00:51.03 stanlemon So Jonathan, I think it's well known that I'm not a big fan of Facebook. At least I feel like I've established that over time. um That said, i do have an account. I've had an account for quite some time. And I recently got a strange friend request, Jonathan.
01:06.20 Jon Yeah.
01:07.41 stanlemon Yeah. Care to explain how we became unfriended?
01:14.29 Jon um So i used to be a big fan of Facebook. Then I became less of a fan of Facebook and I went through a major friend purge. Now I do that regularly, pretty much whenever I see things I don't want to see anymore.
01:27.48 Jon um And during one of those French purges, ah your account was deactivated along with Mrs.
01:29.08 stanlemon yeah
01:34.55 Jon Lemons. um And I, at the time, believed you would never come back to Facebook.
01:40.50 stanlemon Fascinating. So because I was deactivated, you unfriended me.
01:44.31 Jon Yes.
01:46.26 stanlemon i I think this is an inbox zero problem. Are you an inbox zero guy?
01:50.59 Jon I absolutely am.
01:51.89 stanlemon Yeah. Okay. All right. And so you have to know everything that's on the list, whatever the list may be, you have to know everything and it has to have intrinsic value by virtue of being on the list.
02:03.96 Jon Probably. And I literally believed you would never come back to Facebook. Didn't you like script something to delete everything in all of your social profiles?
02:12.11 stanlemon I did, I did delete almost all of the content. Yes. Yeah.
02:16.18 Jon Interesting.
02:17.65 stanlemon Yeah. Well, okay.
02:18.54 Jon Okay.
02:19.17 stanlemon So there's a difference between like the thing that I have done and sharing it out and the thing that I want to see and consume. So maybe I should start with why I'm, why I was back on Facebook and and to be clear, this has been multiple years.
02:35.64 stanlemon Like, like my account has been reactivated for multiple years.
02:36.18 Jon and back i'm mostly So I noticed because um we've restarted the podcast. so
02:43.89 stanlemon And I went and I probably liked something comment.
02:45.37 Jon And you like something.
02:46.01 stanlemon Yeah.
02:46.47 Jon I don't think. It's like, oh.
02:48.24 stanlemon Yeah. So I think I reactivated my account the first time when my dad passed away, which which was like over two years ago. But I had periodically reactivated it to see things going on in my subdivision community because the HOA, like it's it's really the only way to get information about what's going on.
03:07.06 stanlemon And including...
03:08.17 Jon It's probably better than the alternative, which is next door.
03:12.02 stanlemon Oh, yeah. but Next is hot trash. Don't even get me started. like we We don't have enough time for that. But the the point being here, so I re-enabled it with the primary purpose of finding out what food truck was going to be in the subdivision on during the summer.
03:27.54 stanlemon And i don't like I don't post. The other thing that I did, and this will just show you how far back this goes, When I went on the Alaska cruise, I had joined the cruise Facebook group probably a good, i don't know, six to nine months before the cruise.
03:44.85 stanlemon In fact, I talked to you. This this is what this what I talked to you.
03:46.74 Jon You did talk to me about a Facebook group, and I guess it didn't click.
03:51.03 stanlemon talked to you about the Facebook cruise group for Alaska.
03:52.69 Jon Actually, I wonder if I was not on Facebook at that point in time.
03:56.15 stanlemon i don't know. You're you're an enigma. so But I talked about it then, and I'm pretty sure that I told you that it was useful for Italy as well. Right? When I went went to Italy.
04:05.08 Jon This is coming back to me. I don't know why I didn't connect the two together.
04:06.96 stanlemon Yeah. Okay.
04:09.28 Jon Or I literally forgot that I didn't...
04:09.36 stanlemon So.
04:11.40 Jon ah or that I unfriended you when you were deactivated. I don't know what happens, Dan.
04:15.30 stanlemon All right.
04:15.92 Jon But as you can see, we are not the Facebook users we once were.
04:19.58 stanlemon I've got one more data point, Jonathan. if If you recall, we went on a cruise together last spring. Right?
04:28.44 Jon Correct.
04:29.08 stanlemon And we talked about the Facebook group for that one.
04:30.48 Jon It was winter still, but yeah.
04:36.74 stanlemon Because
04:39.54 Jon Okay.
04:39.81 stanlemon you kept asking me, like, what what special things do I need to know about on this this cruise? Like, you were asking me what the inside track was on those cruises.
04:48.87 Jon I tried to join a Facebook group once and it had to have been for the last cruise.
04:56.97 stanlemon which Which I was in right?
04:58.48 Jon Which is what we talked about.
04:58.94 stanlemon And I'm pretty sure I shared... I shared the deets on this with you. I like, I'm, I'm, I'm dead confident I did.
05:05.09 Jon I have no idea, man. Sorry.
05:06.99 stanlemon Also, also, I believe we had some discussions about me selling my camping gear. Do you remember that?
05:13.77 Jon On Marketplace, yes, I do you remember this.
05:15.05 stanlemon Yeah. a Facebook marketplace.
05:15.93 Jon So so here's the question, Stan.
05:18.09 stanlemon i All right.
05:18.32 Jon How come you didn't notice before this?
05:18.41 stanlemon Well, hold the way. There's no more.
05:20.80 Jon ah
05:22.80 stanlemon ah i don't I don't have an answer for that, Jonathan. I don't. But do you do you recall the Whole Foods incident with the Facebook Marketplace?
05:32.15 Jon Foods incident?
05:33.20 stanlemon Whole Foods. Whole Foods, where I went downtown to meet someone and they straight...
05:34.19 Jon Whole Foods incident. You were on the phone with me, and then they didn't show.
05:37.93 stanlemon Yes. I was... ah Yes.
05:39.03 Jon There's something about a ah parking garage, right?
05:39.09 stanlemon The whole time for a Facebook Marketplace meetup. What about when I sold the kayaks? Do you remember that?
05:46.36 Jon I remember that you told me that the you sold the kayaks, but we weren't on the phone when you did that.
05:50.51 stanlemon yeah But Facebook Marketplace again. So anyhow, I'm just... I'm just laying out a long string of data points here.
05:57.71 Jon So the moral of the story is if you were friends with me at one point and we aren't friends currently, you can try to add me.
06:07.85 stanlemon Yeah, there you go. John Rage quit you. No, no, he didn't.
06:09.87 Jon ah
06:10.33 stanlemon He just is an inbox zero guy. So this is, I think there's a philosophical discussion
06:13.81 Jon More context is, i had like, I don't know, 1,500 friends at one point in time, 10 years ago, and I purged, and now I try to like sit around 150 tops.
06:25.02 Jon tops so
06:27.04 stanlemon it's ah It's a fascinating number. i ah You're crazy. What I would say is ah I think, Jonathan, that our generation, you and me, and I'm an inbox zero guy too to a certain extent, we need to transition from lists to buckets.
06:44.40 stanlemon Okay?
06:45.26 Jon okay
06:45.67 stanlemon Lists to buckets. So lists, like I, you know, one through N, I walk the list, boom, boom, boom, boom.
06:49.68 Jon is this like the the whole getting things done thing okay
06:51.07 stanlemon boom No, no, no. I'm going to write a book. No, no. List the buckets. This is going to be my book. This is my mindset, right? So we've we've lived our lives with lists of things.
07:02.77 stanlemon And i like, let me ask you this. Do you, do you, the notes app on your phone, do you ever prune the notes in there? do you get rid of old notes?
07:13.06 Jon I don't, but I don't think I use the notes app as much as you do. I think I just keeping notes.
07:16.56 stanlemon Okay, that could be.
07:18.66 Jon So now I pull it up for this thing.
07:19.69 stanlemon So. I'm trying to move to a bucket person for my notes app instead of a list person. This is the thing, right? So list people, the inbox zero crowd, right? One through end, they to know everything in the list, right?
07:34.57 stanlemon Where there's the bucket people, we put it all into the bucket. And when we need it, we just go find it, right? And we don't worry about read, unread, complete, none Like we just live free as a lily in the bucket rather than on the list.
07:49.85 Jon So then do you just choose what you want to do in the bucket when you're in the bucket?
07:55.10 stanlemon Yeah, if I need something in the bucket, I go to the bucket, I get the thing I need, and then I move on with life.
08:00.20 Jon Just for informational purposes?
08:02.76 stanlemon Well, you know, i don't know it's a productivity shift.
08:02.80 Jon Or is this like your whole productivity shift?
08:06.99 stanlemon It actually could be an unproductivity shift, to be completely honest with you. The only place where I keep, I shouldn't say this is not true. The only place I'm trying to keep a regimented list of things is the Reminders app.
08:18.11 stanlemon Everything else I want to treat like a bucket. And I struggle to do this, Jonathan. I struggle to do this.
08:24.73 Jon This is so interesting to me.
08:27.66 stanlemon The way that I get around my, so, cause my inbox zero mindset has existed for up um I'm going to say 30 years.
08:36.88 Jon Longer than you've known me, probably.
08:38.38 stanlemon Yeah. I'm going to say 30 years. I've been an inbox zero guy for 30 years. Right. um And I think it, we've talked a little bit about this before in terms of disk storage, but i think we come from ah of a era where the size of files still mattered or the size of things in your inbox still mattered. Right.
08:55.88 stanlemon And so we had to, we had prune for that purpose. I'm trying to get to a point where I don't do the pruning. And so And in Gmail, I think actually did a fantastic job driving some people to this mindset. I don't, don't use Gmail. So maybe that's part of my problem, but I'm just archiving, archiving stuff and not worrying about whether or not I'm going to need it or keep it or any of that.
09:19.24 stanlemon And I, in order to maintain my inbox zero, like tendency, I just archive it all. So I almost don't use the inbox.
09:26.96 Jon so So do you triage email in the inbox, or do you just like select all in archive whenever you're doing email?
09:27.84 stanlemon I basically use the archive folder.
09:37.55 stanlemon Um, I, I triage some, so I finally got myself to the point where I don't look at email all the time. Right.
09:44.03 Jon Nice.
09:44.68 stanlemon Which, yeah, that was hard. That was really hard because I like, that was actually the first time i bought data for a cell phone was just so I could look at email. This is back when we were still paying per text message and I didn't care about text messaging.
09:56.17 stanlemon Right. Um, we're going to say 2004 um, I had this beautiful Hitachi phone.
10:01.02 Jon time.
10:02.79 stanlemon I absolutely loved it. Uh, anyhow, So it's taken me a while to get to that point. the The next journey for me is to not even worry about the archive and just leave it in the inbox.
10:13.67 stanlemon but I'm not there yet. So what I do is basically I go through and I archive, boom, boom, boom, boom. boom I delete like promo stuff, boom, boom, boom, boom boom right? Or unsubscribe. But if I need to reply to it right away or within the next like week, I leave it in there.
10:31.60 stanlemon Otherwise archive it.
10:33.97 Jon OK, I'm not entirely sure how this is different than me with my personal email, with my work email, um because I'm in Outlook and using the split view, I literally like open up every email um for better or worse.
10:37.46 stanlemon It, well,
10:46.89 Jon And then I will either archive or or delete. But like I've never gone into specific folders. I just use the search bar for everything.
10:54.64 stanlemon yeah. So folders, sorting, and organizing, that's something that I'm trying to get away from. Um, and I used to like delete things that were no longer relevant.
10:58.90 Jon Yeah, I don't do that at all.
11:05.56 Jon There is one exception to my folder rule is tax documents. Like when I register vehicles in the middle the year, I do put those in a tax folder so that I can find them when I need file taxes.
11:10.52 stanlemon Oh yeah.
11:16.82 stanlemon Yeah. I, okay. I did it too. That's, I think that's, uh, that's exceptional, but I mean like, like tax is just a weird use case. So, so anyhow, um, the, I think the thing, like a traditional inbox zero person, they work the list from one to end and it's either like,
11:35.88 stanlemon it's very action oriented, right? And my whole thing is like, sweep most of it an archive. The things I have to reply to in the next week, I leave in the inbox, right? So the only thing inbox is, is for replies. Everything else, just I'm constantly sweeping an archive and I'll go find it if I need it later.
11:49.11 stanlemon Um,
11:49.27 Jon I think that there is something else that has changed in your work life, Stan, um that has allowed for this. Because you aren't
11:58.20 Jon you aren't like the producer anymore. You are making other people produce things.
12:04.85 stanlemon I mean, i I produce a fair amount of like documentation and instructions and stuff. So I don't know, that's totally true.
12:10.07 Jon ah
12:10.21 stanlemon But like work work is actually a totally different ball game for me. My work inbox is completely unbounded. um what i What I will do very often is I'll select all and just delete it.
12:23.89 stanlemon Like wholesale, won't even look at it. um That has yet to get me in trouble. Because i like most, I mean, like honestly, most...
12:31.37 Jon I would definitely get things in trouble for me.
12:33.59 stanlemon most most of my email is not material. Right. And so much of it is time bound that if I don't get to it in, let's say 48 hours, it's irrelevant by that point. Anyhow.
12:44.92 stanlemon Right. And so I, yeah, you know, I actually do the same thing on Slack. I'll just mark everything as red, just move on with life.
12:51.96 Jon So how do you know when something ah goes awry?
12:56.51 stanlemon Well, okay. Uh, Usually someone that I trust will tell me, right? i I think when, that could be, that might that might actually be, that might actually be exactly what I'm doing.
13:06.35 Jon So you're basically screening your phone calls.
13:10.90 Jon Right.
13:13.40 stanlemon I haven't thought about this in terms of of the ah the actual process. I just know that there's so much intake that it's overwhelming, like it's too much.
13:24.13 stanlemon And so I don't have the ability to filter out what is actually urgent. So I have to trust on like, if it comes from these six people, right, then I need to address it.
13:35.41 stanlemon Yeah.
13:38.01 Jon Interesting.
13:39.74 stanlemon Cause here's the other thing too.
13:40.00 Jon I feel like I have more questions, but I don't know what they are.
13:40.54 stanlemon so ah heres Here's the other thing that I've noticed.
13:43.51 Jon You just live in a different world.
13:46.07 stanlemon here's Here's the thing that I've noticed too. um If it's super important and I ignore it, what's going to, what's going to happen nine times out of 10 is the person who needs to get my attention is probably going to go to one of my lieutenants that I always respond to and ping them. Right.
14:02.51 stanlemon I'm not just to be clear too. I'm not saying this is good. I'm not saying this is like a great practice, but in, in 2025, yeah, it
14:07.83 Jon Well, you should probably formalize the practice if that's what you're going to do.
14:11.77 stanlemon yeah it could be, it could be, I, you know, I've tried, man, calendaring is a whole other thing, but the, the general, uh,
14:12.88 Jon I
14:20.76 stanlemon I guess the general take on this is there's so much content inbound at any given moment that I've just chosen not to engage with any of it. Right.
14:30.84 Jon ah like it.
14:31.00 stanlemon um And that forces people to be crisper, clear, more direct, and also to like escalate it in such a way that when it, when it does finally get my attention, it's cause I need to actually look at it. Right.
14:46.11 stanlemon um And, and I,
14:46.97 Jon And it's at probably at a point then where it's worth your time to look at.
14:50.65 stanlemon Yeah, most most likely. I mean, sometimes not, but most likely. And I contrast this, like when I started at Salesforce, I read every single email, every single hip chat message. I knew everything that was going on. And that was also part of my superpower. But the volume of it was also an order of magnitude different than the like volume of the you know comparables today 2025. Yeah.
15:14.11 Jon Interesting.
15:15.17 stanlemon But buckets, right? So in the bucket, I can go find the thing, because this is the other key piece to this, right?
15:17.33 Jon I
15:20.66 stanlemon So when someone says, hey, Stan, have you looked at x y or Z? Then i'm like, no, I go back to the bucket and I search for X or Y or Z, and I start to compile things. Or I jump into into Slack, run a Slack AI summary on a channel, like, ah, there's the thing that I needed to know, cool, right?
15:39.71 Jon think I like it.
15:42.07 stanlemon I have a general philosophy that most urgent things are not urgent and ah a large percentage of them will auto resolve. Right?
15:53.02 stanlemon And this is, I mean, like every rule like this breaks down, but if you just buffer your intake, you don't give credit or you don't give credence really. You don't dignify the urgency, right? So if you don't dignify the urgency, sometimes you actually pressure test that it's not urgent.
16:14.41 Jon And you haven't gotten in trouble for being unresponsive.
16:18.62 stanlemon No, well think about it, right? Like if my manager needs something, I'm not going to ignore that message. Right.
16:23.43 Jon Right.
16:24.12 stanlemon um And so there's some natural like ah bubble up points. and the other thing too is like, if my manager comes to me with X, right. First thing I'm going to is I'm going to work my Rolodex and go find out the deeds.
16:37.48 stanlemon Right. And then I get the information in succinct, clear form and pass it up. The other thing that can happen is sometimes I get wind of something that I pass up to my and manager. Right. And by that point, like i'm I'm filtering hopefully to them in the same way.
16:52.20 Jon think I just live in a different world than you, Stan. But I'm like i'm managing system critical platform too.
16:54.95 stanlemon It could be, I mean.
16:58.74 Jon So like Cloudflare goes down and it's affecting HubSpot and I get 27 Teams messages almost immediately. um Yes, I know it's down.
17:09.83 stanlemon i have I have similar situations.
17:10.42 Jon No, there is literally nothing I can do about this. So here's the status page for HubSpot.
17:13.80 stanlemon ah there's there's always There's always legitimate urgency. I just think it tends to be less frequent than most of the people I work with think it is.
17:31.42 stanlemon Yeah.
17:32.47 Jon Right. And I probably err on the side of doing things up for other people that I don't need to be doing.
17:40.23 stanlemon Well, you're a fixer, right? Like that's kind of your persona.
17:41.74 Jon I am a fixer.
17:42.79 stanlemon So, um and you know, i feel like at the stage of my career, I'm not paid to be a fixer.
17:43.19 Jon Yeah.
17:49.88 stanlemon I'm paid to be like a discerner and architect.
17:52.22 Jon An architect. Oh.
17:54.66 stanlemon A discerner, right?
17:54.78 Jon Okay.
17:55.34 stanlemon I would call it discern. Yeah. How did we go from, oh, we went from listening.
17:58.92 Jon Those are my goals. We were talking about buckets, which I still don't completely understand.
18:01.02 stanlemon pelets
18:03.41 Jon um But I think, like, okay, i have a personal email box and a work email box.
18:09.11 stanlemon here's Here's my challenge to you. Go a week without looking at your personal email. Could you do it?
18:16.78 Jon Probably except for, like, 2FA codes that I get into it.
18:22.55 stanlemon Yeah, but do you use the mail app or do you use Gmail?
18:26.30 Jon use the mail app on my phone.
18:28.34 stanlemon Okay. So it'll just get those and it'll autofill them and it'll delete them and you won't have to worry about it.
18:34.28 Jon sometimes
18:36.12 stanlemon Seriously, you want to kind of mess with your head and the world that we come from historically. Turn off the badge to your mail, turn off all notifications, and then...
18:45.16 Jon Why do you think that I have the badge on?
18:48.43 stanlemon You just strike me as a notification guy. You're always talking about your phone being distracting.
18:51.16 Jon Oh, I hate notifications.
18:52.97 stanlemon I know you hate them, but do you, all right, hold on.
18:53.32 Jon well
18:55.60 stanlemon Do you have mail notifications enabled at all right now?
18:58.24 Jon No.
18:59.47 stanlemon Okay. Do you have the badge?
19:00.27 Jon Not even a little bit. No.
19:02.96 stanlemon So you just open it periodically.
19:04.81 Jon I open it periodically.
19:07.24 stanlemon Okay.
19:07.31 Jon And for the personal email, not that often, like probably once in the morning.
19:07.85 stanlemon right.
19:13.10 stanlemon Okay. All right. Maybe that's not so bad then.
19:15.02 Jon Sometimes I think about turning off badges on messages, um but I figure there's a good chance I get in trouble at some point with that.
19:24.30 stanlemon Hmm. I could never imagine turning off a badge on messages. I do use the reduce interruptions focus quite a bit.
19:33.75 Jon Oh, absolutely. I don't use that, but I have a work focus where I think literally Anna and you can get through.
19:39.78 stanlemon Yeah. Well, all right.
19:42.00 Jon The only reason that you can get through is because something terrible could happen and then I have responsibility.
19:42.01 stanlemon Trust
19:47.41 Jon So.
19:47.85 stanlemon me. There you go. Exactly.
19:51.62 stanlemon Uh, you know, there's, listen, um, the bucket thing, keep less lists, be less organized. That's, that's my, that's my goal.
20:00.07 Jon I think I've probably gotten here just because I'm lazy, because I'm nowhere near what I used to be as far as tasking out everything or things of that nature.
20:10.13 stanlemon All right, Jonathan, what's next?
20:10.40 Jon Oh, I just saw you and your family, and you weren't dying this year, so it actually happened.
20:18.94 Jon We drink wine. It was great.
21:21.20 stanlemon So Jonathan, ah moving on from buckets and lists, let's talk about Thanksgiving. How was your Thanksgiving?
21:26.95 Jon Thanksgiving.
21:27.24 stanlemon Did you eat turkey or ham?
21:29.08 Jon I ate turkey. I did have some ham, like cold cut meat for lunch one day.
21:36.16 stanlemon Okay. And how did that go?
21:38.16 Jon It was fine. Ham isn't my favorite.
21:41.28 stanlemon Why is ham not your favorite? Because this actually surprised me because you like other pork dishes.
21:46.72 Jon I like pork dishes. I like, um, like cured hams and spiced hams and things like that but just straight up deli meat ham not great
21:58.42 stanlemon Okay, well, have you had boar's head ham?
22:02.09 Jon i'm sure i have it's just not my favorite i like roast beef i like chicken breast and then i like capicola salamis you know stuff like that
22:12.15 stanlemon Well, everybody loves salami. I think my son, Henry, is the only person I know that's that doesn't like s salami.
22:18.89 Jon prosciutto.
22:20.89 stanlemon Oh, for sure.
22:20.95 Jon Pretty much anything that you would find dannna right pretty much anything you would find on a Italian sub.
22:21.48 stanlemon That's just ham.
22:27.44 stanlemon Okay. Which, like, if you go to Subway and you get an Italian BMT, it has it has him
22:34.85 Jon Okay. Maybe it just needs something else on
22:39.44 stanlemon All right. So ah turkey, how did you cook your turkey?
22:43.48 Jon um So we were at my wife's family's for Thanksgiving, and they have been deep frying turkey for 24 years, I think we decided. So, deep fried turkey.
22:56.33 stanlemon so fascinating. I don't like deep fried turkey is fine. ah It's not my favorite way to get to eat turkey, to be honest with you.
23:06.16 Jon Come.
23:07.62 Jon don't know. It was pretty darn good. It was injected. used... I don't remember the name of the Creole seasoning. Tony's. Tony Cacciatore.
23:19.64 Jon Is that right?
23:20.58 stanlemon Okay. Well, listen, I mean, you know, it's better than baked is what I would say. We had a, had a smoked Turkey and, uh, the short of it is we ran out of oven space, which is really saying something because I have two ovens. And, um, as a result, we needed a third oven and I had already run the meat smoker. my rec tech because i needed to I didn't need to, but I wanted to cook some bacon. So I did a long, slow, low smoke of a pound of bacon
23:51.94 stanlemon And as a result, it was nice and warm and we were just reheating the smoked turkey.
23:52.04 Jon Nice.
23:56.36 stanlemon So I popped that in wholesale off to the races and it was delicious. Like it was actually, you know, my father-in-law who does not like white meat, as he will tell you repeatedly um loved it.
24:08.96 stanlemon And yeah, you know, can't go wrong there, right?
24:13.58 Jon thought it was just my father-in-law that said things repeatedly.
24:17.74 stanlemon Oh, no, no. I think, I think in general, that's a, that's a like,
24:20.36 Jon All father-in-law things.
24:22.08 stanlemon I think it's an all father-in-law thing, but I think also it's a boomer thing. And, you know, your father-in-law is in denial of being a boomer. I think he thinks he's an Xer, but he's not. he's He's got, I've got, i get such big vo boomer vibes from him.
24:35.08 stanlemon I know he doesn't listen, so I have no worries about him, you know, calling me.
24:39.79 Jon he does have a He does have some Gen X qualities, though.
24:40.32 stanlemon Plus he didn't s stop by my house, so.
24:47.79 stanlemon and I think that's not safe for the podcast. Let's let's leave it there. All
24:52.78 Jon Fair enough.
24:54.44 stanlemon all right. So what about your pie situation? I know we talked a little bit about pie before the break.
25:00.24 Jon um My pie situation was... I actually did not eat any pie for Thanksgiving, Stan. So did I really celebrate Thanksgiving?
25:10.22 stanlemon No, you did not. What do you mean you didn't have any pie? Was there pie available?
25:14.22 Jon um There was store-bought pie available, um but there was also Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake um available, so I opted for Cheesecake.
25:19.78 stanlemon store bought pie.
25:25.99 stanlemon I have so many questions.
25:26.27 Jon Hi.
25:28.25 stanlemon Okay. Like, and I, I like cheesecake to be completely honest with you. Like I'm, I'm a big cheesecake fan, but I, I'm just, I'm okay. All right. Well, I had pie. I had, I had my rhubarb pie. I had a lattice top.
25:44.05 stanlemon It was actually really good. We had some debate over whether or not the pie was done on time. Jonathan, do you know how to determine if a pie is done?
25:55.02 Jon Um, I do not. I have made one pie in my lifetime.
25:59.08 stanlemon Jonathan, how do you determine if a piece of meat is done?
26:02.63 Jon You temp it.
26:04.24 stanlemon You temp it. And how do you determine if a piece of bread is done or loaf of bread is done?
26:08.62 Jon You knock on the bottom.
26:10.67 stanlemon You temp it. You do the same thing. You can't knock on the bottom of a pie, so you got to temp it as well. I think that's the key, right? So the um do you know what temperature water boils at?
26:20.30 Jon um I should, but I do not currently. But I was just in the car for eight hours.
26:23.57 stanlemon What is it? What is it like? Like 208? What temperature does water boil? 212, 212.
26:30.16 Jon two twelve
26:31.95 stanlemon Okay, there you go. And as i understand, like you put sugar in it and it actually lowers the boil point or something like that. so So the key with bread, right? It depends on the type of bread. You're gonna be in like the 190 to 205 range.
26:43.70 stanlemon it Turns out pies are just the same, Jonathan. So when we were having a heated debate on whether or not the pie was done, I pulled out my thermopin. Guess what? It wasn't done.
26:54.67 stanlemon We left it in five more minutes and it was, it was delicious. So, um, I, I had a good side game.
27:00.10 Jon Okay. See, i think I think the reason that we went with store-bought desserts this year is because I don't believe Thanksgiving needs to be as stressful as everyone makes it out to be.
27:12.94 stanlemon I don't think, I don't listen. i don't think, uh,
27:15.18 Jon You don't, but who made the pie?
27:15.79 stanlemon ah
27:19.09 stanlemon Oh, Mrs.
27:19.44 Jon but
27:19.59 stanlemon Lemon. And you know, it's actually funny you say because she was stressing about that lattice top. Um, it may be in part because of the last episode where I threw a whole bunch of shade at people who put lattice tops on their pies.
27:28.69 Jon You did.
27:28.72 stanlemon But, uh, once the lattice top was assembled and on the pie, stress level came down dramatically. But yeah, no, I actually, we, um, our Turkey was pre-smoked.
27:35.85 Jon Well, that's good.
27:39.47 stanlemon Like we we bought it from the butcher, which we did last year too.
27:43.47 Jon Nice.
27:43.79 stanlemon And that reduces the amount of stress by an order of magnitude. And then we really simplified our ingredients or, you know, our non-ingredients, our sides had, uh, America's test kitchens, um, stuffing, which is still fantastic.
27:58.38 stanlemon Probably, probably my favorite stuffing recipe of all time. Sorry, grandma, but, you
28:04.33 Jon Nice. I don't know that I've ever had it, but now I'll have to look up the recipe because we had no stuffing.
28:10.54 stanlemon I, that I can't even fathom. That just sounds, that just sounds wrong. But I guess if you're, if you're, i mean, I don't know. Did you, so you probably didn't have gravy orre either, did you?
28:20.56 Jon We did have gravy, so we do actually bake a turkey that we call the sacrificial turkey um for gravy and for something else, but I don't remember what.
28:32.46 stanlemon Mrs. Lemon actually bought gravy in a jar, which I have some, we'll call it religious concerns regarding, but whatever she got, whatever brand she got was actually fantastic.
28:44.10 stanlemon Cause when you buy the turkey already from the butcher, right? Like you can't, there's nothing you can, you're not going to make gravy off that.
28:48.37 Jon Right.
28:49.77 stanlemon um
28:49.96 Jon Yep.
28:50.89 stanlemon And to me, like, you know, you gotta have gravy, especially if you got stuffing. So I ate way too much gravy and I'm accompanied it with a little bit of turkey and stuffing too. So, you
29:02.42 Jon It sounds delicious, Stan.
29:04.73 stanlemon right. So we got one hundred holiday in the bag. we got another one coming up and and then another one. I think, don't think we're going to Christmas. I don't think we need to talk about that right now, but, uh, I did want to, it's been a recurring theme on this podcast in the previous era to talk about goals in new years. And I feel like we rushed that discussion. So I wanted to start it now because, um, I think, I think we can do this one justice. Um,
29:31.34 stanlemon one of your goals for 2026 is to become a bucket person that, that, that I know for sure.
29:36.30 Jon Right, based on this episode, and so should all of yours.
29:38.64 stanlemon based based message So um a few years ago, if just to rewind, I think we talked a little bit about forming habits rather than setting goals.
29:48.91 Jon Correct.
29:48.94 stanlemon Um, this has been your jam.
29:49.90 Jon Which has worked wonderful for you, right?
29:50.54 stanlemon You want to, you want to
29:55.79 stanlemon I mean, I think that, wait, are you being serious or sarcastic?
29:58.76 Jon I'm being serious.
30:00.33 stanlemon Oh, okay. All right. yeah Well, it sounded like you might've sarcastic, man. I wasn't sure. Yeah.
30:03.31 Jon like in In era one of twice Life with a Twist of Lemon, like one of the years was reading every day for it was a set amount of time, I think.
30:03.61 stanlemon I actually think.
30:14.29 Jon It wasn't a number of books.
30:15.21 stanlemon Yeah, I think.
30:15.57 Jon It was reading every day for 20 minutes or whatever.
30:20.27 stanlemon and think it was I think it was 15, but yeah, roughly. Right. And so the goal was just to do it every day. I kept track of a streak. um And I guess I do read a lot, don't I? Pretty consistently.
30:30.32 Jon Yes, you do. Yep.
30:31.92 stanlemon Yeah. All right. No, that's fair. I've, I tried, mean, definitely tried years past to form habits. I don't, John, I think you really got it. Like, this is your jam. You should set this up. Why habits versus goals.
30:46.67 Jon um I think that ultimately it stems from people not being able to set what is actually a good goal, um or they like set a goal that doesn't necessarily apply to them, and then once you hit the goal, it's done.
31:04.37 Jon um I think the habit is plays into the whole... incremental progress thing. So if you form a habit, then it just is still going now here, six later, six years later, in terms of your ah reading habit, you did fitness stuff.
31:24.11 Jon um I can't remember what else we've covered, but you are now an extremely habitual person. um And you do lots of things every day.
31:33.04 stanlemon Yeah, I do. I think for me, the thing that I've struggled with with goals is when you hit them, what happens next, right?
31:40.37 Jon Right.
31:40.49 stanlemon If you hit them early, hit them late, et cetera. Right. And so the the finality of it, the finishing of a goal, is that supposed to be the last thing or is there more to it?
31:52.71 stanlemon and most of the stuff that I want to accomplish doesn't actually have a finale to it, right? So, you know, I think everybody...
32:01.90 Jon At this point in life, like there are there are times when it does happen, like once it was buy a house in this year, um and that is a goal um or things like that, or pay off a house or retire, ah or things like that.
32:17.38 stanlemon Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that type of goal, just to be clear. Like, not trying knock that, but I think... just take the fitness one because I think every, I mean, not everybody, but a large portion of society attempts in the new year to set a goal to begin fitness stuff. And it's always kind of, it's comical, right? Because we all stay up crazy late December 31st. We wake up January 1st, exhausted, maybe little hungover. And we're like, Oh, we're going to start our fitness journey, which is probably like the absolute worst conditions to begin it under, but we do it anyhow. Right.
32:47.63 stanlemon And, ah you know, by the end of January, the gym's empty again, right? Essentially. And, um, I think I have a problem like me personally, I have a problem with waiting to start on the first of the year, first of all, with a thing.
32:53.17 Jon Yep. Right.
33:01.37 stanlemon Um, the other thing I would say is that, you know, with with the fitness goal, like if you set an objective or goal, like lose 15 pounds, right? So what are you gonna do when you're done?
33:12.82 stanlemon you're just going stop doing the thing. Like that's not a, don't think that's a good goal. Right. And, and so, um, I, there's like, i think just holistic habitual motion is better for people.
33:27.41 stanlemon Um, because you're, you're creating, uh, don't know. I don't want to say, you're not creating an end state. You're just, you're just creating a state that you want to be in. I think the other thing too is like the end state for so many things that we want to do in life requires maintenance, right?
33:42.38 stanlemon so It's like even buying the house, right? You buy the house, got to take care of it.
33:44.69 Jon Absolutely. Yep.
33:46.32 stanlemon Yeah. And I think, I think we just have a habit huh of not necessarily talking about goals that way. Now that said, I did set some goals this year and I've been like pretty successful with them.
33:58.12 stanlemon To be honest with you, I had a same goal as i set last year. I wanted to ride 500 right? Notice I didn't do ride daily because I'm not going to ride daily for 300 some odd days, right?
34:09.76 stanlemon Because Indiana weather sucks in the winter, right? Like I'm not going to go do that. But I wanted to achieve a certain number of miles in total.
34:14.97 Jon Fair.
34:19.07 Jon Nice.
34:20.96 stanlemon the other The other things I did, i set a goal because I read every day, right? That's my habit. But there were two books in particular I wanted it to read. let's see Let's see what you think of this. I wanted to read Moby Dick, did that.
34:32.51 stanlemon That was something.
34:32.72 Jon I remember this.
34:34.18 stanlemon Yeah, that was something.
34:34.24 Jon hi I warned you against that, but...
34:37.54 stanlemon You know, I don't have any regrets, man. I
34:39.78 Jon I know you liked it a whole lot more than I did.
34:43.62 stanlemon i think there's, well, okay. You have to keep in mind, a book like Moby Dick, you will like better if you have someone to talk to it to to excuse me to talk to about it.
34:54.66 stanlemon Right. So I had, I had my beloved professor read the talk to about Moby Dick. And I think being able to talk to him periodically over the course of, it was, gosh, it had been at least a month plus about what was going on, like made the book better. Right.
35:14.24 stanlemon Allowed me to mind depths.
35:14.39 Jon time.
35:14.99 stanlemon of it The other thing too is, you know, as so many things in life, there's a lot of Star Trek to the wrath of Khan that like echoes Moby Dick. And so. you know, I watched Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan before I started the book, after I finished it, and maybe three or four times in between. And so you take all of that, right, and you tie it together, and it makes the book better as well.
35:36.58 stanlemon So, you know, there there was that element. But then the other thing i wanted to do, the other book I wanted to read this year was Lord of the Rings, which I've read before, but I set the goal specifically of reading Lord of the Rings slowly.
35:49.51 stanlemon And so i took I took probably three and a half, four months to read Lord of the Rings. And I read The Hobbit before and I read that one slowly too. one No more than one chapter a day. um And i I gained a different appreciation for that book by reading it slowly, which was the objective, right?
36:09.79 Jon Well, I'm definitely a fan of the second book that I wanted to read this year.
36:10.37 stanlemon So,
36:14.98 stanlemon yeah I know you are. When was the last time you read it?
36:18.85 Jon um Two years ago?
36:22.40 stanlemon Okay. so you do, you do.
36:24.58 Jon I am due. There's some other stuff that I've been reading this year. I've been working through another fantasy series or fantasy author that you have put me on to. so I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson this year.
36:37.19 stanlemon ah you Are you thinking of going down the Stormlight Archive?
36:39.84 Jon I have bought The Way of Kings. um I have read the prologue. um So I will continue on.
36:48.96 stanlemon Okay, i want I want regular updates on this. This can be a podcast that we can talk about. um um for for here here's Here's the thing I wanted to pose, least as a starting point here.
37:00.10 stanlemon My goals, my habits for the last few years, I actually write them down. i don't Do you write yours down?
37:06.79 Jon I have, I don't know if I did last year.
37:11.52 stanlemon Okay, so I actually, i keep a note, an Apple note, and each year i put a heading and I list them out. I actually, um like last year, I got too greedy with my goals and I struck out the ones I decided to eliminate, which was totally fair, right? There was one right once a week. I just didn't get it done. i didn't i didn't have I couldn't do it with everything else. But then I used little emojis to track, you know, met, not met, that kind of thing.
37:38.63 stanlemon And I've been adding this note over the years so I can look back and see what they are, which is kind of cool. um In 2024, my list got too long. 2025, I tried to stay pretty focused.
37:50.08 stanlemon I keep asking myself like for 2026, is it maintaining the habits that I formed? Do I need to always be creating new habits? do i Do I care that much?
38:02.24 stanlemon What do you think about new habits? Do you always have to be forming new habits?
38:05.41 Jon um i do not think that you always need to be forming new habits and i don't think you always need to be trying something new or doing something new either i think there is a time to be comfortable in kind of your cadence of life um So I think that it's more protecting that from bad habits forming.
38:28.96 Jon Like if you start, you know, scrolling on Instagram reels for two hours every day.
38:34.66 stanlemon Hey man, hey, I had had a little bit of downtime today. i know you you probably like opened it up and saw like 16,000 of them. That's all right, that's all right. Once I get back into my my work group routine.
38:43.12 Jon I have. And they're getting more and more like out there. Like it used to just be Lord of the Rings themed and now it's like, and don't know what's going on anymore, Stan.
38:53.89 stanlemon that The four blue dogs one, that was good, that was good.
38:56.48 Jon That was, that was good.
38:58.02 stanlemon Okay, I think i think my Instagram, um algorithm at this point is a combo of Lord of the Rings, some wacky lawn and garden stuff, a whole bunch of like gym rat stuff, which makes no sense.
39:16.11 stanlemon Cause I'm not a gym rat, ah a bunch of, a bunch of Pilates stuff. And then, um,
39:20.27 Jon That's probably from when you tagged all the appnes Apple Fitness Plus people. Got you in the fitness algorithm.
39:25.53 stanlemon it could be got me in the fitness algorithm. Um, but then lately it's been this, this, uh, like millennial, um, I don't know, stuff.
39:35.69 stanlemon i don't even know what to call it. Millennial stuff. And I'm finding that very amusing. The millennial memes, millennial means millennial reels.
39:42.06 Jon Nice.
39:42.95 stanlemon so But I think one of the things, back to the the habits that I've been trying to decide on, is the habits that I have that are well-established, do I even bother to write them down?
39:44.26 Jon Nice.
39:55.71 stanlemon like i I have a habit that I want to keep going in 2025. No change there. um That habit's been established, we'll say for four years, five years. Do I write it down?
40:06.94 stanlemon Do I need to, or do i drop it?
40:09.79 Jon i would not I would not write the habit down um unless you have like a specific milestone or something you're trying to hit.
40:10.23 stanlemon Like, does it matter?
40:18.85 stanlemon Oh, interesting. See, I think a bunch of my habits probably this last year did not have distinct milestones. Like I'll give you a good example. When I wanted to play the guitar regularly, like practice my guitar regularly, there's,
40:30.31 Jon Well, that was a new habit, right? It's not something you've been doing for four years. So like if you want to up if you want to up the...
40:36.29 stanlemon Well, two and a half.
40:39.84 Jon like cadence in what you're doing something, I think write it down. um But if it's just kind of maintaining the status quo, then if you aren't concerned about it or if you don't have like something you're trying to hit, like on a guitar, if you want to learn how to play, i don't know, some cool classical finger picking Christmas song by December, then do that.
41:03.49 stanlemon But that's that's a goal. That's not a habit at that point, right?
41:06.27 Jon Correct. Yeah. So like if the habit is formed, you probably aren't even really thinking about it anymore.
41:08.18 stanlemon Okay.
41:14.14 stanlemon Yeah. I worry sometimes about stopping my habits and not realizing I'm stopping them.
41:20.20 Jon Interesting.
41:20.22 stanlemon That's, that's something that's like often on my mind, right? Like the read every day one, if it's not on the list, am I going am I going to slow down, stop reading? Cause I went, there was a big stretch of my life pre pandemic in particular that i that I didn't read. Like I just straight up didn't read books.
41:36.86 stanlemon I read emails, I read blog articles, but i didn't read books. And I, you know, I think I have a slight paranoia that I'm going to revert back to that.
41:47.58 Jon I don't think it's going to happen, Stan.
41:50.43 stanlemon You think is that, that well galvanized into my, my aura at this point?
41:55.45 Jon Probably.
41:57.34 stanlemon right. Well,
41:57.72 Jon like Do you do it at a certain time every day or does it change?
42:02.01 stanlemon Oh, my reading? No, I do not read. ah in fact, um it's just ah I read in between moments. So i I like to sit down and read, but I use it as like anytime I can in between things that are going on, I will read.
42:13.66 Jon Yeah. so like
42:21.98 stanlemon So it's it's a habit that fills the moment. It's not a habit that I set aside time for.
42:27.93 Jon So basically, you have to protect against bad habits then. So keep reading instead of scrolling on Instagram Rails.
42:36.00 stanlemon Yeah, but I love Instagram reels.
42:38.36 Jon So maybe you need to put that one down, Stan. But once you hit, like, brush your teeth, then i don't think you need to write it down anymore.
42:47.64 stanlemon Yeah, but ah brush brush my teeth. Yeah, I get you. I think there's there's some other stuff. I mean, the practice guitar is a good example of one, right? Like, you know, does that need to be written down of this point?
42:58.33 stanlemon I don't think so. Yeah.
43:01.44 Jon and Especially since you like you're doing guitar because you enjoy it. and And so it's just kind of entertainment habit for you at this point.
43:15.42 stanlemon Yeah, it could be. i you know Yeah, that's fair. Fitness is another one that I always debate, right? Do you think at this point, John, that I could wake up and not do a Pilates session?
43:27.07 Jon I do not. I think that at this point your fitness app um is pristine. So I don't think you would want to mess up those rings.
43:38.68 stanlemon hey I don't know. It's funny you mention that because I don't know that I actually care about the streak of rings
43:45.66 Jon Interesting.
43:45.98 stanlemon like i the The rings are not the motivating factor for me on the fitness journey. do Do you believe me when I say that?
43:57.12 Jon um I do believe you when say that. When you say that.
44:00.72 stanlemon Okay. All right.
44:01.33 Jon Wow. Again, i was in the car for eight hours today, so I'm trying to word.
44:05.64 stanlemon Okay. You're trying to worry. i think I think it's cool, but there's a certain point at which some of the streaks surrounding that and like the movement of goals becomes kind of silly, to be honest with you. so For example, right if you've done the monthly challenges, every so often you've got a month challenge that is just absurd. right i think mine this month 14 days minutes
44:36.76 stanlemon of exercise right?
44:38.26 Jon Yep.
44:39.48 stanlemon ah Which, yeah, and I'm not going to change it, right?
44:39.64 Jon And your ring is usually set to 30 minutes of exercise.
44:45.58 Jon Right.
44:45.82 stanlemon So, i the only reason I closed that goal this month is because we went on a vacation where we did a boat ton of walking, right?
44:55.19 Jon Nice.
44:55.87 stanlemon And without that, I don't close it. A thousand percent don't close it. So,
45:00.16 Jon Well, I did not close my 14 days of an absurdly high move calorie goal, so...
45:08.22 stanlemon Yeah, those, man, those are so frustrating. Especially because my fitness routine has a lot of resistance training, which doesn't burn calories on the watch.
45:18.49 stanlemon Like it it doesn't it doesn't register a ton of calories. So like your move goal, I don't know. This this is what I mean, right? Like i think there's enough nuance now and I understand my my pattern, of my routine that it's less ring motivated than not.
45:34.52 stanlemon Like I i don't know if it was ever ring motivated to be completely honest with you.
45:38.14 Jon yeahp I think that you are very much outcome motivated mainly not dying at the young age of yes
01:07.84 Stan Lemon i want to be able to, want to be able to stand up on my own two feet. Yeah. Which, you know, gosh, man, and i think of all the attempts I've had at fitness over my, my life and the, like, I don't want to die young.
01:22.53 Stan Lemon has somehow managed to be the most motivating one of them all. Um, and it's weird too, because it wasn't like a specific, I'm going to go lose this number of pounds or I'm going to bench press or anything like that.
01:37.61 Stan Lemon Like it was just, yeah, no, definitely not run a marathon.
01:38.00 Jon or in a marathon.
01:41.12 Jon got some of those in your house.
01:41.36 Stan Lemon Funny enough though. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there is, um, the the goal was just to do something and with variation.
01:52.32 Stan Lemon So that maybe this is the thing that's, that was most unique about the last year, actually last two years, right. um Was rather than just do one thing to do different kinds of things all the time and to have that variableness to it.
02:07.93 Stan Lemon So, you know, there's a certain amount of variableness you get just by Pilates in general.
02:08.00 Jon Yep.
02:12.46 Stan Lemon And that's my big part of my routine, but, also cycling and rowing and some of the strength routines and bicycling outdoors and most recently running and like in swimming like that. So like just having that constant mix um because one of the things that I realized, at least for me, is I was mostly cardio centric, not a lot of resistance training.
02:36.00 Stan Lemon um And I suspected that was probably not good because I, you know, I think with so many things, a balanced perspective on it, leads to the best outcome. And I realized at least for me, fitness wise, I've never had a balanced approach. Not not once.
02:52.90 Stan Lemon um
02:54.59 Jon What about like high school gym class?
02:58.11 Stan Lemon Oh, high school gym class is a joke. And in um I mean, do like, I went to a public school. My gym class was pretty darn big. um We did bowling at one point where we actually went to a a bowling alley.
03:13.22 Stan Lemon We did have a swimming section. We had a bunch of stuff that actually happened in the gym. And I don't remember what we did at all. Like I couldn't tell you. um
03:25.15 Jon Badman.
03:25.57 Stan Lemon And then I didn't take gym by last year either. So there's that.
03:28.50 Jon Oh, so he only got two years of gym.
03:30.81 Stan Lemon Yeah, only tears at gym in high school. So maybe maybe maybe there's a whole bunch of stuff they did junior year that I missed out on. But um I ran a lot back then, right?
03:35.47 Jon Let's not.
03:39.27 Stan Lemon That was definitely a thing I did. But that was it. And I wasn't running. i don't think i ever timed. So in high school, when I would run, i don't think I timed anything.
03:49.98 Stan Lemon And I didn't even keep track of distance. I remember I had mom drive a ah route that I did with some consistency one time just to get a ballpark, but you know, that very different running, right? So like Lucy, when she goes runs now, it's all about a specific distance. It's all about a specific time. She's got routines built up all around it. That's not how, how I ever ran. And even today, all I'm trying to do when I go run is I'm going to do like one mile.
04:17.90 Stan Lemon I'm not going to die and I'm not going to walk in the middle of it. And I'm like, I said, a loose time window, right? Like I have a certain target that I would like to hit. before I die, just to spite one person I work with whom I love dearly.
04:31.30 Stan Lemon um And then I'll be fine.
04:33.12 Jon For a mile.
04:34.72 Stan Lemon for no No, no, no, no. I think i think the magic number is 813. I think an 813 mile is what I'm gunning for because it's one second faster than, again, this this person I like who talks trash.
04:47.49 Stan Lemon So, you know. And I'm not a competitive person, Jonathan. I'm really not. Everybody says I am, but I'm not.
04:53.86 Jon You kind of are. I don't know if it's competitiveness or ego, but.
04:56.20 Stan Lemon Yeah.
04:59.00 Stan Lemon It's ego. it's It's ego. I don't think it's competitive because I don't i't really and't really care. there's There's no winning or losing. It's ego, right?
05:06.83 Jon Okay.
05:07.49 Stan Lemon But yeah, the the the perspective on fitness, I think different. And you know even like food stuff too. You were here. i didn't You didn't see me like micromanage my food as far as I can recall, right?
05:20.73 Jon True.
05:21.79 Stan Lemon Okay. I do have a propensity to track my protein because I i recognize that I feel better when I have a higher protein diet, but even that it's not been about like weight loss.
05:35.78 Stan Lemon I did not set a weight loss goal this year.
05:39.22 Stan Lemon and I don't think I will next year.
05:39.12 Jon But you do have a weight loss goal, right? Or is it the goal that you're trying to avoid so you don't have to bring back the earring?
05:47.68 Stan Lemon ah No, no, have it be um no, I didn't set a weight loss goal this year.
05:49.74 Jon ah
05:57.18 Stan Lemon i don't plan to next year either. um And I didn't even set like a you know, inches off the belt kind of thing because I, you know, I've been focused on some resistance training, right?
06:10.50 Stan Lemon So my anticipation actually that my weight would go up, not down.
06:13.40 Jon Yep.
06:14.40 Stan Lemon Um, so, you know, I don't know I think, man, weight loss goals too. They're, they're such a mind game. Cause you want to like make a mad rush to get to zero, right?
06:26.42 Stan Lemon Not zero, but you like mad.
06:26.68 Jon And zero is unhealthy. Yes.
06:28.38 Stan Lemon Yeah. Zero's unhealthy, but a mad, mad rush to get to the goal. And, and again, like this goes back to the, like, there's no sustaining right on it. Um,
06:39.02 Jon Yep. And I think that this works whenever you're trying to develop habits or try to get other people to develop habits who you work with. Maybe it's like, hey, go through my ah lieutenants to actually get my attention.
06:55.71 Jon um But it's like, yes, you could set... a quarterly sales goal for a salesperson, right? But chances are they have to do things on a daily basis to actually reach that sales goal if it's right sized.
07:12.54 Stan Lemon If it's right sized. Yeah.
07:13.95 Jon And like you ask questions in a certain way when you're in these situations and you pick up the phone and call people um and just kind of building those work habits um are the stepping to stones that get you to the goal in the business context.
07:32.16 Stan Lemon That's, that's a good call. And, um, here's a, uh, I don't know, random a piece of data. My Lord of the Rings goal, right? um I think i've I finished that, what, like two weeks ago, three weeks ago?
07:44.03 Jon Sounds right. Yep.
07:44.86 Stan Lemon it wasn't It wasn't that long ago. And if you look at the calendar, right, and I did every, like, you know, no more than one chapter a day, that means I started that goal pretty late in the year.
07:56.22 Stan Lemon um And this was different. This is a different like vibe for me because usually start of the year, going to go for it. I deliberately did not start this one until we were on our cruise in the Mediterranean because i first of all, I didn't want to, but I also knew that the number of days, i basically took the number of chapters times two. And I was like, all right, I have to start sometime in the second half to the last third of the year. Right.
08:24.80 Stan Lemon And I modified the goal ever so slightly because it said, you know what, I'm going actually read the Hobbit first and I'm going to do the Hobbit slowly. And then I'm going to go right in into Lord of the Rings.
08:32.12 Jon Which makes sense.
08:32.35 Stan Lemon Um, Yeah. and And so I actually started that on the cruise ship, you know, one chapter The Hobbit a day, which is also not a lot because it's ah it's a pretty small book and I wasn't really super committed to reading a lot while on the boat.
08:44.72 Stan Lemon But that was my progression then into the second half of the year and reading Lord of the Rings slowly. And I knew I needed to double the number of days because like stuff's going to happen. I'm like, I'm not going to necessarily finish a chapter every day. I may get a couple of pages in some of those chapters are really long too, you know?
09:02.90 Stan Lemon So, um, that's another thing too, that I think i see if this is crazy, but I think not starting some goals on January 1st, it's actually super helpful. Yeah.
09:14.68 Jon And yeah, I think that if you want to do something, just start it. Like maybe there's a good reason to postpone it for a time. Like maybe, hey, you know that it's going to be really hard to keep this up when you're traveling for Christmas. um Like, OK.
09:30.97 Jon Sure. But like I started being semi-regular with fitness, not to your level. Um, but it was like in the second last week of June. Um, and it was like easy because we were, it was nice outside. So I wanted to be outside, um, and things of that nature. So,
09:53.34 Stan Lemon You say my level of fitness like I'm a fitness nut. I am not. All I do, all I do is I wake up in the morning and I do 30 minutes, usually something on Fitness Plus, and that is it.
10:03.90 Stan Lemon And then I'm done for the day.
10:05.34 Jon You say that, but do you know how many people like couldn't even dream of that, Stan, at this point?
10:05.44 Stan Lemon Like I...
10:13.05 Stan Lemon Okay, I hear you, and but but like... i'm not I'm not going to the gym you know for an hour plus a day or you know I'm not exercising multiple times a day.
10:21.40 Jon Right. And i still will skip multiple days a week, especially when I didn't do anything while I was traveling for Thanksgiving. So...
10:32.76 Stan Lemon i I do break my rules some days. like I didn't do my 30 minutes of Apple Fitness Plus today. went to Pilates class.
10:38.81 Jon what did you do instead? Right.
10:44.44 Stan Lemon But, yeah you know, and I'm not saying this will happen for everybody, but part of part of the thing that I have learned, at least in doing what I do, um is that i am more productive at work.
10:57.18 Stan Lemon I get a faster start. I actually end up like more effective longer. And then, you know, ultimately I go to bed and sleep better too. So, you know, that's that's a...
11:07.26 Jon you You have this hardwired mindset, personality, um
11:15.29 Jon to being... I'm missing the word. um Eight hours of driving again, right?
11:19.04 Stan Lemon 8 hours of driving.
11:21.66 Jon ah You have this self-discipline that I think very few people have. um Like, i I'm pretty hard-headed, so I have a certain level of self-discipline. But you like take it to this whole new level um with pretty much everything that you commit to doing. um so
11:42.85 Stan Lemon I don't, it's fair to say that I don't do, um, havesies. I don't do little things, right? Like I'm either all in or not.
11:49.50 Jon Well, you do little things, but you're all in on them. All
11:52.93 Stan Lemon Oh yeah. But let's, okay. That's what i mean. Like I'm either all in or I'm not in, right?
11:56.67 Jon right.
11:57.01 Stan Lemon There's no, um,
11:59.55 Jon And I think that's pretty rare just based on people that I interact with through my 30 some years of life.
12:07.06 Stan Lemon right. So you think waking up every morning to 30 minutes of Apple fitness plus is just cause I'm, I'm all in.
12:12.96 Jon I think the fact that you've kept this up for what, like three years now? Yeah.
12:17.82 Stan Lemon um probably two and a half, but yeah.
12:18.94 Jon Two and a half.
12:19.97 Stan Lemon Yeah.
12:20.12 Jon So.
12:22.07 Stan Lemon Cause it started of with the elliptical, you know?
12:24.26 Jon right.
12:25.25 Stan Lemon And then i wore the elliptical out. The elliptical had a good long life though. That was, that was a really interesting turning point. The elliptical breaks, right? And that's when I decided to go and do Apple fitness plus, believe it or not.
12:37.09 Stan Lemon Um, because I went to look at replacing, I had no more equipment and I was like, all right, in true sand fashion, I'm going to buy something.
12:38.46 Jon you had no more equipment.
12:46.59 Stan Lemon And I decided I would buy a rowing machine instead of a limb elliptical because I wanted to actually try Apple Fitness Plus. This is a weird way to think about all of this, right?
12:56.37 Jon That is weird. I thought it was because you wanted to do something like active with your arms instead of them just kind of sitting there. something
13:03.33 Stan Lemon Well, the I mean, it's part of it, right? so So the elliptical dies and I'm like, all right, I need something because I wanted to do cardio, right? Because I was in like a cardio only mindset. So I started looking at options. I don't want a treadmill. I do not want a treadmill in my house. I think treadmills they're just so stinking heavy, they're impossible to move, they take up a lot of space. If you're buying a Peloton, they're downright dangerous. like i just I'm not a treadmill guy. right So that was out.
13:34.08 Stan Lemon was like, well, I could do i could do a bike, but I really don't like biking indoors. I don't like biking indoors the same thing reason i don't like running indoors. Part of the thing that I like about biking and riding is being outside.
13:45.61 Jon Sure. Mm-hmm.
13:45.98 Stan Lemon So, you know, the progression of thought then is like, well, what's next? And so I actually used our friend, ChatGPT. And this is, these are like, this is early days, right? Because I've had the rower now for like a year and three months, something like that.
14:01.66 Stan Lemon And Chachupiti convinced me that the rowing was ah was an interesting way to do cardio and layer on resistance, right? Because when you do rowing, you're not getting the same type of resistance like if you do dumbbells or whatever, but you you work a crazy number of muscles. Same thing like with swimming, right? Like if you go swim, you work so many muscles, it's just insane. I went swimming the other day and I was i was like dead to the world the next day. um
14:33.24 Jon Nice.
14:33.37 Stan Lemon But the thing with, so that was, this was the progression. ChatGPT was like, hey, you should check out rowing. And then I was like, all right, well, how do I know, you know, like do I just row a constant for an interval or whatever?
14:46.17 Stan Lemon And um it talked about different plans, different techniques, and then starting to list out subscriptions. and one of the things that mentioned was that Apple Fitness Plus has rowing. And so I looked at it and I was like, okay, this is really intriguing.
14:59.84 Stan Lemon maybe I should just try it. And so I i bought, I bought a rowing machine. I bought a rather inexpensive rowing machine. I did a little bit of research again with Chachi PT to find, you know, what type of rowing machine I wanted, but I just got something from like sunny fit health. Um,
15:15.71 Stan Lemon And turns out I love that. And I, that was actually kind of the gateway drug to adding resistance training into the mix because i was doing cardio and doing some resistance training. And I had, so I'm now in the Apple fitness plus ecosystem.
15:29.01 Stan Lemon Right. And, um, uh, yeah, was already paying for it.
15:30.97 Jon Well, you were already paying for it without ever using it. So you could get the backup, right?
15:34.35 Stan Lemon And I had done, I had done, I'd done a few things. Like I think I had done core. I did the dance thing once, um, which, you know, it is what is so,
15:44.03 Jon You still got try kickboxing though.
15:45.79 Stan Lemon i yeah I do.
15:45.78 Jon Kickboxing is fun.
15:46.51 Stan Lemon I do. I do. Yeah. No, I absolutely do. But the the thing that happened next was that a colleague told me, hey, you should try Pilates because I was flying around a lot and my back was starting to bother me. right And when I did wouldn and i did a single 10-minute Pilates session on Apple Fitness Plus, and I was like, holy crap, that's that's intense.
16:07.61 Stan Lemon And then I ignored it promptly for a while.
16:09.56 Jon All right.
16:09.85 Stan Lemon Then i want I want to go into physical therapy for the back. And I was starting to notice the symmetry between some of the things that they had me doing with the resistance bands and things I had observed in Pilates. Right. And so that drove me back to them being curious about it and tried it from there. And then I kind of fell in love. So then then I had this routine um that I was largely alternating between rowing and um uh pilates and that has just kind of snowballed into layering on the other things lucy really wanted an exercise bike so i finally went bought an exercise bike she doesn't use it anymore but i do use that with the apple fitness plus uh cycling so you know but that diversity actually i think helped me jonathan in terms of like establish your routine with the different things so the only constant is fitness plus right
16:44.44 Jon Come on, Lucy.
16:59.09 Jon Oh, it's activity too. Like I think that you could survive without Fitness Plus. Pilates would be a little more difficult, but you've probably done enough of those now that you could make up your own routine.
17:08.57 Stan Lemon Yeah, well, and that, the funny thing about that is one of the reasons for the the exercise app, which I'm going to finish someday, maybe that'll be my my December thing, was to track just doing Pilates series of five. Because I was like, there's nothing, i haven't found an app that will just let me track it, right, with timers and whatnot.
17:24.93 Stan Lemon And I wanted to just do that.
17:24.96 Jon Sure.
17:25.85 Stan Lemon So I built an app, right?
17:27.58 Jon Because you can. Now anyone can.
17:28.73 Stan Lemon Because I can. Yeah. Well, I mean, anyone can with Lovable, right, Claude. Yeah.
17:35.45 Jon You know, we were doing so well. um Elizabeth almost would have liked this episode and now we've talked about AI again.
17:42.88 Stan Lemon ah Oh, hey, you're you're crazy hot take for you. I've been using Quad Max today. The default model is Opus now instead of Sonnet, and I'm not really sure what to make of that.
17:53.66 Stan Lemon So yeah, ah I'm not sure that's just, i think it might be just a Quad Max thing.
17:53.88 Jon Interesting.
17:59.93 Stan Lemon um Opus was related released with like a big splash this week. And ah apart from it telling me earlier that iOS 26 wasn't a real thing, it's been pretty good.
18:09.90 Jon Okay.
18:10.36 Stan Lemon I moved pretty quick on a bunch of different projects. So, um, which that, so the last thing i want to talk about actually is, um, one of those projects. So I, uh, gosh, what was was probably like a year and a half ago. Did we start prototyping the wine app?
18:31.04 Jon Maybe even longer.
18:33.60 Stan Lemon I wonder if I can find this quickly. So so we had this idea, because we like tasting wine, that we would make a wine tasting application. You were going to be the product manager and I was going to build the application.
18:47.42 Jon Build the things. Yes.
18:48.54 Stan Lemon Build the things. And um I ah started on that. I think I had a pretty good run where i was doing a bunch of changes. I was using a bunch of the work that I did with dollar and cents to make it go faster.
19:01.21 Jon m
19:03.09 Stan Lemon Right.
19:04.07 Jon Yep.
19:04.35 Stan Lemon But I also, was just crazy busy. So it looks like we started this in May, the beginning of May, 2023. Right.
19:12.12 Stan Lemon right. And so we had pretty rapid fire development up until I'm going to say August of 2023.
19:19.05 Jon Just when you started traveling.
19:19.19 Stan Lemon And then there was a hiatus.
19:20.93 Jon Yeah.
19:21.62 Stan Lemon Yeah. There you go.
19:22.36 Jon Well, we hit some friction points too. Like I couldn't get any testers to actually test out the app to get more feedback. And then we were having questions about pricing models and kind of go-to-market type things there, which I think are all, we have more tools now.
19:36.21 Stan Lemon Yeah. And I,
19:40.15 Stan Lemon We have more tools. I think the other thing too is I think we got a little bit of ahead of ourselves because there were, I had some questions about certain architectural choices in the application and to change them was difficult. The other thing is with Swift development in particular, it is sometimes really hard to find examples of working code And ah the feedback loops can be really slow, right? Just the nature of iOS development. And this is where our friend, Claude, comes into play because I sat down this morning.
20:15.25 Stan Lemon Yeah, it was this morning. And the last time I had touched this application was in May of this year to try and an icon. That's all i all I did. Before that, it was January, right, of 2024.
20:28.49 Jon sweet in there.
20:29.81 Stan Lemon It's been sitting there. And um I have done a whole bunch of refactoring, retooling. overhauled I think we call it the charts tab, but it's actually the the insights tab on this thing now.
20:41.87 Stan Lemon And um did a bunch of modernization, fixed a bunch of bugs. And I honestly had it doing most of the work either while I was at Pilates class today or while I was watching the Steelers.
20:54.27 Stan Lemon And I think that I'm going to push this up.
20:54.97 Jon Nice.
20:59.09 Stan Lemon um It's probably going to be tomorrow at this at this rate just because it's late. But I'm going to push this into test flight at some point within the next 24 hours. And I think that we should use it this Oh, um I have a random data generator too, so you can look at it.
21:15.80 Jon nice
21:15.89 Stan Lemon So, yeah. I don't know how to delete all of those things. we like I got to come back to that. So, I think we should try it out for the the Wall Street Journal Advent wine calendar that we both got.
21:29.70 Jon Ah, yes.
21:30.100 Stan Lemon So, because that'll give us a daily checkpoint on the application and I can have Claude do things day to day, right? To enhance it.
21:39.03 Jon And we'll have 24 real live use cases.
21:44.93 Stan Lemon real live use cases. And I think, are we going the thing we did last year where we jumped on a call and talked about the wine?
21:50.77 Jon I think so. That was fun.
21:52.53 Stan Lemon That was fun. So, so, uh, that's why I resurrected the app. I got pretty far today. i got somewhere to do. Um, my main thing is I got to make sure that um, the photos piece works. That was one of the things that maybe gave me the most anxiety last time we did this, um, or played around with this is because, you know, data storage is, is a thing.
22:14.93 Stan Lemon Um, but, um,
22:14.94 Jon Yep.
22:17.37 Stan Lemon assuming that I can get all that done, taken care of and ready to go, we'll have something to play with. I think it'd be, think it'd be, I think it'd be fun.
22:26.55 Jon Nice. I like it.
22:27.75 Stan Lemon So, yeah, I, what I, what I appreciate is here's an idea i had that put some time into, you put some time into and um the, the struggle, the thing that made it slow was more about debugging
22:28.77 Jon I'm excited.
22:45.27 Stan Lemon and tracking down documentation or how to do something than it was writing actual code. And that's something that Claude is really good at, right?
22:50.56 Jon True.
22:53.53 Stan Lemon Like I want to go do X and it'll just go do it. And it'll find out how, and I can look at I can review it and then say, actually, no, I didn't like how to do it. Go do it this way, right? So.
23:03.41 Jon Okay. I'm excited now.
23:05.38 Stan Lemon All right. Now I guess the, the kicker here is if anybody is interested in the wine tasting application, uh, you should reach out. What is it? Podcast at twist of lemon pod.com.
23:16.34 Stan Lemon Uh, is our email address. Shoot us an email. I will absolutely add you as a test flight, uh, user and, um, and we'll give it a go.
23:25.75 Jon Yep, sounds awesome.
23:27.67 Stan Lemon All right, cool. And I guess on the next next time we meet we'll have to talk about how the app has been doing, maybe what we think of the Wall Street Journal wine advent calendar. For those that don't know, we did the Star Trek advent wine calendar last year, which I would say about half those wines were decent, respectable.
23:47.63 Jon That's generous, but yeah.
23:48.89 Stan Lemon Okay. um And then there were a few that were so egregious that we knew that we wouldn't do the Star Trek advent wine calendar again. So...
23:57.56 Jon which seems like other people have had that ah thought because they're pushing them really hard and it's really close to Advent. so
24:04.17 Stan Lemon They're pushing them really hard. Yeah. the The drip campaign for those has been a little ridiculous, but yeah. So anyhow, I think we'll we'll call out at that, Jonathan, and we will we'll talk about the app and the wine next time.
24:20.12 Jon All right. Sounds good. Thanks for another our episode.
24:23.25 Stan Lemon right. Until next time, Jonathan.
24:25.53 Jon Later. Bye.