Ask Us Anything: Working through Christmas + Should high school students get jobs?

I'm Adam Schwab. I'm a deer shift player. And this is the Contrarians with Adam and I deer. And we are back episode 168. Ask us anything where you ask us the questions and we do our best to answer them over to the chief question asker himself, Mark. Hey guys, as always sending your questions any way you can, whether it's linked in in the Spotify comments, just get it to us somehow, just like Robert did this week and Robert asks, recently on the show, I heard you guys talking about why small businesses take time off during Christmas. Do you think it's important to take time off at the end of the year or is it better to work straight through your thoughts? Well, my thoughts are going to be less passionate than your thoughts. My thoughts are there's arguments in both directions. One, I think everyone needs a break. The question is when you take that break, like people that say I work 180 hours, I don't know, 49 non-stop, never take breaks. Look, I'm such a machine. I think you're a machine whose engine is going to burn out at some point in time, not even commenting on the fact that I don't think that's the greatest use of your life personally. But then there's the question if you need to take a break, when should you take that break? I think it heavily depends on what's happening in your industry around this time of year. If you're a banker, like an investment banker, then there is no point working all the way through like a maniac because no one is here. If you're a lawyer, the courts don't even operate at this time of year, like they shut all the judges are on holidays. So there's no point working like a maniac unless there's a particular deadline, whereas I think that if you're a retailer and you're not open like in that lead up to Christmas, slash boxing day, slash early January period, you're probably going to lose a lot of sales in that. And so I think it's heavily industry dependent. I do think though I want to emphasize, like as a human being, you can't just work all the way through for your entire life because that is just a recipe for burnout. And I know I'll make this confession for me personally, like I generally hate holidays. I thought the greatest sales pitch for luxury escapes, but like basically public holidays, I know you and I feel the same about public holidays, like we dread a public holiday because it's just like a lost productivity. And like, I mean, it's not the greatest attitude necessarily to having the world, but I do think human beings need to force themselves to take breaks in order to think more broadly and recharge their batteries. That's my broad view on it. I agree with your first point. There's lots of, I'm the building industry is another classic one that teach education. There's a lot of industry that's shut down. So it just doesn't, so maybe the question was more about if you are able to work, should you work? I think it was actually, I would always be a lawyer, and I think law firms now maybe don't open to wrap, but I used to love working through the Christmas period. It was a bit cruzy, there was no traffic, and you take, if you don't have kids, obviously you have kids is a bit different. If you don't have kids, you can, there's no traffic, like it's just a really great time to work. I would always like to work for that reason. But obviously, I think it's very caveat at if you can't or can't. I think the other thing to note is if you work in a business like a house, and this is more of a general point when I'm leaving, and you're probably going to hate this, but one thing that I absolutely hate, and this is not for sort of called frontline workers, so if you work at, if you're on our call contact center, it doesn't apply, because you answer in customers, but if you're any sort of corporate worker and you go on leave, and don't answer emails and don't check on things, that's a big way to never get promoted in our business, because we want people not on 10 hours a day, but if you're not checking things when you're away for at least half an hour to an hour a day, that's just not acceptable, because things get missed, your colleagues are waiting for staff, customers are waiting for staff, and simply just not the kind of business we want to run. So obviously I'm probably the extreme. I totally agree with you on that. I'm not, there is some balance right, like the way that I like to frame these things, I don't, I mean, it sounds a bit sneaky, but I don't mean this in a sneaky way, is just to say to someone, when you're away, like legally, you've got no obligation to answer your email, but if stuff is happening in your area, I just want to make sure that you're kept informed of it, so that you don't feel like you're being left out or someone's taking over your responsibilities, it's up to you what you do with that. Now people might be very cynical about that and say, well, you've left the person with no choice. Actually, I'm not going to penalise them if they don't respond to those emails. What it means, though, is I keep coming back to this same concept, not enough of their sense of self-worth is based around their performance in the business, because they're happy there's not to think about it, and I think that if your sense of self-worth is not connected to being in the company, then you're probably not suitable to be one of the leaders of the business, because I think I would never again hire a CEO where I've thought whether or not this business succeeds or doesn't, is not going to impact how that person feels about themselves in a significant way. If it's like luxury escapes and how that does is inextricably linked to how you feel about yourself as a person, and I think that that is fundamentally important. I think for CEOs, that's absolutely right, and maybe in high level sales, I'm more talking one, two, maybe even three levels down, and I think that's such a great way to, there's obviously, I think most people want to get ahead, want to get promoted, want to earn more money, want to get more respect, not everybody, but most people want to progress that career, great way to progress your career is to show how aligned you are with the business, and I'm not saying that you take, like I spend six hours a day every day of the year working, I'm not saying people, that's different, you're a founder, but if you spend an hour or two and go above and beyond, what I could say is absolutely noticed by people, and it's certainly noticed by good people, you get huge extra credit points for going above and beyond, and this is not doing stupid unnecessary stuff, I mean doing like stuff that's really relevant, and staying on top of things and answering quickly, and the best way to get, when you get someone's got potential to keep them out of discretionary bonus for somebody, and ideas work, those three hours when he was away, when he didn't have to, that's the way to get discretionary bonus, that's the way you get promotion over John or Jane, who hasn't done that extra extra effort, and good managers will notice it, so I think the questions are a really good one in a few senses, and that whether or not you're officially working, you should be engaged in the business, you could spend your break coming up with new ideas and sending that in, but there's always stuff you can do, and again, there's not compulsory, no one's going to be fired if you don't do it, but if you want to get ahead and you want to get the promotion and you want to get that pay rise, this is great ways to do it. I always say to people in businesses, young people in businesses, if you want to move up an organisation, just show the person who owns the business, this is in fact all the businesses, just show the person who owns the business, how much you care about their business succeeding, and don't grandstand and don't suck up to them, and definitely don't be a sicker fan. One of the greatest, I mean, it's not really a question about taking a holiday, but one of the greatest things that ever happened to me was when I was an intern, I think I was a medical student, and there was this very sophisticated, knowledgeable head of medicine at a big hospital in Melbourne, everyone was terrified of this guy, and he made this comment, and he said something about something in medicine, and I kind of laughed a bit, and there were like 10 people standing around with this guy, and he's like, "Shiffman, what are you laughing about?" He didn't know me very well, and I said, "I'm not sure about that, that stuff seems very dubious to me, I think one day people are going to figure out that that's not true." Everyone was very horrified that I had said that, because everyone just kind of went along with this guy, and there's like this long silence, and then this guy says, "Well that's interesting, because that's how a lot of people feel about this." It is quite dubious, no one's really sure about this, and I thought, you know, that to me is not being a sicker fan, right? Well, I think what you're saying is people love, I think good leaders love being challenged in the right way, not as stupid ways, but if someone comes up with a great argument and say, Adam, why don't we do this? This is my reasoning. That's hugely helpful, and I think that also it can communicate to leaders that you care enough to take a bit of a personal risk, and ultimately what I absolutely, where this kind of conversation is segue to me is, so you and I can agree, I assume, I'm always nervous to try and suggest that we might agree, because I'm going to say something reasonable, and so then I'm nervous about whether you agree, but like, you and I agree that human beings have to have holidays, do we agree on that? Yeah, no, I agree on that. Okay, good, we got that box ticked, so many exit techno holidays, they're going to end up with a heart attack and dead, and definitely not happy, and it's not a good way to live. Oh, so like, you want to, you want to enjoy your life as well, I don't think anybody's been working 55 days. That's right, that's, that's what I mean, it's not a good way to live. And then the thing is, so how should you take holidays, and maybe we've extended this to what should you do on your holidays? And my view is, if you want to go far in a business where there's someone that really cares about how that business performs, and that's my caveat is because in a large enterprises, often there's no one who cares about how the business performs. Yeah, what people care about is their own role and success in the business, but it's nobody's business, so nobody cares. But if you're in a business where someone cares about how it performs, the most important thing to go far is to show that individual or that group that you care about the success of the business in whatever form that takes, and part of that is how you behave when you're away on vacation. The flip side is, if you're junior, and there's a boss that's not letting you have a vacation, because you're finding yourself working three hours a day answering emails when you're on holidays not being paid, I don't support that at all, by the way. Yeah, no, I agree. It should be to a large extent voluntary. Just on that, it's amazing. You've just been probably sent half an hour, certainly an hour, but half an hour a day is all you need to keep up with things and be really impressive. It's not a huge commitment there. And I think about the same token, if you're spending time and not being appreciated, maybe it's not the workplace either, because it's probably people above you don't care. Maybe you should look for another business that actually does appreciate that sort of stuff and maybe you're in the wrong place as well. So there's probably a few interlinked points there, but I think we're largely agree on that one. I just gave some advice to a person running a business and someone running one division. So look not a very big business. A few dozen employees and someone running a division, Gen Z, on a holiday, and their area for the business is not firing, maybe as much as it should at the moment. And this founder was just going to step in and do it. And I said, email this person on vacation and tell them that this stuff isn't going well. You're going to just step in because they're away on vacation. Don't ask them to do anything. Don't make them respond. Don'ts, but just give them, open the window for them to decide how they want to respond to that. And that is going to tell you a lot about how far they can go in the business. And there was an interesting discussion that I had with his founder about, you know, how comfortable or otherwise they felt about saying that email. Yeah. Interesting. Great points. Question number two, Michael. All right. This question comes in on LinkedIn from Pira. She asks, "My son is 17 and spends a lot of his time inside playing video games and reading. I've been trying to encourage him to get a job at one of the local fast food places in the area, but he seems resistant. Is there any advice you can offer around encouraging my son to enter the workforce? And do you think it's important for high school students to work?" I want to put on a mask that makes me look like Adam and answer on his behalf that last bit and say, yes, it's vitally important. Is that what he is about high school students working? Oh, 100%. I got my first job at the age of six months old. I got, you're going to say, I got my first job at six months old. I worked at what if I nappies when I was, now my first, my parents had a cafe and I used to wash dishes when I was like 12. That doesn't count. My uncle is a lawyer. Well, that counts. What do you mean? That's just exploited if indentured servitude, but it still counts from your point of view because it kind of means that from the age of 12, you knew that there's not really any free lunges in this world, but your parents did it in a way that was not, you know, we can say, honestly, it was not there. We're not oppressive to you or whatever, but they did teach you a good lesson when you were 12 years old. What kind of, it probably seems to be done there, but I kind of wanted to, like it wasn't surprised why the dishes didn't start. I totally didn't get that. Yeah. But I think when at my first, I caught for semi-real job, my uncle who was a lawyer, he used to, lawyers used to get these sort of precedence, these sort of filing things. So you have to basically, but things were changed. So now obviously now it's all online, but in the old days, it was paper based. They had always folders. You used to go into a law law office and there's massive folders there, but so they would change. So you have to rip out the old page, put in the new, it was mind-numbingly boring stuff, but it was legal and I wanted to be a lawyer. So I'd do that and it was super generous, my uncle. And he'd give me like a hundred bucks for a day, which that one's huge. It was like, it was like $15 an hour. So I also vanished. We always joke about, I vanished. He stares and for like 25 years, nobody touched the stairs and so that was my first pop-way semi-real job, then obviously, calls at 15 and I think when I was 18, I had three jobs. And yeah, so I obviously getting money and if you want to start a business, it's a great way to start your first sort of capital is to work someone else, but also you get responsibility initiative and you make lots of great friends as well. Like certainly when you go overseas, I made lots of friends when I was in Canada working at a cafe. I made heaps of friends when I was working at Village Jam Factory. So I think it's sort of three to four reasons why it's so important to have one or two or even three jobs. And even paper, or you don't really have paper-owns anymore, but and even that sort of thing to babysitting, which I used to do that as well. So I think the more jobs you can get, the better. And I said, my nephew in the UK is at that age now. And I just had to go and I do this when I was in Whistler literally to print out a resume and give it to a hundred plus different places. And often you'll get rejected, but that's not because of you. That's just because timing's not right. Eventually the timing will, generally the most likely way to get a job is A by being presentable and B by being in the right place right time. So I think Pierre, if you're going to name right, great, great that you're thinking this way. I'd be getting your son or daughter to literally every single business within walking or bike riding distance or if you're driving, if you can take them, apply to it and you'll get something for sure. A hundred percent, someone will want to need you. So I look at this. I'm going to say some stuff now that is grossly hypocritical because at least I'm open about it because like I don't really, I haven't historically pushed my kids massively hard to get jobs. Although, as I've said, like my son works coding stuff, you know, he's like got a little consulting thing that he does. So he, I say little, but actually does, you know, 15, 20 hours a week on it. And my daughter has started an eBay business where she's buying and selling stuff. It's just super impressive at 16. But so I tell you about this situation in my view. You've got a 17-year-old who loves playing video games and reads. So I like those are two of my favorite things in life. And so I'm not in any way critical of those two things. The question is why does this parent want them to work like and like what, why are they not working, like watch and then maybe what should they do? I say three things, right? And so I can move through this pretty quickly. The first is I would say, you know, have you read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? You wouldn't have read it. Mike, I'm guessing yes on you. Yeah, I read it a long time ago, but I have read it. It's a high quality book. Do you remember what advice is on the back of the actual book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Not the book that you read, but the book in the book. What's the back of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy say? No, I can't remember. You know, remember it's the most iconic two words in the whole book. It's don't panic. That's the advice. I think that is great advice for life. And it's great advice for this parent. Don't panic about your 17 year old. There's nothing. It's not terrible that they're not working. It's not a disaster. It doesn't code negatively for the future, but I understand why you do want them to work. And then I'd say, you know, like why what kind of job do I think that they should have in an ideal world? Someone very smart said to me, the best job that kids can have is any job where you're interacting with people like behind a counter or something where you have to develop your interpersonal skills, especially for Gen Z, where they do spend a lot of time on devices and not engaging with people face to face. And it is noticeable often when you have interactions with Gen Z. So I think like working behind a counter somewhere, even if it doesn't have to be a glamorous job, right? Like, you know, this person can go and try and get a job in eb games. If they love video games so much, they say, or a bookstore or whatever, just something where you're interacting with people or a calls or war words. I think that that is good. And then the third question is, why is this person not working now? And I think that they are not working. This is why this kid not working for the same reason that my kids didn't feel compelled to go out and get a job. And that is because when this kid wants a video game, somebody pays for the video game. When this kid wants a book, somebody pays for the book, I can possibly guess who the someone is. And so if you want to play like a real welcome to adult hood game, you can say, you don't have to work, do what you want. But if you, but I'm not paying for video games anymore, and books are a little bit tricky and not to pay for books, but like, let's say, you kind of, we've just stuck with video games. Yeah, I'm not paying for video games, but I'll match, but whatever you earn, I'll match dollar for dollar. And you can decide what you want. Like, step one is earning money and then step two is teaching them what to do with that money. But I think that kind of, there's only one reason people don't work. I mean, there's a small percentage of the population incapable of working. All right, forget about those people. Like we can give them the safety net. But the vast majority of people that don't work, they don't work because they have some, something or someone else that is paying for the things they want and need in life. And if you remove some of that, then they will work. And the reason I framed this is saying, I'm going to wait deep into the, you know, hypocrisy, meresse now is that I don't do that. Like when my kids want something, I pretty much just get it for them. Like, no, they're not, they don't ask for very much to be honest. But ultimately, you know, the reason my son ended up loving work, because he went and did this internship in Israel with, you know, the guys that I'm, yeah, it's with. I'm Lippie and Yoni, who run, multiply me. And, and so the reason that he ended up continuing to work for them and do work for them and now he's doing a whole lot of make.com consulting for different companies that want it is because he finally felt like he was doing something that was providing some tangible benefit. And he could see the positive outcomes of what he was doing. And so as it happens, he's not at all driven by money. He's just driven by wanting to feel the benefit to other people of the work that he's doing. That's actually his motivator. That's great, by the way. But if you are looking for jobs and you're struggling and you get knocked back from four or five or ten jobs, which is pretty disheartening, to be honest, even if you're offering, let me do a one month unpaid internship. And then, I'll show you how good I am. There's lots of ways. I think as long as the KN and Scott, otherwise, says persistence and grit is so critical and being able to overcome rejection is one of the most important. Any salesperson, every founder's a salesperson, if you want to be a founder of business, you got to be able to deal with rejection. And being rejected is how when you're sort of 15, 16-year-old kid getting knocked back and it's not even your fault, which is the timing is not right, but keep at it and even keep at it at places you've been knocked back from. I've had people who have hired who the timing wasn't right. They've come back six months later and timing was right. So as soon as if someone knocks you back once and they hate you, obviously you get knocked back three or four or five times. Probably pick up the hint. It's probably better one for other reasons. But if you get knocked back once, then they don't have another crack. And simply, if you keep trying, you'll absolutely get a job. It's just about being persistent and don't take the rejection personally. It's not just founders like or people running a business like if you want to be a human being on planet earth that has happiness, you better figure out a way to get back up because you're going to get knocked down. Like it's going to be quite morbid, but the people that you care about, they're going to die, the ones at older than you're hopefully not the ones that are younger. And so that's going to knock you down and you're going to get fired or something's not going to work out. You're going to lose money or the life is lots of negative outcomes. And how, how well you can get back up after you get knocked down is a very big correlate to how happy you are in life, I think. Totally agree. On that very positive note, we'll go to sup cook break and back with our third question. And we're back question number three mark. All right guys, final question this week comes in from Nick Martin. Nick asks on LinkedIn. I heard a saying the other day, those who say they read by nonfiction and those who read read fiction. As two people who may be contrarian to this simplified statement in reading habits, I'm curious to know your split on types of books you read, nonfiction versus fiction. If you read multiple books at once and if one or both helps you to be successful day to day. I love this question so much. Let me first begin by saying some positives and some negatives about the question. Number one, Nick Martin. That's a great name, two first names, Billy Joel, all the best English and American singers. I've got two first names as first name. Yeah, there you go. So we give a tick to that. Number two, listen to the contrarians podcast, tick to that. So there's two positives. Now let's get to the negatives. That quote, I don't know, people that say they read read nonfiction, people that read read fiction, we've got to put a x against that. That's not good. So there are lots of different kinds of books. There are people that I know that the only books they've ever read as it happens, Adam, that you raised that he's a footballer is they've only read memoirs and biographies about footballers. Okay, that's a kind of book. That's what they're interested in. You and I have got some different views on the liberal arts and the liberal arts is heavily about like literature. And so I think there's very much fundamental value to the arts in society, including like fiction. But I don't think that somehow it's superior, morally superior or on a higher intellectual plane than nonfiction. I think it depends what you're in the mood for or what you like. And so I'll talk about my own habits with this stuff. I like reading, I call it memoirs because autobiography sounds so terrible and such a long word. And so I call it, so I like reading memoirs. That's the most popular form of nonfiction book. If you walk into any bookstore, you will see that the biography section is the biggest section of nonfiction. People love that. I understand why I found it to be very helpful. I love reading people's life stories, especially the ones that write very honest, very honestly about their failures. I love those kind of books. I love business books, I love physics books. Like I love all that. I'm reading, I'm not reading, I just bought a book which is about the disappearance of the bees, you know, those insects and what the consequences of that. So this is all nonfiction. I don't think we can disparage those, that kind of stuff. They're all great stuff, right? That's all very interesting. On the flip side, what about fiction? And so the majority of fiction that's sold is maybe what you call pulp fiction. That is just like an alternative to television. And that's fine. That's what people like reading. I mean, Harry Potter, we all love Harry Potter stories. I mean, as in, I don't love the books, I never read the books, but the whole concept of how successful this has been and how it's got in kids into reading. You haven't read Harry Potter. I've watched one movie. No, I don't read those books. Yeah. Have you read the books? Oh, I love Harry Potter. I was saying how my son and now my daughter are both ready in now. So what's the window of I've given you? I've given you the greatest opportunity to say the thing that you most like saying on this podcast. Why do you think you guys have read Harry Potter and I haven't? I don't know. I have no idea. I can't believe you haven't taken up this. You should say, well, the thing is that's our age difference showing. You're a bit older. So you're a bit older when Harry Potter came out, whereas the two of you have been heavily in the target age of Harry Potter when Harry Potter is very young when Harry Potter came out. I think I missed it by a few years. Yeah, people love it. I'm speaking Harry Potter. One of my favourite people in the world is Shaky Rowling for all number of reasons. Obviously Harry Potter and just a bravery in the last few years has been incredible. I agree. But on the book on the book topic, like people say, well, Shaky Rowling is amazing. Kishit, you know, brought kids to read books. I've got news for you. Kids have been reading books forever. As long as there are books, kids are reading books. I don't think we've ever seen and we've never seen before and since. Do you and when the Harry Potter books came out and from really from the from 2000 when the movie started coming out alongside the last four books, there were people lining up at midnight to buy that. Like, like, what cues, like iPhone style cues. There's never been anything like that. I've never been in any sense. It was unbelievable. So let me tell you a little bit about that phenomenon though. So you had writers a long time ago, the children are, let's say, Ian had Blighten. If you heard of her, she was a, she was a lot. And so maybe I read you've read some books by her and yeah, but almost all her books, yeah. Famous Five and Twins and Claes, he has hundreds of them. Did you have some issues? I was not across her issues. There was a few racism issues, she's had, which I think it was a side of the times. It was really with, with, with, um, not, is it naughty? But I think that was, that was regrettable. But, uh, yes. And so she was very popular and she wrote great stuff and obviously rolled down. But the reason people were not lining up for their books, he's got a few issues as well. I listen, I'm not, um, condoning any of these issues. And I should say, like everyone's got a few issues, right? And by the way, fast forward 50 years, I don't know, some things in this podcast are not going to be looking good. And some things that the people, I don't know what they are, right? But like, I think, well, Dar was an abusive anti-semit. I'm not sure those issues. I agree with you. No, no, I agree with you about that. But I'm more mean, like putting him aside, like a lot of the stuff that now is being canceled, right? And all of these people that are marching, okay, very worked up about this. But all these people that are marching and pulling down statues and saying, I'm on the right side of history, I promise you, your views as well in 50 years or 100 years time, people are going to have big issues with, with whatever your hyper enlightened views are today. Like that is what happens over time. Um, the reason that people are not, we're not lining up for all, Dar and I'll end up lighten is because of the globalization of the world. Like the world is so globalized now. And the internet has obviously contributed to that more recently that there are international phenomena in the way they just didn't exist previously. I once had pre-internet. She like, she got big into 2000, 2001. That was, well, that was the internet was early. It was pre-social media and it was early. Like you look at the people online. It's probably 10%. Like it was pre, it was pre broadband internet. So she now much more, much more of the world, much more of the Western world developed to what let's call it, whatever you can call it nowadays. Much more of that was online. But 25 years since then, when we've actually had social media and proper online, nothing's come close. So I think no, you're right. So there is something special about her books. I agree. A lot of people tell me that I'm not diminishing that. And so there's those books and as much as they are, people love them, etc. It's just a form of entertainment. I know it's no better or worse than watching a good movie that's where people had a lot of thought put into it. And so I think people can get very high and mighty about books. And I'm saying this to someone that loves books. But basically, you know, it's just a form of entertainment. And so my attitude with fiction is that I try to read older books of fiction because they've stood the test of time, just like I prefer older movies because they've stood the test of time. I mean, older movies that are still popular and spoken about. Today, all the books that are still popular and spoken about, I told you I read like, forget Anna Karenina. That sounds like, well, I'm trying to be all sophisticated. That was a pretty amazing book. Is Anna Karenina with that Tolstoy? Yeah, that was Leo Tolstoy exactly. Yes, that is a 1,000 page incredible book. It's the best character development of any book I've ever read. But you don't have to read stuff like that. I mean, it's great to read stuff like that. But I also read breakfast at Tiffany's. I remember I told you I read that book. It took me like a three hours to read. I thought that book was great, right? And now I'm reading, you know what book I bought for $2 from the op shop recently? I bought the cure. It's something I don't know what the official title is. I'm like the curious case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you read that book, everyone knows about that. The problem with reading that book is it's very suspenseful except for 150 years we've known the ending. So it's pretty tricky to read. Kind of ruined. Yeah, it's pretty, you know, who wrote that book? I didn't know who wrote it. No idea. Robert Louis Stevenson. Oh, really? It was what we did. It was your own farm. Yeah. No idea about that. Yeah. So I would say, that's a fun book to read. And so, look, I think the long end, I read multiple books at once. Yes. I would generally be reading three or four books at the same time. That's a bit weird. We think so. That just depends what I'm in the mood for at that moment. I don't know anyone else who reads multiple books. Certainly not for. That's almost a bad one. I take because one book that I read, let's say that book has got some sad stuff in it. And so I don't want to read that book before I go to sleep because then I'm going to have nightmares. So I have to read a happy book before I go to sleep that's going to give me happy dreams. And then I might read a book like you know, I'm reading that book. It's like shining my way through it, which is all about textiles. Yeah. And so that book I need to be awake and concentrating. And I'm also using like large language models to teach me some stuff while I'm reading it. I'm not going to read that in bed. That's not a bed reading a bed. And so, and so it just depends what I'm in the mood for and where I am. That's how I choose which book I want to read. If I get on a plane, I read this book, you know, that we just spoke about. I'm Dr. Jekyll. I read that book on the plane because like it's a novella. It's a great light book to take on a plane to read, right? So I think it makes sense to read more than one book, but my there's my enra's answer is read whatever book you enjoy. That is my overwhelming view. If you don't like reading books at all, then I don't judge you. I think it's sad like you're missing out on something that you know, it's my favorite thing about a book. When I buy a book for the first few pages of that book, it's like opening a present where you have no idea what's inside. The wrapping is beautiful, but for the first hour of playing with that present, you don't even really know what it is. And then an hour later, you get to kind of say, oh, I get what this is all about and where the enjoyment comes from this. Or you say, this is actually junk. I'm going to get rid of this and not keep going with it. And often the very, the most amazing books I've ever read were the ones I least expected to have something special about them. So I feel, I love books, really love them, but I don't think that people should look at them like there's particular rules about them. And I think all creative arts, you should just enjoy them for what they are. You don't have to go to an art gallery and start being all sophisticated about why this painting is this. I mean, some people like that they understand it, but I think you can just enjoy creative arts for their own sake. I think they add something very good to society. And I think we should be non-judgmental about how you're supposed to consume them. Thank you. As the book king, very good answer. Thank you, Mike. We will see everyone for our big episode on Tuesday, of course. Thanks for listening in.