We're trying to learn more about videography, podcasting, and learning. We'll try to share the good stuff.
Still a solo episode. Sharing some book notes from the last few books that I read. "The Nineties" by Chuck Losterman "Fat, Crazy, and Tired" by Van Lathan "Plays Well With Others" by Eric Barker "Building a Second Brain" by Tiago Forte
Books mentioned: "Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel "Jony Ive" by Leander Kahney "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari
Talking about "NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans "The Nineties" by Chuck Klosterman "The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature" by Robert Greene Super Bowl nWo-esque Paul Mitchell ad 1995 Super Bowl halftime with Indiana Jones
Books mentioned: "Now You See It and Other Essays on Design" by Michael Bierut "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" by Oliver Burkeman "How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone" by Brian McCullough "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler
Book notes for Breathe by Rickson Gracie The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul Winning by Tim S. Grover The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan Dune by Frank Herbert
These are six mental models to apply for better productivity.
Back with some lessons from NYC Food Spots. Based on these three posts from the blog that I wrote in August. Creator lessons from NYC food: Very Fresh Noodles Creator lessons from NYC food: Katz's Creator lessons from NYC food: Xi'an Famous Foods
Breaking down the principles of generalism from Pat Flynn's "How to be Better at Almost Everything"
These are some book notes about leisure
Just finished reading "Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder"
3 mental tools: - Loops: Open for curiosity, Close for focus - Friction: Add for bad habits, Remove for good habits - Level Changes: Up/Down for learning and teaching, Left/Right for creativity
Talking about: "Year Book" by Seth Rogen "A Very Punchable Face" by Colin Jost
Book notes for "Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life" by Luke Burgis
Trying something new: book stacks. Quotes from 3-5 books centered around a single topic. For this one: creativity. I also talk about the 3x3 practice I've been doing Books in this episode Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley & David Kelley Principles by Ray Dalio Other links 3x3: https://twitter.com/activerecall/status/1397693640382640129/photo/1
Talking about a few books I read in May Effortless by Greg Mckeown The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention by Nicolas Cole Soundtracks by Jon Acuff The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa 21 Lessons: What I've Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole by Gigi How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
Book notes for "Soundtracks" by Jon Acuff
A quick Mortal Kombat review and some lessons for creating things online.
Talking about some new additions to the desk setup as I try to make more videos about drawing and stuff. Related it to some book notes from "Atomic Habits" by James Clear "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon "Work Clean" by Dan Charnas And at the end I mentioned Captain Sinbad's channel
Going through some recently finished and in-progress books. Just writing out a list of different books I’ve been reading with some thoughts. Recently finished Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich — I got more interested in crypto/blockchain through NBA Top Shot and the NFT boom. I had some Bitcoin already, but NFT popularity made me realize how little I know about how it all works. This ended up only having high level explanations of Bitcoin. But the whole story of the Winklevoss twins’ second act was fascinating. Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson — Great read the week leading up to getting married. There’s plenty about getting wealthy, but the happiness chapters were more timely. The audiobook was my companion on a couple long walks in the city. If you want to mainline some of Naval’s thinking, then this is the way to go. In-progress Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa — Still working on this. I started it in December and just crossed the halfway mark. About 450 pages to go. Somewhat slow going but getting very interesting now. Good reminder to lean into things I might not enjoy but that I’ll learn a lot from. The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo — Continuing to learn mode about crypto/blockchain technology. This book is about the history of Ethereum, which is the main coin involved in the recent NFT a boom. The only history I know of Ethereum is that I wish I had bought some earlier. Just started this but one takeaway is that Vitalik Buterin started by writing for Bitcoin Magazine before building Ethereum. Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr — Mostly here to learn about Amazon’s use of narrative writing instead of PowerPoints. (After seeing @TrungTPhan mention it in this thread.) The Energy Paradox by Steven R. Gundry — I want to get my energy back. Basically: I can rarely stay awake through a full movie after a workday. And when I’m up I just don’t have any, as the book puts it, get-up-and-go (GUAG). I’ve felt better in the past and would love to get back to that. Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the VCR by James Lardner — Combining some learnings from last year’s books (1) I enjoy reading older books about some recent technology (like Michael Lewis’s Next) because it’s fun to re-live that time without it being filtered through a modern lens and (2) I enjoy reading about Hollywood/filmmaking (one of my favorites from last year was Robert Rodiguez’s Rebel Without a Crew). Next up (maybe… there’s a ton I want to read) Daemon by Daniel Suarez — Continuing the pattern of learning about crypto, I saw this book recommended somewhere. I really should’ve written down where I saw the recommendation because I’ve completely forgot now. Anyway, this is pretty much combining three thoughts: (1) I want to learn more about crypto/blockchain technology and (2) Musashi reminds me that I should read more fiction and (3) I admire Tiago Forte’s thinking and he wrote about the value of reading science fiction. Tiago: “I started reading sci-fi to pass the time. I had good memories of reading Jurassic Park as a kid. I continued because I noticed that it gave me something: a stronger imagination, a disrespect for the merely possible.” Two Meals a Day by Mark Sisson — Trying to get my health back in order (I wrote a long post here). I have more information than I need for my goals but reading books does help keep motivation up. And I can try to share good bits and pieces to better frame my own learning and writing. Soundtracks by Jon Acuff — I enjoyed all his previous books. I’m guessing I’ll like this one as well. I tend to overthink so this seemed like something that might help me either (1) stop overthinking or (2) start overthinking in a more useful way.
Talking through some ideas for future threads aka pulling loose connections between MMA and making things online.
Just watched the dunk contest and some lessons for content creators came to mind.
Book notes about "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis
Okay we hit RECORD again finally. Kicking off 2021. We talk about some of our goals Fitness goals Creation goals Personal goal We'll be making videos in 2021 and sharing our progress as we go.
Just turning the mic on and recording to start to kick the rust off this whole podcasting set up. Let's goooo — talking about moving to SF, the MacBook Air M1, and the Oculus Quest.
We've played a good amount of Magic: The Gathering in our lives so we talked about some life lessons from playing it. Books mentioned: High Output Management by Andy Grove A Fighter's Heart by Sam Sheridan The Power of Moments by the Heath Bros. Podcasts mentioned Tim Ferriss & Derek Sivers (2015)
[02:09] "We Don't Need Roads" note [06:51] "Apprenticeship Patterns" note [10:46] "Every Tool's a Hammer" note
Books we talked about (some Active Recall CLASSICZ) "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday "Stillness is the Key" by Ryan Holiday "Grit" by Angela Duckworth
This week I'm talking about "Hackers and Painters" by Paul Graham. "Do Things that Don't Scale" - Paul Graham's essay. "When you only have a small number of users, you can sometimes get away with doing by hand things that you plan to automate later." "Revenge of the Nerds" - Paul Graham essay. That Tim Ferriss & Derek Sivers thing about The Magic of Thinking Big:"And, it’s also one of those books, sorry, but I’m getting defensive. But, it’s one of those books that I read in around 2000, maybe a year or two after college, and I was in a shitty 100-plus hour a week job, where I was sleeping at my desk, and sitting the the fire exit, because that’s the only place they can fit me. But, yeah, it has to catch you at the right time."
Corrections: Messed up Ethan Suplee's name (I said 'Sharplee'). Sorry about that. Check out his episode with Kevin Smith. This week I'm talking about BJ Fogg's "Tiny Habits". If you've ever heard the advice of "if you want to build a habit of flossing your teeth, make the habit flossing one tooth", then you've been influenced by some of BJ Fogg's work. I go over some of the concepts covered in the book and take a look at my habit of checking my phone first thing in the morning (instead of my aspirational goal of working out first thing in the morning). Some topics Aim to do what you already want to do: Read things you enjoy if you're trying to build a reading habit. If you want to read more difficult, dense things, it'll be hard if you aren't already reading regularly in the first place. Practice doing the habit: I mentioned a post by Steve Pavlina about practicing waking up. "Tiny Habits" encourages practicing the habit itself a few times in a row. This way, if it's a daily habit, you aren't limited to one rep every day. Practice the entire habit (including the celebration) then do it again. Speaking of celebrating, most people aren't good at it: Sometimes we're driven by incentives to stick to a diet. One common example is the cheat meal. You stick to your diet day in and day out and then have the cheat meal (or day) on the weekend. This can be effective but it's more of an incentive rather than a celebration. You can add tiny celebrations immediately after your tiny habit. Fist pump after flossing one tooth. It sounds silly but it'll pour a little bit of concrete on the habit.
[ 0:49 ] An internet recommendation rabbit hole ending with Michael Jackson and Prince and starting from JJ Redick and Bill Simmons (Learn about the Staples Center replica court that a very rich person has in Bel Air) [ 6:47 ] How do you deal with overplanning? [ 9:04 ] How many episodes will it take to hit your stride? ("Traffic Secrets" by Russel Brunson) [ 11:34 ] How do you figure out what your ideal environment is? ("Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhuo) [ 15:04 ] What's the magic of 120 hours and hard days? ("How to be a Straight A Student" by Cal Newport)
This week, I'm talking about Ben Bergeron's book "Chasing Excellence" === If you have Netflix and also don't like reading: check out The Redeemed and the Dominant. I watched this midway through and you get some of the behind the scenes. How do you write an entertaining nonfiction book? I definitely wanted to keep reading. The narrative is following two of his athletes as they compete in the 2016 CrossFit games. (They both also win.) Each chapter focuses on a characteristic (Commitment, Grit, Positivity…) that's needed to win the games. Then the chapter usually jumps from the present day event back to the months of training in a session where they focused on that movement. Would you start with someone with above-average talent or someone who’s mentally tough? — The book focus on the mental side of competing at that level. Everyone that makes it to the games is physically world class. Nobody there is perfect. "Given the choice between coaching an athlete with above-average talent or one who is mentally tough, it might surprise you to hear I’d pick the former. Not because I believe talent is more important, but because I know I can teach someone to be mentally tough." As much as I like the idea that you can practice and work hard to become great at something, there are limits in different disciplines.I always like the simplicity of the NBA comparison. If you want to make it to the NBA, it's better to start with a 6'5" who is mentally weak than someone who is 5' and 10x tougher mentally.It reminded me of this piece from The Fighter's Mind “Mental toughness is learned. It’s not a skill that everyone has, or is born with. There are people that are born tougher than others mentally, or figure things out earlier in their life. But if you have motivation you can acquire mental toughness, it’s just about what your body gets used to putting up with." Why is it a good thing to get some experience at the top level? Because you might realize you're already there. The book mentions Mat Fraser not qualifying for the Games earlier in his career: "At the North East Regional that year, Mat, a former Junior National Weightlifting Champion, did well in events involving moving a barbell, but had obvious holes in his game. He finished fifth overall, two spots out of contention for the Games. Instead of being demoralized, he was heartened—it was his first time interacting with Games-caliber athletes up close, and he walked away thinking, If I work hard and practice, I could beat them." This reminded me of Mark Hunt's book Born to Fight (which I need to do a Notepod episode on), where he talks about his fight with someone at the top level: "The bell rang and as I walked back to the corner it occurred to me this prick didn’t even hit that hard – I’d been hit harder than this my whole life. I even managed to drop the dude in the second round with a running leg kick, but as the last seconds of the third and final round ticked away I knew I’d lost on points. In those moments one thought spun around my head over and over again. That was it? The guy couldn’t throw fireballs from his hands or Dragon-Punch twelve feet into the sky or do anything I couldn’t do. If that’s all those guys had, I could get my hands on them. If I could get my hands on them, I could certainly put them to sleep. They weren’t the characters from Dragon Ball Z, and Jérôme wasn’t Super Saiyan" Have I personally experienced this? Look, no. Not athletically.But there are definitely those moments in life where you realize someone is human. Or that some group of people is made up of… humans.
Here’s the second episode of The Notepod. This is another book notes episode. Each episode might be about a book. I’m still figuring it out but wanted to get started with consistency. Which sort of relates to the book this episode is about, “Rebel Without a Crew” by Robert Rodriguez.
We're back (and probably need to stop starting every episode with "we're back for real this time!") talking about Work Clean, one of our favorite books from last year and maybe a top-10 all timer. Some concepts we talk about from the book Daily plan Clean as you go First actions
Sections Start, stop, continue (with the podcast) 3 book quotes from some of my favorite books in 2019 Ranking the books I read in 2019 and a sort of top 10 Active Recall 2019 Reading List The 10 books I mentioned from 2019 Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind Liar’s Poker Creative Calling Recursion Stillness is the Key The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning
We're talking about "Atomic Habits" by James Clear Previous episode: 63: "Atomic Habits" https://activerecall.co/atomic-habits/
We talk about "Finish" by Jon Acuff https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Give-Yourself-Gift-Done/dp/1591847621 Great book with tips about finishing work I'm good at starting, bad at finishing. I don't usually have writer's block, but I certainly have finisher's block. By that, I mean that I'm able to outline and outline and outline a bunch of ideas. And even get to drafts of things. But then actually finishing the thing and releasing it becomes a challenge. We discuss hiding places and noble obstacles. Wally talks about how he can get caught up editing a certain point of a video. But we also discuss that video editing work for a client deserves perfectionism more than something like a blog post does. Picking between good and bad is easy, between good and good is hard. This is where it's a noble obstacle. If I want to finish editing and scheduling this podcast, I need to edit and finish these notes. That'd be good. But I'm tempted to just leave and head to the gym, because that's also good. And it also gets me away from the resistance I feel toward finishing these notes. One tip to finish: set a timer. We don't talk about this tip specifically, but it's what I'm using to cut the goal down to something that can be finished. I create a memory palace room to remember some of the tips: Mr. Perfect cutting food in a kitchen with an invisible cloak on
Our arms still hurt from patting ourselves on the back for returning to the podcast. The book of the week is Jon Acuff's "Quitter" https://www.amazon.com/Quitter-Closing-Between-Your-Dream/dp/0982986270 It's about passion. We talk about both sides of the 'follow your passion' argument. We are both in a place doing work that we're passionate about. It doesn't mean there aren't parts that don't feel like work. There are also things we're passionate about that we weren't able to turn into careers. Here's the best book against the idea of following your passion: Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 We batched a couple episodes. We were going to try to get to 4 episodes. (One for each of Jon Acuff's books: Quitter, Finish, Start, Do Over. We didn't finish all 4 episodes, but we did finish two. So an episode is scheduled next week for Jon Acuff's "Finish". Okay I set a timer to write these notes and the timer is up. I think this is better than not having notes at all. But I'll set a longer timer next time.
This week I'm sharing some podcast episode recommendations. 00:58 — Petting zoo x Jason Fried (Knowledge Project) 06:26 — Fitness center x Mark Manson (Model Health Show) 15:02 — Moleskine wallpapered room x Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz (The Moment) 21:51 — White room with all your unfinished projects x Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Start With This) 28:19 — Driving range with pie x Scott Page (Knowledge Project)
Book(s) of the Week The Slight Edge https://www.amazon.com/Slight-Edge-Turning-Disciplines-Happiness/dp/1626340463 The Compound Effecthttps://www.amazon.com/Compound-Effect-Darren-Hardy/dp/159315724X
Book of the week: "Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth" by Ian Nathan ( 03:51 ) Room 1: Kitchen with an orc ( 10:41 ) Room 2: Virtua Fighter 2 Pool Fight ( 21:00 ) Room 3: Matrix and Peter Jackson
Connecting Rounders quotes to the 5Ms Morning Pages Meditation Move slow Move fast Movies And a bonus 6th M!
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World Memory palace room Room 1: Kitchen with a Las Vegas buffet set up Room 2: Living room filled with smoke, cigarettes, and your friends Room 3: Swimming pool filled with bells, chimes, and broken glass
Ces takes a walk and talks about the book “Making Ideas Happen“ Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky
Talking about This is Marketing by Seth Godin Wally's favorite logos How do brands go beyond a logo? Lightning round with Ces talking about Active Recall's brand FEAR and self-help Branding for James Harden, Tom Brady, and great white sharks Links Great white shark: https://www.instagram.com/oceanramsey/p/Bsq-MfTFYpG/ Seth Godin's blog You on Netflix Imaginary Worlds: Gathering the Magic
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
