Focused - 260: Quarterly Planning and Riding Roller Coasters

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Good, good. I'm looking forward to our episode today. It's always fun when it's just the two of us.

And it's time to do some quarter planning. Yes, we're going to talk about what happened in Q2, talk about what we're planning for Q3, and maybe talk a little bit about what happens when you got a the roller coaster. Yeah, I feel like both of us have been margin challenged lately, and we're talking about quarter planning. I hope that listening to this will inspire you to do a bit of your own quarter planning. But also a big theme of today's episode is how do you handle the fact that you're too busy? And, you know, this is kind of an ongoing thing with us. But both of us are kind of going through a season of that right now. And we'd like to kind of figure that out as we go through our quarter planning.

Indeed. I like that term marginally challenged, by the way. Margin challenge, day. Copyright, Sparky, 2026. There you go. Have fun. I think that is the problem with most of us today, where margin challenge, the modern world makes that kind of a problem for most of us. And you have to really be actively engaged to not be marginally challenged. It's true. And even when you get it, it's easy to lose it. Yeah. Yeah. I had a lot of insight in preparing for. today's show as I was thinking about this. So I'm looking forward to talking about it. Awesome. Let's get into it. But let's start out with a good quarter plan starts with a review of where you've been. I think that that's the best starting point is to learn from your mistakes

and to think about, oh, and your successes, I should say. But, you know, when you want to stop and plan, whether it's a week, month, a quarter, even a year, stop and reflect on what you're coming out of. I think that can really help you inform. And so I will tell you that the first thought I had about quarter two was that was another wild roller coaster ride for me. And for me, you know, because I do this every quarter, I can go and read my old reviews. And this is the third straight quarter that I felt that going into the review that I just got off a crazy ride. And that happens for me. You know, I always think that I have what I think, margin heavy and production heavy quarters.

And so I'd like to try and cycle them like, okay, I'm going to do a lot of work this quarter and a quarter. I'd like to slow down a bit and kind of recharge for the next sprint. But what's happened for me is the last three quarters of all been sprints, which isn't ideal. And that's what we're going to get to later in the show. but that's an observation I'm making. The reason I've had these three sprints is number one was quarter four of 2025. I was working really hard on productivity field guide and kind of getting that built up. And I also had shipped the Apple Productivity Suite Tool Guide.

So I was doing a webinar series. And webinar series really take it out of you. There's a lot of preparation and you're on camera a lot and really want to do a good job with those things. But I thought, that's okay. You know, quarter one is going to be a slower quarter. That would be good. But I got into quarter one, and I was running the Productivity Field Guide workshop, which I really enjoy. But then the whole robot thing kind of happened.

AI suddenly got really useful. And I felt like it was something that I was kind of compelled to teach. I just, you know, there's so many things I've been teaching as Max Barkie for almost 20 years that are so hard, that suddenly are so easy because of large language models. and the harness, specifically the one from Anthropic, but now all the competitors are catching up with that too. And I thought, you know, I got to teach this. You know, it's like, you know, sometimes you feel an imperative to do something.

So with, I realized going into quarter one, this margin quarter has now turned into a production quarter. And I really worked hard to get that course out and to start it. And I did a lot of workshops on that. and the workshops were popular. There were so many questions I added a second thing where once a week I do a thing called Robot Builders Club and we all get together. And so I have been running hard through quarter one and that continued into quarter two.

And I knew going into quarter two that there was no margin for me because I was still in the throes of the robot thing. And on top of it all, our friend Nick Milo said to me, hey, you should really have more community with the stuff you do, you know. And there's a lot of questions for the robot people, a lot of questions in the labs. And I'd never really done a good job of delivering a place for people

to talk to each other about the stuff I was teaching. And then another good friend of mine, Mike Schmidt said, hey, you know, people learn better when they can talk about it. And I just felt like, okay, I got to do this. So on top of it all in quarter to, I moved all of the stuff I'm doing

into the circle platform. So I moved the field guides and I'm in the process of moving the labs. So I took all my lifetime of customers and I'm pulling them gently into this new platform that I had to build. Which means quarter two also was a roller coaster. So I've had a lot of that, Mike.

Yeah, the robot assistant stuff, I remember seeing that play out in real time. You sent a message to our, group chat, I think on a Friday saying, is this a crazy idea? I have this thing about the robot assistant. And I'm not sure if it makes sense to do this. And by Sunday afternoon, you had convinced yourself that this was the direction to go. And I think it was a good decision. But it was, I say that to say, I saw how quickly, you know, that evolution, the thought process behind it was what was happening. And that's an important thing is like not getting too stuck in your your plans and

being able to recognize those points of signal and riding those waves. Yeah. So I'm kind of curious, you know, was there anything about that process that stood out to you? Or was it just, you know, this is a unique thing with where we're at with AI? Like by Friday, I was experimenting with how good it is. And by Sunday I was convinced it was, you know, really transformative for people who want to automate. And I felt like nothing, nobody out there was really teaching it right. And I felt like this was something where I could, I could deliver, you know, I really enjoy, you know, the way I like to try and dent the universe at this point in my life is by empowering people to use technology mindfully. And this to me is just like a huge moment

for that. So there was no way I was not going to do something on it. You know, I think, you know, in terms of looking back, another reflecting point for me is my wife. Like, as we're recording this at 8 in the morning, I was up until 1 a.m. last night, which is unusual for me because I'm usually not very productive in the evening. But I, you know, I was just going through all the email, helping with the transition of people getting into the New Circle platform. And my wife said to me, hey, are you okay? This is not normal for you, you know? And I said, I'm fine. I used to be a trial lawyer, you know, and this is not that, you know, it's not nearly that. But it is busy. And, but I can see it ebbing. And I think I'm going to break the back of this thing too. And I will get

back to margin. But right now, I'm not there. And, and I think for me, a really nice thing is that I had a really hard job for a long time. And that job, a trial lawyer, that is a hard job. I mean, the stuff I do now is not hard. I mean, sometimes I get busy. Sometimes it's a little stressful, but not really. But I have a vantage point with a prior career that makes this stuff just kind of fun. I mean, I was up to 1 a.m., but I was writing people who are my customers about things that

they wanted from me and things that they needed. needed and things that I'm helping them improve on. I mean, wow, wow, right? Yeah, I had, well, I've got something around that point, but is there anything else you wanted to talk about with Q2? Well, the other thing, looking back, you know, on kind of on the personal side, I have been on a health journey. My wife had a heart attack year and a half ago, and the two of us have been really trying to get things going. And we've dramatically improved our exercise and diet discipline. And, you know, I did that this last quarter. I kept up with it.

I did the swimming, the Pilates, the weights, the healthy eating. I did all of that despite all this going on. So I stopped to congratulate on that myself on that. My kids are in their own transformation as they're kind of moving on with their lives. One of them got a big job. The other one is doing some stuff with her stuff. and I was there for them to help out with that. So looking at the quarter, it wasn't just me, you know, grinding away at Max

Parky all day. I actually did some good stuff. I also see that like my shop time has suffered, which seems to be always the sacrificial lamb when I get behind. And, you know, as I think about it, I think that's probably the right decision. The business needed me and that's just the way it is. and another kind of thing that occurred to me is I've over the last year I've come to think about like an hour a day in the shop as my non-negotiable I was calling it and I think I was creating

a burden on myself by doing that because it is negotiable because some days I just can't do it and so I'm I'm not calling it that anymore I'm calling it my escape valve instead of my non-negotiable and that's a much healthier relationship with it but I'm also aware that there are projects I'd like do things I'd like to make. And when I spend time out there, that to me is golden margin. You know, I mean, that is where I really feel enriched. So I'm going to get there. And that's something I'll be looking at going to the next quarter.

But the big takeaway for me is three in a row is too many. And I need to be really paying attention to that. Yeah, I agree. It's important to pay attention to that stuff. But also don't beat yourself up if it doesn't go exactly the way that you want it to, That was one of the things that was kind of a highlight for me, I guess, over the last quarter. There was a lot of like internal work that happened in a lot of perspective that got shifted for me. Yeah.

That's the beginning of change so often, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I guess to jump off there, you know, you were talking about the perspective of used to be a trial lawyer. This isn't as bad as that. I know you've talked about my dad worked in a coal mine, like, what's my problem? Yeah. I attended this quarter an event called the Growth Intensive by Del Vesterval and Corey Wilkes.

And I think it is not an overstatement to say that it was life-changing. Wow. As much as a day and a half in a small group in Minneapolis can be. I went into it not really thinking that I belonged in that room because It was defined as like a small group mastermind sort of a thing for founders. And I don't consider myself a founder. I consider myself a creator. But I guess I kind of am.

I'm running a business. I deal with a lot of imposter syndrome around that. But as part of that growth intensive, there were two parts. Corey Wilkes is a clinical psychologist. And so his thing at the beginning of it was talking through his framework, the four horsemen of fear. And basically said every productivity problem you ever deal with can be trace back to fear of something. And he's got the different fears, fear of failure, fear of success

on the other end. Fear of ridicule was one. And that was the one as they had us go through the exercises I realized that I deal with. And the whole thought process around this was really interesting. This is the feelings podcast, right? We can talk about this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Bring it. Okay. So I don't mind sharing it. But I went in feeling pretty overwhelmed, but like I should be there. and as we're going through these exercises, they're helping you identify the thing that you are struggling with. And so fear of ridicule it is for me. And I'm going through like,

how does this manifest? Where does it show up? And it showed up a couple different places. First, it showed up with people that I consider to be my internet heroes. I realize that, like, especially in the PKM space, I'm ideal, and it sounds stupid to say this,

but like, let's be real here. there is a little bit of fear every time I put something out into the world, that the people who have been talking about PKM longer, who have bigger audiences, who are the more trusted voices in the space, like Tiago or Nick, are going to put out a hit piece on my perspective and say, this Mike Schmidt's guy,

he has no idea what he's talking about. Sounds stupid, right? Nick would never do that. I told him that this was one of the things that I dealt with at the growth intensive actually when I saw. I'm at Craft and Commerce. He's like, dude, I would never do that. I'm like, yeah, I know you would. But like, that's the story that you tell yourself. However, you dig down a little bit deeper. It's actually a fear of failure also in terms of like the approval from my dad because he's

a successful business person. I walked away from the family business. So I feel this pressure that I have to prove to him that I can, I can make this work. So a couple of that with a hot seat where Corey, he's, if you look at Corey, he's a bald guy, he's got tattoos up and down his arms, not the person you would think of when you think of like clinical psychologist. But I actually appreciate that about him and he looks me in the eye and he's like, you are so worried about not failing that you are guaranteed to fail. At first it hurt, you know, then as I thinking about it, and like, you are absolutely right. And Darrell has this thing where think about where you are right now.

Okay, now go forward 15 years, go backward 15 years. What would you 15 years ago think about where you're at right now? And what would you 15 years in the future think about where you're at right now? The you 15 years in the future would probably say, dude, this isn't that big a deal. You're going to make it through. You from 15 years prior would be like, that's pretty awesome. that we get to do this for a living. Yeah.

So that sort of perspective was really helpful. It kind of initiated for me with Q2, like this is where the Q2 retro stuff comes in, a little bit of a pivot in the things that I do online and the way that I talk about stuff. I didn't realize this until I was going through all that stuff of the growth intensive because Daryl's thing is product market fit. You got to be really clear in who you're trying to help. And then when you get product market fit, you got the right solution for the person you're trying to help everything becomes easier. And I recognize that I don't have product market fit because on

some level, I don't really want to teach people technically how to use obsidian. Obsidian is just the tool that I think you can use in specific, intentional ways to do more of what really matters. It's more in line with like the whole vibe of focus. Life is more than cranking widgets. Let's leave a bigger dent in the universe. Let's get clear on what really matters. I think PKM is a great tool for that. I've got some frameworks that I think can help people get clear on that. But I got dragged into the technical features and the technical support, which is part of the deal when your signature product is it done for you,

Obsidian Vault. And I was putting so much pressure on myself. Like, this has, you know, I've had some success with this. Let's continue to ride this. And when the sales start to go down, puts me into this crisis mode. like, well, this isn't working anymore. Do I need to burn the ships and start something new? What I realized is that what I really want to help people do is I want to help them create. I want to help people, deep thinkers specifically, people who like thinking about this stuff,

publish those ideas. And I think online is the way to do it, but really like the writing is the piece. There has to be an output in order to clarify your thinking on this sort of stuff. I mean, it doesn't have to be a blog post. You probably recognize this too, David. like we get a little bit, we know sort of what we want to say. We sit down to record a podcast and all of a sudden as we're talking through things, it becomes clear. Yeah. Right.

Thossus entangle themselves through lips and pencil tips and also clicky keyboards. So how can I get people to who maybe like me thought they weren't creative to realize that they are creative? And I can use Life HQ to do that, but how I talk about it and how I show up, I think, changes. So it's not this whole big, like, I put in the notes an existential crisis because that's what it felt like at the beginning is like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm going to change and do something totally different. That's really scary. And I realized it's actually not that different. It's just a different. It's me being more targeted, more specific about how I'm going to do that.

And then the other big thing that happened this last quarter was I went to Craft and Commerce. I'm part of Jay Klaus's lab. So there was the in-person event there. I was in Boise for eight days. Hanging out with people, having these conversations, working through all this stuff. And, you know, going into that kind of felt like my whole world is changing. I don't know what, what's going to happen here. But by the time I left, I realized that I'm actually doing a lot of things right, but I haven't really given myself a chance to succeed. Another thing that Daryl told me was that when you create out of that place of fear, what you make suffers. What you're not able to do your best, work, you're not able to help the people that you want to help the most, you're not able to

create things that are as valuable as they could be. So that is something I've been brewing on for the last several weeks is what does it look like if I show up and I create, I do everything that I am currently doing with a more specific focus and out of a place of abundance. It's not a stretch to say that that perspective shift has been transformational. Yeah, I think the, I'd like to drill in on fear a bit because I think there's like two primary negative emotions that I see in people. One is fear and one is anger. And for me, fear is the motivator, not, or I don't want to say motivator.

Fear is the danger, not anger. I don't get angry. I just rarely get angry. But I do let fear grab me. I think for me it's always like I want to take care of my family. It's like, am I going to do something that's going to put them in jeopardy? But also, the experiences of my life have made me less fearful in a lot of ways. Like when you're doing trial law, a lot of times, you know, you're holding out by the seed of your pants.

You're making decisions and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And, you know, you learn that you move on with life. It's fine. I was thinking about you with soccer, right? You know, because I've been watching World Cup. We're going to talk about it in today's deep focus. But it's interesting to me where a team has done a great job and they're winning the game. And at the end, they get so defensive that they lose.

And, you know, I think that is like a version of that. And we all need to like identify when we let fear take the wheel and we need to be careful about it. I'm kind of inspired by Walt Disney and the way he was so fearless with his life. Many times through his career, he bet the farm. Like when they built Disneyland, his board of directors didn't support him. So he mortgaged his house and sold his vacation house. He paid for it out of his pocket. If nobody showed for Disneyland, Walt Disney is successful as he was at that point,

was going to go bankrupt. And he didn't care. And when you look at his life in World War I, he was an ambulance driver as a kid, 16-year-old ambulance driver. And I feel like, I said it before on the shows, I won't go into it, but I think carrying around dying kids all day makes you less fearful to take risk in your life. You realize how precious it is. And I'm glad you've had that unlock, Mike, and I'm very curious to see what it comes. But there's way more to you than Obsidian teacher. So I'm glad you figured that out. Yeah. And I mean, it's still early, but I feel like that has already,

made an impact in, well, some of the specific things I'll talk about with the Q3 planning, but just even, like, as I continue to do what I do, it's made a difference. One of the big things that big wins from this last quarter was I went over 10,000 email subscribers. That has been one of those someday maybe, I shouldn't say someday maybe. That's been one of my targets for a long time. Once I get to 10,000 email subscribers, things get easier. Now, that's the wrong perspective I'm recognizing. I can't go into it because that's that's a fear-based perspective. Well, once this thing is in place, then then I can do the thing that I really want to do because I don't have to worry about the money necessarily. And really the thing I'm recognizing is I don't worry about the money,

the money comes because what I make is better. I had a video actually, I released not too long ago how I run my whole life out of obsidian. I've been dragging my feet on that video for a year. and a half. A lot of it was fear-based. A lot of it was this feels like a really complicated, heavy thing to do. I don't want to get it wrong. I got to make something insanely valuable. After this whole like enlightening, I guess, you know, just make the stupid thing. I did it. And it's like three times more successful than any other video I've ever done. Yeah. What took me so long? Fear of failure kept you from shipping. And I think a lot of people listening to this can relate.

Like, you know, at some point, though, you got to just send it out into the world. Exactly. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. I'm a big fan of Squarespace,

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and to show your support for the Focus podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of Relay. Okay, so we've had our feels. We are both feeling a little margin challenged. What are we doing going in quarter three? Why don't you go first, Mike? Okay. So, Q3, I've got a couple things on this list that actually were set in motion before this, but after going through all the stuff that I talked about with the Q2 retro, I realized that, uh, I realized that, uh, these are 100% the right direction for me to go and they just have become really, really exciting to think about. Prior to this, it was sort of like, well, I better start kicking tires and exploring things just in case the whole obsidian Life HQ thing goes away. And I don't feel that anymore. But what I do feel is freedom to explore these things and make them, you know, the best version of them, not putting the pressure on them, but just like having fun with it, basically.

There's a huge difference between exploring something or pursuing something because you're interested in it versus exploring it because you feel like you have no choice. Big difference. Yes. Yes, exactly. So with that context, the first thing I am doing is I am making an actual app. All right. It is an AI coaching app. And I am part of this cohort through Jay Claus's lab community. They've got a partnership with a company called Studio.com. And Studio.com several years ago was sort of like masterclass light. It was highly produced, polished video courses.

So David Blaine teaches magic. Mark Rover teaches you how to think like an engineer. Their emphasis now, and this is on their website. So this is not, you know, anything super secret. But they are pivoting to these AI coaching apps where you've got the material from the courses, but the goal is to help people actually work through the material. Because all the statistics show that people just don't complete courses. And even if they do complete watching the courses, they don't do the thing.

So this is really interesting. And as I was thinking about the transformation that I want to provide for people, I want to help them create, I've got this framework. the creativity flywheel. I've got a course that I built on that with some great videos that I recorded in the kit studios in Boise, but I haven't really done anything with it. And so I signed up for this beta cohort and I was freaking out about it because prior to going to the growth intensive and crafted commerce, I was like, what am I going to teach people how to use obsidian in this AI coaching app? Like this doesn't make any sense. And then when I got clear in the transformation,

I was like, oh, let's try this. And it's coming together. and it's beautiful. I love it. I don't know, I don't know that I can share a whole lot of details about it, but it's basically like a headspace style plan that it gives you every single day. So you sign up for it. It's a subscription basis, but every day you show up and you follow, you know, the activities that they've put together for you. What I like about it is that it can actually integrate with a bunch of other services and things. So like one of the first things it does is it asks you, you know, what's on your mind today? This is a, assuming people aren't curating and I'm going to help them create, right? So I don't know, I saw this,

this TV show or I listened to this podcast and Mike or David said this crazy thing and I need to chew on that more. So you just like jot down a sentence and then the AI kicks in and it's like, okay, well, it's unpack that. And it's not just, you know, that day. It'll save that and it'll bring it back over and over again as you show up every day. It'll interject the videos from the course at the appropriate time based on where they're at in the process. And it's not something where you have to create this whole great big, like diagram, wireframe, following all the paths. Okay, this is the resource that they get. If that was the case, this would be, you know, years worth of work.

But I've been really impressed with how it's coming together. And I think it's going to help a bunch of people. Any questions on that before I get into the other stuff? I feel like I need to see it to understand it. I generally get it. But I, you know, and I think this is something that's available. to us now as people that are trying to teach stuff. And I'm glad you're heading down the coal mine before I am, because I don't really understand it. But I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

Yeah. So down the coal mine is a great way to describe it because prior to this, I was like, worried about it. Should I be wasting? Am I wasting time on this? If I'm going to invest the time, I got to make sure this becomes the thing. I don't feel that anymore. Down the coal mine with gusto. That's kind of that perspective. Good for you. buddy. Related to that is another. I'm just going to say that. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Related to that, I have another tool that I have been building called Creator Bot. I built this actually several months ago. I've been vibe coding up a storm. One of the things I, it's not that big a deal. So I didn't really mention it in the Q2 Retro, but I built a bunch of vibe coded tools that are now available on my website.

I built them over the last several months and I just never really talked about them. I was too scared that they weren't going to be any good. The one we did talk about was the ideal week planning tool. We did a whole episode on that. But I've got like a note-taking archetype quiz, a PKK diagnostic, a creativity flywheel diagnostic, and then even like a plug-in recommender for people who are brand new to obsidian, where it will give you the link to open the plugin in obsidian so you can just click the button to install.

Like all really cool things that are useful for people who are new to the tool. but I was too scared to ship them. So I shipped them. Creator bot is a thing that I built. Wait, wait, wait. I want to take it interrupt there for a second. Okay. I was too afraid to talk about it.

I was too afraid to ship it. You got a lot of fear going on there, Mike. I know that you are working on a meditation practice. Well, I'm not sure. Sometimes I hear it. You're working on a meditation practice. Are you still doing that? Yes.

It's not consistent. but it's still happening. I'll tell you something I do on the cushion. When I identify, because like you, I think fear is a limitter for me as well. When I catch myself thinking, oh, boy, I'm not sure I should do that. That's scary, but, you know, that kind of thing.

I actually note it down, and I will meditate on it. And what I like to do is I like to break it into components. I'm just going to just walk me through it. It's like, we're going full hippie here. like, okay, I'm afraid to talk about this course, or I'm afraid to make this course, or I'm afraid to do this thing at work, or confront this person in my life, or whatever. Okay, what is that, what are the components of that? Fear is kind of the conclusion, but like what is it that leads to that?

What is underlying that, well, you know, I think that, you know, I'm, I know that I need to support the family, or what, you kind of break it down to pieces. and really pick it apart, almost like unraveling a knot, like pull the individual threads apart and look at each one as you pull them out. You can do that in a meditation session. I know a lot of mindfulness is just about breathing and monitoring your breath, but once you can get the discipline to keep your brain focused on this for a moment, quite often, once you pull those threads apart, the fear just goes away.

You just realize, okay, this is kind of irrational and it's holding me up. Another thing I meant to say earlier when we were talking about fear, I had that experience when I was a young lawyer. You go through law school. I was a great student. I was good in debate. I'm good on my feet in front of a judge. I thought, okay, I got this. And then you get your first job and some human comes to you with a huge problem, maybe the biggest problem of their life.

And they're like, okay, buddy, solve this for me. And, you know, it is nuts to the next level. And you realize that if you screw it up, their lives are a mess, you know, their business fails or whatever kind of law you're practicing. There's real consequences for your client if you don't do it right. And I remember in the first year as a lawyer, I would just lay in bed at night and just spin on that failure. Like, oh, geez, if I don't do this right, if I don't win this motion, then this is going to happen. and that's going to happen and they're screwed. And it's just like you just spin out on it.

And it took me like the first year of practice to realize that what they really need is for me to be the most effective that I can be. And for me to sit here and worry about failure is actually going to, it may lead to failure, but it certainly isn't going to lead to me doing the best job possible is what they're asking me to do. Yeah. And you just got to let go of it. Trust yourself and jump. And I feel like that experience for me made what I do now a lot easier. And I don't know. I just, I want you to like really, as you're starting to become aware that this is a problem for you is build mechanisms to address it because it will

come back even as you master it and you need ways to deal with it. Yeah. One of the things that working with Darrell has been really helpful, he mentioned. that the imposter syndrome that shows up when you are making something, you're going to put something out into the world, that is part of the process. It's an indication that you care. I know that intellectually, right? That's the trigger is the imposter syndrome equals fear. And he's like, when you notice that that's happening, instead of reacting with anxiety,

express gratitude that it showed up, which it's a little bit radical to think about it that way, but the way that he described it was actually super helpful. So it's a combination, I think, of the mindfulness meditation. I do want that to become a more consistent practice. And I see the value of it even more after going through some of this stuff, like taking the time every day. So the highs aren't so high, the lows aren't so low. But even in the moment of things are happening and I'm not at home and I can't just take a break for five minutes and and meditate.

I think that's the thing that will help me, because that's where it starts for me, is those moments and then they start to spiral and I can't let stuff go. So if I can cut it off before it even has a chance to take root, that's going to make a huge positive of impact in my life. I know that already. And you don't have to be a meditator

and have a cushion to do the stuff I was just talking about. You can address this at any context, but I can tell you for me, because I've got 30 plus years of sitting on the cushion, it's a contextual goldmine for me. Like when I sit there, my brain slows down and it allows me to address problems. And sometimes I'll meditate and do nothing but sit there and just focus on the breath and just like clear my head. But sometimes I'll go there with an agenda.

Like, oh, the way you reacted to that person, the feelings you're having about fear of doing this thing, that's a thing you need to think through. And I look forward to sitting there and untangling the knot. And I literally, in my mind, I almost picture it as a knot as I work through it. And so, yeah, I think that would help. All right, duly noted. The other two things on this list here are also been dragging my feet on these because they've been anchored by fear.

Critterbot, I started to mention this. an AI tool that I built. I did a creator business accelerator as a beta group last winter. And it went well, but I noticed that there was a lot in that. And people just couldn't keep up with it unless they were really going to devote a whole bunch of time to it, which is, it's a lot. The whole premise of the creator of business accelerator is you're starting from scratch, you're identifying your niche, like the platform you're going to show up in, what you're going to talk about. You're going to turn that borrowed attention into owned attention by creating a lead magnet, building an email list. You're going to build trust by publishing a

newsletter regularly as you talk about the thing that you're passionate about. And then ultimately, you're going to create your first digital product, make your first dollar online. Because that is something, I want to recreate that feeling I had when I first sold something online for other people, not so that they can quit their day jobs and become full-time creators. If they want to, great, but I don't think you have to do that. Even if it's just a side-house, thing. I feel like there's a whole bunch of people who have day jobs who could really benefit from some creative outlet. Don't put pressure on it, but just get it out there and see if it doesn't cause you to come alive because I think there's a distinct possibility it can. So I created this AI

tool to help people implement the frameworks. At first, it was just taking all my transcripts. Here's all the stuff that I taught. What are the tools I can build to help people implement this stuff. What it ended up being is a complete creator, creator assistant where it's not only got the frameworks, let's say you're struggling on like, what am I going to, what am I going to write about today? So there's, you know, tools to help you identify ideas. There's tools. You got this idea. Help me identify like titles or subject lines. All the stuff that you would, you would think about when it comes to like AI tools for creating. The key though, David, is that as you go through the framework, it actually builds out in this tool, a profile for you based on the pieces that I want people to

figure out. So who is your ideal customer profile? What is your niche? What is your signature product? What are your content buckets? And every time you ask it, give me some ideas. It knows all that stuff. And it gives you much more valid results. You just had an intentional AI episode on context is king, right? So this is like the ultimate version of context without having to build everything yourself. It's a really incredible tool that, again, imposter syndrome, I'm not sure that I'm the person to do this. I don't really know what I'm doing with AI. I'm just figuring this out as we go.

But everybody have shown it to is like, this is amazing. This is so helpful. so we're actually going to make that available to everybody. It'll be at creatorbot.practylpkm.com. It should be live by the time this episode goes out. All right. So if it's not, feel free to send me a message and be like, hey, Mike Schmitz, do what you said and just ship it.

And then related to that, the other thing, because I really am fascinated about where do we use AI in the creator process. I don't think it's a binary switch. I don't think it's either like use it all the time. SEO blog post, push button go. There are a lot of those people on LinkedIn, specifically talking about AI right now. But then on the other end, there are people who like absolutely never let it do any sort of creative thinking for you.

And I don't necessarily ascribe to that either. I think there's ways to apply this. It's not a switch. It's a dial. So figuring out where it can actually add value in the creative point. process can make you a much better creator. When I was at Craft and Commerce this year, I got invited to the little mastermind before the conference. And James Clear was there giving a 90-minute Q&A. And I asked him, where do you see value in using AI in the creative process? And is there any part of the process

that you consider sacred, you would never let it touch? The TLDR, I have an article on this on my website. I'll put a link to that in the show notes that people want to dig into a little bit deeper. But for brevity here, basically he said, it makes the writing better. It does not make it faster. He wants every word that he publishes. He basically wants to be proud of every word that he publishes. He does use it some interesting ways, though. He's talking about how he'll ask it to write a paragraph in the style of Ernest Hemingway and the style of somebody else. And he'll take a line from this and a line from that and pull it together. I mean, it's James freaking clear. So you kind of get the quality bar that he's after. But it was also interesting.

here. He doesn't, he's not aversive to it. He's like, if I could just, you know, have it write the next book for me, I would do that. But it's not going to be as good. It's not going to meet my quality standard. It's not going to be as good as I can, I can do it. So I'm going to still do it. So I have another cohort that, again, I've been dragging my feet on this, even though I've been kicking around the idea for months. I'm calling it amplified because I want to help people use AI to amplify their human voice. That's the thing that gets lost when you ask AI to write something for you. There's no taste. There's nothing unique about it. It's just compressed down to the average. That's how they're built. They're averaging machines. Ice cream is great. You just

get the flavor of vanilla all the time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's going to kick off August 11th. I don't have any more details about that yet, but I will have something by the time we record next. So when I do, I'll pass that along. But that's what I'm working on this next quarter. I feel like you've got a lot on your plate again, Mike. I do, but to be honest, it's like all half done already because I've been thinking about it for a long time. The creator bot is basically ready to go now.

I'm sure I'm going to overthink the details of the launch for a while, but it's something I've been thinking about, but I've been too scared to pursue. It's almost like, well, there are other people who are talking about AI who they obviously know more than I do. I'm not sure what I can.

contribute to the conversation. And talking through it with Daryl of Corey is like, you've got a lot to contribute to the conversation if you're brave enough to share it. So here we go. I mean, I think that gets to the root of imposter syndrome. There's always somebody who knows more about the stuff you're talking about. And that's true. But there's nobody else that has your unique perspective. And it's worth sharing. And just, you know, remember that. And you know, when you meet the real high-end people in whatever space it is, they're always curious to hear what other people are saying. I mean, I don't know. I think that's something you got to meditate on. For me, this quarter, I am going to focus on getting off the roller coaster a bit. I definitely want more margin. I want

to talk about that in a minute. But I also have some stuff on the plate. This move to circle is, you know, it's largely done as we record this. You know, thousands of people have made the move. There's still some that I need to get over. But that is done. Now I just kind of want to dial that in and get it great for people and take advantage of some more features they've got over there and really give people a nice place to go on the internet. And so that's going to be a big priority for this quarter, but that's something that's a lot of the work is done now. I want more margin, more time for the shop and the trees, the bonsai trees and my family. So, you know, I think I'm in a good place to finally pull that off. One thing I am taking on this quarter is I have been talking on this show and to you and my

friends for years about how I need to do more free YouTube stuff. Like I have hundreds of videos on YouTube, but they're all for the Max Sparky Labs. Nobody sees them except Labs members. And I have hundreds, if not thousands of hours of recorded video teaching stuff over the years with all my field guides and labs videos and everything. And I want to open the vault of it and put some of that on public YouTube. But I also want to make new stuff. Like one thing I really enjoy is the weekly newsletter. My Saturday newsletter goes out.

Some weeks it's about tech. Sometimes weeks is about productivity. Sometimes it's hippie. But the process of writing that is very enjoyable to me. And I think a lot of the messages I put in that newsletter could be great YouTube videos. the hang up for me is just the time. I don't really want to do a YouTube edit. You know, YouTube edits are different than types of edits I do for my lab stuff.

They're a little more flashy. And it takes time and I just don't really want to do it. I have now officially hired someone to make me two YouTube videos a month. And I'm committed to it. This person is also going to help me repurpose some old content, going to help me get some shorts up. and I have written a check. So I think for me personally, that's a way to kind of get to move things like this.

It's like, okay, I'm now paying a guy to do this. So I need to do the work to record it and think through it. And of course, once you start thinking through it, you realize it's not that hard. It won't take that long. And if you're listening to this, it'll probably be August before you really see the results of this because we're spinning things up during July. but I'll put a link to the Max Sparky YouTube channel. If you haven't, please subscribe because I'm going to be putting more stuff out there.

The reasons I'm doing that is, number one, is I have something to say, and I want to put it out into the world. And the second is, that is my version of marketing. I feel like people who discover me through that stuff may find their way into the Max Sparky Labs or a field guide, and I'd like to, of course,

keep this thing going so I can keep doing it. So that is the one thing I'm adding in this quarter, but I feel like the ways I've done it, you know, in hiring somebody and putting kind of guardrails around how much of it I'll do by using some prior content for some of it. I think this, I can have a margin quarter and get this thing going at the same time. I think you can as well.

I'm very excited, first of all, that you're going to, I'll say finally. Yeah, you're the first person I've told that I've done this, yeah. Okay, yeah, I know you've been talking about it for a while. And I do think that there are a lot of people who could benefit from the type of content that you create, whether it's the technical Mac Sparky stuff or the philosophical productivity field guide stuff or the robot assistant AI stuff. I feel like video is a natural platform for you. I mean, all your products are video for the most part. So it just makes so much sense that that would be your main attention platform. YouTube's the biggest search engine in the world.

By the way, even though it's been around for such a long time, I heard somebody say recently that they still consider this to be early days for YouTube and there's never been a better time to get into it. And I think I agree with that. I made that video on OpenClaught just on a lark. And it got like 80,000 views. I haven't looked at it in a month. I don't know how many views it has, but it had a lot of views for someone who doesn't really do this

much, I thought. So I just need to kind of double down on that. And I feel like the cracking the code for me was not the fear of it. I'm not afraid. It's just the time problem. And I didn't want to give up more time. But now, you know, I have offset this by bringing somebody in to do kind of all the background stuff. And the guy I hired for it, he told me.

he says, I want to take ownership of YouTube for you. And when he said that word, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And I was very clear with him, I will be the master of the content. And I'm not going to optimize for YouTube. I'm going to say the things I want to say and do the things I want to do. But all of the other pieces of it of getting the edit right and getting the thing uploaded and I don't want to think about it. And so that's what I've done. So can I push back on that a little bit? You mentioned it wasn't a fear thing, but I think there's something telling in what you just just shared there, that there is an element of that. I think maybe you previously thought that in order to do YouTube

well, you were going to have to play the game because I've heard you talk about, I don't want to do the crazy thumbnails. I don't want to do the clickbaiting tiles. Yeah. And so it's great that you're at the point where you've resolved. It sounds like, I'm just going to do YouTube in the way that I want to do YouTube. But do you think that's accurate, that maybe that was something that kept you from really going into it before? No, I don't really. Honestly, I think for me, it was just the time to do it. You know, when I make videos for the labs, they're personal. It's like your buddy Sparky is showing you something cool. And I think when you put it out to the public, the edit needs to be different, you know? And you've even told me that offline. And I just... To a certain degree. Yeah. Let's unpack that

a little bit, but go ahead. But, and I don't really. feel like I have the skill to do that. So it's not really fear so much. It's just, and I don't really have the time to master that, you know. Yeah. And like, I watch a good video on somebody in YouTube that I like, and they have the cut-ins and the stuff. There's things you do for a public YouTube video. And, like, I don't, I don't really have the bandwidth to figure all that out. Sure. Okay. So you've got a picture in your head of a Polish YouTube video, which I agree, like, that's basically what I do. And that is, there's a lot of work to that. That's not the only type of successful video though and especially YouTube video. I joined recently a yapping challenge. Do you know what yapping is? Only because you

told me a few days ago. Yeah. It's basically where you just turn on your camera, portrait style video, and you talk. And that is terrifying to me. I've tried to do it once when I was at sponsor games actually. I was like, I'm going to do one of those captain's log sort of a thing and document the journey as I'm working through this. I recorded the first one and I deleted the video and I was like, this isn't me. But there are so many people who are making they're making such a big impact and that's all

they do is they take out their phone, they record and they talk. So I feel like especially in the age of AI what people want is a connection with a human. And so the quality of the video, the production bar, like it doesn't have to be super polished. It just has to be authentic. People resonate with that. So it's forcing me to think a little bit differently

about some of the video stuff that I do. And you'll probably see some of that show up in my YouTube channel as well. But I think it's easy to get stuck on this is what this has to look like instead of, you know, what's the, what's the easiest version of getting this thing done. Those can be the same, but they can also be very different.

You can arrive in different places if you approach it from those different angles, I think. When you look at my lifetime, Mike, I mean, I was in theater and performing arts all through school and college. I was a jungle cruise skipper. I was a trial lawyer. Thousands of hours of podcasting. I am built for yapping, buddy. is not a problem. You want me to get in front of a camera and talk about something, sign me up.

I guess I should explore that because to me, that is the easiest thing in the world. I do this thing in the Max Sparky Labs every quarter where I just collect all the questions that are sent to me and I just sit there and answer them with almost no B-roll or anything. Okay, so that should be your YouTube channel. You should have been doing this for years, right? Collecting these questions. These come from my community. You want to join my, join the labs. Here's the link. So-and-so says. I should, because it's so easy. And it always gets such positive feedback from people.

I like doing that kind of stuff. I always look forward to making that video every quarter. Right. Yeah. Well, either way. So getting back, so that's the one thing I'm taking on in this, in this what is going to need to be a margin quarter. I want to talk about that, like I keep saying.

Personally, I want to continue, I call it Project Longgame. That's my health initiative. I've never said that publicly. But yeah, I give things my things in my life secret project names. It makes me feel better. So project long game has been going on for a year and a half. And like the swimming, the Pilates, the weights, all that. I'm going to continue that.

And I'm really working now, you know, on some things with my body to get more healthy. Not to a weird Silicon Valley level, but just like, no, I want to be healthy. Daisy and I, our goal is to get old together, and we both have to be healthy to do that. I want to help my kids with their adulting projects, which is still active, and I want to make some cool stuff in the shop. I've got a couple things. I'm thinking about building a dog condominium in my house. There's a space under the stairs, you know, kind of Harry Potter style, space under the stairs. And I think, what if I built out, like, the coolest, like, room for her in there, you know? And then I made the mistake telling my kids about it.

Now they want to wallpaper it and put, hang pictures in there. And I'm going to make it out of walnut. I think she's going to have a very high class dog condominium. But I've also got some other projects around the house I want to work on. Just continue the maker experience. I get so much joy out of making things and being handy and like seeing a problem and solving it. The other day, I had to put another hole in my. belt because, you know, things are going good. And so I did that, took my leather punch, did

it. Well, I had the leather punches out. I carved into the back of a materium superabod opus. So now every time I put my belt on, I have a little motivation. So, yeah, stuff like that makes me happy. I want to do more of that this quarter. Awesome. Is there a sabbatical on the, on the books? I was hoping to do one heading into quarter three, but this circle thing just kind of, you know, once again, I'm holding the tiger by the tail. I don't want to say I'm going to do it right now because I have broken that promise so many times. I don't think I should make it. Yeah, that's fair. But I, as things ease up, it's definitely in my mind of getting some time away. And, you know, the weather's good enough

now to go up into the mountains. I don't need chains or anything. So this would be a good time to do it. I've got one. I've got one. It's happening. Oh, do you? Good. Yep. First week of August, the forcing function for this is I'm taking my second oldest to a young writer's workshop in North Carolina. Yeah. So that's going to be the forced break. So you just drop him off. I can't record podcasts or do video stuff when I'm there.

Yeah, I'm staying there with him. Oh, okay. So we'll be at the hotel, the mountains. Yeah. And just going to be there. There may be. Hey, I want to talk about this thing I've been experienced with three blowout quarters in a row. And, you know, it's very easy for me to say, oh, yeah, that just happened.

And I'm not going to do that anymore, and things will get better. But I have now three quarters in a row kind of said that and failed to do it. And, you know, you want to reflect on these trends. I think one of the real advantages of doing quarterly review and write it down is it gives you the ability. I always go back and read the last several quarters. And you see common themes coming out. And for me, it's always been, oh, next quarter will be the easy one.

I've been saying that for three quarters in a row, and it's not been true. And I thought, well, am I kidding myself? Am I now on a never-ending roller coaster? Have I, you know, when you get in a business like Max Barkie, you really can get on the, you know, the Sisyphysian climb and not realize it. So I had to really stop and think about it. And my conclusion to get to the injuries, I don't think so. I don't think I'm on an ever-ending roller coaster, but it is a question that I should ask myself. And I went through and kind of broke it down in pieces.

You want me to talk about some of that? Yeah, I do. I do have a larger question that I would love to pose up at the front of this discussion, though, and that is, what if it continues to be a roller coaster? Are you okay with that? No, I'm not. And I'm going to have to make changes, if that is. But this is firmly on the radar now.

Let me rephrase that. What if that's just like part of the process? What if, you know, you get to do what you love as Max Sparky, but the downside is that you got to ride the roller coaster? I don't think that's acceptable. I mean. All right. That's the context I was looking for. Okay.

Yeah. No, that's not acceptable. And so, so anyway, looking at things, one of the things I was looking at, like, what led to the last three quarters to be nuts? And, like, there were some things that just showed up. And there's a lot of people listening to this. like a loved one gets really sick or has a crisis or you get laid off. There's things that happen in your life that cause a roller coaster quarter. And you don't have any control over that.

And when that happens, you just strap in and you get through it. And I get it. And the only thing that really happened to me like that was Stephen Hackett leaving Mac Power Users, finding a new co-host, you know, getting a relationship with that person, bringing them on, onboarding them onto, you know, my most important. Okay, I don't mean most important. My biggest show, Mike. You're also...

I get it. I get it. But, you know, making that transition good was a big deal. You know, it required me to fly to Florida and do a whole bunch of stuff. So that I didn't really have control of it. But everything else, I voluntarily entered into. Like, I, you know, I intentionally decided to do productivity field guide in the new year like I do most years. But I also decided to jump on the robot stuff.

I also decided to engage in this massive move of my audience. from one platform to another. All that stuff are things I signed up for voluntarily. So I think it's important to remember as you're going through a lot. It's like, did you take agency and ownership of some of these things? And just remember that you chose to do it. And I don't mean that like you should be mad at yourself. It's like, okay, hey, it's busy, but it's busy because I chose to be busy.

Yep. 100%. One of the things that I've been kicking around in the back of my head is I tend to be future focus. Well, once I get to this point, then things are going to be easier. Once I do this, then I can take a break, yada, yada, yada. And I've been thinking through, like, and why, that's why I also use the question at the beginning, what if this is what it is? Would you continue to do it still? For me personally, I think I would. But I realize that I create a lot of my own suffering because I'm looking for a reprieve. Not that it has to be crazy, not that I am not in favor

of margin. I mentioned I am taking the sabbatical or the week, week long sabbatical. I know it's not a true sabbatical. But yeah, instead of saying, well, that's, everything is going to suck until then and then things are going to be better. What if I just enjoyed the journey, even if it is a little bit crazy at the moment? I think you're making some excellent points. And I definitely do enjoy the journey. I mean, I'm having a great time with what I'm doing. Like to my point earlier, I used to have a real job. And this is not a real job, you know, for me, comparatively. But what I mean is that this is not acceptable going forward is I need the margin. I need time to go out and goof off in the shop.

I need time to think about things. And that hasn't really been the case the last three quarters. So if this continues, I'm going to have to back away from some things, not necessarily give it all up, but we have to make changes in order to get that margin in. But I don't really think that's a problem for me. like I said, I voluntarily engaged in some things. I don't intend to move platforms again. I don't intend to jump into something like that robot field guide again in the immediate future.

And so I think that I'm well in the way. Some other questions I was asking myself is like looking back, if you find yourself feeling like you're always too busy, I say, well, is this a one-time thing or is this a recurring thing? And so do you have a systematic thing that, where you feel like you're, you never have margin. If I was sitting here telling you,

man, I feel like I'm on the roller coaster, but I hadn't added a platform change and a new big field guide with, you know, something like I think it ended up like 35 different workshops and all that. If you hadn't done all of that and you still feel like you have no margin, that's,

I think, a bigger problem because it's a systemic problem. Yeah. You know, um, another question I asked myself, are the forcing functions expiring? Like,

Yeah, it kind of is. I've made the move. I've got the robot thing out now. There's not something else that's going to force me to do things like that again in quarter three, as far as I can tell. You know, another thing I like to do is audit my fixed and recurring load, like how much extra am I doing just as the cost of doing business. I didn't mention earlier, but I chose to start doing a new podcast. So I have a third podcast now, intentional AI. Do it. It's on. relay with Chris Bailey. We'll put a link in the notes. And Chris is a dear friend. And him and I are both thinking a lot about AI and we talk about it all the time. We make a podcast about it now. But it really isn't that much of an investment because I'm doing the work anyway. And so, but that's a new recurring commitment I have. So I'm cognizant of that. Like, I don't want to take on many more recurring commitments, but that was one that was worth it. You know, am I leveraging tech and help? And yes, Like, that's one of the things I'm doing is I brought a person in to help with this YouTube stuff. And I am, you know, this whole AI thing, I'm a believer because it's doing the donkey work for me.

Like, you know, as we are sitting here recording this podcast, it is provisioning members with their purchases on that new platform without me doing anything. So I'm leveraging thing. And then the last piece I thought is watch for the canaries, you know. to me, my health initiative is super important. Like I said, I want to get old with my wife and enjoy life. So if I get so busy that I'm not going to the pool and I'm not going to Pilates, if I'm suddenly eating Doritos again, that is a huge alarm bell. And I'm aware of that.

And the fact is that didn't happen. Same thing. We just went through spring and I am a bonsai enthusiast. I have a bunch of trees. I have bonsai stock that I take care of. I even have it. I added a farm, like I got a bunch of little tiny junipers, and I planted them in the yard and open ground because I want them to get big fast.

And my goal is in 10 years to turn them into bonsai. It's a 10-year plan for these trees. So all that happened this last quarter, even though things were nuts. And I really enjoy it. And that's another canary. And I was saying, okay, that's still happening. So obviously, I'm not too busy. The only one that failed was a shop time.

I didn't get enough time out there. But I didn't do nothing out there. I did work out there. I did some small projects, but I'm going to do some bigger ones, and that didn't happen in the last quarter. So I feel like those are all good questions to ask yourself. If you're feeling overwhelmed, like, what is the balance with recurring? Are you voluntarily taking things on or is it being thrust upon you? Like, get your arms around the problem.

Because I feel like just saying I'm too busy isn't enough. Just like I told you earlier, you've got to unpack fear. You've got to also unpack. being too busy and get to the bottom of it. And then you can really make an effort to make adjustments. I love it. One thing I'll add to this, which I think maybe can be helpful for people locating themselves.

Ones out the growth intensive. Daryl does this thing before he begins any of his sessions. Put both feet on the ground. Inhale, count to five, hold it for three, out exhale for seven. And then they ask people, how are you showing up? Is it red, yellow, or green? Yeah.

And it was really interesting to see how people responded. In the room at the time of the growth intensive, I think I said I was a yellow. You can tell the people who are green, they show up different. They're happy to be there. They get more out of the things that they're doing. The people who are red, you can also really easily locate them because they're frazzled and they're just looking for a release valve. But I feel like the people who are yellow like I was in that room,

that's where maybe the most danger is. And probably a lot of people who listen to a podcast called Focused can relate to this. Because when you're yellow, you can almost convince yourself that you're green. Oh, it's really not that big a deal. But if you don't recognize the systemic issues that are at work there, then you're going to end up red real quick.

and the perspective is the important thing. So if you're not getting enough time in the shop, the green version of that, I think, is what you just described, David. It's like, well, it is what it is. I did a lot of other good things, so I'm not going to worry about it. If you feel guilt about not being able to show up in the shop like you wanted to, that's a warning sign.

Yeah. And I don't feel what. But I do think, for me, quarter three is a critical quarter. where, you know, it's going to answer the question, do I have a systemic problem? Because, you know, I don't want to have a fourth straight crazy quarter, you know. Yeah. But I feel like I'm in a good place, honestly. And honestly, even though things have been busy, like this transition has been kind of nuts

because it's a lot of customer support stuff. It's not the creation of content as much as it is getting people over, getting things set up, which is frankly not my favorite thing to do. I would rather be making stuff. But even then it's kind of fun, you know. I keep saying it, but when you have, you know, there are people listening to show that understand it. When you got a job that really is stressful,

the kinds of stuff you and I address is kind of a, it's kind of embarrassing to say any of this is a problem. Well, it is. But also, like, if you're feeling the stress from that, I don't think it's necessarily healthy to be like, oh well there are other people who have bigger problems in the world. Yeah. Like that is true and that's good perspective to have.

But like your problems are your problems. The stress that you have is your stress. And so deal with it individually. Don't judge it based on like what other people are. But I would say personally for me, I'm not feeling stress. I'm more feeling just a time crunch, you know. Yeah.

And I don't want to say busy because I don't like that word so much. But I'm just, right now, I'm processing a lot. But it's stuff I voluntarily took on and I can see the end of that. And frankly, when this is all done, actually managing the membership and the field guys is going to be a lot easier because it's all in one place. So there's benefits for me too. Yeah. You've had the power to say yes.

You also have the power to say no. Yeah. So that was a very, very special episode, as they used to say in the 70s when they had a very special episode of a sitcom or things. serious, but we got a little hippie today. Mike, let's just skip to some shiny objects and books just to finish it up today. All right. So my shiny new object is an analog object, probably appropriate for this accidentally hippie episode. Yeah. We both love ourselves some uggmunk. Yeah. Right? So there is an uggmunk or an analog travel case, which I just got. This thing is

great. So it's made out of the walnut, like the other analog tools. It holds a bunch of cards in the middle. It's got a thing at the top that kind of snaps closed. It's all the quality that you would expect from, from Ugmunk. And one of the things that I've been struggling with a little bit is I have these analogs at like all the different desks that I have. But every once in a while, I want to go work at the library or a co-working space where I don't have a desk set up. I'll be traveling. I want, to have that note card with me. This has a little slot for the note cards. You can put a bunch of note cards in there

and I can throw this in my backpack real easily and bring it with me. So I am very excited about this thing. I think it's going to become part of my everyday carry. I've had that in my cart so many times and I've never bought it. But I'm so tempted. And now, you know, for the YouTube folks,

Mike was just holding it up on camera and I, oh man, Mike, you're such an enabler. No, you're welcome. My shiny new object is a negative one. Last time we talked about shiny objects, I said I bought an aura ring. I wanted to try it for health tracking. I wear an Apple watch probably 75% of the time. Today I'm wearing an analog watch, but most days I'm wearing an Apple watch.

I usually wear the Apple Watch to bed. But there was a part of me that wanted the complete picture, you know, part of the whole project long game stuff. The aura ring showed up. It's a beautiful piece of tech. The new one is super light. It feels just like a ring. You could wear it as a wedding band.

The tracking was good. There was nothing to complain about this, except I really like my wedding ring, and I didn't want to replace it with a piece of tech, and I didn't want to wear another ring. And I realized I don't really need to have 24-7 coverage of my heart rate and everything. It's fine.

I wear the Apple Watch enough. And also it was another subscription. It's an expensive piece of tech. It's $500. And I'm like, you know, I don't think I'm going to get enough bang for my buck out of this thing sent it back so my pick from the last one has been shipped back an anti-shiny new object yeah there you go all right we want to talk about what we're reading yeah i i uh this is going to

be a boring segment for a while i'm still working through morality of happiness it's a long book and i'm just kind of realizing like how when i really digest a book how slow i am at it and like with this book in particular, it leads me down rabbit holes, which lead me to other books to to read. And sometimes a lot of times going to source material, I go to it and come back. I think this will be like a long project to read this book. I may pick up some other books and read them in the meantime, but morality of happiness is still firmly on my desk. So I don't really have a lot to report there. That's all right. I hope you don't mind me continuing to bring new books to this. Yeah, please do. I will find other books and read them in the middle of this one. But,

But I really, it's like, you know, it's like a great meal. I just want to just suck the marrow out of this thing. And it's going to take some time. I've been writing essays about it as I go through. Like, you know, so I am getting like, again, along the theme, full hippie on this book. I mean, they'll take some time, but I think that's a great approach. All right. So my book, I put this in the notes ahead of time and you asked me a question before we recorded.

You said, what the heck is Bander Snatch? I was like, well, let's just save it. So I've got this book here too. This is Bander Snatch. It is by Diana Pavlack Glyer. And the subtitle is C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien, and the creative collaboration of the inklings. So I haven't started this yet, but I am going to bring it with me when I go down to Chicago for Macstock. And my understanding is that it's sort of like the creative process that C.S. Lewis and J.R.

Tolkien had, which I mean, some of those classic books, always fascinated in like how people think and how people create, how people write. So I'm looking forward to this one. Yeah, I believe, I've heard the like lore of them, like meeting, was it in Oxford or wherever they were teaching that they would meet in a pub somewhere? Yeah, that's the inklings. I don't know the whole story behind that, but they had this creative writing group that they got together and they criticized each other's work and all that kind of stuff. You have to let me know. That, that, that, that, one may get, that one may get added to my rotation as well. Sounds, sounds fascinating. All right. I will report back. Well, we are the Focus Podcast. Thank you everybody for listening and

coming along with us. I hope today you were inspired to approach your quarterly review the way Mike and I did. Think about what happened. Think about any warning signs or success signs, build it into your next quarter and go ahead and have a successful quarter. We, you can find us at Relay.fm slash focus. If you'd like to get the extended version, ad-free version to the show, that's deep focus. You can get there at relay.fm slash focus. Thank you to our sponsor today, Squarespace. On DeepFocus Day, Mike and I are going to be talking about World Cup.

So I'm looking forward to that. And see you next time.