Max Frenzel_mixdown.mp3-from OneDrive Max: [00:00:00] Rest ethic is something that we need to work on and we need to cultivate knowing when it's time to make that step away and then trusting in the process that will follow and not seeing it as a waste of time. That's probably the most difficult thing about a time off, but also the most valuable once you managed to really follow through. Harpreet: [00:00:29] What's up, everybody? Welcome to The Artists Data Science podcast, the only self development podcast for Data scientists. You're going to learn from and be inspired by the people, ideas and conversations that'll encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host open office hours. You can register to attend by going to bitly.com/adsoh. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Harpreet: [00:01:10] Our guest today is an AI researcher, digital creative, writer and ultra marathon runner. He's earned a PhD in quantum information theory from Imperial College London and has worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Tokyo University. He's been involved in several tech startups focusing on the intersection of theoretical A.I. research and applied product design, bridging the gap between technical and business oriented teams and conveying difficult concepts to nonexperts and clients as an A.I. researcher. His primary area of interest is how I will shape the future of work and [00:02:00] allow us to focus more on truly human skills such as creativity and empathy. He views himself first and foremost as a creator, whether that's writing code or companies. Another creative outlet of his is music, through which he creates drum and bass and experimental music and integrates into the production and performance process. So please help me in welcoming our guest today, coauthor of the international best selling book Time Off and the artist known as Tactile, Dr. Max Franscell. Max, thank you so much for taking time at your schedule to come on to the show today. I really, really appreciate you being here. Super excited to chat with you. Max: [00:02:45] Well, thanks so much for having me. And thanks so much for that wonderful intro. Harpreet: [00:02:49] Absolutely. It's been such a pleasure. You know, I don't I can't remember how I stumbled upon your blog, but I'm glad I did. And I was just researching you the past couple of weeks. Listen to a podcast that feature you and reading your book. And it's been great getting to know you from afar. And now it's a pleasure to have you here on the show. So definitely want to talk about your book, Time Off. I think it is a very important book, especially for the day and age we are now where work and home everything is blended together. But before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about kind of your origin story, I guess, for lack of a better word. So talk to us about where you grew up and what was it like there? Max: [00:03:29] Yeah, I think it's actually a fairly boring story. My kind of growing up. I'm German. I'm from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in southern Germany. Two thousand people. And I think I had a pretty normal childhood. I guess I was very lucky that I very early on kind of knew what I wanted to do. So I was always kind of interested in the sciences and shifted from I guess every kid's at some point wants to be an archeologist or something, but I guess sort of mid high school. I [00:04:00] don't know how it happened, but I became very clear in the idea that I want to be a physicist and I want to figure out this theory of everything. So as a high school student, I somehow knew I want to work on string theory or whatever the next string theory is going to be. And that then set me to kind of look beyond my tiny little village because it's not the best place to do amazing physics. And I just looked, what are the best places in the world to do physics? Initially, my dream was to go to Cambridge University. I applied as well. But I also thought, hey, if I'm already applying to UK University, I don't know if you're familiar with the system there, but it basically you can choose several universities and automatically sends it to all of those. And Cambridge didn't take me, but I got into Imperial College in London and I think that's the best thing that ever happened to me, that I got rejected from Cambridge because the experience I had an imperial and the people I met there just completely changed my trajectory forever. Max: [00:05:00] I guess the first thing that changed was I lost my interest in string theory and I'm very happy that I did lose that interest. And instead I got into quantum information theory. So one of my later professors and PhD advisors, he said something like, if you want to learn how to do really hard math, do string theory. If you want to solve really interesting problems, do quantum information theory. And I don't want to kind of Harp on like how how much of a dead end string theory might be. But I'm very, very happy that I went into the quantum information direction and also just a group I was working with at Imperial College in London. A lot of what later led me to, well, a go into A I. B write the book Time Off and all of the stuff around it came through my experience at Imperial College, my professors Terry Rudolf and David Jennings, they were more good buddies than advisors [00:06:00] or professors, and they just gave me all the freedom I wanted. Basically for my PhD, I had a three, four year deadline. And what I did in between was completely up to me. They were there if I wanted to talk to them and if I wanted or needed help, but otherwise I could literally disappear from the country. Max: [00:06:17] For weeks, without asking anyone for permission, I actually came to Japan during that time, first for a three month period, then for one month postdoctoral position, even before finishing my PhD. But the administration in London had no idea that I wasn't in London the whole time. I was just kind of my team, my group saying you should do whatever we trusted to get good results out of this. Go ahead. And during that time, I didn't realize it at the time, but I worked very little actually, like it maybe worked effectively four hours a day. And I did a lot of other things. I got into ultra running, which takes a lot of training. I started the company on the side doing a smart cooking API. I based I powered cooking up essentially, which was a lot of fun financially, didn't really go anywhere, but I learned a lot and I had a lot of time to just read widely, meditate every day, do random creative projects, and only afterwards when I left academia, so I got a little bit bored is the wrong word, but I wanted to apply my skills to something more applied. What I did doing my PhD was very theoretical, very mathematical, and very much removed from reality in a way like all the applications are maybe 20, 30 years out or something, because I had some startup exposure and some intrapreneur exposure. Max: [00:07:35] I really knew that's the direction I want to take. And the best place to use my math skills just seemed like I so I was while I was still a talk university, approached by a few startups here in Tokyo and I decided to join one of those. But then over time, I was very happy initially, but I realized I'm getting more and more sucked into this kind of startup hustle and grind [00:08:00] and busyness. Well, actually, I should say I didn't notice it until I really took some time off. And I took this 10 day holiday on slow trains through rural Japan. And one of those days I was just sitting there staring out at the mountains and ideas just came to me. And I hadn't experienced that in a while since I joined the startup world. And that moment, it really hit me. Hey, I have never felt at the same time more busy, but also less productive and less creative. And that's when I realized something was wrong. I didn't used to be that way when I was still doing my PhD. So that got me thinking of. Yeah, what changed and also realizing how important time off is and how what an ideal lifestyle without even knowing it. I had during my PhD days and that sort of set me off on the rest of my trajectory. Harpreet: [00:08:56] And then idea is pretty interesting, you're studying, if I recall correctly, like how to build engines inside of atoms, essentially. Max: [00:09:06] So the very big topic I was on the direction kind of research like Feme I was looking into was quantum information theory. And most people probably know that best for quantum computing or quantum cryptography. But there's another subset of that, which was what I was looking into, which is quantum thermodynamics and dynamics, essentially the study of how do you convert heat into useful energy. But this looks very strange at the quantum level and also information energy is actually very intricately linked. It sounds weird, but you can actually run an engine on information. So using information as a fuel essentially. And we were just studying the properties of how do engines work on that tiniest scale. And yet it turns out, theoretically, at least, you can build an engine within an atom. An atom is sufficiently complex [00:10:00] and has enough energy levels that you can actually manipulate in such a way that it behaves like an engine. Also, I was really interested in the notion of time, because if you think about an engine noise in the word thermodynamics, if something is dynamic, right, it needs to change over time. Also, an engine that doesn't move and movement is some property of time. It just doesn't make sense. So I was interested. How do clocks behave on this tiny level or like what are the things that even give us time? And if you think about it, think about your watch as something you need something pointy, you need something to point in a direction if you want to indicate time. So you need something that has a form of asymmetry. And if you want a good timekeeper, you want to have a high level of asymmetry. So asymmetry is almost a resource in that sense. And what we showed is in those quantum engines, the timekeeper that gives this system its clock property, it actually degrades as you produce works, you have to do additional things to stabilize and kind of preserve that asymmetry, because otherwise it's like your point on your watch slowly morphs from this really pointy thing into almost around disk in the center, which is completely pointless as a timekeeper. Harpreet: [00:11:15] So it's like a very intricate kind of meshing between time and work. The can of absolutely have one without the without the other. So give us a brief history of this, because, I mean, how about a brief history of work, right? Because there was a time when there wasn't time and then there was time. So what happened? How did work create time or did time create work like chicken or egg man? How did this happen? Max: [00:11:42] Yeah, totally. And it's so funny. Also, I just realized that now, like how things come back to me, because, of course, there's a work and the time relation in physics. But then there's also the work in time relation, which I'm now studying with the idea of time off. So that's quite [00:12:00] funny. From the more physics perspective, I actually kind of feel a bit unqualified now after so many years out of my PhD. I mean, it's been five years, but still I forget quite easily. So I don't want to give like a very, very faulty idea of all this. But it's a really interesting history. So if people are interested in that, I'd highly recommend checking that out. I guess it all started with sort of the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution. That's when thermodynamics really became a thing and science. And then now it evolved into this quantum thermodynamics and a lot of cool things are coming out of it. But I guess, well, we were already on work and time actually just go into the other side as well, because, as you said, there was kind of time where there wasn't time, which because we as humans weren't really conscious of time in a way, and work looked very different as well. So I guess all the way back to hunter gatherer times, it was very task oriented and you didn't do more than necessary. Max: [00:13:00] It wasn't just useless to do more than necessary. It was extremely wasteful. That changed as we settled down and so on. But we still had a huge appreciation for the idea of time. What time was still the highest thing we appreciated. If you look at ancient Greece and Rome, where culture flourished, Lesia was actually seen as the highest ideal. If you had to work hard, you were not considered successful. Your goal was not to work hard. And if you look at all the people who made the biggest contribution to society over the centuries, who invented literature to make contributions to poetry, the arts, the sciences, all these different things, those were people who had a lot of leisure. Bertrand Russell said it basically a leisure class build civilization. But then along the way, we started to forget about this a little bit because there were some changes that have. Initially, even at that time, work was still quite task oriented [00:14:00] and time was quite task oriented, like agriculture might be an easy example. You milk the cow when the cow is ready to be milked or needs to be milk, you don't milk the cow and it's milk o'clock. Right. But then as we go ahead and people start collaborating on more complex projects and over large distances of space as well, I guess that's when we really need to agree on some more absolute notion of time. Max: [00:14:26] And that's when we make time visible as well as you collaborate with other people. Suddenly you're in some cases exchanging your time for money. It's not just that the output matters anymore, but you have to agree on some. OK, I put in this amount of time and you give me this amount of money or goods or whatever. So that's kind of how we started making time visible. And the next step in this was literally making it visible in the form of clocks that were everywhere in the centers of cities to keep people in time and keep them aligned in a way. And this just kept going and going. And we really changed our notion from this task focused idea of time to something much more absolute. And we became really a big issue was then, I think around the 17th century where industrialization was just starting, people were working in factories, having a very fixed schedule, which in a way was great for the people who ran these factories. So the upper class. But they also realized, Nishu, hey, those people are just working during these fixed times in their free time. They can do whatever they want, but they don't have the mentality into education or whatever to use their time in a sophisticated way. So the upper class was basically worried that the lower classes would just get drunk and riot. Max: [00:15:48] So they invoked religion and kind of twisted religion into this weird thing to make people guilty about not working hard. That's kind of when the Protestant work ethic was [00:16:00] born and they really said basically God left his work unfinished, that humans could fulfill it for our work, for our labor. And back in Greek Roman times, Lesia was the most noble thing, was the highest thing you could aspire to. That completely flipped on its head with the Protestant work ethic where work became the most sacred thing and actually leisure became a sin. And they really instilled this guilt in our culture that even though we don't have the religious association with it anymore, in most cases today, we don't even know that that's how it originated. But we still have this extreme guilt about not working. Right. And I think that's one of the things my coauthor John and I, with our book Time Off, really want to change in people because it is hurting us. It's a book called Time Off, and it is a book about the importance of time off. It's not a book about being lazy. It's actually a book about being your most productive and creative self. But to do that, you need to take time off as seriously as you do your work. Harpreet: [00:17:10] It's so crazy, man, like all through our history, a lot of the people who have made these massive contributions, they have this this thing in common where it's, you know, just a few hours, just a few hours a day. I was actually listening to an episode of Daily Still Work on YouTube and Iran holidays, talking about how he writes books. And it's just from eight to 11, 30. And he's done. And that's that's a good day's work. And I mean, nowadays, it's hard because not only are we stuck at home, what used to be my sanctuary, my place where I would sit and contemplate and right now becomes my work space and now my visible time has become making sure that the little icon on my staff teams stays clean. What would Aristotle have to say about this, the way we're working in modern society? Max: [00:17:58] Yeah, it's great [00:18:00] that you bring up Aristotle because I mentioned ancient Greece and Rome, but he was maybe one of the central figures related to Lesia and to rest and time off. So he had this concept he called Noble Leisa. And a lot of times today, I guess people think rest and leisure are the same thing. But to him, they would have been complete opposites, actually. So had to he had this free level hierarchy where at the very bottom is rest, rest, basically always ask the question. Rest for what? And the answer is usually, well, rest to do more work. And that's OK. Sometimes you just need to rest to then be refreshed for whatever else you want to do. Then in the middle of this hierarchy, cits work which is necessary, but that's about it. It serves the utilitarian purpose. Right. Ultimately, this work supports what's at the highest level of this hierarchy is which is Noble Lesia and Noble Lesia is really defined through something that brings you meaning. So Aristotle had his own answers to what that would be. But I think today each of us has to find their own form of noble Lesia. We really have to ask ourselves what in my life brings me meaning and joy. And that's this idea of noble Lesia to Aristotle, all the philosophizing he did, all the contributions he made to science. Max: [00:19:28] These were largely noble, Lesia. And because he approached him in that way, because they filled his life with meaning, he was deeply passionate about them. And he also made huge contributions in those fields and his output was immense. I think today what we're often confusing is busyness and productivity. So you mentioned visible time, a visible busyness as well. I think today a lot of us are just performing visible busyness rather than actually being productive. [00:20:00] There's so many examples and it's changed now because when most of us are not in an office setting anymore, what visible busyness there looks like there is quite different from what it looks in a remote setting. But I'm sure we all know, like the people who and I've been guilty of that in the past myself, who in half the company in an email, which is absolutely unnecessary but is kind of like showing off, hey, look at me, I'm busy. I'm doing stuff. You're actually wasting a lot of people's time, including your own, but you're giving off this sign to other people. Look at me. I'm busy, so I must be accomplished. I must be doing something valuable, the same slack. I've got this kind of love, hate relationship with Slack. There's so much visible busyness on slack and very, very few people use it effectively. Max: [00:20:48] I think Slack's tag line, I don't know if that's still the case, but it used to be where work happens. And I kind of want to question a little bit what kind of work is it? Is it busy work or is it actually valuable deep work? So I don't know if that answered your question, but I think the key thing I would sort of it's not what Aristotle said because he wasn't exactly thinking in these terms. But I would like to encourage people to think where they're just performing the business rather than where they're productive. Also, one thing that Aristotle said, if you're always busy working, you never have the time for deep contemplation, which means you never have the time to make the big contributions to society, to big contributions to science, to big contributions to the arts. So it is really kind of a matter of shallow versus deep work. And a lot of the stuff that's actually valuable, like contemplation, like letting ideas incubate, it doesn't look like [00:22:00] you're actually doing something. And because it looks easier, it doesn't look like anything at all. We undervalued it. Again, this guilt that comes back, anything that doesn't look hard. We feel bad about doing it, even though it's exactly these things that we really need to do and that we really should double down on. Harpreet: [00:22:17] I love how you talk about the distinction between busyness and productivity, and like you talk about it fairly early on in the book that, you know. Productivity doesn't just mean work output, there's other aspects of your life that can be counted as productivity. So I guess if you can. Walk us through how this concept of productivity has changed since the ancient days, right? Like, how would a person in ancient Greece or ancient Rome, how would they have measured their productivity if they measured it at all? And, you know, how do we get back to that old definition? Do you think it's possible for us to get back to that old definition? Max: [00:22:59] It's a good question, actually, how they would have measured it. I never really thought about it that explicitly. I'd be curious to see if there is research in it, but just from kind of thinking what they valued. I totally agree. The definition of productivity was probably much broader than what we consider productive today. We have such a narrow definition of productivity today, even. I think in a lot of cases we're still just confusing business with productivity. But let's assume we actually focus on true productivity even then. I think our definition is very narrow and often tied, I guess, to the monetary value you create and also the monetary value that's very, very obviously visible. But people who volunteer in their free time, this is not considered productive. It's considered a hobby. Right. Similarly, with caretakers or mothers who can't raise their children [00:24:00] or artists even. I mean, I love the title of your podcast because I really believe actually all of us are artists, whether we realize it or not. But true artists right now, we it's very hard to quantify the monetary value unless they're putting out, I don't know, hit single to make a lot of money. These things were considered in the past just as productive as, I don't know, producing certain widgets in a factory or whatever. And I think we should really get back to that. And I'm actually very positive that we are on the right track. So Bertrand Russell in I think nineteen twenty six, he published an article called In Praise of Idleness. Russell was one of the most ridiculously accomplished thinkers of all time and in so many different fields. But he was also a huge believer in the value of time off and is a great piece. Max: [00:24:56] I really recommend checking it out in full in praise of idleness. You can read it free online, but there's one key paragraph, which I think is really interesting. And he essentially said the leisure class built modern civilization and a working class just supported them. But it's not that working is good per say. It's just that in the past we had to have this kind of split between the leisure class and the working class, but already in nineteen twenty six said that he is hopeful that with modern technology we can shift many more people from this working class to the leisure class. He was maybe a little bit early in this thinking, but I think your audience today we as Data scientists, people, we're in a position to create exactly that technology that if we do it right, will allow many more people to join the leisure class. And I think we're already doing it. The problem is a lot of people who have the opportunity or culture [00:26:00] as a whole doesn't see the leisure class as something valuable or something to aspire to. So we kind of focus on this traditional working class, not realizing that there's actually so much productivity and so much value in the leisure class. If we just embrace it, I guess the metrics are much more difficult so we can't make it again. Is this idea of visible busyness. It's much harder to be visibly busy if you're part of the leader class, which doesn't mean that it produces less value, but it makes us very, very uncomfortable. And this all guilt is coming up. Oh, if I'm not slaving really hard at something I hate, I can't pretend I can't possibly be valuable or productive. Harpreet: [00:26:45] I guess that's kind of knowledge work is different than I think most other types of work. Right, because there's been countless days where I will just step away for an hour and a half. And, you know, actually, I've made this case my current job when I first got hired at told my boss was like, do I take an hour and a half every day at lunch? I might not be in the office the entire time, but you need to rest assured that I'm still working on problems, even even when I don't want to be working on any problems there is back here getting solved and I love it. Max: [00:27:18] Can I ask, how did that conversation go across? Like, how did your boss perceive that you flexible. Harpreet: [00:27:24] It was OK with it. Yeah. You know, it they understand that it's challenging research oriented work. I was like the first data scientist that they hired and that's cool. They probably got you know, these data scientists are a unique breed. They just do whatever they want is very, very important. And it's been tough for me because when I was in the office, I'd get up every thirty, thirty two to thirty five minutes. I'd get up and I'd walk the perimeter of the office. And, you know, that's like a good seven hundred steps. It's a fairly large office and I don't have that anymore at home because you know, my house is not that big. Going out for [00:28:00] an hour and a half walk during lunch, I mean, yeah, sure, I guess I could still do that now, but I just feel like I have to be in front of the computer. I have to like that stuff. And I don't know, man, it's it's been tough. Like there's days when you go on Harp because I got so many different projects that that I'm working on. And, you know, this business just makes me feel like I physically unable to make it. That's in my mind and totally know what you mean. So I guess would this be considered burnout? Like I did not know that burnout was actually defined as a disease until I had read it in your book. I had to look it up. And that's about my mind. And it really got me thinking about and burning out in that that more, I guess. Talk to us about this epidemic that we have over a lot of burnout and how can we identify for ourselves if we're burning out and maybe talk to us about how you might have realized on that train trip in rural Japan that, you know, Max: [00:28:58] There's so many things in there. And I think, first of all, you can very much not alone with this. I'm sure a lot of your listeners can relate to it. I can to some extent relate to it. I mean, I wrote a book about a time off, so now considered an expert on the topic. But it means in no way that I am perfect at this yet. And it's a constant improvement process, but especially during the pandemic. So many of us, with all the boundaries removed and with all those changes and with a lot of external factors which just cause anxiety, I think a lot of us are struggling with it. And I guess just accepting that or being aware of that, it's a good first step. But yeah, I think it was in twenty nineteen when the World Health Organization basically declared burn out as an official condition tied to basically workplace stress. That's usually the cause of it. So it's very specifically tied to the workplace in their definition, although I guess other people can burn out as [00:30:00] well. It might look a little bit different, but I think what they is testing as the symptoms are low energy and exhaustion. Also, you often become quite cynical about your job and your productivity levels just drop. You find it very hard to focus and you also have this mental distance from your job, even though you might enjoy in theory what you're doing, you have no passion for it anymore. Max: [00:30:26] So I think that's more the official definition, the symptoms. I think also something that's quite common with burnout is that you still getting the big stuff done, you're still getting the important stuff done. You're kind of this high functioning workaholic, whereas all the little simple daily tasks suddenly become so difficult. It might just be, I don't know, going grocery shopping or mailing a letter or whatever. These little things suddenly become extremely difficult. And I think also this guilt of stepping away from things, even though you know exactly that, that's the best thing you can do. But this skill becomes even stronger and kind of prevents you from doing it. So I think burnout is not a point where you can say, OK, now I'm burned out. It's really a continuous spectrum. And we're all somewhere along that spectrum. Probably a lot of us right now are shifted more towards the bad side of it. But yeah, it's really a continuum. And one of the concepts that we have in the book that's really central to the book is the idea of a rest EFIC. So as you said, it kind of all these things are suddenly removed, all these patterns you had, all these boundaries and a lot of us now we're just hoping that time off and Lesia just materializes in the empty spaces. Max: [00:31:54] But that's really not the case. And that's why we call this idea of rest EFIC. It's [00:32:00] something you need to consciously do and it's something that you need to build and a need you refine, just like you would build a work ethic. So one comparison that we really like is the inhale and exhale comparison. Your work ethic is essentially like an inhale. It's where you go down your task list. It's where you execute on projects. It's where you get all this active stuff done. But if you keep inhaling forever, you're going to run into a problem very, very soon. And a lot of us are stuck on this inhale. We inhaled and we hold for a little bit. Maybe then we inhale even more. And it's like we were running around with our heads ready to burst. Basically, we forgot the exhale, which is just as important. And that's the rest. EFIC That's where you take a step away to incubate and your ideas. That's where you kind of see the bigger picture. I mean, most of knowledge was. Is creative work and creative work is really about connecting the dots, but if you always directly in the problem, you never even going to see those dots, let alone collect connect them. Max: [00:33:11] So the rest EFIC prepares you for then the next cycle of your work ethic. And it's really all about finding this balance. And I guess what a lot of people are looking for right now are big fixes, kind of big changes, but that probably only sets you up for the next failure. And it might work for a short time. But what I recommend is really look for small things, look for simple things, and then take micro steps in the right direction. So the book is full of different profiles that we have on people who are very successful through using time off. And it's historic people. It's modern people, it's scientists as writers. It's people at the top of the corporate hierarchy and in the middle. And every profile ends with [00:34:00] a very practical example of something people can take from that person's recipe and try in their own life. And we really encourage people just to try different things, see what resonates most with them and make it their own and really take micro steps in that way. Sorry, I was quite a long winded answer to your question, though. Harpreet: [00:34:20] We absolutely love it, but there's so many valuable bits of wisdom in there. So trying to think about how we can make it actionable and implement this in our lives for the listeners. Right. So we talk about rest. I think this isn't just getting up and going to the beach for two weeks. This isn't necessarily, you know, going out dancing or whatever. Right. And I think you can incorporate rest in your day and in just, you know, a 10 minute nap. Right. Or does it have to be sleepy? Like what? What does it look like? Max: [00:34:55] I love how you set this up because rest and like these noble leisure activities, which are really linked with the idea of arrest, if they come at absolutely every scale, a two week beach vacation can be wonderful. But it's also quite a rare event. And one thing to note, in a lot of cases, we always look for these, again, big solutions. But actually, if we're not able to enjoy rest in the small moments, those big things, like a Long Beach vacation, they might plaster over the problem for short term. But once we come back to normal life, they leave us even more empty and they almost amplify the problem in a way. So, again, I'd really recommend starting from the smallest steps and like there's one profile in the book on home and he's a he's a great German poet, novelist, or was an, I think, Nobel laureate. And he essentially said [00:36:00] that to many of us are focused on those big pleasures, those big joys. There's nothing wrong with them. But if you can't even enjoy the little joys in life, you're not going to get much out of those bigger ones. They just filling some vacuum. In a way. He had a great quote. I'm going to butcher it by with something like a man who picks up a flower on his way to work, made a huge step towards joy in life. And it's really those little things that we need to celebrate and enjoy first to be able to get to the bigger ones. Harpreet: [00:36:34] Actually, I just started reading Siddarth again book. Yeah, I picked it up a couple days ago. I heard you talk about another podcast and the go, go, go check it out. But yeah, it's interesting because the rest can come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes, formats, activities like over this weekend. It was Saturday. I've got a nine month old baby and my wife and baby were at her parent's house and had the entire house to myself. And I just cleaned. I just cleaned up. I did the dishes, y'know, her tops. I vacuumed, scrubbed the floors down. And afterwards, man, like, I just felt so rejuvenated. Relax. Like this headache that I had going on in my head for the last four days just dissipated and it was rough. I felt more energized after that. So I what is it about rest in this way that helps us go from this feeling of just tense overwork to just suddenly just relax. Max: [00:37:35] I love what you just said, and also you are crazy. You must have a very good rest, I figure if he can handle a full time job, this podcast and the nine month old baby. So congrats on that. The one thing also, I think arrest and time off and no pleasure. What works for you changes with your season in life. Right. And what worked for me two years ago or even [00:38:00] a month ago might be completely different from what works right now. I'm sure you can totally agree with that. Like now that you have a kid that changed probably a lot of things for you and what kind of feels like rest or what actors rest. But I think one of the key components of it is detachment. We constantly like when we're in work mode, we're thinking about work. The more you can get a clear break from that and the more you can really step away from it, the more you actually allow your subconscious mind to take over. It allows you to recover and it helps with your mental health, but it also actually helps with the subconscious problem solving and incubation. So detachment is a huge component of that. And for that reason, actually, kind of counterintuitively, a lot of good rest is very active. It's something else we can get really passionate about and it can even be that one form of work is Nobley. Your arrest from another form of work. There is one quote in a book. I can't remember who it's by. It was some, I think, 19th century thinker, but it was like the brain doesn't tire like an arm and a leg all at once is variety. And I think that's really true there. Or there's actually another great one from the great concept by Soren Kierkegaard, existentialist philosopher. Max: [00:39:27] He had this idea of mental crop rotation, so his form of rest was just doing another work. It was basically he connected or linked it to the idea of crop rotation that we all know in farming. If you plant the same thing on exactly the same field year after year, you're going to run out of nutrients. Nothing great comes out of that soil soon. So that's kind of how we approach work in a lot of cases. But if you just change things up and if you let that field regenerate through another form of work and actually if you [00:40:00] do crop rotation properly, one crop fertilizes the soil for the next crop. So I really love that analogy. And I think a lot of it is really this idea of mental crop rotation. So I guess your form of rest was cleaning up. That's something very, very active. But it allowed you to get that detachment from things right and just get lost in the moment and maybe even got into some kind of flow state. I think flow it's a term that's thrown around a lot, but it's really great for detachment. And that's where the subconscious mind also takes over and works and all these different problems. So I think a lot of common activities when we talk to people about normal pleasure are things that look hard or that look like work. It's some of the common ones are cooking for their family or gardening or cleaning up. To some people, that looks like work and a chore. But to them it gives their life meaning. It fills them with a deep sense of meaning. And that is a great form of pleasure. Harpreet: [00:41:01] I like that that flows state Naval Guard has this really amazing quote, he talks about it within the concept of specific knowledge where he says it feels like play to me, but looks like work to others. And I just thought that was absolutely beautiful. So when's the last time you were in the flow state? What were you doing? How did that feel? Max: [00:41:22] That's a good question. Last time I was in the flow stage, so I tried to cultivate flow as much as possible. And again, what changes or what is what triggers the flow changes from time to time. What constantly can get me in a flow at the moment is playing around with music. It's just kind of trying to get away, like blocking all my Internet connection. I really want to get away from my screen. But as an electronic music producer, I'm still often tied to the screen. But at least I'm trying to cut my Internet connection if possible, and then just messing around, kind of jamming a little bit. Or another thing that really [00:42:00] helps me get into a flow state is exercising. So I'm not really running ultramarathons anymore at the moment. I need to get back into it. I've become a bit lazy, but even just a five or K run or just taking a walk around the block without any headphones on or anything that can get me quite consistently in a flow state. But I think what actually more longer term, what's the most effective thing was, again, sort of weirdly writing this book. It was a ton of work. We put hundreds of hours into it. But I think because it filled me with such a sense of purpose and such a sense of meaning, when I sat down to work on the book, suddenly five hours will go on and it's like, well, what happened? And even though I put a lot of energy into it, I got so much more energy out of it. And again, I think that's the really key of noble Lesia. These things energize you even though you put a lot of energy into that. So, yeah, those are some things that come to mind for me, but it really changes from season to season and it's constant evolution. How about you? What recently got you into a flow state? Harpreet: [00:43:12] I was talking to my wife about this actually this last week. I was doing at that take home challenge for this job that I was applying for eventually got rejected. But I was just in it for like hours and hours. And the time just flew by and it was hard. It was effortful. But I went back upstairs and I was more awake than when I had woken up earlier that morning or I mean, I was just totally did. And I was trying to tell her I was like, you know, just did it. It looks like work to you, but it does genuinely feel like play to me, like I really enjoy doing this. But then, you know, it's a double edged sword, I guess, because sometimes that exact same work will have me just pounding my head again. Max: [00:43:56] Yeah, totally. Harpreet: [00:43:57] And like, I just can't think I just, you know, cannot [00:44:00] think through this thing until I get up and walk away. Max: [00:44:04] Exactly. And I think, again, restaffing is something that we need to work on and we need to cultivate knowing when it's time to make that step away and then trusting in the process that will follow and not seeing it as a waste of time. That's probably the most difficult thing about a time off, but also the most valuable. Once you managed to really follow through Harpreet: [00:44:27] And for people is now home. Right? Like I mean, you might live in an area like I live here right now. It's negative. Twenty five degrees Celsius with twenty five mile per hour winds. And you can't go on your your lunchtime walk like you used to. That's OK. You can do jumping jacks for a couple of minutes right now, run up and down the stairs and this is that that type of like I guess Herman has also called it or you kind of called it a time of micro dosing. I believe these levels, actually, it's it's just me at an Max: [00:44:59] Even simpler than that. Just put all your things down and stare out the window without getting on the phone and swiping on Instagram or whatever. Just do that for five minutes. And actually, I think the more you need time off, the scarier this will feel initially. But just lean into that and hopefully get comfortable with it a little bit. And that can give you such a big reset. It's really amazing. Harpreet: [00:45:23] Speaking of, you touch my screen time earlier with respect to your music, I was listening to your stuff weekend while I was writing the questions down and doing the intro. I love that stuff. There's a there was a called Drew Drapeau durable. Max: [00:45:39] It means fief in Japanese beef. Harpreet: [00:45:42] Yeah. Yeah, I like that. That's probably my favorite track. I'll definitely be linking to your Spotify page the thanks. Max: [00:45:48] I really want to get back into music with the book and everything. Music has become a little bit, it's just not put as much time into it as a one. But that's one of the big things I want to get back into. And actually, I [00:46:00] did do some pretty. In the past, where combined with music, it was actually my full time job for a while as well, but I really want to focus on that a bit more again. And another interest of mine is just biohacking and biodata. So the goal is in the near future to combine those to biodata with music production. That's one thing I'm kind of passionate about right now. Harpreet: [00:46:22] That's interesting, right? It could be you got your you got your your ring or your watch and you're running. Then all of a sudden BVM start ramping up as you're running that kind of what you Max: [00:46:31] Were thinking about. Totally. So there's many different directions. There's a really cool company called Endl E and they link to your watch basically, and they in real time take your heart rate, Data, heart rate variability, all those different things and generate soundscapes based specifically on that to help you focus, relax or various different other things. So I'm also a big fan of the ordering. I see you've got one as well and I've been in touch with them. And there's some interesting ideas floating around. I'd be curious just to turn my sleep Data into songs. So can I make algorithmic music compositions that take all the different Data Harp and there's a lot of Data if you look under the hood, not just what or a present in the app, but way more. And can I essentially create algorithms that take this as an input and generate one unique track per day for me? So that's it's more a fun project. There's no particular goal. I don't even want the songs to necessarily represented. I have a very restful night or not. I could be cool, but it's not necessary just using that data as an input to then trigger an algorithm that creates a unique song. So that's something I'm curious about right now. Harpreet: [00:47:46] That's absolutely amazing when that project sounds like something I absolutely have a fun time with. And like a company that does sound like AIs like my dream company. So talk about know what we'll get back into the book doesn't [00:48:00] want to get into creativity. Do a deep dove on that before we do that. Since we're on the topic of music now, how does this work? How are you integrating into music or are you just like things like statistical samples of different beats that are out there and putting them together? Or how does this work Max: [00:48:17] Such a huge area and just so many different things around that. So maybe back to my origins. Shorey kind of so after I had that realization on that solo trip that something's wrong, I still try to change my company culture at the time for a year or so. But then I realized, OK, I'm just running against a brick wall and I decided to change my jobs. And a friend of mine had been asking me for a long time to join him. So he's had a creative studio here in Tokyo for it's now, I think twelve years already that's focusing specifically on the application of A.I. to creativity. He kind of got fairly famous, actually. He performed with it at the Guguletu just before the CEO's keynote speech two years ago. I think it's an age project. So he plays back to back with the he selects the song, mixes it, then he takes over, selects a song and mixes it. So that was sort of one of the projects he was working on. Anyway, I decided to join him and kind of make this music. And I what's been just a hobby before my full time job and roughly 50 percent of what we were doing was purely artistic. We were collaborating with different artists. So we had a project at the Barbican Center in London, and I think it's available online as well called Neural Beatbox. So the idea is you interact through a webcam, you record yourself and make various kind of sounds, beatboxing, sounds, whatever. But you can also just, I don't know, get the cup or do something like that. Max: [00:49:59] The I would then slice [00:50:00] that into individual kind of one shot samples and then try to classify, hey, this kind of sounds like a kick drum. Hey, this kind of sounds like a high head. And then also another I was trained on midi patterns, so just drum patterns could generate endless amounts of drum pattern variations. And that way with your sounds, we could create these sort of beatboxing experience. And the cool thing is, if multiple people contributed different sounds, you had this interactive experience. So we installed that in the museum. And when you woke up to it, so there was eight different drums like types of drums, kick drum high, had snare, whatever that were playing at any time. And each person only contributed two or three new patterns to the experience. So you woke up to it. There were already things playing and you contribute a few new sounds to it and it's as ever, evolving interactive experience. So that was a really interesting thing. My friend. He also collaborated with Israel Galvan. He's a. Really famous tap dancer, and they made an experience where essentially it was a dialog between the professional dancer and robotic dancers and they had sensors in his shoes and he would do some movements and patterns, then the robots would respond to that, but also with a generative component based on deep learning and kind of this middy pattern generation. So there were a lot of these sort of things. They don't really pay all that well. Max: [00:51:28] So the other half of what we spend our time on was kind of consulting projects for companies, for example. One thing I was working on was for Pioneer there, one of the biggest GE hardware manufacturers in the software record box. They recently released an algorithm that can detect where the locals in a track. So I basically developed this vocal detection algorithm, which really helps just because if they can visually see it, you'd never want to mix two tracks with overlapping vocals. It sounds terrible. So we just help them visualize that particular thing. [00:52:00] Or we develop background music generation system for a company here in Japan that's basically like Spotify, but for restaurants and cafes. So if you work into any shop here in Japan or any cafe, basically the music that's streaming comes for that company. What we did is take real time data. So what's the current weather? What's the season? What's the time of day? If they have cameras, we could even use things like what's the male female ratio in the shop right now? And based on not always deliver the kind of perfect music for that situation. So that's only a tiny, tiny fraction of what we've been doing. But that kind of shows you the huge variety of things. I'm still working with the company. I'm still in touch with them. And I think there's a lot of interesting stuff on the website, so can check it out. Kozmo KUOW demo. So lots of fun people and a lot of fun projects. Harpreet: [00:52:56] That sounds like so, so much fun. I've been able to do this mentorship on the side multiple nights a week. I hold office hours, but and one of the projects I always tell students to do is go download your Spotify music from Spotify. They've got such a robust API, pull your music, pull your activity data and just kind of see the impact of your vital statistics on the type of music that you listen to and how those two work together. But, yeah, that's a super fascinating I definitely I've got neural beatbox. And then how do you see this? Cosmo, Cosmo, Cosmo. Definitely check those guys out. Thanks very much for that. So going back now to a section on creativity is probably one of my favorite parts of the book. You know, given the name of the podcast artist, also very, very influenced by by Seth Godin and Steven Pressman. You've had a profile on Seth Godin in the book, and I think you've mentioned Steven in the book as well. But how do [00:54:00] you define creativity in the age of the knowledge worker? Because I think when most people think creativity, they think paintbrush on a canvas or music. But how would you say it different in the age of the knowledge worker? Max: [00:54:13] Yeah, I think that's why I really love the title of your podcast as well. I think everyone is an artist. Everyone is a creative. We might not realize it or see it that way, but each of us does something creative. We're talking earlier a little bit about this automation and allowing us to kind of joined the leisure class already. But I think we're already at a point where if what you're doing does not contain anything creative, it would have been replaced by some form of automation already. Even if you say, I don't know, truckdriver or whatever, something that's considered very manual, you still do creative work. You still have to respond to things that lie outside of common rules that kind of outside of common patterns. You need to connect the dots. You need to do this out of the box thinking right. And it's true for even very manual jobs and even things that are mostly rule based. I mean, you need to get from point A to B, you need to do this this to some widget on a conveyor belt. But it's still a human choice in there. But if we get to knowledge work, it's almost entirely, or at least ideally should be if you're not kind of falling for this trap of visible busyness, it's almost entirely creative work. You need to make unique decisions. Also, I think tied into creativity is this idea of empathy. I think they're very closely linked. What I had to learn as a writer or what I had to learn in my job as a creator of a software is no one wants to read what you're writing and no one wants to buy the thing, but you're building what they really want is [00:56:00] what it can. Max: [00:56:01] Do for them and the story it can tell them and to understand that as a writer or as a business leader or as a intrapreneur, whatever, you need to have empathy. You need to understand these people to do that, to have empathy again, time off is so crucial. It's basically busyness and empathy or busyness and creativity are almost mutually exclusive. So if you really want to understand people and if you want to. Yeah, be a good writer, be a good leader, be a good fill in the blank, you need this empathy component. But maybe back to the creativity aspect. I think what's really interesting to mention is this idea of the creative process. So Graham Wallace, he was a lot of things. He was one of the founders of the London School of Economics, but he was also really interested in the creative process and just the study of creativity. And he broke it down into a four step process. It's over 100 years old now, his ideas, but it's still cited by creativity. Research has refined it a little bit, but the core still stands. And essentially the four phases he outlined were preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. So first you need to sit down and do the hard work. That's the preparation stage, really understanding the problem. Max: [00:57:29] But then incubation starts. You need to take the step away and you need this detachment and you need to let your subconscious mind take over. Then hopefully illumination will kick in and you have this elusive aha moment. And then finally, you need to actually do the active work again of sitting down verifying that the idea was actually good. And I almost like to call the stage integration more than verification because, yes, you need to verify, but you also need to integrate it into the bigger picture. And often this thing kicks a cycle [00:58:00] off again with preparation. But what's key here is that 50 percent of the creative process, incubation illumination are passive. In a way, they are the things that happen while you're not consciously working. So, I mean, we keep coming back to the same topic, but it's just so critical that you do take a step away that you don't buy into the skills that you get the detachment, because it is what makes you productive as a creative. It is what makes you productive as a knowledge worker. So I think a change in language, that's something my COVA John and I really like as well. It's a good tool to get around the skills. So maybe the next time you were saying that earlier already kind of what you talk to your boss with the next time you take a break. Don't think of it as a break, but say you're taking some time to incubate on a new idea. Right? Harpreet: [00:58:56] That's so true. Like I mean, it sounds counterintuitive and people are listening and figuring out what that doesn't work actually works when there's like last week I was working on some project where I was just completely stuck at work. Later later on in the evening, I'm giving my son a bath. And then as I drive him off of my car, I know exactly what to do now. And it's it's just that creative process. I work and I think it does take you need to step away from it. You have to just kind of release almost and and just trust that the subconscious will do its thing totally. That's the that part of the network in the brain. Right. That's the reticular activating system. Or is that default mode network of the two? Max: [00:59:39] There are quite a few things. And I mean, I don't want to leave enough for her. I'm not a neuroscientist, but the Default Mode Network is responsible for a lot of these processes. And that really activates when you detach and it connects regions of your brain that are not connected while you like banging your head against a problem. Right. So you really [01:00:00] join my call for likes to talk about his subconscious mind as his internal cofound. Like, if you're in a startup business, essentially you have this co-founder sitting there in your subconscious which does the work when you're not actively working, but you need to actually allow it to do its job. And you also then need to listen to it, because I think that's a really interesting point as well. And I think you also brought that up earlier. When you are always busy, you might even have those great ideas subconsciously, but you just can't hear them, right? They don't bubble up to the surface for me. I really realize I have those great ideas when I'm out in nature or something, when I'm really fully detached. And also I can trust my intuition much, much more when I have enough time off those things all kind of quiet down. They might still be happening, I don't know, but maybe I'm just not receptive enough to them if I'm always in the work mode. Always an. The busy mode. Harpreet: [01:01:02] And what about nature? Do you have one of these little mini journal pads so that you can get. Max: [01:01:08] I like that. I do often carry a notebook with me. But actually, there's another interesting thing is it actually comes from my PhD adviser, Terry Rudolph. He loves going for runs where he specifically can't use even a notebook to write things down. So that's another really interesting trick for him. He gets so away from things that he's forced to look at the bigger picture. He can't note down small ideas. He can't do any. I mean, he's a physicist. He can't do any calculations or whatever. I mean, most of his work absolutely requires him to do that. But if he occasionally forces himself into that mode, he needs to think much bigger picture. And I think kind of having these again, it's cycling through different modes is having the balance between different things. That's super interesting. Yes, I usually do carry a notebook. Harpreet: [01:01:58] So we're talking about music [01:02:00] earlier, talking about creativity. So what can jazz musicians teach us about how to approach our careers and our work as Data scientists? Max: [01:02:09] Yeah, so if you look at different types of musicians, we have, I guess on the one end of the spectrum, this a very classically trained, let's say, a classical pianist or something. On the other extreme, we have jazz musician, jazz improviser. I don't want to piss off a lot of classical musicians with this, and it takes tremendous skill and tremendous practice to be at a high level in that field. But it is largely, I say largely not 100 percent, but it is very rule-based. You follow some rules that were set in the past. These rules are very, very easy to automate. And actually I've worked with a lot of musicians in the space of A.I. music. The first thing people do is look at classical music just because it has the most strict rules. It follows a very, very concrete patterns. So in a way, it's also the easiest thing to automate and it doesn't make it any easier, but it makes it in a sense. And again, I don't want to piss off too many people, but it makes it less valuable in a way, whereas the jazz musician, he's constantly on his feet. And I guess, again, looking at a lot of what we have currently, everything we have currently is narrow. I as a very, very good at a very, very specific problem. Max: [01:03:31] But what that I think that's actually great for us humans. We can give over all the busywork to the machines because we're not going to albizzi the machines no matter how much time we put into it. Right. But if we just embrace that and give them those very, very narrow things and leave ourselves this human work of doing kind of the messy things, doing the uncertain things, connecting the different dots, that's kind of what the jazz musician does all the time, thinking on the spot, adapting. [01:04:00] And that's what's going to be really, really value in knowledge work in the future. And I if I think about my career, most of the value I've created was when I was kind of top five percent in a few different fields and combined them rather than being top one percent in a single field, which is also exponentially harder to do. Right. So I think right now, generalists, even though I think in a lot of cases we're looking down a bit on generalists, if you do it right and if you embrace being a generalist, you can really dramatically benefit, especially as more automation comes along. And if you combine it with a solid rest ethic, then this can really be the path forward. Harpreet: [01:04:46] Yeah, I'm all for the path a generalist might not be for everyone, but I definitely resonate with them more and I like that. You mentioned Epstein's book range in your book as well. It's such a great book. Yeah, definitely one of my favorites in that book. He talks about how generalist can triumph in a AIs world. And it's because you have the ability to very quickly match a. Strategy to a problem type, right? And I think if all you do is focus on classical music, then you can't really see the connection to, you know, the other adjacent possibilities. Max: [01:05:23] Totally. And I think I heard you talk about this in a recent episode. I listened to you like kind of reading different papers and bringing ideas from different fields to new fields. I think that's kind of exactly what I was trying to say as well. Often just taking something pretty simple in one field, but presenting it in a different field and adding it to that fields vocabulary to his repertoire. It's so simple, but there's actually very few people who do this or can do it. They add so much value and it makes you suddenly be able to play in a completely different league by combining [01:06:00] these different things. So, again, I think the people who can do that will really thrive in the future of work. Harpreet: [01:06:06] Yeah, I mean, this idea of talent stacking or like you mentioned, being operating at the intersection of these different skill sets, all the great people who I look up to talk about this and try to incorporate as much of that as I could in my life and just actively look for opportunities like how kind of collide things together and be good at that intersection. I think that's very, very important to at least try to do right. So you've got a number of great profiles in the book, and I love that it's everyday people as well. One of them, one of them in particular, Brandon Torri, who sings I read his profile like a friend of my LinkedIn Sharma, M.S. I get you on the show. Awesome. He's super, super interesting. He's got this idea of the multi multi dream theory, which I absolutely loved. And I was wondering if you can just kind of quickly describe that for us and how can we implement that in our life. Max: [01:07:06] Sure. Just to give a very, very rough overview of his background and his idea, he, in a way, has a quite similar interest to me because he is also an engineer, a researcher. He was a Google and Apple before. I don't know. I think he's still at Apple right now, but he's also a professional musician. I think he's mainly a rapper. But initially he completely kept those two worlds separate and actually in one side was afraid of speaking of the other because he was worried, like what people would think of him if they find out about this other aspect of his life. But then over time, he came to realize that, hey, if I combine them and if I let them influence each other and if I let them feed off each other, I can achieve so much more. And that's very, very roughly this idea of his multi dream theory. So it almost again, kind of similar to the crop rotation idea [01:08:00] I was speaking of earlier and so many other things we touched on. But if you allow those different pursuits to not be completely compartmentalized, but if you really actively combine them and I think also and that's so important with a lot of the things, take pride in your hobbies, take pride in the stuff you do in your free time, that fills me with meaning and bring that back to your main job. Don't hide it, but actually share it with the people around you. That makes such a huge difference and it amplifies every single thing you're doing. Harpreet: [01:08:35] The story is amazing and I absolutely love that that part of it. And also just throughout the book, I got to say, man, I love that the profiles there, they're nice and short, but they also have just actionable advice that you can put right to work into your life right then and there. I really like the way you guys structured this. That was the goal we had. Yeah. Absolutely loved it. So, you know, you're coming from a Ph.D. in physics studying quantum information theory, like the heart of science that possibly exists. What what do you think? Is this science a art or is it a science or Data science machine learning an art or purely a hard science of where the science and in art begin? Are they completely separate? How do you view this? Max: [01:09:20] It's a really good question. I think there's a lot of layers. And first of all, I think all the great scientists also consider themselves creatives and even artists to some extent. And a lot of them had a lot of artistic hobbies as well. Again, they took pride in these things and really stepped away from the science to engage in music or whatever. So I do think every scientist, every good scientist is also an artist. But there's also a flip side to this, which is maybe more about language and how we speak about these things. You mentioned [01:10:00] earlier, he recently had an amazing discussion with Tim Ferriss about how we perceive science today and that we mix kind of hard sciences with the. Social sciences, which in a way are not real sciences, so I think there's a little bit this danger that we. Well, OK, let me take a step back. Yes. Scientists are artists, but that doesn't mean that the results they produce donge are not hard science. If that makes sense. I think a lot of the time we've now come to a point where we think science is debatable or we have things that are not really science is masquerading themselves as hard sciences like political sciences and social sciences. There's nothing wrong with this field, per say, but the way they present themselves and say they've proven anything or whatever, that's very dangerous, I think. And everyone who is a hard scientist in a way knows that you don't prove anything unless maybe some in mathematics or in some self-contained framework. But all you can do is put out theories and try to disprove your theories. I'm not sure if that answers your question in any way, but Harpreet: [01:11:18] That's on it. I love it. I love it. There's no no right or wrong one. Absolutely. So. I mean, the next couple of questions we're going to ask was, you know, how can somebody who doesn't really view themselves as a creative person actually realize that they are creative? Max: [01:11:37] I think, first of all, I mean, I said it already, but I don't think anyone listening to this is not a creative person, even if you think you zero creative, but think about in your daily life, think about in your work, where do you purely focus on rules and where you purely focus on [01:12:00] patterns. And following that, I'm sure they exist to exist even for the most creative people. But then not a hundred percent of what you're doing. Where are you leaning into messiness, where you're dealing with kind of human to human connections? Where are you thinking outside the box? Where you just responding to whatever is needed in the moment? Those things are all creative, and I'd encourage people to just accept that there was a creative things and then also just lean more into it, because, again, the more we develop, the more we lean into automation, the other things will become less and less valuable and will become automated more and more. But that's great. Let's just focus on the things that make us human and really double down on those. Harpreet: [01:12:45] Absolutely love it. So I think my audience is well aware of my affinity for Marcus Aurelius in the Stoics, and I was delighted to to find a profile of Marcus in your book. So I'd love to take a kind of dove into reflection and what the Stoics can teach us about it. So I guess what would you say is the importance of reflection in time of. Max: [01:13:08] Yeah, I think it's a really key idea, and I've experienced that myself, like I needed to really step away from things to realize that there was a problem. So in a way, there's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem with time off, unless you really step away from things and take the time off, you don't actually realize how much you needed or how much. What you're currently doing is not working for you. If you always in the business, you're not going to see that. So reflection we actually recommend as one of the first steps and one of the key steps. So currently we're developing an online course around time off, which actually should be life probably by the time this episode goes live. So you can find it at time, dash off dot app and we presenting the same material as in the book there. But we restructured [01:14:00] things a bit and it's all around the idea of reflection. So one of the profiles in the book is Seth Godin. You mentioned that already a thing and his practice is making a more or less off list. So it's a very simple reflection exercise. You just take a piece of paper and make a line down the middle. And in one side you write the things that you want more of in your life. And on the other side, you write the things that you want less of in your life. It sounds like a simple exercise, but if you allow yourself some time to really sit with that, you can go very deep. And that's kind of how we start off the whole course. And then we structure it into three different steps. Max: [01:14:37] The first one is subtracting things. So how can you make space and how can you get rid of, like, all these things that don't really serve you? Then the second step is adding things back in. So how do you fill the void that you not created? You uncovered? It's that void was probably always there, but as you subtract, you kind of uncover it. How do you fill that back in? How do you build your stevic? How do you add Noble Lesia to your life? And again, it's all about reflection and becoming aware of what works for you. And in the final stage is refining or building systems around your restaffing. And in all of these reflexion is sort of the guiding principle, because, as I said, there's no one size fits all approach. You have to figure out what works for you and to understand that you really need to take some time and be comfortable to just sit with your thoughts and maybe pen and paper. So if I recommend any exercise to people, it's really just take five minutes, 10 minutes and sit down. It can be the more or less off list or another seemingly simple exercise that are really like a reflection prompt is is all your hard work actually working? It's such a simple question in a way, but if you really go a bit deeper, go [01:16:00] beyond the first few things that come to mind, you might uncover, actually, hey, no, my hard work is not working at all and all I'm doing is performing visible busyness. So, yeah, reflection really sits at the core of a lot of these things. Harpreet: [01:16:14] Love that, absolute love that like we are. Reflection is a huge part of I think it's part of how I own my mornings, reclaim my mornings super early in the morning and I've got a few different notebooks that are right in. One of them is like the artist way during through three three pages of just dumping everything out of the six minute diary, which I absolutely love this thing. Another one is I do a big journal where I read a piece of philosophy, mostly through philosophy, and then I just love it. Right. My reflection on that and, you know, it takes like maybe about an hour in the morning, but it's just really just it's nice. It's refreshing. It's relaxing. How do you do your reflection? Max: [01:16:59] I also have several notebooks. A few of them are just for random thoughts on different topics. There's no structure then I really like James Clear's idea of atomic habits. And he released this kind of things called a clear journal, which goes with it. It's got some habit trackers and some other things in it that you can directly use, but also just got really beautiful pages which have really interesting markings so you can easily draw different matrices in it and different techniques. I really like that journal. And then I do something very similar to your Stoicism exercise. I'm currently going for book Hell Yeah or No by Derek Civis. Amazing guy. He's also in the book. And the hell, you know, it's such a great like basically it's all about subtracting, like to only say yes to things you really care. And I do the same. I read kind of one of those very, very short one or two chapters every day. And then I reflect the my own interpretation of how this applies to me, just my thoughts about that. So I use those as a reflection prompts. [01:18:00] Harpreet: [01:18:01] You're definitely going to have to check that book out as well. So, yeah, all these wonderful profiles you got in the book, which is the one profile that you think we as a society can learn most from, given our current state of the world. And in what way can we learn the most from it? Max: [01:18:20] It's a very difficult question. I mean, first of all, picking one profile from your book is kind of like choosing a favorite child. But also I said a couple of times, but we really believe that there is no one size fits all approach and what works for one person might be completely different from another person. I really encourage everyone to pick their own. Maybe the most universal, but also the most conceptual in a way, is the profile we opened a book with, which is Aristotle and his idea of Noble Polizia. Maybe it's a bit difficult to grasp fully the extent of that at the beginning of the book, but maybe revisiting it after going through the rest. This is probably where the most truth and the most universal truth is. And we we deliberately put it at the beginning to serve as some kind of beacon that guides people for the rest of the book. This idea of Noble Lesia. Harpreet: [01:19:12] I absolutely love it. So last question before I jump into a random round, it's one hundred years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for? Max: [01:19:23] So I'm turning 31 next week, I think if I could already I hope I still have a bunch of creative and good years ahead of me. So if I could already see now what I would want to be remembered for in a hundred years, I think I'd be pretty disappointed, actually. But if we add some kind of constraint that for whatever reason, I only have two to five more years of creative or productive output ahead of me, then I think it would be making a contribution to this cultural change, accepting the value of time off, [01:20:00] getting rid of this guilt and basically allowing more people to join the leader class and be proud and really aspire to being a part of a future class. So that's my current answer. But I hope that in 10 years, this answer changes again Harpreet: [01:20:17] And will a happy birthday to you your Max: [01:20:20] Next Harpreet: [01:20:21] Wise well beyond your years. My friend definitely, definitely learned a lot from you in terms of the research that that I've been doing. And just listen to our podcast then. It's been a pleasure to read up and and I hope you hope you have this lasting legacy that you got. And thank you and look forward to seeing you progress and hopefully come up with more books in the future when you do have you on the show. Loved it. So let's jump into a random round. I always like because I've had a few physicists on my show and I always like to ask them a couple of physics questions and nothing, nothing harder than homework and stuff, but just kind of philosophical in a sense. So what would you say is the most fundamental truth of physics that all humans should understand? Max: [01:21:07] If what said nothing hard? Yes. As I said, I've been out of physics for five, six years. And it's very embarrassing to say maybe it comes with being a generalist. Maybe it's just me personally. But once I'm out of a field I very quickly forget about, it is really bad. I can work myself quickly into it again, but I lose touch with things quite easily anyway. I think if I'd have to say there's a most fundamental thing, I don't think everyone should necessarily be aware of it. But everyone who cares about physics is interested in understanding the universe. And I'd be curious to hear what the other physicist said. But to me, I'd say notifier him. It's not very well known. It's spelled in young and it's related to symmetry again. So I brought up symmetry earlier and essentially it says if there is some [01:22:00] kind of conserved quantity, there must also be an underlying symmetry somewhere in the universe as sounds super abstract and I'm probably butchering it as well. But a good example is the laws of physics don't change if you move the position. So if you change your location in space, the laws of physics are the same. That's a symmetry. Right. And you can actually show that this symmetry is linked to or creates conservation of momentum. Similarly, the laws of physics are the same if I look at them now or in a year from now. So we have the symmetry across time and that law, that symmetry is actually responsible for the conservation of energy. You can't create or destroy energy and you can even go. So people have used this in the past to find new symmetries. For example, we know that electric charge is a conserved quantity, but we originally didn't know the symmetry behind it. But then people started looking at, hey, there is something conserved that must be an underlying symmetry. And that allowed us to understand completely new areas of physics. So I say notice, fear is a really interesting one, but to properly understand it, look it up yourself. My explanation was pretty terrible, actually. Harpreet: [01:23:15] I love that. It's very it sounds elegantly some simple, but yeah, it's probably a lot of crazy math that goes on behind it. But that's awesome. So when do you think the first video to hit one trillion views on YouTube will happen? And what will it be about? Max: [01:23:35] I have zero idea. I don't even know. Do you know what's the current top yet video? Harpreet: [01:23:41] It was it's it's baby shark and I think it's got eight billion. And it just recently knocked off. Esposito Yeah. Max: [01:23:51] I guess it's some kind of bizarre music videos, music video with a lot of cute animals. And [01:24:00] this could be a really interesting Data science project, actually. What weird things you need to put into video to hit one million views. Harpreet: [01:24:09] So in your opinion, what do most people think within the first few seconds when they meet you for the first time? Max: [01:24:16] Oh, God, that completely depends on what context people make me, I guess. How many drinks I had, I guess my accent is pretty difficult to place, I've heard from people like I'm German and they lived a long time in the U.K., you know, in Japan, I've heard anything from Irish to South African to I don't know. So maybe kind of guessing where I'm from. That's an easy one. Harpreet: [01:24:40] Do you think you have to achieve something in order to be worth something? Max: [01:24:44] This is a tricky question. First of all, the answer is definitely no. I believe you don't. Or maybe put another way. Achievement, you need to define that for yourself. So, like what other people define as achieve is completely irrelevant, but I find it much easier to tell that other people than to tell it to myself that I'm saying it's a bit of a tricky question. Sometimes, I guess most people know that at least kind of driven people. It's easier to tell this to others than to tell it to yourself. So that's still a work in progress for me as well. Harpreet: [01:25:17] It always is. And it always, always is. What do you currently reading? Max: [01:25:22] I always read fiction and nonfiction. So my mornings I always get up, I make a coffee, and then I sit down for an hour to read nonfiction and take extensive notes. And in the evening, kind of the opposite, I switch off my screens and I read fiction on the fiction side. Right now I'm reading this book called End is A it's actually a German sci fi book I got for Christmas, which imagines what what the Second World War have looked like if they had Internet and social media. It's a pretty interesting read I just started, but really enjoying it on the fiction side. I just finished Breath by James Nesto, read a great book, [01:26:00] can really recommend it. And you'll like this. I haven't started, but that's the next one I'm going to look at, which is the Almanac of Novel and so really excited to dove into that page. Harpreet: [01:26:10] Yeah, I'm almost done with that book. I started reading that about a week or so ago. Yeah, awesome. Max: [01:26:15] If you can get him on the show, that would be amazing. Harpreet: [01:26:17] Oh my God. It's like that I'd make my entire life, my entire life. And I mean, I got James Altucher on and they're good friends. And he's also a try to sweet. Max: [01:26:27] But yeah. Thanks for having me in such amazing company jobat. Harpreet: [01:26:29] Absolutely. Did definitely deserve it. I've got a link you to an album by Akira The Don. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Akira the Dawn Sound actually, but what he does is he takes essentially just these amazing bits of wisdom and speech and puts them to music, sort of all replicants, how to get rich without getting lucky out an album. He took Marcus Aurelius meditations and made that into an album. And it is the entire thing. Just book one so far still. Max: [01:27:01] Yeah, that's amazing. And definitely share that with me, please. Harpreet: [01:27:04] Yeah, I'll definitely give you links to that of music. What what song do you have on repeat right now. Max: [01:27:09] A different things. I really, I'm into drum and bass and kind of I don't know, people know it's called jungle is kind of old school version of that. And look, breakbeats taking drum loops, chopping them up, adding effects to that. And one artist I really like in that area currently is cocoa price. So cocoa will be all we see. He's doing amazing stuff. And maybe one good track to start with is loving you. It's a really good one. There's many of ski mask I really like recently. The oddest ski mask, really good experimental with breakbeat, that kind of thing. If you click from there on Spotify, you'll probably discover a lot of really cool experimental stuff. Harpreet: [01:27:51] I see. I definitely check out my current music choices like deep, deep, deep house. I guess it weird. Yeah. Let's do [01:28:00] a few off of the random question generator here. What are you a natural at? Max: [01:28:05] What am I a natural at. I think being comfortable. With kind of this idea of being a generalist that's always come quite natural to me and connecting different ideas, I guess it comes with the downside that well, I guess I do have a PhD, but I never really considered myself very much of an expert in one particular thing. And I find it quite difficult, actually. Maybe I don't have to focus or I don't know what it is, but being comfortable with combining different ideas, I think I'm quite good at that, naturally. Thanks. Harpreet: [01:28:43] What's your favorite piece of clothing you own? Max: [01:28:48] I think there's two different things. One, I'm wearing one of them right now. So I have these pants which look like really nice jeans. So I'm quite elegant, actually, but this super comfortable and stretchy, the brand called on it. They actually make suppliments usually, but they also have a clothing line on their CEO has a clothing line and I just love these pants. They look really elegant, but they're actually super, super comfortable. And the other one is a t shirt I'm wearing right now. It's just got a really cool kind of geometric pattern on it. But the artists are really amazing. They're based in Berlin. It's a collective of artists and they released this really cool line of clothing. I don't actually know how to point people to it. I don't really know what they call. But I got it from a friend and it's quite meaningful to me, Harpreet: [01:29:39] As awesome did the last one here. What are you interested in that most people haven't heard of? Max: [01:29:46] I'm a little interesting, quite a few things to sort of like fringy, but no one has heard of I love sour bread, but I don't think that's super uncommon, especially right now where everyone's baking. And I got interested in growing [01:30:00] mushrooms recently. I don't know if people are so not the magic ones. That's a bit tricky here in Japan with the law, but just edible mushrooms. I didn't know that was so easy. So that might be quite new to people. And I guess one thing I'm really obsessed with right now, and we touched on a little bit earlier, is just kind of biometric data and feeding that into music. So I've been digging quite deep into that. And heart rate variability is such an interesting metric, HIV and I've been studying my own for quite a while and I'm digging deeper into that research as well. So I think HIV is something a lot of people are probably not very familiar with, but it's super interesting. It's such a great indicator for your mood, your energy, but also just your overall health and especially stress levels, actually. So that's an interesting one, I think. Harpreet: [01:30:52] Yeah. I've got to go look at my data from from last week to see what that HIV was like, probably in the low to mid teens. Max: [01:31:01] So it's such a stressful week. Harpreet: [01:31:03] It was rough. So how can people connect with you? Where can we find you online? Max: [01:31:09] People can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Mac's friends. That's probably the easiest way to find me on my website, my friends dot com. I also just encourage people to pick up the book. If you're interested in taking the course, that should be life. Now is a time Dash offered up. You can send me an email at max time off book dot com and we'd really love to hear from people also who want to collaborate. So one thing we're currently doing is actually helping companies establish their ethics. We've been working with quite a few well-known companies to educate their leadership team around these ideas off time of an arrest and really help them implement their research. And one thing we want to do in the longer term is actually build an app or some software platform that helps companies establish or manage their time off. And really from [01:32:00] figuring out when do you need to take when you need to take time off to preparing for it and handing your work over in an effective way to other people to then getting the most of your time off, but also reintegrating properly afterwards and sharing all the great stuff that great epiphanies that you got in your time off from that. And also someone else did your work. So how can you use that to upgrade the work itself? So all these things we're working on some software tools around that. So if anyone's interested in that, I would love to hear from you as well. And if you're just interested in my random bread baking, music, making, whatever you can find at Instagram, at PMF Frenzel Harpreet: [01:32:38] Project working out sounds fascinating. That's that's definitely really cool. And I'll be sure to link to all of your locations online in the show as well. Max, thank you so much for taking time as scheduled to come on onto the show. Man, was a pleasure having you here. Max: [01:32:53] Thanks so much again for having me. It was a wonderful conversation. Thank you.