From Welding to Writing: Pursuing Your Passions 15 Minutes a Day | Ep 15

Caleb Roth  
So 50 minutes a day experiment, this is how I'm going to gain 22 hours of a new skill every 90 days. So 15 minutes a day does not sound like much I know most of us fritter that away multiple times over on social media. You may be I don't know what other random habits you have, but making your morning cup of coffee or whatnot. But what I wanted to do was invent, not really invent but implement tiny habits into my routines. Welcome to the Stacking Habits podcast with your hosts, David, Matthew and Caleb, our mission each week is to dig into the habits, rituals and routines have guests who are living life to the fullest. But remember, knowledge without action is worthless. So be sure to take what you hear and put it into practice. turn these words into words in your own life. Without further ado, let's dive in. We have a we have a fun, however long this turns into in front of us, we are doing a self proclaimed random show. So we're borrowing a page out of the Tim Ferriss playbook. But we typically interview guests, our guests speak for anywhere from 70 to 75% of the time, which is awesome. We bring on some incredible people and we get to hear their stories. And you as the listener typically wants to hear their story. They're the expert in their domain. We're gonna flip it around we're doing we call it an internal sewed. And it's just going to be the three of us, me, Matthew David. And we're bringing back our old playbook. So we used to do books in bourbon. So if you're watching on YouTube, we'll be sipping some bourbons as well. And so the longer the show goes, the more truthful things will get said. So if you if this is not your thing, you'd rather hear a guest. just fast forward to the end, maybe maybe listen to the last 10 minutes, and I'm sure you'll hear something worth listening to. So there is no real format, we'll kind of break into what we're drinking here. And each of us prepared a few notes. Some of them are habit related. Some of them are reflections based on 2023, the three of us founded a software company together and sold that so we are experiences in the book selling space in tech. And mostly we just love business. And so we're going to we're just going to spit ball on a couple topics, bounce from each of us and see where this thing goes. So you guys ready?

Matthew Osborn  
Let's do it. So what are you drinking first, Caleb?

Caleb Roth  
I've got Weller green labels special reserve, they give this out like candy and Ohio. And so I've got some friends over there I go cross the border to see family and I can score that and somebody actually picked us up for my birthday. So thank you. I think it's Cody there Cody or Trevor. They each got me a bottle and I forget which one was which, but whichever one that was Thank you.

Matthew Osborn  
So what about you, David?

David Chung  
I'm actually drinking whiskey. Compliments are courtesy of Bill Martlink. Oh, he

Matthew Osborn  
really followed us on that one, didn't he? Yeah,

David Chung  
so I actually I think I might have had a sip of this, but this is pretty much the same level the bottle has been for the last. When was that a year and a half ago.

Matthew Osborn  
What did he give it to you? It was

David Chung  
it was that it was the podcast episode he and I did like oh, I place Yeah, that was like, I think summer of 2022 I want to say which Yeah, I think it was about a year and a half ago. So it's been sitting up in my cupboard because it doesn't actually fit in like any of my shelf so you don't have

Matthew Osborn  
custom bourbon shelves like Caleb does. Not yet. Oh, hey,

Caleb Roth  
there it is. Well, whiskey doesn't go bad unfortunately it does not age in the bottle and so it's not getting better but it certainly isn't getting worse.

Matthew Osborn  
I've had dust on it it's cleaned off so I haven't had this for a while but I'm doing the just Whistlepig 10 year only had a few glasses of this but I've liked it a lot I had it I think on one of our very first books and bourbon I haven't really had it since then. So I believe that is

Caleb Roth  
and Whistlepig is a brand new often see even if they're cleared out of all the other allocated stuff there's usually a three or $400 bottle of some kind of Whistlepig 15 You

Matthew Osborn  
know something sitting on the shelf that

Caleb Roth  
is I think it's over must be overpriced or no one knows the name but you see it everywhere. I think it's fine I don't you know I'm not the biggest kind of sewer I just like whiskey

Matthew Osborn  
I like their 10 year I haven't tried anything past 10 year but I did not like it what year it was whatever normal one you see on the shelves everywhere did not like that one near as much as 10 Year One I feel a year that when it was oh you see all over the place but before we guys wherever my camera real quick,

David Chung  
real real quick while here let's let's drink and I'll tell us your story. That cheers. You guys may not know this about me. But I had about a decade long period where I did not drink whiskey and it was due to overindulgence in my early 20s And every time that I smelled or tasted whiskey after I just Yeah, I couldn't stomach it. That being said, Caleb You're like really big into whiskies and bourbons. So of course, whenever I hung out with you, and when you brought me on to the team, like you sent me this really nice bottle, and the first act changed my mind was like, I was like, oh my god, this is gonna take a lifetime to finish this bottle. Like, you know, I was not a big drinker back then or a big drinker of bourbon. So, I will say, I am no longer repulsed by whiskey or bourbon. Thanks to you guys. I've now rewired my mind to positive associations with it. So thank you for that. Cheers to that.

Caleb Roth  
So we've rewired a habit will bring you right back to habits immediately. I don't know if this is a good habit or a bad habit. That'll be up to you to be the judge of I think it's a

Matthew Osborn  
little bit of both. Alright, Caleb, I was telling David this before we started recording, but I was thinking we I want to share two videos with you guys, for some icebreakers to get us started to figure out you can share the audio so you guys should be able to hear the audio and see the video. Are you Are you up for some icebreaker videos?

Caleb Roth  
Yes, please.

Matthew Osborn  
All right, this first one might get us cancelled. So I want to start off with the right one. So this is in the vein of habits and self care. And you guys heard a lot about ice baths. And so this is right up and right up in that alley right here. So let me play it. Tell me if you can hear the audio. When I play this. I feel like

Speaker 1  
everyone would have survived the Titanic if they'd known about the method. Like if they're just focused on slow breathing and mindful.

Unknown Speaker  
It would have been weird to think of Wim Hof was on the Titanic he

Speaker 1  
would have actually just been swimming around. Yeah, it would have been in the water. Yeah,

Speaker 2  
he would have been having a great time. This is nice. This is nice. I

Speaker 1  
like it. That's enjoyable. We have to do it after and so on. But people forget is that there was a point during the mass freezing of the passengers of Titanic where they were actually healthier. Yeah. Before they posted, yes, that would have been a rush of the Yeah, of the benefits of an ice bath. So they wouldn't Yeah, you're right. There was for a bit.

Unknown Speaker  
Oh, my gosh, what's

Caleb Roth  
the statute of limitations on laughing? It's been over 100 years. Right.

David Chung  
I think it's calculated by how many deaths there were. So it's like, I think it's a year for every five deaths or something like that. We may have to x this whole segment out.

Caleb Roth  
I agree. I love that.

Matthew Osborn  
This was gonna make the show. All right. I don't know. I've got

Caleb Roth  
death threats and hate mail if that's what we want. No news is bad news, right.

Matthew Osborn  
One more video for you guys. This is kind of I've been thinking about this for a while but couldn't figure out a good way to put it into words. And I saw this video, I was like, this is exactly what I've been thinking. But he was able to describe and why I have not been able to. So listen to this. And then just give me your cup unfiltered thoughts on this topic. It's not a funny video, this is more of just related to kind of habits and learning from people. Alright, I'm gonna try the audio again, let me know if you guys can hear the reason

Speaker 3  
that you should stop taking advice from super successful people. I've noticed that there's a trend of people who've made it to explaining how work life balance is actually what's most important and how you can't be powered by resentment or a sense of insufficiency. And it's a failure. I think on the heart of the Guru's who understand that the tools you need to get from nought to 50 are not the same that you need to get from 90 to 95. It's also a basic failure of memory. When you look at what got that person to where they are, it's precisely the traits that they're now castigating, almost everybody has more pain and resentment and fear in the beginning, which is why they all use it. And once you've achieved enough success and validation from the world to not be fueled by that anymore, that's great. That doesn't mean that people who are just starting out can achieve the success that you now have, by using strategies which you only access after becoming successful. A much better way to do it, if you're looking at someone is not to listen to what they're saying, but to look at what they did when they were at the same stages.

Matthew Osborn  
That is Chris Williamson from the modern wisdom podcast. But when I heard I want to hear your guys's thoughts just generally on that, that gurus are sometimes saying things that are not actually helpful to people getting started. Because they have a failure of memory, what actually got them to where they are. Do you guys think that's accurate with a lot of gurus or not?

Caleb Roth  
I want a slightly different place with it. That's a good question. Let me stick a pin in that where my mind goes actually had this conversation this week in a coffee shop with my sister in law and her husband and her they're in their mid 30s. Just like just like I am and talking about money and money is very difficult to talk about. And I said I'm happy to be a resource I'll share. I'll share my numbers, I'll share any my wisdom I don't, I don't really care to, you know, hide that. But the thing that is they're struggling with or the you know, her husband is struggling with my brother in law is he's comparing himself at, let's call it 35 to his parents that are 60. And the They're farmers they've done very, very well for themselves. And the amount of assets and income and wealth that they've accumulated by the time they're 60 is very different than where my brother and sister in law are at 35. And so it's very difficult to Compare your journey at 35 and say, I'm so far behind. Well, yeah, you're so far behind your parents at 60. But where were your parents at 35? And I would imagine that they're actually in very similar boats. So that's where my mind goes with it. David, what's your what's your initial gut? Thought?

David Chung  
I, you know, I think when people share their experiences, it's exactly that it's their experience. And there is no one path or blueprint to get to the destination that you're, you know, you're hoping to get to, I just keep thinking about, you know, my journey and my career. And I'm thinking that if I told, you know, 100 people, what I, what I did and what I had to go through in order to get to where I am today, I bet you those 100, people could go out and do the same thing. And maybe, maybe one or two of them, would be in the same exact position as me. But I realized that there's a bunch of luck that went into it. There's a bunch of like, sort of external circumstances that, you know, played out that got me to a different place that, you know, might get people to another so yeah, I think you know, that video is really impactful. I think the the heart of the message is there. I don't know if I agree with every single word that person said. So

Caleb Roth  
Matthew, If I heard it, right, essentially, he's saying, don't listen to the experts that have forgotten what it was like to be young, broke and hungry. And it sounds like they're going after the Gary Vee mentality where he says hustle, hustle, hustle, and gurus if you want to call them that, that have made it, or now saying, well, hustle is overrated, it's more important to be strategic, and, you know, take time to reflect. Is that where you're going with this? Or are you taking this aside? Yeah, I think

Matthew Osborn  
it just, if you look at a lot of really successful people, and they like kind of give their advice out in their daily routines and what they do, it's not everyone's like this, and kind of categorizing more of the tech bro type mentality. But it's like, Hey, I wake up, I do my jujitsu. And then I have my ice bath, I meditate for this time that I scheduled, no meetings before noon, I make sure I'm done and checked out by five, I put my phone to the side, I have my family time. And it's like, this is what you need to do to be successful to be in the right space of mine, when that does work for them where they are right now. But that's not what got them to where they are, they actually had very little work life balance, they woke up, they work because they did money. They didn't have time to do their ice baths, and all these things and check out exactly at 5pm. Because they were in kind of that hustle mode where they had to make their business work. And that's what got them to where they are now. But now that they've achieved that success, now they have the space and ability to really focus on their mental health and all these other things. And so they're preaching this, when in reality, that's not what got them there. It's the hard work for endless hours that got them there. But now they're kind of teaching in different methods, because they've achieved success, and now they're able to do that. But they're teaching it as if that's what you need to do now. And I've just seen a lot of, yeah, sorry, go there. David,

David Chung  
let me let me jump on this. Because I, I don't know because, like, if I look back at David, when he was in his early 20s, when he was puking, you know, whiskey, I feel that, by the way, that does not make sense, unless we put up with that

Caleb Roth  
20 alcoholic, when I

David Chung  
think back to my 20s, and, you know, I did what I thought I needed to do in order to make a living become successful, you know, figure out where I want to go, I almost look back, and the advice that I would give David in his early 20s would be completely different from the actions that I actually took to get to where I am today. And I would actually go back and say, you know, make sure that you, you know, prioritize relationships and friendships a little bit more. Because, you know, it took me seven, eight years to realize how important those are. And maybe if I, you know, built those relationships earlier, it would have gotten me to where I am today a lot faster, and maybe a lot more pleasantly. And so, I agree with you, Matthew, like, there may be some sort of like dissonance as far as what people are saying, you know, giving advice to younger people, and it being different from how they got there. But I also think a lot of that comes from just age and experience too. What are your guys's thoughts on that?

Caleb Roth  
I think you're spot on in terms of if you go to really people at the end of life and you ask them, What would you do differently and what are you glad you did in life? The answer is typically come back. I wish I'd spent more time on relationships,

David Chung  
I think end of life. End of Life, I

Caleb Roth  
think overwhelmingly if you ask older people so not just someone who's been successful saying In what you would tell their younger self, but just older people in general, knowing what you know about life at the age of 8090 help, you know, whatever old age might mean, they overwhelmingly come back with two things. I wish I had spent more time on relationships, and I wish I had prioritize my health. Because those two things you can't really shortcut. And if you didn't do the work on your health, then the last decade or two can be pretty miserable in terms of pain. So I think that advice definitely holds true. But David telling yourself in your 20s, to have more, spent more time on relationships, that may have changed your world, for certain certainly in the better in regards to relationships, but you may not have been as successful in the business, you may have been more it's always hard to know, because it's not always one variable that changes everything. But yeah, that's where my mind goes, when we when we throw out that discussion. Yeah.

David Chung  
How about you, Matthew?

Matthew Osborn  
Yeah, no, I think it's probably like most things, it's a little bit of a mixture of both. And also, like Caleb said, you can never go back, change those variables and see where you would have ended up. It's kind of a, an unknown, unknown equation. But it is just interesting to see that a lot of times, like, the liberties and time that we have earned what we invest our time, and now, we're only able to do because we got through a certain stage in business, where the person starting out doesn't have all that time and luxury to do that. And so while going in the hot tub every morning might help Caleb clear his mind, if someone's struggling to pay their rent and trying to get their business started, that's probably not something they're going to be able to do, they're probably up to wake up and get straight to it type thing. So it's where you are now does change what you do, or what you used to do. But it's not always? I don't know, I think it's a little bit of both. Definitely a bit of both. I don't have a great answer to it. I was curious what you guys were thoughts were after there's

Caleb Roth  
a whole book written on the concept of what got you here will not get you there. And so and we're feeling this, because we sold the business, I've talked to friends that have sold businesses, and the mindset changes when you're growing something, it's about offense. And there's there's fun in knowing. And there's the challenge of growing something and knowing that it's working, and seeing those results continue to climb every year, the minute you sell it, you think your life is easy and better. And in a lot of ways it is. But now you have to switch and now you're concerned with I don't want to lose this money that I've had. And I think that mindset happens in what whether you're selling your entity, or whether you become successful, whatever that is, I think that does change. So what got you here, maybe the hustle, the grit, the determination won't get you there, which is now more about relationships and strategies and reflection. And certainly, imitation helps if we see someone else that's been very successful say, hey, slowing down is really impactful for me and implementing these habits. I think it's worth pondering and considering. But ultimately, it's up to you to decide if that fits your life. I think Matthew hit hit it on the head. That's their experience. And so if we share our advice to people younger than us or older than us, but you know, earlier on the venture of tech, for example, we can share what worked for us and what didn't they can decide to you know, take that on and adopt those habits. Again, those are just our experiences. Will they 100% work for the person we're telling them to know. But it's just a directional, it's a directional accuracy. David, you're up. What do you got for us?

David Chung  
All right. What do you guys want to hear?

Caleb Roth  
You know, we've talked traction a lot. So let's let's save that. Okay, let's talk Costco. You've got to note about Moscow's employment strategies.

David Chung  
Okay. You guys may or may not know, but I am obsessed with Costco.

Unknown Speaker  
I Kirkland. So

David Chung  
you may not know this, but I have been a member of Costco longer than I've been a citizen of the US like I kid you not. I've been a Costco member longer than I've been a US citizen. And yeah, I just love the company. And every time every time I go there, it's just like, you know, it's such a positive experience. Have you guys ever noticed the name tags on all the Costco employees? It says, how long they've been working there? No,

Matthew Osborn  
I don't think I've noticed that before. Okay,

David Chung  
so next time you go to Costco, take a look at, you know, the people working there and look their name tag, and it will share. They'll tell you the year that they started working there. And I remember when I first started going to Costco, I'd see is pretty common to see people who had been working there since the 90s. And this was like, in the mid, you know, mid 2010s That, you know, I would be going and so they had been working at Costco for quite some time. And I was like thinking, you know, at a time of such high turnover, how is it that Costco is able to keep these motivated people employed? And, you know, Costco is one of the largest REIT killers in the world. And they have one of the lowest turnover rates. And so I did a little bit of digging recently about how how that all works, how that all pieces together. It's gotta

Caleb Roth  
be the dogs.

David Chung  
It's the dollar 50 90

Matthew Osborn  
million last year 100 90 million hot dogs 100 90 million hotdog combos across Costco for the year 2023. I,

David Chung  
I forget where but I think I read an article talking about the old CEO and how he was planning on raising the price of hotdogs. And the founder of Costco was like, pretty much like, if you change the price of the hotdog, I will kill you. Like don't change the price this

Caleb Roth  
year that and just for just for perspective, I think they were talking about raising it a quarter. So from $1.50 to $1.75. Probably not meaningful, but on 190 million units sold, that'd be $475 million of pure profit added to the company.

David Chung  
That's insane. All right. So going back to the employees. All right. So here are a couple interesting things. So Costco doesn't really hire. You know, most of the year, the best time to apply I found is September right before their seasonal rush. And so they get 1000s and 1000s of applicants for a handful of positions every year. And so if you're one of the lucky, you know, 100 or 200 people that they hire for that store during the season, you work mostly on a part time basis, throughout the holidays. So a couple of unique things when you're hired on Costco. You everyone starts off as part time you don't get a full time position at Costco. Did you guys know that? No, no. Okay. So when you're hired on, you're hired on as a part time employee. Costco, in many ways, sees full time employment, as a promotion, in and of itself. And so if you're performing, if you've been there, if you prove yourself, then you can move to full time. Now, let's just say you're part time seasonal employee at Costco. After the season ends, out of all those hundreds of people, they typically select, like between one and 10 people to stay on. So it's like a very, very small percentage of the overall people that, you know, work seasonally. And so there's this entire, like, sort of structure of filtering down to the best that they have at Costco. And of course, this only works because they have so many people interested in working at Costco. Why are they interested in working at Costco? Well, they've got a couple of sweet perks. Number one, if you're an employee there, you get a free membership. And it's not only just a free membership, you get a free executive membership, which means you get 2% back on all your purchases,

Caleb Roth  
our membership and 2% 2% back if you haven't persuaded me to work there, what else do I have?

Matthew Osborn  
To persuasive? Yeah,

David Chung  
you get special shopping hours. And so you get to shop before or after the store opens and closes. So there are no other customers there. And you oftentimes get first dibs at like, the best deals, right? Because like they're marking down prices at the end of the day, and then you just so happens, see that deal in your your first. All right, if that wasn't incentive enough, if you're scheduled to work on Sunday, they consider Sunday's special day, and they pay you 1.5 times your pay. So if you're making you know, let's just say $25 an hour on Sundays, you're making an extra 1250 an hour or so what is that? 3750?

Matthew Osborn  
So basically overtime, right time and a half. Yeah, 10 and a half.

David Chung  
Yeah. All right. In addition to that, every two years, or it's like based on hours, every two years, you're guaranteed $1.50 Raise, which doesn't sound like much, but their pay is high to start off with. And then after five years, you're eligible for bonuses. And that bonus is I think 2000 $2,000 every six months, so you're getting like 2020 500 every six months, so you get an extra 5000 plus they have health benefits. Plus, uh, you know, they have all the other regular benefits that a large company can have. And they don't require any degrees, right? And so like, oftentimes, when you go to Costco and you see that cashier and they're smiling as they're checking you out, they're really fast and efficient. The reason why is if you're a cashier at Costco, you get $1 pay differential for being a cashier. That's like a really coveted position at Costco. Plus, if it's a Sunday, they're getting paid time and a half to have. So it's just like, it's a win, win win. And so like when you go to Costco and you look at the employees and they're all happy. The reason why is because just Costco is a great place to work. And just full disclaimer, I you know, I am a shareholder of Costco, I've put a huge chunk of my retirement into Costco. I'm a bag holder.

Caleb Roth  
Well I'm going to start going on Sundays then because if they're going to be 50% happier to be working on Sundays, assuming money is correlated to happiness, then I would love to see that. Although one of the most important perks of being self employed having freedom over your time is you get to go places when it's not busy. So when I lived in Colorado, that meant going to the mountains on a Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Friday, Saturday, Sunday with everybody else. It also means going to the golf course on, you know, with all the retired people, because you're not going on the weekend when tee times takes six hours for a four hour round of golf. And so just like that, when I go to Costco, I don't go on Saturday because it is busy. And I don't like that many people with oversized carts getting in my way. So I go when it is not as cramped. Those are

David Chung  
those are my cost bandwidth. No. True Costco fan would know. Friday nights and Saturday nights are the best times to go. Really?

Matthew Osborn  
Yeah, Tuesday. Yeah, it's been a joy just telling me today we both said we like some of the stuff Costco sells better than Sam's Club Costco gives us way more anxiety because it's always so packed. And Sam's clubs like nice and relaxing and there's no one at the checkout lines and they have scan and go with your phone and I love sandstones clubs, like to stuff at Costco better. Most of the time. Costco Sam's Club does have way better prices every day of the week on me though. So if you didn't meet, go to Sam's Club. go to Costco.

Caleb Roth  
They just opened to Costco and Queen Creek, right? Yes,

Matthew Osborn  
they did. Yeah,

Caleb Roth  
I seen that.

Matthew Osborn  
Yep. And they did pretty well. I believe their opening day I forget. One of the employees told me I forgot it was now but they broke one of the Costco records on opening day, which was pretty cool.

David Chung  
Have you guys ever gone to the Costco subreddit, there's an entire subreddit dedicated to Costco and I think there's like something crazy. Let me look it up real quick because it actually is crazy. So the Costco subreddit has 538,000 followers, half a million people on that subreddit. i That isn't reason enough to just love Costco. I don't know what is it? And they have the craziest posts on there too. Like they talk about like all the different food courts internationally because you know, like at an American Costco, you've got the slices of pizza, the whole pizzas. They have the churros are actually they just replaced the churros with the 750 Calorie cookie. I don't know if you guys ever saw that. Yeah, they just replaced the churros with cookies. They have the hot dogs. But internationally, they have like pizzas with Korean stir fry beef. They have like all sorts of like, like, handheld beef pies and all sorts of crazy stuff. So anyway, if you guys are ever bored and want to kill time, go on to the Costco subreddit. It's awesome.

Caleb Roth  
I dig it. I'm up next, do we want to talk about the value in going deep, or 15 minutes a day experiment?

David Chung  
I want to hear about the 15 day, or 15 minute a day experiment is somewhat related to habits.

Caleb Roth  
That's kind of the goal, we want to be tangential to habits. So 15 minutes a day experiment. This is how I'm going to gain 22 hours of a new skill every 90 days. So 15 minutes a day does not sound like much I know most of us fritter that away multiple times over on social media. You may be I don't know what other random habits you have, but making your morning cup of coffee or whatnot. But what I wanted to do was invent, not really invent but implement tiny habits into my routines. So I've not read the book yet. But BJ Fogg wrote a book, I think it's called Tiny habits. And one of the main goals is don't do anything drastic. Like don't go from I'm sitting on my couch every day to I'm going to go to the gym five times a week. That is we talked about that in our habits, New Year's resolutions, that is not going to be sustainable. So how do you do something small that compounds and eventually become something meaningful? I said, Look, 15 minutes a day, I stole this idea from Jesse Itzler. And so he does, you know, one big crazy event every year. I think he does like six mini adventures every every other month. He does something on a weekend. And then he's trying to learn some sort of a new skill every 90 days. And I said let's do 15 minutes a day. I can commit to that, well, 15 minutes a day times 90 days is a little over 22 hours dedicated to something which is half of a normal workweek. So what I'm doing q1, quarter one for those that don't know the business lingo is I am writing for 15 minutes a day. And that could be in my journal. Usually it's on my computer. I have a Notes app. And I've just got every day scheduled out. I set a timer on my phone for 15 minutes, and I sit down and just go and sometimes I know the topic before I get into it. Sometimes I don't I merely just start writing. And I'm not trying to go and get all the grammar exactly right or the punctuation exactly right. I'm simply trying to stream of conscious right. And I've read up On this, I've talked to people that have done it, David Parral has a writing course, I follow a guy named Tim Denning that does one, maybe I'll sign up for his at some point. But the main goal is if you do something, and I would say I'm a, I'm a b minus writer, I'm okay, I'm not great. But if you do something regularly, every single day, then by all means you are going to get better at it, unless you're doing it terribly or incorrectly. But that process of corralling my thoughts, putting them on paper, I think is going to make me a better person 90 days from now than when I started. Here's where it gets interesting. I think I was nine out of 10 days to start. And then it slipped up I was I had some friends over for the weekends. We stayed up late every night, I missed my habit over the weekends. And then I sort of sat down and said, Alright, am I going to be fragile? And if I miss a couple days, am I am I done? Well, the answer is no, because I still see the value in it. And so what I want to do is say, hey, if I do this even five days a week, just on the weekdays, I make my coffee, the kids aren't awake, yet my wife still in bed, I can easily have 15 minutes before I jump into email before I jump into my regular day. And that's what I've been doing and 15 minutes, five days a week for 90 days is still 16 hours of new skills. So that's what I'm testing. Me being a future oriented individual. I'm mostly excited about what I'm going to do q2 Two, three. And they can be fun things I might want to figure out how to make the best cup of coffee. And that'll be my pursuit, 15 minutes a day of research or calling people or interviewing people, and just trying to learn what makes that it doesn't have to be a skill, it doesn't have to be, you know, making the world a better place. It could just be following a curiosity. So that is my 15 minute a day experience experiment. And we'll see how it goes. And I'll report back on some findings as we go. But it's really

Matthew Osborn  
funny, you brought that up, I was just about to ask you. Do you already know what you want to do next, for your next quarter? But yeah, that's pretty cool. So you've switched it, then from seven days to five days. A week is your goal. And you'll get more if you can.

Caleb Roth  
I'm not somebody that's super disciplined. And so what I do is I have this right now I'm going to miss some days. And that's okay. I'm not trying to hold myself in fact, I wrote a post called perfection is not the not the standard. But yeah, my my goal is like, I want to see how my writing will evolve. I know that having better writing skills means I will think better means I can communicate better, and that those some of those soft skills really differentiate you in the world. And so I just want to see how my writing is gonna evolve? Will it get sharper, more succinct? Will it get more flowery and colorful? Am I going to change my habits and outline before I get started? Or just trust my stream of consciousness? So that's, those are some questions I have. And we'll see what that turns into.

David Chung  
Where do you post? Is it on your personal blog?

Caleb Roth  
So I'm not posting every post there? Because I haven't refined them. And maybe I I'm trying not to say shit as much this year, maybe, maybe I ought to maybe maybe I want to do that. Right now I use an app called reflect. And I've got them all written out as daily posts in in reflect. And so I can click on them. They're kind of made for social or for blogging. I mean, the titles are immediate feedback, evidence of growth. Why nab you need a board? Flexibility versus consistency, cultivating an environment? who's walking whom? That was a bit of a diatribe with my puppy. And some thoughts I had while walking through the freezing cold. So yeah, maybe maybe I'll just post them all. I don't know that anybody would really care. But I'm curious to see if I will become a better writer. And what I'll learn about myself by 15 minutes a day. It's not a huge commitment. But I think the results will be fascinating to look at.

David Chung  
Are you using any resources to like, improve your writing? I know there are a couple of books on writing like I've one sitting on my shelf, it's called on writing well, and I know Stephen King has a book on writing as well. I'm

Caleb Roth  
not, although part of my curiosity could be relative to it. So I would allow myself to not write one day and spend those 15 minutes researching or watching YouTube videos. I'm not I'm not trying to be purist or extremely regimented. The idea is, can I improve writing skills, and this may not work for every skill, if I wanted to study Spanish, you know, 15 minutes at a time may not be enough to, you know, get the neural networks firing properly, or actually, you know, grow much more than a little bit of basic vocab. Maybe it would I don't know. But I'm curious to see what kind of skills I can I can augment or what kind of curiosities I can scratch every quarter. And I'm not tied to 90 days, it might turn into 60 days because I want to do six of these a year not just for I

Matthew Osborn  
like the whole philosophy though everyone can commit to 15 minutes a day. It's not a huge time commitment. You could put down your phone for 15 minutes because I guarantee you like you said everyone spends way more than that on social media on the typical day. And it is fun. Like you said, you can commit to something you get the benefit of wanting, sticking something out for 90 days but also the benefit of being able to switch your focus for not too long. It's all your commitment. for an entire year, it's just a quarter, then you can switch to something fun. You can think about first quarter and figure we're gonna do the second quarter. I like that a lot, probably do something like that. Trying to think of think of something good for q2 to do 15 minutes a day of it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Caleb Roth  
We'll start start down, like, there's no reason to wait till April 1, right, we got February 1 around the corner, find something for 60 days. So David, go ahead. I was gonna say Do either of you have a thought on a habit or a curiosity you'd want to pursue for 60 or 90 days at a time? Welding? You mentioned,

David Chung  
to learn how to weld Yeah, I'm going to learn how to weld this year.

Matthew Osborn  
You really should go to the general air free welding class they have every week.

David Chung  
Yeah, no, that's the one I was looking at. The only issue is I actually donated all my jeans. And the only types of pants I have on now are like these polyester stretchy pants. And apparently you cannot wear those because they'll catch on fire as you well. Yeah. Yeah, I'll need to go out and buy some jeans before I do that. But yeah, and I've been really curious about like, TIG and milled MIG welding, and like all the stuff in it, like, I don't know how Instagram knows. But I started getting videos on welding too. And just like, this guy who goes around, reading all the different types of welds, and you'll like, give it a pass, and I get those videos to do. It's, it's, it's so funny, like, how social media or like these algorithms, they just know what you're

Matthew Osborn  
talking about the guy that goes like, how many dollars now? Or do you think this world is worse type thing? And you know, like, there's a guy,

David Chung  
there's that guy, and then there's a guy who like, for example, he went to Disney World, and he Oh, yeah,

Matthew Osborn  
he was like, the bars and like, the roller coasters. And he's like, this. Yeah,

David Chung  
yeah. I'm gonna learn. So a couple of things I want to so 15 minutes, or is it a day, 15 minutes a day? I don't

Caleb Roth  
know, five minutes a day. And you could do it, you could I guess you could stack it. Essentially. That's, that's an hour a workweek a little over an hour, or almost two hours a week. So if

David Chung  
you want to. Alright, let me ask you this. Caleb, do you think it's what do you think the difference is between like, doing 15 minutes a day, versus just obsessing over it for two weeks? And just like, just pouring into it for two weeks? What do you think is more effective? And what's the pros and cons to both?

Caleb Roth  
It probably depends on what skill you're looking to acquire. So certain things again, have a bit of a learning curve, or the ability to stop what you're doing. So if I'm deepen in thought and doing a project, and then snap out of it, and don't give myself a break, to let my brain reset, that next 15 minutes is probably not going to be as beneficial as if it's early in the day before my mind is starting to run crazy. So I think it probably maybe it's a cop out answer, but it probably depends on the habit that you're looking to add. I think there's certain things that do compound over time, you know, a curiosity of trying to figure out the best cup of coffee might be better off cramming that into two weeks and doing all the research and doing all the samples and meeting with local coffee roasters and coffee shop owners would probably be the best bet they're writing, I'm a different person day to day. And it can also be frustrating to try and write for four hours straight. So I think the idea of 15 minutes is not intimidating. Even if I suck for 15 minutes, it's over quickly, even like going to the gym for 15 minutes a day, is I think there's some gains to be had, would you be better off. So that's one that we'd be better off for 90 days, I think 915 minutes a day, 90 days in a row for weight training, or cardio even is probably better off than two weeks of just chaotic lifting, because there's only you're going to abuse your body. So some things are going to do better to let let there be some breadth and time in between versus going all out. Interesting.

David Chung  
Any thoughts? Matthew takes on that? No, I

Matthew Osborn  
agree. I think it probably does depend on the habit you're pursuing. With whether it makes more sense to go all out on it. And also what's the purpose of learning it like if you go all out on welding for two weeks? Was your goal just to learn it and be done with it? Or is your goal to like figure out some ethical way to apply it where it might be better if you spread it out over 90 days or even longer than that but if your goal is just to learn it because you've always wanted to say you've learned how to well and then you're done with it and maybe it is better to do a two week intensive class a general layer for six hours a day learn it, and then you kind of have that skill set and you go on and do something else after that. For

David Chung  
me it's not even like that I care about welding it's more so like Haven't you guys ever seen two pieces of metal and been like I really want to combine these two pieces together David the thought that

Caleb Roth  
crossed your mind I don't know that that's crossed my mind. That's

David Chung  
like such a like masculine thing isn't as just like these two pieces of steel. I want to be able to combine them forever. Like permanently you know, duct tape in itself. I feel like I can devote 90 days duct tape but welding I'm really interested in then The other thing that I've been really interested in is like, concrete. Like, you know, have you guys seen these videos of like people pouring concrete? It's just like, it's it's an art as much as it is, you know, a skill?

Caleb Roth  
I have not. I think I think our tick tock feeds are vastly different.

Matthew Osborn  
Let me ask you this track is David, I'm getting this Video with David, when you're thinking

Caleb Roth  
about a skill like welding? Is this something you're just fascinated by? And you want to go down the rabbit hole and then satisfy sort of scratch that itch? Or is this something that you hope to then have that skill in your tool bag for the rest of your life?

David Chung  
I mean, both right. For me, like, my entire life, my primary driver, though, just chasing curiosity, it's the same reason why I got my motorcycle endorsement and have never ridden a motorcycle afterwards. It's the same reason why I was getting my pilot's pilot's private pilot's license, and have not flown a plane afterwards. It's it's just scratching that itch. Right? I feel like I don't I have, I have this strong drive to just like, explore and just and just, I don't know, just like, it's interesting, right? That's my Roman Empire, right? It just like random and things that show up on my feed. I think about it all the time.

Caleb Roth  
I think there's beauty in it. Even if you go down that path for two weeks of the immersion process, or 90 days, or 15 minutes a day, whatever that may be. If you decide that it's not for you, at least, you know, and that question is no longer circulated in your head going what I love to be a pilot, what I love to be a welder. You've now answered that question once and for all and said, You know what, David does not enjoy welding. And this is not for me. And so I don't want to go buy more jeans, I'm out. And now that doesn't come back up again. Because the next time that pops into your head, you go, Hey, I tried it. It's not for me. And now I can try the next thing on my list.

David Chung  
I also think, yes, everything you just said I agree with 100%. And I'm just like, we have one life, right? Assuming we don't believe in reincarnation, it's just like, we have this one life. And I just want to experience all the different things that there is to experience in this life and like, you know, it's like, Who would want to live life without having welded something? I think it's just like, you know, I think it's pretty common sense that like, you'd want to weld something in your life.

Caleb Roth  
I I know, I'm gonna get you for your birthday, David. Yeah, it's gonna be a bracelet. It says W W. W. D, what would well there's do. Because if you're gonna go down this path, you need to start identifying as a welder. And you need to understand what would a welder do? And apply that philosophy to everything else that David does.

David Chung  
So I actually don't believe in labels. So, like, as you were saying, like, you know, what would a welder do this and that and it's just like, you know, when identified a welder? No, I don't, I don't believe in labels like that, you know, like, I, I don't believe in like, identifying yourself as a welder as a businessman. It's just like, No, my name is David. And I can weld and I know how to do business and I know how to fly and I know how to ride motorcycles. i It's like, the label doesn't make me it's like, I don't know what I'm even trying this one make the label art. Yeah, I am. I have the label exam.

Caleb Roth  
I am the one who knocks.

David Chung  
Exactly. Where's that from?

Caleb Roth  
That is a Breaking Bad quote.

David Chung  
Okay, no, I

Matthew Osborn  
like that. I think you should definitely definitely do that welding thing almost like one of our was our very first episode we did with Mike McCarthy right when he said he's always wanted to sail. And that was his goal is to sail is like you've always wanted to Well, you gotta Well, you got to figure it out somehow. So put it on the put on the list to get started.

Caleb Roth  
Mike had a trip booked. And if 2023 He was going to check that off his bucket list. And I believe they got sick or someone else got COVID Something happened and they didn't go. But he did call me for an accountability update and told me it's on the books for 2024. So he is still going to do it. He's still going to scratch that itch. And I think there's something to it if you if you ask to do something, and it keeps popping back up over and over and over. If it's a recurring theme, then like you said, David, we get one life, you owe it to yourself to try. Because, again, Charlie Munger, I'll rephrase this because we said it before. At the end of his life, he just passed away at 99 years old. He wasn't sitting there going, I wish I'd made more money or I wish I'd spent more time investing or put more money in crypto or Apple. He said, I wish I had caught a 200 pound tuna when I was young enough and strong enough to reel it in. Because at this age, I cannot fight that fish by myself. So it's about those experiences. It's about doing something when you have the strength and when it's appropriate to do it. And again, if it's not for you, fine. At least you know that and you won't get to your deathbed and have a regret about never welding because I can imagine coming if you don't do this, well, you know, sitting on your deathbed living a long beautiful life with you know, lots of kids and grandkids and whatever else you wish to accomplish? And I would just hate to hear you say, I wish I had gone to that welding class.

David Chung  
Yeah. How can we make this a reality? Matthew, you know the owner of general air, you want to like

Matthew Osborn  
you set up for the class? Yeah, get me set out of the gun actually in charge of the weld school I could message to do Yeah. I remember you and me talked about welding. I want to say it was like at least two three years ago, if not more than that. You'd mentioned an interest in welding. This has been in your head for a while. This has been a reoccurring theme because you and I talked about this a long time ago. I remember that. Yeah, dude,

David Chung  
I've been obsessed with welding even though I don't know like anything about it besides like the different types of welds. I'm like, dude, welding just seems so cool. It's just like, I don't know. It's just like the coolest thing ever. It's like Costco. I'm just obsessed over this.

Caleb Roth  
Costco and welding? Well, David, since it's been on your mind three years, you must do it. And when you do, I do want to live vicariously through you because I unlike you have never looked at two pieces of metal and wondered how could we form a more perfect union of these two? I've just said, Cool. That's a hunk of copper, and a hunk of maybe that steel. I don't even know.

David Chung  
Okay, I've got a new goal guys for this year. You know, I'm getting married later this year. And I want to weld something. I don't know what it's going to be. It'll be a secret. And it will be a part of my wedding in some way. Okay. Yes, you guys come. I want you guys to try to figure out what I welded. It may be the seat you're sitting on. And maybe the fork you're eating off of it may be the arch that I got married Under

Caleb Roth  
Armour. I'm going to be delighted

David Chung  
that that may be a possibility to I'm not going to rule anything out. Okay.

Matthew Osborn  
Just picture an art. But that's breaking mid sir, mid service. More than 15 minutes a day, when I

Caleb Roth  
say 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. David, you might have wished you had spent 15. You know, more than 15 minutes on your well job. Yeah.

David Chung  
Well to be determined guys. And I'll I'll make that a new goal. And yeah, you're in a couple of months, you'll have the burden of figuring out what I welded,

Caleb Roth  
we look forward to following that journey. All right, one.

David Chung  
I think we have time for one last topic and then see what I

Matthew Osborn  
can do something funny real fast. I got a text message last night from our good friend Avery. And she sent me a screenshot of a text he got which is kind of you guys can see it. But there's like my face on here. And someone messaged Avery, they're like, Hey, I went to buy some random pair of socks on Amazon and Matthews face popped up on the video. Oh, reviewing the socks. He's like, is that actually him? He's like, I wonder how much money he makes out these things. Which is one of the things I had written down as the easiest money I made in 2023 was Amazon influencer program. Oh, so funny. someone's buying a random pair of socks and recognize my face pop up? Is this the sponsored video? Advertising the pair of socks on Amazon? How

David Chung  
many videos have you done at this point?

Matthew Osborn  
I haven't made a video for three months now. So four months maybe? I don't know, it's been a while that there's another so I think total on my account, I probably have 140 videos. Granted, a lot of these are like one minute, two minute, three minute. They're not like crazy long videos. But I knock majority I would say 90% 80% of those videos, I knocked out in like a two week period if not less than that. And those are still making money every single month. And it's one of the things that I kind of put earlier in my my notes on here is that just focus on one thing for an extended period of time you have the compound effect. I think this last year, one of the things I did poorly, which is something I've talked about for a long time even more back doing Scout IQ is just focusing on too many different things at the same time. And then you get down the road and you realize something's compounding you're like, hey, if I just stuck with this and did a little bit longer. It's compounding now imagine what it'd be if I had stuck that out for seven months type thing. But for those that have not heard of the Amazon influencer program, just a quick little rundown for it, you can just type in Amazon influencer program, and you can apply online, you need to have somewhat of a following. They don't give you a huge guideline of what that means it'll randomly accept some people and randomly reject some people. But in general, if you apply with YouTube or Instagram, try and have a couple 1000 followers. It's technically against their terms of service to buy followers, but I'm not convinced they would know if you did. So that's up to each individual person what they want to do with their following. But if you apply to it, you make three review videos are just random products in Amazon, you don't even have to have bought them from Amazon, you can buy them anywhere, as long as they're sold on Amazon, you make three videos, you post them, Amazon will manually review those videos. As long as they're up their terms of service, you can be approved for monetization. And then those videos show up in the product page on Amazon. So if you scroll through a product in Amazon, the very last image it's normally a video and that's going to be a sponsored video by someone that made a review on the product. If someone watches that and then buys it, you get a percentage of the profit from that sale. And so You have these videos all across Amazon This is a somewhat newer program even though it's been around for a couple of years and there's how many hundreds of millions of products in Amazon very few products have videos for them a ton of products have no videos and so it's pretty easy to get your videos out there. So anyways, I spent like two weeks I made like I said 130 140 extra videos I have on my account, and it's consistently between one to $2,000 a month every single month coming through just from those videos. So I think 23 I started like may or April is like $15,000 for 2023 and it's still going on this year. And I like I said I haven't posted a video for a long time now. But I was looking through my Amazon purchases and I was like I probably have a good like ad purchases I could probably review that I've done in the past like four months. And so in my head I spent two weeks doing that a while ago and it's made this much it's probably worth spending a little bit more time doing that but that was a fun little side thing I did in 2023 And for those of you that haven't heard of it, definitely check it out. It sucks if you don't get approved but if you do get approved it's a great side way to make money because you're already buying stuff on Amazon anyway so that's some random text and people finding your reviews for buying socks on Amazon so So

Caleb Roth  
Matthew, your 15 minutes a day could be spent recording one to two to three videos because they don't take easily

Matthew Osborn  
do three videos in a 15 minute time span like one take videos with my phone I'm not like setting up professional camera equipment and editing. I turn on my phone I do a one take thing even if I mess up I just do one take and then I upload that and those videos tend to do better than the more published polished videos anyways,

Caleb Roth  
I think that's a perfect implementation of the 15 minutes today not

Matthew Osborn  
a bad idea 60 days left and q1 make 180 videos something like that. And

Caleb Roth  
again if you make 130 things that compound assuming the program continues that's something that's going to continue to compound because that work you did for two weeks back in the summer is still paying dividends today and imagine if that continues to grow and compounds you could just quit the podcast because you wouldn't you wouldn't need the the crazy revenue that we're driving already on here.

Matthew Osborn  
I know all this crazy revenue from the podcast wouldn't need any more. And for those that don't understand

Caleb Roth  
the humor we are we are pre revenue on the podcast meaning we have we have not made a penny Matthew did you?

David Chung  
Did you show your feet in the socks video like just holding up the socks?

Matthew Osborn  
It was mostly just my feet actually I barely even mentioned the socks. There's wiggled my toes for a little while and talked about the socks and that's just it's made it made about 14,000 or $15,000 just from that video so Amazon

Caleb Roth  
influencer program the only fans of the Amazon world

David Chung  
know guys, there is this website called feet finders.com. Oh boy, Matthew, you should upload that video on to fee finders. I feel like you can make a ton of money like maybe even

Matthew Osborn  
on feet finders, David, dude. Brilliant. But yeah, so I think overall, there's some good random thoughts this episode, I think we had some good habits brought into there. some earlier videos, we can get canceled by I think overall, it's a good good random episode to tie things up with so well again,

Caleb Roth  
ultimately, you as the consumer as the listener gets to decide. So you get to vote with your likes and subscribes and everything else. So if you like this format, let us know, leave a review mentioned this specific random show or text us email us you can hit us up info at stacking habits.com Instagram Stacking Habits podcast, we still don't have a lot of listens. And it's surprising in some ways. I've actually had a few guests that said, Man, I would assume your show has 1000s of listens just due to the quality of it. So that means a lot to nice compliment. And I do get probably at least two to three texts a week from people listening to the show that say hey, I'm so glad you're doing this. So for those people, we will continue to do it. But if you like this specific format, let us know drop us a line. Ultimately, we're going to keep scratching our itch about habits and sharing this with you. And we're going to keep exploring and tinkering with the formats in terms of how this shows up. So thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Hopefully we dropped some more truth bombs at the end. Like we said, my whiskey glass is empty at this point. And Matthew, you had a law's whiskey glass as well. Right?

Matthew Osborn  
Did I say whiskey glass? Yeah, glass as well. So

Caleb Roth  
we did a tour with Al Laws and crew. So thank you for having us in Denver. And with that, we will sign off so thanks for being a part of Stacking Habits and we will catch you again very soon.