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Episode 352: Get Away From My Formular!

Back to Work

5by5

Business, Society & Culture, Barriers, Dan Benjamin, Careers, Communication, Merlin Mann, Creativity, Work, Productivity, Constraints, Technology

4.7 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2017

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Dan and Merlin talk about…so many things. Merlin had a lot of coffee.

Big topics include:

  • Flickr nostalgia (and smart photo backup tips)
  • Dan's crazy Apple TV bug
  • A terrific podcast episode about Buddhism and the human mind
  • A tough listener question about gracefully leaving a job

Links for this episode:

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello. Hey, Merlin. Good afternoon, Dan. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I am very

0:07.8

well rabbit rabbit. Oh right. You're supposed to say that at the start of the at the start

0:13.5

of the month. Yeah. I scooted up this morning. That's supposed to be the first words out

0:18.6

of your mouth on the new when you first wake up. Yeah. The tradition varies. I think we

0:24.2

can all agree. The forsecular and non-secular reasons. You should say something repetitious

0:29.1

about rabbits. Some people say bunny rabbit. Some people say rabbit rabbit. And I think the

0:36.3

first words out of my mouth were something like what the hell are you looking for? And then

0:42.3

it said, oh, rabbit rabbit. The answer was colored pencils. What, where do you think the origin

0:48.7

of that is? The not the colored pencils. That's a very good question. We should have hit the

0:53.6

hidden brain guy go and do some research on this. Yeah. Turns out, let's find out about rabbit rabbit.

0:59.8

Are you excited? It's a holiday season. Dan, you hear this. Slaybell's Jinglein, Ringling, Ringling.

1:03.6

Uh-huh. Yep. Rabbit rabbit rabbit. One variant of a superstition found in Britain and North

1:08.7

America, the states that a person should say or repeat the word rabbit or rabbits or white rabbits

1:13.4

or some combination of these elements out loud upon waking on the first day of the month because

1:17.0

doing so will ensure good luck for the duration. Origins. The exact origin is unknown.

1:23.9

Recorded as early as 1909. Have you ever remembered to do it and done it? Oh, yeah. Does it work?

1:30.2

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at me.

1:35.0

Probably. Yeah. Everything's coming up. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm not a particularly superstitious person.

1:42.1

I just do some because they're fun. Yep. I heard a there's a really good you know, I watched that

1:49.0

bunch of the YouTube. There's a video that I saw the other day on the origins of superstitions and

1:53.6

there's some I didn't know like the knock on wood comes from like I don't want to use the word

1:59.4

wrong. I don't want to be a religionist, but like a kind of a druid type thing of knock on a

...

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