A Question About Conversation

Have you ever wondered why it is harder to talk to some people rather than others? Why is it that some conversations seem awkward while others don’t? Is it because of the people you are talking to, or maybe the topic of your conversation?

This has always been a mystery to me. The feeling that naturally arises from this is that I must be doing something wrong. Some people can have great conversations with nearly everyone they meet, while only a select few of my conversations don’t end with me finding a way out because they are getting awkward.

I have set out to uncover what lies beneath the conversations that are the most enjoyable, and what is happening in the ones that aren’t. For the sake of respect and privacy, I won’t be using real names or places in this article.

Two Conversations That Didn’t Make Sense

There is one person whom I see frequently, with whom I try to avoid conversation by all means. Yes, this may seem mean, but we naturally gravitate towards those with whom we have much in common. I like the person, but I don’t always like the things we talk about in our conversations. This leads to avoidance. However, when we are talking, the awkward feeling I spoke of does not exist in a place that I expected it to. Although I find little interest in what is being said, there is an unexplainable satisfaction after the conversation.

There is another person to whom I speak frequently. This person and I have a lot in common. We discuss things that are interesting and have similar views on the topics. Before long, the conversation becomes awkward, and I am grasping for a way out. This is a place where I do not expect awkwardness to exist, yet it does!

To understand what is going on under the surface in these conversations, I examined the conversations that were enjoyable to me. I wanted to understand who these people were and what made their conversations enjoyable. Upon understanding this, I wanted to find principles that could apply to future conversations that would make them enjoyable for both parties. This would lead to connections with people I may not have previously connected with.

The Conversation I Didn’t Want to End

Let’s look at an enjoyable conversation I had recently.

This conversation started with me introducing a topic that I had been considering recently. I wanted an honest opinion on what this person thought about it. I mentioned my theory, and the person appeared to light up at it. The person paused as though the question deserved consideration. The person then began speaking aloud to test the theory against what they knew. This process seemed to bring excitement to them. Then followed a well-considered response. I examined this response and asked another question, excited to dive deeper. As the conversation continued, excitement continued to grow. Curiosity was shining through the window. The depths of what we could uncover appeared endless.

Someone interrupted the conversation.

I was sad.

There was more road to travel that would now remain in the shadows.

The adventure was over.

The Conversation That Never Began

I had this same conversation with another person. I introduced my topic in the same way and handed the conversation over. This person quickly thought about it and spouted the first answer that came to mind. The response seemed insufficient. There was no joy, no excitement. The next words from this person changed the subject. The adventure was over before it had even begun. I felt like I had just changed into my trunks to go swimming, and this person told me it was already time to leave. In a way, it hurt. This topic was important to me, yet deemed no consideration on their part.

The latter conversation, however, was not awkward but unenjoyable. I would like to examine the mechanics of an awkward conversation before making sense of it all.

An Experiment

This awkward conversation was with someone I was meeting for the first time. Although I did not know the person, I heard a lot about them from mutual acquaintances. The conversation began with the usual small-talk. After the first minute or two, the conversation turned in an awkward direction. There was a lack of comfort, an invisible wall between us. The conversation became challenging. I did not know what else to say.

There was also a problem. We were stuck in the same place. The event would not be over for a few hours.

Then came an awareness of the situation at hand.

I have considered this topic before.

This would be a perfect time to experiment.

I introduced a topic that I knew they were familiar with. A topic that I heard this person might have powerful feelings about. I made myself vulnerable, presenting my views.

With the wrong person, these views might self-destruct. With the right person, they would create a rapport to the very core of their existence.

Before I realized it, we had been talking for hours, and now it was time to go. We had traveled down many roads in these discussions, one topic leading to another. A friendship was forged through these conversational adventures.

What started as awkward turned profitable and enjoyable.

The Adventure

What do we learn from these scenarios?

There must be a connection.

At first, they all seem random. Different people, different places.

As I examined the patterns, the thread connecting them all emerged.

The word that continues to cross my mind is adventure.

Recently, I discovered that someone I know and I have a mutual friend. Rather than talking about who they were, we shared the unique situations we had each experienced with this person. Suddenly, our old adventures had become a new one.

The people I look forward to speaking with the most are the ones with whom we have shared these kinds of experiences.

The first person mentioned, the one whom I try to avoid, is willing to embark on an adventure. The reason I avoid this person seems to be that I don’t find the adventures interesting. However, during the discussion, the person is comfortable, open, and real! Although I don’t find their adventure exciting, they do.

This changes the mechanics.

I hung around to see what happened.

The second person, a skilled conversationalist, found my adventure exciting and was willing to travel down the road to see where it went. It felt like they found this adventure as important as I did. They had a hunger to understand what it all meant. I felt as though this person understood me.

I remember as a child, my grandmother and mother would always bring me along to take my great-grandmother shopping. This was not an adventure I wanted to take, and I could not understand why I needed to be there. I found little value, little excitement. I would avoid it next time if possible.

However, one time my grandmother mentioned she would buy me a video game. This game was important to me. I could not wait to be picked up for this adventure. I was excited to take it. There was great value. I was present in a way that I had not been the previous time.

Consider the third person with whom I shared my important interests, who gave a quick answer and moved on. I believe this person found little value in a concept that was important to me. Not only did the person not find value, but they shut down the adventure before it started. Not only did they not want to take part in the adventure, they would not even consider my adventure as something exciting or worth listening to.

Finally, the fourth person, who started awkwardly, ended up teaching me the most.

It taught me it’s possible to redeem an awkward-feeling conversation and what it takes to do so.

The Value I Had Been Missing

As I reflect on everything, I want to unmask some gems that I have mined along the way.

The first is the value. How have I been so naïve to leave value on the table by attempting to avoid conversations with people? It reminds me of a quote from Galileo.

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.”
— Galileo Galilei

It turns out I was the ignorant one in this scenario. Not only was there something available that I could learn from this person, but I found nothing worth learning from this person.

I lacked the initiative to determine how I might learn from this person, and also how to direct the conversation to that topic.

How foolish? I have been missing value for years.

Chances are, the knowledge I could gain from this person is the very thing they enjoy talking about. An adventure profitable to both parties. An enjoyable conversation.

Better yet, how often am I the one who shuts down the adventure before it starts, making what’s important to others feel worthless? It makes me wonder why some people continue to present me with opportunities to travel with them.

How did I not understand the value of spending time with my family on the way to my great grandmothers? Time that is unavailable today! I saw value in something so small, something that has no meaning anymore.

I am convinced that the people who excel in conversation understand the value each person holds. They are good at listening. They make people feel important. Their curiosity takes them on adventures many have shut down.

Maybe I have been the awkward one. Maybe, just maybe, the awkward conversations result from how I have listened to what’s important to others.

The Master of the Tape Measure

It was nearly a month before my sister-in-law was going to be married to her new groom.

The groom invited me to be a part of his groomsmen, so I needed to be fitted for a tuxedo.

The business he chose for this service was a place I drove by time and time again, but never actually stopped in.

I picked up my brother-in-law since he was going to be a part of this wedding as well and headed down to be sized up.

One of the first things I noticed walking into this old-fashioned establishment was a beautiful spiral staircase.

I am not sure where it led, but I don’t recall ever having seen one of its kind.

As we made our way to the counter and gave our names, an old man came out from the back.

The only tool he had was a tape measure.

Within less than five minutes, he had both of our sizes, and we were out the door.

I was expecting this entire process to take maybe half an hour, but I left surprised.

I asked him a question, already knowing the answer before I left, saying,

“You’ve been doing this for a while?”

He said,

“No, I just started.”

As serious as ever.

Then he started laughing and told me he had been doing this for around forty-five years.

Interesting.

I have been measured before at another place, and I remember the process taking between thirty minutes and an hour.

The lady surely wasn’t a professional but was clearly working there for a paycheck.

This guy, however, appeared to be the real deal.

I likely would have never thought twice about this experience if what happened next had not happened.

Seeing What Others Miss

It was now a few days before the wedding.

I was at the park meeting with another groomsman and his family.

We began talking about the old guy at the tuxedo place.

I told him that the guy was extremely fast.

It seemed no sooner had I walked in than I was already walking back out.

This groomsman, however, was from out of town and did not go to this guy to be measured.

He was measured out where he lived and called the guy with his measurements.

The groomsman said,

“Man, I called this guy and gave him my measurements, and he told me he would not use those measurements, but would go with different ones.”

This instantly caught my attention.

I told him that this was crazy.

How would this guy know what his size was and that these measurements were wrong if he had never even seen him before?

I could not wait to ask him this the next time I saw him.

Now, the day before the rehearsal dinner, we show up to pick up the tuxedos.

I will say everything fit very well, minus a quick switch in the undershirt and the shoes being slightly tight.

As the old man was examining how everything fit, I said,

“I have a question that I have been dying to know the answer to!”

One groomsman told me he gave you his measurements over the phone, and you said you would not use them, but would use different ones instead.

How did you know those measurements weren’t right?

He says,

“I asked the guy what size shirt and pants he wears and decided based on that. Oh yeah, by the way, it fit like a glove.”

Fascinated, I looked at what appeared to be a master at work before me.

I then turned into what felt like interview mode, asking him question after question, trying to understand him, how he got to this point, and what his plans were for the future.

I mean, he was pushing eighty, and I couldn’t imagine that he was going to be running this store much longer.

If you follow me on Substack, you know my interest is in seeing things that others don’t see.

I enjoy learning about situations where people are looking at the same thing, and one person can see so much deeper into what is going on, while others can’t.

What I find different about this situation is that the tailor was not even looking at the picture.

Where this groomsman originally received his measurements, he would have been right in front of somebody.

This person would have been able to use the same tool the old tailor had, a measuring tape, and could also have asked him any further questions.

Not only did he have this opportunity, but I would imagine somebody who is good at what they do could likely see somebody and get a basic understanding of what their size might be.

The first place I was measured operated similarly.

However, all this man had were some numbers to go on.

Sure, he could have made the suit to that size as requested, and if it came out wrong, it would have been no fault of his own.

Yet, this was a master of the craft.

He likely had seen this happen before and would not be stumped by it.

If he hadn’t measured the person himself, there was likely doubt in his mind that there could be an error.

He collected more information to compare with to get a better idea of who this guy was.

I imagine he was seeing the shape of this person in his head as he was receiving the measurements and then the clothing sizes over the phone.

He then responds with the size he wants to use.

As the groomsman put it,

“It fit perfectly.”

The Cost of Integrity

There is no question why this man could stay in business for forty-five years.

This man not only enjoyed what he was doing.

Years spent pursuing what he loved shaped him into a master of his craft.

The neighborhood he was in would have been a prime area in Cincinnati when he started, but now, as he approached retirement age, it was falling apart.

One of my questions was:

“What happens to this place after you are done?”

He said they were going to close it down.

Nobody wanted to buy it.

This place was near a popular high school in the area, and I assumed he received a lot of business from proms and homecomings.

He told me that business was continuing to decline because the kids weren’t interested in his store’s offerings, but wanted clothes from Amazon.

They wanted shirts that could match their date’s dresses.

Instead of the classy shoes he sold, they wanted the Nikes to match.

“What are you going to do to stay relevant? Start selling Nikes,” I said.

He said,

“Absolutely not!”

From a business standpoint, I found this to be the wrong way to respond to this trend.

I am reminded of statements such as, “This is how we have always done it.”

Many places cannot adapt to the market, and they become irrelevant.

However, I could absolutely understand where this guy was coming from.

He built his livelihood on running this business, became very good at it, and carried a line of clothing that exhibited class.

I could picture Hank Hill running a grill shop down the road, selling the finest propane grills.

Do you think he is going to switch to charcoal because that’s what the people were doing?

By no means!

He would shut that place down before he went against what he believed in.

Although this tailor may not have a business in a few years, I do not think his story should go unknown.

His website says in the about section,

“His expertise, attention to detail, and commitment to outstanding service have made him a trusted name in formalwear.”

I feel these are words almost anybody in the business would put on their website.

It was these three features of the experience that I appreciated the most.

This was actually who he was, not just a selling point.

I witnessed something like this, and the question began nagging at me,

“What is the lesson from this story that can be learned and applied?”

I see a man who has a passion for helping people look their best when celebrating big moments in their lives.

This wasn’t a guy who did not know what he was going to do with his life and said,

“Well, I guess I could start a formalwear business. I don’t know if this excites me, but it would pay the bills.”

If this were who he was, he likely would have closed the business a long time ago.

Surely, he is old enough to retire.

Having run the business for forty-five years, I don’t think he is staying around for the money.

I think this guy is doing something that he loves.

He exhibited a love for the job in the experience he provides for those who walk through his doors.

The Price of Admission

As I consider the lesson of the story, what can be learned and applied, it has to be to pursue what you are truly passionate about.

It makes me wonder how many people are sitting in jobs right now that they don’t enjoy.

In a 2024 Gallup survey measuring job engagement, meaning enthusiasm and involvement in work, they found that:

• 31% of U.S. employees were engaged.

• 52% were not.

• 17% were actively disengaged.

This likely means that 69% of people in the workforce were not pursuing a calling they loved, like the tailor in this story.

I can relate.

I recall working at some of my past jobs, thinking that something was missing.

Not that the job was hard or I couldn’t do it well, but it was unfulfilling.

I felt I was not doing something that I loved.

I left the job every night drained, ready to go to bed, and then come back and do it all over again.

When, however, doing something that I love, I feel the exact opposite.

I lose track of time.

I gain energy.

I do what others would consider work for free.

Why do people settle for unfulfilling jobs?

Is it a matter of confidence?

Do they think they could not find a job pursuing their passion?

Maybe they could find a job, but the job would not provide them with the life they wanted.

In The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, I remember reading that he was very interested in and skilled with the topic of natural history.

This led him to start his college studies in this field.

His father told him he could pursue this if he wanted to, but he should also consider what kind of life he wanted to live.

If he were okay living a life of low means, he could very well pursue this passion and be great at it.

However, if he did not intend to live this kind of life, he should consider something else.

Is the trade-off of doing what you love, resulting in a life of lower means, even a sacrifice?

Or is it the price of admission to a life of meaning?

It is a question worth answering before you make your next move.

Finding Your Path

For some people, pursuing what they are passionate about as a career happens naturally.

They understand their dreams early; they put in the work, and they seem to always be moving from one place to another under the spotlight of their passions.

Others likely don’t have this kind of clarity when they are younger and instead learn by trial and error.

They figure out what they don’t want so much that it leads them to what they want.

I find myself in the likes of the latter.

What are the options for the people in the latter?

Do you just walk out on your current job and start over?

Do you stick it out until you find something closer to your passion?

Or do you continue working there even though you are unhappy because it pays the bills?

The people who pursue what they are passionate about and learn at a later age are usually the ones who risk it all for the dream.

They are the ones who would rather try, fail, and rebuild than never try at all.

These are the people who take a year off from their jobs to write the book they have always dreamed of.

These are the ones who take out that large loan because they had a dream of starting a business and believe it is possible.

These are the folks who have been told that it wouldn’t work, but they do it anyway.

They have to try, or else they will regret it all their days.

The Tailor of Your Field

The lesson we learn from our tailor is to pursue the calling you are passionate about.

What would it take for you to become the tailor of your field?

Is it the price of admission to a life of meaning?

Why Write Something You’ll Never Read Again?

I was sitting in church the other day, listening to a sermon.

It was a wonderful sermon and almost seemed like exactly what I needed to hear that day.

As I turn my gaze from the preacher, I look across the row and see people scribbling in notebooks.

One of these people was my wife.

I often find it interesting to look over and see what she is writing during this time.

From what I have noticed, it is always the main points and passages from the sermon.

Also, because this is my wife, I know that this will be the last time she visits this page.

Before long, the content of the notes is a thing of history.

Maybe there is some value in hearing it and then writing it down to make it stick.

I have often wondered why she took the time to write these things down during church, never to revisit them.

Was this because she was the preacher’s daughter and was raised to do this?

While writing this, I asked her, and she said it helps her to remember.

This is certainly a good thing, but is this the only value notes carry?

Or is there more to the story that many fail to see?

My experience with note-taking has been an interesting journey.

In the church service, I used to be a person who did not have a notepad, committing principles and passages from the sermon onto paper.

I found very little value in note-taking.

From my perspective, it was like writing something down to be shoved in a filing cabinet somewhere, never to be seen again.

Why waste time, right?

However, I can recall times when taking notes was of value to me.

If I were preparing for a school test, I would often read and write all the points that I thought were important to help me on the test.

I found that these notes often helped me better understand the topic, and I often received higher scores after this preparation.

I will say that many of these topics I took notes on, I was initially unfamiliar with, so they helped me to wrap my mind around what was going on.

If the topic was something I already felt I had a good understanding of before approaching the material, I likely would not have taken notes because I did not see any value in doing the extra work.

The Problem With Digital Dust

Now fast forward to now, 37-year-old male, 3 college degrees, a family of 5, many years of experience in the workforce, and a constant hunger for understanding and learning.

Life happens fast, and I have found it very challenging to process much of the information I am taking in daily.

I wouldn’t say it is as bad as going in one ear and out the other, but I feel very little of the content is being stored in a usable way.

My studies throughout history and top performers have pointed to many of them having a habit of keeping extensive notebooks.

People like Leonardo Da Vinci or Theodore Roosevelt, there seemed to be a practice that many of these people had that was relevant to the results they achieved.

This presented a gap in my understanding of the true value of notes.

A few years ago, I stumbled across an author who presented a concept called building a second brain.

I remember thinking that this sounded like an amazing idea if it really functioned as a second brain.

As a result, I went through the process of downloading Obsidian note-taking software and committing all written and digital notes to these notebooks.

It was a really refreshing feeling to have a place where all of this information could live together in some sort of harmony.

I had an interesting way of sorting these notes so that they all seemed to live in the proper place.

Whether I was looking for a journal entry or an essay I wrote in school, I could easily navigate to that folder.

Sadly, the high of having this system quickly faded.

It quickly became like all of my previous note-taking systems: a bunch of files collecting digital dust, taking up space on my hard drive.

I wondered whether the information these people throughout history collected was only good for their biographers after they died, or if they revisited these and found value throughout their lives.

As many notes and journal entries as some of these people had, I feel they had to perceive some value in these artifacts that I may not be aware of.

What was this value?

From Task Manager to Reflection Manager

One of the first things I did when I parted ways with my most recent employer was come back to Obsidian.

I was in search of a one-size-fits-all application that I could organize my life behind.

My notes, my calendar, my tasks, and anything else that may arise throughout the day.

I called this my Daily Command Center.

I was tired of switching between 100 different apps and really wanted a single solution for everything.

I tried really hard to make this work, but I still felt there was a lot of friction in the system, like cutting the grass with scissors.

Did I need a new app?

Did I need to invent an app?

I felt like I was at a dead end.

Looking back two months ago, right around the time I started this Daily Command Center, I focused primarily on tasks.

Although I wasn’t happy with the results and felt initially that it was a waste of time, it actually ended up being a starting point for something far greater than I imagined.

While my first note on April 27, 2026, was simply a task log, I noticed on 6/1 that it went beyond tasks and contained a journal entry.

It also contained reflections on the Theodore Roosevelt book I was reading.

From April 27 to June 1, I had only 6 entries.

From June 1 to today, there has been a Daily Command Center note every single day.

This is a testament to the value I initially perceived, to the value that I see today.

What exactly changed?

What started as a simple task manager transformed into a reflection manager.

Instead of simply talking about the tasks I was doing each day, I wanted to make sense of everything that was happening each day.

I wanted to think more about the Bible passage I read, the Roosevelt quote that caught my attention, or something a person said that caught my attention at a wedding.

Not only this, but what do all these things have in common?

How do they relate to each other?

What is it about these three things that caught my attention this day?

Instead of days being stale and rigid, the days became full of meaning.

I believe this is very true in how I used to see each day, as just a list of things that need to be done in order to not only survive but get to a better place where I have more control over those tasks that had to be done.

In a way, I despise the structure.

I hate being confined to a box, having a certain time that I have to do something, let alone planning my days, months, and years this way.

If I finish all these tasks as prescribed, does it improve my quality of life?

If I don’t complete these tasks as prescribed, will I feel that the day was a failure?

Ultimately, my Daily Command Center had changed from something of very little value and importance to something I can’t wait to contribute to each day.

What will I discover about myself and the world today?

How does it connect to my past, other people, or even what I want out of life?

How does what I discovered today make me wiser tomorrow?

Turning a Graveyard Into a Nursery

After this discovery, I thought I had found the breakthrough.

However, I noticed something was still missing.

Although I found great meaning and purpose in recording my observations and discoveries, I still had this nagging question in my mind, asking me what value these would have tomorrow.

Sure, I was finding great value in the immediate, as my wife did journaling in church, but I didn’t want my notes to die here.

After all, these were exciting to me when I wrote them down, and many of them led to further questions that I hadn’t fully thought through yet.

In a sense, this was only the capture part of my notes, which had become really effective, but now I realized I needed to improve the organization and retrieval if I really wanted this note system to continue adding value to my life.

It was as if I had these wonderful thoughts and ideas that were full of life, and as they went from my mind to my computer, they were dying.

I began brainstorming what kinds of things I could do to keep these notes alive in my vault.

I wanted to turn my vault from a graveyard into a nursery.

Instead of showing up only to die, they needed to be here to be nursed, to be developed, to grow.

The only problem was that I knew in my head what I wanted, but whether it was possible or already discovered, I had no idea.

When Notes Start Thinking Back

The first improvement I made was to the connections.

I wanted to understand how my notes connect.

I found a simple plugin that showed notes connected to my current note, and also a score of how much they connect.

I thought this was a brilliant discovery, only to realize it didn’t tell me what the basis of the connection was.

Before you ask, of course, you can connect through links and tags, but at the beginning of a discovery or observation, it is very challenging to tell where your idea might end up.

Tags and links that are no longer of value add friction to the process.

Where friction exists in my systems, I feel I lose value.

The more friction that exists in doing something, the less likely I am to do it.

The connections were great, but I wanted to understand the why.

This led to my discovery of an AI called Obsidian Copilot.

This plugin allowed me to understand the why behind connections, but also so much more.

I could ask the AI questions related to my notes, and it would make connections I had never even considered.

This AI would notice blind spots in my thinking, things I had never thought of.

This Copilot would also evaluate my system and help me develop it even further.

This was becoming a lot more of what I pictured when I first heard the term “Second Brain.”

It was as if my notes had come to life, that there was a live and active mind behind them.

I could find what I was looking for and maybe also what I needed and didn’t know I was looking for by simply entering a prompt.

Finally, I was finding great value in note-taking, and it has accelerated the development of my ideas beyond what I had ever imagined.

Don't Let Your Ideas Die

In this journey, I have changed from a skeptic to a believer on this topic.

I have had possibilities in note-taking all of my life, but I never fully perceived the value in.

As a result, I believe this really stunted the depth of my thinking compared to where it is today.

You may say, “Well, Obsidian hasn’t even been out for that long, so what are you worried about?”

I respond with the fact that people have been using forms of this system for many years.

I observed something similar in Robert Greene’s notecard system.

Although it didn’t have an AI brain behind it, he was most certainly recording information with the purpose of it being retrieved again, of adding value to something he was working on.

While his system may have done exactly what he needed it to do, the capabilities we have in technology today make these processes much more accessible.

I dread the idea of creating a notecard with each idea for a story I have and storing them in boxes, and having to hunt them down as I remember them.

However, that had led to best-selling books on his part.

What I have discovered is unique to the way I think.

Maybe my system will be of no value to you.

Maybe you will find Greene’s system more effective, or even something else.

The purpose of this article was not to sell my system; in fact, quite the opposite.

The purpose of this writing was to challenge you not to let your ideas and discoveries die with the day.

A challenge to continue to think through and build on what was important to you yesterday.

You could forget that breakthrough discovery if it’s not stored where you can access it again.

Would you be comfortable receiving an account number for a crypto vault with millions of dollars if you didn’t write it down and store it in a safe place?

The same should be true for your ideas.

You never know what they become could be of the same value as what’s in the crypto vault.

A Question About Books

Books.

Some people love them, some people avoid them at all costs.

What is it about books that some people can’t find enough time to read all they want, and others won’t make the time to read at all?

I can recall a time in my life when I avoided books at all costs. The thought of sitting down to read seemed like a waste of time, and I dreaded it.

It was not until I was 26 that the Bible became such a large part of my life, and I realized I might be missing out on other good books.

At first, I considered maybe people just have different interests than I do.

Looking back, I believe it was something much deeper.

The Beginning of My Reading Journey

My journey started with a biography of Stonewall Jackson.

It was a book I had sitting on my shelf for whatever reason, and I figured it would be a good place to start. I knew nothing about him other than that he had a cool name and that he fought in the Civil War.

I ended up enjoying the book, and during this period, I also discovered Audible. I could listen to books while I was working.

This led to titles like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Art of Power (A Thomas Jefferson Biography), and many more.

I found biographies very inspirational.

I may not have agreed with everything they did, but there were certain things I noticed in their life that seemed valuable.

I found Stonewall Jackson’s unwavering faith to be something worth imitating.

I appreciated Thomas Jefferson’s interest in culture, which led to an interest in wine tasting.

It was as if these books unlocked an understanding of the world that I had never considered.

I felt as though I could see the world through another’s eyes.

When Reading Became a Numbers Game

My natural disposition leans towards accomplishing a task in the fastest, most efficient way possible.

I can trace this mindset through many of the journeys in my life.

It’s easy to understand how this transferred over to reading.

I found a website called Goodreads, which allows me to track my reading progress and set a goal for how many books I will read in a year.

I realized how many books I had read in previous years and decided I would set a goal higher than that.

Instead of enjoying the process, it became a race to a record.

This may explain why my reading habits were hit or miss throughout the years.

Some years, I am really into reading and can’t read enough, and some years, it is painful to sit down and pick up a book.

My reflection time throughout the past months led to an understanding that I am approaching this venture with the wrong mindset.

The goal isn’t in the number of books I am reading, but the value I receive from each book.

Am I leaving value on the table and not even realizing it?

At first, I thought it was quality over quantity.

As it turns out, it was something deeper.

Learning How to Read

I remember browsing through books one day on the library app when I stumbled across a book titled How to Read A Book.

This seemed like a silly concept to me.

It’s simple, you just read the words, right?

My interest brought me to this book, and I skimmed through before giving it up at some point.

Today, I realize this guy was onto something.

Something that I had neglected ever since I started this journey.

Once this had become clear in my life, I started approaching books with a completely different mindset.

First, how many books I could read in a year became meaningless.

Books come in many shapes and sizes, and the pursuit of completing a specific number was no longer measuring what was important.

Second, I started approaching books with curiosity.

I opened these books with more questions, and more specific ones at that.

I wasn’t just reading for pleasure but to answer the questions.

They say if you leave the house and look for everything red, you will notice it everywhere. However, if you leave the house not specifically looking for it, you won’t notice that it’s everywhere.

Having specific things that I wanted to understand from the books I was reading helped me to more effectively retrieve the value from the publications.

In this process, I was looking more closely and moving more slowly.

This is not a mindset consistent with a number goal.

The Hidden Depths of Knowledge

This discovery of mine led me to reflect on why this happens.

Many of us are content with the low-hanging fruit of knowledge.

We satisfy ourselves with the main points of a book and understanding the big picture.

It’s when throw ourselves headfirst into the depths of the unknown that we realize just how deep it is.

We seem to naturally want what is easy.

However, once we discover the unknown, like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, our curiosity continues to lead us to the treasure not visible at first glance.

Where we first noticed the simple and poor Edmund Dantes, we search for the complex and sophisticated Count of Monte Cristo.

Who would have initially guessed that those were the same people?

The Search for Mastery

Consider this example from my life.

The thing that has always fascinated me is mastery and those who have accomplished it.

I had already dreamed of being a master of something, whether it was football, chess, or something else.

I read books on mastery, studied the masters, and tried to replicate the models.

I found the truth to be that, although they can explain what the masters had in common or you can witness their life journey, it often lacks the deeper answers to the pursuit.

For example, a book may tell you that to be a master, you must be disciplined.

Then they will give you many examples of the masters who had great discipline.

The problem I found is that one doesn’t just wake up and say I’m going to be disciplined and it all works out fine.

Discipline doesn’t just fall from the sky.

I remain with the question,

How do I become disciplined?

Maybe we read that all the masters had great courage.

Well, what exactly is courage?

One does not just enter a situation and say I’m going to do courage.

Courage is often someone else’s explanation, something they noticed in somebody.

Well, what did they notice?

The questions continue to flow until you get an answer that sufficiently explains what you are looking for, or an answer you can experiment with to see if it’s valid.

Consider this quote by Alexander Hamilton:

“Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the efforts that I make are what people are pleased to call the fruits of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”

You get the impression this wasn’t merely a man who scratched the surface, but was obsessed with understanding.

I imagine his books, covered in the wear of life, as he wrestled with the text to find the deeper things, to make the connections to his life, what he already understood, what he was currently attempting to do.

From reading his biography, I am convinced this consumed his mind in a way that most people do not experience.

How else do you explain how the man who was largely responsible for creating the financial structure in America died a broke man?

Poetry and the Art of Looking Deeper

I recently took up reading poetry.

Throughout the past, I never thought twice about it.

When it showed up in a book, I found very little value in it and often glanced over it and moved on.

Found petty pleasure in it.

Since my awakening to the process of deep reading, I have found great value in it.

It is an art form that forces you to ask questions, convicts you to look deeper, and challenges you to dig beneath the simple meaning of words to understand what the author is really trying to say.

What might have seemed worthless and simple at one point then becomes like an Indiana Jones adventure to recover the lost Arc.

You may never completely understand what the poet meant, but the value is not always in having a complete answer.

The value often comes in the process of searching for the answer.

When pursuing the answers to mastery, I was quick to think I had the answer as I started going deeper, only to find out there was something else that I couldn’t explain.

I still don’t know the answer with certainty, but I can tell you I have grown tremendously.

The Detective Mindset

The work of a reader is comparable to that of a detective.

The detective shows up at the murder scene, and questions arise from what he sees.

For some witnesses, a couple of questions on the scene build a picture of what happened.

However, it is the ones called back to the station, interrogated thoroughly, that provide the information that makes or breaks the case.

Quality or quantity was the question for this essay.

Which one should I pursue in my approach to books?

My answer is yes.

Both answers are as correct as they are incomplete.

There remains a missing ingredient.

Curiosity.

Aim to get the most out of every text.

What do you hope to understand from this book?

What questions are you hoping to answer?

Once you have satisfied your curiosity, move on.

You may find that you have read fewer books at the end of the year, but you found more value in the ones you read.

What started as an investigation into how to get the most out of a book has led to something deeper.

The curiosity that fuels reading.

Feed your curiosity.

“Curiousity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.” — Samuel Johnson

What topic has captured your curiosity so completely that you couldn't stop thinking about it?

A Curious Observation

I remember first watching Disney’s The Jungle Book as a kid.

Growing up in my day, we did not have the luxury of endless choices on streaming services. Very often, the movies we owned were the ones that we watched over and over.

As I grew up, this movie became a distant memory of something I enjoyed as a kid.

Fast forward to 2020, when I had my first child. Then came the time when The Jungle Book was what we watched. There were things this time through that I found entertaining that I never appreciated as a kid.

The part that really caught my attention was when Colonel Hathi was inspecting his patrol. He came to one elephant, inspected its trunk, and said,

“A dusty muzzle.”

Throughout the coming years, every time this part came up, I chuckled a little when I heard it.

Why was that?

When Hard Work Stopped Working

The past couple of months have been very different for me.

I have spent as far back as I can remember moving from one thing to the next, often failing to see what’s important in the moment, as my focus was on the future.

Parting ways with my employer, with whom I had been working for ten years, and being without a job for this period has led to a great deal of reflection.

I was trying to make sense of everything in my life, how one assumption I had made had led to the achievement of a job I had pursued for a great deal of time had proven itself false.

I am convinced that understanding this was what I needed to understand what my next role would be and how to be successful in that role.

As I continued to dig into this through question after question, before I knew it, I had not only understood the answer to this question but also made connections to things in my life that I had never stopped to notice or make sense of.

I had built much of my life around the concept that hard work equals success.

From the moment I had accepted this doctrine, I instantly saw a level of success that I had never truly believed was possible.

I remember thinking that there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish if I worked hard.

From that moment on, I began seeing above-average success in everything to which I applied it.

I wasn’t a master of any field, but I saw progress in everything I was doing until I reached this role I had been working towards for years.

It seemed everything was going well until it wasn’t.

Before I knew it, I was on a performance improvement plan with 60 days to improve, or I would be on my last and final written warning.

This had never happened to me in my life, and I couldn’t understand it.

There was only one solution:

I must work harder.

As I began applying this principle, 8 hours turned into 9 hours, 9 hours turned into 10, and before I knew it, I was working 12 hours a day.

The only problem was that no matter how many hours I worked, there was no improvement and many times a worse result.

I felt stressed and lost sleep, reaching the point where I wished the meeting’s outcome would be a separation.

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Discovering the Pattern

During the time of reflection immediately following, I began asking more and more questions about everything in my life, and the picture increased in clarity with every answer.

What first seemed like a bunch of unrelated hobbies that never really went anywhere became data points on what I was really looking for.

I found connections with the shows I watched, the music I listened to, the books I read, the hobbies I pursued, and my strengths and weaknesses.

I understood why I did extremely well with some jobs and what made the most recent job so different.

This reflection led to making connections, and suddenly, I was seeing something that had been right in front of me my whole life that I could never see in those moments.

Not only could I make sense of the things I had missed, but I was also seeing more in real time.

What I stumbled across was a pattern that had been there for years.

My enjoyment of the television show Sherlock wasn’t just about solving crimes.

My fascination with Toyota’s working procedures was not just about manufacturing.

The questions I asked during Bible studies were not simply about discussion.

My enjoyment of writing and reflection led to the same conclusion.

In each case, seeing what others missed fascinated me.

Finding the meaning beneath the surface energized me.

I found enjoyment in making connections between things that at first appeared unrelated.

What had seemed to me as scattered interests were actually different expressions of the same underlying pursuit.

Why “A Dusty Muzzle”?

By this point, you are probably wondering what this has to do with elephants in The Jungle Book.

I wanted a way to practice what I was learning, and after researching, I decided I would start practicing through writing on Substack.

The only problem was that I didn’t have a name.

I didn’t want another corny name, The Art of this or that, but instantly thought of A Dusty Muzzle.

I put my work into practice and asked,

“How does this relate to what I am trying to do?”

Upon reflection, I started noticing the connection.

When Colonel Hathi calls for inspection, and all the elephants raise their trunks, he instantly finds his way to a specific elephant and examines the trunk.

Then comes the quote.

“A dusty muzzle! Remember, in battle, a trunk can save your life.”

Although everything had originally appeared okay on the surface, that wasn’t enough to satisfy this colonel.

He then examines further and finds, probably, what he had expected:

A dusty muzzle.

This colonel didn’t have to think twice about discipline in his troops.

His experience had led to finding these things easily.

What is ironic, though, is that he could see the dust on one elephant’s muzzle—a significant detail—but failed to notice immediately that his last inspection was not even an elephant, but a man cub.

As we see further into this scene, we come to understand that although he was good at noticing what was wrong as it related to his troops, he was also bad at noticing his own errors.

After the inspection, when they march, his wife reminds him that he left without his son.

Looking Closer

This is exactly what interests me about this scenario.

Examining more closely to find what’s not apparent on the surface level.

This is exactly what I did in my life, and I found value in things that I had never noticed before.

The idea of being fired from your job feels like a bad thing, whether you were right or wrong, for most people.

This is how I felt when it happened, although it was a great relief from the stress I was dealing with.

After examining the situation, I not only understood why it didn’t work out, but found great value in the situation.

Although this information was not apparent on the surface, a little digging revealed it.

I have spent my life fascinated by people who master their work or make significant achievements, but I could never understand why that fascinated me.

One thing I noticed during the pursuit of an answer was that they often could perceive things that others couldn’t.

Whether it was a minor detail in a crime scene, what their gifts are, how to use their gifts, or maybe something as simple as noticing a dusty muzzle.

What You’ll Find Here

I decided I would put this into practice in my life.

It is not only relevant to my work in my career but also to my role as a husband, a father, a Christian, and an intellectual.

This would lead to slowing down and finding value in the moment, noticing the details I had never taken the time to observe.

There is no specific genre to what I will look at on this platform, but simply what I find interesting, and the smaller details or the value that younger me would have missed.

I will look for the dusty muzzles.