Cory Ames

What Is a “Conscious Business?” (as Defined by a Conscious CEO)

October 19, 2021 by Cory Ames

In this post, you’re going to learn exactly what is a “Conscious Business.” You’ll also learn what a conscious business is not.

And to do so, we’re going to hear from Meghan French Dunbar, a leader in the space of purpose-driven business.

Meghan is the former CEO of Conscious Company Media, which was the nation’s leading media company dedicated to purpose-driven businesses and social enterprises.

And now she’s the co-founder of a new impact-driven venture called Womxn Led, which is an international community bringing womxn business leaders together to grow and thrive.

Let’s dive in.

What Is the Meaning of “Conscious Business?”

Conscious Business: A Definition

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

There are all sorts of people who talk about this stuff, but there’s no agreed-upon definition.

So this is my own personal definition: a conscious business is a business that:

Is led by a conscious leader
Takes all stakeholders into account
And has a higher purpose beyond profit

What is Conscious Leadership?

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

There are a lot of companies out there that have a sustainability department and they’re doing great things.

But leaders at the top aren’t bought in, they aren’t aware of their actions, and they aren’t actually acting as conscious business leaders. There are plenty of examples out there that I’m sure people are aware of.

The conscious leader is someone who actually walks the talk, who has determined values and actually lives by them as someone who is conscious and aware of their actions on a daily basis, and who has the ability to respond thoughtfully rather than react.

These were the kinds of ways in which we defined “conscious leadership” at Conscious Company Media, and these are the capacities possessed by the best conscious leaders that I ever came across.

This would be people like Justin Rosenstein of Asana; Eileen Fisher of Eileen Fisher; Kevin Rutherford of Nuun: all people who exhibit fantastic leadership.

Justin Rosenstein, Asana

Eileen Fisher, EILEEN FISHER

Kevin Rutherford, Nuun

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

As Meghan points out here, there are significant differences between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and authentically purpose-driven businesses and business leaders.

And while there isn’t any hard and fast defining line, it’s important to go through the exercise of sorting through what is what.

One way of doing so is to look at the leadership. Learn more about who they are, what their origin story was for getting into business, and how they see the relationship between their business’s operation and success and the welfare of people and the planet. Meghan provides some excellent examples here—other leaders that I’d comfortably add into the conversation: Giancarlo Marcaccini with Yogi Tea, Corey Kohn with Dojo4, or Madeleine Shaw.

Stakeholder Business Model

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

This is a big, BIG issue.

Most businesses on the face of the earth have subscribed to the idea of shareholder supremacy.

This has even gotten to the point where people have said…

We have a fiduciary obligation, we have a legal obligation that we have to maximize profits for our shareholders.

And as a result of that, businesses have gotten away with murder. This is the reason why we have companies that pollute rivers and do terrible things to their workers.

It’s because they’re saying they actually have a legal obligation to maximize the profit for their shareholders (at the cost of everything else). This has been replaced in the last 30 or so years with the idea of a stakeholder. A stakeholder is anyone or anything that your company’s actions affect.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

Meghan here is referring to the concept of “Shareholder Primacy.”

In this style of capitalism, the core purpose of a business is to produce profits or returns for its shareholders or investors.

This is contrasted with a newer, more equitable approach to business called “Stakeholder Capitalism.”

Stakeholder Capitalism is a system of capitalism where businesses are expected to serve and consider all stakeholders, not just shareholders in their decision-making.

This could also be known as “triple bottom line” businesses, businesses that put their profits on par with their social and environmental impacts.

Stakeholders (as Meghan will say more about) include employees, customers, the environment, local communities, and more, along with the investors and shareholders.

Meghan’s mention of the “fiduciary obligation” and the “legal obligation…to maximize profits for our shareholders” has become popularized within the business world by a quote from economist Milton Friedman.

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

A stakeholder would be:

Your employees (they’re number one)
Your customers
The community that you operate in
The environment

And yes, your shareholders—your investors—are also stakeholders.

To understand the stakeholders affected by your business or organization you can make stakeholder maps and ask, “Who/what are all of the people and entities that our company’s actions directly affect?”

A conscious leader takes all stakeholders into account. And a conscious business really needs to be looking at its effect on every single stakeholder that the company contacts and attempt to have a positive impact on those stakeholders. Period.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

There are useful tools and resources to help businesses better understand the stakeholders that they affect.

While not explicitly a Stakeholder Map as Meghan was describing it, the B Impact Assessment is an incredibly robust tool provided by B Lab, the nonprofit behind the B Corporation Certification.

When completed, the assessment offers a business a look at its impact on its community, customers, employees, and the environment.

Conscious Business = Purpose > Profit

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

This is where we talk about the why behind the business.

Patagonia is the conscious business poster child. It says this explicitly in its purpose statement:

“Build the best product. Cause no unnecessary harm. Use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

That’s in their stated purpose!

And yes, they do make money as a result of their purpose.

But your purpose as a company cannot just be to make money. It must be something much bigger than that, a higher purpose beyond profit.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

This final point is key from Meghan. Really, it’s what tops off the whole definition of a “conscious business.”

I think this is best explained with another example.

Let’s take Dean’s Beans, founded by Dean Cycon. The mission of Dean’s Beans is simple:

“…use specialty coffee as a vehicle for positive change.”

When founding Dean’s Beans in 1993, Dean had the idea that he’d create change in the coffee industry through showing that an ethical, fair, and just coffee business could be sustainable, incredibly impactful, and profitable.

He knew that a coffee business could be run fairly for all stakeholders involved while remaining profitable and highly successful by traditional business standards.

The businesses success was, and continues to be, a vehicle for achieving more.

Coffee farmers are paid fairly and are able to invest in their own businesses and communities. Dean’s Beans becomes a model, showing that profitable and ethical business practices can coexist. The “big players” can no longer say it can’t be done.

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

Those are the three key components of what we look at when we’re talking about conscious business.

Again, a conscious business:

Is led by a conscious leader
Takes all stakeholders into account
Has a higher purpose beyond profit

That’s what I came up with after talking to over 1,000 business leaders in my time at Conscious Company.

Misconceptions or Misunderstandings about Conscious Business

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

The number one thing that I see the most often is that, if a company has a sustainability department or a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department, it is then, in fact, a conscious business.

I think of the way that we just described a conscious business as a holistic lens. Every facet of the company isn’t “conscious” when we’re only talking about sustainability or a CSR department.

That is more just like a business with sustainability tacked onto the side.

Yes, they can do wonderful things. I’m not poo-pooing sustainability departments. They’re fantastic. I know wonderful people who run incredible sustainability departments and CSR departments.

But it doesn’t mean that the company itself is a conscious business.

You can be doing incredible things for the environment and treating your employees like crap. You can have a wonderful kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and then maximize profit to the extent that you’re having negative externalities all over the place and doing terrible things to the environment.

I mean, there are all these kinds of trade-offs that you can make with sustainability departments. Monsanto has a sustainability department. Halliburton has a sustainability department. Those are not conscious businesses in my opinion.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

We caught this earlier, but it’s worth mentioning again.

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and truly mission-driven businesses are not the same thing.

While businesses with CSR departments and positions can fall under Meghan’s “conscious business” definition, it certainly shouldn’t be assumed.

In the most critical form of this, author Anand Giridharadas calls this “doing well by doing good.”

I’m often asked about what’s the difference between CSR and truly impact-driven business… 👇 https://t.co/QMmq3IDtri
— Cory Ames (@AmesCory) September 9, 2021

Companies use their CSR and impact-related initiatives to create the appearance of being a responsible or positive community member while on the other end causing significant destruction through their business practices or influence.

For a deep dive on this, check out Giridharadas’ excellent book, Winners Take All.

Conscious Businesses Out in the World

What’s a company that you think models what it means to be a “conscious business?”

Let me know with a comment below.

— — —

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity, and originally hosted on the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast from Grow Ensemble.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

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100 Podcast Tips for Starting, Sustaining, & Growing a Show

July 21, 2020 by Cory Ames

Want the audio version of this post? Listen here:

We launched The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast in January 2019. Now, just a little over a year and a half later, we’ve hit the 100 episode milestone!

This podcast has become much of the ‘base’ from which we launched Grow Ensemble, our media and marketing company in the space of social impact and sustainable business.

Growth has been steady, with 2020 listenership up 290% over 2019, now spanning 116 countries around the world and counting!

I’ve learned a ton, made good friends (and & clients), and can’t imagine stopping the podcast now that we’ve started. 100 episodes in, I’ve learned a lot on podcasting, read a lot on podcasting, and now want to share more on our process in hopes to help you.

Approach this post like a guidebook—take it chapter by chapter. This is a monster! So, it’ll be best to tackle these 7,500+ words and 100 podcasting tips in pieces.

Hopefully, this can be a resource to help get you started. And while it’s not exactly a step-by-step guide, it’s (almost) all of the best I can share from my experience thus far.

Happy Podcasting! 🎤

Contents:

Tips for Starting & Launching a Podcast
Tips for Sustaining a Podcast
Tips for Recording Podcasts
Tips for Booking & Interviewing Guests
Tools & Tricks for a Successful Podcast
Tips for Editing & Publishing a Podcast
Tips for Promoting & Growing a Podcast

Getting Started & Launching a Podcast

Start a Podcast

Start a podcast? That’s your tip? Yes! That’s a “tip!” Starting the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast has been one of most valuable practices and assets for Grow Ensemble. If you can afford to launch and sustain one of your own (see more on: budget), I think it’s worthwhile!

Here are a few ‘step-by-step’ guides that helped me:

How to Start a Podcast in 2019: 8 Steps from Idea to Launch

How to Start a Podcast: The 1,000,000 Download Formula

Set Goals & Objectives for Your Show

Before you get started, seriously consider what you are attempting to accomplish with your new podcast—business development, brand awareness, or maybe you hope to use it to develop relationships. Identifying your purpose will help manage your own expectations and serve as a check to see if a podcast will in fact be a fulfilling experience for you.

While a podcast can certainly drive financial return for your business, if that’s your only goal, you may be better suited doing something else. There are more efficient mechanisms to achieve that goal both in terms of time and finances. Podcasting is an involved activity. I am a firm believer that if you aren’t enjoying the process itself, and instead are looking only for results, it will be difficult to create a successful show that satisfies the itch that motivated you to start..

Listen to Other Shows!

To progressively make a better show, you need to be a student of podcasting. I know this is an area of growth for our show, but even still, I always appreciate the insight I gain when I’m paying attention to what I like about the shows that I subscribe to, as well as the shows that consistently rank among the most popular.

Review Others’ Experiences on Podcasting

Since starting the podcast, I’ve become an ‘addict’ for others’ reflections on their own experiences running and growing a show. Here are a few other posts on podcasting I found helpful from Sumo, and Smart Passive Income.

Take Notes on What Makes a Show Engaging

Do this when you are getting started with your show and as you continue on. Be considerate of your listeners and become a student of what makes podcasts enjoyable to listen to, informative, and addictive.

Listen to shows in your industry, listen closely to shows you subscribe to, and listen to podcasts ranked among the most popular. Take diligent notes on what seems to make them ‘good.’

Consider Your Podcast an Experiment

Remember: If you start a podcast, it doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. This was advice I took from Tim Ferriss when he started his podcast some years ago, he committed to do a finite number of initial episodes as an ‘experiment’ to determine if he liked it or not. More and more I think that is a great approach to getting started.

Start a podcast with the idea that you can stop! If it’s not going to be the content medium for you, there are plenty of others.

Batch Episodes for a Launch

When we launched the podcast, I knew we’d consistently publish one episode per week. However, for the launch specifically, I wanted to create some buzz around the show.

So, when launching, we put out 3 episodes in the first week (with 2 on day 1), 2 in the second, and then finally got to 1 per week. This was a good way to get some momentum of initial downloads and, luckily, guests were generous in sharing their episodes, which was also helpful with that momentum.

Record First Episodes with Friends (to get comfortable)

Please don’t record with guests you don’t know well for your first couple of episodes. First, test out the equipment solo or with a close friend or partner (thanks, Annie!).

Then, when you schedule recordings, find good friends to record your first podcast or two with to get the hang of things. I first recorded two episodes, one with my brother, and another with a long-time friend.

There will be some awkwardness and maybe some technical snafus, so you want to make sure and get those out with people who won’t mind and are with you on your mission to learn. When you start recording with guests you are less familiar with, you’ll want to be ‘game-ready’ to set a good impression and show that you are mindful and respectful of their time.

Ask Friends & Family for Reviews

Most people think that reviews affect your ranking or ‘New & Noteworthy’ position in Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes) and Spotify. Everyone says this, but I’ve never seen this proven to be completely true.

However, getting reviews definitely helps with establishing the social proof for your show early on. If people are browsing for shows, seeing that others have reviewed it can certainly help tip someone over the edge to testing your show out.

Go Simple & Inexpensive with Gear

If you aren’t certain you’ll stick with podcasting forever, keep your gear simple and functional. Of course, don’t buy anything that is so low quality it’ll force you to invest in unnecessary replacements, but you don’t need to go top of the line for audio equipment.

Better yet, if you can borrow equipment from friends (which I was lucky enough to), do it!
It took me over a year to upgrade microphones, and now I use the Yeti Blue USB Microphone.

Build Your Checklists Early

From the get-go, I was building checklists for our podcast process as I went. When I was executing on much more of the process this was helpful because I didn’t miss any important steps, and when I started enlisting other people into active production roles, it made it much easier to hand off.

Take Criticism with a Grain of Salt

More likely than not, you’ll receive positive and negative feedback with the launch of your show. Be considerate of who gives that feedback to you. Are they your target audience? Do they listen to podcasts? Do you care what they say? Always remember, it’s harder to be the one making a podcast than criticizing those who are. 🙂

Don’t Rush into Naming Your Show

I ended up changing the title of our show to The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast roughly 30-40 episodes in. Honestly, I wish that I named it this from the very beginning. I like the name of our business, Grow Ensemble, quite a bit. However, no one knew that name.

The name change has been useful because it’s closely related to keywords we want to rank for. Plus, if you search “Social Entrepreneurship Podcast” in Google, we’ll come up in a few different ways on that first page!

Create a Dedicated Landing Page for the Show

We have GrowEnsemble.com/podcast as a dedicated landing page for our podcast on our WordPress site. Here we aggregate our feed of most recent shows, link out to all the different places to listen or watch the show, as well as add in some of our strongest reviews.

This is a great way to easily share the show (not just specific episodes) with others.

This page has seen a reasonable amount of traffic since the launch of our show, and continues to every month.

Sustaining a Podcast

Systems

The #1 reason that podcasts seem to ‘fade’ or be inconsistent (in production and results) is that there aren’t proper systems setup to ensure the continual booking of guests or development of shows, recording of those shows, and publishing.

When you or your team are having to recreate the wheel for every episode, you are expending a lot of unnecessary time and energy that can often be a drag on momentum and motivation.

Use & Request Info from Guests Through Calendly

When guests or their team select a time slot that seems good for them, we simultaneously request key information that helps our process. That includes a brief bio, a photo, any important URLs we should promote, and a phone number just in case we need to get in touch with them.

This is essential so we don’t have to run in circles looking for information if someone is late for a recording, or scramble for a good headshot the day before we are publishing for promotional materials or show notes.

Connect Your PM Software

We use Asana for Project Management of our Podcast Editorial Calendar. Whenever a guest books a recording slot, we’ve connected Calendly to Asana so that a new task card is automatically created with all the guest’s intake information, and a deadline is set for the scheduled date for recording so I can be notified to prepare beforehand.

Zapier should have a connection from Calendly to almost any Project Management Software.

Have a Consistent Recording Space

This hasn’t always been possible for Annie and I depending on our home residence, or if we are traveling. But, if it’s possible, take advantage of having your podcast equipment near setup and at the ready! It makes podcast prep easier.

Set a Publishing Schedule

Having a consistent publishing schedule is both good for you and your team, as well as your audience. People want consistency! I don’t know about you with shows you really like, but I get in the habit of checking whether or not a new episode is published on their typical schedule. Similarly, we want to do this for our team, so we can reverse engineer how long each different stage of the production and publication stage should take.

Build a Team

To get to 100 episodes and beyond, you need a good team around you. We have audio editors, show notes writers, content support and designers to publish episodes, our Director of Partnerships to help book guests, social media support, and video editors. In total, we have 5 individual people involved in our podcast process (including myself), with a rotating staff of audio editors.
I cannot thank this team enough! Thanks, Rebecca, Kate, Sameer, Jess, Reuben, and Annie!

Automate Guest Follow-Up

Before we onboarded our wonderful Director of Partnerships & Communications to help with guest bookings, I was doing it solo! I would batch outreach to new guests for a once-a-month sprint. I’d send out maybe 5-10 personalized emails in a single day. However, most people don’t respond to a first email (if you’ve never contacted them before).

That’s why you need to follow up!

If you are manually tracking that follow-up, that outreach becomes burdensome quickly. Instead, use a tool like Mailshake, that will automate follow-up for you if your prospective guests don’t reply after a week or so.

Track Your Costs

Keep tabs on what it costs to produce a single episode. This will be a good litmus test for you from time to time as you measure the “worth” of your show. As well, if there are activities in your process that don’t seem to drive any worthwhile result (good guest experience, more downloads, etc.) then ditch it and save yourself the money.

Keep your process lean and focused on what’s enhancing the show overall.

Learn About Your Audience

This is critical for a number of reasons. (1) Many guests or PR teams will start to ask you about your target audience, download numbers, and subject matter areas. Come prepared with a response. (2) The better you know who your audience is, who is listening, etc., the better you’ll be able to connect with them via the show content. (3) It can make your show feel more real! Put some humans behind those download numbers, and recording and publishing your show will feel more ‘real.’
While I encourage all listeners to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter, I also have this autoresponder set up in ConvertKit for whenever we add a new email list subscriber.

Hosting Guests & Recording a Podcast Interview

Be Aspirational in Your Guest Outreach

If there’s someone with a lot of ‘name id’ in your industry, still don’t be afraid to reach out to them! More often than not, people are very excited and willing to share their story and be featured. As long as your outreach isn’t annoying and it’s genuine, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Look to Conference Speakers for Guests

If we are looking for guest ideas, we’ll sometimes look at Speakers for upcoming conferences or events in our space. These are great sources of people in our industry doing work we’ve yet to come across. Thanks, event organizers!

Don’t Say ‘Yes’ to Every Guest Pitch

We get pitched for guests to be on our show constantly! Most of the pitches are less than eye-catching and are easy to ignore. They don’t address us personally (or get our name wrong) and show clear signs of a ‘volume-based approach.’ Some pitches are better and more genuine, but still not a great fit. Be considerate to determine who your ideal guest is for what you want your show to be, and who your audience is. The people you say yes to may not hit the mark 100% of the time, but you get the hang of spotting compatibility as you go.

Create a Guest Guide

Your guests will always have questions about the recording process—what kind of questions do you ask, what’s the show about, who is the target audience, what happens after recording, what equipment should they use, etc., etc. You can save yourself time, and as well, be proactive with communication and creating a solid guest experience by creating a guest guide.

When a guest or their team books, the confirmation email has the guide linked within it. So does the calendar invite that comes with it.

Here’s a link to our podcast guest guide for reference.

Research Your Guests

Before every single interview episode, I consistently spend a few hours (or more) making myself familiar with my guest, their work, and where they’ve been featured previously. The time I apply varies from guest to guest (mostly based on how well-featured they have been and how well I already know them), but this time is incredibly important.

Your familiarity with your guests, their work, and their public thoughts obviously makes for a better conversation, but I also think it helps to build strong rapport as it shows you value them being on your show.

Setup ‘Recording Reminders’ for Guests

Everyone gets busy (duh). With that in mind, make sure whatever booking tool you are using (us: Calendly), make sure there are reminders 72 hours and 24 hours before a recording. I think that this sometimes prompts guests to cancel/reschedule if they’ve overbooked. Better early, before you are sitting around waiting for them to join the call.

Schedule in ‘Buffer Time’ for Your Recordings

Make sure that guests book a time slot that provides enough ‘buffer time’ outside recording the interview itself. Sometimes people are a few minutes late and, regardless, you’ll want to spend some time chit-chatting before and after. You also want to account for the times when conversations run longer than planned! Plan for that. 🙂 You don’t want you or your guest having to run off earlier than is ideal.

Follow Your Guests on Social Media

This is great for research, as well as keeping in touch with guests after the show. I can’t help but become fans of all the folks I chat with, so it’s always great to keep up with their work afterward, and I like to let them know I’m doing so with likes, shares, and comments. 🙂

If Your Guest Wrote a Book, Read It

My two favorite forms of guest research (1) listening to podcasts they’ve been on and (2) reading their book if they’ve written one. These are really great ways to get a better understanding of who they are and how they think before hopping on for a chat.

Plan to Make Friends with Your Guests

(Me clearly having “fun” with my friends from HOME Storytellers)

The best part of recording our podcast has been the relationships that I’ve made as a product. With 77 of our 100 episodes being guest interviews (as opposed to solo episodes), I feel like I’ve made 77 friends across the world!

From Uvita, Costa Rica to Boise, ID to Sweden and so many different places in between, I genuinely feel like I have people to take to lunch or grab a drink with whenever our paths cross.

But, I suppose, the friendly and welcoming community is just one of the many wonderful aspects of the purpose-driven business space! Either way, don’t overlook the wonderful opportunity a podcast provides for kicking off some really valuable and enriching relationships.

Follow-Up with Guests

Find good reasons to keep in touch with guests. Whether it’s about their episode, a personal update in their life, or something exciting happening with their company, make sure your podcast recording was the first encounter of many!

Let Guests Know When Their Show Is Launching

This is something people really care about, and, rightfully so! As excited as you might be to release your content, the guest (might) be 5-10x as excited to see their episode released and to share it with their network, family, and friends.

Think about any time you’ve been featured or interviewed anywhere! Isn’t it fun? Think about how your guest might feel, and keep them well in the loop.

Ask for Guest Referrals

When you finish an interview that you really loved, ask the guest for any potential recommendations for future guests. In most cases (of course, not all), people love to be connectors. And, good guests typically refer good guests!

This is a great way to deepen your relationship with existing guests and provide them an opportunity to offer an interesting experience to friends and close colleagues in their network. Plus, you’ll (now) have a friend in common with your next guest, which is great for comfortability.

Bring Guests on Twice!

We haven’t published a second episode with a guest yet, but we are getting close to doing so. Don’t be afraid to bring a guest on a second time for a different style of episode, to talk about something completely different, or to get an update on any projects they were getting started.

A second episode with a guest might be better than the first, especially if you’ve had the opportunity to continue nurturing the relationship since the first time you met/recorded.

Recording Podcasts

Be Consistent

More so than other mediums, if you want your podcast to gain traction, you have to be consistent. Seasonal or serialized podcasts work if you already have an established audience, but if you’re hoping to focus on starting or growing, consistency allows listeners to reliably work you into their normal routine.

Batch Recordings

recording-schedule — (This is what a typical 2-day recording stretch looks like)

I already mentioned that I recommend batching for your initial podcast rollout, but once you get going, this can be useful as well. I say this because, sometimes it can feel like you are on a ‘hamster wheel’ endlessly creating and recording shows whether you have you/your team recording every single week, or at random times.

Batching means you’re scheduling blocks of time (maybe even a full part of the day) to record multiple episodes, so you’re ahead. Then you can take some time off to focus elsewhere until the next batch is up.

Don’t Batch Recordings

So…uh…there’s definitely a sweet spot. When I first got on the practice of ‘batching recordings’ I may have overcorrected. At times, I would record 4 guest interviews in a day! I was too wiped out on those days to do anything else, and I found that I wasn’t able to bring myself fully to every episode.

I’ve since limited my schedule to have a max of 3 recordings per day with an adequate buffer between each. We’ll schedule 2 consecutive recording days (Tues/Wed or Wed/Thurs) every 3 weeks or so. With each 2-day batch, we’ll consistently get 3-6 recordings done, and that’s been a good balance for us.

Don’t Record on Mondays (or Fridays)

I don’t know about you, but I really prefer to preserve my Monday and Friday schedules to remain ‘open.’ On Mondays, I like to give myself time to recalibrate from the weekend and start the week on a good foot.

As well, I’m always doing prep the day before an episode, and you don’t want to put that pressure on yourself on a Sunday. I like to save Friday’s for writing and researching my Better World Weekly Newsletter, completing a weekly review, and reviewing the company scorecard. I have also anecdotally found that guests are more likely to reschedule on Mondays and Fridays. I think many of us think the same.

Check Your Wifi

If it’s within your control, check your wifi speeds with SpeedTest.net (preferably well ahead of recording time so you can do something about it before a show if need be). If your Zoom call is cutting out, that can distract you from connecting with your guest, and ultimately, it will affect listeners’ experience!

Don’t Store Audio Files Locally!

Use the cloud! For all our podcast recordings, we use a shared drive in Dropbox. I’m sure there are other suitable places to store your files, but the most important thing is to not store them on your local drive.

One time I spilled tea all over my laptop at a coffee shop and fried my hard drive. It was sad. I had to dish out an unexpected $1500 for a new MacBook that day, but I didn’t lose anything important because all my files were stored in Dropbox or other cloud-enabled services.

Don’t risk losing anything important…store it away in Dropbox.

Don’t Delete Any Show Files!

Speaking of…I think it’s worthwhile to keep every show file you’ve ever created (again, the case for a cloud storage service like Dropbox). You’ll never know when you may want to loop quotes from guests into future episodes or create a ‘best of’ show like we talk about below.

Eliminate All Distractions

Do the critical ‘pre-show’ check. Close out Slack, exit all browser tabs, silence your phone, and remove anything else in the room that might create any distraction for you/your guests.

Added to my ‘pre-show’ checklist—removing Milou’s collar.

Milou podcast — (A cutie, but her collar causes some ruckus)

Take Noise Cancelling Seriously

Audio quality is key. Quality audio can be the difference between someone sticking through your show or dropping off mid-episode. No matter how engaging your content might be, poor audio quality can be annoying and push listeners away. I researched quite a bit early on as to what would create high-quality audio for the show.

Be Present During Recording

Does this even be on the list? Yes. Do everything you can to be fully present while in conversation with guests. Interviews that the host or guest are just trying to ‘get through’ make for boring episodes and missed opportunities for creative, responsive questions.

Set Expectations in Pre-Recording

This is a routine I like to go through with guests when we first hop on the call. I want to make sure any questions about the show, the recording process, publication, etc. are answered. I’ll give my quick brief about how long we’ll record, what to expect with questions and the intro, and how long it will take roughly from recording to publication. I don’t want guests to feel unprepared, maybe excessively nervous, or in the dark about when their show will go live.

Ask ‘Rapid Fire’ Questions

It’s nice to have some consistent quick-hit questions you ask guests. A common one hosts ask (that I do too), is if the guest has any books to recommend. I love this for a few reasons. I love knowing what leaders in my space are reading and, we get to set ourselves up to create some great complimentary content (i.e. “The Most Recommended Books by 100 Social Entrepreneurs).

Record ‘Masters’

If there’s anything that you’ll repeat with almost every show, record a few different re-usable versions (masters) of your intro, midroll, and/or outros. This will save you time so you don’t have to re-record these things every time. To keep variety, record a few different variations and rotate them out each show.

Record Intros Immediately After Recording

Sometimes you’ll feel spent after a good interview. However, refuse the urge to ‘record your intro tomorrow.’ Any time that I’ve done this and put off recording an episode intro for another day, it takes me 2-3x as long because I need to re-remember what happened! It’s best to ride the connection of the interview right into the intro recording.

Keep Intros Brief

Along those lines, don’t overthink your intro! Keep it simple and concise to the overarching themes of the show, a brief intro and bio of your guest, and any pre-show CTAs you like to use to turn listeners into email list subscribers.

Record In-Person Interviews if You Can!

Ahhh, my in-person interviews have been really great experiences (duh). When the world allows for it once more, I’ll be seeing how many more of those I can fit in. It makes the recording a more ‘holistic experience,’ whether that means touring a guest’s office, grabbing coffee or a drink after, or just enjoying the value of chatting face-to-face.

Tools & Tricks for a Successful Podcast

Take Audio Quality Seriously

Ever listen to a podcast with poor audio quality? Did you finish listening to it? Or, did you hang on and suffer through it? Yup, that’s a bad experience to create for your listeners (and can have guests reflect poorly on the experience).

Yes, we’ve mentioned this once before…(see #46), but it’s well worth mentioning again.

Use a ‘Pop Filter’

A pop filter is a pretty essential recording tool to eliminate pops with “P’s” or loud “shhhes” when recording. Luckily, you can get them for pretty cheap!

Upgrade Your Webcam

The webcam on your laptop is most likely of pretty low quality. Don’t kill yourself over this, but definitely upgrade the camera you are using to record yourself on interviews. For the majority of my interviews, I’ve used the C930e Logitech Webcam, and it’s been pretty reliable.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade to the Logitech Brio, but with the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home population booming, it’s been out of stock. Figuring out how to use my iPhone 11 Plus has been on my to-do list for some time.

Use a Discreet On Screen Timer While Recording

I use my time tracking app, Timeular, to track how long we’ve been recording. I like to track the time for the interview to keep episode lengths semi-consistent. I’m happy to allow conversations to follow a natural flow, I just also like to be mindful of time, especially if a guest has a hard stop.

Stand Up for Your Show!

Thankfully, this has only happened in extremely rare instances, but for one of my recordings, it sounded like the guest was clicking around on their mouse the whole episode. It threw me off and left me feeling really frustrated with the experience as a host. In retrospect, I wish I spoke up! At a minimum, we would’ve uncovered what was behind that clicking noise. It may have not been a mouse at all!

Take 10 Breaths & Move Before Logging in to the Call

It doesn’t matter the interview, it doesn’t matter the day. It doesn’t matter that we’ve done 100 episodes already! I always get a burst of anxiety when my interviews are about to hit. I want it to go well, I want the guest to enjoy themselves, I want it to be something people enjoy listening to. To help get me locked in, I’ll go through some deep breathing, squats, and push-ups. That helps turn a bit of the anxiety into focused energy.

Host Your Podcast with Libsyn

Now, I’m not 100% attached to Libsyn, but I did have us briefly switch from Libsyn to Anchor.fm and opted to return.

At the time, Anchor.fm was free (not sure if it still is). But, the most important thing was that I could schedule out episodes in advance with Libsyn and, at the time, I couldn’t with Anchor.fm.

I’ve been completely satisfied with Libsyn, no problems to ever report. I think the only thing I’d be interested in is more advanced analytics.

Take ‘Notes’ on Your Show

So, we’ve mentioned our show notes of course, but we also have our Episode Companions. These are really detailed, comprehensive notes that our team takes after every single guest episode.

This is an exceptional way for me/our team, to quickly review a show and remind ourselves of important takeaways and key concepts.

In addition to being valuable for listeners, this makes assembling ‘compilations’ much easier. Of course, this is an extra expense in the process, so…don’t worry about it if your budget is tight. But, as a bonus, you can use that to encourage people to subscribe.

Transcribing Shows

We don’t transcribe shows anymore, but it’s been useful in the past to review shows, grab important quotes, and publish our biggest compilation episode, “50 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World Through Business.” We used Temi in the past, but they recently raised their rates. Other good options; Trint, Otter.ai, or Speechpad.

Use Interviews as Research

Of course, I’m always learning a ton from our guest conversations. However, sometimes the subject matter can seem all over the place as our publication schedule is often determined by who scheduled a slot when. This is something that’s a bit ‘aspirational’ for us, but I’ve always wanted to provide more focus and direction to the subject matter experts we bring on the show, to overlap with what sorts of topics we are writing about for our blog, or programs we are creating.

Have Friends Critique Your Podcast

Feedback on your show is (almost) always valuable. Friends have encouraged me to add breaks with music, add/remove sign points, and shorten my intros among other improvements. Encourage friends (who have an opinion on podcasting that will have some weight) to critically review your show.

Who to ask? Friends who might be in your target listenership, who listen to podcasts themselves, and/or have some experience in storytelling.

Post-Production

Don’t Edit Your Own Podcast

Even if you are the rare person who has had some background in audio engineering, I would recommend that you don’t edit your episodes. The most important reason? It will greatly increase the likelihood of your show not passing the test of time!

The role of the host is big enough! Take yourself out of everything but that. However, editing your first show or two might be a valuable exercise so that you can clearly make recommendations and prescriptions to the future editor(s) you work with.

I edited my first two episodes. I didn’t publish them. But, it was a good exercise just to see how much I’d value someone with the expertise to take this off my hands and to be able to have more intelligent and productive back and forth with editors.

Break Episodes Up with Music (Or Sound Effects)

A friend of mine worked with me for a brief moment on improving the quality of our show. With experience in editing and producing podcasts himself, he made the quick suggestion to break up episodes with musical transitions. It’s a small change that’s made a big difference in breaking up sometimes longer sections of solo episodes.

Thanks, Henry!

(Consider) Using Signposts

For a while, we added signposts to our episodes. I do think these added value to the show, but this sometimes required a good deal of time to our whole production and editing process. Signposts can help to break up episodes, encourage listeners to hang on, and prep/plan different sections of a recording.

Create Show Notes

Our show notes pages have been valuable for us, but not in the way most people think (see more below). A valuable, detailed set of show notes is an important reference point for your episode. This makes for having an easy link to share (you + guests). A reason to compel guests to share (if it’s something they’re proud to be featured on).

Get on Video

I do really wish we were doing this from Day One. Even if you aren’t ready to “publish” your video, start recording it as soon as you have the equipment. We’ve only recently launched our YouTube channel with full video interviews.

Get on Video (Pt. 2)

Having video allows you and your guests to better pick up on conversational queues. Being able to see each other will improve the human-to-human connection and as a product of that, improve the conversation.

Publishing a Podcast

Publish Twice Weekly

You don’t have to publish twice a week. Publishing once a week or twice a month consistently will do. But! Twice a week seems like something of a sweet spot for consistent growth of your show. Currently, we do one episode per week with a guest and one episode where I’m solo covering a topic that we’re covering on our blog. Sure, consistency is the most important thing, here. But, if you and your systems are equipped to take production to two shows a week, do it.

Optimize Your Episode Titles

This is a relatively new improvement we’ve made. Always something on the ‘to-do’ list that we finally got around to. It’s important to take your titles seriously, as that can oftentimes be the difference between someone scrolling your feed to dive into an episode or not knowing about you.

Optimize Your Episode Descriptions

We’ve yet to analyze the results from these more intentionally built descriptions, but we recently cleaned and organized what our episode descriptions look like. We want to make them clear and scannable, and most importantly, make the CTAs and options to subscribe to our newsletter easy.

(Consider) Not Numbering Your Episodes

We haven’t done this yet, but are strongly considering heading this way. Why? The last thing we want listeners to do when encountering ‘older’ episodes of ours is to think it’s just outdated and not relevant.

If our episodes are truly of an evergreen style (which we believe they are) then we don’t want potential listeners to assume they are outdated. Thanks, Noah Kagan for this tip.

Rethink Show Notes

When getting started podcasting, I read and heard countless recommendations for making sure you had a strong set of show notes for SEO purposes. However, I’m now learning, this recommendation is coming from many podcasters who don’t know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that well.

Only a tiny percentage of our show notes get any long-term traffic from Google. Don’t follow what other podcasters are doing with show notes (the majority of them anyways). Instead…see #76.

Build Blog Posts Instead of Show Notes

While maybe more work, what’s most likely to collect long-term traffic is a set of show notes that’s built around the topic of your episode with the guest, not the guest or the company themselves. Any of our episodes that we’ve done that correspond with some of our high-traffic blogs, continue to get the most monthly downloads in the long term.

Promoting & Growing a Podcast

Be Patient with Growth

Growing a podcast audience has been hard! My primary skill is in growing blogs through SEO, and so building up our listenership has been new terrain for me.

We’ve seen a consistent trajectory of growth, every quarter driving a bigger listenership than the last, but, this hasn’t come with ebbs and flows. It’s required some patience as figuring out what drives downloads has taken some time.

We’ll consistently see 5-10% growth each month over the last. As long as it’s heading up and to the right, right?

Don’t Stress the ‘New & Noteworthy’ Placement

Does anyone really know how that works these days? Obviously being organically discovered on any platform (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Etc.) is great, but in my experience that’s hard to count on.

We’ve had more traction on building up audiences and traffic outside those apps (our blog, email list, etc.). But…if someone does know how increasing discoverability works on those platforms, let me know. 🙂

(Probably) Don’t Pay for Ads

We’ve done little experimentation with much more than Facebook Ads, but even from those, we didn’t see great results in video views on the platform turning into more listeners or subscribers. As well, our podcast provides a ‘return’ on our investment in it in such indirect ways, it’s hard to determine exactly how many listeners actually lead to some certain amount of sales. This might be an issue with our funnel, or as well the wide breadth of topics we cover, but…I like it that way.

Forget Sponsors (Mostly)

The traditional podcast advertising model doesn’t pay out all too well for the host. Everything I’ve read has told me it’s on average $20 per 1,000 downloads per episode. With those numbers, we’d make on average $20-$30 bucks in 2019. Not good. Most shows don’t accumulate the mass volume of downloads to make the advertising model something that’s actually sustainable.

Automate Promotion

Where possible, think about where you can set up systems to put some of your podcast promotion on ‘autopilot.’ For instance, we use a tool called MeetEdgar to promote our podcasts on our social media accounts perpetually. While it’s not going to ‘blow our show up,’ it’s great to have passive promotion going that we don’t have to touch.

Sponsor Yourself

If you really need to find more direct (or even indirect ways) to monetize your show, consider sponsoring yourself. Good advice I’ve heard from Charley Vahler over at Vahler Media. Use the end of your intro and a midroll to test out promoting your products/services.

Turn Listeners into Email List Subscribers

This is maybe the #1 thing is making the ‘most’ out of the audience you build around your show. Think about how you can take your listeners and deepen your relationship with them. The best way to do that? Encourage them to become email list subscribers. For us, we have our “Episode Companions” among other bonuses, to incentivize listeners to take another step with us in our relationship. Think about what that next step could be and insert those CTAs throughout your episode recordings.

Asks Guests to Link to Your Show Notes

This is a solid SEO strategy and a relatively easy ‘quick-win’ way to build up your website’s authority in the eyes of Google. A few weeks after each episode launches we follow up with the guest or their team to see if they might be willing to add our feature to a News, Press, or About page. Nearly 100% of the time, we get an enthusiastic “Yes!”

This helps boost the overall authority of our site and the guest’s page, which ultimately drives more traffic to each! You help your SEO and get more ‘ears’ on the guest and their work. Win-win!

Make it Easy for Guests to Promote

Having guests promoting your show is a great way to build buzz for a new episode and potentially capture new subscribers. Do whatever you can to make it easy for your guests to promote the episode. We set up a calendar event to remind guests when the episode will go live. We have a Google Doc swipe file with some templates and copy for promotion, and of course, we have our direct link to the episode show notes for easy shareability. With all these things in mind, it’s also important that you see #86.

Don’t PUSH on Guests to Promote

We all want guests to promote their episode. It helps grow our show! However, don’t expect guests to promote. The best thing about welcoming guests on your show is all the great friends you can make as a product of it (see next tip). Don’t mess with that.

Focus on creating a valuable connection and good experience for your guests and the majority of them will promote.

Promote Old Episodes

Although my interviewing skills have improved, I still think our early episodes are valuable for listeners (thanks to the guests, not the hosts). And so, while still a large area of opportunity for us, we do like to find reasons to keep promoting and re-promote old episodes.

Find Places to Republish Episodes

This is based on the principle of ‘making the most’ out of the quality content you took the time to create. For us, it was a great early privilege to start republishing all our podcast episodes on the B Corporation community’s blog, B the Change that has over 17,000 subscribers. This requires minimal work from us, but always gives us an additional spike in listenership.

Create Evergreen Episodes

If you want to set yourself up for the greatest chance of gathering a compounding listener base over time, you want to create a good majority of your episodes in such a way that if someone listens to it a year or two years after its publication, it still holds up. If you are publishing strictly timely/news-based content, then you can expect their relevance to fade and their download count over time to do the same.

Get on Other Podcasts with Audience/Topical Overlap

With the onboarding of a kick-ass Director of Partnerships & Communications, we just kicked off this strategy for podcast growth. Thinking through it, where might be the best place to access more podcast listeners? On other relevant podcasts…duh! However, crafting these pitches should be done with care and authenticity (see more below).

Make YOUR Pitches Genuine

If you are attempting to get booked on other podcasts, take the time to make your outreach genuine! Would you actually be a good guest for their show? How do you know? Have you listened to any episodes? We constantly get outreach saying “LOVE YOUR PODCAST! Can I be on it?” There’s no signs of personal touch or that they’ve even listened to an episode. Thumbs down.

Create ‘Best of’ Shows

When we crossed year one in running our show, we thought we’d do something special. That’s when we created Parts 1 and 2 of the “50 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World through Business.” This episode was a great success. Many of the 50 guests featured shared it, linked to it, and for a while, that double part ‘best of’ show helped set a single-month download record that took us five months to beat!

Repurpose Episodes

If you are recording podcasts on video (or, even if you aren’t), there are a million ways you can reuse that content you already created. Get creative with it! Audio, text, & video can be reutilized for so many different platforms. Speaking of…#94…

Publish Quote Graphics on Instagram (and other platforms)

We’ve recorded 100 episodes…(did I mention that?). How many hours of content (and good quotes) do you think that is? Quote graphics are a great way to snip up an episode and have an unlimited stream of content for your different social platforms.

Create Audiograms

Again, same thing here. Add some life to quotes and create audiograms to go on Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

podcast audiogram example — (Here’s a link to this audiogram example)

Publish Short Promo Videos

These are a ‘semi-recent’ phenomenon for us, that my friend Sameer Bhuchar has absolutely crushed for us. With every new episode, we drip out a short promo a few days beforehand to build some buzz. This gets the guest some traction early, as well gets them involved in promotion early as these little videos show them we are serious about getting listeners for their show. 🙂

Get Setup with All Podcasting Platforms

Easy thing to do here, especially with a tool like Libsyn. Make sure your show is on every one of the podcast directories known to civilization because why not? Once we made the initial connection on Libsyn, every time we publish a show it distributes to every podcast you can think of (except on Soundcloud!).

Embed a Podcast Player on Site

Again, a no-brainer. Of course, you’ll want to embed your podcast player on the show notes page on your website. However, we also have started embedding players on blog posts with relevant topics. This is a great way to get more exposure to the podcast and keep people on site for longer.

Build a Community for Your Guests &/or Listeners

This is something that’s aspirational for us as well. As we’ve mentioned, we’ve cultivated so many exceptional relationships through the podcast. I’ve been wondering about some way to bring all these excellent people together…but not just a traditional Facebook Group or something like that.

We recently launched the Better World Business Growth Community, and we hope that will serve us there, but still think there’s some value to be made here in more explicitly connecting all these people we’ve engaged with through the show.

Use Your Podcast to Write a Book

Another aspiration. I haven’t done it, but I think I could (as could any other podcast host who has covered their space in depth)!

Consider your interviews as opportunities to set the stage for a book you may publish later on. As our interviews are with some of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in our industry, there’s no question that I could use those as research and case studies for a book on social entrepreneurship and innovation…maybe that’s where I get working next. 🙂

Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression—And The Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari

February 26, 2019 by Cory Ames

Author: Johann Hari

Category: Health & Wellness, Community

Rating: 7/10

Check it out on Amazon.com

Summary:

Depression and isolation are running rampant. And, what we have believed to be “cures,” antidepressants, aren’t solving the issue like we thought they would. While there may be some short term relief, most taking the prescriptions find themselves still depressed. People struggling with depression and loneliness can do all that modern medicine is prescribing they should do, but even still, they can’t find relief. Why is this? — Problem of the book.

1) How are people still depressed while taking antidepressants? How can they still be depressed even though they are doing everything modern medicine is prescribing?
2) Why are so many people feeling depressed and anxious? What has changed over time?
3) “Could something other than bad brain chemistry” be causing depression in people? If so—what is it?

Depression and anxiety are misunderstood, overmedicated and misrepresented (depression is not unhappiness). Through attempting to really understand, 1) Why people are still depressed even while taking antidepressants, 2) Why so many people are feeling depressed and anxious and what has changed over time, and 3) What other than brain chemistry and biology could be causing depression in people, we may be able to find real and long-term solutions. In fact, from Hari’s research (and personal experience) he came to find 9 proven causes of depression and anxiety, and their potential antidotes.

Questions & Implications:

Studies have shown that the effects of antidepressants are marginal—the majority of their effect on “recovery” were in someway related to placebo, being either a natural recovery cycle or the story the patient had been told about the medication. Getting better sleep can have more of a meaningful impact on a patient’s status than taking antidepressants. Not to mention, the side effects on antidepressants are/have been real; gaining weight, sexual dysfunction, etc.
- Antidepressants aren’t as effective as has been promised. And the percentage of people on antidepressants who continue to be depressed is high—between 65 and 80 percent.
- Antidepressants don’t work like we’ve been told to believe, so…we can assume there’s a story we have told about them that is untrue — why the inaccurate story? And what’s the incentive for the inaccuracy?

Actions & Takeaways:

“…depression is—in fact—to a significant degree a problem not with your brain, but with your life.” (51)
- Highly stressful events and long term stressors present in life can dramatically increased your likelihood of becoming depressed. On the inverse, stabilizing forces in your life; supportive friends and partner can reduce the probability.
- Living in poverty, were long term stressors among those.
Causes of Depression are disconnections from things we innately need.
- 1) Disconnection from Meaningful Work
  - 2011 and 2012 — Gallup poll of millions of workers across 142 countries concluded that “13 percent of us say we are “engaged” in our jobs—which means they are “enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and contribute to their organization in a positive manner.”” (64)
    - “63 percent say they are “not engaged,” which is defined as “sleepwalking through their workday, putting time—but not energy or passion—into their work.” (64)
    - “…24 percent are “actively disengaged.” They, Gallup explained, “aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish…Actively disengaged employees are more or less out to damage their company.” (64)
    - “Nearly twice as many people hate their jobs as loves their jobs.” (64)
  - Your position in the work hierarchy plays a very close relationship to your likelihood of becoming depressed…(the higher you are, the less likely, the lower, the more likely).
    - “If you worked in the civil service and you had a higher degree of control over your work, you were a lot less likely to become depressed or develop severe emotional distress than people working at the same pay level, with the same status, in the same office as people with a lower degree of control over the work.” (68) — It would seem that the missing component in workplace satisfaction was/is autonomy.
- 2) Disconnection from Other People
  - Studies have shown that “loneliness preceded depressive symptoms. You became lonely, and that was followed by feelings of despair and profound sadness and depression.” (77)
    - Why does loneliness cause depression and anxiety so much?
      - A primal argument is made — all our instincts were honed not for life on our own, but life within a tribe. Loneliness can be thought of like a thirst for water. It’s an emotional reaction letting us know that we need to reconnect.
    - As societies, statistics are showing that we are trending away from “active involvement in community organizations,” between 1985 and 1994, this involvement dropped by 45 percent. (79)
    - Study asking a simple question, “How many confidants [people you could turn to in crisis] do you have?”
      - In 2004, the most common answer was 0. Several decades ago, the most common answer was three.
      - The sense of community and close friendships has only dropped. It’s more common that Americans believe themselves to have no close friends.
    - Difficulty is, that the more lonely people become, often the more difficult they are to spend time around. Likewise, lonely people are often skeptical of others, because they don’t feel they have anyone looking out for them. (82) — This is a snowball effect of loneliness — Strangely enough, it’s a situation where the thing we most need (connection) becomes harder to obtain. The thing we need most, we don’t want?
  - How do you end loneliness?
    - Studies have found that “to end loneliness, you need other people—plus something else. You also need…to feel you are sharing something with the other person, or the group, that is meaningful to both of you.” (83)
      - “A one-way relationship can’t cure loneliness. Only two-way (or more) relationships can do that.” (83)
      - You need “mutual aid and protection.”
        Responsibility — A sense of connection is limited with one person feeling like they are being taken care of?
- 3) Disconnection from Meaningful Values
  - It seems as if this is a large battle between intrinsic and extrinsic values.
    - Thinking extrinsically poisons your relationships with people.
    - Extrinsically focused people experience far fewer flow states. — Far less enjoyment of doing things for the sake of doing them.
    - You are always worrying and wondering what other people are thinking about you.
    - Materialistic people are chasing values that don’t fill our basic needs (of connection)
  - Key definitions:
    - Intrinsic motives — “…things you do purely because you value them in and of themselves, not because of anything you get out of them.” (95)
    - Extrinsic motives — “…things you do not because you actually want to do them, but because you’ll get something in return—whether it’s money, or admiration, or sex, or superior status.” (95)
  - Intrinsic Goals vs. Extrinsic Goals (96)
    - Achieving extrinsic goals doesn’t correlate to any increase in day to day happiness.
    - Achieving intrinsic goals does make people significantly happier—less depressed and anxious.
  - Values can change over time though…so when are people materialistic?
    - Coercion? Like advertising!
  - You have to escape the circumstances where you environment is encouraging materialism, these cripple your internal satisfactions — you have to then replace these environments with actions that will provide the internal satisfaction and encourage intrinsic goals. (103)
  - How to re-connect to the meaningful values
    - Start with your own values
    - Ask yourself if you are setting yourself up for success!
    - “Am I setting up my life so I can have a chance of succeeding at my intrinsic values? Am I hanging out with the right people, who are going to make me feel loved, as opposed to making me feel like I made it?…” (104)
- 4) Disconnection from Childhood Trauma
  - “The greater the trauma, the greater your risk of depression, anxiety or suicide.” (112)
- 5) Disconnection from Status and Respect
  - “The more unequal your society, the more prevalent all forms of mental illness are. Other social scientists then brok this down to look at depression specifically—and found the higher the inequality, the higher the depression.” (121) — Inequality & mental health, what might this imply for a country like the United States? Is capitalism, at least how it currently is, a recipe for mental illness amongst the people?
  - In unequal societies, people are questioning their own status. “Am I maintaining my position? Who’s threatening me? How far can I fall? Just asking these questions—as you have to when inequality grows—loads more and more stress into our lives.” (121)
- 6) Disconnection from the Natural World
  - “…people who moved to green areas saw a big reduction in depression, and the people who moved away from green areas saw a big increase in depression.” (126)
  - How might you remedy?
    - Nature walks, — studies conducted that had people in cities take walks in nature showed that moods improved as did concentration. For people who were depressed, “…their improvement was five times greater than the improvement for other people.” (127)
    - Exercise — significantly reduces depression and anxiety.
  - Biophilia — “…an innate love for the landscapes in which humans have lived for most of our existence, and for the natural web of life that surrounds us and makes our existence possible.” (128)
- 7) Disconnection from a Hopeful or Secure Future
  - At direct contrast with various modern trends
    - Gig economy — These are inherently insecure, unstable jobs.
    - Lacking regulations of businesses, making it difficult for workers to organize and protect their rights.
    - What is reasonable security? What is security for the entrepreneur? Creating value
- 8 & 9) The Real Role of Genes
  - “…genes increase your sensitivity, sometimes significantly. But they aren’t—in themselves—the cause.” (148)
  - The snowball effect comes into play here — the more lonely you are/feel, the more your brain continues to change.
  - The experience of being lonely, isolated and materialistic all change your brain—as does the healing from that. (145)
  - 37 percent of depression is inherited, severe anxiety between 30 and 40 percent. (Height is 90 percent inherited for perspective) (147)
Curing Depression is about Connection — Hari calls these “Reconnections”
- 1) To Other People
  - Does trying consciously to make yourself happier actually work? (180) — The topic of SELF-HELP. Instead: How can I make my community better?
    - “If you deliberately try to become happy, you will not become happier—if you live in the United States. But if you live in Russia, Japan, or Taiwan, you will become happier.” (180)
    - In the West, our way of looking at life is more individualistic. In Asia, it’s more collective. “If you decide to pursue happiness in the United States or Britain, you pursue it for yourself—because you think that’s how it works. You do what I did most of the time: you get stuff for yourself, you rack up achievement for yourself, you build up your own ego.” (181)
      - Pursuing happiness in Russia, Japan or China is done by trying “…to make things better for your group—for the people around you. That’s what you think happiness means, so it seems obvious to you.” (181)
    - And, the data shows, the Western version of happiness doesn’t work…the more you believe happiness to be a social thing, the better off you are. (181) “…if we return to seeing our distress and our joy as something we share with a network of people all around us, we will feel different.” (181)
      - Community! — The role of community in personal well-being. Thinking we versus I.
    - The search for individual solutions is a trap. We dive further into our own egos.
- 2) Social Prescribing
  - Wasn’t sure as to the difference here between connections to others and social prescribing.
    - However, seems to stress more social programs. Used an example of “dog shit alley,” where a group of depressed patients worked together to take this run down, dirty alley and turn it into a community garden.
- 3) To Meaningful Work
  - Fact is, most people dislike their work. “…87 percent of us feel either disengaged or enraged by our jobs. You are twice as likely to hate your job as love it, and once you factor in e-mails, those work hours are spreading over more and more of our lives—fifty, sixty hours a week.” (201) — Work satisfaction
  - Example of a democratic cooperative — Baltimore Bicycle Works
    - Six full partners, all share the proceeds — at the time of Hari’s visit, there were 3 apprentices who spent a year training, working, etc. who would then be evaluated after a year to become full partners if they were seen as a good fit. — Importance of Equity & Ownership
      - “The goal is for everyone to feel equally committed to the cooperative, and able to find a way to make the best contribution they possibly can to it.” (206)
    - This style of work provides a “reconnection,” because you feel your are choosing it, you directly benefit from it, you have a respected status or status isn’t at play at all, and you are connected to evaluating the future. You know where you could be working 5 years from now — no pressure or insecurity. (208)
  - “A major study by scientists at Cornell University investigated 320 small businesses. Half had top-down control, and half let the workers set their own agenda in a model that was closer to the democratic system at Baltimore Bicycle Works. The businesses closer to the democratic model grew, on average, for times more than the others.” (209)
- 4) To Meaningful Values
  - Decipher between what our your values and values that have been placed upon you, or expected of you from society.
  - This might be where a sorting of your personal philosophy may come to benefit. What do you believe? Are you acting in accordance with those values?
- 5) Sympathetic Joy & Overcoming Addiction to the Self
  - Sympathetic Joy is a method for cultivating “the opposite of jealousy or envy…It’s simply feeling happy for other people.” (220)
    - The practice (220-221):
      - 1) Close your eyes and picture yourself. You imagine something good happening to you—falling in love, or writing something you’re proud of. You feel the joy that would come from that. You let it flow through you.
      - 2) Then you picture somebody you love, and you imagine something wonderful happening for them. You feel the joy from that, and you let that, too, flow through you.
      - 3) Then you picture somebody you don’t really know—say, the clerk who serves you in the grocery store. You imagine something wonderful happening to her. And you try to feel joy for her—real joy.
      - 4) You picture somebody you don’t like, and you try to imagine something good happening for that person. And you try to feel joy for that person.
      - 5) Then you picture somebody you really dislike, or someone you really envy
      - Do this everyday for fifteen minutes.
  - Psychedelics — Psilocybin experiment — Role in overcoming the addiction to the self / “breaking our addiction to ourselves”
    - “Some 80 percent of people who were given the highest dose of psilocybin said, two months later, that it was one of the five most important things that had ever happened to them.” (233)
    - Psilocybin & Smokers — “After just three session…80 percent of them quit, and were still off cigarettes six months later. That’s a higher success rate than any comparable technique anywhere.” (234)
    - Study — University College London, Psilocybin and treating Depression — (only a preliminary study), “…but they found that nearly 50 percent of patients saw their depression go away entirely for the three-month period of the trial.” (234)
      - These results were dependent on one thing, “Your likelihood of recovering from depression or addiction was dependent on how intense a spiritual experience you had during the drug experience. The more intense the spiritual experience, the better the outcomes afterward.” (234)
    - “…what both deep meditation and psychedelic experiences teach us is the ability to see how much of that self—that ego—is constructed.” (235)
    - “…these substances most often leave people with a profound sense of connection—to other people, to nature and to a deeper sense of meaning.” (236)
      - “They’ve recognized the connection between themselves and others…They feel more motivated to connect to others. They feel more motivated to care for themselves in healthy ways, rather than destructive ways.” (236)
- 6) Acknowledging and Overcoming Childhood Trauma
- 7) Restoring the Future
  - “It is a well-established fact that the poorer you are, the more likely you are to become sick in almost everyday. In the United Status, if you have an income below $20,000, you are more than twice as likely to become depressed as somebody who makes $70,000 or more. And if you received a regular income from property you own, you are ten times less likely to develop an anxiety disorder than if you don’t get any income from property.” (247)
    - Wealth, Mental Health, & Inequality — Poverty & Well-Being
    - If something like a Universal Basic Income was to help provide people with some sort of foundation…$12,000 a year even, would that then bring more people out of these “depression risk sector?” What’s the difference between complacency, and desperation? Would $12,000 a year, take people out of desperation? Or would it really turn us into more complacent people?
  - Canadian Basic Income Experiment — Dauphin (rural community in Manitoba) — Universal Basic Income 1970s (245 –
    - $19,000 (in U.S. dollars) per year by the govt. guarantee
    - 3 years into the experiment a conservative government took power in Canada and shut down the experiment.
    - What were the results?
      - Students stayed at school longer and performed better
      - Number of low-birth-weight babies declined as more women delayed having children until they were ready.
      - Parents with newborn babies stayed at home longer to care for them and didn’t rush back to work.
      - Depression and anxiety in the community fell significantly
        Drop of 9 percent in serious mental health disorders and severe depression (in 3 years)
  - Great Smoky Mountains — Native American tribal group & Casino (250)
    - Everyone received $6,000 a year rising to $9,000 later
      - “Behavioral problems like ADHD and childhood depression fell by 40 percent.” (251)
  - Universal Basic Income
    - Implications, workers are empowered to say “no” to substandard jobs. Employers have to react with improving work conditions, increasing wages, etc.

Key Points, Quotes & Definitions:

What has led to the depression, anxiety and antidepressant circumstance to be as it is?
- Early trials & placebos —
  - 25 percent of the effects of antidepressants were due to natural recovery, 50 percent were due to the story you had been told about them, and only 25 percent to the actual chemicals. — Irving Kirsch — The impact of antidepressants was much lower than anticipated.

Atomic Habits: A System for Getting 1% Better Every Day by James Clear

February 26, 2019 by Cory Ames

Author: James Clear

Category: Productivity, Self-Improvement

Rating: 6/10

Check it out on Amazon.com

Related Books & Resources:

Have you made your life up of good habits? Or…bad ones?

Have you ever tried to add a new habit, but failed? Ever tried to break a bad one, but it’s still apart of your routine?

Maybe it was trying to learn a new language, or start your day with a morning walk…but, for some reason they didn’t stick…

Turns out, it’s not you, your willpower or the cut of your jib.

Rather, you were working on the “wrong system” for habit formation.

Man, isn’t it great when something isn’t your fault? Ahh…what a release.

Like most everything else, habit making and habit breaking are both skills. Skills that we can be good at, or like most folks (myself included), can be horrid at.

I’ll often set goals, without thinking completely about how I will get there (the habits). Time passes and goals remain unachieved.

Sometimes, I will come up with some habits to put in place. But, I make it insanely difficult on myself. Like, I should bake a carrot ziti every single day or something.

Does that sound like you at all?

If it does, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear will be a fitting read for you.

Finally, our teeth will be flossed every morning, and our gratitude journals will be full. Rejoice!

You’ll become the master of self-improvement that you’ve always hoped to be.

Lessons from Atomic Habits by James Clear

The lessons extracted from this book are plenty, but rather simple:

Habits are important because they quality of our lives. Daily habits (or actions) make up how we spend our days. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
Bad habits are easier to break and good new habits are easier to make if we learn about human behavior. Then, learn how to use that to our advantage.

Based on my reading, I want to provide you with a book summary that explains two things:

Why we should focus on habits, more so than goals
What is the framework for 1% improvement that James shares with us in the book?

Let’s get into it.

So, why focus on habits, more than anything else?

Clear makes the following claims to begin his book…

The quality of your habits dictate the quality of your life…

Why?

Our habits (actions) make up our days and days make up our lives.

And at some point your actions dictate who you are and what sort of “fruits” you do or don’t enjoy in your life…right?

Are you acting as a professional writer might (writing everyday)?

Or, are you still aspiring to write?

Do you binge on crappy food? Do you spend most of your day sitting? Or, do you get out and go on walks?

Our habits, both good or bad, will end up leading to results in our life that are likewise, good or bad.

It’s not always easy to see; skipping exercise once won’t make you out of shape, but if you routinely do so, that will. And worse, there may be detrimental health effects to pay.

Both our good habits and bad work like “compounding interest” as Clear explains.

Saving $100 / month may not seem like a lot, but if you start early enough in your life, and invest it in an account with annual returns of 4%, that cheddar will stack.[Insert image representing savings and compound interest]

Likewise, if you eat enough midnight burgers in your lifetime, one day, you may be fat. And, if you write everyday you may just publish a book one day.

So, if we investing in our habits, we should yield big returns, right?

We will all be better looking, have more perfectly shaped penises, more money and have way more sex…you get it…

But, why don’t people invest in habits?

Why habits don’t have the “rep” they should

Continuing with the theme of”compounding interest,” Clear believes habits don’t get the sexy reputation of goals because habits don’t make a difference in your life until you hit a “critical threshold.”

You don’t write one morning of your life and publish a New York Times Best-Seller. That sort of ambition takes time.

Goals are more alluring. Like, making whatever money you want, installing the new Windows 10 on your computer, or getting a short line at the DMV.

We forget success (yet we define it) won’t hit until plenty of consistent action has been taken.

Most people forget that success (in whatever way that’s defined) is not hit until a “critical mass” of action has been taken. And those actions, are our habits.

Goals are sexy, but habits get the results.

How goals and habits relate

Goals can act as our compass and our habits act as the process or the system we use to get there.

Habits are what lead to the outcomes (goals) we want to achieve.

As Clear states well, “Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” (24)

Habits are the gears that turn the machine of you. What sort of output do you want? Look at how the machine is running.

Goals and fulfillment

It’s also important to note, that the fulfillment that comes with achieving goals is temporary.

Happiness is never found at the end of the tunnel, it’s found on the journey, man (emphasis on man).

Our habits, the actions we take everyday, are what have the most potential to be and should be what are most fulfilling in our lives.

If they aren’t, they wuddya doing?!?!?!

So we get it…right?

We focus on habits to make us more of who we want to be and allow us to spend our days how we would like, and those will lead to results that we enjoy.

Now that we have settled that, let’s talk about the process for making a good habit or breaking a bad, that Clear introduces us to.

The Framework for 1% Improvement (Extracted from James Clear’s Atomic Habits)

Before briefing us on his system, Clear first shares with us how habits work.

Through doing so, we should better be able to understand how we can succeed in the future and avoid tragic failure.

To paraphrase Clear, our brain builds habit to make the fundamentals of life easier.

Could you imagine if you had to re-figure out how to tie your shoes everytime you put them on? That would be obnoxious as fuck. We’d most likely all start wearing flip flops more often. A

Think about what that would do for people where it’s cold?!?

Thank the lord for habits, because now as functioning adults, we can tie our shoes like a bat out of hell and get on with our days.

“Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future (47).”

Forget getting caught up with double knotting your Jordans and focus on painting the next Starry Night.

This framework for continuous improvement is simple to understand.

You select the habit you want to add to your life. Then, you determine how to set yourself up for success by “hacking” the habit loop (the process for forming habits).

Finally, you track your progress, review your results and make adjustments.

Let’s look at each step in more detail.

1. Select the habit you want

Determine what type of person you want to be, and determine what that type of person does.

James calls these “identity-based” habits as oppose to outcome based habits (31).

“You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity (34),” as James tells us.

We must draw attention toour existing values and principles, who we wish to become, and discern what habits might bridge the gap for us.

Self-awareness is the first step.

To do this, James suggests making a list of existing habits and use the tactic of “pointing and calling.” This is a tactic used by Japanese railway operators, literally pointing and calling out each of their actions as they go through a departure checklist.

Know what good habits you’ll make? What bad habits you’ll break?

Awesome, let’s set ourselves up to win. BIG TIME.

2. Set yourself up for success, understanding how habits work and how to “hack” them.

This is where we first learn about the “habit loop,” a concept popularized by Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. [link].

The habit loop, an introduction to the science of habits, proceeds as follows:

There’s a Cue (noticing the potential reward of an action)
We then have a Craving (desire to complete the action to get that reward)
This ideally initiates a Response (action)
Which produces the sought after Reward, and that feedback returns to our brain.

[insert image of the habit loop]

Through understanding this, how can we hack this? This is where James introduces his Four Laws of Behavior Change.

The keys to hacking the habit loop. Quit battling a “lack of motivation” and set yourself up to succeed.

Law #1, Make Your Cues Obvious

Imagine you are trying to learn how to play guitar.

Will you pick up and play your guitar more if it’s out on a stand in your living room? Or, will you play more if it’s in it’s case in your closet.

Obviously, if the guitar is in plain site, we will play and think about playing more. This is in a nutshell, the essence of hacking our “cues.”

We want to make it as easy for ourselves to do the “right thing,” which in this case, is our new habit. This is the act of decreasing any friction between ourselves and taking action.

In doing so, we let the habit loop run it’s course.

The largest cues as James reminds us are time and location. He explains, for best results, “every habit should have a home (90).”

He goes on to say…”structure your life in a way that doesn’t require heroic willpower.” (93)

A few tips and tricks James introduces are:

“implementation intentions” — (a plan you make beforehand about when and where to do the habit), like “I will open myFluent Forever language app to practice Spanish after I meditate each morning.
“Habit stacking,” — which is using momentum to make one habit a cue for the next (like in my last example, I’ve been meditating since I was 17, so I’m using the solidity of that habit to add in a new one.

Remember, environment is greater than motivation, so setup your environment for success.

Think about what sort of productive cues you have around you, vs. unproductive cues.

This is why I eat so terribly and drink 3x my weight’s worth during the holidays, all friction is setup one way.

Ask yourself, can I increase the convenience of doing this new habit I want to do? Or, is there anyway I can decrease the friction?

On the inverse, for the bad habits, make your cues disappear. Easiest example, do you want to stop eating junk food? Get it out of your house!

Onward.

Law #2, Make Your Cravings Attractive

Once we’ve made our cues obvious, we need to make them even more attractive.

We need to make it so compelling to do the good behavior it’s almost irresistible.

So, what do we do to make the habit more attractive?

Clear suggests a few of the following:

“Temptation Bundling,” which is linking something you often crave or binge over (i.e. watching TV) with something beneficial. This could be a nightly routine of stretching and yoga while you watch The Office.
Hacking “Social Norms,” which is making your desired behaviors the norm of a group or social circle you are part of, to make the positive change a means for you to fit into the “tribe.” Join a writers group if you want to build the habit of writing, etc.
Habit “Reframe,” this is a simple mental shift that you can work on brainwashing yourself with…is working out something you have to do, or is it something you get to do, that then has you feeling energetic, more inspired and and hopeful for the world’s course to right, where Donald Trump will no longer be President. Big differences.

Luckily for us, we are playing a momentum game here. The more you do your habit, the easier it becomes to do, and the more we want to do it.

Relatable to the concept of“Making Smaller Circles,” introduced in Josh Waitzkin’s book The Art of Learning.

Get the wheel turning and things will be easier.

Law #3, Make Your Responses Easy

This for me is a tipping point. One thing I have failed on time and time again in the past.

In it’s simplest form, this rule is about making the action you have to take as easy as possible.

So, it’s not; practice guitar everyday for 30 minutes. It’s not even practice the guitar for 10 minutes!

If we want to succeed, our habit should first be to pick up the guitar everyday.

How easy is that?

This rule is playing on the crucial component of momentum and feedback mechanisms.

When you “pick up the guitar,” a few things happen:

That action produces feedback.
You feel a positive sense of accomplishment,
You build your confidence,
Your brain begins to build the connection, that picking up the guitar is something you do, and enjoy.
Also, you’ll feel silly picking up the guitar and not playing, so you’ll most likely practice anyways. This is called Long-term potentiation (143).

Our aim is to dissolve the friction that exists when building a completely new habit.

How awkward does it feel to walk around with a camera when you are trying to pick up photography?

Make it easier to pick up the camera. Then, make it easier to take photos. One step at a time will produce the best results.

Focusing on “frequency” first, is they key to making a behavior automatic. It may sound tedious, but this is where we let our unconscious mind take over and habits take hold.

Make your habits easy, and be patient to take them through the evolution required to get you where you want to be.

Law #4, Make the Rewards Satisfying

The last law of behavior change is to make the rewards from doing the habit as satisfying as possible.

As Clear says, “What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided (189).”

There are a few ways we can do this, and a few ways our habits do it for us:

Habits like exercise, will reward themselves. We feel positive endorphins, we feel energized, simple enough.
With other habits, we can find ways to reward ourselves. Maybe it’s a piece of dark chocolate after a focused work session with your cell phone away. Get creative.

At it’s simplest, habit tracking (introduced next), can be the easiest way to make a habit more rewarding.

Checking off a box spikes the dopamine and gets you fired off.

Finally, track your progress, review your results, and continue evolving.

And finally, let’s take a note from the adage of management guru, Peter Drucker, “what’s measured gets managed.”

As Clear explains, “…people who track their progress on goals like losing weight, quitting smoking, and lowering blood pressure are all more likely to improve than those who don’t (197).”

There are plenty of apps that can help you do this. As well, a good ol’ spreadsheet will do some damage too. Just make it easy.

Finally, review this performance in a time period that makes sense for you. Maybe it’s weekly, or monthly. Either way, having a good sense for if you are “on track” or not, is important.

Conclusion: Better Habits Make Better Results

In every instance of the process of making good habits we are “greasing the wheels.”

We make things as attractive and rewarding as possible to do, while as well making the actions we take even easier.

We already have habits in our lives, for better or for worse. And, for this reason, I appreciated Clear’s book if only for the reason that it spiked my awareness.

Action seems to be better than inaction. And, there’s nothing wrong with starting small.

As Clear says, “you don’t rise to the level of your goals…you fall to the level of your systems.”

Where are you systems falling short?

To read more from James and learn more about him, visit jamesclear.com.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

February 26, 2019 by Cory Ames

Author: Cal Newport

Category: Mindfulness, Productivity

Rating: 7/10

Check it out on Amazon.com

Related Books & Resources:

Table of Contents:

Summary & Review:

The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. (Location: 168) Themes: Deep Work, Future of Work, Mentorship Program, Career

This book has two goals, pursued in two parts. The first, tackled in Part 1, is to convince you that the deep work hypothesis is true. The second, tackled in Part 2, is to teach you how to take advantage of this reality by training your brain and transforming your work habits to place deep work at the core of your professional life. (Location: 189) Themes, Deep Work, Work, Focus

Questions & Implications:

Will “Deep Work” (as Newport defines it) be the compliment to highly technical skills and expertise for what will remain valuable (from a market standpoint) for the worker as trends of automation, A.I., etc. continue?
Cultivating awareness and specifically self-awareness (through meditation and other means), draw even more value based on the potential of ingraining more deep work into your life.
Deep Work is a skill that must be practiced, cultivated and mastered — as a means of survival in the economy, not just a skill that is “nice to have.”
Why do we need such involved interventions? Put another way, once you accept that deep work is valuable, isn’t it enough to just start doing more of it? (Location: 1,051)
- People fight desires all day long. As Baumeister summarized in his subsequent book, Willpower (co-authored with the science writer John Tierney): “Desire turned out to be the norm, not the exception.” The five most common desires these subjects fought include, not surprisingly, eating, sleeping, and sex. But the top five list also included desires for “taking a break from [hard] work… checking e-mail and social networking sites, surfing the web, listening to music, or watching television.” The lure of the Internet and television proved especially strong: The subjects succeeded in resisting these particularly addictive distractions only around half the time. (Location: 1,062)
Is there any “smart” use of social media? Or…is the potential fragmentation of your attention and concentration not worth the cost — Does your “Deep Work” suffer?

Actions & Takeaways:

The Rules of Deep Work

Rule #1, Work Deeply

Rule #2, Embrace Boredom

Rule #3, Quit Social Media

Rule #4, Drain the Shallows

Building “Deep Work” as a Habit — The Checklist

Set the “Ultimate” Target, 3-5 hrs per day 5 days per week.
Determine a philosophy of “Deep Work” application that fits your circumstances and strengths. The 4 most common;
- The Monastic Philosophy – This philosophy attempts to maximize deep efforts by eliminating or radically minimizing shallow obligations. Practitioners of the monastic philosophy tend to have a well-defined and highly valued professional goal that they’re pursuing, and the bulk of their professional success comes from doing this one thing exceptionally well. It’s this clarity that helps them eliminate the thicket of shallow concerns that tend to trip up those whose value proposition in the working world is more varied. (Location: 1,151)
- The Bimodal Philosophy – This philosophy asks that you divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else. During the deep time, the bimodal worker will act monastically—seeking intense and uninterrupted concentration. During the shallow time, such focus is not prioritized. This division of time between deep and open can happen on multiple scales. For example, on the scale of a week, you might dedicate a four-day weekend to depth and the rest to open time. Similarly, on the scale of a year, you might dedicate one season to contain most of your deep stretches (as many academics do over the summer or while on sabbatical). (Location: 1,156) The bimodal philosophy believes that deep work can produce extreme productivity, but only if the subject dedicates enough time to such endeavors to reach maximum cognitive intensity—the state in which real breakthroughs occur. (Location: 1,159) At the same time, the bimodal philosophy is typically deployed by people who cannot succeed in the absence of substantial commitments to non-deep pursuits. (Location: 1,170) Perhaps the biggest obstacle to implementing this philosophy is that even short periods of deep work require a flexibility that many fear they lack in their current positions. If even an hour away from your inbox makes you uncomfortable, then certainly the idea of disappearing for a day or more at a time will seem impossible. (Location: 1,188)
- The Rhythmic Philosophy – This philosophy argues that the easiest way to consistently start deep work sessions is to transform them into a simple regular habit. The goal, in other words, is to generate a rhythm for this work that removes the need for you to invest energy in deciding if and when you’re going to go deep. The chain method is a good example of the rhythmic philosophy of deep work scheduling because it combines a simple scheduling heuristic (do the work every day), with an easy way to remind yourself to do the work: the big red Xs on the calendar. (Location: 1,240)
- The Journalist Philosophy – …in which you fit deep work wherever you can into your schedule…This name is a nod to the fact that journalists, like Walter Isaacson, are trained to shift into a writing mode on a moment’s notice, as is required by the deadline-driven nature of their profession. (Location: 1,258)

Build a Routine, that Follows the “Deep Work” Rules

Designate a “Deep Work” location — Home office, coffee shop (ideally the same one), library nook, etc. (This is important from a ritualistic standpoint of associating focus, deep work and no distraction with this location)
Set “rules,” for your Deep Work time — Is it no internet? Is it a words per twenty minute interval? Whatever is applicable to you, make it strict and specific and measurable or at least discerned with a yes/no.
Set an amount of time for focused work — this avoids having the work session turn into an “open slog”
Prepare your brain “fuel” — Is it a pre-Deep Work short walk? Air squats? Or a cup of coffee, or micro dose of LSD? As Nietzsche said: “It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth.” (Location: 1,301)
At the beginning of the week (or during a Weekly Review), schedule in potential Deep Work blocks
Incorporate a “shut down routine” each day to administer time to recharge and refresh.
- Get to Inbox Zero (Gmail) — Anything urgent? Can anything be boomeranged?
- Review Calendar — +/- a few days, anything I need to remember? Any meetings, appointments, deadlines coming up that would prompt future action?
- Record every lingering tasks in your official tasks hub (Asana, Evernotes, etc.)
- Review every open task, project or goal and determine — (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.
- Determine next actions and rough schedule for tomorrow.
- Use an actual word or phrase to “lock in” the end of your day — “Shutting down!!”

Tracking Deep Work —

Track your Deep Work hours, ideally in plain site (whiteboard in the office, paper attached to the computer screen, etc.) — Great app recommended fromNathan Barry,Forest

How to Make the Most of Your “Deep Work” Time —

Focus on the “wildly important,” — The time you spend in deep work should be focused on the most important thought, challenges or problems you and/or your organization might be facing.
Attempt Memory Training — Memory training positively affects your ability to concentrate, taking on any task, practice, etc. that can facilitate a greater skill of concentration can benefit the results you see in your Deep Work sessions because you will be able to…well…go deeper.

On Selecting Tools — (Like Social Media) —

Newport calls this the The Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection
- Step #1, identify the high level goals in both your personal and professional life.
- Step #2, Once you’ve identified these goals, list for each the two or three most important activities that help you satisfy the goal. (P. 195)
- Step #3, The next step in this strategy is to consider the network tools you currently use. For each such tool, go through the key activities you identified and ask whether the use of the tool has a substantially positive impact, a substantially negative impact, or little impact (p. 195).
- Step #4, Decide to only keep this tool if it has substantial positive impact on those activities and those far outweigh the negative impacts.

Alternative Options & Troubleshooting Deep Work —

The Grand Gesture — The concept is simple: By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your mind’s instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy. (Location: 1,326)
Instead of scheduling the occasional break from distraction so you can focus, you should instead schedule the occasional break from focus to give in to distraction. (Location: 1,830)
Productive Meditation — Have a professional problem in mind, and “activate” your body. Go for a run, walk, etc. and stay focused on the “well-defined” problem.
Social Media & Networking Sites — A social media platform should only be used after 1) we’ve identified the factors and characteristics of a successful professional and personal life and 2) we’ve discerned that the tool in question does not conflict with, and greatly meets those factors and characteristics. We cannot fall into what Newport calls the “any benefit mindset,” that being if a social media tool provides any benefit at all it then justifies its use. That’s just flawed logic.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You Summary, Quotes & Takeaways

September 14, 2018 by Cory Ames

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Are you wondering how to find work you love?

Or, at the least, a meaningful career? Or a sense of fulfillment in your working life?

If so, I highly recommend you read, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, by Cal Newport, an excellent book for those seeking career advice.

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On this page, I want to share with you a brief summary of the book as well as some of my favorite quotes and takeaways if you are interesting a digesting this read in a more bite-sized fashion.

Let’s get to it.

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What’s this book about? A Brief Summary of So Good They Can’t Ignore You

A quote from Steve Martin, one of the “Three Amigos,” was the inspiration for the title of Newport’s book. In a 2007 interview on the Charlie Rose show, Martin shared about what it’s been like, his ascension into comedic success…Martin claims the advice he gives on replicating a level of success that he achieved is not anything anyone wants to hear.

He said, “Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear…What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ …but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.'”

Newport’s motivation for this book came from a question he had, “Why do some people end up loving what they do, while so many others fail at this goal?”

And while the title of the book is the answer to the question Cal opens up with, Cal’s walkthrough of his research from studying those who have found “great work,” and the implications of how to find it yourself, are highly insightful and incredibly useful for someone in an existential bout with the question, “what do I do with my life?”

Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University, a blogger, and an author of some excellent books, another being Deep Work, a book I’ll surely write on later. I highly recommend checking out some of his other books and writing.

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What is “Great Work?”

To help with his definition of a “compelling career,” Cal calls on author Daniel Pink and references a TED talk of his, where he discusses his book, Drive, and claims that intrinsic motivation for your work comes from three things; autonomy (having control over what you do), competence (feeling you are good at what you do), and relatedness (feeling connection to those you work with).

And Newport argues that these sorts of “compelling careers,” often have “complex origins.” That being, developing a career that deeply serves those three characteristics mentioned by Pink, doesn’t just happen. Those types of careers are earned, cultivated and shaped over time. And, the overall arguement of Cal’s book, is that that type of career, can come to you faster, and with more certainty, if you pursue developing valuable skills (those valuable to the market you are in), above all else.

The takeaways I’ll share below will help walk you through how Cal builds this argument throughout his book.

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So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Quotes, Takeaways, & Lessons

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1. Following your passion is bad advice, “the passion hypothesis”

The first and most important claim Newport feels he should correct is that finding great work comes from first discovering what you are passionate about, and finding work that matches that.

While modern-day media and successful personalities have made this seem to be the case (Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford an example of that), Newport argues that the majority of folks who are successful and love what they do cultivated passion after they developed competence, and, that this “courage culture” being created where young people have to take a ‘chance’ pursuing what they love distorts career expectations and leaves young professionals chronically dissatisfied with their work.

Citing multiple studies, Newport claimed, “…the happiest, most passionate employees are not those who followed their passion into a position, but instead those who have been around long enough to become good at what they do.”

If we assume we need to follow a pre-existing passion to find work we love, we either find nothing that matches such an expectation, or all try to be NBA stars (as for much of my life, basketball was the only thing I would say I was passionate about).

2. Get Good, to Get “Better” Work

Cal claims that better work is rare, and highly valuable. And, in turn, to find it we ourselves need to develop skills that are rare, and valuable. Cal calls these skills “career capital,” your currency with which you accumulate and leverage to find work opportunities that are increasingly more attractive. The more skillful you become, the more diverse career opportunities you’ll have.

To develop these valuable skills, Cal encourages us to develop what he calls the “craftsman mindset.” This is an approach to your work where you focus on the quality of work you are producing, and the value you are driving to your organization or the market you are apart of.

He contrasts this with the “passion mindset,” an approach where you focus on what you are getting out of the job you have.

3. Getting Good, Requires an Intentional Effort

To truly get “so good,” you must apply a concerted effort. While in new positions and roles we inherently learn skills and grow, Cal says it’s important that we avoid a “performance plateau” when we hit a stage of being comfortable with our work. This is why he urges we implement what he calls “deliberate practice” into our work. That being, a deliberate focus at getting better at what we are doing.

4. To Answer a BIG Question like “What should I do with my life?” Start Small

While we all want to answer that question, especially in our angst-ridden 20s, we must settle with the fact that this particular question may never have a definitive and clear answer.

However, to advance this question, in the last section of the book, Think Small, Act Big, Newport suggests finding a “mission” in our work can help. But to do so, we mustn’t start and finish with some grand vision of providing clean water for everyone on the planet, we must first dip our toes in as to what we could call “little bets.”

These “little bets” being small but significant actions we can take to test if there might be a way to turn a general idea like saving the children, into a mission-driven project.

Through taking small actions as a means for gathering feedback we can see if our idea “passes important tests.”

One of which, Cal introduces with the help of Derek Sivers (author and entrepreneur), is the “Law of Financial Viability.” As Sivers says, money is a “neutral indicator of value,” and to know that someone would pay us for our idea, is an easy way to see, is our idea worth anything?

If no one wants to pay for it, we have an issue.

And, as a final note, Newport reminds us that finding a worthwhile and serious mission takes time. As he found in his research, many successful, highly mission-driven professionals were not able to derive some deep mission until they were at the “cutting edge” of what they were doing. That being, after they had spent years learning and understanding the industry and field of work they were in, they may have finally been able to actually grasp what might be needed of them given their experience.

So as a default, feel very content learning more, pursuing curiosities and using that as fuel to develop highly tangible, rare and valued skills.

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1. Following your passion is bad advice, “the passion hypothesis”

The first and most important claim Newport feels he should correct is that finding great work comes from first discovering what you are passionate about, and finding work that matches that.

2. Get Good, to Get “Better” Work

He contrasts this with the “passion mindset,” an approach where you focus on what you are getting out of the job you have.

3. Getting Good, Requires an Intentional Effort

4. To Answer a BIG Question like “What should I do with my life?” Start Small

While we all want to answer that question, especially in our angst-ridden 20s, we must settle with the fact that this particular question may never have a definitive and clear answer.

These “little bets” being small but significant actions we can take to test if there might be a way to turn a general idea like saving the children, into a mission-driven project.

Through taking small actions as a means for gathering feedback we can see if our idea “passes important tests.”

If no one wants to pay for it, we have an issue.

So as a default, feel very content learning more, pursuing curiosities and using that as fuel to develop highly tangible, rare and valued skills.

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Conclusion: Following Your Passion is Bad Advice, Instead, Focus on Building Skills. Agree or Disagree?

Finding the right work is overrated. Instead, we should focus on working right as Cal argues and surely, we will be rewarded with better work in due time. And, for the most part, I agree. A simple idea, but highly insightful and helpful at a young age when determining what you should focus your greatest efforts and energies on can be perplexing.

Searching for your “dream job,” with no career capital in your pocket can leave you chronically dissatisfied…good career advice for any.

If you’d like, you can pick up Cal’s book on Amazon.com through this link, here.

What do you think?

Do you agree, or disagree? Let me know in the comments below.

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