Scribe

Thanks so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to talk with you guys today.

Yeah. So, you know, actually my background is in largely marketing and branding and I had been doing that sort of work for probably. I don't know what it ended up being maybe around like 10 years. And during that time I was really into productivity, my personality such that I'm fairly goal oriented by nature and I am fairly maybe focused by nature. Right. And I would really go pretty deep into a lot of best practices around productivity, Especially the last probably five years reading all the different kind of ways you can hack things and try to optimize things. Yeah, yeah, just. Just getting really deep into that stuff. And simultaneously I've been interested in psychology for a long time and more holistic, like spiritual growth as well. And what I ended up finding was that really productivity and productivity in these, in these spiritual masters and psychological best practices around flourishing all pointed to the same common ideas and principles which I saw most profoundly lived out in monks. And so it's hard for me to explain exactly the specific genesis of the monk manual other than to say, I mean, it really just came out of my own life path. As I alluded to, I was really into productivity and I'd often find that in many ways would end up happening is I pushed myself kind of too so hard and try and focus so much on being more productive that it actually was leaving me somewhat frazzled and maybe feeling like a little bit less human. And I think at the bottom of all that, I realized that it's funny, I think we turn to productivity thinking like we want to be productive, but what we really want, I think is peace. Right. And at least for me, I was finding this path to productivity is like the world was prescrib describing. It was not really leading me to peace. So I was trying to find a different way. And that's kind of what led me to the monk manual.

Yeah, you know, it came out of my own, as you just said. It did come out of my own desire to have a system for myself. I think that there is, there's some truth to sometimes like the areas where you're naturally weak. So I was just explaining some of the ways I wasn't really finding peace. You kind of find that you know the contours of that a lot better than other people. It's like you kind of know your, when you work into your weaknesses, you actually end up having a real sense of insight that maybe isn't as commonly found for people who it maybe just comes naturally for. So I think after making this discovery, one of the things that really was agitated is not the word, but really inspired me was this idea of trying to create A system for people that could just lead them to live a more holistic lifestyle, that could help them to be more reflective, more grounded in the present moment, to really be able to have some level of accountability and to do their most important work. Again, a lot of productivity is really built off of efficiency and just trying to get through as much as you can. But I think the missing piece in a lot of productivity is actually reflection, right? Like the ability to say, to actually work out what matters and what doesn't.

Like you could spend three years of your life chasing after a goal that you then come to realize you never even really wanted or was just kind of a complete waste of time. And often we're moving so fast that I think that's a very common thing, right? We have. We have an illusion of progress because we just confuse activity with progress, and it's not the same thing. So I think that I saw that the productivity, the common wisdom around productivity, I think today is fundamentally broken, actually. And I wanted to move into that space and in some ways be like a speaker of truth. That sounds really romantic and dramatic, but that is actually how I feel.

Yeah, it's a great question. It started with this idea that there was some sort of wisdom held within the life of monks that I wanted to port over. And what I ended up doing was taking. Taking that idea and building a system that I even from the beginning, was planning on having as a system for others. But I did have a period of time where I was trying to work through it myself. So I think prior to. I started the monk manual through a Kickstarter, actually, that's how I launched it. And prior to doing that, I think I was using it in some form or fashion for probably close to the finished version for about six months, where I was just printing out pages and I had in a three Ring binder. And it was. It was really kind of. It was pretty rough, right. But not nicely designed or anything like that. But it was. It was the system. And in that I tried to really work through what was working what wasn't and try to. And I had a few. A number of other people who were also in kind of like a beta group that I would start bringing in to try and get their feedback as well. But I tried to really, I guess again, feel out the contours of it and see what really made sense. But beyond that, I guess what I could say is it wasn't so much something where I was going in blind and just saying, let's throw a bunch of stuff into this pot and see what works. It was really backed from a lot of research I had done in 2000. Was it 18? Whenever it was I was developing this, whether I think it must have been 18, I ended up reading actually like 62 books that year, which I don't say is like some sort of like, pat on the back thing. I think there's actually something in some ways, like, sick about that. Right. Like, it's. I don't recommend that. I think there was. There is some sort of obsession and also probably some sort of like, ego involved in that. I don't think there's really. No one needs to be taking in that much, like, information. But. But all that to say, I mean, I read pretty much every book there is to read on productivity. That's an exaggeration. But I read, I mean, a lot of books on productivity, a lot of books on various approaches to psychology. I was taking in a lot of data sources that were kind of converging in my mind. Right. I'm fairly intuitive as a person, so they were kind of. I was doing a lot of work kind of laying out the puzzle pieces in my mind even far before anything got put to paper, so.

Yeah, sure.

So I'll start by actually by saying if. If you go to first.monkmanual.com you can download the daily pages is a PDF. So anyone who wants to do that can do so. But the planner itself is a 90 day planner. The daily pages are 90 day but there's some extra pages for the weeks and months. Essentially how it works is it's like a waterfall approach in a sense. Right. So you have monthly spreads and each month has a full page spread.

And then every week has a full page spread and every day has a full page spread. And the idea is that you kind of work from the top down because the way we relate to time changes between the size of the unit of time. So you start with the month and then that kind of trickles down to how you plan your week, which then trickles down to how you plan your

to just highlight a couple of things really quick. I think that what you'll find that probably differs from this and any other systems even if you're used to other 90 day planners. Really the focal point. Well, two things. One is there's a real preference for depth over breath. I mean it's fairly intensive and I don't mean that to be intensive does not mean stressful. I think it can sound like it means stressful or it means it's like a ton of work. But I mean it's meant to be. This might sound like an exaggeration, but my hope was actually that it would be like an operating system, not just like an app you'd open up. It would be an actual system upon which you could live your life. And so it's fairly robust. Yeah, like a real framework. Right. Not just like I'm going to go and open this and it's my calculator on my computer to go run some numbers or like an Excel spreadsheet. Right. So there's that. But then the other piece is there's a real preference for reflection for the reasons I alluded to earlier. I think that there is a lot of wisdom out there to point to. A well lived life is kind of built off of a pretty high level of reflection and self awareness and yeah, just cutting once instead of measuring twice and cutting once. I'm kind of a big fan of. Which does fly a little bit in the face of like the whole move fast and break things mantra. But yeah, that's why I believe so Fun irony.

You could probably tell me if I'm wrong or not.

Oh, funny. You know what's actually really funny is I haven't been super. I haven't done much work personally. I've never worked on a team up until maybe like the last three months where I've been working on a project. I do some consulting work as well and we've been doing a lot of agile stuff and it's not agile, but I am fascinated by that idea. Do you know paper planners or anything like that that works off of an agile method? I think that'd be hard.

So where should I start? You know, one of the things, one of the things is I had a few years ago became acquainted with a designer who ended up being the designer for this book and we really hit it off. And so what I ended up doing was I kind of like wire framed out what I wanted on each of the pages and I again, I'm fairly intuitive and one of the things I take a lot of pride in this actually my audience, the people who end up buying the Monk manual, which probably is actually somewhat similar to, I would imagine people who are listening to this podcast are probably pretty intentional. I find people who are really into stationary and into different writing tools and this and that. Right. Like they're not just going and buying the. They're not necessarily living like a commodity based lifestyle. Right. Like there's a certain level of intentionality there. And when I was creating this, I didn't really want to create a commodity. You know, there's a really big market like say Amazon, for example. Right. There's thousands. That's probably an exaggeration, but there's a lot of planners on Amazon and it's kind of like a race to the bottom, right of. Everyone's just got their commodity and they try and use the cheapest materials. And like, basically you go, and someone's selling well, so another person goes and creates the exact same thing and charges a dollar less, just a little. You know what I mean? And that's like, that's fine, right? I'm not. I'm not mad about that, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do something that actually, when people held it, it kind of spoke to their own dignity as a person, right? Like, it. Even when I actually. These books, which a lot of them I was sending out personally in the beginning, we would wrap each of them in a. Like, tissue paper, right? So it's almost like a gift when you get it. And that's really intentional. So, long story short, I really wanted to be intentional with it. And I found a designer I really hit off with, and I put together all these docs that were kind of explaining. Here's what I'm really going for. I was putting together, like, mood boards. I mean, I had pictures of these offices in Paris and stuff, and, like, leather couches and all these things. And I was explaining I was throwing out these people I had in mind. And she kind of just took all that in and gestated, and she really churned out a design that I just felt like, you know, it's really rare for me, at least, where I've worked with a designer or someone in any sort of creative capacity, where it's like you have this vision in your head that is so maybe rich that you can't even really visualize it yourself. And then to have someone really nail it and take it to the next level, that was my experience here. And then, you know, what was really helpful is she had some experience as well in printing. And at the time, I knew that. I don't know. I mean, people have a lot of different opinions on this, right? But I knew at the time that I was going to have to manufacture overseas, because I just did not from the. From a cost standpoint, in the amount of units I was going to be doing. I knew I wouldn't be able to financially swing it if I did in the States, at least to start. So, you know, profit in a really, like, amazing way.

it's so funny, I actually had in my monk manual at the time, I'd written down that I need to find a manufacturer that week. Because I was starting, I was like, all right. I knew I was going to do this Kickstarter, I need to find out the day I was going to do it or I need to figure out what I do for manufacturing. And I had some angst about that. And then I found out that actually my designer was going to China. She texted me like two days later that she was going to China for another client that she had who was sending her. And she was going to go to one of the big stationary expos. Right. And she ended up finding a manufacturer for me who just has been really great to work with. And there's difficulties often from. I don't know if your audience really cares about this, but I think it's interesting. There's difficulties from a logistical standpoint somewhat sometimes. It's been certainly more complicated with this Covid stuff. There's communication breakdowns, but the work they do, because I've gotten samples. I got samples from probably eight different manufacturers. I've since gotten samples from places in the United States.

And by far they've done the best work. And they've just been great to work with. And, you know, one of the things that, I don't know, I kind of feel good about this is even with, like, the coronavirus, I mean, I was surprised to see, like, at certain points they were emailing me asking if they could send me masks and things like that and asking if I was doing okay. Right. Which is you see all these things about kind of these trade wars between China and the US and there's a lot of gamesmanship that I'm sure happens on a macro. But at the end of the day, we're all just human beings trying to do our thing. You know what I'm saying? But I've been happy with it. And the quality, as you alluded to, I feel really proud of the quality of it. I have a number of journals and other, even products planners, things like that. I think it's fair for me to say I'm not saying this because I'm trying to sell anyone. I think this is as good of quality as you're probably going to get unless you're using a real leather, which is because this is a pu leather. But I mean, there's concerns there around ethical concerns a lot of people have as well. So this is kind of a happy medium. Medium.

Yes. Yeah, it was so, so it was. Part of it also is I wanted to, I don't know, I mean, this gets into, this gets really complex. It's funny because like no one's ever asked me any of these questions. Right. But one of the things is,

way to approach the Monk manual on new is I could either go and create them as units you would use and essentially you could save as almost kind of like a maybe like a legacy piece or something that you could refer back to. And because it's so deep and because there's so many questions that are like very, they seem very simple, but they get right to the core of a lot of really deep things that are going on in your life at any given time. I didn't want it to be something that necessarily you just go and throw away. Not that I'm sure some people do do that. And I mean I have had people reach out and say, hey, I'd love to have like a paperback version because like the materials, it's just wasteful or this or that if I'm going to be throwing it out. And I hear that. But you know, if I was going to do a leather thing for like the amount of waste beyond even the ethical concern to go and do something that is unless I was going to have it be a book that could be switched out. The ethical concerns for just doing one is one thing. But then if you're having people get different ones every 90 days, it's just like that's so exorbitant and just not good. Right. So yeah, I don't have any intention of moving to leather. I don't really see a need to do that and I do know there's, there's reasons not to, so.

Yeah. And you know, I wish, I wish I had in front of me all the, all the specs and I don't, and I'm not as, I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but I'm not probably as much of like a stationary. It's not even the stationary nerd. I just don't know. I don't know.

No, that's awesome. I know at a minimum it is like a soy based ink. I don't know all the other details. I know, it's 120gsm paper. I know some of the facts in that regard. I'll tell you this. I actually. So this might not be what people want to hear, but again, I think one of the things that's great about a conversation like this is it's so informal that I can just kind of speak off the cuff. There's a lot of things, like, there's kind of this collision that ends up happening when you do something like this between ideals and, like, pragmatism. Right. Like, when I was talking about the aspect with, like, China. Right. There's a certain aspect of, like, I'd actually love to, like, my end hope is to actually move manufacturing to the United States and actually have, like, do my own manufacturing in, like, an area that's maybe a little bit more depressed and kind of, like, build people up. And so I do have, like, a list of hoping to make, like, you think of, like, an Everlane, for example, or some of these brands that are really, like, a core part of what they do is really trying to have everything as ethical as possible and everything as responsible as possible. My hope is that over time, as the scalability kicks in, to try and reinvest as much as I can into improving those things over time or doing what can be done there, at least.

Can I ask you a question really quick?

What do you find? Because you probably talk to a lot of your audience or have a good finger on the pulse when you think about stationary, what do you think are the things that matter most to people from, like, an ethical standpoint?

I believe, I believe they're made in China. Unless I'm. I'm wrong because I was actually connect. I'm pretty sure that I'm. I've worked with them in the past for samplings and things.

Their manufacturer.

You know, what actually happened, it was, it was really spur of the moment. It was a Sunday night and I had school principal sent me an email asking if they could use the daily page spread and just give it out to their students. This was maybe a week or two into when all the schools had shut down. I was like, you know, that's such a novel idea. I wouldn't even have thought that principals would want to do that. I was coming face to face with the reality that a lot of people were trying to figure out now, how are they going to deal with a totally different way of life or rhythm for their life. Right. And so I got that email and then I was thinking, you know, what I should do is I should just go ahead and create some varied pages that could be a little bit better suited for students as well as younger students, like children. Because the monk manual, it does work. Like, you could certainly give a monk, the Monk manual to college. There's a lot of college students who actually use it. It's a little bit different for high school. Part of it is you just don't need to have the same level of intentionality around a schedule when your schedule is already set for you. Right. In some ways, one of the things that inspired the monk manual is this idea of a monk lives into this rhythm for their day. Right. It might be like from 10 to 11 they're in some sort of manual labor, and then 11 to 12, they're in whatever, eating lunch. And there's such a freedom that comes from knowing that you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. But what's interesting is like, for like high Schoolers, they already have that, or they did have that, right? It wasn't. They already had this, this real rhythm and routine. So, yeah, I put together these pages rather quickly in just a couple of days and decide I want to give them out for free. So they're on the website. If you go to monkmanual.com there's a little link to student pages and we have a page for parents, a page for kids, like younger students, and then a page for older students, which is probably like middle school and high school. And you don't even have to enter an email or anything. It's just a completely free download. If you want to use those, that's

Hopefully.

Oh, man, that's a good question. You know what? I have a specific pen that my wife has gotten me into and I'm gonna try and see if I have one because I don't. This is the thing. I'm not as well versed as you guys are, so I don't know the names of these things at the time.

You know, right now what I have, this is gonna be really exciting to you because I'm pretty sure this is like a cheap pen that I got from Target. It's called a Pentel. Wow. And I like the fact that you, I don't know, it's Just kind of a smooth writing pen. There's I think maybe are they called like zebra pens or something? Maybe that's the one that I often use.

Yeah, that's often. I think that's my favorite I've used. But I do have this fantasy in my mind of doing being one of those guys who's got like the $150 pen that like I just have as like my legacy pen, like on my desk president or something. You know, have you ever seen those? They got those cool pens. They're like hand machined and things like that. I know you guys are pencil guys, but maybe there's a similar corollary.

Be like, you know what?

I'm not, I'm not making this up when I say this. I will follow up with you guys and ask for your input on, on those sorts of like devices. I, I mean I've had people ask for those things. I just don't really know where to start. Right. Because I'm not, I'm not an expert. It's like designing a car when all you've ever done is written in one of those like plastic ones. Right. That like the little kids riding. Right. So I'm just not, I'm not well versed enough in that. But I will, I'm going to lean into you guys. So you just kind of sign yourself up.

I love it.

Well, you know, you know, this isn't directly answering your question, but one of the things that's funny, I started this group on Facebook called the Camp for People who Use the Monk Manual. And there's a lot of people in the community who are very, they're really like pen, pencil aficionados. I've seen multiple people writing about, hey, what pen to use, what pencil do you use, that sort of thing. But in terms of adjacent products, I am in the process of Creating a few different things. I want to create a meditation journal. I want to create a couple other just basic journals. I have these little journals that I give out for free when people buy a monk manual. So it's kind of like a little surprise and delight item where I just throw in. It's like little pocket journal. I also want to do these. There's a pocket in the back of the monk manual, like in a little, just a pocket. And what I want to do is create a few different, like really thin booklets that can go in there to help almost build it out in sort of like a widget sort of fashion. Right. So some people say, hey, I'd love if there's some extra note pages. So maybe it's like a little thin 12 page booklet of note pages or maybe it's a 12 month calendar or it's like a goal setting tool for the whole year. Right.

Yeah, a manual, the monk manual. And it's, it's, it's all just waterfall. You know, it just keeps on. There's just one small.

There's just a planner inside a planner inside a planner. You just keep on opening it up.

there you go.

Yeah, that's what we need. That's what the world needs.

Yo, let me ask you guys really quick. How has your life changed since all this has happened?

Yeah. So I think. I think that one of the things that I think is relevant about the Hmong's manual, or maybe makes it feel relevant right now, is that

the first insights I had after I have kids and married and the change of pace and everyone being here, what I end up thinking about at one point, a couple weeks in, was that. But it's fascinating how much we, over time have outsourced, right, As a culture. And I'm not saying this is wrong, but think of my kids, for example. They would be going normally to school every day, and for most of the history of humanity, that was not the case. But we decided at some point we were going to outsource and our kids would go off to school and we'd go off to our business and all these things would kind of be decentralized. And in many ways it's been centralized now. And I think that part of it is. It is complicated because we're dealing with all these things that no one has infrastructure for. Like, as a culture, we don't have infrastructure, but in our own lives, we don't have infrastructure. But what I think the Monk Manual is, who the Monk Manual works really well for, is people who have some degree of relative. I don't know if autonomy is the word, but maybe agency, the ability to go and shape and to influence, to take charge. Carpe diem is not the right way to put it because it's not about crushing anything, really, but it is about taking responsibility and really driving intentionality in your life. And I think probably in some ways we have more opportunity for that because. Because no one's really doing it for us. There's so much that normally, our boundaries, other people set, that we're living into, and now we're creating our own boundaries and our own systems. And so I think something like the Monk Manual can be really helpful when you're trying to develop your own system of life. Right. Maybe where you would normally be operating in an operating system someone else creates, now you're having to create your own. And so something I think like the Monk manual can be a good starting point.

Yeah. So I really, if you, if you go to monkmanual.com you'll see it's not a huge site from just being sprawling or anything. It's a few different pages. There's some content on some of the principles behind it. You can buy the Monk Manual there as well, just@monkmanual.com and then I mean probably the most active other thing is our, is our Instagram. You can sign up for emails and I do put out a newsletter about every month that a lot of people really like. At some point I'll have those readily available, all the different reflections that are generally in this space. But really it's just kind of a reflection on whatever is, I guess the wisdom that I feel like is helpful to share at that time. So yeah, Monk Manual on instagram and then monkmanual.com probably the best places to go.

Yeah, thank you so much. This has been great.

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