Modern WisdomDiscover Your Core Values & Operating Principles | Taylor Pearson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 199
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 29,482 words- 0:00 – 15:00
You sort of have…
- TPTaylor Pearson
You sort of have like implicit things, right? If you work for a company and if Amy, you know, Amy's my manager, Amy was looking at this, I know she would want it done this way. There's a certain principle, and maybe I can't even make it explicit, but like Amy likes her Excel sheets formatted in this way because it, you know, it makes it easier to read or kind of whatever it is. And so, you know, I think maybe like these are sort of like a level of abstraction, like a, a value. One for me would be something like courage. It's not like super clear in most areas how you would apply it. How would you be more courageous in your relationships or how would you be more courageous at work? And there's, there's like lots of different ways that could go, whereas to me, like principles are a little bit less abstract and like closer to where the sort of rubber meets the road. So like, you know, I always have time for a good friend. That's the sort of the more explicit, we call them like heuristics, like a rule of thumb, right? Like a if this, then that. If this happens, then I do that as kind of an operating principle, whereas a value's going to be more like courage or, uh, integrity is a bad one I think 'cause like everyone-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
... should probably have integrity, but, but that sort of level of abstraction. (wind blows)
- CWChris Williamson
Before we get into today's podcast, I have to put a disclaimer out. It is absolutely sweltering in Newcastle, so I'm wearing a vest. Got loads of stick last time I wore a vest, but it's not a lack of care about this podcast. I'm super excited to sit down with Taylor Pearson. It's just too warm, you know? I'm even under a bunch of lights and, uh, it's challenging today. But Taylor, man, welcome to the show.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Pleasure to be here. Glad you're staying cool.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) I'm trying ... Well, the problem is in the UK, it's only hot for like five days of the year, so no one has air con.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Like to not have air con in a house in, in America would be ridiculous, right? But over here, it's like, "Why would you have air con? It's cold like seven and a half months out of the year." And so, it is what it is. Uh, so today we're gonna talk about core principles and values. Uh, you've got a couple of blog posts which just blew me away when I read them at the start of this year, and have been a huge influence on me. And I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell the audience about why core values and operating principles are so useful, why they're so important, and then kind of give us some insight into, into your thoughts on them. So to begin with, do we all have core values and operating principles? 'Cause you've got this big list on your site, uh, 37 operating principles and your five core values and all this stuff. If someone hasn't written them out, do they still have them guiding their actions?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I think at some level, right, you all have intrinsic ... You know, we all face decisions every day. You have like whatever mundane decisions. "Am I gonna have a salad for lunch or a burger for lunch?" You have, you know, who, whatever, "Who am I gonna marry? Who am I ... You know, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?" Blah, blah, blah. And you know, you're, you're, there's some algorithms so to speak, right? You have some internal way where you're like weighting what's going on in that decision and, and choosing it one way or the other. So yeah, to me it's, it's something that, um, I think everyone has to some extent internally. I f- I found externalizing them, you know, sort of like making them explicit where I can, uh, kind of read them, one, can like help me be a little bit more self-reflective, right? Like, is this actually something that I think is important? Do I want to do this? And then, you know, oftentimes also just, uh, I, I find I'll, I'll sort of treat one area of my life one way and another area of my life in another way, right? And so I, you know, when I sort of like put all those things out on, on paper, it, it forces me to be a little bit more like, "Oh, like actually this is like a bit hypocritical and, uh, you know, I could, I could apply this to there and that to there."
- CWChris Williamson
So you use the learnings from certain areas of your life to progress your, uh, understanding in and insights in different areas of your life?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I think, and you know, to start maybe the general operating principles, the way that kind of like originated for me, and I'm sure like everyone sort of has this experience, is like you, you do something dumb. You make, you make some mistake or you, you have some like significant learning and you're like, "Wow, I really hope that in the future like I don't do that thing that way again."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
Like, "This is the correct way to do that is actually this other way, and like that's what I should do." And, uh, I guess I found myself like just, you know, despite thinking that, I would then just like proceed to make the same mistake in some slightly different way, uh, at some point in the future. And so, um, kind of the, the way my general operating principles started was like, "Okay, I, you know, this thing, like I want to remember this and so I'm gonna write it down and I sort of put it in a place that I can look over once a week or every other week." Uh, typically around sort of like when I, I ... Once a week I'll plan out my week and kind of what, what am I gonna prioritize, what decisions am I gonna make? And I'll read through that and, you know, very frequently it's like, "Oh, like I'm about to make that mistake again-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
"... uh, you know, for the 14th time," kind of thing. But if, you know, if I, if I have it there and it's written and I can look at it, I go, "Ah, like this." You know, um, I can notice that I'm doing this thing again and, and I can be a little bit more, uh, deliberate about it. So having those externalized sort of written down has been really helpful for me.
- CWChris Williamson
You've touched there on the fact that it's avoiding mistakes rather than kind of expediting successes. Is this a, um, a, a focus on not being stupid rather than trying to be clever?
- TPTaylor Pearson
I think it can go either way. I guess I, uh, I probably spend more time trying not to be stupid than, than trying to be clever. Um, you know, yeah, it's if you can, uh, you know, survival is the first rule, right? You know, if you can, if you can sufficiently not make up any mistakes, and I think it's interesting, um, you know, I've read a lot of books about like investing and businesses and, you know, there's many, many ways to get rich and there's only a few ways to go broke. And if you can just avoid all the ways to go broke for long enough, like you can probably make it work out okay. You know, like there, there's a, there's a lot of ways to do it right, but only a few ways to do it wrong. And so I guess that, my, my bias, I tend to focus on like if I can just not make any major mistakes here, uh, I'll probably be okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Don't multiply by zero, man. No one wants to multiply by zero.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Exactly. Exactly, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so why are core values and operating principles so useful? Is it just this sort of compounding of wisdom across different areas of your life? Is it just making, uh, decisions less arduous?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I think it is, um ... (clicks tongue) I think it, it's just, yeah, for me at least, it's sort of like being able to, to be consistent. And I think part of it's, you know, I think you feel, um, it feels good when you're sort of, you know, quote unquote, uh, in alignment. You know, there's a, a, this, uh, story I was like ... There's a, a author, um, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing his name. Um, but I've read a couple of his books and he has this great story talking about, uh, there was a study done in the 1990s, uh, where they were looking at, uh, geneticists and journalists. They looked at a bunch of different professions and they're basically seeing like who likes their job the most and why, like what makes someone like their job. And, uh, journalists were like the most unhappy with their jobs.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
And geneticists were the happiest and basically what they, you know, their conclusion as to why that was, was, um, the way the incentives were structured, uh, with the geneticists is everything wa- was aligned. Like the geneticists really believed that if they were just doing the best science they possibly could, uh, that was most likely to develop the, you know, the drugs or the pharmaceuticals or whatever that were gonna help the most people and would make the pharmaceutical company the most money, right? So everyone, you know, this, if I can just do the best science I possibly can, everyone else, you know, this is the best thing for everyone. And the '90s was kind of when journalism had started to, uh, a lot of like big conglomerates had come in and bought these media companies. And so a lot of people that started journalism careers, 'cause they were like, "I wanna report the truth and tell important stories," and all this kind of stuff, were writing, you know, whatever the 1990s version of BuzzFeed kind of clickbait headlines were. And that was what got the most, uh, sold the most newspapers and so generated the most advertising revenue, but they were like deeply unhappy, uh, doing that as a job. And so in, in the same way, like I think, you know, I certainly go through periods where like I just kind of get off course, you know? I just start like working on things or I start doing things and it's like, this actually isn't like ... I'm not really enjoy- I'm not super happy about this. I'm not kind of enjoying this. And so, you know, I almost think of it as like a, if you think about sort of like the way a plane navigation system works, um, you know, it's always going slightly off course, right? The plane is never directly on the right, you know, if you're flying from Austin to London, uh, or whatever, you know, you're always gonna be slightly off course, but it's always just sort of error correction, right? It's always, it's always just making it move back. And so like in practice, it's close enough to a straight line that it, that it works well. And so like the same way here, right? I think the, the principles or the, or the core values are sort of that, that navigation system that's just like, hey, like, you know, actually you, you wanted to go here and like if you want to change your mind and go to, uh, Belarus or whatever, like you can do that. But like let's be deliberate about the decision.
- CWChris Williamson
I love that. I love the idea of being deliberate as well. Recently had Kai Leshenroder on talking about working out what you want to want. Uh, and so much of that is that the pe- the things that people do are not done by design. You know, it's the way that you dealt with past traumas, societal norms, genetic programming, natural predisposition, whatever, all of these different things. Very easily, that can lead to you ending up in a place that you didn't want to be or even mean to end up in. And looking back on a life-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... looking back on a life that you regret is like, that's what we all are trying to avoid. So hopefully today we can give the listeners some tools that will help them to not lead a life that they regret. So first up, what's the difference between core values and operating principles? Is there a difference?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, so actually the context I got is from a business book, uh, uh, called Work the System, but it talks about this like in the context of a company. It's like if you've ever worked for a company, like usually every company has their like five or six core values and usually they're like terrible and meaningless. It's like integrity, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
It's like, it's like obviously you shouldn't lie to people. Um, uh, but then, uh, you know, every company, again, I think this is, you know, the same with businesses or, uh, companies or individuals is you sort of have like implicit things. And if you work for a company and you know your manager or your manager's manager, you know like, oh, if, if Amy, you know, Amy's my manager, Amy was looking at this, I know she would want it done this way, right? That's, I know she has, there's a certain principle and maybe I can't even make it explicit, but like Amy likes her Excel sheets formatted in this way because it, you know, it makes it easier to read or you can make charts better or, um, uh, or kind of whatever it is. And so, you know, I think, uh, and this is maybe like easiest in terms of like a level of abstraction, like a value, like one for me would be something like courage. And it's, it's a fairly, that's a fairly abstract concept, right? It's, it's not like super clear in most areas how you would apply, you know, how would you be more courageous in your relationships or how would you be more courageous at work? And you know, there's, there's like lots of different ways, um, that could go. Whereas to me like principles are a little bit less abstract and like closer to where the, um, sort of rubber meets the road. So like, you know, I always have time for, for a good friend, right? Like that, that's, that's a much cleaner, simpler thing. Like if one of my best buddies from high school calls me, like whatever's going on, I can like make time to like talk to him about, um, whatever's going on. So that's the sort of the more explicit, um, we call them like heuristics, like a rule of thumb, right? Like if this, then that. If this happens, then I do that. It's kind of an operating principle whereas a value is going to be more like, yeah, like courage or, uh, integrity is a bad one, I think, 'cause like everyone should probably have integrity.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yeah. And I think,…
- CWChris Williamson
um, reverse engineer, this is the sort of person that I am, therefore these are the five values which are most close to the person that I am. It's like, "I am a person that is..." You know, if your list of 67 was a list of 5,000 and it had all the bad stuff in there as well, it's like, "I'm a person who is shy and timid and, uh, uh, e- easily irritated and blah, blah, blah." You know, quick to judgment and all this sort of stuff. Um, what you've done is you've set a North Star for something that you want to be, not necessarily a, a, an existing disposition that you have. You know? Like, that's the... The agency thing is something that is inherent and inbuilt into you, whereas the courage thing is something that you are looking to try and put more of into your life, right?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah. And I think, you know, I guess those two, just as we're talking, I'm, I'm thinking about it. Um, you know, something that's been sort of, uh, very influential on me, there's a guy named, uh, Joseph Campbell. You know, I've talked, talked to him before. He's a, uh, he was a professor, I think, in like the '70s and '80s, uh, but he wrote a book called, um, Hero With A Thousand Faces, and then he kind of became well-known. Or to the extent that he was well-known, he was kind of the influence on George Lucas and the writing of Star Wars, that he had studied all these sort of, like, ancient myths, uh, religious stories, like, you know, Bible, Northwestern, uh, Native American, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, and this idea of the Hero With A Thousand Faces is all these, these myths across all these different cultures are actually telling a very similar story. There's a certain structure underlying the story, um, and the reason that's evolved in all these different cultures is because it's, um, it's a way of sort of teaching people, uh, how to deal with the various things in their life, right? You can read these stories, you read a good, like, fiction book or, um, this kind of thing and, and you can s- you can see how it could apply to your life. Oh, like, I'm not dealing with this exact problem, but, um, something like that. And one of the key... So he broke it down into, um, 12 stages of this, the hero's journey, that, you know, the hero confront your problem, they set off on a challenge, they overcome difficulties, uh, and they come back and then they bring their knowledge to the world and they're sort of, like, teaching it, right? You can, like, see this in Star Wars, you can see this in the Bible. Like, this is very sort of, like, um, universal, uh, mythology. But at, at the moment, sort of, I think, it's, like, the third stage in the way he describes it is, uh, what he calls the refusal of the call, that you have something that's calling you, uh, you know. Okay, like, uh, if you're like Luke in Star Wars, right, it's like, uh, he's being called by Obi-Wan to, like, go on this quest and do this thing. He's like, "No, I have to stay on-
- CWChris Williamson
The unwilling hero, yeah.
- TPTaylor Pearson
... Earth with Luke and take care of my parents and I can't go off with you." And then eventually, you have the crossing of the threshold, right, where the hero accepts the call to adventure and they step into this new world of, you know... And the set of Star Wars, it's like, if you remember the scene where Luke goes to, um-... this, like, weird bar. And there was, like, all these aliens there and it's, like, crazy and he's, like, never seen all these different, um, sort of things. But you can think about that as sort of, like, a metaphorical thing. So anyway, going back to the idea of, like, agency and courage, right? It's that, you know, uh, I realized in retrospect those, those times when I'd sort of approached the threshold, you know, there were times I had turned away and there were times I had chosen to cross the threshold, that I had some courage to step into this unknown world, um, and do something. And yeah, or sometimes that known world is something that's seemingly quite small like, you know, going to a different school, whatever it's gonna be. Um, but in all those cases, that was meaningful. And so I, I sort of could reflect on those past experiences and say, actually this thing when I, when I sort of have courage and this capacity, when I accept this, uh, this call to adventure, uh, that ends up working out very well for me. You know, in retrospect, right, I can look at major life turning points and, and they all sort of had that, uh, that archetype in common.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So that's a predisposition before making a good choice. Tends to be something which comes just before, a prelude to that. So okay, we've got the first three. What else have you got?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Um, so soul in the game is another one, uh, for me. And this, I guess this one is a bit unique. I got this from, um, there's a guy named Nassim Taleb who's written a few books, probably the most famous is a book called The Black Swan. He was a financial trader, uh, but he talks about this idea of, you know, there's skin in the game, which is kind of like Hammurabi's Code, right? It's like, it's an eye for an eye. It's like, if you're going to- You know, the way in like, ancient Babylonia, there were certain rules. Like, if you, uh, if you built a house and the house collapsed and killed the people inside, you would also be killed, right? So you were very incentivized to make sure the house was a good house, right? Or, you know, if you're, if you're the architect building the bridge, you have to live under the bridge, right? You wanna make sure that the bridge does, you know, what you say the bridge, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Money wise ... is going to do.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, and it's, it's, the idea is there should be a, a symmetry in risk, right? Like, you shouldn't be, uh, allowing others to take risk, uh, for you, right? You should have the same expon- If I'm, yeah, I'm building houses, like, it's not fair that I'm gonna live in a house built by someone else that's better at it than me, and I'm gonna put everyone else in my crappy house, that I don't know what I'm doing and, you know, they're gonna be at risk or whatever. Um, and so soul in the game is kind of an extension of that concept. It's when, uh, it's when you take on risk for others, right? You know, I think, you know, you do this with, uh, a friend or people in your family or whatever. It's just they, you know, they have something going on and, and you bear some of that, uh, that burden or that, um, that risk for them. So that's, that's kind of the idea of, um, of soul in the game. And again, that was sort of a, I got that from his book and I really liked it and then I sort of ref- again, kind of reflected on it. I was like, "You know, when I, when I sort of do this, when I'm, um, when I have skin in the game, when I have soul in the game and have that risk that I just feel better. You know, I can, uh, I just feel better about it, right?" Like, I just feel confident in what I'm doing.
- CWChris Williamson
That's cool. And what's last? Is it five you've got?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Uh, five, yeah. Uh, last one is just reciprocity. Um, to create more value than I capture. You know, there's a, um, I got that from, um... And you know, you can see a lot of these I basically borrowed from other people and they resonated for some reason or another and, um, and I put them down. But, um, Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly Media is a big, big they do sort of like tech publishing books. And they had some funny moment, I think they had published a book on like C++ programming language, and they got an email from this guy that was like, "I just sold a $5 billion company based on your, like, $50 book on C++ that I read and then built this software." And uh, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Jesus.
- TPTaylor Pearson
... they were joking. They were like, "Well, at least we create more, create more value than we capture," right?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh my God.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Like, you know, we spun this 5 million companies and made $50. And that's an extreme example but it's like, yeah, like, that, that to me seemed like an important principle, right? Like, I want, I want there to be sort of more value created than I'm just capturing myself. You want it to be a sort of net positive.
- CWChris Williamson
That's beautiful, man. That you- I mean, you know, if you've got those things as the foundation to your life that sits below the building you build on top of it, or is the ingredients that are going in. You know, if those are the ingredients, I challenge you to make a shit meal out of that. I think it's gonna be challenging to have a shit meal as long as you stick to those good ingredients and you build out of those. Um, so mine, I did mine, um, when I followed the exercise that you have on your blog. And everyone that's listening, it will be linked in the show notes below. I really, really highly suggest that once you've finished listening to this podcast, you go and do the five, the core values exercise. G- Take, you said 15 minutes, which it might take someone 15 minutes, but it took me a couple of days because getting it down to five, it wasn't hard finding them, it was reducing it down to five. And I'm, "Oh, I can't get rid of that one. I can't, I can't, like, I can't get rid of that one, that's the, uh, that's the that's that one." So, but anyway, I managed, I managed to get it down and mine spelled out an acronym, which actually helped me to bypass the forgetting them.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Oh, that, that's smart. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I know. Um, so it spells out CASES. C-A-S-E-S. So curiosity, to be curious to explore myself and the world around me, to meet new people. Uh, A, adventure, to, um, see new places, do new things, uh, I want to live life to the fullest. Uh, S was actually a steal from you about the soul in the game, which is where you'd taken a concept and then reworked it, and it was selfless development. So it was to improve myself, learn how to operate effectively, and then teach others what I have learned. Uh, E, excellence, um, to make the most of minutes, I want to be precise with my thoughts, words, and actions, I want to fulfill my potential. Uh, and then the final S was self-care. In order to be everything that I need to be for everyone else, I need to look after myself first and foremost. Um, and having those, having that, those five principles, man, at the start of the year, has made a really profound impact because every time that I'm faced with one of the thousand inquisition-sized questions that we ask ourselves about, do I go for a walk? Do I go to bed on time? Do I get up on time? Do I hit the snooze button? Do I look at my phone while I'm in the car? Do I do whatever it might be? Like, all of these different things. I'm like, "Well, okay, how does it, how does it apply to these?" And, uh...... having the balance. And I think this is why the cutting, the chopping, um, task was so difficult because you understand that the balancing act's quite important as well if you're gonna have a maximum of five. So for instance, for me, excellence actually is really, really applicable to a lot of the different things, but curiosity kind of guides the direction. So excellence can kind of be how curiosity and adventure are in motion and, uh, finding that balance. But yeah, everyone that's listening, you need to go and do the values exercise. If you can do it in the space of an hour, I'll be really, really impressed. Maybe you just happen to look upon it. But you give, uh, it's like a big chunk of like 70 potentials and then other people can add their own in. Um, but dude, I, I, I think it's a, a really lovely way to kind of just reset the way that you operate within the world, right? Ensure that you are aligned, as you said, that your thoughts, words, and actions are aligned with actually who you want to be, who you are.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, and it's interesting. I don't know, I'm curious. Like I know I found... I sort of sat down and did these once, and I remem- uh, particularly like the soul and the game one, I kind of remember kind of coming to that and like, "Actually, I, I see this as really important to me." And, uh, I find when I, when I would sort of write these down that, as I said, like I would, I would sometimes be applying them to one part of my life but not others. And I just remember I was sort of like I would have to, I would reprocess everything, right? Like, "Oh, like I'm doing this over here in this relationship, and I'm doing this over here at work, and I'm doing this in this other work project." And like it, it's congruent here but it's not congruent, you know, in one of these, uh, two places. And so like having an external eye, every time I would sort of like write one of these down, I'd be like, "Oh, I gotta like think through everything again a little bit." You know, just sort of like reprocess, like, "Oh, like the reason I'm unhappy about this is actually because, you know, I'm, I'm avoiding, you know, some difficult conversation instead of being courageous about it," or whatever it is.
- CWChris Williamson
That third-party perspective makes a big difference, right? Treating yourself as if you're someone you're responsible for helping.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I think it is a useful kind of construct, right? 'Cause 'cause you can sort of separate, um, yourself the thinker from yourself the, the actor to some extent.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that one and two, um, level. It's... Man, it, it's just, uh, it's so, it's so interesting to me to see how this rolls forward in people's lives because everyone that's listening knows what their mums or their sisters or their partner's core values are. Sometimes they're actually living really, really bad core values. Like, um, I constantly concern myself with w- what other people think of me. Like, uh, so that would be like a, a, an, a hyper-awareness or a hyper kind of self-consciousness or whatever it might be. And if you, y- by writing them out and having them there, it's almost like a, um, a checklist, right, that you gotta go through. It's like, "Right, are you, are you doing this? Are you being courageous? Are you having soul in the game?" Et cetera, et cetera. Um, so moving on to the operating principles of which you've got 37, and these are so cool, and I absolutely love the idea of creating this kind of compounding library, uh, like iterating on lessons and things, principles that you can do. So, could you talk about sort of where you started with this? Can you remember that story as well from... Was it, were you in Vietnam or Thailand or something like that?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Uh, yeah, I was. I was, uh, a friend of mine, it was actually my roommate at the time, I think in, again, like one of these sort of, uh, daily decisions. It was like, I think Friday afternoon, like 3:00 PM, and he was like going to the beach. And he was like, "Do you wanna go to the beach?" And this was like agonizing-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
... 'cause I was like, "Well, yeah, I kinda wanna go to the beach and like hang out and like chill out and have a drink and, and whatever." I was like, "But I also like have this like work project that I like said I was gonna do on Saturday, and like I haven't worked out this week, so I should like probably stay in, work out tomorrow." And, um, so I was just, you know, it was like, uh, from 3:00 to 4:00 PM on a Friday, I'm sitting there just and it's, you know, to some extent it's it's just like it doesn't matter that much, right? Like, this individual decision, uh, doesn't matter. But, um, you know, compounded, it does matter, right? Like if you, if you miss one workout, like it doesn't really matter. If you miss every workout, uh, it, it matters a lot. Um, and so I started, uh, I was like, "Okay, I, I need to like have some way to like make these decisions better," right? Like it's... Uh, I mean, I'm spending like an inordinate amount of time, you know, deliberating on these, uh, these sorts of things. And you know, again, like it's this, this one in particular doesn't matter, right? Like and, uh, I think I, I did, I ended up not going to the beach. But had I gone to the beach, like it's not... The trajectory of my life would not have been meaningfully different at all if these sort of other things stayed the same. Um, and so I, I sat down that weekend and I think I wrote sort of like the first version. At the time, it was maybe like six to ten, um, sort of operating principles. Uh, and they were just sort of like things that at that point in my life, uh, I had in my head, right? You know, uh, and I think one of them was sort of this idea of kind of like an integrated, uh, life. And like my bias is I tend to just get really sucked into, uh, usually my work and like what I'm doing professionally and like, uh, made this... And it, it happens to me all the time. Uh, two months ago, I like, I track sort of my, um, how many work hours and I was like doing 80 to 90-hour weeks, and I was just like at the computer all the time. And I was like, "I can't, you know, I can't do this," right? Like, "This is not, um, this is not sustainable." Um, and then what I would do is I, I just put the... I, I have them in an Excel spreadsheet, and I'll look at them, uh, usually like every Saturday morning, I sort of plan my weeks out. I sort of do a weekly review and weekly planning first thing Saturday morning. And, um, I would just notice, you know, I would, again, like these certain mistakes, right? I would just do the same dumb thing (laughs) over and over and over, and I'd be like, "Oh, I should like stop doing... I should stop doing that dumb thing." Or you know, the inverse. It's like, "Oh, like when I do this thing, like I'm really happy about it and it like works out really well for me. I should just like do that thing, um, kinda more consistently." So you know, periodically, weeks when those things came up to me, I would sort of add them to the list of like, "Here's sort of another kind of operating
- 30:00 – 45:00
That's awesome, like especially…
- TPTaylor Pearson
principle that I find. You know, I can look at multiple instances in my life where, where following this was beneficial."Yeah, uh, you know the other one I'm sure we talked about this idea of the hero's journey and, uh, the crossing the threshold. There's a book called The War of Art that I really like, uh, by a guy named Steve Pressfield. He's um, he wrote, uh, The Legend of Bagger Van, became a movie about the golfer. Uh, he has a couple other famous books about um, like I think Spartan, uh, sort of Spartan War or whatever. But he wrote this book about his sort of journey to becoming a writer. And he talked about this idea of the resistance, right? That we all have this voice in the back of our head whenever you're setting out to do something no- new that says, "You know, you can't do it," right? Whether it's you're gonna start exercising or doing yoga or start a business or write a book or, uh, have a relationship, whatever it is, he's like, "No, you can't do this. Like this is gonna s- gonna suck." And so he talked about sort of his own journey as a writer of like having this resistance in the back of his head, that he was basically bumming around and like waiting tables and doing a bunch of odd jobs for a decade. And he was like, "This was just the resistance kind of kicking my ass," right? Like I just was getting beat down by this thing. And so part of his thing is, you know, we all need to sort of fight by the resistance. You know, you go to war with the resistance. You have to see where in your life is kind of that resistance. Where is the resistance? And um, you know, how can you, how can you sort of like lean into that, right? Lean into whatever that thing is that you can, uh, feel yourself avoiding. And so that- that, you know, that was (ethereal music plays) because I- I hadn't read that book, the sense for what he meant by the re- by the resistance, it doesn't matter, it doesn't mean that in a normal context, but if you, if you read the book, you get the sense for like I can feel that, right? And um, that's a question like I ask myself every week. You know, where- where am I avoiding the resistance, right? Where are the areas that I'm avoiding the resistance? And uh, I mean, it comes up very frequently, you know, I'm avoiding a difficult conversation with a business partner or, you know, I'm avoiding uh, letting go of a client because of bl- you know, whatever it is. Um, so that one, um, that one stands out to me.
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome, like especially because our evolutionary predisposition is to avoid change, right? Like it, we- we try actively, we don't want to do the new thing because the new thing might have a tiger in it, or the new thing might have a snake hiding under it, or whatever it might be. Plus it's expensive, you know, energy-wise and cognitively, and I always use this same example, but um, I posted about your um, OODA loop blog post-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a while ago. Dude, I've nearly finished, uh, I've nearly finished the book on John Boyd as well, the um, one of the biographies.
- TPTaylor Pearson
The Rubber Quorum? Yeah, no, great book.
- CWChris Williamson
It's massive though. It's so long.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, it just keeps on going. Um, anyway, this particular way of doing dec- decision making and- and kind of um, reflecting on- on- on the way that you operate within the world. And I came back, posted some stuff up about that, which is a game changer, right? I really love it. I love the idea of that. Post that up, no one cares. Every time that I post up me using Alpha Brain by Onnit, which is a nootropic, my inbox gets x-bomb. Dude, is this any... I'm like, that's the resistance there. The resistance is-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... the trick is the five-minute booty blaster ab at-home DVD for six-pack abs in 20 seconds. That's what-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
That's what... Because, uh, hey man, I'm really struggling with my motivation or my procrastination to get this thing done for university. Okay, um, what's the- what's the best productivity app? Should I use RescueTime or should I actually be doing Freedom tied in with Pomodoros and blah blah? And I'm like, "Do you have your phone out at your desk?" "Yes." Right. Uh, is that not-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, like it's staring you in the face.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But again, it's that, it's the resistance, right? And it's often the things that we don't want to do. And then when you layer on top of that that a lot of what we do is just signaling both to ourselves in terms of self-deception and to other people to make them think that we're doing a thing and that we're actually in control, it is... Increasingly, as I read more and more evolutionary psychology, I realize that externalizing the- the way that we operate is almost mandatory. Because like if you make a decision based on just like what you think at the time, it's almost definitely going to be wrong. Like the fact that we don't get hit by open traffic on a daily basis is a bit of a miracle. You know, like why are we just, this just, your decision-making is awful at the time.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's terrible. Um, I'll tell you one of the ones I absolutely adore which I've started using, number 20, "I go into terminator mode at 85% complete. Once I get to 85% complete, I start obsessively focusing on the project that's 85% complete. The mind will play all sorts of tricks on me if I let it, trying to seduce me into doing something unrelated or new. I never give in to that. I get hungry and focused when I get to 85% complete. I get it done." Sebastian Marshall.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I- I- I mentioned, you mentioned I got that from- um, from my friend Sebastian, but I like that. You know, and I guess it kind of plays into the resistance, but I don't know, I feel, I feel like everyone deals with this. You get, when you start thinking about, you get to that stage of the project where you start thinking about other people judging it, right, like other people thinking about it, your- your head just starts to play all these little tricks on you. It's like, "Well, maybe this isn't the appropriate thing for you to do at this point with where the brand is going," and you know, maybe just put this on the shelf a little while and like do the... Um, the other thing or even you know, I noticed uh, I write like a weekly newsletter and maybe from the time I start writing to the time I'm done, maybe it's two hours, you know, it's not that long. But at like 90 minutes, I'm like, "Nah, I don't- I don't know if this one's good. Like maybe I'll just skip this issue, this one kind of sucks uh, and I'll just like wait and- and do the next issue." And it's yeah, I mean it did like, I don't know how many, I published 300 something articles on- on the internet. It's like every article basically was the exact same thing, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
Like maybe there was like two, uh, (laughs) you know, yeah, like may- maybe two where I was just like, "Oh, that was really good." But like most of them I'm like, "Nah, this probably sucks," like I don't know, like I just kind of like go for it, uh, kind of thing. So that again, like that was a mistake I saw myself making over and over and I was like, "Okay." And then, you know, I was talking to Sebastian, I was like "That's a great rule." Right? Like if it gets to 85%, if you get that close to getting it done, like you just-... you just do it, right? And, and the other way I've heard it phrased is, you know, take, take the, take the roast out of the oven, or take the turkey out of an oven. You know, if you cook a turkey 80% of the way, it's totally useless, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
You can't, you can't eat an 80% of the way cooked turkey, right? It might as well be raw. So like, just finish cooking the turkey. And like, even if it's not the best turkey, like that's okay.
- CWChris Williamson
At least you got it.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Like, you could just use it to make soup or something. At le- you know, you've got something-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
... you can, uh, you can start with.
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome, man. What else you got? What else are some of your favorites from your operating principles that stand out?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Um, yeah. I think another one that I come back to a lot is this idea of, um, uh, kind of like power laws or sort of how you, you frame decisions. I think like the ... We tend to think of, you know, you talked about like resistance to change, but like we tend to think of things in like, uh, as like relatively incremental, right? Like, I'm doing something this way. Maybe I can make it like, um, 5 or 10%, uh, better. And the idea of a power law, power law's like a 10, a 10X improvement, right? And so it's, it, as this force
- NANarrator
(sighs)
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
I like that. I…
- CWChris Williamson
You can either drill it and make the next time that you do it compound on something that's better, or you can do it with poor technique and next time you've got to undo that, plus then try and get yourself better again." So no bad reps. And I thought that was just like a- a sick operating principle and it was like quite cool that it was just sort of three words. Um, and then another one from Naval, and this is, uh, linked with Tiago Forte who his most successful tweet of all time, uh, Naval's is, "Escape competition with authenticity. No one can beat you at being you." Um, and then, uh, Tiago has, "You can't compete with someone who's having fun." Um, but escape competition with authenticity, no one can beat you at being you is just ... it ties in so much of the stuff that I- I've learned from doing this podcast and speaking to cool, interesting people like you. And, um, the fact that your competitive advantage is your unique mix of background and talent and e- or the- the funny way that you pronounce the letter T. And, you know, all- all the stuff. The fact that you wake up and your back hurts. Everything that you have coalesces to become your unique offering to the world, and that is your competitive advantage because it's your ability for authenticity. So those are- those are my, the two that I've got for now, the no bad reps and the escape competition with authenticity.
- TPTaylor Pearson
I like that. I think I- it is beautiful to sort of borrow them from other ... Like the no bad reps, right, like obviously that's applying to like martial arts or exercise or whatever, but you can ... I- it- it's fairly easy to sort of like generalize that to, uh, other things, right? You know, whatever you're- you're working on, if it's working on an article, like you don't sort of ... Ev- everything is like some level of focus, right? Like I'm not gonna just like nail it in on this one.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. No, I agree. Um, so one of the things I wanted to touch on before we finished was, you got this really interesting article about the truth about working smarter, not harder. Could you take us through that? The ... I think you- you say that there's five ... there's only three ways to work smarter, not harder, but then when you read the article, there's five.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Uh, well, there you go.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
It's uh, truth in advertising.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That's fun. Well, that's- that's what ... How you sign up and you think you're just getting three, but actually-
- TPTaylor Pearson
It's a bonus, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... it's actually, here's the- here's the DVD extras. So, um, prioritize tasks by energy level. What's that mean?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Um, yeah, so I think like one way you think about like sort of how many ... I- I'm gonna have this much time, this much work on the week. We tend to- tend to chunk it up into time. Um, I think it's- it's probably more useful to think about it in terms of energy. So I got a ... For me, like 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM in the morning, like my productive output at that time relative to say 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM at night is like a factor of 10. Like it's vastly better. Like I've never in my life created anything useful after 10:00 PM at night, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TPTaylor Pearson
Like it's just nothing- nothing- nothing good happens there. Like basically everything has been, you know, between 9:00 and, um, and 12:00 kind of thing. And so I- most people don't ... You just wake up in the morning and you're just like, "I just start kind of doing the things I gotta do." Right? And like, you know, for example, like for me, it's like if I start and I just like do a bunch of administrative stuff at- the first thing in the morning, now like my best energy when like my head was clear and everything was straight, I just spent like sorting out my bookkeeping or- or, you know, whatever, you know, trying to set an appointment with someone that maybe, you know, isn't-... coordinating well or whatever it is. Uh, and then, you know, it's just like, it's about used to that time. And so like, that kind of thing is like, I'll do that at like 5:00 in the afternoon because like I'm tired, the, you know, it's, I've already done a bunch of stuff today. I can like call the FedEx guy and like coordinate the delivery, uh, and like that's fine. It's not sort of energy. So thinking about like what are the things you want to do? You know, writing for me is a big one that's like a high energy thing, right? So I try to, when I'm looking at sort of how I'm organizing my time, right, like I want to have that in big blocks in the morning.
- CWChris Williamson
Protect them.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Uh, and then I want to sort of organize everything else, um, around that kind of stuff.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool. Okay.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
I, I, I really like that idea, man. I think it's one of the... it's a unifying, no matter whether you're coming in from GTD or whether you're an OODA loop guy or whether you're the optimizing for optionality dude or whatever it might be. Like no matter what your approach is, prioritizing, uh, uh, matching the task with the energy level is definitely right. And you, you know, someone else might be, "I've never created anything useful in my life before 3:00 PM." I have a buddy, Alex O'Connor-
- TPTaylor Pearson
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, Alex O'Connor that runs the Cosmic Skeptic, uh, YouTube channel, and, um, his, his university, like sleep and wake cycle, makes me feel physically ill. Like he, he starts writing his Oxford University theology and philosophy essays at 10:00, 11:00 PM. It's like he, he starts winding up for work at that time.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Totally.
- CWChris Williamson
And then, and then he'll go to bed at like 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM, but he'll go into his halls of residence or whatever in Oxford and, um, go to his, uh, uh, hall mates down the, down the hall at 2:00 AM and play piano as a break for 30 minutes. Like his hall mate will be, also be up at that time and they'll do a bit of piano. And I'm thinking, "Fucking 2:30 in the morning. Go to bed."
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
"Go to bed." But that's for him, that's the cadence that works, right? So he's matching his energy with the tasks that he's doing, even apparently playing the piano. Uh, so your second, your second one is, uh, learn new skills. How can that help us work smarter, not harder?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah. I think, I mean, this one is maybe the, the simplest or the, the most obvious, but, um, like being deliberate about like y- I like this idea of like, uh, uh, of no bad reps. I, I was thinking about this. My, my first job was in marketing. That was sort of my, my original professional background. And I would meet these people that had, you know, quote-unquote five years of marketing experience and would just do like really du-, you know, something that not someone would, you wouldn't know like off the street or whatever. But like if you'd been working in a career for five years, like you should have learned some things, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- TPTaylor Pearson
... about like how things, uh, work there.
- CWChris Williamson
That's... Dude, that is the quote. That is the quote that I want to take away from this podcast. If you've been working in a career for five years, you should have learned some things.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, that's it. That you should have learned some things.
- TPTaylor Pearson
(laughs)
- 1:00:00 – 1:05:39
That could be an…
- TPTaylor Pearson
in and out. You know, there was no, there was no reason to drag it out that way. But it was, it was a courage thing. I was like, "Oh God, like what is she gonna say, um, when I go talk to her? Is she gonna like say that I'm dumb or, you know, like whatever the thing is."
- CWChris Williamson
That could be an operating principle. In fact, I think it might be one of yours that you've taken from David Allen where you say, uh, "Just always look for the next action." Like what is the way that I can act on this thing immediately? Um, and-Another way to look at that, man, I've been thinking about that sort of situation a lot, that there's an opportunity cost to ruminating about anything. Such an opportunity cost, with tons of stuff. So I got this thing, uh, this Modern Wisdom Academy, which I'm super excited about launching, which is just gonna be a partner for the podcast. So every day that a podcast episode goes live, which is three days a week at the moment, um, you get a curated summary of all the key learnings from that episode on a partner blog and, uh, delivered in your email inbox. So you're never gonna forget anything again. It's like we could even, down the line, look at trying to build spaced repetition into it. So, you know, you listen to this podcast, and in three months, you can't quite remember all the stuff you said, do you have to go and listen to it again? No, you don't. You do this. And I've been thinking about it for ages. And I was like, "Do you know what it is? I've been thinking about this for so long, it would be simpler and quicker to just launch the fucking business so that I don't have to think about it anymore."
- TPTaylor Pearson
Totally.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's the same as the girl, right? It's like, if you're gonna think about that girl and maybe not go out with any other girls who would be even better or cooler, or you find out that actually she's got, like, bad breath or she's really a bit of a bitch, you don't know. You don't know if this business is gonna be a bitch, like, or whatever it might be. So yeah, the opportunity cost, developing the courage, looking for the next actions. I, um, I love them, man. Uh, look, final thing before you go, dude, have you got any book recommendations? We get inundated with recommendations for books. As someone who's pretty well-read, is there any that you think people might not have kno- might not know about? So an example from me would be John Boyd's biography, which I thought was phenomenal. Um, but anything else that you think, if you're looking for something a little bit new that you maybe haven't heard of before, here's, here's a couple of examples.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Yeah, I think, uh, I think The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Corm is the John Boyd biography, which is awesome. I u- I very rarely... I kind of just, like, chug along with books. Usually, like, I'll start and I'll pick it up and put it down. And then that one, I, I think it was, like, three days. Like, I just picked it up and just, like, crushed the thing. I was like, "This is so good." Um, yeah, I mentioned The War of Art, uh, by Steven Pressfield. That's, you know, I don't know how well-known that is, but I like that one a lot. And then, um, I guess my, my sort of off-the-wall or, or, uh, underrated, um, book that I've probably, I don't know, read four or five times now is, um, Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. Uh, he, uh... Yeah, I figured that would be a new one. But he is a professor at, uh... He was. He may have passed away now, but he was a phos- philosophy professor at New York University, I think in, like, the '70s and '80s, and, um, wrote this book called Finite and Infinite Games. And, uh, and the premise is, you know, there, there are two types of games in life, uh, finite games and infinite games. And, uh, finite games are played according to known rules towards a specified end. And infinite games are played by reinventing the rules with the purpose of extending play. And, uh, he... That's, that's basically the summary of the, the whole kind of book. So, like, for an example, like, uh, when a, uh, father is playing catch with his son, it is not a finite... He's not trying to win catch, right? He's not trying to... There's not, there's no... There's rules to catch and, you know, I'm trying to throw it the hardest and win catch, right? You wanna make catch fun. You're trying to invent new rules to catch so you can keep playing catch, uh, with your son or... That's my American baseball analogy, but, you know, you can use the, the foot, the football analogy or whatever you want, right? It's an infinite game, right? Like, the success is, like, we just get to keep playing catch, uh, into the future. And I think that, you know, that's true of so many different areas of life, right? You can approach it like, "Well, once I get to this thing, then I will have won the finite game," whether that's, you know, the sport or the, the whatever it is. Um, but yeah, there's... You know, there's this whole other way of looking at it, which is like, you know, how could I, how could I reinvent the rules of this game in a way that just made it interesting and able to be able to, you know, to continue, um, extending play? So I, I come back to that book and, and just that. Really, you, you really have to read the first chapter. Like, the rest of the book is good, but, like, the first 30 pages you get the whole...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That's it.
- TPTaylor Pearson
He lays, I mean, he lays out the whole idea, maybe even only the first 15 or 20, uh, but the first chapter of that book is, is phenomenal.
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome. It's a much cooler, less cliché version of, um, like, the path is the destination, it's about progress not perfection and stuff like that. I, I actually prefer that. I prefer talking about the way that the game gets played and being able to continue playing the game as well. I think that's a, that's a cooler way to do it. Man, we made it. We did it.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Great success.
- CWChris Williamson
We made it through, um, everything that we've gone through, the, your phenomenal blog, which, like you say, 300, 300 posts from the last God knows how long. Um, what's next? Oh, is there any other stuff that you wanna plug? Any stuff that people should go and have a look at?
- TPTaylor Pearson
Uh, no. Yeah, check out the blog. I have a newsletter. Uh, I write random things on there. So if you're into that stuff, you know, go, go for it.
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome, man. Thank you so much for your time, Taylor. I've really, really enjoyed this.
- TPTaylor Pearson
Cheers, Chris. A pleasure.
- CWChris Williamson
Outfits. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Outfits.
Episode duration: 1:05:39
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