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You're Learning Too Much (And It's Holding You Back) | Book Club | 'Lean Learning' by Pat Flynn | 316

• Lauren Tilden

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It's time to stop the overconsumption of information, and start DOING.

In this Book Club episode, we’re talking about Lean Learning by Pat Flynn. This book is all about how to learn less, do more, and actually make progress in your business. If you tend to overconsume and underact, this one’s for you. We dive into tools, concepts, and strategies for getting unstuck and taking action—even if it’s imperfect.

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Lauren Tilden:

Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast here to help you do better marketing so you can make a bigger impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 316. today we are back with this month's edition of Making Good Book Club. And we're talking about lean Learning how to achieve more by doing Less by Pat Flynn. If this is your first time tuning into a Making Good Book Club episode, here's the deal. Every month, my amazing book club co-host Charelle Griffith and I discuss a book that we think can help move the needle in your small business, and we share our takeaways specifically for small business owners. As I mentioned, this month we're talking about lean learning by Pat Flynn. This book is all about a mindset shift that many of us need to hear, which is that more learning isn't always better. In fact, constantly consuming information can keep us stuck. Lean learning encourages us to pursue just in time learning, where we focus on what we need to know right now so we can actually take action and make progress. In this episode, we talk about what just in time learning actually looks like in practice, the concept of junk sparks and how to filter your creative ideas. Why taking messy action beats endless research, how to use voluntary force functions to finally get things done and so much more. If you've ever felt stuck in a learning mode, listening to all the podcasts, reading all the books, doing courses, but not actually moving forward, this book is for you. Stay tuned through the end of the episode so that you don't miss the book. We announced is our choice for next month's edition of Making Good Book Club. If you enjoy this podcast episode, here's something you can do to help us spread the word. Take a screenshot of your podcast player while you're listening to the episode, so right now and tag us on Instagram stories. I am at Lauren Tilden. Charelle is at Charelle Griffith. We would be so, so grateful for your support. Okay, let's get into this book club episode about lean learning. Charelle, welcome back to Making Good Bud Club.

Charelle:

Hello. Thank you for having me back.

Lauren:

We are this month talking about lean learning, how to achieve more by learning less.

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren Tilden:

From Pat Flynn and I brought this book to the table. I went to a conference back in June and Pat Flynn was, if not like, the keynote speaker, one of them. And everyone got this book. And the concept of it really resonated with me. Like, let's stop the overload of learning, learning, learning, learning, and kind of move into doing a little bit more, which has been, um. challenge that I've, I've worked on myself is like, I, my instinct is the learn, the, the overconsumption of information and the under action. So

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

yeah, I thought it'd be a good one. I had not read it yet, and I got a Instagram message from Shell, uh, a couple weeks ago, and she was reading it. That made me think she was not enjoying it as much as we might have hoped. So, um, yeah, I mean. You don't have to necessarily say like, I liked it or not I liked it, or, or whatever. But what is your take

Charelle:

Take on it.

Lauren:

kind of the book and what it's about?

Charelle:

So it's obviously around this idea of overconsumption, which when you put it on the table. Also super appealed to me. I think it's super easy to get focused on learning, learning, learning. Obviously I'm a book big reader, but I will say consume co podcasts, watch YouTube videos, dunno how many courses I've paid for. Like I do all like, I could learn all that. I'm a born geek and I'm proud of it. So, but this idea of like achieving more by learning less has been something that's been on my mind. The last few years I've definitely read less books. There was a phase where I read and blogs about a book every week, whereas now I probably read like half that. So it seemed the concept seemed good. In the actual book, I would probably say is this idea of like just in time learning like that I think is the premise of being like, how do we learn what we actually need to learn at the time? We need to learn it so we can apply it straight away. And then there are a range of other tactics around it to help us with the best implementation possible. That's my like angle of it.

Lauren:

Yeah, I felt that it maybe was longer than it needed to be,

Charelle:

Yes.

Lauren:

of my, my criticism of it. But I did think there were a lot of really useful concepts

Charelle:

is'cause you love concepts,

Lauren:

I love concepts love a concept. I mean, what is there besides concepts.

Charelle:

old stories that you also love.

Lauren:

Yeah. So what do you like if you don't like concepts or stories? yes, I love a story. I love a concept. and I did enjoy the book. In particularly, I think if I had read this when I started my business, I think I would've liked it even more

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

I wouldn't have been as. Like, I feel like I'm pretty battle tested with this, this concept of like over learning, wasting time with learning, not actually doing enough. And like I've kind of come to the other end already before having read the book of you just have to start doing and, you know, so like, I've kind of internalized this concept before reading the book, but. I think it would've been really useful if I was earlier on in my business journey and hadn't kind of suffered through it and had to learn myself. so the book has eight main chapters, and I think we'll just kind of go through each one and talk about

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

stood out to us.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

Okay. Do you wanna start with inspiration overload

Charelle:

In inspiration.

Lauren:

selective curiosity?

Charelle:

Yeah, so the one with all the concepts is, so this one had two very different ideas from the beginning around breaking down how people get inspired. So it talks about this idea of passion driven inspiration versus necessity driven inspiration. So a passion driven inspiration is a genuine curiosity. That makes you like, you have enthusiasm and therefore you're like, I just wanna find out more about this and I want to learn more. And you, you are driven from a genuine interest, curiosity, passion, like that's what my take of it. Whereas necessity is more like it's something you need. To be doing. So for example, he shares in the story about when he got made redundant and therefore he was like, I need to find another way to make money. And so he is having to learn and find out information in order to do something specifically.'cause he had that challenge now of like, I need to make, I need to find a new way to make money. So a passion is probably coming from a, this is just something inside of you that excites you. Necessity is more around. Like reality of situation I suppose, or what's going on in the world. And it wasn't like neither was right or wrong, but it's just that will impact your Then take on like fulfilling your inspiration is knowing which side of the coin you are

Lauren:

I kind of blew right past that section. The

Charelle:

because you did

Lauren:

stood out to me

Charelle:

well, the matrix.

Lauren:

The matrix, the inspiration matrix. I love a matrix. One of my favorite like tools for prioritizing is called the Eisenhower Matrix, which I talk about all the time on the podcast. So I love a matrix. one is basically a way of categorizing. Ideas for things to spend your time on.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

Um, so like, should I start crocheting? Should I like launch a new business? Should I do a virtual summit? Should I start a new weekly newsletter? Like, whatever, any idea of like, oh, I should spend my time on this. You can put it into the matrix and based on two criteria. Classify it as one of four things. So basically like on the Y axis, like things at the top that are more exciting to you, things at the bottom that are less exciting to you. And then on the X axis, the horizontal line. On the left hand side, it's things that are lower priority and the right hand side, it's things that are higher priority. So you ask yourself two questions for each thing. Like, should I start crocheting? Is it more, is that exciting, high, exciting, low, exciting? Is that high priority, low priority? And based on where it is, you pop it in the matrix. I think one of the key takeaways here was there's this category of things that are. Both not that exciting and low priority. He calls them junk sparks. This is just like the thing that comes to mind that probably is gonna pass within a few days where it's like, Hmm, maybe I should like start a baking blog. You know? It's like just, it's just kind of a passing thought. It's actually pretty easy to latch onto all these things and like put all these effort into

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

go down, spend a whole day in a YouTube rabbit hole about starting a baking blog, which is a total waste of time if it is low priority and low exciting. So the concept is like these junk sparks. Just try to figure out how to recognize that before you invest all this time and

Charelle:

Yeah,

Lauren:

and let yourself let it go.

Charelle:

I, I do think that was useful. And I imagine,'cause obviously there's a lot of creatives on the podcast, so I feel as if the junk spark, category is getting even bigger. My version of this is I buy the url, like I get an idea and I buy UR l. I'm like, why have you got all these URLs? Because I was like, oh, I was gonna do that. I was gonna do that. So yeah, I could totally resonate this idea like we're creators, that's why we're in business. Like most of us have got hundreds of ideas. Whizzing around all the time, but I did think the matrix was good to be like, actually, you have to work out which ones to spend your time on and how much time you are spending in the different categories.

Lauren:

Mm-hmm. So just to kind of briefly go over the other ones, if it's exciting, but low priority, this is basically hobbies. He calls them recreational interests. This is stuff to do in your own time, but like really let it have its place.

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren:

Then there's things that are high priority, high exciting. These are passion pursuits. These are important, like should be prioritized. And then also critical commitments. This is high priority, but less exciting. So those also need to be done. Like you can't just ignore the critical commit because they may feel less exciting to you. I thought this was a really, really useful concept. This is one of the things that. I think stood out to me most from the

Charelle:

Hmm.

Lauren:

The other concept also from this chapter that I really liked was this, we called it 88 Miles per Hour, was sort of the subheading,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

um, which is from Back to

Charelle:

But the future is obsessed with it.

Lauren:

he's obsessed with it. This is the speed of the DeLorean perhaps. I don't know exactly what 88 miles per hour has to do with anything, but he calls it this. But the basic idea is like when you're trying to figure out, you know, you've done this matrix and maybe you still have a ton of things in each bucket, you know, like, and you still need to narrow it down more than that. the idea is basically to imagine that you invested a bunch of time. One by one in each of these things. Fast forward your life to a year from now and try to visualize like what would your life look like if you really invested in learning crochet, let's say, or doing a virtual summit or whatever it is that you're thinking about adding to your plate really like putting yourself through this visualization exercise can help you get a sense of like, do I actually want the things that that might bring or. Or not. So I also liked that.

Charelle:

Yeah, no, I thought it was a good exercise as well. I think there's,'cause then also you get to really imagine. Like it's pushing yourself to think about what's the reality of giving that time to something to be like, where are you gonna be? And then you're like, do I even want that?'cause sometimes something can feel really good for the short term, but when you think about the reality in the long term, it's a different story.

Lauren:

mm-hmm. All right. Chapter two is Choosing Action over Information. I feel like this is really the heart to me of the book In this chapter, he's telling a story about when he. Was first starting out and he had hired a coach, and he would meet with this coach like every week or every couple weeks at the Cheesecake Factory, and his coach would give him all these different things to do and ideas and next steps. And every single time he'd like just sit down and take notes. So he's telling the story of one time they're there having this meeting and the coach gives him something to do and he starts taking notes and the coach stops him and says, just get started. Like, stop taking notes. Stop. Like. know, documenting everything, just start taking action. so this was sort of his way of presenting this idea that like, there's always more you can know about a certain topic, and knowing more doesn't necessarily make you better equipped. In fact, sometimes, like in this example, it slows you way down.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

you. We tend to like get way. More than we actually need in order to take action. Um, there's a pie chart that he shows where it's like basically a circle with a tiny sliver in it and in the circle it's. All the information there is to know about a given to topic, and there's a tiny sliver that that is labeled all the information you actually need to know to get started. Idea here is like as little information, like minimum amount of information is better. And he introduces this keystone question, which he says is inspired by Tim Ferris, which is, if this were easy, what would it look like? This seems to be the question that he asks himself for, like any next thing he's trying to do. Basically ask yourself, if this were easy, what would it look like? And I think the, the sort of thinking behind that is progress is iterative.

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren:

know, like you start, just do the easy version of it. It doesn't have to be all out, all the bells and whistles right

Charelle:

Yeah. He like,

Lauren:

just to get started, you just need to make it easy

Charelle:

yeah, like he says. The other thing is, some people call it the minimal viable action. Um, and this idea, like the shortest, simplest version of what it takes to get a result and that. Like the question for some reason didn't connect with me, but the idea of a minimum viable action did, because that's what you're saying about like what is just the shortest, simplest thing you do. It's like just to get going. What's like that first action and that's, you do that and then you can worry about the next one and then the one after that, but start doing something.

Lauren:

He talks a little bit in this chapter about mistakes. Um,

Charelle:

mistakes and failure.

Lauren:

I, mistakes and failure. I mean, I didn't think there was anything super groundbreaking here. I think to

Charelle:

No.

Lauren:

concept was just like, mistakes are good. They mean you're doing things, they mean you're moving forward. There's always something you can learn when you make mistakes and you just kind of pick yourself up and move forward.

Charelle:

I took away the main thing was being like. Just the value of mistakes, like you said, it's about learning. It's about in the same way, rather than just learning from reading and learning from other things. Actually a lot of this was like your learnings, if you pay attention to your mistakes, are gonna help you to keep more moving forward faster and better. It's all that iteration thing, like you said before.

Lauren:

Yeah. All right. Chapter three, the Power of Champions Harnessing mentorship, and Community.

Charelle:

Yeah, so this one's definitely like you cannot do it alone. That's the the short version. And you need to have the right people in your corner, which I think as business owners we're all like, put it a number of times. He definitely has a different couple of categories of people. So we have people he classes like his friends and family peers, virtual mentors and personal mentors. And this idea that really you want to have. People from all different categories, ideally is what you should be aiming for.

Lauren:

And just to clarify, a, the peers are like other people in the trenches with you, like building businesses. The virtual mentors are people who you may not actually have a relationship with.

Charelle:

Oh, yeah.

Lauren:

a podcaster that you like, or a YouTube channel or a blogger who like creates content around something that's relevant to you.

Charelle:

With a personal mentor you actually have a relationship with.

Lauren:

Right, right. And he's just kind of suggesting that you're intentional about this,

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

which I think is a good idea. He does suggest, like with virtual mentors, identify one virtual mentor whose work really resonates with you, and then commit to diving deep into their content, which I think is interesting. Like rather than just listening to whatever comes up on your podcast feed from a bunch of different people who probably have a lot of different perspectives. You know,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

really thinking critically of like, okay, this person. Has the vibe and the approach that resonates with me and like going deeper there.

Charelle:

You don't have to tell us who, but would you actually have one person in mind?

Lauren:

I definitely have some people who like I really pay attention and I wouldn't say I've done a lot of these deep dives like he's suggesting where, you know, you spend, well actually kind of, I have like, especially when I first. introduced to someone, I'll go

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

consume a lot of their content at once. yeah, I would say I have a few people who I especially pay attention to

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

people kind of on my radar.

Charelle:

Yeah. Okay.

Lauren:

you?

Charelle:

I, I think I struggled when I was trying to think of like, if I had to choose someone, I was like, there isn't someone I think like you. There's a few people that I'd be like, oh. There's a pool of people that would be like, I'm particularly interested, but I think especially like the way he talks about it, I feel like he's managed to really, I think it's that idea of like, what really resonates with you. I think he, I feel like I pick bits from different people, if that makes sense, rather. And the thought of actually trying to find one person that fully, I thought was quite challenging.

Lauren:

You like Denise Duffield Thomas.

Charelle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren:

comes to mind for, for me,

Charelle:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren:

Um, Yeah.

Charelle:

I mean, yeah, if I had to just choose her and only follow her for the rest of life, I'm sure, I'm sure I'd be okay.

Lauren:

and for those who, that doesn't ring a bell, we covered at least one of her

Charelle:

Chill and prosper is the one we did,

Lauren:

And prosper.

Charelle:

the most recently. Yeah.

Lauren:

Yeah. so I'll link to that in the show notes. And she is, she's like a money mindset.

Charelle:

mindset mentor. Yeah.

Lauren:

Yeah. All right. The next chapter, protect your Progress.

Charelle:

So this is where the idea of just in time information is like first, I think properly, mentioned, which is what I mentioned earlier in the intro. And this says about focusing precisely on the information required at the moment and intentionally blocking everything else out.

Lauren:

Mm-hmm.

Charelle:

And I think that is so, so hard. So, yeah, his whole thing is the lean learning process. Looks like. Identify the next steps in your journey. Gather the minimum amount of information required to complete that step, take action and complete the step, rinse and repeat. And in the diagram is he literally has got those three things. So like just, um, the next step just in time information, take action, go and run a wheel. And then there's just all the little boxes along the side of all the other information, and I think that's much easier. Easier said than done. Like I think even like what you just said, like not listening to another podcast when you're not meant to be like not scrolling through other people's stuff on social media, like ignoring all the emails that come into inbox like that is hard.

Lauren:

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I was thinking of it. I also really like this concept. I'm, gathering that you like this concept. Um, I, I also really like this concept, and I think when I'm thinking about it, it's like when I'm doing something new, that's when I go into deep dive

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren:

had a course on how to do a launch with a wait list, like I would go all out. I would learn single thing there possibly would be to, to do that. And the result is like you just get really overwhelmed.

Charelle:

Mm,

Lauren:

You learn every possible way to do that. You can't figure out how you should do it. You learn like the really advanced strategies, which is not

Charelle:

what you need right now.

Lauren:

be starting. trying to find the discipline to like, just learn what you need to know right now and leave it at that. Then take the action, then start over and next time you learn a little more. Like I really like that concept and it's, it's against my instincts, but. I see how it's useful because it actually gets you into taking action rather than just, you know, staying in the learning phase,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

things because you don't know enough or you feel like you don't know enough, et cetera.

Charelle:

So I definitely thought it would be hard, and so I liked what he then wrote about dealing with fomo because I personally just think to try and ignore everything else would be really difficult. And so he talks about some like. Ways to maintain focus and drive action. And the first one in particular really spoke to me. So it was an implement a four later system. And I feel like this, actually, there's someone else that spoke about a very similar thing in a book we've read before, which this idea of like, sometimes the best thing you can do is just actually have like a waiting room. And so I think this was a waiting room for ideas, was what the other book spoke about. But in this case, it's like a waiting room for things you're allowed to read and consume. And I think just so that you are like. I'm not gonna forget it. It's not gonna discipline the ether forever. It's here, but that is not my priority right now.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Charelle:

So, yeah, I liked that.

Lauren:

You talked about time blocking in this section, which we've talked about before on the podcast. Um, and I think in book club too, which is just about., There are things that are priorities to you, making sure that there's chunks of time physically in your calendar, not just on your to-do list

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren:

Are assigned to that and respecting it when it comes up. Even if it's just you to work on it. It's not like a meeting with another person, but if that's on your calendar and it's time actually going to do that, there were some things in this chapter that I was having a hard time figuring out how they connected

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

So the beginning of this chapter is this just in time concept and

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

time blocking, and then it goes into basically this section on anti champions. Which is people who are not cheering for your success. Whether it's

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

people in your life like, you know, friends and family who don't support what you're doing and kind of make snap comments or whatever. Or like online bullies and trolls who, well, you know, when you're putting things out there, you are inevitably opening yourself up to random people

Charelle:

Yep.

Lauren:

nice things to you. Um. Yeah, I wasn't,

Charelle:

Well, as I think, well, I think it's'cause the chapters called Protect Your Progress. So I think there are not necessarily, it's not necessarily the most fluid link through them, but I think as a whole, the idea is like. What are the things that could stop you moving forward? And so, yes, obviously the whole point about if we aren't like time blocking or if we're getting distracted and we're getting fomo, those things are gonna hurt us. But also the reality of other people. It's not just we, we don't live in a silo and actually being able to ignore and carry on, even if loved ones or other people are just around are um, a negative, I think. That definitely can push some people back. I think also you have to remember like Pat Flynn's writing this from a very much like he runs a community where he's seen a lot of people trying to implement these things and trying, if we're really honest, trying to be more visible online. Like a lot of his people, a lot in his world, because he podcasts, he has a YouTube channel. A lot of people are very much. The things they are doing are also heavily, predominantly online businesses. And so I think actually in order to keep moving, being able to deal with some of those exterior people is part of that.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Charelle:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Lauren:

in tiny experiments. So I felt like there was some good overlap. Do you wanna

Charelle:

My, yeah.

Lauren:

what that is?

Charelle:

Yeah, so these are basically, they are, they have become a way to help you, like speed run, skill acquisition. So he gives us a question, which is, would I be able to learn new things faster if I purposely put myself in high pressure situations? And I, the reason why I really liked this is I think a lot of us talk a lot about procrastination, and this feels like a like. I dunno, it's not reverse engineered, but a way of being like, sometimes the only way to actually make yourself do the thing is not to give yourself a lot of time. And so that's, for me, what I took of, um, voluntary force functions is this idea of being like, he tells a story of how he agreed to give a speech. Normally he would like never have done that type of speech, but it was, um, someone that like he knew that was asking and they needed someone to fill in'cause someone had had to pull out. And then he was like, but the moment I did that, I made that commitment. Then. I had, I had to do it, and I think that I had to do it. And like, I don't have any options anymore. I can't just dream about it. I can't just mess around with it. I can't just idealize about it. I think that does really work. So I think that is a very sensible thing to do. And he has a recipe for an effective voluntary function. So the first one is about having a leap of faith. So this is where you. Have a moment where you decide to turn someday into starting now. Then you have a time locked commitment. So this means you have a deadline, you have high stakes, so you really wanna be doing something that is gonna push you outside your comfort zone, but not so far that you don't take action. A meaningful,

Lauren:

that you like lose something

Charelle:

yeah. Lose something thing.

Lauren:

through. So like he said, he gives an example of like if you wanna learn Japanese, you might book a trip to Japan. months from now and like what you lose is that you paid all this money for the plane ticket and like planned this whole trip. And if you haven't, you know, so there's some high stakes to me with sort of like something there might be a negative consequence if you don't

Charelle:

Yeah, yeah,

Lauren:

which is what's missing a lot of times when we're committing. But there's no

Charelle:

yeah. If you don't do it by that date, yeah. Um, no, that makes total makes sense. And then for meaningful challenge, and that depends on the thing. So it could be like, personally you could have personal resonance. It's really important to you. There's like motivation through meaning. So it could be like the more you are doing something, the more value you're getting out of it or assessing the impact. Being like, what difference is this actually gonna make so that you can like. Really understand the challenge and why it's meaningful and the usefulness of it. And then my fa obviously rewards on the other end. Like what is gonna be the good thing? I say this to business owners all the time, like, if you're gonna do something like we, it should, the rewards should be just doing the thing, but often we need a little extra incentives. Um. Is that the small wins are often significant when you leverage them to, for larger wins down the line. Um, and so really looking at, okay, what can I be like rewarding at the end of it? So those are meant to be helping you to like come up with. Your type of voluntary force function. But I definitely feel like the main thing has been like, how do you, like you said, I think what you said about the stakes, but something that's got like a very tight, timely activity that is shorter than probably the activity would take if you didn't have that scenario. And I actually had a really interesting example of this recently.'cause I agreed to do a summit and I had, there was like a few different things I was meant to be making, like presentation wise, a few leads, magnets, a few email sequences, and I'd been dilly dallying. And then the second I agreed to that summit, I was like, well this is all gonna get done now. And I was just like. Bam, bam, bam. Ba. I had the most productive week, so I really do. I am like, actually, there is something very powerful about this. When you have got something that probably is faster than you need to do it, but you've got a, there's a high stake, like it has to be done.

Lauren:

I think that the sort of pressure with this is missing for

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

owners a lot

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

of us work by ourselves, many of us. I feel you're kind of an exception to this, but many people like really need a good amount of accountability in

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

follow through on things or some kind of pressure. Just giving yourself a deadline isn't always enough.

Charelle:

No, I agree.

Lauren:

I like the, like

Charelle:

Steak.

Lauren:

kind of setting yourself up for like a little bit of stress and pressure, but not in an, I mean, he does say like, you know, within reason,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

Don't do, don't commit into something that's like way out of scope or gonna burn you out or really overwhelm you in a bad way. But I like the concept of like just adding some pressure in a way that

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

useful from time to time. would say probably just like doing these back to back to back to back consistently would be stressful.

Charelle:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren:

you know, like you wouldn't, that sort of summit example you just gave, you probably wouldn't. Do that every single week

Charelle:

No.

Lauren:

year. Like these are isolated,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

occasional things, but

Charelle:

actually I think we talk, he talks about that later on the book. This idea, um, I think like when he talks about Power 10, I think is what he talks about, this idea of like when the rowers, they will have 10 strokes where they go. Harder than they usually go. And obviously the point is to try and like progress and move forward and so that they can win. But it's like you can't do that every single strike in the race. Like you have to choose the moment. And so, yeah, I would absolutely agree this is not about you, then that doesn't become your new normal base of working. It's, that's a peak moment, that's a push moment. And then you go back down to normal level of activity.

Lauren:

Mm-hmm.

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

Chapter six is persist or pivot, and,

Charelle:

I mean, I think the main thing was around this idea, the three P's of personal pursuit. So he has this idea of yfi and so this idea of like why it's short for, why focus inspection. Um, and she's like, to make this process a regular part of your growth, you need to be doing this. Like, so he says 15 minutes every single month, you need to be looking back on your why. And he's like, connecting back to it. And so the three why's he gives for the three P's for personal pursuit would either be progress, passion, or purpose. So, um. When you're looking one for progress. So like as you're evaluating your progress, consider like keeping a win list and a success journal and really consider whether you are giving yourself enough time. So like if you don't feel like necessary, you've got to where you wanna be, but like, are you still progressing? Are you making meaningful results and moving forward? So it's about how passion is the fuel. For many people, that's what keeps people going. That's what people, if you get knocked down and you wanna get back up, really having like a clear passion is important. And it does give them like little hacks for rekindling your spark because people do lose passion. You can start something with a lot of passion and that gets lost along the way. Um, and so he does give some tips for like how to work with that. And then his third thing was like purpose and being like ensuring that you're still in line with your purpose. Because that is what will keep people going. Like he's got some very clear, um, purpose at purpose, like around being a dad and what he wants to do for his children. And he then talks about how they can bring this all together to create your own personal mission statement. And that basically ends up being your North Star, which is a concept. Obviously we've talked, heard about lots and lots of books about having something that then you. Can use that. I, I class it as like to be able to make sure what you're doing is in alignment and also then if you are having questions like,'cause this is in persist or pivot is what you are doing aligned with your personal mission? Like if it is, then it's more likely you can keep like persisting if Yeah. Whereas if you're like, actually no. Then maybe that is a sign to pivot and you're like, how can I pivot to be back in line with my personal mission statement?

Lauren:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the stories that he tells in this section are really of people who, you know, were climbing some ladder and then kind of realized like, yes, this may be going well under some criteria, but it's not. It's not, again, like it's, it's not aligned with like, the life I want or my why or whatever. And he, and so that's kind of why it's so important to get clear on those things because it helps make that decision making easier and more obvious. Um, okay. Chapter seven, micro Mastery and Quantum Leaps.

Charelle:

Yay. So micro mastery, which involves paying attention to small, specific incremental changes that compound over time to create significant results. This, to me is all like, so this idea of like the tiny minute, like when we think of like either, like the one thing, the compound effect, there's so many books to talk about this, like just do. Tell me how it's like, do something, do it really well, and they take tiny steps to move forward. Now what I think when he talks about it though, is really looking at, it's being like, how small can you get? And actually, if anything, it sort of reminded me, me more, they talk about it when in sport. And there was someone that like every single day they were trying to make that 1% and the, there was a training regime. I feel like there's actually a British team.

Lauren:

It was from, it was, it was from Atomic Habits, and it was, I think a British cycling team.

Charelle:

Yeah. Cycling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Lauren:

And basically the coach made some tiny, tiny, tiny adjustment that like everyone the outside looked so insignificant. Like I couldn't, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something so small that like day-to-day, the difference is microscopic. Like it, it seemed pointless.

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

you aggregate it over. Days and hours and months of training or like a long race or whatever, it ended up having some huge impact on their results. Like a, if, if, if I recall like a 5% something improvement, which in a race is a huge

Charelle:

Yeah,

Lauren:

so

Charelle:

from memory, like just personally, like the sport was basically a known of, and then they won loads of like Olympics and like loads of trophies, like the te, he like to, it wasn't just one person, it was like the whole team, like cycling just took off. So yeah, it's, to me, it really reminded me of that story. But actually what he goes through in this book is this idea of like looking at a micro mastery for a sales funnel. And what he talks about is actually like making improvements on like every little section. So it's like, first of all, like in the front, he's got like people coming in for website visitors, how many, what percent are going on your email list, what goes through to your sales page? And then what become a customer. And it's like, originally everything just had like 10% because you wanted to keep the, like the math nice and easy, but it's like actually if you decide this one. Like one thing you're gonna try and do is really look at like how to get more people from your email list through to your sales page. And he's like, my aim was just to double that. Then on Salo you're gonna double revenue. So his original figure is like, he made 1000 all of a sudden with no extra people coming to the website. Just because he is able to make double the amount people come from the email list to the sales page, he's able to then. Make double the amount of sales. So he made extra, so he went from$100 to$200. But then rather than just like stopping at that, he's like, okay, fine. Now I've done that. Then we go up another level and be like, how do I make people go from my website more through to my email list? How am I looking focusing on that skill? And so all of a sudden it takes like that from 10% to 30%, which I thought was quite a big jump. Um, but then all of a sudden it's like. Actually that means he went from only making two sales to making six sales. And again, he still not had to bring any more people into the sales funnel. So I think that was a really like good example of just being like, so often it's easy to feel like in marketing particularly I feel like it's like we just need more people to see it. And so often like no, like actually work on the skills that are required. Like improve your copy, improve your, like sales psychology, improve. The content you're making as a whole and looking at it from every single little bit, and then it will all add up and it makes a difference. And then again, that's only looking at day one or week one. We're not actually even looking at the compound of how that will month, week after week, month after month go. So yeah, this micro mastery being like, how do I choose one tiny bit? So you're not saying I wanna improve my whole sales funnel. All I'm trying to do is get more people to click from an email onto my sales page or how I'm gonna try to get a better conversion on my specific sales page. Super focused.

Lauren:

Yes. I think that's the key part that I took away is like, it's one at a time.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

like, let me sit down and improve my entire sales funnel in one sitting. It's like, okay, right now my focus is, you know, getting more clicks from people on my email list to the product page or the sales page where they're gonna buy. And like really nailing that and then moving on to the next thing. Um, yeah, I thought that was a great illustration. It's very visual, so if you pick up the

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

I think it does a really good job of illustrating Yeah. How all, there's all of these different levers that can make

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

in your success and it's when you try to tackle them all at once, you're probably not gonna see a lot of success. But if you can really zoom in, nail one thing, move

Charelle:

But

Lauren:

like that's where

Charelle:

also I'd argue if you move all of them at the same time, you don't know what's, it's harder to know what's actually made the change for you to keep replicating it. That's one of the things like, that's not in the book, but personally I'm like, if you're changing one thing at a time, that's what enabled you to be like, oh, this change was valuable, so I need to keep doing that. And then you move on to something else.

Lauren:

Mm-hmm. There's also a section called quantum leaps, and the, this is like from quantum mechanics. Quantum physics is this concept, but. It describes an electron's sudden transition from one energy level to another in personal professional growth. It involves making a sudden and substantial shift that catapult your progress and transforms your achievements. So he gives the example here of Nathan Berry, who is the CEO and founder of ConvertKit. Um, it's now called Kit. It's an email marketing tool. It's the one that I use and love, but he, when he started it, like. I think was already a successful, basically what we would now call creator. He had digital products. Um, he was an author, he had a blog, and he was doing really well with that. And he created this tool for himself because he noticed that a lot of the available email marketing tools didn't have what he needed. So he created his own email marketing tool, which he called ConvertKit. Eventually made available for other people to buy and for like two years, he was just sort of stagnant with it. Like in the 1200 or$1,300 a month range. Customers were like not that happy. They were canceling and he kind of had this, this moment where he had to, what his coach or friend. Said, you can either shut down or double down. so that is that moment of like choosing to take the quantum leap where he shut down his other business. He went all in on ConvertKit and like, you know, years from now, now there's a staff of like 75 people. They

Charelle:

All around the world, don't they? I know

Lauren:

They have this huge

Charelle:

when I read the story, I couldn't believe that at one point, what was it? 1,200 a month. Like I couldn't,'cause obviously I've only ever known it to be successful that I can't even imagine like how many customers. It seemed wild. Like that trajectory of change is crazy.

Lauren:

yeah, But I mean, the point here I think is like sometimes you do have to put all your chips on the table and. Just go for it and take a risk. And in this case, it paid off very, very well for him. It doesn't always though, so yeah,

Charelle:

Take what you want. Good luck.

Lauren:

if you want to.

Charelle:

And then this part,

Lauren:

I mean,

Charelle:

go on.

Lauren:

do think like any of us who have done what we're doing, like if we have a business, like you're taking a risk,

Charelle:

Oh yeah, you're taking risk, but I'd,

Lauren:

risk

Charelle:

but I'd also argue like the shutdown on double down. I still think there's a lot of, myself included, very multi hyphenate, multi-passionate, spinning 17,000 plates, and whilst that can be great and enjoyable and fun and stimulating and all those things. Is the reality that for the level of like,'cause this is quantum leap to remember we're talking about, is it like actually if you put all your focus into one thing, it would make a, it would, it would be better.

Lauren:

Mm-hmm.

Charelle:

Who knows?

Lauren:

Yep. Um, they also introduce here the concept of a power 10, which you just sort of described. Where in rowing and crew it's that like basically everyone on the boat gets in sync for 10 super hard focus strokes. You can't maintain that pace eternally. Um, it's too exhausting, but you can do it in the short term and it can create a lot of really good momentum. So you can kind of apply this Power 10 concept your own business and your own work where you like really down for a short period of time in order to make a lot of progress in a short span. He talks about like, you know, this could be like the writer's retreat

Charelle:

Yeah, a hackathon.

Lauren:

his own book. A hackathon in tech. He talks about when he wrote his own book, it was like two weeks of getting up super early and

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

to the pool with his family. And um, yeah, it's a short focused sprint.

Charelle:

Cool. And then the final chapter, I think from learning to leading, which is better. Very much up Pat Flynn's Alley for sure. And he argues that the best way to learn is to teach. And this idea of like, how can you start to teach others? Because as soon as you start to teach others, you, I, I don't know, it'd be interesting'cause obviously. We both do it. Like you just have to process information in such a different way, enable to share it. You have to be able to like explain it. You have to synthesize stuff, you have to summarize stuff. You have to think of different ways of doing it. It just pushes you to be able to absorb the level of absorption I think, of information is so different as soon as you're trying to like. Actually share it with others and it gives you lots of like simple ways to start. Like you don't, it doesn't mean you have to start a podcast in order to share. It's like, no, you could host a workshop or a webinar, or you could do a mini course. You can write blogs, you can go to speaker conferences. You could even find, or like some friends that need help, but this idea that actually it's good for you and actually your learning to be able to process that learning and then teach it to others.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

And this chapter was one that like, you know, I always try to read these books with my audience's hat on, and I know

Charelle:

So many.

Lauren:

who listen to the podcast like they're not teaching, you know, they're, they're doing,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

they're the maker or the artist or the photographer who's really focused on their own craft and not necessarily, um.

Charelle:

I didn't want,

Lauren:

Turning

Charelle:

mm.

Lauren:

and sharing it or teaching it to others. And so I, I thought this section was super applicable for creators like you and I have creator

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

business, but not necessarily everyone.

Charelle:

Okay.

Lauren:

Um, but he did talk in this section about working in public, which is

Charelle:

Yes.

Lauren:

like if you're doing something new, like launching a new jewelry collection or, um. Working on a new element of your business or whatever it is, pulling back a curtain and showing people the behind the scenes of kind of how it's going.

Charelle:

Mm.

Lauren:

from a marketing standpoint, this is just

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

But I think, like you say, like it also helps you kind of in internalize and reflect on what you're learning and what's what's happening in a way that's interesting for other people, but really useful for you too to. Kind of process things in that more public way. So that the key content from the book. There's a little conclusion. I don't think there is anything new there though, really. Um, so yeah, I, I mentioned earlier that I had gotten a message from you partway through the book, and you were, uh, not thrilled. So like, I don't know, what's your take

Charelle:

So I think, yeah, it definitely was a journey. I think I definitely struggled more at the beginning and then the middle and then I would've, if I hadn't have been doing for book club, I probably would've put it down. But I was doing it for book club and then through, by the time I got to the end, I was like all, I was like, oh, actually. And like there is value, and this is what I say sometimes, like a book cannot be. You love reading it or you love reading all of it, but that doesn't mean it's not a value. I thought there are the actual concept, I think what you said at the beginning was spot on. It's just stretched out too far. It's just more, it's bigger of a book than it needed to actually be. But I think the actual idea of being like focusing and like he does talk about this. As he comes to the conclusion, he says like, take a moment to reflect on the problems and challenges that matter most to you, and then focus on building the skills and knowledge that you need to acquire for that. And I think that I'm like, that's what I wanna take away is really being like, how do I just focus on right now, what skills need to be improved? Learn focus on doing them, whether that means I need to learn from other people or whether I need to learn from resources or whatever. Focus on that, implement it, make sure I'm paying attention. So I'm getting that feedback and just keep that going on that wheel. And for that basis I'm like, yeah, it's good. Just, I dunno if it needed to be 200 something pages long, that's all.

Lauren:

Yeah. Yeah. I think my takeaway was really similar. Like the key thing I'll walk away from is really just, trying to have that discipline around there is a gap in your knowledge and you need to learn something new. Really trying to reign it into just like, what do I need to know now? Let me put everything else on hold. I can learn it later, but like, let me be strategic about how much I learned so that I have just what I need, but not way too much to take the next step and move forward. So, um, yeah, I agree. My take like overall say didn't enjoy it as much as his other books,

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

that we

Charelle:

Yeah.

Lauren:

really early on in this podcast, which is a great book. So highly recommend that episode in that book. I just, and it could just be the content isn't as interesting to me, but it was a good book and I think so many useful concepts in it for anyone, and particularly people who kind of struggle with that. Like learn, learn, learn, learn, learn over, consume, and they're good at that part. That's where they feel comfortable, but they struggle more with the actual taking action. If that's you, I feel like this is a really good and important book trade.

Charelle:

Yeah, totally agree. And also if that's you. You are not alone. And like, I think, like even Lauren said, the beginning, like we both would've probably read this book with a very different view if this had been X amount years earlier. So it's definitely a skill as a, as you're in business to get You do get a bit better at it a bit. Just a little bit.

Lauren:

Up bit.

Charelle:

Um,

Lauren:

Um, okay. Well. We actually don't have the next book decided yet to

Charelle:

oh my gosh.

Lauren:

we're gonna have a, a big announcement actually in our next book club episode. And well, it'll make more sense when we, when we talk next month, but, um. Yeah, we don't have our, our book chosen yet. We will have it by the time, uh, I record the outro for this episode. So in a couple short minutes for you listener, you will know the book that we chose for next month, but as we record, we don't, so we're not gonna enounce But, Shire, thank you so much for another great discussion.

Charelle:

very welcome.

Lauren:

looking forward to talking with you on.

Charelle:

See you next month.

Lauren Tilden:

All right, so there you have our conversation all about lean learning. Did you enjoy it? What did you learn? What were your takeaways? DM us on Instagram and let us know your thoughts. We would love to chat. I am at Lauren Tilden and Charelle is at Charelle Griffith. Now, as you heard, we announced our book for next month. We are talking about the one thing, the surprising simple truth about extraordinary results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. We chose this book because it's all about cutting through overwhelm, getting focused, and actually making progress, which is what we all need as we enter into 2026. And we actually also have a very big announcement to make in our next Book Club episode. So be sure you're subscribed to the podcast so you get that when it comes in. You can find the show notes from this episode at makinggoodpodcast.com/ 3 1 6. if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you left a rating and review and your favorite podcast player. It only takes a few seconds and it really means the world to me. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. I will talk to you next time.