10 Life Changing Audiobooks to Listen to With Your Cat When It’s Snowing (FSFS160)

FSFS160_ScottHebertAudioBooks

Diego: [00:00:00] Audio books. They can change your life for real, they can, they can. Stay tuend to find out how and why coming up in this one.

Welcome to Farm Small, Farm Smart. I'm your host Diego, DIEGO. Today's episode is a fun one because it's the end of the year, but it's a fun one that has some productive value to it. I wanted this one to be light.

I wanted this one to be entertaining, but I also wanted you to leave this episode inspired and ready to take some action. And that action for this one should be around audio because that's the whole subject of this episode today. Farmer Scott Hebert, and I are talking audio books. We're going to each go through five of our favorite audio books.

Why they're our favorites and why we think you might be interested in them. If you currently don't listen to audio books and a platform like Audible, you need to get with the program here. There's so much to offer. And the world's knowledge is literally right there at your fingertips. So if you don't listen to them, I hope this episode convinces you to give audio books a try.

Let's jump right into this one. It's 10 audio books to listen to with your cat when it�s snowing�no cat or snowing required. Happy new years.

So here we are, it's the end of 2018. And I wanted to make this episode a fun episode, and I wanted to talk about something that I've gotten heavily into in the last year and a half. And you're actually somebody who inspired me to get heavy into the subject matter. I remember looking back on Instagram and seeing you posting a lot of the audio books that you were listened to, and I'm like, damn, Scott has listened to a lot of audio books. How is he listening to this many? And I think we just had a text conversation back and forth about it.

And since then I have gone all in on audio books. And honestly, I can't remember what life was like before them. For you, how have audio books played a role in your development? Both personally business-wise and just who you are?

Scott Hebert: [00:02:22] I just made a video about this today, and I think that reading, especially audio books, because that's how I ended up consuming books.

And the most efficient way was easily the best choice that I've made in my adult life. Probably in my entire life. it's helped me with every single part of my life. Relationships, business, farming, fitness, everything like every single part of my life right now has been enhanced through reading books.

And that's, it's not, I was never like a big reader in high school. I started reading, I started reading more out of high school and it was a total, it was just a complete game changer.

Diego: [00:02:58] Those things like I listen to a lot of historical biographies and a lot of. Really famous people that were really successful read a lot.

And I was, when are they getting time to read? And for me, as a dad, like my time to read would be at night and I'm falling asleep reading. So prior to getting an audio books, like I'd have these Kindle books and I'd buy them and I'd take me forever to get through them. And then I tune in audio books and it's now I can crank out books.

Like yesterday, I listened to a whole audio book, 10 hours of audio book in one day and it's done. And it's just a great way, I think, to consume content. were you a traditional reader before you got an audio?

Scott Hebert: [00:03:38] Yeah, but I was the same as you. I was really slow. I probably read. So for the first. 10 years say that I started to read, I probably read one or two books a year and it was slow and painful. And I would read five minutes at a time and not taking the book very much. And then I found out about audio books. I don't know, maybe like 2014-ish is when I like really started going deep on it.

And then I just, my mind could just take it in so much better and I could definitely listen, way faster than I could read and I could listen while I was doing stuff. I could listen while I was driving. I could listen while I was working outside. So it became this thing where it was just I can't take my dog for a walk and take a novel with me or a book, like, a physical book, but I can take my dog for a walk, put it on an audio book.

And if I take my dog for a walk every week, or if I take my dog for a walk every day of the week, that's a whole book that I'll finish just by walking my dog. It was a total game changer, the whole audio book thing.

Diego: [00:04:34] Me as like a reader, meaning physically reading a book, one issue I would have, and this is good in a way, but it was also hindered me from consuming content, is like I ponder when I read, I'll read a page, really started thinking about the stuff on it and I wander and, 20 minutes goes by and I've read a page and a half out of a book where audio book, when it's on play and I speed it up, it rolls.

And I'm a believer now, maybe there's not science to back this up, but like the audio going into my ears straight to my brain connection, I think is a way more powerful than me having to read it and have it go into my brain. So having somebody speed read for me is going to do better than me trying to speed read a book.

Scott Hebert: [00:05:22] Yeah. I think that humans have always communicated stories. That's what we do. We tell stories and we'd done that traditionally three different ways. We've done it recently with visual stuff. So that would be like TV. We've done it with written word, like books and blogs and all this other type of stuff.

But our oldest one is audio, we were speaking, we were talking, people would sit around the campfires and tell stories and stuff. traditionally like our oral traditions, where it was, how knowledge was passed down, all our traditional knowledge was passed down. when people think that somehow there's.

Like that reading is superior to listening, I think is a, I think it's a silly argument to make. I think that some people would do better by reading the however their brain works, just works better like that, but I think most people could get a ton of value out of listening.

Diego: [00:06:10] It's funny. Cause like I'll talk to some people or like my parents and be like, Oh, I'm reading a book and I'm really not reading. And I'm listening to the book. And for some reason I think listening to an audio book, it's downplayed, but it's allowed me to consume a lot of content. Like I probably listened to over a hundred audio books in 2018 and never in 10 years.

Could I read those same books physically? Yes. So it's been a game changer for me and it's so much of a game changer. I. Look forward to driving long distances. I look forward to packing boxes and sometimes at night at the end of the day, instead of going in and turning on the TV, I'll sit down on the couch with a pair of headphones and listen to a story versus watching a story on TV.

Scott Hebert: [00:06:59] Yeah. Did you ever think that would happen?

Diego: [00:07:01] No. I didn't think I'd become this addicted. Like I have a pair of beats headphones and I can zone out the world. And when I drive, I put them on and a six-hour drive that used to be monotonous are terrible. If I drive the Northern California or Phoenix is now just no problem.

Like I can crank out a whole book when I drive to Phoenix and it's a whole world that I didn't know existed and I get Audible's emails. And I can just tell that space is blowing up cause Audible's introducing their originals and there�s any type of content you want from romance to self-help decipher to adventure, to thriller, to biography, like the world is there.

And I think if somebody is not consuming audio books, at least in some form you're missing out, because this is a gift that we have that no other period in history ever had. They had books, but. You've got to have the money to buy the books. You've got to have the time to read all the blocks and if people are out there listening to this, most people are doers and they're out in the field. Like you said, walking your dog farming, you're not going to read a novel.

Scott Hebert: [00:08:11] Totally and, there's been people throughout history who got read to like Charles Darwin, his wife read him books in the afternoon. That's what they did. He would lay there, sit there in his study and she would read to him.

So I don't think that, being read a book necessarily is. It's like the newest thing, but I also think that it's, I also think that it's a pretty easy step to go from listening to podcasts. Like the listeners will be into listening to an audio book.

Diego: [00:08:35] The biggest turnoff for me in the beginning. Cause I got an audio book like in 2014 and then I don't think I got another audio book until 2017 and it was always the price. I was like 30 bucks for an audio book. That's crazy. And I started to think about it like, Okay, look at what I could get. If I can get one nugget that can change my life in some way, even if I'm paying $30, but I rarely would ever pay $30 even for an audio book now, isn't that worth more than $30? And there's been so many things I've done, like who, how I portray this podcast, how I have made the Paper Pot Co. site, different things I've done. And a lot of that knowledge is coming out of audio books that I've had to spend money for that, but it's advancing me. And if I compare it to like college tuition now, I almost think man, I wish I had just listened to audio books for four years instead of going to college.

Scott Hebert: [00:09:39] Oh yeah. I think I've listened to, I think I've personally listened to way more books. I've consumed way more books than someone than most people going out to college would read. I really think that, I think I'm probably close to, I think over the past, since 2014, I've probably read between two and 300 books.

Yeah, it's just, it was this, but I was the same way when I first started, I thought that I was really hung up on the cost to that $20 from audible or whatever it is for a month. And then, now I don't even think about it now, if there's a book that I want, I just buy it. It doesn't even, it doesn't even cross my mind that, even if it might be a flop, it doesn't bother me anymore. And that's just because I know how, like now that I'm invested into it, I know how much value there. I take out a bit.

Diego: [00:10:22] And once you get in audible, there's a lot of. Creative ways you can get books cheaper than lists. Like audible always has sales like this weekend. They just had $4.95 sale on books.

And if you bought five, you got a $5 coupon. They have, three credits for 29.99. So there's ways you can start to play the system to get that 29.99 costs down to 9.99. And I think about that, I'm going to go see some Hollywood movie. At the movie theater, that's going to cost me 10 bucks or I can listen to a 10 hour audio book by an expert in some subject or just a great fiction author and what it's going to leave a more lasting impression.

Scott Hebert: [00:11:01] And have you, have you listened to books twice? Yeah.

Diego: [00:11:03] Yeah. I have in fact to prepare for this, some of these books I've listened to, I went back and relisten to again, but I will go back and listen to a book multiple times if I think the content is really valuable, like it stands out to me as Hey, this is an, and I've listened to enough now to really say, okay, where are the outliers?

And there's certain books that I just really enjoyed. And those have been the couple that have made it into the three or four range.

Scott Hebert: [00:11:33] Nice. Yeah. I also, I think that, when I go back to listen to a book again, that's when I'll do my, listening, like you said, you were reading a page before and zoning out and going into whatever dreamland, thinking about stuff. That's when I'll do that on that second pass is, I'll listen to it where maybe I'm the first time I'm usually very engaged with the audio. Like I'm thinking about it quite a bit, but the second time that I listened to it, it might be something where if my mind wandered for five minutes, it's not necessarily going to be the worst thing in the world.

And I think that's something that, people don't necessarily think about is that they're, that they're possibly going to listen to this two or three times. And I definitely, I did not think that I would be listening to the same. I never thought that I would, first of all, be reading books and or listening to books. I never thought that I would be listening to the same book again.

Diego: [00:12:15] Yeah, which is great. And you can send those books to friends and down here in the States. I don't know if you have it up in Canada, but down here, there's an app called Libby and it plugs into the library system. And I can now take LA audio books out from my local library for free.

So I Audible wishlists them, compare them against Libby. If I can get them out of Libby and check them out for free, I get them on Libby. If I can't, if Libby doesn't have them, then I go to audible. But it's a great way to get more. And one daunting thing I think about audio books for somebody maybe starting, and you may think, was this really a problem? And it's like picking where to start because there's so many books out there.

At this point where you're at, do you seek out stuff that you're like, I should listen to it or do you let the books pull you and you discover stuff and find stuff as you need it?

Scott Hebert: [00:13:08] I think that sometimes a book will grab you just fly off the shelf at you for some reason, and it will be exactly bookend. And when that happens, I make sure that book goes to the top of my list.

But other than that, for my reason for choosing a book, is it usually I have a rule that if I hear it from three different people that I respect that�s an automatic buy, like I have to get that. So if I heard. Yeah. If I heard three to four people talk about the same book and like in three different places, that's it.

I gotta read that book. It doesn't matter what it is. So that's how I start making my lists. But then other than that, I remember the very first time that I'm okay. I was really excited because this book called Grit by Angela Duckworth had come out and, I had pre-ordered it. And that was the first time that I had heard about an author was writing this book before it came out. And I was like, it was really cool. I got to preorder for it.

And, but now that happens all the time. Now I have my favorite authors, so there'll be bringing stuff out and I'll get that. And it's just once you start, I think once you get the ball rolling on it, it becomes a lot less daunting because you know which kind of books you like and which authors you like, and, you start getting into, if you gave me like two or three good recommendations on books, and you recommend me a fourth book.

There's probably a good chance. It's going to be a good book. I think you just find your people, find your tribe.

Diego: [00:14:15] Are there categories you cluster books in?

Scott Hebert: [00:14:18] No, I'm all over. Yeah, I read widely on purpose, definitely on purpose. that was one of the tips that I got right away is from this author named Ryan Holiday, he said that in one of his blog posts, he said that you should read widely, not just get, not just be stuck in your own little corner of the world.

So yeah, no, I read widely I'm sure. I think that I have my stuff that I usually tend to sway towards. There's definitely some subjects where, I've read five or 10 books out of different subjects, but I probably have 10 different subjects that I've read 10 books in.

Diego: [00:14:46] What do you do when you get a stinker?

Scott Hebert: [00:14:48] Quit. Yeah. Or return it. Yeah, for sure. Especially with audio books, there's some books that not have good formats for audio books. Like I like this philosophy called stoicism, but, all of the books that we have are from ancient guys. And so if you get a bad translation, it can be like where art thou die for when, who, and it just sounds really weird and like this old, like old timey dialect, so they don't read very well.

And also, for those books in particular, a lot of them are like, they're almost like short aphorisms. They're like short, little sentences. And so it doesn't read that well, if you're listening to an audio book, you want it to read like a story more than like short sentences. Otherwise you can't just jump in and out of it.

So there's, I think the format of the book, matters a lot, but with Audible, you can return books. Yeah, I quit. If there's a book that I'm like, okay, no, this book doesn't work as an audio book, or sometimes you'll get a bad narrator that doesn't happen very often anymore, but sometimes they'll get a bad narrator, bad audio or something, but you can just yeah.

Return it. I just, yeah, just ignore it and move on.

Diego: [00:15:49] It's my strategy. What I'll do is I'll quit it temporarily and go into something that I'm more excited about. Cause I always have a queue of. 15 books in my library on audible that I have not listened to. And, sometimes I think, it's just not the right time.

I've listened to too many biographies in a row. another one just isn't working now and I'll come back. And one of the books actually on this list is one that I aborted and I came back to. And when I came back to it, it was a binge for the next few months, as I went through the whole series.

I think sometimes again, it's just right place, right time. And what we're going to do in this one, going on the why of audio books is we each brought five books to the table that. We think are important and we're trying to cover a wide variety of subjects. But I look at the books I have on my list is ones that just really stood out to me above and beyond the rest.

So if you're looking to get started with audio books or looking for some ideas of stuff to listen to this winter going into spring, we're going to come at you with 10 different books. Hopefully 10. We'll see if there's any overlap. What's your first one. And why did it make it onto the list?

Scott Hebert: [00:17:00] my first book is the war of art by Steven Pressfield. There's an economist named Tyler Cowen and he has, he has a quote in it's called, he calls them quake books and that's when you read something. And by the end of it, that you're standing in a new landscape, like the ground that you were standing on is no longer stable.

Everything's crumbled around you because. It just looks brand new. And, I think that all the books that I have on my list, were QuickBooks for me. they really changed my perception of how I viewed things, but, the war of art was one of the very first audio books that I listened to. And, it was something that just totally, it just changed everything for me. Have you listened to that one yet?

Diego: [00:17:34] Cause that's the very first audio book I've ever bought on Audible and I've never listened to the whole thing all the way through. For whatever reason, it doesn't resonate with me. And there's certain books like Grit, Angela Duckworth's Grit. Like I get the message right away and I'm like, I don't have that problem.

I don't know. I listened to a whole book on it. So Steven Pressfield and The War of Art is, it's overcoming the resistance of pushing through and I don't have a pushing through resistance problems. So for me to listen to that, it doesn't serve a purpose for me, but I think the basis of that book and I'm like you, when I've heard enough people recommend that book, that if you have trouble starting, if you're an artist or a creator or somebody trying to go out there and do things, that book hopefully can talk you out of false starts and push through.

Were you somebody that, before you heard that, like you had trouble pushing through the resistance?

Scott Hebert: [00:18:36] In the book, he calls the primary enemy of the creativity is a, is resistance. And I thought that, I think that what the book did for me was it, I had all these problems say, I guess a little bit about, I guess I had troubles pushing through, but...

I thought that my problems, I thought that my problems were the problem, but once I had this idea of the resistance in my mind that all these things were the same. Everything became so much easier to deal with because it was like, it all just looked like noise. Now, instead of having to identify each little thing as an individual problem, does that make sense?

Diego: [00:20:20] It does. It does.

Scott Hebert: [00:20:24] That was one of the times where, I just started to see it everywhere. And I mean like a creative endeavor, it's not just about, he's a writer. So he's, it's mostly about, it's mostly for writers, but it can be about, like painting, doing visual arts, doing video stuff, or even like entrepreneurship, because that's a, it's a creative endeavor.

Diego: [00:19:32] And it's one of those books that I think if you are new to this space or new to entrepreneurship and you're coming out of a corporate lifestyle where you've basically being given tasks or, you have to work within a system.

It will show you a way to push out of that system. and I think again, like when I discovered it, I was already pushing my way out. The part I consumed was like, I got this, I don't need more of a push.

But I have read some of Steven Pressfield's other works and he's good. Like he knows his stuff. He's been in the game forever. He's been screenplay writer, on some very famous movies, like Legend Badger Vans. So I like the idea of it. When you get that book, is there a quote or a big takeaway that really stands out.

Scott Hebert: [00:20:29] Yeah, to get over the resistance, you have to do the work. That's good to do. You get to do the work, you have to do the work and turn pro. So when you're going to be like, if I'm going to be doing my videos or whatever, I have to be professional about it. I have to publish. When I say that I'm going to publish, I have to try to do the best thing.

Like it's not, you're playing for keeps. and like you're yeah, you're the man in the arena you're playing for keeps Yeah, I think the big part about overcoming resistance is just doing the work he talks about. he talks about it in the morning and about going through his, he goes through like a routine to get ready for writing and every single day, he, he shows up at his desk to write, there was, I don't have the quote, but there was, one, one quote that he quoted in the book.

It was a quote from Somerset Mom and someone had asked him if he writes when inspiration strikes and he said, I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, he strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp. So I think the big takeaway for me was, was that if you're going to do something creatively, It's not just at the whims of anything else.

Like you have to be professional and get this done. And especially things like for being like an entrepreneur, like if I have an order of lettuce or whatever that needs to go out, it's not, when I feel like doing the lettuce, that lettuce has to go out. So I have to be professional show up, do the work, overcome that resistance and just get it done.

Diego: [00:21:42] Yeah. And I've actually physically read his book. Nobody wants to read your shit. And I think it was in that book. He'd talked about, to write well, you need to write poorly first and meaning on a daily basis and also on an individual session. So if you're sitting down and having brain fog, you just start writing and as you write, your writing will Your mind will unlock itself and get better. And as you do it repetitively, like you'll get better. that doing videos. I've seen that doing podcasts, like the more you get into something, the better it is.

And I think so many people now are so afraid that I'm not creative. I'm not a good writer. I'm not good at drawing. I'm not good at building a website side or marketing or whatever. So they never. Do it once, because they're so afraid of this idea that they have in their head of how they're going to come off, that they never get that repetition or iteration in to ultimately get better. And I think one Steven Pressfield tenant is that idea of do the work, which I named the podcast after, of put in the time and get the reps in.

And that will allow you to improve, but if you never do it, you, unless you're some Godfrey, can you find the one talent that you have that nobody else has? You're never going to be good at it from out of the gate. And I know just from, recently talking to you about YouTube, that's how you approach doing your videos.

Scott Hebert: [00:23:12] Yeah, totally. Yeah. I've just got to do the work, getting the reps in, hopefully it all works out.

Diego: [00:23:16] All right. So with that, I'll transition to my first one. And the way I pick this list is these are books that seem timeless to me. And to me, I think is really important here, because these might not find everybody at the right time in life.

And one thing that I've struggled with now, and really, since I've listened to audio books is time. And a lot of these books will fit into dealing with time. And the first book I have on the list is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. And the reason I really liked that book is because I think that book.

Can also be a quake book for a lot of people. He goes out and the basic premises of that book is you need to decide what is most important or essential and put priority on that and that only, and you have the ability to choose what is important versus society choosing what's important for you. And I think for a lot of people, they let social media, they let advertisement on TV.

They let, the government say you need to pay attention to this stuff. And as it was, people don't follow dreams. People don't go the route of the creatives and like Steven Pressfield and do the work because their lives are so chaotic. And so scattered. Have you read that one?

Scott Hebert: [00:24:47] Yeah, I actually remember you posting this and I read it based on one of your recommendations. Do you remember what w what it was that captivated you to read that book?

Diego: [00:24:55] I don't, I'm trying to think if I heard that somewhere myself, or if I stumbled upon it. cause I have the physical book too, and I've gone through the physical book, but I kinda got into this wave of seeking out these books that.

I was probably telling myself, it's okay to say no to stuff. And I needed outside experts to justify that. and Greg McKeown did that in that book of this philosophy of do less, not more. And he'll say in that book, I almost, everything is unimportant. And if you think about that, just that one statement, almost everything is unimportant.

That can rock some people's worlds because we do a lot of stuff. we feel like we have to do a lot of stuff. And that book challenges you to look at what you are doing and say, is this truly important for me? And I'm going to deem stuff important for me. And you're gonna deem stuff important for you. But we're both asking that question. And then we're deciding, based upon our context.

Scott Hebert: [00:26:04] What was your biggest takeaway out of that book?

Diego: [00:26:07] I think it reinforced some of where I was going with my decision making in life, as a dad with three kids, a wife, trying to run a business, to do the podcast, to do YouTube. Like the last few years have been chaotic and it's been a struggle.

And time is the biggest thing that I lack. It's not a money problem. I have, it's a time thing. And it's not that I don't have enough time. It's really, I struggle with saying no to certain things to make best use of that time. And. I had started to think, okay, I need to get rid of stuff that isn't truly important, truly adding value.

So in his book, when he says, things like, how will I feel if I miss this opportunity? or if I didn't have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it? And you and I were talking YouTube before this and I think, okay, if I wasn't doing YouTube videos right now, and you came up to me and said, Hey, would you start doing YouTube today?

Based upon your current context, would you do it? I don't know. I like I'm at that kind of point in my life where I'm looking at the time I have and how I can allocate my time. I don't know. So I look at those types of takeaways of going to what is essential and eliminating everything else. And he stresses a ruthlessness in this, it's you don't half ass, this approach.

And I've done that as much as I could, I cut out summer podcast this year and in 2019, I'm gonna compress down the podcast schedule some more because. I'm constantly filtering through my context. What is most important?

Scott Hebert: [00:28:06] Yeah. That's yeah, that's really interesting. I have felt the same way about, I think that when we were talking about when, like, when a book like really grips you, I think that what's happening is a little bit of like confirmation bias and that.

These authors are just articulating an idea. that is just, it's just forming in your mind. it's almost there, but then you read this and you're like, Oh, of course, this is exactly what I was already thinking.

Diego: [00:28:27] Exactly. One key takeaway that, and another one that comes to mind is the idea of, he said something and this is what a lot of people say too.

if you could be really good at one thing, what would that be? And this is. Something I struggle with now of do I have too many irons in the fire? Am I doing too much? And I think in social media with Instagram and YouTube out there, we're at no shortage of ideas. And you have people like me, like you like Steven Pressfield, encouraging people that chase the ideas, but then you need somebody eventually surely like a Greg to come in and say, Take this basket of ideas you have and all these irons in the fire, and start to refine that down because if you want to be truly great as a person, the best you that you, you can be, that's gonna mean doing some thing really well.

And that something is probably one thing or a very small list of things. Not a lot of things.

Scott Hebert: [00:29:33] Yeah, I think this kind of ties in with, my next pick for my book. And it's probably, this is probably my favorite book. I have a tough time picking favorites, but I think that if I was under my head, this would probably be it's Mastery by Robert Greene and it is, he talks about the road to becoming a master craftsman.

And this was, yeah, this was that just really, truly gripped me when I first started reading it. This was right when I think I started reading this right. As soon as I was, I'm getting into the whole. Sustainable farming thing and trying to figure it out. And it just it laid out this roadmap about how I was going to, find my path and get good at this.

Like you were like, you were just talking about getting good at this one thing. But if that one thing is like really complicated, like farming is not just one thing, It's a whole bunch of little tiny micro skills. So it's like, how can you get all these little micro skills up to a point where, You end up being like a master farmer or not that's a thing, but yeah.

a master of your craft. And, one thing that Robert Green does. Like it's his, I think it's his greatest gift is, he picks really good stories. So he'll pick people from history and tell the story of how to become a master through all these different people. Old school and contemporary about who have achieved mastery or who are on their way to master.

So he has stories from, like people like Leonardo DaVinci, Napoleon, Darwin Edison, Martha Graham, Freddy Roach. and yeah, he talks about, he talks about first, like going through this apprenticeship, and then finding mentors. Yeah. He talks about the importance of social intelligence, which I don't really think, gets discussed enough, like dealing with people, not just being like a superstar talent.

And then, he has this one, the thing in it that I thought was a really super interesting, he talks, this thing called the dimensional mind and I think that's really important. I think it's. almost has some similarities to permaculture in the sense that he talks about taking two different skills and combining them into something new.

So it's the things like it's the it's becoming, good at apprentice at a basic skill and then combining it to, yeah. To elevate yourself in your field and become a true master.

Diego: [00:31:37] Do you think that book is more suited for say somebody who's in a position like me where. you've found your stride, you have a few things, and then that takes you to the next step of those few things where maybe you refine that down and you just become the no pun intended master of them, or is it for somebody who's, just trying to figure their stuff out.

Scott Hebert: [00:31:59] No, it's both because the book program, the PR the book, the whole journey all along the way. So you would probably read the first half about, you would be learning about like how Darwin went out into the, Darren went out and he went into the countryside and he was like, he was just fascinated with like natural life and he would just draw them and stuff.

And then, you'll learn about that. And he, he put himself through like his own apprenticeship phase basically by going out and studying and acquiring all these skills that he would later use when he went on there. Beagle. And, I think that you would probably read that and think back in time and think, Oh yeah, I've already done this, but then when you got to the point where.

he was talking about like that. I mentioned mind and creating and combining these new skills together, then you would really start to probably have that confirmation bias and be like, Oh, this was, this is what I was thinking that this was what I was just grasping at. But now it's seems more tangible.

Diego: [00:32:50] He's written a lot of books, 48 Laws of power. When I have in my library, I haven't listened to it. I've started and failed a few times on that one. I'm not prepared to give up on it of the books of his. Have you listened to others? And. Why does this stand out? If it's this one versus others?

Scott Hebert: [00:33:09] I've read all of his books and I really liked them all this one.

And he's got one it's a, it's the 50th law and it's a book about 50 cent, but it's also like really good. It's probably tied with mastery, but, this one stands out just because it just, I guess for me, it was just that whole confirmation bias thing that really happened because it just came to me.

This book came to me at the right time. it has. It has so much depth in it. In that I definitely, this is a book. This is one of the books that I read every single year. And sometimes when listening to an audio book, I'm all. Okay. Thought from the audio book and I'll have to pause the audio book and just just let that thought, percolating my mind and take over.

And that doesn't happen very often to me when I'm reading a book, like normally I just press play, do what I'm doing and that's it. Yeah. But there's some certain books that all have to pause and listened to and really think about it. And when I'm listening back to mastery, I still pause it. Every single time, usually multiple times.

So it's just a good book, has depth to it. And you can take out different things to different times. Like sometimes a book will be about an idea, like you were saying like about grit and you read it. And you're like, okay, I already get that idea yet. Okay. Resistance. I get that idea.

But with mastery, there's so much to it that there's no way that you can take it all in one time. And the stories that he picks stories from all different people, from all different walks of life. he's got men, he's got women, he's got, people from history. He's got contemporary people.

And so it's just really, it's really just this it's. It's his, probably his master work, honestly. now that I've read all his other stuff, but it's yeah, it's just got a lot of depth to it.

Diego: [00:34:45] I'll have to check that one out. Cause I have not read it. And thinking of this idea that, you mentioned of books finding you at the right point in time, and this is something I want to, I totally agree.

And I think. It's really important for anybody, whether you're reading or listening to these books, to just acknowledge going in, some books are gonna resonate with you now, and some books aren't gonna, and you come back a year later and they might be totally reversed. I think you need to go out when you're exploring books and you find stuff that grips you now and then ride the wave.

Because, you can probably attest to this Scott, once you find one book, say you lead off with Mastery and you're into that. Now you go look at other Robert Green books or you look at some of the other books in that category and that kind of gets your trajectory started. But I, if you're going to select a first book, don't force feed it in.

Don't listen to mastery just because Scott said to listen to it, let mastery make you want to listen to it.

Scott Hebert: [00:35:48] Totally. Yeah. And, yeah, I think that Yeah. There's been certain books, especially when I was starting out where, you just start listening to it and it's just, yeah. That's that's what I wanted you to be doing.

I want it to be listening to that book. There was nothing else I wanted to be doing. I just wanted to figure out what was in this book.

Diego: [00:36:01] and one thing I've learned of listening to books and this ties into my second one on the list is it's Marie Kondo is the life changing magic of tidying up.

And she talks about this with physical books. Sometimes you buy a physical book at a point in time in life. When you need a book. And you read the book, get rid of the book, like it serves a purpose, then you don't necessarily need to store it. You may never need to go back to it. And when I look at all the books on my last, honestly, I think this is the one that had the biggest impression on my life.

Marie Kondo's fingerprints are all over our household because this is essential for stuff. This is looking at everything you have and saying. Does this spark joy, what is most important? I only want to keep what is most important and not that I was ever a hoarder, but I would definitely keep stuff thinking of this as sentimental or one day I'll use this thing.

And she, I guess something I always knew, but it just hit me in the right way to say, that's all BS it either. Is important now for you to have this, or it's not there's no, maybe there's no in between. Get rid of it if you don't need it and keep it if you do. And over the last year and a half, I have gotten rid of so much stuff that it's unbelievable.

So that's why this one made it onto my list. Have you ever read that one?

Scott Hebert: [00:37:35] I haven't read that one. That's funny because that's one of the ones where I felt that one I would have picked up a little bit too late. I was already life changing magic. I was tidying up, man. I was throwing stuff out. I didn't have any problems. I just, what did she say with it? Sparks joy, the right.

Diego: [00:37:50] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Scott Hebert: [00:37:50] Yeah. I already, yeah. I had already been over that. I was already like, I would've probably needed to read that book like six months prior to when I found out about it, but yeah, I full heartedly believe in the philosophy behind it.

Diego: [00:38:02] And there's a lot of little things in there, of that I've learned are notorious for this because you got land, you have corners, you have barns, you have sheds where you can keep stuff. And it's all Hey, I bought this. I don't want to get rid of it. Or I'm going to save this for a future project.

And how many of those future projects, if you look back on life, they just never happen because life changes and the projects aren't a priority anymore or interesting. So you get rid of stuff. That's one thing. another big takeaway there is you start now, you do it all at once. Like she is not a fan of like today, I'm going to get rid of one thing tomorrow.

I'm going to get rid of one thing. It's no, today you get rid of all of it and you do it at once. And you look at the Titum does it spark joy? And the hardest one, and this is really hard having kids is it's okay to get rid of. Sentimental stuff. And so when my kids make something or there's something that like my parents sent me out a box of stuff I made when I was five or there's something my parents gave me when I was five.

And a lot of us, we have these little trinkets and they sit in boxes in our garage or a closet. And we think, this item has meaning because my grandma gave me this before I died. And I think the biggest, probably the biggest realization that I had is the item is not, what is sentimental when someone gave you that item or when you created that item became a part of who you are, and that is what's carried with you.

Now, and it became a piece of who you are today. It's like for a while I saved the first dollar I made on my paper route when I was 12 years old and it, and that dollar really made me proud then to see it. But now I'm like 38 years old to look at that dollar. It's what's the point? But the dollar itself, yeah.

Didn't represent anything. It was just a building block and who I am. And I carried it with me. I don't need the dollar. The dollar is me. And when I started looking at sentimental objects like that, suddenly it became get rid of the clutter. If it's super special, it needs to be where it can be enjoyed on display, where it can be handled, where it can be used.

Otherwise just get rid of it because it is a form of emotional baggage.

Scott Hebert: [00:40:41] Yeah. I had a pretty much a whole house of stuff. And I sold my house at the beginning of the year and really downsized a whole bunch of stuff like that was at the time, if you're gonna throw stuff out, throw it out.

And, I'm sitting in my room and I pretty much got a room full of stuff and nothing else. And I could not, I couldn't tell you five items that I threw, if I had to. I don't think I could tell you, like what the five, most sentimental items I threw lots of stuff out of, through tons of stuff out, stuff that I've been hanging on to for years.

And I can't even remember right now, some of them, like what they were. So it's kinda funny how, you think that yeah, you think that the memory is the thing, but it's not.

Diego: [00:41:18] And when you have kids, kids make a lot of stuff. They give you a lot of stuff and it ties into another idea in that book of the game saving of something or the acquisition of something, or the purchase of something is sometimes the sole mission of that thing. If a child creates something and gives that to you, they're happy giving it to you. You should be happy that they're happy that they gave it to you. You don't necessarily have to keep it.

I have stuff in my look around where I'm recording my podcast drawings my daughter did three years ago. She's never going to remember that she even did that drawing, but I keep it around and really do I have to. And like I was talking to my wife about this today, actually around somebody we know who bought some stuff and sometimes like buying something that you want to buy, even if you never use it.

the purpose of the thing you bought was you fulfilled that like mental need to say, like I wanted that thing and I bought it. And if you throw it in the trash, it's fulfilled its whole purpose and that's tough, but this is one of those things that we have a lot of stuff in our life, mentally and physically.

And the more you can get out, the more you can focus on the people in the things that really matter. And the biggest one, like too, that I've realized too, is like photos are a waste. How often do people go back and look at all the photos that they take. And I cringe when I go to my daughter's activities and I see people, just moms and stuff, taking videos and photos that no one is ever going to watch.

And you are displacing you absorbing an experience through your own eyes. Instead, you're looking through a screen to capture something that you're never going to go back and see. So stop taking photos, use your memory and life will become easier. I think Marie Kondo says, and things will work out if you're lacking something, just be surrounded by the stuff that makes you happy. So that was my number two, your number three.

Scott Hebert: [00:43:33] My number three is extreme ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. And I'm back. I used to do MMA long time ago, no, whatever, six, seven years ago. And, I was not very good at it at the beginning. And I got a little bit better and near the end, I thought that I was going to have these last couple of fights.

I was going to win them. And then I was just going to quit and be awesome. And, we had this really high-level coach come up from Vegas and he came up and taught me a whole bunch of stuff. And, all this stuff that was outside of my control started happening. Like this coach taught me all about how to structure a game plan.

And he told me to watch out for a guillotine choke. It's just a choke, but, cause I have a long neck and he told me all this different stuff about how like you should be structuring to train camp to build up confidence. And I didn't, I, when I voiced how I wanted to train in the gym, no one wanted to do it that way.

And so we didn't do it that way. And then on fight night, I got choked out in a minute. And I woke up in the middle of the ring and it was like, this is supposed to be like my comeback fight. And, it just went as poorly as I could have possibly, ever have thought that it would have went, flash forward a little bit, six months.

I just have this chip on my shoulder and I was just like, I'm just going to do everything the way that I thought that I should. And I took it like total ownership of this whole situation and my last two fights. I ended up doing like the complete opposite. I did way better. My last fight was like in front of my hometown.

And everybody was there and it was like, I won my fight in front of all my family and friends. And it was like this whole like big moment for me. And it was like really cool. And, yeah, I like taken control of all these things that were like, Oh, side of micro. I just own everything. if something wasn't happening, I just took care of it.

If whatever. And this was, this whole book is about, it's about taking ownership. It's called extreme ownership. And Jocko and Leif were Navy seals and they went and fought in Iraq in 2007 and they take leadership principles that they learned on the battlefield. w in the most hostile, kind of environment that the man can be in close quarters combat, and they take, a lesson that they learned on the battlefield, and then they take 'em a business example.

From life and they show how that the principle that I learned in combat applies to regular life. And it's just these 12, these 12 bullets points basically about how to, being street, how to live extreme ownership. How did you take control of everything, how to own up for everything. And it really, that was like one of those things that it was one of those things that when I read this book, I just quickly went back to fighting and I was like, wow, that's all the stuff.

That's all the stuff that I learned in fighting in just in this little short book. And it was just like, yeah, it's awesome.

Diego: [00:46:17] So is it like, I suck at baseball, don't blame the ball or the field, I blame myself. And if I want to get better, it's up to me.

Scott Hebert: [00:46:26] Yeah. Pretty much. And obviously there's gonna be stuff outside of your control, but yeah, but you can pretty much, you can pretty much do everything and have a, yeah, you got to take control of what you control.

So if if you want to do that baseball example, you can control what you eat. You control your time in the gym, you control how much you practice. you can be there for your team members so that they'll put in time with you. You can be nice to the coaches so that there'll be kind to you, You'd be a good team player. And all of a sudden, next thing you know, hopefully you're hitting some smashes, some dinners.

Diego: [00:46:52] He's somebody who's blown up in the past few years. What do you think is that about his I'll call it philosophy that resonates with so many people out there?

Scott Hebert: [00:47:01] I think he speaks his truth. I think he's, and he's very articulate as well. He's like an English major. So I think that he speaks his truth though. And I think that people, people are drawn to the authenticity of it. Because he's speaking a certain truth. He's lived that and now he's trying to help other people.

So I think that there's, I think there's he's yeah, he's just a powerful person. That's in a good position to do good. if he wa he's, he's just a, it's like when there's a strong person like that, you see a Navy seal and you think okay, this guy's going to destroy everyone and stuff.

And then he's very kind and articulate and well-read and carries a lot of wisdom. there's something to be said for that when, I think when someone doesn't show how you expect them to.

Diego: [00:47:43] And for somebody who listen to this in the farm space, running their own business, what's a take away transpose onto a farm business?

Scott Hebert: [00:47:52] I think number six would be like, keep things simple. So keep your plans simple so they can be easily communicate understood and adjusted and response real time changes. And so the example of that he gave, I remember the combat example of combat example. He, even the book was that, there was going to be these new guys coming in with their troops in their little, in their, in their group.

And, This new guy came in and he was trying to give everyone like really complicated instructions, but all these different radio frequencies were overlapping and he's just no. he's like, how about for the first time we just have you go out there 90 meters. Turn around and come back in. And so they did that and they went out like 10 meters and they got engaged with the enemy right away.

And it was like, it just turned into a show right away. And so then, so then they would provide like a business example about how somebody is in business was like trying to have this super complicated, 34 point plan about adjusting widgets and how that was going to impact people's bonuses.

But it wasn't like it wasn't affecting 'em it wasn't affecting like what, the change that they wanted to see happening. And they just said, no, keep things simple. And then they just implemented like the simple plan and the business, and then it happens. So I think that's something that you could take away from farming is You have all these crazy plans that you want to do.

I'm going to have a 15 year crop rotation, but then it's no, you just got it. Maybe you should just do the crop rotation that you can do this year.

Diego: [00:49:06] Mentioning that. You're talking bullet points, so you're looking at something. When you listen to an audio book, do you write down notes? Do you write down thoughts on it or is it straight absorption?

Scott Hebert: [00:49:19] It's mostly absorption. I usually don't do bullet points and stuff. I'll go back and look at something sometimes like for this conversation, I've got summaries pulled up that, cause I knew like I was going to want to refer to stuff. What about you?

Diego: [00:49:30] Yeah, same thing. I just listen. I figure whatever, to quote Paulo Coelho, whatever is going to stick is going to stick and I'm not going to try and waste. Trying to pull out what I think is important as I hear it's I'll just hear it. My brain will internalize it and it'll determine what's important in my actions.

We'll react off of that. Like I've I listened to a lot of scifi, look at our brain as a super computer that has more capacity than we know. And when we try it out, think it. I think we do ourselves injustice, which is again why I all of the audio book at high speed, because it can go from my ears to my brain and my brain can sort out the mass versus, my critical logical thinking, trying to get in there and say, Oh, pay attention to this.

I'm thinking of Jocko Willink, he's a Navy seal fighting Iraq, part of history. And for my third one, I cheated a little bit and I call it biographies of great figures in history, because I didn't want somebody to say, Oh, go listen to this one on Winston Churchill or James Garfield.

I think. I'm trying to approach, give you an idea of how I approach biographies. And a lot of the biographies I listen to, or say 1860 to 1924. I just like that period in history. And I listened to a lot. And one of the big takeaways I've listened to, or one of the big takeaways that's came out of me listening to a lot of audio books in this.

And this is a lot, this is a big category for me. There's 40 books probably in this category. You have a window in life to be truly great at one thing. And as you life evolves and life changes that window either shrinks or more windows open, and it's just harder to focus on one thing. The people that made profound impacts dedicated.

Their life to one thing, Marconi, Tesla, Edison, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, like they were all in. And the governmental ones definitely had opportunity as they went on in life. But a lot of people like Marconi in their twenties. Like they worked on what they did not stop and. It's a little sobering for me to think about this because I went through my twenties dabbling and trying to figure it out.

And I feel like I expensed that window. because now, like I have a family and I can okay. Make that singular targeted impact. Is much of one as somebody who is, has all their time to dedicate into one thing. And I'm okay with that. Because another trend that I think you see in a lot of these biographies is great.

Men are not great fathers. I'm at least how I perceive, what a great father should be, because it's really hard to dedicate your life's work to. Figuring out something that is a total unknown. if you want to go, make an interstellar spaceship right now, like you're in that 24 seven and to try and raise kids alongside that is going to be really tough.

Like it's just not going to happen. And for a lot of people, like that's a hard decision to do I go family or do I go my career? And everybody, if you're going to have a family at some point is going to have to make that decision. So I go look at people like you're in that window where it's do everything that Scott can to be what Scott wants to be. Because if you jump into my window, it's a lot harder.

Scott Hebert: [00:53:42] Like I have boundaries that you don't have. Yeah, I think about it a lot too. I think about it all the time. That's a constant thing in my mind is am I doing enough? Am I doing enough? Because I don't. I also kinda think that when you have kids that you realize how much time that takes, it's almost like that, you realize how much time you had before.

And I don't really have a taste of that being taken away from me, like when I'm reading these biographies and stuff, a lot of these guys had brushes with death or early childhood ailments, and they thought that they were going to die and they thought they were going to die early.

And because of that, they just started hustling. Like they started going hard and, yeah, it was just like super interesting. I think about that quite a lot though, too.

Diego: [00:54:20] Yeah. And, I think as a dad or as a parent, mother, father doesn't matter part of how I view being a great parent is you have to give up a part of your life for them, meaning you're going to consciously decide at some point that thing that I wanted to dedicate my life to, I'm going to back off on it, or I'm not going to do it because.

Your important and your, what you've done up to that point then gets distilled into them. And that's hard. Like it's very hard shutting the door on things. And I just hear in some of these biographies, what some of these great inventors and people have done, and not that I ever. Want to do that or feel guilty about doing that, but I'm just like, damn, if somebody had just beat this into my head when I was 18, what would life look like now?

Because I didn't have that. Like I, nobody told me like, get on the hustle now. Cause eventually like you're in a different station and the train looks completely different. Yeah, I

Scott Hebert: [00:55:38] know. I always, I wish that I had started, I wish I had started doing stuff earlier too. Like I, I think it's just, I think it's just in hindsight, it's just what most of us go through.

I think one thing is that I think you're definitely right with that. They all these great people pretty much given up something, they give up something and for a lot of those people that was family. family's your priority. You probably, you're probably gonna have to give up something to get there.

Diego: [00:55:59] And a lot of these people, like they chose to be great. And this is where. Like you hear this whole idea of privilege, right? And I get privilege exists out there, but privilege is nothing without work because Winston Churchill came from aristocracy. He volunteered to go into the war.

He put himself in war time situations because he thought it was what he had to do. He chose to make that decision theater Roosevelt came from a very rich, New York family. Could have gone the route of his brother who died eventually died of alcoholism and just done nothing. But he used his quote privilege as a platform to do more.

And I think, society loves to target shoot at these people that, are starting off ahead of him or you know who you are lower than somebody else. They're like, Oh, look what they're starting with. And. That's not it cause all these examples. So there's always siblings that suck at life and are degenerates.

And there's the siblings that make a conscious effort to take the hard route, putting themselves literally in harm's way, volunteering to potentially die when they could have lived the easy life. And I think that's a major takeaway for me through a lot of these biographies is. It doesn't matter what you start with that helps you get to the next level, but you have to put in the work to move from that platform to the next platform.

And if you want to make a difference in the world, just go from where you are, have dedication to one thing and get after it. Because the easy route is never the successful route. And on the easy route of all these rich families is, people die for stealing.

Scott Hebert: [00:57:53] Yeah. And in rubber book master, he says that, your unique set of neurons, you're your own unique set of DNA at a certain point in history with a certain set of experiences and all those things have convalesced to bring you to where you are now. And I think that all of those people throw history took advantage of those three things. And, yeah, I really tried to make something of themselves

Diego: [00:58:20] Get after it, do your thing, but then also realize that tradeoffs are going to be made. So if I look at kind of these first three bullets, three categories or three books, this is the struggle that I face as a parent. it's pairing back stuff. It's pairing back, focus on certain activities to allow myself more time to do other things.

And I look at what some of these people have done in the past and just say, What's more important to me, is it to make an impact on my business as it to make an impact on the world? Or is it to make an impact on three little girls in my life that if I only impact them, but I impact them greatly is that more profound than if I change the lives of a million people? Something I have to work on hard questions to answer. So your number four?

Scott Hebert: [00:59:12] My number four is the obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday. This was a book that I heard about, Ryan actually, apprentice for Robert Green, when he was writing that mastery book, he was one of his research assistants.

So Robert taught him some keys, how to organize, pick good stories. And he did a really good job on this. This is a book that kind of made, the philosophy of stoicism started to blow up a little bit and came out in 2014. And it was based on this quote from Marcus really says the impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way. Yeah, it's called the timeless art of turning trials and triumphant. He breaks the book up into three of them, parts, perception, action, and will, but he takes stories throughout history. You listed as grants, Thomas Edison, Margaret Thatcher, Amelia Earhart, and he tells about how these people came across these, immovable obstacles and really, Spun them around and turn them into their favor instead.

Diego: [01:00:07] How would that different from say the war of art and the resistance?

Scott Hebert: [01:00:12] I think that the war of art is a little bit more of just like it's a little bit more, impersonal, this one's like this. One's like you have obstacles and you're gonna need to find a way to get around them. This, this book really helped me out a lot.

my first year of farming, I was going to go in this farmer's market. I thought I was gonna go into it two weeks before that. They were going to two weeks before they're supposed to start, they emailed me and said, I'm sorry, based on your selection, crop selection this year, we're not gonna be able to offer you a spot in the market.

And, I thought that this line was in the book, but I never found it in there since I've read it. But I thought I had just read this book and I thought to myself like this isn't bad. This is just different. This is. it's my perception of how I'm perceiving this cause right away is I want it to start to color that experience negative.

I wanted to say Oh, like these guys screwed me over all this bad stuff happened to me, but instead I just. I just realized that the thing that itself wasn't that bad, it was just a thing. It was just happening. It, there was no negative connotations attached to it. There was no positive connotations attached to it.

it was just what happened. And that allowed me to really process it, like within two minutes to move on my next thing. And, yeah, it was just like, it was just like this. It was when I first read the book. Yeah. I didn't, I thought it was a good book, but I didn't really like thought I�d take so much out of it. And then when that happened, I was like, wow, that book helped me out so much. It was like this is really cool thing.

Diego: [01:01:36] It's one of the read. I haven't read any of his books.

Scott Hebert: [01:01:38] They're short, but he's a really gifted author. His books are short, but he, yeah, he really learned the art of picking good stories from Robert and, yeah, he tells really good. I was very tossed up between, between this and his other book. There's another book called ego is the enemy. And it's about being humble and when your ego can get in the way. And, I think both those books are they're really good. They're like my top books.

Diego: [01:02:03] Yeah. Worth checking out. And it's interesting here in these six so far. They're very much echoing ideas that we had going into this. And it's almost confidence building, or it's a little bit of extra pushing to do the next thing or to work through experiences. And I know it from running a business is you're going to have challenges when you run a business and sometimes you can feel very isolated and these books, or if you're hearing about people of history that have overcome these types of challenges, you start to feel not alone. I feel empowered about doing this and I start to be like, they did it. I want to do it. And Teddy did it. I want to be in the same category as Teddy, so let's get after it.

Scott Hebert: [01:02:54] Cool. What's your next one?

Diego: [01:02:56] A big part of my role and for audio books is definitely motivation, inspiration, but I think, if I had to graph this on a pie, I probably listened to more fiction than I listened to nonfiction now, because I need a way to not think about business, to not think about, do I have enough time to do stuff?

My kids, like I needed a de-stressor and I need a way to zone out and tune out. And the only really effective way I've found to do that is to put on headphones and put on a good fiction book where it's literally the world goes away and I can immerse myself in that story.

So I seek out a lot of fiction. A lot of the stuff I listened to is modern sci-fi all. Those into some classic Sci-fi and thriller and suspense type books. And I was trying to think, okay, how do I distill this down into something that might be interesting for people. Because a lot of these material is very subjective.

And the one I have is it's a sci-fi book, but it's very different than a lot of out there. A lot of Spotify space Sci-fi, as humans go into someplace else, fighting some sort of enemy and it's very technology-driven and that stuff's great. There's a lot of series in there that I love, but the one I have is Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

And it's different Sci-fi and it's dramatically different than anything out there. And it will make you think. And I'm going to try and talk about this in the next one without spoilers happening here, but it talks about a biological future versus a technological future. And there's one theme in there of, and I think this could apply to regular life of.

What if you simply change your mind from no to, yes. So if you were afraid of snakes and there were snakes everywhere, what if all of a sudden, like snakes weren't scary to you? How would your life be different? Or if you thought, man, like I'm still oppressed by the system. If suddenly your view was.

Man the system empowers me or I'm not oppressed by the system. How much would your life change? And that's a core tenant here, but if you, if for somebody who's never listened to Spotify, it may be a little tough cause the beginning's a little slow, but if you're at all interested in different stuff, That book is a great one. He's won a whole bunch of awards for that book. I wish he had a SQL or another book like it, but he doesn't.

Scott Hebert: [01:05:46] Does the author read that book or is it like a cast?

Diego: [01:05:48] It's a female narrator and I think she's good for the role.

Scott Hebert: [01:05:53] Yeah, that's something that I didn't think that would happen with audio books is that sometimes you can get like a full cast rendition of an audio book. And I don't know if you've listened to any of those, but it's pretty cool when there's like characters will have like their own voices. It's just really neat.

Diego: [01:06:08] I try and shy away. I like one who can read it. I just, I don't know. I think it listens better to me. Yeah. But this is what I went back and relisten to recently.

So I've heard this two times literally about a year apart. My first heard at about a year ago. but some great concepts in there, especially given that a lot of people are in this are involved in farming. Maybe have a permaculture background, some takeaways and other ones are like, there's a intrinsic interconnectivity between all things and you can use and work.

With that interconnectivity versus trying to destroy it. And I think whether that's politics or competitors, there's a lot of takeaways from that. And another one is sometimes all it takes to solve a problem is a new person perspective. Like we get so set in our way of how things are going to be or how they should be, that we may miss radical.

Different and better solutions that we close ourselves off to. So children of time, Adrian Tchaikovsky check it out.

Scott Hebert: [01:07:24] That's really cool. My last book, I also went with a fiction book and I think that fiction sometimes, like you were just talking about reveals truth, that, is not necessarily true in the same way that.

Just an idea, just presenting an idea. If you just write it out, say like even that grip of that we were talking about earlier, like you just write out that idea, but sometimes when you have, when you tell a story, you can really dig down. And it's like the layers that I was talking about before. And, I picked the grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck. Have you read that book?

Diego: [01:07:54] I have, I've read it physically several times. I have the audio book and it's one I've never listened to the audio book on, cause I've just always had sentiment with reading it.

Scott Hebert: [01:08:03] I read this book in high school, and then I came back to it and I was just I was like, I liked it in high school, but this, when I read it by myself, yeah, it was really gripped by it.

I was just blown away by it by some of the ideas in it. It's about a family that's living in Oklahoma during the dust bowl and they get settled on the land and right away, John, Steinbeck's got some really good lines, like when I've read both of just Steinbeck's stuff now, there'll be some certain lines in it when he was talking about sharecroppers and he was talking about how these guys started to work the fields with tractors.

And as soon as they got on the tractors, then they became disconnected with the land because they were farming, they were doing too much. And it was just like, it was just all these things that I've learned about farming and stuff. And I was just like, it was just very captivating, but. It tells a story about these people from Oklahoma, they get caught in a dust bowl, they got nothing.

everything's going to crap. So they settle for California. I'm thinking there's going to be work out there and it just goes bad. And this story about how this family, who didn't necessarily do anything wrong, gets carton to a terrible situation and about, about how. Poor people come together and, it's just it's really beautiful. I was just crying at the end.

Diego: [01:09:14] Great story. I, for some reason I've always identified with Tom Joad ever since I first read it in high school myself, when you look at fiction books, how much of that is your makeup of audio book consumption?

Scott Hebert: [01:09:26] I would say less than 20, I would say I normally, I've only been reading fiction for the past a year.

I really started to try to go through classic fiction, more John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. And then I found out that I really like Neil Gaiman. He's got some really good fiction audio books. He's got this one called Norse Gods and a couple other ones, but yeah, mostly I don't, we'll say I don't read fiction, but I'm becoming more open to it.

Like I just added that out of that children of time to my audible.

Diego: [01:09:58] Yeah. Right on. Yeah. I try and approach it with, I look at audio books as a way to a continuing education, but sometimes like I can only force feed myself so much, like self development off. And I'm just not feeling like I can't do five of those books back to back and it's just I want to break it up. What else could I listen to?

Scott Hebert: [01:10:18] Yeah. When I first started listening to books and we were talking about like that spending 20 bucks, whatever you want to make sure you get the value out of it. And, but now I realize that I do get value out of it. It's just a different form of value than maybe that I have a three-bullet point list that I can take out of it.

Diego: [01:10:32] Getting some of these fiction books. I get addicted to them. There are binge worthy, like game of Thrones or some other Netflix series out there. I'm like, I cannot stop listening. It's almost do not talk to me. I want to listen to this audio book.

Scott Hebert: [01:10:47] I got a job last year at the golf course and I was driving around on mowers and I could listen to books all the time and I would go to work just so I could listen to Harry Potter. Cause I bought all seven. I was just like, I was just burning through and I was just having the best time.

Diego: [01:11:00] Yeah. And this last one, mine is one that I started driving back from Phoenix one time and I aborted it. I'm like, huh, I'm just done. It's slow to start. And then I'm like, you know what? Like I bought this thing. I think it's going to be good. It's got good reviews.

I'm going to go all in on it and just tough through get it to the point where it's interesting. And it did, I got caught up in it. It's a three-book series. It's the series by Jason Matthews. It's the Red Sparrow, the palace of treason and the Kremlin�s candidate.

Another one where I don't want to give away endings, but it is an amazingly strong story, strong character development, probably more so than any fiction book that I have listened to the point where, I felt like I was in the story and when it ended. It felt personal to me. Like I felt like I had lived it and I was associated with the characters and it emotionally affected me as crazy as that sounds.

But that is one that. I don't know if I'll find a fiction. One resonates that much with me. It just became a part of me and it was a truly like again, why I go to fiction to escape, to be all in on the book to enjoy it. It's a good one. And it's long too. That might be 60 hours and all three of the books.

Scott Hebert: [01:12:30] Is it like sci-fi or what?

Diego: [01:12:31] No, it's modern spy. Spy. Thriller, I guess you could say. Based upon like espionage, US Russia. Type thing. And that's really a category of books that, when I look at fiction, there's sci-fi, there's a couple authors there that I really follow. And when it gets into the thrillers, I these spine novels, I scour for stuff.

And it's those fiction. I think it's critical to find a good narrator in good is going to be different for everybody. Like you just got to find a narrator that resonates with you cause they make all the difference.

Scott Hebert: [01:13:07] Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Once you start getting into it, it's just like this never ending. This just never ends.

Diego: [01:13:11] Thousands and thousands of books out there on Audible. I just got some new ones that I'm going to check out. It's exciting. And it's a world that I think. People again, should be exposed to, is there anything you have in your list that hasn't been brought up in this conversation that you have not listened to?

What you're looking forward to listening to?

Scott Hebert: [01:13:32] I've, I've been going through a you've all know Harare's books, the guy that wrote sapiens. He's wrote two other books that I've been following up on. So he's got homo duets and he's got this other one called up 21 lessons for 21st century. And, I think that he is, he's a brilliant thinker.

Like Ryan holiday's books, he's a good writer, but Ryan is just regurgitating someone else's ideas. Whereas like you all know Harare and like Nassim, Nicholas Taleb. Are talking about new ideas in a very complex way. And, so yeah, I've been after I read sapiens, that you've all know Harare I'll pretty much I'll read anything that he writes now.

So I'm looking forward to those. Yeah. What about you?

Diego: [01:14:12] for this, I'll go with one that I am curious about. I don't know that I'm excited about it. I don't know that I have high expectations for it, but I've heard enough about this person that finally on, I see the book on sale, I'm going to pop and buy it.

It's high performance habits by Brendon Burchard. I haven't read any of his stuff, but he's somebody I hear echoed quite a bit. And I think some of the echoing kind of gets. Thrown into that motivational kind of sleazy realm, but I've heard enough good things that I wanted to check out his book. So that's one that, and I'll be listening to before this one airs coming up.

So all in. I want to thank you, Scott, for taking some time to chat about this. And if people liked this format or want book recommendations, where can they go to give some feedback and reach out, pick your brain, and also follow along with what you're doing on YouTube and the farm.

Scott Hebert: [01:15:11] I'm on YouTube as Scott Hebert, you can just search by name and there should be find my channel. And I'm on all the other social media. I'm at Flavorful farms.

Diego: [01:15:21] There, you have it, Scott Hebert and I on audiobooks, be sure to follow along with everything that Scott is doing. He's putting out a lot of content on YouTube. You can follow along his day to day journey on the grind. As you heard in this episode.

A lot of what he's doing in real life is, and by what he learns in audio books. So check them out, Scott Hiebert on YouTube, which I've also linked to in the show notes for this episode. If you have some great audio books that you'd like to recommend, I would love to hear them. As you heard in this episode, I'm an audio book junkie.

I'm always looking for a good suggestion. So I'd love to hear here. Your audio book recommendations. Send me an email Diego at permaculture voices, or hit me up on Instagram at Diego Footer. And let me know what some of your favorite audio books are. Have a happy new years have a safe new year's. I hope you have a great and productive 2019.

It's really your year. If you want it to be, we're all starting clean right now. So make 2019 everything you ever wanted it to be, get after it, crush it. And until next time, be nice. Be thankful and do the work.