On this day

March 7th

Consider: If you were starting a brand-new podcast today, what would you do differently?

March 7

With everything you’ve learned from running multiple shows, what are the biggest mistakes or inefficiencies you’d avoid if you were launching a new podcast from scratch? Would you approach production, audience growth, or personal mindset differently?

~ Asked by the LLM(1)

Picture me smiling and chuckling nervously because, for more than a year, I have been trying to restart one of my shows. Certainly a big part of my 2024 was reallocated for health reasons, but my attempted restart of the Open + Curious podcast has had many months available to me before, and since. Still, there’s no new show. It’s all about the mindset, for me. I have a too-grand vision of what it should be. I can’t stop seeing all the things it could possibly become, and fixating on getting everything right (my vision of what it should be) from launch day.

However, the best wisdom that I have here for others, is just a repackaging of Heraclitus’s “no one steps in the same river twice” (the flowing water implies the river is different, and the person is also different.)

If someone is actually starting their first show: Once you understand how to do a podcast (it takes perhaps 10 minutes to learn that?) then do not spend more time asking people about starting. That’s hiding from the work. Rather, start. The experience of the doing is what you are actually seeking.

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(1) I’m working with an LLM instance which has access to everything I’ve written about podcasting, and all the episodes I’ve published. It prompts me by asking me these questions.

Not passion

March 7

[Don’t you need a certain kind of passion during those dry spells, to keep going?] Not at all. What keeps you going is stubbornness, economic necessity, or simply endurance. Passion will, at most, lead to frustration, but not to perseverance. For that, you don’t need passion, you need persistence.

~ Christoph Waltz, from Christoph Waltz – The Talks

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It’s an interesting interview just for his views on passion. I agree with him: Passion will get you out the door on days 1 and 2. But by day 3 you need a routine, an understanding of the effort your undertaking, a clear perspective on what it’s going to be in the long haul, and more. But if you really want to get wowed by Waltz, go find Quentin Tarantino’s conversation on The Moment podcast with Brian Koppelman… the part where Tarantino talks about bringing Waltz onto the project…

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Connection with Amy Novotny

March 7, 2022

How can effective breathing techniques and conversational skills enhance personal growth, public speaking, and communication?

Breathing techniques transform fear into confidence, even in high-pressure situations like public speaking.

I changed my mindset I said okay. This is time for me to practice what I preach to implement it to prove to myself yet again that this stuff works.

~ Amy Novotny (3:59)

The conversation explores the intersection of breathing techniques, communication skills, and personal development. Breathing is highlighted as a tool to calm nerves and reduce the body’s stress response, with practical applications shared for public speaking and daily life. Amy recounts their own journey of overcoming fear through mindfulness and changing subconscious habits.

Another focus is the art of effective conversation, emphasizing listening, curiosity, and the role of nonverbal cues in fostering trust. Amy shares insights into creating engaging dialogues and supporting guests in podcasting, including challenges and surprises faced during their journey. Topics range from the technical aspects of hosting to the impact of meaningful conversations on audience trust and connection.

Takeaways

The role of breathing techniques — Calming the nervous system through specific breathing methods helps manage stress and improve performance.

Effective conversation techniques — Listening actively and asking insightful, open-ended questions are key to meaningful interactions.

The challenge of public speaking — Overcoming fear and hesitation requires mindfulness and practice, even for experienced speakers.

Podcasting as a resource — Shows can provide valuable information and connect audiences with experts across various fields.

The impact of mindset — A conscious shift in perspective can transform fear into an opportunity for growth and learning.

The importance of body awareness — Observing physical habits, such as posture and breath, directly impacts mental and emotional states.

Resources

PABR Institute — Amy’s resource for learning breathing and relaxation techniques.

Kirsten Carey — Mentioned as a potential resource for health and wellness guidance.

Dr. Amy Novotny

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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The island of knowledge

March 7, 2022

As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final destination—whose existence is nothing but a hopeful assumption anyways—but to more questions and mysteries. The more we know, the more exposed we are to our ignorance, and the more we know to ask.

~ Marcelo Gleiser

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The more we know to ask

March 7, 2022

As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final destination—whose existence is nothing but a hopeful assumption anyways—but to more questions and mysteries. The more we know, the more exposed we are to our ignorance, and the more we know to ask.

~ Marcelo Gleiser

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It feels as if everything I know is fractal! Things are complicated by the fact that everything I discover, read, and learn creates a network of connections in my knowledge. I’m always trying to get enough perspective to see where that network is inbred; I’m always looking for ways to break out of my knowledge bubble. But sometimes, the knowledge bubble can be used to make manageable a task that would otherwise be impossibly large.

Consider the writings of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger, or most often just written as Seneca. Even just his series of letters to a student make for a 500 page tome. Worse, there are notes, references and multiple very different translations into English. As an example of the complexity, consider these translations of a small excerpt from letter 42. (There are 124 letters plus some additional fragments.)

So, concerning the things we pursue, and for which we vigorously exert ourselves, we owe this consideration—either there is nothing useful in them, or most aren’t useful. Some of them are superfluous, while others aren’t worth that much. But we don’t discern this and see them as free, when they cost us dearly.

~ Holiday and Hanselman from, The Daily Stoic, p75.

If I’m correctly understanding their notes, that’s their translation from the original Greek and Latin texts. I find this translation frequently on the Internet, sometimes crediting those authors/that book, and sometimes crediting, Seneca, Moral Letters, 42.6.

Next, this is from Richard Mott Gummere. My limited digging suggests his original work was published in 1917. I’m guessing it went out of copyright in 2017, because it’s pretty easy to find it entirely republished. (Search for “Seneca Richard Mott Gummere”.) The copy I have is a crappy version from Barnes and Noble. (It’s as if they printed the book at 50% oppactiy.) Gummere titled letter 42, “On Values.” (Seneca did not title them, he simply wrote letter after letter after letter to his student.)

Therefore, with regard to the objects which we pursue, and for which we strive with great effort, we should note this truth; either there is nothing desirable in them, or the undesirable is preponderant. Some objects are superfluous; others are not worth the price we pay for them. But we do not see this clearly, and we regard things as free gifts when they really cost us very dear.

~ Seneca, 42.6, translated by Richard Mott Gummere

Finally, here’s the rendering from a very new publication from Chicago Press, which—again if I’m interpreting things correctly—takes as its primary sources translations from 9 different authors, (including Gummere,) published between 1914 and 2010. The same section is presented with letter 42 titled in the Table of Contents as, “Good People are Rare.” (But the letters in the body of the text are not presented with their titles—recall, Seneca didn’t title them.) Interestingly, I cannot find the following text anywhere on the Internet, the book only having been published in 2015 may be the reason.

This indeed is a point we should keep in view. Those things we compete for—the things to which we devote so much effort—offer us either no advantage, or greater disadvantage. Some are superfluities; others are not worth the trouble, but we don’t realize it. We think things come for free, when in fact their price is very steep.

~ Seneca, 42.6, and translated by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long

As the length of this blog post attests: What starts simply as, “I’d like to read some of Seneca’s writing,” quickly gets complicated. Frankly, it gets impossibly complicated. Impossible as in: Never mind, I don’t have time for this. But I do want to read some of Seneca’s writing. (I have already read many of his letters.)

So my current plan is to use my collection of Seneca quotes to choose which letters to read again and more thoroughly. Thanks to the Internet, I can find the source letter given a snippette of text. Then I can enjoy the letter using my exquisite University of Chicago Press translation, which is magnificently annotated.

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And yet

March 7, 2020

And yet. The indescribable reward of taking a bunch of ink on paper from the shelf at Chappell of Bond Street. Tubing it home, setting the score, pencil, coffee and ashtray on the piano and emerging a few days, weeks or months later able to perform something that some mad, genius, lunatic of a composer 300 years ago heard in his head while out of his mind with grief or love or syphilis.

~ James Rhodes from, “Find What You Love and Let It Kill You”

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Know what I love most about having my own blog? Being able to pull-quote really random-ass stuff like this just because I liked it.

And yet I don’t play the piano. Never played as a kid, but did mess around with it—including having a real piano teacher—around 30, got to advanced beginner and then ran out of time to practice when I finally had a house that would actually have been the first time I had room for a real piano. Sorry, I digress.

And yet for some random-ass reason I completely feel as if I understand what this apparently bat-shit crazy concert pianist is talking about. …maybe it’s the parallel of piano keys and computer keyboard keys? …maybe it’s the parallel of pouring countless hours—I paused here and started actually trying to estimate how many hours, straight-up paniced at how large the number was getting to be and decided to just move along—into tapping away at computers creating something that was, is and always will be, “just” good enough? Seriously I am not an artist. I certainly don’t think of myself as an artist. I always felt like an engineer sorting out, and building, systems of various forms.

And yet

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Making your ideas happen

March 7, 2019

Selling, I’ve grown to understand, is more urgent, more important, and, in its own sweet way, more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It has helped our species evolve, lifted our living standards, and enhanced our daily lives. The capacity to sell isn’t some unnatural adaptation to the merciless world of commerce. It is part of who we are.

~ Daniel Pink from, Ambiverts, Problem-Finders, and the Surprising Psychology of Making Your Ideas Happen

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I believe in a very clear definition of “trade:” An exchange of value in which all parties are left better off; That is to say, trade is not zero-sum.

I believe it’s unnecessary to talk about “good” trade. That “good” is superfluous since any trade that isn’t “good” wouldn’t be trade. (It would be deception, cohersion, etc.)

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Ever-present mental stress

March 7, 2018

Most people have been in some version of this mental stress state so consistently, for so long, that they don’t even know they’re in it. Like gravity, it’s ever present — so much so that those who experience it usually aren’t even aware of the pressure. The only time most of them will realize how much tension they’ve been under is when they get rid of it and notice how different they feel. It’s like the constant buzzing noise in a room you didn’t know was there until it stops.

~ David Allen from, Getting Things Done

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The key insight for me was once I realized there are two “directions” to thinking: I was always good at vertical thinking, going down thru a project (big or small), planning, organizing and doing. This was simply “thinking”, and how could there be more than one “direction” in which to think?

Unfortunately, I often got stuck when my brain started doing this other direction of thinking for which I had no name; no concept to attach: The horizontal thinking. The hopping from project to project — and I use “project” in the most broad sense of ANY thing involving a goal (“remodel house”, “send holiday cards”), any size (“seven years of projet management and contractors”, “buy stamps, buy cards, stuff, mail” ), and any number of steps. My mind hopped uncontrollably from thing to thing, around and around, across all the open loops, as the same things came up over and over and over.

These days, having a solid capture and review system enables me to close those mental loops. I can often read for a half an hour without my mind once interrupting me with some random, “I need to do this,” or “I need to remember that,” thought. (And if it does interupt me, I simple capture that thought once. Done. Freedom.) In the beginning I used paper notecards, then notebooks, software, and on and on. The exact system does not matter. It only matters that you trust your system. Only when you truly trust your system will your subconscious close all those open loops.

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4,000

March 7, 2016

(Part 24 of 36 in series, 10,000 Reps Project)

I passed the 4,000 reps mile-post last week! Woo-HOO! 6,000 reps to go. Booooooo!

Last week was a Herculean effort on bar precisions to dig out of the hole I created. I did 700+ bar precisions in 3 days. It was deliciously decadent to have Saturday/Sunday off from this project. (I spent the days “off” by driving 3 hours to play/train with friends in upstate NY, driving home, and then going to regular Parkour class on Sunday. “Rest” may not be the right word.)

After last week’s “no plan” plan turned out well, I’m going back to my regurlarly scheduled work-rest-work-rest-rest 5-day pattern. I’ll do 100 reps of each, and my goal (over the coming weeks) will be to bring the pull-ups closer together. Currently, I’ve been doing ~100 pullups scattered in bunches of 8’s (as 3,3,2) or 7’s (as 3,2,2) spread through the day. I’ll work on making pull-ups into larger bunches of 9’s (4,3,2), 10’s and so on. The dream being to get to 10×10 pull-ups in one workout. My right forearm/grip is feeling better, but nowhere near 100%; so I’m keeping this as an odometer race, I’m not going anywhere near max rep’s on pullups until my forearm feels 100%.

A note about handstands: I’m going to keep doing them as 15-second stands. I was increasing the time per stand, but I realize now that I need more practice on the kick up and balance. So doing lots of shorter stands gives me lots of practice. I’ve managed a few instances of 5 seconds of complete free standing after kicking up onto the wall.

Next week, I’ll consider going to 120-rep workouts. That would bring the pace up sufficiently to finish 10k well before July 20. (Alternatively, I might invite friends out for a day of hurt to try to do something crazy like 500-of-each-exercise in one sprint to the finish, but that seems risky to me.) I would LOVE to wrap this up early so I can move on to other things.

For the long view, I sketched out doing 100-rep workouts on my 5-day pattern and it now comes up short at the one-year date on July 20. Astoundingly, it comes up exactly 500 reps short. (Except for pushups which are weird now due to that one-a-day ascending pushups thing that is going on unrelated to this 10k challenge. I’ll fiddle with pushups in a few weeks when that’s over.)

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