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The Complexity of Toilet Paper
This is a podcast about the search for simplicity and making life less complicated. A show that dives into both the everyday moments, as well as life's big stuff where we overthink, hesitate, or just get stuck. Through honest conversations, unexpected insights, and a whole lot of potty humor, puns, and hearty laughs - we are here to help you ROLL with it and make life a little less complicated, one conversation at a time. So, come join us in the Stall! Toilet Papewr not provided...yet!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for entertainment, growth, and informational purposes only. Any opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not reflect the views of any organizations we may be affiliated with. We’re not your therapists, lawyers, doctors, or plumbers, just a few folks talking it out with a roll of humor and a splash of real life. Please don’t make any major life decisions while on the toilet… or at least, don’t blame us if you do.
Show Credits:
- Show open music by RYYZN
- Roll Up music by AberrantRealities
- Stall Bridge music by penguinmusic
The Complexity of Toilet Paper
Climbing Life's Lombard Street: Finding Your Path To Simplicity
San Francisco's famous Lombard Street offers a powerful metaphor for our lives. With its eight switchbacks winding down a steep 27% grade, it represents the complex paths we often choose. Yet alongside this engineering marvel run straight staircases – more direct but no less challenging routes to the same destination.
During a recent trip, Mark found himself halfway up this iconic hill, asking the fundamental question that drives our podcast: Why do we make things harder than they need to be? Standing at the summit, overlooking the magnificent bay views, he realized we face similar choices daily between manufactured complexity and straightforward approaches.
This revelation sparked a fascinating conversation about the complexity traps we all fall into: the research spiral (needing more information before acting), the perfect timing trap (waiting for ideal conditions), and the optimization trap (endlessly refining before implementing). Phyllis shared her own powerful realization about how control issues led her to overcomplicate situations, while Al connected these insights to our tendency to assign more value to difficult paths simply because they're difficult.
What emerges is a simple but profound guideline: When your goal is the experience – building relationships, developing mastery, enjoying the process – taking curves makes sense. But when your goal is the destination – launching a business, having a conversation, making a decision – taking the stairs is often better. As Mark beautifully puts it: "The tragedy isn't taking curves. It's taking curves when you meant to climb stairs."
Try Mark's seven-day experiment to identify your own unnecessary switchbacks and discover the staircases hiding in plain sight. Join us in finding simplicity amid chaos, one conversation at a time, and share your own complexity insights on our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.
Here is an extra resource for you, Mark’s Lombard article for LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/crooked-road-complexity-mark-pollack-qggpe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via
Sometimes I wish we could go back to a time when things weren't so complicated. Welcome to the Complexity of Toilet Paper, the podcast that dives into the everyday moments where we overthink, hesitate or just get stuck. I'm overthinking. I'm over, I'm overthinking. Let's hear it for the toilet paper Through honest conversations, unexpected insights and a whole lot of humor. Your hosts, phyllis Martin, mark Pollack and Al Emmerich, are here to help you roll with it and make your life a little less complicated. One conversation at a time, that's right, dude. The beauty of this is its simplicity, speaking of which it's time to enter the stall, put the lid down or not, depending Get comfortable and roll with it. Oh worry, not, dear friend, it's really quite simple. This is the complexity of toilet paper. Yodelliddley, yee-hoo.
Speaker 2:Ha-ha. You know there's going to be a small sliver of our fans, listeners, whatever we want to call them, and stallmates, Stallmates.
Speaker 3:I was going to say that We've used it before.
Speaker 2:That is it. You are no longer. Hey for those of you. For you, bob, jane, tom, dick, harry, alice, louise, sven. I think we have somebody listening in other parts of the world now. Yeah, 10 countries, 10 countries, and who knows, by the time that this is airing, that might have doubled. Anyway, there's going to be a small percentage that just the only reason they listen to the show is just to hear some stupid thing that we open the show with.
Speaker 4:Do you see how I said we and I brought you in like, like you had something to do with that, because we said you should yodel on the way you did. You totally did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's if you're listening for the very first time. Uh, we don't rehearse this show, because this is the complexity of toilet paper. To rehearse it would make it more complex. Also, whoever opens the show and it's been me for the good portion of it we don't ever know what we're going to say, including me, and that way, you are definitely experiencing an unedited, unedited, improvised, raw first brain thought. So there you go.
Speaker 4:And that's what it's like to be inside of Al's head.
Speaker 2:Thank God you're not inside the stall with me. This is the complexity of toilet paper and if you happen to be our new stall mate or a longtime stall mate at this point, you know that this is a journey to find simplicity amid the chaos, one conversation at a time. All three of us are enamored with the idea that we know we stand in our own way. We know that life just doesn't need to be as hard as it seems to be, and I guess a number of weeks ago we really began exploring what's the science behind this, and I shouldn't even say exploring us. We were talking about it.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, mark, you were going on this wonderful vacation and you came back. You we've not really talked about the vacation the three of us but you wrote this incredibly beautiful piece about Lombard Street and the relationship between your experience there and what we're doing and and so for. For our stalemates we were like, hey, let's just the three of us unpack this and really marks the star of the show, because it's your trip and your journey. But I think what you wrote so beautifully articulates what we're trying to accomplish here with the complexity of toilet paper. So does that introduce the theme well enough?
Speaker 4:Man, that's a lot of pressure, but, yeah, sure, I know I man, that's uh, you know that's a lot of pressure, but, uh, you know, yeah, sure, I know I think that's great and and it's funny. So you say the word vacation. But now, since starting this podcast, everywhere I go I look through a different lens of finding stories or seeing, instant, you know, instances of complexity, and so I've I've just started looking at things differently since we've started this journey and so, going I was in San Francisco. The background of the story is I was going to San Francisco and some wine country Napa and Sonoma and as part of that vacation, for anybody who's been there, there's a tremendous number of hills and, uh, obstacles to just even get around town. Right, and, uh, I'm a Floridian. Right, it's flat here, right, it's, it's less than flat and and so, you know, people are walking up these hills with ease and and and I'm struggling.
Speaker 4:But there was a few key places that people said, well, you should go. You know, it's just absolutely San Francisco, and one of those is the famous Crooked Street of Lombard, and it was just fascinating to me to see a place that over 2 million people a year visit and there's all of these cars lined up to go around the zigzag road. And there's all of these cars lined up to go around the zigzag road and people trying to walk up the zigzag road around these cars, and it's just, it's chaos, right. And then and then what you realize is on either side of the zigzag road are these stairs, and so there's this complex way, right, these switchbacks.
Speaker 4:There's eight of them that go all the way up to the top of Russian Hill, or you can take this kind of straight route and I did a combination of both and at the top of this beautiful athletic journey, which I thought many times all of my life choices have brought me here to climb this thing, you think it was Everest, right, it's just a hill. And and you look out, oh man, it really felt like I was climbing a mountain. And I mean you get to this beautiful top part where you're overlooking the bay and you're looking over the entire city and there's all these people at the top and taking pictures and lines of cars, and you realize there's levels of simplicity and complexity all mixed into one engineering feat, and that was the impetus to me writing that article. So that's kind of the background.
Speaker 2:Have you been to Lombard Street?
Speaker 3:Phyllis, if I have. It has been years, like over 30 years, and it's not jumping out at me as a place I've been.
Speaker 2:I've been there twice, and once I saw it and I didn't drive it. I saw it and I didn't drive it. The next time I drove it and I walked it and, mark, I think you did it actually great justice, but you probably undersold it To drive. It is brutal. Oh yeah, it is. I want you to imagine the worst switchbacks in a mountain, where you're going back and forth but you're doing it in a car and like like you cannot go, there's no going fast, you have to crawl and you're also on this incline, at this tipping point where you feel like you might even slide down Right.
Speaker 4:Not only that, you're also dodging people. So there's tourists like myself walking up the hill, which you're not supposed to, but you walk it and then you have people driving it and then there's the switchback. So yeah, it's intense. I mean, it's definitely one of those where you're grabbing onto the steering wheel as hard as you can and going super slow and people stopping and taking pictures, and it's a thing.
Speaker 2:So when? When did the well? First of all, what was the first aha that you said? All right, I'm doing this show and I'm doing this podcast, and we're talking about complexity. We're talking about how we make things harder than they need to be. Were you on the Hill? Were you seeing it? When? Did it occur be?
Speaker 4:Were you on the hill? Were you seeing it? When did it occur? I was about halfway up and I was kind of looking over these homes that are built along the side of it, right, and they're gorgeous homes. And my first question was why? Why'd you go to all this work? Why did it have to be at such an angle? Why couldn't you have done something differently to make it more simple? And that was kind of the first thought that came to my head.
Speaker 4:I didn't have any of the research when I came back and I was like, you know, this has really got me thinking what's the purpose of this thing? And there was a whole engineering, artistic view that they had to take in in order to make this happen. And uh, you know I won't bore you with all the the facts and details, but basically it's a 27 percent incline that cars, if they didn't do this, would just tumble down the hill and uh, and so, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it. That was the start of it. And then, when I got to the top and I looked out, that's really where the thought was man, there's two ways to get to the top. There's the simple way. It's not easy, right, it's still hard. You still have to climb all of those stairs, it's still difficult, but it's straight, it's a straight path, and then you have what is more complex and takes longer, which is the switchbacks, and so it was really just an interesting side-by-side comparison of simplicity straight stairs versus complexity eight switchbacks at a 27% incline.
Speaker 2:So, historically, just as a reference point and I didn't even realize this, I just looked this up but it was the residents who lived there, okay, that were really struggling, and so the property owners actually proposed and implemented a series of switchbacks which created that design. Right, they were the ones that were living in the complexity, the danger in this particular case, all right, and so then it became this one-way street, but the decision to go with the switchbacks and to make it what it was was to make it a more safe, navigable journey for the people that lived there. It was sort of like the analogies, of course, are written all over here Like they basically said hey, how do we solve this problem that's affecting our day-to-day lives? And they never could have imagined that they probably created more problems than they ever knew because of what it built, what it did.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but the view is incredible, so they probably thought I want to live here. This is the most incredible view. I will do whatever it takes to see this every day. And uh, yeah, so it's a, it's a fast and now it's a tourist attraction. Right, 2 million people a year go visit just this part of the city. Two million, that's a crazy number of people. It's incredible.
Speaker 2:So you had this aha moment and then you were prompted to write these analogies. Now, obviously, if you want to read the blog, the link is in the show notes, right.
Speaker 4:Mark, it is, and on my LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Okay, mark Pollack, what's your LinkedIn?
Speaker 4:I think it's just Mark Pollack. I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Anyway, all right. So tell us about this blog, tell us about the themes and the aha moments you had, because this show is about the journey to find simplicity, but it's also you don't get there without actually unpacking what's complicated. And you had so many analogies in your blog. Why don't you touch on some of those?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I appreciate it. Some of those, yeah, I appreciate it. So I think we all I mean I'm gonna speak, I'm gonna say we all, and I don't necessarily mean we all, but that's the only. I don't know how else to propose this but I, I think, when we look to solve problems, a lot of times we'll look at the more complex way of doing it. And so, as I, as I looked out over the Bay and thought, man, this is an incredible, this is an incredible view.
Speaker 4:Again, it comes back to the why. Why. Why did they choose to do this? I didn't have those answers yet. Why did they make this so complex?
Speaker 4:And and then I started thinking for myself when I look for solutions, do I immediately go for the complex version of of what the answer should be, or should I be looking for stairs? Is there a straight path that I can take? That's no less difficult, but just a straighter, potentially faster way for me to get there, but just a straighter, potentially faster way for me to get there. And you know, then I really thought about busyness versus productivity and, and you know, are the switchbacks in my life just keeping me busy versus finding the stairs that are going to accomplish the exact same goal, and can complexity be a sophisticated version of procrastination?
Speaker 4:And so those were the. Those were the reoccurring themes as I was climbing all of those stairs and trying to catch think about the show, when even we're talking about the podcast or the guests we need on the show or the types of topics that we want to cover, are we making it more complex? Is there a stairwell right next to this thing that will get us the same view, the same answers? But we overcomplexify because we feel like it's going to provide a better answer for us.
Speaker 3:You know, mark, when I was reading your piece and like one of the core things or core themes about the difference between necessary complexity and manufactured complexity and I really started thinking about complexity, responses to a problem set of problems, the way that we approach that to perhaps be a series of learned behaviors over the course of a lifetime, so that you do what you do. Inherently it's a learned response. You don't even think about it. It's just really how you respond to the said issues at hand. And if I might share or I can wait and share later I'm going to share now, since I already started sharing.
Speaker 4:Share now. Do it? Should I share now? Share now. Go for it. I believe I will share now. Thank, already started sharing. Share now. Do it? Should I share now? Share now, I believe I will share now. Thank you so much. You're very welcome.
Speaker 3:I've had a thing happen in the past couple of weeks that really just rocked me to the core to start looking for answers, pushing big boulders uphill, making sure I uncovered, unearthed, every single possible explanation, essentially until I was exhausted, doing everything that I thought I could do to control the situation, and at the end of almost a two-week period of me just looking at my husband in tears, just tears streaming down my face like it hit me. This learned, that is learned behavior, and that is learned behavior for me, in an attempt to control something that actually was not in my control. And so my learned behavior is to overcomplicate what the solution actually could be.
Speaker 3:Nothing wrong, to your point, to wanting more information, investigating more information, doing all the things that you can do, but what that's propelled by becomes a very different thing, and if it's propelled by the need to control, then everything gets overcomplicated, every single thing gets overcomplicated, and it has just been a huge learning for me over the past two weeks, to the point where I was like, oh, I can't live my life like this, like how can I live my life like this?
Speaker 3:I had no idea that that type of control like I was, that no idea that I was, I don't feel like I'm that controlling or that I need to be in that much control, but, surprise, I do. So it's really been a big learning for me, and there's something in your piece that you wrote that's just really caused me to think about that and other aspects of my natural, innate response. Not all of them are bad, by the way, because some things are complex and you have to go through complexity. The question is, is there another path to take, or are there parallel paths to take? And so your piece really opened that up for me.
Speaker 2:Well, in the divinity of timing, which I fully buy into, from manifestation to prayer, to belief in a higher being. This has all come full circle for me Because I picked up the book Effortless by Greg McKeown. Forgive me, greg, if I'm saying your name wrong, but the book is literally called Effortless Make it easier to do what matters most. And we're going to tag the heck out of him and hopefully get him on the show because he talks in the book about as high achiever and this is quoting from this as high achievers, we've been conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work, that if we want to overachieve we have to overexert, overthink and overdo. That if we aren't perpetually exhausted, we're not doing enough. And I know I have a fear sometimes of when we think about these. We talk about these topics. We say, oh, but we talked about that in a previous episode and whatever. But there are those reoccurring themes.
Speaker 2:We're literally in the infancy of this podcast, unpacking our own challenges, which is part of why we wanted to do this show is to talk about our lived experiences, like you just did, phyllis, but also it's the realization that we're not alone and I think that's part of the complexity, right, like it wasn't one owner that was sitting there on Lombard Street saying, hey, this is effed up. It was the group of people that said, wow, this is, this is tough. If it was just one person, they'd be off on an Island. Everybody was experiencing this. This type of thing, um, and it it that it has to be harder than it has to be earned, that you have to to grit and grind through it, I think is part of that peer pressure. And somehow, phyllis, if you don't, you're not living up or you're not enough. Is that? Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:In part it is what I'm saying. I'm also, like, in light of this conversation, also thinking, gosh, I had a thought it came in and then it went out and I think it's coming back. Here it is. I was really also thinking that I don't think any of us would have thought this, but so much of the decomplexification from my perspective is this learning of these things that are, that are, that are coming up fear, control, power, all of those things, things and that is not complex. That is just hard because there's some pain involved and some thinking differently than the way that one would normally think. But I think that's, in my opinion, like the great part of this show and us doing this podcast and what our guests are bringing and the responses from our listeners are bringing as well, and in some ways I'm really happy about that because I think there's collective, a collective growth happening.
Speaker 4:Well, I'm, I'm, I'm honored that those things spoke to you, especially with the timing that's happening there. There's, you know, three, three types of complexity traps that I put into that article that Lombard Street really helped me see. And one is the research spiral, which is exactly what you were talking about, phyllis, which is, I'm going to start this thing after I read some more books, after I get a little bit better at this, or I got to do this research and I have to do it completely, or it's not going to be right. And then you take that to Lombard street. And they could have waited to build that street. They could have waited till engineering was stronger. Uh, you know better. Um, there's the perfect timing trap. That's another complexity. They could have waited. They could have said, hey, you know, only five of the people here are saying that they want this street. It's really not the best time we're going to. We're going to wait a little while until we build this thing.
Speaker 4:And so, with perfect timing, we talked about it with this podcast. You know, there was a couple of times we kicked the can down the road. We're like it's not, it's not time yet, it's not time yet. And finally we said you know, that's enough of that, we're just going to do it. And then there's the optimization trap, which a lot of what happens with me is that happens at work. Right, I'm going to make sure that this system is perfect until I use it. And you know, those are the three big traps that when I was walking up that hill, that really came to my mind Because it applies directly to when they built this thing. They could have done any one of those traps, but there's something that we do almost instinctively every single day to overcomplexify our world.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to the easy part, too, that you talked about earlier. Right, and this idea that if it's, if it's easier, um, then you shouldn't do it Right, right, and yet we take elevators instead of going and using the stairs. We take the escalator right Instead of using the stairs, and and Greg mckeown talks about this in his book, it's, it's literally all over the pages is that it's this idea that it has to be easier? Um, and, and, and, and, and, and. It couldn't be real if it really was easier.
Speaker 3:and I think out the way that mark, forgive me because it's your piece, but the way that you said it is. If it really was easier and I think out the way that, mark, forgive me because it's your piece, but the way that you said it is if it's easier it has less value. In other words, right, yeah, like there's a value assigned to hard which is better than a value assigned to easy which is, oh, then it's less worthy yeah, and that comes back to kind of that manufactured complexity.
Speaker 4:If it's not complex, I need to make it more complex so people see more value in that. If I can solve a problem quickly, then there was no value in me solving that problem where the problem was too easy. Um, but you know, I, I think there was a story where he said he, if there was a problem presented to him and he only had an hour to figure it out, uh, he would spend 55 minutes better understanding the problem and five minutes to solve it. Um, so the complexity isn't necessarily in the answer, right? Um, so, yeah, I, I think it's that manufactured complexity that we put into our worlds today to we could take the stairs. Again. I want to go back to. The stairs Weren't easy, they were hard, they were steep. Um, I was out of breath and I'm in pretty good shape and, uh, I was tired at the end of that thing and but it was the straighter path, it was the less complex path, but it's still, it's still difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is darn fun to drive the car down that road, though I will say I just walked it, I didn't have a car. So in your, in your piece, you, you kind of set apart this seven day experiment. Yeah, um, I, I love this first one you talked about, and so well, first of all, walk us through the experiment, the seven days. And then, how did you come up with this?
Speaker 4:Uh, I just kind of can't. Just you know how things just kind of come to you and you just kind of write them on a page and they just show up. Yeah, that's how that happened. Sort of like the show. Sort of like the show just show up. Yeah, that's how that happened.
Speaker 3:Sort of like this show.
Speaker 4:Sort of like this show Unscripted. Yeah, I just kind of sat down and I started writing and then I started researching and then just words came off my pen on a piece of paper and then I typed them up.
Speaker 2:Okay, so hold on a second. Yeah, phyllis, are you hearing that he literally just kind of did what we ultimately want to be getting to, which is to make it easier?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he just did it, plainly said, simply said, he just did it.
Speaker 2:Did you at all like when you were starting to think about this pause, or did you just go? I just went. So what was different?
Speaker 4:Uh, I've just had a flow that I, just as I was walking, I was thinking, and when I put pen to paper it just flowed out of me Like the whole thing just showed up.
Speaker 3:Mark, I think what our guests really our listeners really want to know is can you walk, think and chew gum at the same time? Apparently.
Speaker 4:Apparently yeah, I can, can and scowl. I probably had a scowl on my face. The whole time because I was thinking and I have a thinking scowl and people aren't thinking I'm having a good time and I'm like I'm having a great time. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2:just a scowl uh, so mark you. You wrote this seven day experiment, tell, walk us through this thing, because this I thought was just cool as can be and I it turned up some good thoughts and ideas. Recommendations.
Speaker 4:Well, how about this? What? Uh, I mean, I can walk through it real quick and then, but I want to hear what your thoughts and recommendations are on it. Um, it's a seven day challenge and um, it's really to audit your Lombard street, so your complexity versus the staircases that you could take. So, you know, in the first one or two days, write down the projects that you're working on, the decisions that you need to make, or goals, and, and probably some of them, like mine, you have been working on for 30, 60, 90 days, maybe since January. Um, be brutally honest with yourself and write all of those projects down. And then so, lombard street when I did was doing some research has a 27% incline, or grade Um, and then so, for all the things that you wrote down, what are the specific constraints, um, that you have and what requires a certain level of complexity for each of those?
Speaker 4:So, not everything in the world is simple. There is going to be some level of complexity. What is that level? And grade it and maybe put a number next to it. But if you can't identify a clear physical, physical, legal, skill based constraint, it's probably just a staircase disguised as complexity. Right, so it's.
Speaker 4:It's your manufactured complexity that we've been talking about. There's no reason for it to be complex. You might just be making it up and then design your staircase. Might just be making it up and then design your staircase. So just pick one thing, because you can't pick all things, so just start with one. Pick one of the items that has the highest priority or the most meaning to you, or the one that you feel like you can accomplish, cause I believe in a, you know, celebrating wins. So if you feel like you can win with one, then then do it.
Speaker 4:Take that thing and design the straightest staircase you can. How can you go from whatever that project? Is that goal? What is the most direct path to completion so you can overlook the bay, like I did when you get to the top? How can you make that as simple and as straight as possible? As simple and as straight as possible, and design it. Design it for that one project and then execute it right. That's the the biggest thing is execution.
Speaker 4:So now you've done all the work, you've listed all your projects, you've asked yourself is this manufactured or is this real complexity? You've picked one thing, you've designed your staircase. Now go climb it and um and and it and set some goals around how quickly you want to climb that staircase. There's no perfect timing. You don't need to do any more research. You've probably researched the crap out of it already. Don't do any more. There's no more optimization. If you're launching a new product, launch it imperfectly. If it's man next week would be better, Would it really Go ahead and launch it? If you know that's kind of the concept and just go walk those stairs to the conversation with your awesome, beautiful guest.
Speaker 2:you brought on Quinitha Frazier, who talked about in the startup how many startups and entrepreneurs don't launch because they do exactly what Mark said.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. And, mark, this is your day, because you also said with Quinitha that applies to if you're running a business or building something or running a nonprofit, whatever the case may be. And while we've been talking, I was really thinking about a time, you know, in my career, I don't know, just pretend 15 years ago and I worked for a great guy who I still am close with. But I'd like come out of a meeting or a committee meeting and he'd be like hey, when's that? You know, when are we starting this initiative? And I'd be like, oh, you know, we just met and we got to do this and I got to look at this and I got a little more research to do, and like four weeks would go by.
Speaker 3:And he'd be like when? Like when is it happening? And you know, then flip the switch. Because until you flip the switch, you don't know if it's going to work or if it's not going to work. Everything else is just a guessing game. At your point, like at this point in time and I know you well enough to know you've done a good job getting it to whatever, wherever it's at, let's just flip the switch. And that was really the truth my hesitancy in flipping the switch is that it wouldn't be perfect, and the truth is there was no way to get it to perfect or as high functioning as it could be, unless we flipped the switch. Everything else is just made up and imaginary.
Speaker 4:And the problem with waiting to perfect is, quite honestly, I think it's just a fear that if it's not perfect, it's going to fail, yeah, or that someone's going to look at you and be like, oh my gosh, look what she did. That's all manufactured complexity too.
Speaker 3:It is Like it's not even real. It's not because the learning is in the mistake. That's how you get better. What we say is failure is really learning.
Speaker 2:It is you wrote is giving me personally an image and an analogy that I could put my hands on, helped me clarify more quickly, when I'm standing in my own way and and we've talked about this numerous times on multitudes of episodes that I do that all the time. But you're, you have this. I'm going to read it exactly and I really encourage people to, to, to take a look, uh, at, at Mark's post. It's called the crooked road of complexity. It's on Mark's and we're going to drop a link in it in in the show notes, to, to to Mark's writing.
Speaker 2:But near the end of your article you kind of wrap it up. You call it the view from the top. When your goal is the experience building relationships, developing mastery, enjoying the process take the curves. When your goal is the destination launching the business, having the conversation, making the decision take the stairs. And then you bold this out, which is just beauty. The tragedy isn't taking curves. It's taking curves when you meant to climb stairs and I don't know anybody that would be listening to this and not go okay, yeah, and and be able to look in front of themselves and go, okay, that's stairs, that's curves, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was beautifully, beautifully written and very powerful, I might add.
Speaker 4:I guess I need to go on more vacations, you do you?
Speaker 2:do, which you know. How was the vacation?
Speaker 4:The vacation was fantastic, but it was very cool because I've had this mindset and everywhere I go now I look at things through two lenses the simple path and the complex path. And so more articles to come, more things to chat about. But yeah, it was great. Are we going into the stall? Yeah, we've got to do that. All right, Absolutely, but yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2:Are we going into the stall?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've got to do that. All right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Then, if that's the case, let's retread the flushing. No more blushing. It's time to step into what do we call it the roll-up?
Speaker 1:Yes, the roll-up.
Speaker 2:The roll-up. I know it's the roll-up, I just was testing you guys.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Can't believe I forgot about that.
Speaker 4:Well, you just got off the plane, so we'll forgive you this time. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the team, but not next time. No, all right. So, mark, you lead us off. What is your question for us in the stall today?
Speaker 4:All right, I got a deep one, that's. Oh, yeah, he said that I'm trying to go after my mentor, Al and have you know, good dad, joke here and there, All right. What is one problem you've solved in the past week while in the bathroom?
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:What's one problem I've solved while in the bathroom.
Speaker 4:Yeah, in this last week, while you were in the bathroom.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay. The problem I solved while in the bathroom was I selected the fabric that I'm going to use to cover this chair that has been in Tim's family for many, many, many, many, many years and it's Mark. You would actually love it. It's kind of funky, it's mid-century and currently it's like covered in this like green suede, which actually wasn't bad. But I was going through the fabrics while I was in the stall and I selected that and that has been on my list for six months. No, that's a lie. Well, wait a minute, it is a lie. I ask of you.
Speaker 4:Okay, four to six months, that's a pretty big problem. Well, what'd you solve?
Speaker 2:okay, so I can't say it was a big problem, but I can't say it was something that was bothering me and I figured out how I was going to get between gates and still get to eat in the Houston airport during a short layover.
Speaker 2:So I was on the plane, I was in the potty because I decided let's do this now so I don't have to do it in the airport. And during my layover, which was slightly shortened because of a delay Shocker, I literally looked on my phone, looked at the gates, found the restaurant, chose where I was going to go and as soon as we pulled up in that airport and I was out, I got my food.
Speaker 3:It's a good one.
Speaker 2:All right, I got one for you guys. All right, let's hear it. All right, I got one for you guys. All right, let's hear it. What's the longest TV show or longest video that you've ever watched while on the john in the bathroom?
Speaker 3:I don't think I've ever watched one in the bathroom.
Speaker 2:I watched almost a half an entire episode of Mad Men.
Speaker 3:On your phone.
Speaker 2:On my phone. I was in the bathroom, I was done with my business, but I literally was there and I realized I was so engrossed in the episode that I realized and here's the funny part the episode was it's a bathroom scene.
Speaker 3:That's hysterical.
Speaker 2:And I realized mid-show oh my God, I got to get off the toilet and that that, besides the fact that my legs were severely numb, Okay, well, I haven't watched a show.
Speaker 3:I have spent an inordinate amount of time. This is when people used to send you catalogs, going through clothing catalogs. I can stay in there forever looking at clothing catalogs. I see that that's got no reaction from either of you.
Speaker 2:I'm moving on no, I get it, I just I I catalogs it's like shopping.
Speaker 4:Yes yeah, I, I watched half uh uh, half a movie. Uh, um, I wasn't sitting the whole time. I have I shaved head, so I shaved my head, I went to the bathroom, I brushed my teeth, but I mean it was.
Speaker 3:That's a long time. What was the movie?
Speaker 4:It was an hour, I'm kind of embarrassed to say, but it was Napoleon Dynamite.
Speaker 3:That makes so much sense to me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just yeah, I just I watched it and I took my time and yeah, half a movie.
Speaker 3:So I have a question. But, mark you, I think you actually just did this. So I'm going to ask Al first, al, if you were going to redecorate or redesign your stall, your bathroom, what would that? What would that encompass?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that encompass, oh man, oh, if I was going to redesign my bathroom, I love a, uh, I love a and I and I'm in an apartment right now, so I can't redesign anything, but it's right, so there's Okay. I would have a huge walk-in that has a refrigerator in it Not a refrigerator, but like a little place to put your drinks, because I would want it also to be a steam room. Oh, I was getting highly concerned for a second. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about the whole bathroom I got you, not just the toilet second yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about the whole bathroom.
Speaker 3:I got you Not just the toilet area.
Speaker 2:Right, I would put a drink holder next to the toilet, because sometimes I go in there and I've got a drink I'll admit, sometimes it's a cocktail, sometimes it's just water and it would have a phone holder.
Speaker 4:Interesting. Oh, that would be useful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting, oh, that would be useful. Yeah, that'd be super phone holder, and then and then, and then it would have finally a place to put whatever reading materials, which is is they're. They're typically on little tables and things, but I'd rather put it in a slot, so there's a lot going on.
Speaker 4:It almost sounds like you could just open up all the walls and just the bathrooms. Also the living room the kitchen bedroom it's all of it. It's a second house. You go here, you know, here, here's the en suite and then, uh, you know, it's got everything in there. That wouldn't be a bad idea actually.
Speaker 4:Yeah, mark mark, oh me, uh you know I, I, I would make mine look like a spa. I want to pretend that when I woke up, that I was in someplace fancy, and so you know steam room. You know one of those towel holders with all the towels all nicely rolled. You know someone to hand me mints when I leave.
Speaker 3:Oh mints.
Speaker 4:You know, or spray me with some cologne.
Speaker 2:Do they still? Does that even done anywhere?
Speaker 4:anymore. I don't think so. I haven't seen that in years.
Speaker 3:Not anywhere we go.
Speaker 2:Do you remember? I remember that man you would go to the clubs and there was the person you would tip and the problem was usually these were places that that would never exist. No, no, the cologne always was nasty oh, and they spray way too much.
Speaker 4:But but you know, at midnight you're like oh yeah, I've been dancing, I smell, you should hit me up with that cologne. And so you smell like sweaty cologne is what you smell like and mints that had been in the bathroom for months and uh, you know, uh, I always felt bad because I never had cash. So they would like spray me real quick and I'd take a mint and I never had a tip, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I would always tell the I was so cheap. Uh, busted broke back. Then I would tell, but I felt so bad for the, for the guy that was working in the bathroom, that I would apologize to him. I would say, hey, man, I just don't have the money, but I really appreciate what you're doing. And then I'd have the nerve to ask him for an extra mint and a towel. Can I have a towel? Thanks, by the way. Um, what did you call it? Something? Cologne, sweaty cologne, that's. That should be a name of a band Sweaty cologne, sweaty cologne that should be the name of a band.
Speaker 4:Sweaty cologne Sweaty cologne and the mints. Sweaty cologne and the mints.
Speaker 2:Sweaty cologne yes.
Speaker 4:Sweaty cologne and the mints.
Speaker 1:Live in concert. Sweaty, cologne and the mints. Five dollars to sell you the whole seat, but you just need the itch.
Speaker 3:Here we go All right. Hey, you signed up with us, phil, I know, and I'm so glad I did, phil, I think we should. We should ponder over some big takeaways based on Mark's tutelage today. Staircase and when is it? The windy road. And there's something delicious in the windy road for me, mark, in the way that you described it, because that makes so much sense to me when you have the time and the reason to do that. And then I really am going to hold up this notion of when is it the staircase, when can it be the staircase it's bringing me great joy to think about. There can be a lot of straight staircases likely, if I just take a minute to think about it in the way, in the way that you've that you've described.
Speaker 2:I'm revisiting the line, or I shouldn't say line. It was a big section in the book effortless Hello in the book.
Speaker 2:Effortless hello as I think about it and the idea that he proposes to ask yourself literally the question how could I make this easier? Like, literally, what would be the easiest way to accomplish this task? I've tried it a few times, but I'm reading the book in real time, so I haven't adopted it yet or put it into a practice, but this makes it easier. Based on this analogy that you put forth, mark, and that is the staircase or the, because, ironically, I just can't get over the duplicity of the fact that the staircase still sounds like it's. It's more tough versus the curves right and anyway.
Speaker 2:That's me overthinking, though, so really no shocker mark, did you know that?
Speaker 4:no, I didn't this first time.
Speaker 3:I've ever heard anything like that, and the other thing that really stands out and I said it earlier but the difference between necessary complexity and manufactured complexity.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And that just that's just a yowzer, that's a drop the mic moment for me which is really for you, since it's your words.
Speaker 4:No, I, I'm just uh, honored that you guys thought so, so much of it, and then it was meaningful, meaningful for you. Um, you know, I, if there were, there were a couple of takeaways that I I'd like everybody just to think about as they go on with their week is when is complexity valuable? So, Phyllis and Al, you both said that, so you know again, kind of the relationship, building, the skill development, enjoyment of the process, when simplicity the goal, so when you have to execute, launch, decide, those sort of things, um, and then catching yourself, are you taking, are you taking a, a complex path just to take it, uh, or or do you just need to take the stairs? So, thank you, uh, it was fun to write, it was a fun place to go. It had me thinking. I'm looking forward to the other pieces that I want to write about it, but there is, there's a lot of stairs, Phyllis, I think that you said it perfectly. There's a lot of stairs that we could be taking, so awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was fun. Thank you, you know what you did, mark. The greatest gift that you gave us is awareness, because that's the first step that fill us, that you and I both pause to go. All right, is it this or that? That's the first step.
Speaker 2:All right and anyway. Okay, and with that we shall roll on out of here. We hope you enjoyed this wonderful episode. It's a great experience for us just to be together. Thank you for rolling along with us, not just because we're trying to create a show that means something, but we're also trying to really have real conversations that we want you to be a part of in an ongoing way, and so don't forget to visit our Facebook page. The Complexity of Toilet Paper. Jump in on some of the conversations, the discussions. We also now have a Complexity of Toilet Paper page on LinkedIn so you can check that out. That's on LinkedIn from the business side. More to come down the road on all of that. Thank you so much. This is the complexity of toilet paper.
Speaker 1:Did you say toilet paper? Everything complicated One big, big mess.
