01:00:54.545
wrecks it. And by the time you get to the third act of the last

978
01:00:54.625 –> 01:00:57.045
not even the third act. The end of the second act of The Last Jedi,

979
01:00:57.185 –> 01:01:01.025
I did. I I now, arguably, I will preface this by saying, when

980
01:01:01.025 –> 01:01:04.625
I watched The Last Jedi, I was already irritable, and I didn’t

981
01:01:04.625 –> 01:01:08.385
wanna watch it. So that was color whatever. But I turn and I

982
01:01:08.385 –> 01:01:12.140
was I probably had too many vodkas out of

983
01:01:12.140 –> 01:01:15.579
any igloo by that point. But but I

984
01:01:15.819 –> 01:01:18.000
just just for full disclosure there, transparency.

985
01:01:20.060 –> 01:01:23.795
But I turned to my wife. So my wife was watching, and my wife does

986
01:01:23.795 –> 01:01:27.635
not care about Star Wars. Like, at all does not care.

987
01:01:27.635 –> 01:01:30.275
I’m a huge Star Wars guy or at least I had been a huge Star

988
01:01:30.275 –> 01:01:34.035
Wars guy up to that point. Whatever. And I look

989
01:01:34.035 –> 01:01:37.850
at her and I go, I can’t handle any more of this

990
01:01:37.850 –> 01:01:41.690
millennial…millennial whining. I just I can’t handle it.

991
01:01:41.690 –> 01:01:44.970
It’s too much of this movie. I’m done, and I shut it off. I don’t

992
01:01:44.970 –> 01:01:48.270
even know how The Last Jedi ended. It doesn’t matter.

993
01:01:49.224 –> 01:01:52.605
Doesn’t matter. Because the movie that came afterward, The Rise of Skywalker,

994
01:01:53.464 –> 01:01:57.305
the JJ Abrams had to, like, direct to undo all the nonsense in

995
01:01:57.305 –> 01:02:00.365
The Last Jedi, I didn’t watch that movie either.

996
01:02:02.700 –> 01:02:06.300
And I not I won’t I won’t. I refuse. I’m

997
01:02:06.300 –> 01:02:09.820
done. I’m off the train. Yeah. I’m off the train at the station. I don’t

998
01:02:09.820 –> 01:02:12.940
watch any of the shows. I don’t care about it. I get it that it’s

999
01:02:13.020 –> 01:02:16.575
it gives people a lot of people angina, Disney does, what they do over there.

1000
01:02:16.575 –> 01:02:18.895
I’m done. I’m off the train. You everybody should have gotten off the train with

1001
01:02:18.895 –> 01:02:22.734
Rian Johnson because the fact that that that Disney hired that guy with

1002
01:02:22.734 –> 01:02:25.855
his track record, who then later on, by the way, went on to do Knives

1003
01:02:25.855 –> 01:02:29.550
Out at other films where he’s breaking Come on. The the

1004
01:02:29.550 –> 01:02:33.150
guys don’t wanna be European auteur director. Let him go to Europe and

1005
01:02:33.150 –> 01:02:36.430
direct small films and no one will watch. Right. Yeah. I

1006
01:02:36.750 –> 01:02:40.590
Please. Just go do that. That’s where you can break the structure and do all

1007
01:02:40.590 –> 01:02:44.395
the things. Whatever. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. No. I’m with you. But, again,

1008
01:02:44.395 –> 01:02:47.535
I I but at least now I now I understand.

1009
01:02:48.315 –> 01:02:51.994
It’s it’s it’s it’s just a hit. It’s him. It’s it’s him.

1010
01:02:51.994 –> 01:02:55.515
Knives that was his problem because, again, my point my point to that rant

1011
01:02:55.515 –> 01:02:59.010
was with the star power that was in that movie, it should have been

1012
01:02:59.010 –> 01:03:02.690
awesome. It should’ve worked. Yep. Like, could you imagine Christopher Nolan or

1013
01:03:02.690 –> 01:03:06.310
Jordan Peele or Spielberg or any of those guys with that cast?

1014
01:03:06.610 –> 01:03:10.244
Come on. He was also the writer of Knives Out. Oh,

1015
01:03:10.244 –> 01:03:12.105
well, that makes sense then. Never mind.

1016
01:03:14.484 –> 01:03:18.325
It was not a good movie. I was I was very had

1017
01:03:18.325 –> 01:03:21.845
very high expectations of that movie. It was not very good. Well, he

1018
01:03:21.845 –> 01:03:25.640
subverted them. He successfully subverted your expectations. Exactly.

1019
01:03:25.640 –> 01:03:29.400
There you go. Alright. Anyway, let’s get back to let’s get back let’s get back

1020
01:03:29.400 –> 01:03:33.160
to books and leadership here, Hasan. We are off the rails. Well, we do

1021
01:03:33.160 –> 01:03:36.620
this once a year. We did it a couple years ago with Oppenheimer. It’s fine.

1022
01:03:36.680 –> 01:03:39.590
That’s true. Yeah. I forgot about that. I forgot about that. It’s fine.

1023
01:03:40.505 –> 01:03:43.065
Except this won’t be a bonus episode. This is the episode. This is the whole

1024
01:03:43.065 –> 01:03:46.905
thing, folks. Okay. So the podcast. Right? So Leadership

1025
01:03:46.905 –> 01:03:50.745
Lessons are the great books podcast. We have a podcast here. We

1026
01:03:50.745 –> 01:03:54.425
read books. The philosophy of the podcast is is dead

1027
01:03:54.425 –> 01:03:58.210
simple. We we read books. We pull leadership

1028
01:03:58.210 –> 01:04:02.049
lessons from them, and we try to apply those leadership lessons to your real live

1029
01:04:02.049 –> 01:04:05.569
life. We do it with a variety of different, guest

1030
01:04:05.569 –> 01:04:09.250
cohosts, most notably Tom, but also others

1031
01:04:09.250 –> 01:04:13.045
like Libby Younger, and, and many, many

1032
01:04:13.105 –> 01:04:16.805
other folks. Some of whom are on with us regularly,

1033
01:04:16.944 –> 01:04:20.545
others which, others of whom are on with us intermittently. We

1034
01:04:20.545 –> 01:04:24.305
also do shorts episodes. We have a shorts format, which are

1035
01:04:24.305 –> 01:04:27.910
two to three minute, sometimes three to six minute long

1036
01:04:27.910 –> 01:04:31.750
rants where I just talk at you, about something

1037
01:04:31.750 –> 01:04:35.210
that bothers me. You should listen to the one that,

1038
01:04:35.910 –> 01:04:39.670
came out, last week where I’m beginning to talk about work and

1039
01:04:39.670 –> 01:04:43.095
significance, and the one that came out this week,

1040
01:04:44.515 –> 01:04:48.315
where I further go into this idea that the workplace

1041
01:04:48.755 –> 01:04:52.194
it’s something it’s a new idea that sort of captured my mind. The

1042
01:04:52.194 –> 01:04:55.494
workplace isn’t a place where we should be seeking,

1043
01:04:56.619 –> 01:05:00.060
or where we should even be hearing, to paraphrase from Seth

1044
01:05:00.060 –> 01:05:03.740
Godin, the song of significance and meaning in our

1045
01:05:03.740 –> 01:05:07.580
lives. I don’t I don’t think work was meant to carry that

1046
01:05:07.580 –> 01:05:11.395
kind of weight. No. Family, tradition,

1047
01:05:11.455 –> 01:05:15.155
community, that’s where those things that’s where that weight should be.

1048
01:05:15.855 –> 01:05:19.535
Work is built into the fabric of reality. I fundamentally believe this because

1049
01:05:19.535 –> 01:05:22.595
of my my Christian beliefs. I fundamentally believe this.

1050
01:05:23.550 –> 01:05:26.910
I I think it was relevant at one point in history, but no longer. But

1051
01:05:26.910 –> 01:05:30.270
no longer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well and I think I think this is part

1052
01:05:30.270 –> 01:05:33.890
of the renegotiation of a post industrialist,

1053
01:05:36.105 –> 01:05:39.085
and actually not even post industrialist, post post industrialist,

1054
01:05:40.985 –> 01:05:44.605
post fourth turning, as we get into the high of the next turning,

1055
01:05:45.945 –> 01:05:49.385
west. I I I think we’re renegotiating this now in real

1056
01:05:49.385 –> 01:05:49.885
time.

1057
01:05:53.549 –> 01:05:57.390
And I’m not the only person that I know who

1058
01:05:57.390 –> 01:06:00.910
is looking around at the systems and the processes that we have that are based

1059
01:06:00.910 –> 01:06:03.730
on work and going,

1060
01:06:05.474 –> 01:06:09.234
this can’t be a place of significance. The

1061
01:06:09.234 –> 01:06:12.595
significance has to be someplace else. And and

1062
01:06:12.595 –> 01:06:15.895
and postulating that

1063
01:06:16.275 –> 01:06:20.090
things were better in the West overall. I can’t speak for

1064
01:06:20.090 –> 01:06:23.930
every any play any place else. But the West overall and

1065
01:06:23.930 –> 01:06:27.070
America in particular and my particular

1066
01:06:27.370 –> 01:06:31.210
state and neighborhood in very particular when we

1067
01:06:31.210 –> 01:06:33.790
were more focused on things like family, tradition, and community

1068
01:06:35.255 –> 01:06:39.095
versus what the industrialists of the twentieth century and

1069
01:06:39.095 –> 01:06:42.475
the mass marketers of the twentieth century strip mined out of us

1070
01:06:45.175 –> 01:06:48.730
and didn’t and and replaced only with cash and

1071
01:06:48.730 –> 01:06:52.170
status and power. So I’m working on an idea

1072
01:06:52.170 –> 01:06:56.010
here, and it also ties into another idea that I have about people

1073
01:06:56.010 –> 01:06:59.530
who are serious versus people who are unserious. I’m a little bit irked about that.

1074
01:06:59.530 –> 01:07:03.285
I did a whole rant on that. I’m tired of the unserious people. I

1075
01:07:03.285 –> 01:07:06.905
don’t think leaders need to put up with them anymore. And you can be

1076
01:07:07.525 –> 01:07:09.545
serious about something like this podcast,

1077
01:07:11.765 –> 01:07:15.550
without taking it seriously. But you

1078
01:07:15.550 –> 01:07:18.849
cannot be unserious and foolish

1079
01:07:19.470 –> 01:07:22.210
about something like this podcast

1080
01:07:23.150 –> 01:07:26.829
and expect to be taken seriously. And

1081
01:07:26.829 –> 01:07:30.365
what we’ve had in our culture, I believe, is a and

1082
01:07:30.365 –> 01:07:33.905
particularly over the last twenty five years, has been the rise of the unserious

1083
01:07:34.204 –> 01:07:37.885
people. And this is not just in our politics, although that’s where it’s

1084
01:07:37.885 –> 01:07:41.724
most bald, because everybody Where’s the most obvious too?

1085
01:07:41.724 –> 01:07:45.460
Correct. That’s right. But I think you see it in

1086
01:07:45.460 –> 01:07:49.299
the way in which the decline of the

1087
01:07:49.299 –> 01:07:52.819
neighborhood 711 let’s go to the neighborhood 711. When I walk into my

1088
01:07:52.819 –> 01:07:56.579
neighborhood 711 and this is not the fault of the people who are working

1089
01:07:56.579 –> 01:07:59.965
there. This is a bigger thing that they are operating in.

1090
01:08:00.345 –> 01:08:04.025
But when I see someone barely wiping down the Slurpee machine and they

1091
01:08:04.025 –> 01:08:07.785
can’t even do that well, that’s because they don’t take that stat act

1092
01:08:07.785 –> 01:08:11.560
of wiping down the Slurpee machine seriously. They just wanna get paid their

1093
01:08:11.560 –> 01:08:15.319
$18.33 an hour, barely wipe the surfing machine and go

1094
01:08:15.319 –> 01:08:18.840
off while they have the little earbud iPod earbud in their in

1095
01:08:18.840 –> 01:08:22.279
their, in their ear, maybe listening to a

1096
01:08:22.279 –> 01:08:25.979
podcast. I would hope, but more likely they’re not, they’re not.

1097
01:08:26.734 –> 01:08:30.034
And so that’s unseriousness.

1098
01:08:31.295 –> 01:08:35.054
And, again, it’s not their fault. They’re operating. I don’t

1099
01:08:35.054 –> 01:08:38.415
blame individuals for this. I don’t even blame or hold

1100
01:08:38.415 –> 01:08:42.100
accountable, seven eleven for this, because seven eleven can

1101
01:08:42.100 –> 01:08:45.880
only operate within the parameters of what they’re given as far as human capital.

1102
01:08:47.859 –> 01:08:51.540
I blame families and communities and traditions. That’s

1103
01:08:51.540 –> 01:08:55.385
where the blame lies. That’s where the fault lies. That’s where the accountability

1104
01:08:55.385 –> 01:08:59.225
lies. And quite frankly, that’s where the saving of

1105
01:08:59.225 –> 01:09:02.265
all of this will lie. So I’m working on a couple different ideas in the

1106
01:09:02.265 –> 01:09:05.805
shorts episodes in drips and drips and drips. You should listen to those,

1107
01:09:06.500 –> 01:09:10.260
every, every week. It’s my it’s my basically, my version of Seth Godin just

1108
01:09:10.260 –> 01:09:13.479
dripping an idea out over the course of twenty five years.

1109
01:09:16.340 –> 01:09:19.620
And I might write a book about it. I I did an outline this weekend

1110
01:09:19.620 –> 01:09:23.395
of another book. I’ll talk about another project that I’ve got going on

1111
01:09:23.395 –> 01:09:26.694
here in a little bit, but I’m I’m a big fan of essays. I think

1112
01:09:27.234 –> 01:09:29.895
that’s I think that’s gonna be the way to go. Anyway,

1113
01:09:31.715 –> 01:09:35.399
so the podcast format, the main format of the podcast, though, is the book.

1114
01:09:35.399 –> 01:09:37.880
Right? So we read War and Peace. Like, we’re supposed to read War and Peace

1115
01:09:37.880 –> 01:09:41.640
today, and I’m already five books behind. Right? Or Tender

1116
01:09:41.640 –> 01:09:45.479
is the Night. We just covered Parade’s End. That was our

1117
01:09:45.479 –> 01:09:49.215
most recent new, quote, unquote, content episode with,

1118
01:09:49.455 –> 01:09:53.215
with Libby Unger. I read Considering Genius, the

1119
01:09:53.215 –> 01:09:56.655
writings of Stanley Crouch, because I am obsessed with this

1120
01:09:56.655 –> 01:10:00.175
idea of improv improvisation as a

1121
01:10:00.175 –> 01:10:03.600
method for getting us out of leadership problems. And it’s

1122
01:10:03.740 –> 01:10:07.100
improvisation that’s unique to America because jazz is unique to

1123
01:10:07.100 –> 01:10:10.780
America. No one else does it the way that we do. And

1124
01:10:10.780 –> 01:10:13.920
and and in in that lies the keys

1125
01:10:14.700 –> 01:10:18.495
to our successes in the next turning. We

1126
01:10:18.495 –> 01:10:21.935
also talked about Shop Class’s Soulcraft this year on the

1127
01:10:21.935 –> 01:10:25.554
podcast, a book that if I had read it thirty years ago

1128
01:10:25.614 –> 01:10:29.295
when I graduated high school and everyone and it was

1129
01:10:29.295 –> 01:10:32.960
sort of introducing Google to me and was talking about

1130
01:10:32.960 –> 01:10:36.560
how the entire future was going to be high-tech. If I had read Matthew

1131
01:10:36.560 –> 01:10:40.400
Crawford’s Shop Class at Soul Craft, I probably would not

1132
01:10:40.400 –> 01:10:44.185
be doing this podcast right now, or it would look totally different because

1133
01:10:44.185 –> 01:10:46.745
my life would have been totally different. It was one of those kinds of books.

1134
01:10:46.745 –> 01:10:50.105
I looked at it, and I thought, my god. Like,

1135
01:10:50.105 –> 01:10:53.945
I I’m 45, and it’s too late. It’s too

1136
01:10:53.945 –> 01:10:57.619
late to make the shift now. But Mm-mm. I can give it to

1137
01:10:57.619 –> 01:11:01.380
my 19 year old. So I did. I gave her a copy. And I said,

1138
01:11:01.380 –> 01:11:04.840
read this. Read this. So

1139
01:11:05.780 –> 01:11:09.285
those are the kind of books we cover on the podcast, fiction, nonfiction, covering a

1140
01:11:09.285 –> 01:11:12.965
wide variety of genres. But we’re going to shift our focus a

1141
01:11:12.965 –> 01:11:16.745
little bit coming up here on the podcast. So, normally,

1142
01:11:16.885 –> 01:11:20.645
we take larger books like Brothers Karamazov or which is, like, a

1143
01:11:20.645 –> 01:11:24.085
thousand pages or War and Peace, which is, like, 1,200

1144
01:11:24.085 –> 01:11:26.880
pages or, Augustine’s,

1145
01:11:30.219 –> 01:11:33.659
not Confessions. I’ll think of it in a minute here. But,

1146
01:11:33.980 –> 01:11:37.764
books by Augustine. Right? The big thick tomes that really sort of

1147
01:11:37.764 –> 01:11:41.445
defeat people. We take those books and we divide them up into smaller parts, and

1148
01:11:41.445 –> 01:11:45.125
then we talk about them. Right? And each one of those is right around a

1149
01:11:45.125 –> 01:11:48.585
two hour episode to cover a larger book. But I’m increasingly

1150
01:11:48.804 –> 01:11:52.420
believing that we should take smaller books, such as f Scott

1151
01:11:52.420 –> 01:11:56.179
Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, which I’m reading right now, and really

1152
01:11:56.179 –> 01:11:59.480
break that down into smaller

1153
01:11:59.860 –> 01:12:03.619
parts. Because I think there’s things I’m missing, things that

1154
01:12:03.619 –> 01:12:07.455
we’re missing, gifts that I’m not bringing to you

1155
01:12:07.455 –> 01:12:11.155
all as an audience, that I think need to be brought to you.

1156
01:12:11.775 –> 01:12:15.455
I’m also not sharing these gifts, I think, at a at a comprehensive enough

1157
01:12:15.455 –> 01:12:18.435
level with my guests. So for instance,

1158
01:12:19.135 –> 01:12:22.830
Parade’s End, which we just covered with Libby Younger. Great episode. Go back and

1159
01:12:22.830 –> 01:12:26.670
listen to it. We spent the first probably forty five minutes of

1160
01:12:26.670 –> 01:12:30.350
that episode just talking about European politics. And I was giving

1161
01:12:30.350 –> 01:12:34.030
her a historical dive into European politics. Most of the history, I probably got

1162
01:12:34.030 –> 01:12:37.445
wrong. My timelines were all screwed up. But But at least I understand a little

1163
01:12:37.445 –> 01:12:41.284
bit about, about, European politics. And

1164
01:12:41.284 –> 01:12:44.985
she asked me a question projecting forward European

1165
01:12:45.125 –> 01:12:48.965
politics, right, to to the next, twenty five years because I am a little bit

1166
01:12:48.965 –> 01:12:52.670
obsessed with the future and where we’re going. And and that consumed forty

1167
01:12:52.670 –> 01:12:56.510
five the first forty five minutes of our conversation. But that means we had less

1168
01:12:56.510 –> 01:13:00.350
time for parade’s end. And inside of parade’s end, there’s so much

1169
01:13:00.350 –> 01:13:04.190
information in there. There’s so much good stuff about feminism, male

1170
01:13:04.190 –> 01:13:07.605
and female relationships, World War one, British

1171
01:13:07.605 –> 01:13:11.125
colonialism. How do you

1172
01:13:11.125 –> 01:13:14.825
lead when when you have, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling,

1173
01:13:14.885 –> 01:13:18.565
the white man’s burden, whether we agree with that framing or not, it

1174
01:13:18.565 –> 01:13:22.410
was there in leadership. And I’m saying this is a minority,

1175
01:13:22.550 –> 01:13:25.910
and Tom’s a minority. And, yes, it’s there. Like, you you just there’s certain things

1176
01:13:25.910 –> 01:13:29.030
you just cannot overlook. The book was written in 1934. It was written for a

1177
01:13:29.030 –> 01:13:32.695
Victorian audience. And so how

1178
01:13:32.695 –> 01:13:36.295
do we deal with those kinds of things in a really meaningful way, that a

1179
01:13:36.295 –> 01:13:39.815
deeper way on the show? And so I’m thinking we’re going to we’re gonna

1180
01:13:39.815 –> 01:13:43.655
take smaller books, and we’re gonna take longer time with smaller books. So one

1181
01:13:43.655 –> 01:13:46.695
of the books that I wanna get to this year, I do wanna get to

1182
01:13:46.695 –> 01:13:50.420
the Empire of the Summer Moon, before Taylor Sheridan gets his

1183
01:13:50.420 –> 01:13:53.860
hands on it and releases to the public whatever it is he’s doing. I wanna

1184
01:13:53.860 –> 01:13:57.219
get ahead of him on that, and he’s fairly he’s pretty quick, and he’s a

1185
01:13:57.219 –> 01:14:00.600
good writer. So I gotta get ahead of that guy.

1186
01:14:01.805 –> 01:14:04.785
But there’s other books that are on our list, to cover,

1187
01:14:05.485 –> 01:14:09.245
this year that do deserve more time spent with

1188
01:14:09.245 –> 01:14:12.925
them, even though they look small. So we’re

1189
01:14:12.925 –> 01:14:16.625
going to start having more multi episode

1190
01:14:16.845 –> 01:14:20.520
or multi episodic, covering the same book.

1191
01:14:21.060 –> 01:14:24.360
Multi episodes covering the same book, coming up here on the podcast.

1192
01:14:24.420 –> 01:14:28.260
So maybe three, maybe four, maybe two. It’ll just

1193
01:14:28.260 –> 01:14:30.660
depend on the length of the book and what I can pull what I can

1194
01:14:30.660 –> 01:14:34.365
pull out of it. Because I will admit right now, I’m about 75%

1195
01:14:34.365 –> 01:14:35.905
through Tender is the Night.

1196
01:14:39.965 –> 01:14:41.825
And probably about once every

1197
01:14:43.485 –> 01:14:47.280
30 or 40 pages, I’m getting a theme pulled out of there.

1198
01:14:47.280 –> 01:14:50.481
And so I’m gonna have to really go in there and really pull some things

1199
01:14:50.481 –> 01:14:53.682
out. There are valuable things in there, but you gotta read it to find those

1200
01:14:53.682 –> 01:14:57.096
valuable things. So, this is the first time I’m sort of bringing this up. Not

1201
01:14:57.096 –> 01:15:00.725
I’m sort of this is the first time I’m bringing this up with Tom. And

1202
01:15:00.725 –> 01:15:04.485
he is my my, my ride or die homie on

1203
01:15:04.485 –> 01:15:08.325
this one with the guests. So, Tom, what do you

1204
01:15:08.325 –> 01:15:11.205
what do you think about that as a potential cohost? Like, where do you see

1205
01:15:11.205 –> 01:15:14.820
the problems, the pitfalls, the challenges? You know what kinds of books you’ve read here.

1206
01:15:14.820 –> 01:15:17.540
I mean, come for god’s sakes, I I started you off with Pearl Buck and

1207
01:15:17.540 –> 01:15:20.280
the Good Earth, which we couldn’t revisit that, and we wanted.

1208
01:15:21.460 –> 01:15:24.659
And I I I convinced you that we could do something decent with the Good

1209
01:15:24.659 –> 01:15:27.619
Earth, and now you’re you’re like, okay. I’m all in. This guy’s crazy, but I’m

1210
01:15:27.619 –> 01:15:31.405
all in. You know, it’s funny as you were

1211
01:15:31.405 –> 01:15:35.165
as you were saying this. Right? Like, as you’re you’re so my mind my

1212
01:15:35.165 –> 01:15:38.925
mind starts spinning because, again, I’m I’m I’m listening to understand and I’m

1213
01:15:38.925 –> 01:15:42.445
listening Mhmm. I’m not I’m not listening to reply. Right? I’m listening

1214
01:15:42.445 –> 01:15:46.140
to to absorb and understand and and and be able to, you

1215
01:15:46.140 –> 01:15:49.660
know, and be able to really digest what you’re talking

1216
01:15:49.660 –> 01:15:52.800
about. But one of the first things I I

1217
01:15:53.059 –> 01:15:56.860
I City of God, by the way. That’s Augustine. City of God. City

1218
01:15:56.860 –> 01:16:00.245
of God. Sorry. One of the first one of the things I

1219
01:16:00.245 –> 01:16:04.005
thought I’m thinking, wouldn’t it

1220
01:16:04.005 –> 01:16:07.785
be interesting? Or or or or how interesting

1221
01:16:07.845 –> 01:16:11.525
would it be? Because the cohosts that we have on this

1222
01:16:11.525 –> 01:16:14.980
show come from different walks of life, different ethnicities,

1223
01:16:15.440 –> 01:16:19.199
different genders, different well, I mean, really

1224
01:16:19.199 –> 01:16:23.040
different just totally different ways of thinking. Right? So could we

1225
01:16:23.040 –> 01:16:26.800
take something like I’ll just you it was literally the last book you

1226
01:16:26.800 –> 01:16:30.455
just said, so I’ll just make that as an example. You know, the good earth

1227
01:16:30.455 –> 01:16:33.915
with pro Buck, could we do an episode

1228
01:16:34.215 –> 01:16:37.975
with myself and then the next episode on the same

1229
01:16:37.975 –> 01:16:41.335
book with Libby, the next episode on the same book with

1230
01:16:41.335 –> 01:16:44.970
somebody? And what because of our different backgrounds, we’re

1231
01:16:44.970 –> 01:16:48.510
gonna have very different views or vantage points from this book,

1232
01:16:48.570 –> 01:16:52.170
very different explanations for leaders and what they should or or could

1233
01:16:52.170 –> 01:16:55.770
do. And it might there might be some opportunity to resonate with

1234
01:16:55.770 –> 01:16:59.265
people. So again, I I I don’t know what your

1235
01:16:59.265 –> 01:17:03.105
download, you know, I don’t know what the download volume is or how many

1236
01:17:03.105 –> 01:17:06.565
people are actually listening to this, to this podcast. But

1237
01:17:07.585 –> 01:17:11.205
there may be some there may be some validity to

1238
01:17:12.600 –> 01:17:16.280
audience sharing. Right? Meaning, like, maybe you have an audience that

1239
01:17:16.280 –> 01:17:19.920
that chimes into Libby more often than other cohosts or Mhmm.

1240
01:17:20.119 –> 01:17:23.900
Do, you know, I just lost his name.

1241
01:17:25.675 –> 01:17:29.135
You have another pretty regular cohost. Dorel O’Nickson.

1242
01:17:29.195 –> 01:17:33.035
Dorel. Thank you, Dorel. Yep. Like, like so, he was the one I was

1243
01:17:33.035 –> 01:17:36.875
thinking of, by the way. So Dorel, like, you know, somebody that chimes in like,

1244
01:17:36.875 –> 01:17:39.560
when they go down your podcast list and they see Dorel, they’re like, oh, I’m

1245
01:17:39.560 –> 01:17:41.880
just gonna listen because I like I like listening to him. I like listening to,

1246
01:17:41.880 –> 01:17:45.720
you know, whatever. Yep. But if they see it’s the same book, would they

1247
01:17:45.720 –> 01:17:49.560
be more likely to go, oh, well, what are these so all three

1248
01:17:49.560 –> 01:17:52.995
of these people were talking about maybe I’ll go listen to what they because maybe

1249
01:17:52.995 –> 01:17:56.614
it like, they’re sitting hearing something that I say and they go,

1250
01:17:57.155 –> 01:18:00.534
oh, Libby was totally off. Like, they’re totally in a different direction.

1251
01:18:00.995 –> 01:18:03.635
And, like you know what I mean? Like, again, as as you were saying this,

1252
01:18:03.635 –> 01:18:07.350
I was thinking I start my wheel started spinning going, so, hey, San, stop

1253
01:18:07.350 –> 01:18:11.030
reading 800 books a year. Meaning, just need 12. Maybe I

1254
01:18:11.030 –> 01:18:13.050
just need 12. One a month. One a month.

1255
01:18:15.190 –> 01:18:18.950
This is also selfish. I will for you. I know. I will admit this is

1256
01:18:18.950 –> 01:18:22.324
selfish. Right? Because I do look at the list books that I haven’t prepared every

1257
01:18:22.324 –> 01:18:23.304
year, and I go

1258
01:18:27.525 –> 01:18:31.205
and I and I breathe out. But and then I take as I as I

1259
01:18:31.205 –> 01:18:34.405
tell my son sometimes when he gets when he gets hurt or taken by surprise

1260
01:18:34.405 –> 01:18:37.830
and, like, in soccer, Deep cleansing breaths, son. Deep cleansing

1261
01:18:37.830 –> 01:18:41.430
breaths. Yeah. Well, and then there’s

1262
01:18:41.430 –> 01:18:44.490
books that are a total surprise. So every year

1263
01:18:45.510 –> 01:18:49.275
and and Libby Libby knows this. I’ve been I’ve

1264
01:18:49.275 –> 01:18:52.175
been for two years, I’ve been trying to crack brother’s car and resolve

1265
01:18:53.595 –> 01:18:56.895
with Libby, and I just can’t get there. I

1266
01:18:57.435 –> 01:18:59.995
just can’t get there with her. And it’s not a it’s not an issue of

1267
01:18:59.995 –> 01:19:03.760
her or or really or really me. It’s

1268
01:19:03.760 –> 01:19:06.820
a challenge of the book. Right? It’s Dostoyevsky.

1269
01:19:07.600 –> 01:19:10.980
Like, it’s like, we did Crime and Punishment,

1270
01:19:11.680 –> 01:19:14.960
and we only did the first chap four chapters of Crime and Punishment with,

1271
01:19:15.120 –> 01:19:18.895
David Baumrucker. I I I I’d then I so

1272
01:19:18.895 –> 01:19:22.495
what I did as a result of that was I sicced Baumracker on to the

1273
01:19:22.495 –> 01:19:26.335
brothers Karamazov and still haven’t come

1274
01:19:26.335 –> 01:19:30.175
there. So, you know, it’s it’s it’s one of those things where

1275
01:19:30.175 –> 01:19:33.989
there are certain books that are just hard. They just aren’t. You know?

1276
01:19:34.309 –> 01:19:37.670
Like, we have not covered, and we won’t until next year

1277
01:19:37.670 –> 01:19:41.349
sometime, James Joyce. Like, I I started reading, Finnegan

1278
01:19:41.429 –> 01:19:45.190
not Finnegan’s Wake, the other James Joyce book. But Finnegan’s Wake will serve

1279
01:19:45.190 –> 01:19:48.250
for the time being. You start reading Finnegan’s Wake,

1280
01:19:52.925 –> 01:19:54.465
and I realized this was Joyce.

1281
01:19:57.005 –> 01:20:00.605
I realized when I was reading that that I’m probably not smart enough to analyze

1282
01:20:00.605 –> 01:20:04.310
this. And I don’t think I’m a dumb guy. I don’t

1283
01:20:04.310 –> 01:20:07.930
think I’m the smartest guy on the block, but I’m I know I’m not, like,

1284
01:20:08.150 –> 01:20:11.530
trailing it right in the back end of the the the IQ pool.

1285
01:20:12.150 –> 01:20:15.450
So but even I found

1286
01:20:16.665 –> 01:20:20.505
Joyce to be hard. Right? Ulysses. It wasn’t fitting

1287
01:20:20.505 –> 01:20:24.345
its way. It was Ulysses. I read, like, the first probably 20 pages

1288
01:20:24.345 –> 01:20:27.705
of Ulysses, and I and I struggled not

1289
01:20:27.705 –> 01:20:31.460
because the words were hard, but because the ideas

1290
01:20:31.760 –> 01:20:35.599
were complicated and layered, and there’s a lot of meaning. And

1291
01:20:35.599 –> 01:20:39.380
he wants you Joyce wants you to go into that book

1292
01:20:39.679 –> 01:20:43.335
with respect because it’s a serious book. And

1293
01:20:43.335 –> 01:20:47.175
so if I’m gonna bring Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake or

1294
01:20:47.175 –> 01:20:50.615
the Dubliners, I think you wrote that too. If I’m gonna bring that to this

1295
01:20:50.615 –> 01:20:53.255
podcast, I wanna treat it with the weight that it deserves. Same thing with the

1296
01:20:53.255 –> 01:20:56.375
Russians. I wanna treat it with the weight that it deserves. Now, Tolstoy, on the

1297
01:20:56.375 –> 01:21:00.050
other hand, I’ve been a fan of Tolstoy since I re first

1298
01:21:00.050 –> 01:21:03.250
read Anna Karenina back when I was 15. I don’t know why I was able

1299
01:21:03.250 –> 01:21:07.030
to bang through that. I just was. And then I read, the,

1300
01:21:07.730 –> 01:21:11.489
War and Peace, a couple years after that, and I’ve never

1301
01:21:11.489 –> 01:21:15.255
been defeated by Tolstoy. Probably because he was a guy, like, I would have

1302
01:21:15.255 –> 01:21:18.375
hung out with. Like, personality wise, he seemed like a guy that I would have

1303
01:21:18.375 –> 01:21:22.135
been, like he and I would have been okay. That’s

1304
01:21:22.135 –> 01:21:25.975
my ego talking there. But, but is

1305
01:21:25.975 –> 01:21:29.570
the way he writes, the way he sort of frames

1306
01:21:29.570 –> 01:21:33.010
things, the way he frames his

1307
01:21:33.010 –> 01:21:36.150
world, the level of cynicism he has

1308
01:21:36.690 –> 01:21:40.290
tinctured by wisdom. I resonate with

1309
01:21:40.290 –> 01:21:43.855
that. And so I’ve never had any trouble with Tolstoy. Matter of fact, I I

1310
01:21:43.855 –> 01:21:47.535
always have to slow down with him because I’m speeding up too fast.

1311
01:21:47.535 –> 01:21:51.375
Same thing with John Steinbeck, reading Easterly. Just gonna say Steinbeck. That’s

1312
01:21:51.375 –> 01:21:54.780
Steinbeck for me. Right. You know? Steinbeck. Your Tolstoy is my

1313
01:21:54.780 –> 01:21:58.460
Steinbeck. Yeah. So you know I would read that. If that guy wrote the yellow

1314
01:21:58.460 –> 01:22:01.820
pages, I would read it. Yeah. And it’s just and it’s just easy. It just,

1315
01:22:01.820 –> 01:22:05.535
like, falls off the you know, it just falls off your consciousness. So okay. So

1316
01:22:05.535 –> 01:22:08.015
this idea has some merit. I want to run this by And by the way,

1317
01:22:08.015 –> 01:22:11.455
I’m not suggesting we do one book a month and everybody gets a crack at

1318
01:22:11.455 –> 01:22:14.815
it. Maybe it’s two. Right. Maybe maybe you think of the pairings. Right?

1319
01:22:14.815 –> 01:22:18.574
Like, maybe one book is, you know, Libby and Dorel. One book is Dorel

1320
01:22:18.574 –> 01:22:22.080
and I. One book is, you know, myself and some someone, you know, JP, whatever.

1321
01:22:22.080 –> 01:22:25.760
I think, like Whatever. But I’m, like, I I I like I like the

1322
01:22:25.760 –> 01:22:29.360
idea and the oh, and then and then. Right? You

1323
01:22:29.360 –> 01:22:33.139
could wrap it together with having, like, if you’re struggling for

1324
01:22:33.440 –> 01:22:37.255
episode like, episodes to to fill because you’re you’re

1325
01:22:37.255 –> 01:22:40.934
not able to catch up on reading, if you’re doing this two episode per

1326
01:22:40.934 –> 01:22:44.534
book kind of philosophy, you can have a third episode with

1327
01:22:44.534 –> 01:22:48.215
both guest hosts on at the same time. And then you can talk

1328
01:22:48.215 –> 01:22:51.980
about you could talk about the varying degrees of of thought processes behind

1329
01:22:51.980 –> 01:22:55.700
a a like, whatever concepts are being drawn out by the

1330
01:22:55.700 –> 01:22:59.220
book. One goes one way, one goes the other. Now if all three of us

1331
01:22:59.220 –> 01:23:02.580
are on the same page, that itself could also turn into an

1332
01:23:02.580 –> 01:23:06.135
interesting dialogue, right, of, like because

1333
01:23:06.675 –> 01:23:10.035
just because just because philosophically, we think the same thing doesn’t mean we all get

1334
01:23:10.035 –> 01:23:13.495
there the same way. Right. Well, so a book like,

1335
01:23:14.195 –> 01:23:18.010
have you ever read Alice Walker’s The Color Purple? No. No.

1336
01:23:18.010 –> 01:23:21.790
No. But So we did color yeah. We did Color Purple this year.

1337
01:23:26.489 –> 01:23:30.110
I got to admit, I read Color Purple, and

1338
01:23:30.170 –> 01:23:33.744
I was not a fan.

1339
01:23:37.485 –> 01:23:39.425
And, partially, it is because

1340
01:23:41.244 –> 01:23:45.085
the leadership lessons that you get from The Color Purple aren’t

1341
01:23:45.085 –> 01:23:48.400
the ones that Alice Walker thinks she’s giving. One of the ways she doesn’t think

1342
01:23:48.400 –> 01:23:51.380
she’s giving leadership lessons. But if she were Yeah. Yeah.

1343
01:23:52.079 –> 01:23:55.539
They’re not the ones that the text would sort of put forth

1344
01:23:55.920 –> 01:23:59.679
as this is the lesson. Right? So there’s a whole

1345
01:23:59.840 –> 01:24:02.775
to to be to give an example, there’s a scene in there or not a

1346
01:24:02.775 –> 01:24:05.515
scene. There’s a episode in there that is related where,

1347
01:24:06.695 –> 01:24:09.995
an African American lady and her husband are walking along,

1348
01:24:11.255 –> 01:24:14.855
are walking along the sidewalk or whatever, and a

1349
01:24:14.855 –> 01:24:18.220
mayor and this is in an all white town. Right? And there are black people

1350
01:24:18.220 –> 01:24:22.000
in an all white town in the South, back during segregation.

1351
01:24:22.300 –> 01:24:25.660
And so, of course, if white people show up on the sidewalk, you guys step

1352
01:24:25.660 –> 01:24:29.500
aside. Okay. Fine. That’s sort of the framing, right, of this

1353
01:24:29.500 –> 01:24:33.035
of this episode in the book or this incident in the book.

1354
01:24:33.035 –> 01:24:36.475
And, the mayor’s wife who, you

1355
01:24:36.475 –> 01:24:40.315
know, is walking on the sidewalk stops the, children of the,

1356
01:24:40.555 –> 01:24:44.395
the African American woman and her husband and, starts

1357
01:24:44.395 –> 01:24:47.520
touching their hair and starts talking about them and asks if they wanna be servants.

1358
01:24:47.520 –> 01:24:51.040
It’s a whole it’s a whole scene. And I know why Walker set up this

1359
01:24:51.040 –> 01:24:54.880
scene. Right? I know why. Because these are things that she witnessed in a

1360
01:24:54.880 –> 01:24:58.660
pre civil rights south, and these are things that were

1361
01:24:59.085 –> 01:25:02.765
told to her that happened to African Americans in a pre civil

1362
01:25:02.765 –> 01:25:06.365
rights South. In particular, African Americans who were

1363
01:25:06.365 –> 01:25:10.045
not, let us say this, of the status of, like, a W. E. B. Du

1364
01:25:10.045 –> 01:25:13.745
Bois. Okay? So they’re poor,

1365
01:25:14.389 –> 01:25:18.230
beyond poor, like shanty poor. Right? Shanty poor African

1366
01:25:18.230 –> 01:25:20.650
Americans in Mississippi.

1367
01:25:22.790 –> 01:25:26.250
Check mark all the boxes. Right? And so in the incident

1368
01:25:27.065 –> 01:25:30.905
that is related in the book, the African American lady ends

1369
01:25:30.905 –> 01:25:34.744
up getting into a fist fight, ends up punching

1370
01:25:34.744 –> 01:25:38.364
the mayor’s wife, and gets into a fist fight with the mayor and the cops.

1371
01:25:38.505 –> 01:25:41.165
And the cops, like, beat her half to death. Right?

1372
01:25:42.510 –> 01:25:46.130
And then they holler, of course, off to jail because that’s what you do, because

1373
01:25:46.190 –> 01:25:49.250
she was the inciting person even though she was really whatever.

1374
01:25:50.270 –> 01:25:53.490
But they holler and I’m saying whatever, but, like, this is how things happened. Right?

1375
01:25:53.550 –> 01:25:57.085
And so they holler off to jail, and then there’s a spiral

1376
01:25:57.085 –> 01:26:00.225
of degradation that that this pulls this family into.

1377
01:26:00.685 –> 01:26:04.525
What’s the leadership lesson from there? And so I read this, and that’s my

1378
01:26:04.525 –> 01:26:07.005
first question. Like, what is if I’m a leader and I’m reading this, what am

1379
01:26:07.005 –> 01:26:10.720
I getting from this? And the the only thing that I could

1380
01:26:10.720 –> 01:26:14.260
pull from that was the lesson of

1381
01:26:19.920 –> 01:26:23.525
demanding it’s a Malcolm X lesson. Demanding respect.

1382
01:26:23.745 –> 01:26:27.585
Like, you’re going to respect me, and if you don’t, I’m going

1383
01:26:27.585 –> 01:26:30.305
to clap you. Like, he actually said this in one of his speeches. Right? He

1384
01:26:30.305 –> 01:26:33.344
said, like, you Christians, you have the religion of turn the other cheek. I have

1385
01:26:33.344 –> 01:26:36.420
the religion of if I get hit, I’m gonna crack you back twice as hard.

1386
01:26:36.820 –> 01:26:40.600
Yeah. And that was Malcolm X. Right? Because he’s militant.

1387
01:26:40.739 –> 01:26:44.420
Right? Eldridge Cleaver, same thing when you read Soul on Ice, which you also read

1388
01:26:44.420 –> 01:26:45.880
this year. Same idea.

1389
01:26:48.915 –> 01:26:51.895
And this is the thing with with a book like The Color Purple.

1390
01:26:52.595 –> 01:26:54.215
I, as an African American,

1391
01:26:56.115 –> 01:26:59.955
am removed from that. I I don’t have those

1392
01:26:59.955 –> 01:27:02.135
kinds of troubles, and by the way, neither do my children.

1393
01:27:03.310 –> 01:27:07.150
Because, sure, you can argue and you can assert, and people do,

1394
01:27:07.150 –> 01:27:10.510
that people like Alice Walker and everybody who came before them go through went through

1395
01:27:10.510 –> 01:27:13.630
this so that you don’t have to. Okay. Yes. This is the idea of family,

1396
01:27:13.630 –> 01:27:17.245
tradition, and community. Absolutely true. For true. For

1397
01:27:17.245 –> 01:27:18.785
sure. I agree with all that.

1398
01:27:20.765 –> 01:27:21.665
And yet

1399
01:27:24.845 –> 01:27:28.525
and this is the direction I went in with The Color Purple. The

1400
01:27:28.525 –> 01:27:32.010
revolution is over, and

1401
01:27:32.010 –> 01:27:35.630
African Americans won. We won the revolution.

1402
01:27:35.849 –> 01:27:39.369
We really did. And I’m not talking about the

1403
01:27:39.369 –> 01:27:43.050
poor African Americans, because poor African Americans

1404
01:27:43.050 –> 01:27:46.835
just like just as poor whites, poor Hispanics, poor anybody,

1405
01:27:47.935 –> 01:27:51.775
regardless of race are going to have those same kinds of challenges. They just

1406
01:27:51.775 –> 01:27:55.535
are. But when you get into not but because two things seem to be

1407
01:27:55.535 –> 01:27:58.495
true at the same time, and when you get into the middle class and the

1408
01:27:58.495 –> 01:28:02.180
upper class, those challenges have now fallen away in a way they

1409
01:28:02.180 –> 01:28:05.860
did not fall away pre civil rights or even up to probably the nineteen

1410
01:28:05.860 –> 01:28:09.620
seventies or even nineteen eighties. Yeah. So what

1411
01:28:09.620 –> 01:28:13.140
do you do? And I’m obsessed with this idea or was obsessed with this idea

1412
01:28:13.140 –> 01:28:16.235
during Black History Month. What do you do when you’ve won the revolution

1413
01:28:17.895 –> 01:28:21.435
and you’re shocked? Right. And you’re shocked that you won, by the way.

1414
01:28:21.574 –> 01:28:24.935
No. You start a new one. What do you mean what do you do? You

1415
01:28:24.935 –> 01:28:28.715
you look for the next fight. This is this is this is not

1416
01:28:29.015 –> 01:28:32.710
this this is not a completion thing. This is not something what are you

1417
01:28:32.710 –> 01:28:36.550
talking about? Well, and also, as a as a Christian, I believe

1418
01:28:36.550 –> 01:28:40.390
in reformation rather than revolution, and those are two fundamentally different

1419
01:28:40.390 –> 01:28:42.730
things. Yeah. Sure. Because because revolution

1420
01:28:44.165 –> 01:28:47.845
revolution gets you into a different you forgot. Revolution is

1421
01:28:47.845 –> 01:28:50.665
always in a hurry. It’s just like sin. It’s always in a

1422
01:28:51.925 –> 01:28:55.765
hurry. K? And so I’m using The Color Purple, and I’m

1423
01:28:55.765 –> 01:28:58.965
using that book that we covered in the way that I approached it to say

1424
01:28:58.965 –> 01:29:02.619
this. If I had had four other hosts feeding

1425
01:29:02.619 –> 01:29:05.920
into ideas on that, I might have come to some different conclusions.

1426
01:29:06.540 –> 01:29:10.380
I could be persuaded. I think Yeah. Yeah. So because yeah. Because

1427
01:29:10.380 –> 01:29:14.175
I I I don’t, again, I I think I don’t think

1428
01:29:14.175 –> 01:29:17.795
I don’t think the black community or the African American community won

1429
01:29:18.335 –> 01:29:22.015
yet. I think I think I think there’s going to be a winner and

1430
01:29:22.015 –> 01:29:25.795
loser when the poor it that you just made mention.

1431
01:29:25.970 –> 01:29:29.783
The challenges that the poor face regardless of race, color, or or

1432
01:29:29.783 –> 01:29:33.410
or religion religious beliefs, whether they’re black or white or Hispanic, it doesn’t matter.

1433
01:29:33.410 –> 01:29:37.250
The the poor I think we’re gonna win when all of

1434
01:29:37.250 –> 01:29:40.864
them collectively are fighting the same fight. That’s when

1435
01:29:40.864 –> 01:29:44.545
we’ll win. Because right now, to say that you won yeah.

1436
01:29:44.545 –> 01:29:47.585
No. You won a battle. You didn’t win the war yet. I think the war

1437
01:29:47.585 –> 01:29:50.645
is still going on. The war is just changing the battlefield.

1438
01:29:52.945 –> 01:29:54.885
Well, I I mean, a new a new battlefield.

1439
01:29:56.810 –> 01:29:59.130
And you know what? You wouldn’t be the first person to you wouldn’t be the

1440
01:29:59.130 –> 01:30:02.650
first person to say that. So John McWhorter says this all the time with, when

1441
01:30:02.650 –> 01:30:06.330
he’s on, the podcast with, Glenn Lowry. Because

1442
01:30:06.330 –> 01:30:10.005
Glenn Lowry very much who’s been through the wars, he’s an African American

1443
01:30:10.005 –> 01:30:13.845
writer and thinker, been through all the wars literally, went

1444
01:30:13.845 –> 01:30:17.365
from being conservative to being progressive back to being kinda sorta

1445
01:30:17.365 –> 01:30:20.130
conservative, not really. You know,

1446
01:30:21.010 –> 01:30:24.850
and John McWhorter always been a progressive leftist, always been

1447
01:30:24.850 –> 01:30:28.690
that guy. But he’s progressive leftist with a brain, which is kind of amazing,

1448
01:30:28.690 –> 01:30:32.530
right, these days in our culture. And so, you know, they’ll

1449
01:30:32.530 –> 01:30:36.375
get on and they’ll they’ll go after it. And McWhorter does just basically agree

1450
01:30:36.375 –> 01:30:39.675
with with you. He’s in he’s in that position. Whereas, Lowry

1451
01:30:40.695 –> 01:30:43.755
would probably be closer to my position where,

1452
01:30:45.094 –> 01:30:48.695
you know, fundamentally, at a certain point, particularly in America this is where the American

1453
01:30:48.695 –> 01:30:52.120
struggle is. I can’t talk about other countries. But the American struggle,

1454
01:30:52.260 –> 01:30:55.780
particularly around race, is what

1455
01:30:55.780 –> 01:30:58.600
happens when racial groups in this country

1456
01:30:59.860 –> 01:31:03.160
wind up getting everything they asked for?

1457
01:31:08.114 –> 01:31:11.635
And it still wasn’t enough. Now maybe your ask was too

1458
01:31:11.635 –> 01:31:15.074
small. That I

1459
01:31:15.074 –> 01:31:16.855
can maybe accept.

1460
01:31:19.250 –> 01:31:22.230
But even if your ask was gigantic, right,

1461
01:31:23.810 –> 01:31:27.650
and you got it, you have the the

1462
01:31:27.650 –> 01:31:31.250
curse of the victor. You know? I think of the

1463
01:31:31.250 –> 01:31:34.844
Amy Mann song from the movie from the movie

1464
01:31:34.844 –> 01:31:38.284
Magnolia. You got what you wanted, and now you can hardly stand

1465
01:31:38.284 –> 01:31:42.045
it. And I think

1466
01:31:42.045 –> 01:31:45.405
African Americans over the next, I would

1467
01:31:45.405 –> 01:31:48.704
say, ten years,

1468
01:31:50.380 –> 01:31:54.219
maybe fifteen. George Floyd was a blip. An important blip,

1469
01:31:54.219 –> 01:31:57.980
but a blip nonetheless. Because there’s a trajectory. There’s an arc that’s happening in the

1470
01:31:57.980 –> 01:32:01.675
African American community that I could speak to because I see it. There’s

1471
01:32:01.675 –> 01:32:05.195
an arc, an upward to the right j curve. It’s it’s just it’s

1472
01:32:05.195 –> 01:32:08.955
slowly happening, and it’s it’s going inch by inch, step by step as is

1473
01:32:08.955 –> 01:32:12.554
the usual with African Americans in this country, inch by inch, step by

1474
01:32:12.554 –> 01:32:16.175
step. But every generation of African Americans

1475
01:32:17.550 –> 01:32:21.310
has to they’re not

1476
01:32:21.310 –> 01:32:24.909
refighting the revolution. They’re fighting a new thing on new ground every

1477
01:32:24.909 –> 01:32:28.530
single time. So and like I said, I believe in reformation

1478
01:32:28.590 –> 01:32:31.730
because reformation is the leaven through the loaf. It’s it’s slow.

1479
01:32:33.545 –> 01:32:37.385
You know, sometimes it requires a blowing up of institutions and systems and processes,

1480
01:32:37.385 –> 01:32:40.345
and I’m fine with that. But you have to have a replacement for it. And

1481
01:32:40.345 –> 01:32:43.305
that’s where I always get off the train with revolutionaries because they never have a

1482
01:32:43.305 –> 01:32:47.030
replacement for it. They just wanna blow crap up, cause chaos, and then move

1483
01:32:47.030 –> 01:32:50.070
on. Like, what that is not helpful because then all of us are still here.

1484
01:32:50.070 –> 01:32:53.130
And what are you gonna do about the kids? They gotta build after the chaos.

1485
01:32:53.590 –> 01:32:57.130
Yeah. Yeah. You have no plan. So anyway,

1486
01:32:57.590 –> 01:33:00.970
but that’s a conversation that would have been interesting to have with you

1487
01:33:01.375 –> 01:33:05.135
and Libby, Libby Younger and Derulo Nixon and Dave

1488
01:33:05.135 –> 01:33:08.014
Baum Rucker. Like, I could have aligned, you know, aligned for all four of you.

1489
01:33:08.014 –> 01:33:10.255
I haven’t had that interesting conversation. And I would and you’re right. I would have

1490
01:33:10.255 –> 01:33:14.014
gotten four different perspectives. So that would have been that would have been fascinating.

1491
01:33:14.014 –> 01:33:16.514
And it would have been fascinating for our listeners, I think. So

1492
01:33:17.740 –> 01:33:21.580
And so I I wonder if the formatting I I wonder I like I I

1493
01:33:21.580 –> 01:33:25.180
do like the idea of having, having one

1494
01:33:25.180 –> 01:33:28.860
book. Now I I I don’t think it would be

1495
01:33:28.860 –> 01:33:32.240
effective to do it from the beginning with two guest

1496
01:33:32.625 –> 01:33:35.664
hosts. Right? Like Yeah. It would be too it would be too much. It would

1497
01:33:35.664 –> 01:33:38.724
be too much of all all at once. But if you did the same book,

1498
01:33:38.864 –> 01:33:42.704
two episodes with the same book, two different cohosts, and then possibly

1499
01:33:42.704 –> 01:33:46.260
a third episode with the both of them on, and maybe the

1500
01:33:46.260 –> 01:33:50.020
script is for you. Like, I wanna talk we

1501
01:33:50.020 –> 01:33:53.140
don’t need to go through the the verses of the book again. We just need

1502
01:33:53.140 –> 01:33:56.660
to go through your opinions about this this particular like,

1503
01:33:56.660 –> 01:34:00.205
okay. We talked about, you know, chapter chapter

1504
01:34:00.205 –> 01:34:03.985
three. This topic came up. Tom answered it this way.

1505
01:34:04.525 –> 01:34:07.965
Libby answered it this way. Dorel answered it this way. I’d like to talk

1506
01:34:07.965 –> 01:34:11.345
about where’s the overlap and where’s the the discrepancies,

1507
01:34:12.050 –> 01:34:15.430
and what do we do about those, and how do how do leaders decide

1508
01:34:15.730 –> 01:34:19.570
which version of this should be on the forefront of their mind based

1509
01:34:19.570 –> 01:34:23.090
on what? Based on the type of company they have, based on, like

1510
01:34:23.250 –> 01:34:27.090
again, you decide on the script what, you know, what what that question

1511
01:34:27.090 –> 01:34:30.844
looks like. I think it could be interesting. Yeah.

1512
01:34:31.385 –> 01:34:34.985
I think I think we’re going to start the amount of books you have to

1513
01:34:34.985 –> 01:34:38.744
read. Yeah. Exactly. Give yourself a break. Oh my gosh. You

1514
01:34:38.744 –> 01:34:41.520
have no idea I’m drowning. Oh, I got them drowning. I got too much other

1515
01:34:41.520 –> 01:34:45.280
things, too many other things going on. I’m killing businesses. I’m picking up

1516
01:34:45.280 –> 01:34:48.580
other ones. I’m doing this. It’s the whole thing. Okay.

1517
01:34:49.280 –> 01:34:52.679
No. I I think I think I want to run that by you. I want

1518
01:34:52.679 –> 01:34:55.120
to run it by you live. I think this is going to be something that

1519
01:34:55.120 –> 01:34:58.505
we are going to do. I think we might start with Tender is a night,

1520
01:34:58.505 –> 01:35:00.905
or we might start with the book that comes after that that was supposed to

1521
01:35:00.905 –> 01:35:04.665
come after that. But, but, yeah, we’re gonna we’re gonna

1522
01:35:04.665 –> 01:35:08.425
rejigger this format a little bit midseason, kinda see if things

1523
01:35:08.425 –> 01:35:12.140
work a little bit differently. I do also like the idea of maybe, like,

1524
01:35:12.760 –> 01:35:16.600
a quarterly or maybe biannually recap where you bring on all of

1525
01:35:16.600 –> 01:35:19.900
your cohosts, and you just talk about

1526
01:35:19.960 –> 01:35:23.720
overlying themes that happen throughout the course of x number

1527
01:35:23.720 –> 01:35:27.425
of books, or whatever that you were you know? So and you you should be

1528
01:35:27.425 –> 01:35:30.945
able to you should be able to kinda, you know, basically

1529
01:35:30.945 –> 01:35:34.405
categorize where where the, like, the top five or six

1530
01:35:34.545 –> 01:35:38.380
themes of, like and then say, alright. Now as a panel, I want

1531
01:35:38.500 –> 01:35:42.100
let let’s talk about theme number one, number two, whatever, and, like, let’s

1532
01:35:42.100 –> 01:35:45.620
kinda I I think it would be cool. I think it could be interesting to

1533
01:35:45.620 –> 01:35:49.460
have an extended version of the podcast episode. Maybe it’s

1534
01:35:49.460 –> 01:35:53.155
not an hour. Maybe it’s two and a half three hours, three hours or

1535
01:35:53.155 –> 01:35:56.755
whatever where we go where you can take, you know, a a whole

1536
01:35:56.755 –> 01:36:00.515
quarter’s worth of podcast episodes, get four

1537
01:36:00.515 –> 01:36:04.035
four guest hosts on all at the same time, and now really

1538
01:36:04.035 –> 01:36:07.630
attack a a really good subject matter. Like, maybe

1539
01:36:07.630 –> 01:36:10.990
it’s maybe it’s three different subjects, but it’s really in-depth

1540
01:36:10.990 –> 01:36:14.530
conversation about it. And let’s let’s get down to the nitty gritty about,

1541
01:36:14.750 –> 01:36:18.505
like, you know I mean, we’re we’re not all leadership. I

1542
01:36:18.505 –> 01:36:22.185
get no. I guess we’re all we’re all leadership people in our own right. I

1543
01:36:22.185 –> 01:36:25.785
mean, I know I understand you’re you’re probably the guy being the you know, like,

1544
01:36:25.785 –> 01:36:29.545
you coach leaders to being better leaders. None of the rest of us really

1545
01:36:29.545 –> 01:36:32.930
do that, but we’re leaders in our own right in different versions of our of

1546
01:36:32.930 –> 01:36:36.550
our life. So I think it could be I think that also could be very

1547
01:36:37.010 –> 01:36:40.810
interesting. Yeah. Like, maybe it’s not once a quarter. Maybe it’s twice a year. I

1548
01:36:40.810 –> 01:36:43.090
I don’t know. I don’t know what the time maybe it’s once a year. I

1549
01:36:43.090 –> 01:36:46.815
don’t know. But something like that, I think, could be interesting as well. Yeah.

1550
01:36:47.055 –> 01:36:49.935
Okay. We’re going to we’re gonna we’re gonna futz around. We’re gonna move some things

1551
01:36:49.935 –> 01:36:53.775
around listeners. We are going to and, hopefully, this will

1552
01:36:53.775 –> 01:36:57.475
answer some listener questions, that they have about format,

1553
01:36:57.535 –> 01:37:00.895
about books. We did we have been starting to get some interesting

1554
01:37:00.895 –> 01:37:04.740
listener feedback from, episodes

1555
01:37:04.740 –> 01:37:08.580
that we posted, on YouTube. So keep keep keep

1556
01:37:08.580 –> 01:37:11.160
sending us that, keep sending us that feedback.

1557
01:37:12.820 –> 01:37:16.260
Also keep correcting us when we miss small things. I love that as

1558
01:37:16.260 –> 01:37:19.875
well. I love being corrected. I don’t know everything.

1559
01:37:20.495 –> 01:37:24.255
Sometimes the Internet is smarter than me. Not often, but

1560
01:37:24.255 –> 01:37:28.094
sometimes. Reminds me of that. Do do you remember the stand

1561
01:37:28.094 –> 01:37:31.880
up comedian, Steven Wright? Oh, yeah. Probably the most dry

1562
01:37:32.340 –> 01:37:36.020
Yes. Monotone person on the planet. But one of the comments

1563
01:37:36.020 –> 01:37:39.380
that he made, I just every time I hear it, it still makes me laugh,

1564
01:37:39.380 –> 01:37:42.500
and you just said something that was close to it, which is he said when

1565
01:37:42.500 –> 01:37:45.905
he comes out of the stage, he goes, you can’t have everything.

1566
01:37:46.605 –> 01:37:47.824
Where would you put it?

1567
01:37:51.405 –> 01:37:55.244
That was maxed me up. I was like, damn. He’s right.

1568
01:37:55.244 –> 01:37:58.125
Like, where would you I don’t understand. Like, we just leave everything where it is

1569
01:37:58.125 –> 01:38:00.270
and just claim it as yours? Like, how are you gonna

1570
01:38:05.230 –> 01:38:08.610
That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant.

1571
01:38:09.390 –> 01:38:13.070
That’s brilliant. Cracked

1572
01:38:13.070 –> 01:38:16.614
me. Oh my gosh. That that’s that’s killer. He was he was he was a

1573
01:38:16.614 –> 01:38:20.375
genius comedian. He was. He was. Oh, Steven Rayne. Oh my gosh. I

1574
01:38:20.375 –> 01:38:24.054
haven’t thought about that dude in years. But Buzzfeed He was

1575
01:38:24.054 –> 01:38:26.695
from my neck of the woods, just to let you know. Oh, of course he

1576
01:38:26.695 –> 01:38:30.375
was. Of course he was. Of course he was. Of

1577
01:38:30.375 –> 01:38:34.170
course. One day, we’re gonna talk about that neck of

1578
01:38:34.170 –> 01:38:37.450
the woods, but not today. Not today. Not today.

1579
01:38:37.610 –> 01:38:41.390
So as we close our episode,

1580
01:38:41.930 –> 01:38:45.290
today, and thank you for listening to the leadership lessons for the great books

1581
01:38:45.290 –> 01:38:48.735
podcast, I have an announcement to make,

1582
01:38:49.515 –> 01:38:53.055
saving it for the end of our of our episode today.

1583
01:38:53.115 –> 01:38:56.415
So from three time least selling

1584
01:38:56.475 –> 01:39:00.155
author, a guy you would know, comes

1585
01:39:00.155 –> 01:39:03.430
his next book, a book on

1586
01:39:03.810 –> 01:39:06.710
culture, a book on

1587
01:39:08.450 –> 01:39:11.750
the challenges that we face in various

1588
01:39:11.890 –> 01:39:15.490
areas, a book about what we do

1589
01:39:15.490 –> 01:39:19.145
here at the end of the fourth turning about

1590
01:39:19.145 –> 01:39:22.985
the business of living in the world and his

1591
01:39:22.985 –> 01:39:26.785
own personal issues. Because what the heck? When you write

1592
01:39:26.785 –> 01:39:30.390
a book like this, you want to put a bit of your

1593
01:39:30.390 –> 01:39:33.930
own self in it. A book written in

1594
01:39:35.430 –> 01:39:39.110
somewhat the tone and the style of a James Baldwin, Notes

1595
01:39:39.110 –> 01:39:42.925
from a Native Son, or even a Joan Didion souching

1596
01:39:42.925 –> 01:39:46.225
towards Bethlehem Essayist or reportage

1597
01:39:47.324 –> 01:39:50.685
type model of essay, but without all that Hunter

1598
01:39:50.685 –> 01:39:54.225
Thompson, Gonzo journalism kind of thing going on.

1599
01:39:54.940 –> 01:39:57.840
A book that does feature, political,

1600
01:39:59.420 –> 01:40:02.940
opinions or at least ideas, but it also

1601
01:40:02.940 –> 01:40:06.160
features things like or or features essays,

1602
01:40:06.460 –> 01:40:10.185
actually, that focus on being our

1603
01:40:10.185 –> 01:40:13.485
human beings, being our pets’ emotional support animals,

1604
01:40:14.585 –> 01:40:18.125
which we are our pets’ emotional support animals,

1605
01:40:19.065 –> 01:40:22.665
or what we’re going to be doing and what it’s going to look like in

1606
01:40:22.665 –> 01:40:26.120
a post Christian twenty first century

1607
01:40:26.420 –> 01:40:30.180
in America or how ideas spread

1608
01:40:30.180 –> 01:40:33.940
or how fictions give people meaning, which

1609
01:40:33.940 –> 01:40:37.735
by the way they do. This is a

1610
01:40:37.735 –> 01:40:41.495
book that will talk about closing gaps

1611
01:40:41.495 –> 01:40:45.255
in anticipation of net of the network leap, and,

1612
01:40:45.255 –> 01:40:48.935
of course, per se or not per se, per pursuant to our previous

1613
01:40:48.935 –> 01:40:52.780
conversation, a book about revolutions and realignments. By

1614
01:40:52.780 –> 01:40:54.640
the way, there’s a quote in this book.

1615
01:40:56.940 –> 01:41:00.220
If you’re from, from Citizen Kane back in

1616
01:41:00.220 –> 01:41:03.740
1941, you’re the greatest fool I’ve ever known, Charles Foster

1617
01:41:03.740 –> 01:41:06.605
Kane. If it was anybody else, I’d say what’s going to happen to you would

1618
01:41:06.605 –> 01:41:10.205
be a lesson to you. Only you’re going to need more than one lesson, and

1619
01:41:10.205 –> 01:41:13.885
you’re going to get more than one lesson. By the way, this

1620
01:41:13.885 –> 01:41:17.425
is an essay writing about the Democratic Party

1621
01:41:17.790 –> 01:41:21.250
and where they need to go because we do still need two functioning parties

1622
01:41:21.470 –> 01:41:24.910
in America. A

1623
01:41:24.910 –> 01:41:27.730
book from your host,

1624
01:41:28.430 –> 01:41:32.110
Ehsan Sorels, wartime soon to be, wartime, least selling

1625
01:41:32.110 –> 01:41:34.565
author. This is the this is the

1626
01:41:35.745 –> 01:41:39.265
desk copy. That’s why all its stuff is sticking out of it if you’re watching

1627
01:41:39.265 –> 01:41:43.025
the video. A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, a

1628
01:41:43.025 –> 01:41:46.480
collection of literary essays by Haysan

1629
01:41:46.480 –> 01:41:49.700
Sorels. This book will be coming out

1630
01:41:49.920 –> 01:41:53.460
in July of twenty twenty five,

1631
01:41:53.520 –> 01:41:57.140
available for late summer purchase and just in time

1632
01:41:57.360 –> 01:42:00.975
for the holidays. I am also going to

1633
01:42:00.975 –> 01:42:04.435
finally knuckle under in my recording location

1634
01:42:04.895 –> 01:42:08.595
deep inside the back end of a warehouse somewhere

1635
01:42:08.975 –> 01:42:12.655
in an undisclosed location. I’m

1636
01:42:12.655 –> 01:42:15.830
finally from there, going to record

1637
01:42:16.530 –> 01:42:20.310
the audio version of this book with me reading

1638
01:42:20.370 –> 01:42:23.969
the essays, some of which you can see on my

1639
01:42:24.370 –> 01:42:28.085
or read on my substack. And so I do have proof of concept that

1640
01:42:28.085 –> 01:42:31.925
people will actually click on them and read them. Whether they’ll read them in book

1641
01:42:31.925 –> 01:42:35.765
form is another matter altogether. But this is a

1642
01:42:35.765 –> 01:42:39.305
book that I probably should have published last year,

1643
01:42:39.470 –> 01:42:43.230
but I couldn’t finish it because it didn’t feel as though it were

1644
01:42:43.230 –> 01:42:46.990
the right time. This feels as though it

1645
01:42:46.990 –> 01:42:50.750
is the right time. So look for A Voice Crying in the

1646
01:42:50.750 –> 01:42:54.210
Wilderness, literary essays by Haysan Sorels,

1647
01:42:54.655 –> 01:42:58.255
a cultural commentary book coming in July of

1648
01:42:58.255 –> 01:43:01.475
twenty twenty five from my company, HSCT Publishing,

1649
01:43:01.935 –> 01:43:05.455
and it will be available everywhere where you get books. So

1650
01:43:05.455 –> 01:43:08.515
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IngramSpark,

1651
01:43:09.960 –> 01:43:13.739
Kobo, all those virtual places print on demand.

1652
01:43:14.040 –> 01:43:17.420
And, of course, the audiobook version will be on Audible,

1653
01:43:17.960 –> 01:43:21.320
and that will be coming out looking like November or

1654
01:43:21.320 –> 01:43:24.105
December of twenty twenty five.

1655
01:43:25.045 –> 01:43:28.485
So a collection of essays divided into three parts covering a lot of different

1656
01:43:28.485 –> 01:43:32.245
areas. I think you’re going to like it. I think you’re gonna enjoy it.

1657
01:43:32.245 –> 01:43:35.940
And, of course, when it comes out, we will talk about it

1658
01:43:36.100 –> 01:43:39.780
on the podcast because why wouldn’t I do that? It’s a

1659
01:43:39.780 –> 01:43:42.580
little self serving thing that I could do, and what the heck I talk about

1660
01:43:42.580 –> 01:43:46.260
Tom. Kinda seems like you’d be crazy not to. I also talked about Tom

1661
01:43:46.260 –> 01:43:49.460
Libby’s book, so I don’t feel bad. Maybe I’ll bring Tom on. I’ll send him

1662
01:43:49.460 –> 01:43:52.264
a copy of the book. He’ll read it. He’ll tell me there’s too many words

1663
01:43:52.264 –> 01:43:55.565
in it, and then we’ll talk about it’ll be great.

1664
01:43:57.784 –> 01:44:01.085
By the way, I do use the term Eshtikon and in

1665
01:44:02.185 –> 01:44:05.710
the book. So I’ll be I’ll I’ll bring up

1666
01:44:05.870 –> 01:44:09.710
Hasan, do you remember back in May when you told me it

1667
01:44:09.710 –> 01:44:13.469
was 215 pages and you reformatted to now it’s two

1668
01:44:13.469 –> 01:44:17.070
sixty seven? Guess what? It should have been two fifteen. It should have

1669
01:44:17.070 –> 01:44:17.570
left.

1670
01:44:24.165 –> 01:44:27.925
Should’ve avoided that Libra Baskerville type. Avoid all of

1671
01:44:27.925 –> 01:44:31.305
that. You should use Cambria. Use Cambria fonts.

1672
01:44:33.670 –> 01:44:37.130
And I don’t wanna hear about it monetizing or whatever the word is

1673
01:44:37.590 –> 01:44:41.349
anymore. Exactly. Oh my. Stop using SAT

1674
01:44:41.349 –> 01:44:44.250
words. Stop using SAT words. We all know you’re smart. Quit.

1675
01:44:46.845 –> 01:44:50.365
So this book is coming out, like I said, in, in two formats. And,

1676
01:44:50.445 –> 01:44:54.285
we will we were we are flirting with the idea of doing a hardcover format,

1677
01:44:54.605 –> 01:44:58.365
as well. That’ll be a little bit smaller. That’ll fit right

1678
01:44:58.365 –> 01:45:01.985
there on your, on your desk. But, yeah, this is my fourth book.

1679
01:45:02.150 –> 01:45:05.130
And I do know self publishing it in a little bit of a different mode

1680
01:45:05.270 –> 01:45:09.110
than I did before. So, it’s been very interesting. It is the

1681
01:45:09.110 –> 01:45:12.650
most personal book that I’ve released, that I’ve released so far,

1682
01:45:13.429 –> 01:45:17.195
really talking about particularly in the personal issue section, things

1683
01:45:17.195 –> 01:45:20.955
that actually may have or may not have happened to me

1684
01:45:20.955 –> 01:45:24.575
in the course of my life that, have influenced

1685
01:45:24.715 –> 01:45:28.555
how I think, how I act, and how I walk in the world

1686
01:45:28.555 –> 01:45:30.975
and decisions that I have made thus far.

1687
01:45:32.260 –> 01:45:35.940
Alright. Final thoughts, Tom, before we close out this

1688
01:45:35.940 –> 01:45:39.480
episode. Here’s a fun thought. What if what if we took

1689
01:45:40.340 –> 01:45:44.114
what if we took all of the episodes of, well, not all of

1690
01:45:44.114 –> 01:45:47.815
the episodes, but let’s say we took our favorite episodes of this podcast,

1691
01:45:48.514 –> 01:45:52.275
took the transcripts, and coauthored a book that

1692
01:45:52.275 –> 01:45:56.119
was basically a leadership book based on I’m

1693
01:45:56.119 –> 01:45:59.800
just thinking out loud here. No. No. No. No. I’ve I’ve already

1694
01:45:59.800 –> 01:46:03.639
thought of that, and I have I have a repository of

1695
01:46:03.639 –> 01:46:07.260
transcripts that’s just sitting there. So

1696
01:46:07.320 –> 01:46:10.199
I I I do have an idea. I I actually have a so I have

1697
01:46:10.199 –> 01:46:13.775
a journal. It’s a black journal that’s that was made out of an old album

1698
01:46:13.775 –> 01:46:17.135
cover. So it has, like, the album, the old 45 RPM actually embedded in the

1699
01:46:17.135 –> 01:46:20.655
cover. It’s kinda really cool. Oh, that’s actually I like that. It’s kinda

1700
01:46:20.655 –> 01:46:24.415
slick. Found it in, like, a used bookstore, like, walking

1701
01:46:24.415 –> 01:46:26.801
around here locally. I was like, oh my gosh. I know that I got a

1702
01:46:26.801 –> 01:46:30.572
piece. Anyway, so, I write in in all of my book ideas, my premises,

1703
01:46:30.572 –> 01:46:34.342
my essay ideas, things like that. And it acts as sort of a and

1704
01:46:34.342 –> 01:46:38.113
I haven’t in one of these journals in a long time, but it acts as

1705
01:46:38.113 –> 01:46:41.883
a repository for that. And so interestingly enough, probably about a month and a half

1706
01:46:41.883 –> 01:46:45.494
ago, I started noodling on the idea for a podcast because I’ve

1707
01:46:45.494 –> 01:46:48.795
wanted to do a podcast book for years, absolutely

1708
01:46:49.094 –> 01:46:52.635
years. But I wanted to make it, you know, hardcover

1709
01:46:52.855 –> 01:46:56.695
with, like, full color photos in it and and just make it real fancy, make,

1710
01:46:56.695 –> 01:47:00.470
like, a collectible. And, people who know me

1711
01:47:00.770 –> 01:47:04.390
tell me that I am crazy, and that is a ridiculous waste of resources.

1712
01:47:05.490 –> 01:47:08.690
But I think it would be cool to pull off something like that at least

1713
01:47:08.690 –> 01:47:12.450
once. Yeah. I I I think it could be again, potentially,

1714
01:47:12.450 –> 01:47:16.045
it could be very cool. Well, we’ll we’ll sit down, and we’ll

1715
01:47:16.045 –> 01:47:18.925
we’ll talk about it. Maybe we’ll come up with a sales plan. We’ll we’ll figure

1716
01:47:18.925 –> 01:47:21.165
it out. Because we do need a sales plan for that sales and marketing plan

1717
01:47:21.165 –> 01:47:24.605
if we’re gonna do something like that because, the the

1718
01:47:24.605 –> 01:47:28.125
inputs there I and I do have the number for what the inputs are for

1719
01:47:28.125 –> 01:47:31.840
doing that. But the inputs going into that to make

1720
01:47:31.840 –> 01:47:35.680
that worthwhile, you gotta have the output on the other end. You know? You

1721
01:47:35.680 –> 01:47:39.220
you just you have to. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So to make that worthwhile. But,

1722
01:47:39.600 –> 01:47:43.140
Amazon is doing doing really, really high end hardcovers

1723
01:47:43.360 –> 01:47:46.385
now. So that’s Yeah. I saw that. It’s really good.

1724
01:47:47.805 –> 01:47:51.185
Cool. Cool. Alright. Well, no. That was my last thought.

1725
01:47:51.245 –> 01:47:55.001
Alright. Awesome. Well, that’s it for today. Thank you, Tom Libby,

1726
01:47:55.001 –> 01:47:58.461
for joining us on the Leadership Lessons for the Great Books podcast.

1727
01:47:59.081 –> 01:48:01.821
And with that, well, we’re out.