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1:20

Hello, I'm Katie Stallard, and you're listening

1:22

to World Review from The New Statesman, a

1:25

twice-weekly international news podcast.

1:31

Every Monday, we interview a guest for their

1:33

unique perspective and expertise. Then,

1:35

later in the week, we come together to unpack some of

1:37

the most significant stories in world affairs.

1:40

Today, I'm speaking to the journalist and author

1:43

Tim Marshall, whose books include

1:45

the international bestseller Prisoners

1:47

of Geography. We'll discuss his

1:49

new book, The Future of Geography, and why

1:52

the next Great Power contest will be

1:54

in space.

2:01

Tim, thanks for joining me. It's great to have

2:03

you on the podcast. Thank you for the

2:05

invitation. And I think in

2:07

the interest of clarity, we both should

2:10

admit that we're former colleagues in another life.

2:12

We are, yes. Listeners know

2:14

you as the internationally acclaimed bestselling

2:17

author. Tim Marshall, I first

2:19

met you many years ago where we both worked at

2:21

Sky News and where you were extraordinarily

2:24

kind and generous and encouraging to

2:27

those of us humble lowly reporters.

2:29

I particularly remember you taking me for a coffee before

2:32

I headed off to Moscow and

2:33

downloading all of your wisdom about

2:35

spheres of influence, the near abroad. Having

2:38

thoroughly embarrassed you. As true politics

2:40

and the future of geography,

2:43

space, the final frontier,

2:45

the next great geopolitical battleground,

2:48

what first drew you to look

2:50

up and to tackle this

2:53

extraordinarily complex?

2:55

I think it's fair to say subject.

2:58

It is complex, and yet at the same time,

3:00

it's less complex

3:02

the moment it hits you that, hang on a

3:04

minute, everything that's happening up there is happening down here.

3:06

And hopefully I know a couple of things

3:09

about what's happening down here and it's

3:11

being mirrored up there. And George

3:13

Orwell said that sometimes the hardest thing to

3:15

see is what's right in front of your nose. And it's

3:18

been obvious for several years, but it was

3:20

just that sort of clarity of thought that

3:22

it's the same and that therefore,

3:25

as I write about international relations,

3:28

this is simply another area

3:31

in which that is playing out. So

3:34

let's write about that because there's

3:36

a lot of very learned and much more expert

3:38

people than me writing about this,

3:41

but I didn't see a book

3:43

for the lay person, which is what I

3:46

am as well. And I was fascinated

3:48

by the subject. So on I went. So

3:52

you, you go through really the entire

3:54

of humankind's history of thinking about space,

3:57

starting I think that actually with the Big Bang.

3:59

I tell you when I start Katie, it is 0.00001 second

4:03

after the Big Bang. So

4:06

I interrupted you, but yeah, what I wanted to do was

4:09

frame our relationship as

4:11

humans with the cosmos from its

4:14

earliest times that we were conscious of it and how

4:16

we explained

4:18

things through the gods and the ghosts,

4:20

as I say, but then through a very

4:23

long journey and then accelerating

4:25

through science, a better understanding

4:28

of it is now. So I just, the beginnings of the

4:30

book frame it before we get to the politics.

4:33

If we skip through several billion

4:35

years, I wanted to really look at

4:37

the Cold War in particular as our starting

4:40

point and how that

4:42

great contest really drove

4:44

the space race of the last century. Really

4:47

accelerated it and to our,

4:50

central to our consciousness, culminating

4:53

in those incredible scenes when Neil

4:55

Armstrong actually walks

4:57

on the moon. But it

5:00

was an integral part of the Cold War and

5:03

it was, and you

5:06

know this from your previous life

5:08

in Moscow and Beijing and of course now

5:10

Washington, those two of the great

5:12

epicenters, the

5:15

current space race, but the previous

5:17

iteration was Soviets and

5:20

the Americans. And each side really

5:23

wanted to use the space race to prove

5:25

that their system was the superior system

5:28

and therefore this was the journey mankind,

5:30

humankind as we now say should take. And

5:33

in the research, I came across this clip

5:35

by Kennedy. Now

5:37

Kennedy's great space speech, the

5:39

one that's most remember is, is we don't go there

5:41

because it's easy. We go there because it's

5:43

hard because

5:45

he went on to be the mayor of Quimby and

5:47

the Simpsons, but leave that to one side. Excellent.

5:50

Flawless. Yeah. But

5:52

I found that another section in the 1962

5:55

Congress speech where he says in terms,

5:58

we need to win this. so that

6:01

people have a better,

6:02

easier decision to make when

6:04

they decide which fork in the road

6:07

humankind is going to take. He actually spelt

6:10

it out, that's what it was about. And I do think

6:12

it underpinned it. And of course there was the military aspect

6:14

to it as well. That was the underpinning.

6:17

It was the politics of the Cold War that

6:19

propelled Neil Armstrong to the surface of

6:21

the Moon.

6:23

And there was a real chance that the Soviets

6:25

would win that race. Can you give us a sense

6:27

of the context? I think what we remember, particularly

6:29

I'm speaking from the United States, is the great triumphant

6:32

small step for man on the Moon. But

6:35

actually the late 1950s, it really

6:38

looked like it might not be the US.

6:40

Yeah. Soviets were first

6:42

up with Sputnik and only a few

6:44

days later, the Americans tried

6:46

to launch their satellite to say, look,

6:49

we have parity. And it blew up on the launchpad

6:51

in the full view of the cameras and the headlines

6:54

were Flopnik and then,

6:56

I mean, they did get parity, but then the

6:58

Russians, Soviets, went ahead with Gagarin,

7:01

first human in space. And

7:03

again, the declassified materials that

7:06

the White House and others have put out

7:08

subsequently make it quite

7:10

clear that the Americans were aware that many

7:12

of their allies were looking at them and thinking,

7:14

are we backing the wrong horse in this race? It's

7:17

not that they would all Britain and France or whoever

7:19

would immediately have switched sides. But

7:22

it's a little bit similar to the situation with

7:24

Taiwan now. In

7:26

the event that Taiwan was to fall without the

7:28

Americans giving any support to Taiwan,

7:31

as every single American friend

7:33

in the region would start to think, ah,

7:35

okay. And that

7:37

was the rationale again that, and

7:40

the embassies were sending in reports back

7:42

to Washington saying, all our allies

7:45

are asking questions. How powerful

7:47

are you? Are the Soviets going to win this? And

7:50

this was clearly part of the strategic thinking.

7:53

You have a great quote,

7:55

which I'm going to ask you to replicate because I can't fully

7:57

remember the wording, but of the impact.

7:59

of reaching the moon and

8:02

what that did then for the future of the US space

8:04

program. I

8:06

think it was Tom Wolfe's quote as if

8:08

because it was great in most of his work and

8:11

forgive me if it was somebody else's but yeah he was he

8:13

wrote a long magazine article that it was one

8:16

giant leap for mankind one

8:18

knee in the groin for NASA

8:20

because understandably

8:24

Nixon looked at this looked at the cost of

8:26

it and then Apollo 12 went came

8:29

back Apollo 13 tried to go and didn't make

8:31

it but came back. Apollo 14 went Apollo 50

8:34

and he's saying what's

8:35

the point we've done that why are we

8:37

spending all this money and he pretty much pulled the plug

8:41

on the funding and they switched to

8:43

the space shuttle which was amazing

8:46

and the ISS also amazing

8:48

but that's actually the reason there's two

8:52

answers to the question why has

8:54

it taken us seven to sixty years

8:56

fifty years sorry before we're going

8:59

back because the Americans intend to be back in 2026 and

9:03

the first answer is that one is

9:05

that quote the knee in the groin

9:07

what's the point of going back but the second

9:10

one is that was fueled by

9:12

the international relations of the time this

9:14

is fueled by that as well but

9:17

by the commerce

9:18

by the race for resources

9:21

by the military space race

9:23

by the fact that the private enterprise

9:26

is now putting in gazillions

9:28

of dollars so that's reignited

9:31

it and Musk I

9:33

wouldn't say single-handedly but Musk

9:35

has vastly reduced the costs

9:38

of

9:38

breaking out of the atmosphere with

9:40

the reusable rockets the

9:42

technology of reducing the size of the satellites

9:45

to almost a Rubik's Cube certainly

9:47

a shoebox size has reduced

9:50

the cost for

9:52

second and third tier players to

9:54

actually be out there and

9:57

so it's here and now in its front and center.

10:00

So what does this mean firstly for

10:02

I think the right terminology is low Earth

10:05

orbit and how crowded

10:07

but how consequential

10:09

that sphere has become? It's

10:11

a very important sphere. And of

10:13

course, the space out there is finite because

10:16

it's a ring. And

10:18

it's prime, it's prime real estate.

10:20

It's where so many of the satellites are,

10:23

both observation, whether you name

10:25

it, that's where they are. Some of

10:28

the military early warning systems

10:30

are there as well. And this is another

10:33

useful analogy that just

10:35

as, let's say when

10:37

we switch from sail to coal,

10:39

the British under Churchill was the first

10:41

sea lord and he said, right, we're

10:44

going to move to coal, and then the switch

10:46

from coal to oil. Well, as a leading

10:48

power, no leading power is going to say,

10:51

we'll just let everybody else go and get that and

10:53

hope that they give us some, they will

10:55

go and get it. And it's the same with that

10:57

low Earth orbit space, you have to

10:59

be there. And

11:00

you have to be there in numbers to be a player

11:02

and you can't wait until there's very little space

11:04

left and there's tens of thousands

11:06

of satellites will be going up over the next decade.

11:09

But if you move up even higher, geosynchronous,

11:11

this is the orbit where a satellite

11:14

moves around the Earth at the same speed that the Earth is turning.

11:17

And consequently, it's always over the same piece

11:19

of territory, which is extraordinarily good for

11:21

surveillance, also for communications and

11:23

TV and stuff. You have to

11:26

get a license from the ITU, which is a

11:28

International Telecommunications Union, a

11:30

UN

11:30

body,

11:32

they're only going to give so many licenses and it's

11:33

first come first serve. So you have to

11:35

be there. And the last bit of the analogy, let's

11:38

for example, the resources on the moon.

11:41

Well, again, there's a lot of stuff

11:43

that we need for the 21st century, lithium,

11:46

for example. And there's

11:48

helium three, which

11:50

we might be able to use as free

11:52

clean energy that's still in

11:54

progress. But if you see

11:56

your competition,

11:57

if America

11:59

or China

12:00

sees the other one going up there and having

12:02

a look at are we going to get helium-3? You

12:04

can't bet that probably never

12:06

be used. You have to go

12:08

there as well. So

12:11

does that mean we are now entering

12:13

a new race to the moon but

12:16

this time for these natural resources?

12:18

Yeah, it's this it's

12:20

three-pronged Primarily it's commercial

12:23

and getting the resources because honestly everything's

12:26

there silicon lithium and

12:28

a whole bunch of other metals I

12:30

Barely heard of some of which are called rare earth

12:32

metals Which is quite amusing because either

12:34

on the moon and be they're not that rare But

12:37

we need them for the renewable energy for

12:39

our

12:40

phones our cars for the wind

12:42

turbines, etc so it's

12:44

driven by that and then

12:46

Second tier down from that is

12:49

the launching pad to Mars There's

12:51

a massive debate in this world about

12:53

do you go via the moon or do you

12:55

go straight to Mars? And it's a huge debate and at

12:58

the moment it is being won by people that think

13:00

we go to the moon We build moon bases

13:02

in the early 2030s and From

13:05

there

13:06

you leap up to Mars because you need Incredibly

13:10

little fuel in comparison to

13:12

all that fuel you need to break through the atmosphere

13:14

of here And then the third one there

13:17

there is a military aspect to it

13:19

having a presence on the moon

13:21

will give you lines of sight

13:24

and The potential for satellites

13:26

and I personally believe Satellites

13:28

are destined to be armed For

13:31

defensive purposes only I'm sure Katie. Of

13:33

course, but so again,

13:35

it's useful to have

13:37

Get up there

13:38

and it's really on this isn't

13:40

I'm probably late to the game. This is not really accelerating.

13:43

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13:46

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16:33

There's been a lot of focus on the China-Russia

16:35

relationship down here on Earth, but

16:38

I was really interested to read in

16:40

the book about, for instance, joint plans

16:43

for a lunar base. Can you

16:45

explain a little bit about what's going on there?

16:47

Again, going to the geopolitics

16:50

and now astropolitics of it, it's interesting

16:53

how much it mirrors it because as

16:55

you know from this unlimited friendship that

16:57

Xi and Putin have announced,

16:59

which I think is very limited,

17:01

but there is no question in my mind that the partnership

17:04

is

17:05

solid for the time being.

17:07

China is not going to abandon Russia.

17:10

Sorry, it's another subject, but they're not

17:12

going to abandon Russia. I doubt

17:14

they will arm them to the extent that they want to

17:16

be armed. But where it mirrors it

17:18

is this reversal on

17:20

Earth, which has happened, where China

17:23

was very much the junior partner when they

17:25

were friends as communists before they fell

17:27

out. They used to say that Chinese

17:29

technology is just re-engineered Russian technology,

17:31

and it's just completely flipped.

17:34

So now on Earth, China is absolutely 100%

17:38

the senior partner in this partnership, and it's the

17:40

same in space. They are now

17:42

probably ahead of the Russians in some respects.

17:45

They are the only ones that have a space station,

17:47

a nation state

17:48

space station, the Chinese, and

17:51

they are the one that is driving,

17:53

going to the moon and building a space

17:55

with Russia, to be honest, with you tagging along.

17:58

You're right that the idea that space is

17:59

a global common is disappearing. When

18:02

you look at those kind of initiatives

18:05

of the possibility of a Chinese Russian

18:07

base on the moon,

18:09

all of these satellites

18:12

zooming around this increasingly cluttered space,

18:14

what are the rules of the road? Do

18:16

we have effective international

18:19

treaties that are governing this or

18:21

is this something our governments are working towards?

18:24

What is the situation?

18:25

Yeah, you said effective and governing

18:28

and treaties. We have one of those. We

18:31

do have treaties. We have several,

18:33

but a big one is the Outer Space Treaty in 1967. It's

18:35

effective as

18:38

long as everybody agrees with it and there's no pressure on

18:40

it. Not everybody agrees with it and now there's enormous

18:42

pressure on it. The

18:45

biggest problem with it is it was drafted in

18:48

I assume 66 and then signed

18:50

and mostly ratified in 67. For

18:53

example, it says things like we

18:56

all agree we all have weapons of mass destruction

18:58

in space. Cool, I will not

19:00

put a nuclear bomb on my satellite. Fine,

19:03

but I will put a laser on it at some point because

19:06

there's nothing in the treaty about lasers because of course

19:09

it was James Bond and now Austin Powers territory.

19:12

That's just one example of many. The second

19:15

one is the commercialization, the fact that private

19:17

enterprise is in here. Now there are paragraphs

19:20

in that treaty which you could

19:22

apply to

19:23

the private sector, but it's loose language

19:26

and so it needs to be redrawn. Everything needs

19:28

to be redrafted to take into account

19:31

the 21st century's technology, not

19:33

the 20th century's, to take into

19:35

account the commercial aspects.

19:38

That's the main thing alongside

19:41

that or incorporated into it is

19:43

the problem with the satellites. There

19:45

were very few

19:46

when that was drawn up.

19:48

Now there are no rules of the road

19:51

to say how close your satellite can be to my satellite.

19:54

If my satellite is part

19:56

of my nuclear early warning system and

19:58

your satellite is one of the ones that is got big

20:00

robotic grappling arms, and they

20:04

exist now in order to clear state space

20:06

debris, and it's approaching me, I'm getting

20:08

very nervous. Is this some sort of preemptive

20:10

thing ahead of

20:12

why are you so close to my nuclear early

20:14

warning system? So that sort of thing,

20:17

I think that's urgent. It's called

20:19

SSA, Space Situational Awareness.

20:21

And I think we urgently need to be

20:24

talking about this stuff. And obviously,

20:26

the people

20:27

who work in that industry, they know it,

20:29

but I don't think this has escaped out

20:31

into general consciousness.

20:34

And you also, you write about NATO amending

20:36

the Article 5 mutual defense

20:39

clause a couple of years back to include space,

20:42

but in very vague

20:44

terms. What do we know

20:46

about how the Alliance

20:48

thinks about space as

20:51

a theater of possible conflict? They

20:53

were, as an organization, a little late to the game.

20:55

Americans were first in with Space Command. And

20:58

now France has one, Britain has a Space Command

21:00

or Space Force, they've got various

21:02

names, India, I think has one, China,

21:05

Russia. And they're primarily

21:08

because all those countries and others have recognized

21:10

the mantra that space is a war

21:13

fighting domain.

21:14

And at the moment, it's

21:16

because you cannot fight a modern war without

21:19

access to space for a whole bunch

21:21

of reasons, surveillance, and others

21:23

and munitions guidance. And

21:26

it's played a huge role in Ukraine, the

21:28

past 14 months. But

21:32

they also have

21:33

also realized because

21:36

things have changed, and it's

21:38

not an exact example, but the Chinese

21:41

balloon recently, I've concocted, I'd

21:43

wrote an article recently where I concocted a scenario

21:45

and I know I am concocting it and it hasn't happened

21:47

and it might not, but they're useful

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23:05

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23:12

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23:40

Enter into the picture Nan

23:43

Britton, a young woman also from Marion,

23:45

Ohio, who was 30 years younger

23:48

than Harding. In 1917, Nan wrote

23:50

Warren a letter asking

23:53

him to help her find a secretarial job.

23:56

He agreed.

23:58

And they met in New York. He

24:00

was then a 52-year-old senator married

24:03

to Florence, having an affair with Carey,

24:06

and he began having an affair

24:09

with Nan, as well, who

24:11

had just turned 20. In

24:14

a tell-all book she wrote in 1927,

24:17

Nan confirmed that a number of

24:19

these trysts happened in

24:21

his Washington, D.C. Senate office.

24:24

On one such visit in January of 1919,

24:28

their daughter, Elizabeth,

24:31

was conceived. Warren

24:33

set Nan up with the place to live in New Jersey,

24:37

and in October of 1919, Nan

24:39

gave birth to his child, although

24:42

Elizabeth's paternity wouldn't

24:44

officially be recognized until almost

24:46

a hundred years later.

24:48

So what is a guy

24:50

to do when he's hiding two

24:53

extra-marital affairs and one

24:55

illegitimate daughter? The

24:58

answer is, of course, run for president,

25:00

right?

25:04

For the three years that Warren

25:06

Harding was president, he paid not

25:08

only Carey and Jim Phillips to keep silent,

25:10

but also Nan Britten. In

25:13

the weeks following his election when Nan's

25:15

sister visited him to discuss his obligations,

25:19

Warren arranged to pay Nan $500

25:21

a month in child support, and he

25:24

expected Nan's silence,

25:26

of course. Warren Harding

25:29

entered office with an additional personal payroll

25:31

of hush money payments, $75,000

25:34

a year in today's money to

25:36

one former mistress, and $7500

25:39

a month in today's money to the mother

25:42

of his secret daughter.

25:43

And we haven't forgotten about Florence,

25:46

his actual wife. Florence

25:48

continued to support Warren's ambition

25:50

to be president, but she worried about

25:53

what his candidacy would mean for

25:55

them,

25:56

and how effective he might be in the

25:58

role. She knew that

26:00

his legislative laziness and

26:03

his fondness for liquor and women

26:06

could become big problems in the most public

26:08

role in the nation.

26:11

But Florence fully supported him

26:13

reservations and all, and was quite

26:16

active throughout his campaign. Florence

26:18

marketed herself as the other half

26:20

of Warren's down home return

26:22

to normalcy persona. She regularly

26:24

spoke to the media about her skills as a housekeeper

26:27

and a cook.

26:28

But once Warren secured the win, Florence was all

26:30

business, much as she had been with their

26:32

newspaper business so many years earlier.

26:36

As for Harding,

26:37

when he entered the White House, he was wildly popular

26:40

with the American people and he pushed an

26:42

agenda of reducing taxes on corporations,

26:46

limiting immigration, and working

26:48

on the federal budget system.

26:50

To maintain his everyday

26:52

man brand, he did things

26:55

that average American men might do,

26:57

like attend sporting events and playing golf. Only

27:00

he made sure that a photographer documented

27:03

his activities. There's actually a great snapshot

27:05

of Harding at Yankee Stadium, shaking

27:07

hands with Babe Ruth.

27:09

Harding appointed four justices

27:11

to the U.S. Supreme Court, including former

27:14

President

27:15

William Howard Taft to the role of

27:17

Chief Justice. Taft is the only

27:20

former president to serve on the Supreme Court, by the

27:22

way.

27:23

Things seem to be going well for Warren. Quite

27:26

even, except for a couple of

27:28

dudes who began to misbehave. As

27:31

his common recently elected officials

27:34

reward close allies and big campaign

27:36

contributors with positions of

27:39

power. Harding's administration

27:41

was no different. He appointed loyal supporters

27:43

from his time in the Senate to his cabinet, and

27:45

collectively they were known as the Ohio

27:48

Gang. Their new jobs

27:50

put these men in proximity to large

27:53

amounts of government money, which

27:55

they, guess what, they stole. Shocking

27:58

in a shocking turn of events. They manipulated

28:01

the books and stole money. This

28:03

isn't to say that everyone Harding

28:05

appointed was corrupt, but the misconduct

28:07

and scandal of Harding's appointees reflected

28:10

badly on the entire cabinet

28:13

and on Harding, too.

28:14

President Harding reportedly said

28:16

to a newspaper editor, My friends,

28:18

they're the ones who keep me walking

28:20

the floor nights.

28:22

Future President Herbert Hoover

28:25

was appointed as the Secretary of Commerce.

28:27

He was not part of Harding's inner circle

28:29

Ohio gang and didn't really think

28:32

much of them. But in 1952,

28:34

he recalled in his memoirs, Harding

28:38

enjoyed the company of his old Ohio

28:40

associates in and out of the

28:42

government. Weekly White House

28:44

poker parties were his greatest relaxation.

28:48

The stakes were not large, but the

28:50

play lasted most of the night. I

28:52

had lived too long on the frontiers of the world

28:54

to have strong emotions against people playing poker

28:57

for money if they liked it. But it irked

28:59

me to see it in the White House.

29:03

Poker wasn't the only vice happening

29:05

at the White House. Despite the fact that

29:07

this episode is full to bursting

29:10

with affairs and scandals, this is a series about

29:12

prohibition and we need to talk about the alcohol

29:14

consumption in Warren Harding's administration.

29:19

Harding's poker cabinet,

29:21

as it was sometimes called, included

29:24

Ohio gang members like Attorney General

29:26

Harry Doherty and Secretary of War

29:28

John Weeks. There was essentially

29:31

no

29:31

such thing as temperance among these

29:33

men. At the poker parties,

29:36

often held not once but twice a week,

29:39

whiskey flowed freely. I

29:41

mean, it's much harder to take someone's money

29:43

during a card game if they're stone-cold

29:46

sober, right? And this was not done in secret.

29:48

It's not like Warren and his buddies were

29:50

hiding away in some drafty, unused

29:53

closet, quietly sipping

29:56

their outlawed alcohol. No! In

29:59

fact, the Harding's entertainment.

29:59

in the yellow room, a large

30:02

oval room with big picture windows that's located

30:04

in the residential south side of the

30:07

White House.

30:08

And I said Harding's plural

30:10

because Florence was often present too.

30:13

The late Teddy Roosevelt's oldest daughter

30:15

Alice Roosevelt Longworth was

30:17

a regular at the White House during these

30:20

parties and she claimed that the first

30:22

lady even mixed the drinks

30:24

from a vast supply of

30:27

bottles.

30:29

You want to take a guess where all this alcohol was coming

30:31

from? It was procured

30:34

by a few members of the Ohio gang,

30:37

men who had access to the Justice Department

30:40

and the alcohol that had been confiscated

30:43

by prohibition agents. They

30:45

brought in bootlegged and confiscated

30:48

liquor by the cart full.

30:50

Essentially they were drinking

30:53

the whiskey they took

30:55

from the people.

31:00

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31:26

By 1923 in the third year of his

31:28

first term, Warren Harding's facade

31:31

of his successful Republican president was

31:33

beginning to crumble. He

31:35

still looked the part on the surface but underneath

31:37

he was buried in scandals trying

31:40

to keep his own under wraps as

31:42

well as the

31:43

indiscretions and schemes

31:46

of his cabinet. He sought counsel

31:48

from the religious and uncorrupt Herbert Hoover

31:50

about ethically which should take precedence

31:53

the good of the party or the good of

31:55

the country. Harding's

31:58

health began to deteriorate from the

31:59

the stress, he grew gaunt and

32:02

tired easily. Nevertheless,

32:05

that summer, he and several others, including

32:07

Herbert Hoover and his wife Florence,

32:10

embarked on a 15,000 mile

32:13

cross-country trip through the West

32:15

and into the territory of Alaska. During

32:19

their journey, Harding developed such severe

32:21

chest and stomach pain that he was bedridden

32:24

by the time they finally made it to San

32:26

Francisco. He was

32:28

there, as Florence

32:29

read to him from the Saturday Evening

32:32

Post, that Warren had a heart

32:34

attack and died, three

32:36

months shy of his 58th birthday. Calvin

32:39

Coolidge was sworn in as the

32:41

30th President of the United States in

32:44

the morning of August 3, 1923.

32:48

Even after Warren's unexpected

32:51

death, all of his papers and correspondence

32:53

were boxed up and given to Florence.

32:56

Before 1978, presidential

32:58

papers were not confidential or

33:00

property of the United States. Florence

33:03

was free to do whatever she wanted with Warren's

33:05

things.

33:06

And what she wanted was to protect

33:08

him. She had an employee of Harding's

33:11

newspaper feed many of

33:13

the papers to the furnace. Although

33:16

she had been well-loved as a first

33:18

lady, Florence understood that the scandals

33:21

coming to light besmirched Warren's

33:23

presidency, and by extension, her.

33:26

Warren Harding's death shocked the nation,

33:28

and people demanded answers. When

33:31

those were not forthcoming, rumors spread.

33:34

The president's doctors were accused of malpractice

33:37

and incompetence. Florence, the last person

33:40

to see him alive, was accused of deliberately

33:42

poisoning him.

33:43

This poisoning allegation spread

33:45

like wildfire, fueled

33:47

by Florence's refusal of an autopsy

33:51

and her inheritance of his large

33:53

estate.

33:54

This theory was the premise of a book

33:56

written by a shady former FBI

33:58

agent Gaston Meade.

33:59

published in 1930, the

34:02

strange death of President Harding implies

34:05

that Florence chose to punish Warren

34:07

for his affairs by poisoning him.

34:11

It was quickly debunked, but even

34:13

today it persists

34:15

as a conspiracy theory. Florence

34:18

Cling Harding died just 16 months

34:21

after her husband. And

34:23

as the merchant of Venice tells us, the

34:26

truth will out. And

34:28

so the revelation of scandal after scandal

34:31

begin to systematically chip

34:33

away at the Harding legacy.

34:36

Attorney General Harry Doherty and his

34:38

aide Jess Smith were running a huge

34:41

scam with alcohol. Under

34:44

the Volstead Act, pharmacies were legally

34:46

allowed to buy and sell alcohol if they acquired

34:49

the appropriate permits from the government.

34:51

But Smith sold these permits

34:54

to bootleggers who in turn then

34:57

purchased and sold alcohol under the guise of

34:59

owning a pharmacy.

35:01

Smith and Doherty pocketed the money

35:03

they made selling permits. Smith

35:05

was also the White House fixer and

35:08

had his hand in a number of shady

35:10

deals.

35:11

It was also rumored that he and

35:14

Doherty were lovers. In 1923, Jess

35:17

Smith was found face down

35:20

in a garbage can with a bullet

35:23

in his head. His

35:26

death was ruled to be suicide, but

35:28

there's also a lot of robust

35:30

speculation that Jess Smith's

35:32

death was actually a homicide.

35:35

Fixer Jess Smith was the guy in charge of

35:37

paying off Harding's former mistresses

35:39

through a special fund to set aside for

35:42

blackmail. Smith also kept

35:44

a Washington Post editor, Ned McLean,

35:46

in his pocket.

35:48

Bribing him with booze and hush money to

35:50

keep damning coverage of Harding

35:52

out of the press. There's

35:54

a particularly salacious story

35:56

that has emerged in recent years about

35:59

a woman named Grace Cress.

35:59

Cross, who was Harding's aide

36:02

during his time in the Senate, they

36:04

had an affair. In a moment

36:06

of anger during their relationship, she

36:08

slashed him with a knife, which

36:10

meant that when the affair ended badly and

36:13

Warren became president, Grace

36:15

threatened to go public with their love

36:17

letters, much like Carrie had, and

36:20

she talked openly about her

36:22

ability to identify the

36:26

birthmark she'd given him with

36:28

that knife.

36:30

Fixer Jess sought

36:32

to solve the problem with the help from Grace's

36:34

friend Bertha Martin. Bertha

36:37

agreed to help on the condition that she was

36:39

given the job of society editor at

36:41

The Washington Post, and because Smith

36:43

had an N with Ned McLean there,

36:46

he made it happen. In exchange,

36:49

Bertha took her friend Grace to

36:51

lunch.

36:53

Knowing she had always kept them with her,

36:55

Bertha asked Grace if she could see the letters

36:58

that Warren had written her.

37:00

When Grace pulled them out of her purse, Bertha

37:03

snatched them away and bolted

37:05

out of the restaurant. Grace

37:09

lost her proof. Bertha became

37:11

the society editor, and President

37:13

Harding's affairs stayed

37:16

in the dark.

37:18

Jess unfortunately wound up dead.

37:21

Perhaps being a fixer meant that he knew too

37:23

much, because in addition to keeping

37:25

Harding's old flames flush

37:28

with hush money and selling permits

37:30

to bootleggers, he also had ties

37:32

to another scandal, one that you may have heard of, the

37:35

Teapot Dome scandal. During

37:38

his presidency a decade earlier, William

37:40

Howard Taft designated as

37:42

Special Naval Oil Reserve, several

37:45

oil fields located all over the country.

37:48

The

37:48

Teapot Dome oil field

37:50

in Wyoming was one of them.

37:54

In the midst of a vast, mostly

37:57

barren landscape, there was a large

37:59

rock.

37:59

formation that had once strongly

38:02

resembled a teapot which is what gave the

38:04

Valley its name.

38:06

In 1921

38:08

Interior Secretary and Ohio gang

38:10

member Albert Bacon Fall

38:13

convinced President Harding to sign

38:15

Executive Order 3474 which transferred

38:19

control of the teapot dome Naval

38:22

Oil Reserve to the Department of the

38:25

Interior.

38:26

Definitely not suspicious. Don't

38:29

be suspicious, okay? Suddenly

38:32

Interior Secretary Fall was

38:35

rolling in money. He

38:37

paid for 10 years worth of back

38:39

taxes all at one time which

38:42

a cabinet member with a decade's worth of back taxes

38:44

is a whole different scandal entirely

38:47

right? Fall purchased land

38:49

in New Mexico and made substantial

38:51

improvements to the properties he already owned. Again,

38:55

don't be suspicious. Nothing

38:57

to see here. The

38:59

scandal broke before Warren Harding's

39:02

death when the Wall Street Journal reported in 1922 that

39:05

officials in his administration

39:07

had secretly leased drilling

39:09

rights at teapot dome to the

39:11

oil magnate Harry Sinclair. It

39:15

also later came out that Interior Secretary

39:17

Fall had leased Naval

39:19

Oil fields to another

39:22

oil therein. And these leases

39:25

were worth more than 200 million

39:28

dollars. That's the equivalent of like 3 billion

39:30

dollars today? That's like by

39:32

an island kind of money, right? The

39:34

Senate decided, you

39:36

know what?

39:37

We should investigate. We should look into this. We

39:39

should look into this teapot dome situation.

39:42

Secretary Fall resigned in hopes

39:44

of quieting the reporting and

39:46

investigation. He returned

39:49

to the private sector at his ranch

39:51

in Three Rivers, New Mexico which

39:54

just so happened to have a brand new

39:56

giant influx of cattle.

39:59

covered for fall and

40:01

claimed that the leases were done with his approval.

40:05

The story faded by the summer of 1923 when

40:08

the president left on his trip west.

40:11

Additionally, the Republicans who controlled

40:13

the Senate weren't overjoyed to be pressing

40:15

too hard against one of their

40:18

own, so Democratic Senator Thomas

40:20

Walsh of Montana took the lead in the investigation,

40:23

while Senate Republicans worked on thwarting

40:26

any future probe.

40:28

The corrupt Harry Doherty,

40:30

President Harding's Attorney General, directed

40:33

federal agents to Montana to

40:35

search for information that would discredit

40:37

Senator Walsh.

40:38

And Secretary Fall

40:40

buried the Senate committee with more than 5,000

40:44

documents in order to bog down

40:46

and prolong the investigation.

40:49

The Senate hearings finally began in October

40:52

of 1923, after Warren

40:54

Harding's death. The inquiry

40:57

confirmed that Secretary Fall

40:59

had received bribes of about $400,000, which

41:02

is like $6 million today, from the oil executives

41:04

Harry Sinclair

41:09

and Edward Doheny.

41:12

What did they get for their money? Exclusive

41:14

oil production rights at several

41:17

oil fields, including Teapot

41:20

Dome. Additionally,

41:24

the source of the funds

41:26

Secretary Fall used to pay his back taxes

41:29

and improve his properties was discovered to be

41:32

a $100,000 no interest loan from

41:35

one of the oil magnets. Six

41:38

criminal trials and two civil

41:40

trials followed these congressional

41:42

hearings, and in 1929, Fall was convicted of

41:47

criminal conspiracy and bribery in

41:49

Spent.

41:50

Get this. One

41:53

year in prison for his crimes. Fall

41:58

had the honor of being the

41:59

first presidential cabinet member to be sentenced

42:02

to prison, and the Teapot Dome

42:04

scandal was the most serious

42:07

governmental scandal until Watergate 50

42:10

years later. In 1927,

42:12

the Supreme Court invalidated

42:14

the oil leases and transferred

42:17

the control of the fields back to

42:19

the Navy.

42:20

Back when the scandal was first revealed,

42:23

Attorney General Doherty and President Harding

42:25

had to work hard to rein in the scrutiny

42:28

their leadership now faced. And

42:30

who knew their most sordid

42:32

of secrets? Jess Smith.

42:35

It's reported that before he left for his

42:37

trip west, Harding told Doherty that

42:40

he wanted Jess Smith gone

42:42

from Washington, D.C.

42:45

And Jess was found dead just weeks

42:47

later.

42:48

Do we have hard evidence to say for certain

42:51

that Jess's death was planned by someone other

42:53

than himself? No, we don't. But

42:55

with an administration that was neck deep

42:58

in scandal and cover-ups, is

43:00

the idea far-fetched?

43:03

Maybe not. Let's

43:05

tie up one more loose end before

43:08

we end for today.

43:10

With Warren Harding's sudden death in 1923, Nan Britton,

43:12

once his lover and the

43:15

mother of his daughter, no longer received

43:17

her monthly stipend of $500. Nan needed money

43:20

for Elizabeth's care

43:22

and education, and so she wrote a book

43:25

and called it

43:26

The President's Daughter.

43:28

Nan spared no details

43:30

in her expose, to the point where Congress

43:33

literally introduced bills to prevent

43:35

its publication. After

43:37

that, no publisher would touch it

43:40

with the 10-foot pull.

43:41

We're talking about what if, because

43:44

if you have it,

43:45

something will happen. NATO

43:48

redrew some of its language, but

43:50

deliberately loosely, because

43:52

it clearly says, if you're in my sovereign territory

43:56

with something hostile,

43:58

this is a hostile act against a NATO.

43:59

NATO member. But we

44:02

have not defined where our sovereignty

44:04

ends horizontally. There

44:07

are different definitions of whether it's 60 miles up, 80 miles up.

44:09

But even if you were 81 miles up,

44:14

and you were using a

44:16

satellite above my

44:18

territory, 80 miles up to attack one

44:20

of my friends,

44:23

discuss.

44:25

Now, obviously, they've left it so loose

44:27

so that they don't have to get drawn

44:29

and they can take things on a case by case basis. And

44:31

the reason I mentioned the balloon was, this is

44:33

just a scenario. Supposing

44:36

by coincidence, when it was a Chinese balloon

44:39

was over the nuclear silos, which

44:41

it was in Montana,

44:42

something super secret that the Americans

44:45

were doing by coincidence and only

44:47

coincidence happened

44:48

then. And they should spotted

44:51

something that was a serious secret.

44:53

It's almost certain that balloon

44:56

had kit on it that could send

44:58

its information that it was capturing

45:00

up to a Chinese satellite and then back down

45:03

to Beijing.

45:04

Supposing the

45:07

Americans realize this, realize they

45:09

had 10 minutes

45:11

to do something or not do something.

45:14

And if they didn't do anything,

45:15

those incredibly high secrets about their nuclear

45:18

capabilities

45:19

were going to be in Beijing. Do

45:21

they shoot it down? And these

45:24

are the scenarios that military people

45:26

plan for a raft of scenarios. But

45:28

this is the sort of thing that we're now, I think we're

45:30

playing catch up.

45:32

And in that scenario, if

45:34

they do shoot it down, where does that leave

45:36

us? On

45:39

that example, when I mean, on the real

45:41

example, the Americans shot it down

45:43

over the sea for safety reasons and

45:46

over there within their 12 nautical

45:48

miles of sovereign territory. And

45:51

so under international law,

45:53

they did have the right now. The Chinese can

45:55

say force majeure, act of nature.

45:57

You shouldn't have done it

45:58

fine.

45:59

it was fairly clear cut. And I

46:02

think it would be fairly clear cut in that sense as

46:04

well, just that it would be perhaps

46:06

more, it would be taken even more

46:08

seriously than that event was. Or

46:11

let's suppose, okay, it's going to take two hours.

46:13

And by this time, it's floated out into international

46:15

waters. That makes things even more difficult

46:18

about whether I'm going to shoot it down, because that is an

46:20

act of war. If you do it in international waters, we

46:23

need to get the rules of the road

46:25

nailed down and written. I

46:27

want to ask you briefly in the time that we have left, you

46:29

have a couple of scenarios at the end of the book

46:32

outlining how this could be applied in the real world,

46:34

one of which is regarding Taiwan.

46:36

Can you

46:38

take us through how critical

46:41

satellites and this contested space

46:43

could be in that scenario?

46:45

If you were prepared

46:48

to risk a full scale war, and

46:51

that is not, I'm not saying it's likely,

46:53

but it's not exactly unthinkable

46:55

over Taiwan. Once

46:58

you take that decision, you press the

47:00

go button. One of the first things

47:02

you would do

47:03

is try to take out your opponent

47:05

satellites to blind them. And

47:08

in this pretend scenario, I come up

47:10

with they don't actually go for the mainland. In

47:13

my pretend scenario, the Chinese are

47:16

look like they're going to the mainland, the Americans

47:18

are puzzled because they haven't got enough landing ships. Everything

47:21

launches the aircraft launch and suddenly

47:23

the American satellites are taken down.

47:27

By the time they've woken up,

47:29

all the landing ships are

47:31

now returning back to shore, but

47:34

all the planes have gone down to Kinman Island,

47:36

three miles off, whatever it is off the coast

47:38

of China, the mainland,

47:40

and they've captured it and it's too late. And at that

47:43

point,

47:44

when your satellites are back up, it's

47:46

game over, you now have a choice. Oh, they

47:48

haven't invaded Taiwan, but they

47:50

have to have because it's part of it, but

47:52

it's a tiny little island.

47:54

Are we going to go to war over that? And these

47:56

are the sort of scenarios. And so I'm

47:58

pretty.

48:00

confident that sort of thing would happen without any

48:02

question in a modern warfare, if

48:04

it's all out,

48:05

you will go for your opponent's satellites, mostly

48:08

by dazzling.

48:10

But there is direct ascent, you

48:12

launch a ballistic missile from Earth and you can hit

48:14

satellites. Four countries have done it to

48:16

test it. Again, there needs to be an

48:18

ASAP ban. The Americans

48:21

have said

48:21

they will have a moratorium on testing this

48:23

stuff. Chinese and Russians won't, because

48:26

they know the American forces are vastly superior

48:29

at the moment but this is something

48:31

they have parity with them.

48:33

And so until they catch up with leg

48:35

or land, they're Earth bound forces, they

48:38

will retain the ability to fire

48:40

satellites. So that was a very long answer and you said your

48:42

final question. So

48:43

it was fascinating

48:45

and unnerving and equal amounts. One brief,

48:48

brief final question. Has grappling

48:51

with the history of humankind's

48:54

attempts to understand space,

48:56

the space race and the future of astral politics

48:59

made you more hopeful about

49:01

the

49:02

future and how we will handle

49:05

this? Or do you think we

49:07

will bring all of the same issues that we

49:09

have here on Earth to

49:11

the space realm?

49:13

I have no doubt we will do the latter.

49:16

Why wouldn't we after 12,000 years of history?

49:19

I'll try and be brief. The first time some

49:21

fella came out of a cave with a big new shiny spear.

49:24

Every year than one else, men usually said,

49:26

I want a big new shiny spear and it hasn't changed

49:29

now

49:29

and it won't change for a long time. But

49:32

we've had a very long progression towards

49:34

getting where we are and we are mostly now,

49:36

perhaps better than we used to be. And

49:39

the cooperation and science

49:41

is what has got us this far, this rationality,

49:44

because it's science

49:46

that has brought us to these amazing

49:49

peaks, which have helped all

49:51

of humanity. And I think that

49:53

trumps the negative

49:56

side of our scientific advances.

49:58

It is on the other side of the planet. onwards and upwards

50:01

with some pretty deep troughs along their way,

50:03

but it's onwards and upwards. Tim Marshall,

50:05

thank you so much for joining me today

50:07

and congratulations on a truly fantastic book.

50:12

Thank you. This has been World Review

50:14

from The New Statesman. You can read all our

50:16

international coverage on our website, newstatesman.com.

50:20

If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe

50:22

and leave a nice review. The producer

50:25

has been Adrienne Bradley. The team

50:27

will be back later in the week. I'm Katie

50:29

Stalard. Thanks for listening and until

50:31

next time.

50:36

Important part of the review process.

50:39

This reflection on what happened and

50:41

then you turn that around into, and now

50:43

here's how to make it better. After

50:46

those sections, I go into things that I call

50:48

my aha moments or my personal development

50:50

ideas. This is my chance to be

50:52

reflective on enhancements or improvements

50:55

or evolutionary changes I want

50:57

to make for myself, whether it's a personal

51:00

growth idea or a new business hack

51:02

or some new way to make money or a new way to

51:04

connect with people, whatever it is, doesn't

51:06

matter. It's very open ended to record

51:09

thoughts that I had that I thought were inspirational

51:12

or helpful, whether

51:13

it's from myself or someone else.

51:16

Either one's fine.

51:17

When I get to my section on what I'm grateful

51:20

for, almost every single week,

51:22

my grateful for section is

51:24

reflective of my wins for the week.

51:26

I'm usually very grateful for the things that went

51:28

well. That tends to be what happens.

51:31

I'll record in most cases my top

51:33

three wins because that's what I feel good about.

51:36

Then I have written down my top goal for the

51:38

quarter, my top goals for the month,

51:41

and I use those to then decide

51:43

upon what the top goals for next

51:45

week will be. So when all this

51:48

is put together, you know your wins, you know

51:50

your losses, you know the things you've thought

51:52

about reflected on. You also know

51:54

your current priority for the quarter and for the

51:56

month and all of that wiggles down

51:59

to your top goal.

51:59

for this week coming up and

52:02

here's how you're going to make it happen. That's

52:05

essentially the process in a nutshell. And

52:08

once again, it sounds like a lot when I say

52:10

it out loud like this, but when you do this

52:12

every single week, these things flow really

52:15

fast. You can really click through these in a way

52:17

that's just very simple, very clean,

52:19

and in a way that ultimately is extraordinarily

52:22

helpful. I can't emphasize

52:24

the benefits enough here. The clarity

52:26

that I get from this review process is astounding.

52:29

The confidence that I have in my calendar,

52:31

in my next actions, in my goals. I

52:34

can't live without this process. This

52:36

is just so important. And of course, this

52:39

actual process can change and evolve in a

52:41

thousand ways, but the core elements

52:43

are always still there. Like there is

52:45

a reason why reviewing is

52:47

important. And there's a reason why being intentional

52:50

is important.

52:51

It changes your results,

52:53

which is what we're going for. We're trying to

52:55

change our outcome, which happens

52:58

when we are intentional and reflective and

53:01

honest with ourselves and our lives.

53:03

Having said that, one of the evolutionary

53:06

changes that I have made has been

53:09

my growth into version 4.0

53:12

of the review process. And this

53:14

I'm excited about. I think if I'm correct,

53:17

I briefly mentioned one of these ideas

53:19

in the show before. Either way, we're

53:21

going to dig into now the specifics for

53:23

the changes that I've made.

53:25

There are two big ones. The

53:27

first one is I have added what

53:29

I'm calling my mid-week and

53:31

mid-month reviews. So

53:34

that

53:34

yes, technically means I have more

53:37

review systems. Let me

53:39

just back up for a second. If you

53:41

think about the life that I have crafted

53:43

and the systems that I have built and the ones that

53:46

I advertise and promote in

53:48

my book and on this show, you

53:50

might think that I spend a heck of a lot

53:52

of time doing reviews between

53:54

a weekly review, monthly, quarterly,

53:57

annual, project reports.

53:59

a lot of data and a lot of reflection

54:02

going on. Now

54:04

on the surface, it sounds like a lot, but

54:06

of course in execution, these

54:08

things don't take that much time

54:10

and they're extremely helpful.

54:12

So I'm the kind of person if I see something

54:14

is working, I double down on it

54:16

and I make sure that it's going to be as

54:18

helpful as it can be.

54:20

So having said that, when I created my

54:22

new midweek review and mid-month

54:25

reviews, all I actually

54:27

did was break apart the weekly

54:30

review and the monthly review into

54:32

two pieces.

54:33

So it's the same review process, it's

54:36

just happening in two smaller chunks.

54:39

The first chunk or the first grouping

54:41

that I have are date-specific

54:44

tasks. This is very similar

54:46

to Stephen Covey's quadrants

54:48

of philosophy. So if you know

54:50

Stephen Covey's four quadrants concept,

54:53

everything is organized between urgency

54:55

and importance and your

54:57

Q1, your Quadrant 1 tasks are

55:00

those that are both urgent and important. And

55:02

so for me, my date-specific tasks

55:05

are those that are assigned to the

55:07

weekly review and the monthly review as

55:09

they always have been.

55:11

The difference is group number two, which

55:14

I have now organized as my important

55:16

but non-urgent tasks.

55:19

These are ones that I want to make sure are going

55:21

to get done on a weekly basis or monthly

55:23

basis, but they're ones that are kind

55:25

of flexible in their dates. So

55:28

let's break this down section by section

55:30

here. So in the weekly review, the thing

55:32

we just discussed in detail, for

55:35

the most part, my intention here

55:37

is to focus on things that are both urgent

55:39

and important. I review last week's

55:41

progress, I update progress reports, I

55:43

schedule goals for next week.

55:45

All of these things are fairly expected.

55:48

However, what I saw myself

55:51

doing, as you may have just heard, there

55:53

are quite a few things in my own custom

55:55

review process

55:56

that are not date-specific. They're not

55:59

actually due.

55:59

at any time at all, I have

56:02

just arbitrarily assigned a date to

56:04

them. So let's be very specific here.

56:07

My midweek review process, the new one

56:09

that I've created with a focus on

56:11

my Q2 tasks, my important

56:13

but non-urgent tasks,

56:15

those include

56:16

all of my tech updates, right?

56:19

Computer reboot, software updates, all

56:22

of the battery charges, all of that,

56:25

those can happen basically any time. I don't

56:27

have to do those on Sunday evening

56:29

before Monday begins. I

56:31

just have to do them at some point.

56:34

Likewise the same thing is true for the household

56:36

chores, the same thing is true for my

56:39

fitness plan

56:40

and the same thing is true for the random miscellaneous

56:42

tasks that need to be reviewed or completed

56:45

on a weekly basis or somewhere

56:47

close to that. It's a pretty open

56:49

ended section, a pretty open ended concept

56:52

to just ask the question, if I was

56:55

to have an ideal set of routines

56:57

and habits and systems that will

56:59

allow me to focus on what's due now,

57:01

what's due on a specific date, a specific

57:04

time, what's make sure that's scheduled,

57:07

but then a bunch of other stuff that I would love

57:09

in an ideal way would love

57:11

to see completed, but they're not due?

57:14

When do you do them?

57:15

This has been my issue for a long time in

57:18

productivity in general. How do

57:20

I arbitrarily prioritize

57:22

something that doesn't have a due

57:24

date?

57:25

For a lot of people these things just never

57:28

happen or they just happen at the very last

57:30

second when things are actually falling apart

57:33

and they should have been done way before then.

57:35

I want to prevent chaos. I

57:38

want to make sure I have systems that are

57:40

going to function all the time.

57:42

So as a simple example, if I want my

57:44

computer to operate at the

57:46

highest level that it can so I can record

57:48

my podcast and do all of my tech work. Well,

57:51

I can't have my computer filled with viruses

57:53

and junk and old files and the hard

57:55

drive is maxed out and the computer

57:58

is 10 years old and it's too slow to function. I don't

58:01

live like that. I would never allow myself

58:03

to get there because I know how important

58:06

my tech is. So I take really

58:08

good care of it. But it's never due.

58:10

There's no specific date to do it. So

58:13

you need to arbitrarily but intentionally

58:15

decide when these things will take place.

58:18

And what I have realized is a midweek review,

58:20

well it's a great time for me to

58:23

organize and prioritize these types of

58:25

tasks. So now on Wednesday

58:27

mornings, that is my new midweek

58:30

review process. And it takes literally 30

58:32

minutes, 45 minutes and I'm done. Which

58:35

then makes my weekly review process on Sunday

58:38

evenings super fast. Really

58:41

and right to the point. I can really ask

58:43

myself what is going to happen this

58:45

coming week. Let's get to it. No

58:48

distractions. No other smaller

58:51

tiny tasks might get in the way. Let's

58:53

get to what matters and do it now. And

58:56

speaking of that, the monthly review and the

58:58

new midmonth review process are

59:00

set up in the exact same way. So

59:02

for my typical monthly review, I will have

59:05

in the same sense a quadrant

59:07

one task or set of tasks, which are

59:09

things that are both urgent and important, which

59:11

includes reviewing last month's

59:13

progress, reflecting on how to

59:15

improve and then scheduling goals for the

59:18

month coming up. So that's fairly

59:20

expected and that would happen around the

59:22

first of the month. Typically a first or second

59:24

for me in that sense. Well then I

59:27

have this whole list of tasks to do for the

59:29

midmonth review, which typically is scheduled

59:31

around the 15th of the month, usually in the middle

59:33

somewhere, which is the exact same

59:36

thing. Quadrant two tasks then show

59:38

up and that includes tech updates,

59:41

website updates, financial updates

59:43

and random miscellaneous tasks that

59:45

have to be done on a monthly basis, give

59:48

or take a few days or a few weeks. Once

59:50

again, very open, very flexible,

59:53

lots of options here.

59:55

There's a ton of ways to organize what would

59:57

be considered a midmonth review based

1:00:19

The

1:02:00

checklist is digital. It's accessible

1:02:02

from all my devices. Everything is

1:02:04

there This makes the

1:02:07

system extremely simple

1:02:09

and easy to update easy to change

1:02:11

easy to evolve

1:02:13

And you can see how this review process

1:02:15

for the week for the month the quarter of the year

1:02:18

all of its related all of it Is

1:02:20

so much more synchronized

1:02:22

in a way that it wasn't before

1:02:24

and I love it I just I love the fact this is

1:02:26

there because it gives me that that peace

1:02:28

of mind

1:02:30

To know that anything that I care

1:02:32

about can be addressed

1:02:34

on a recurring basis I don't have to remember

1:02:36

or panic or be you know, regretful

1:02:39

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1:02:41

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1:02:44

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1:02:46

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to whatever it is You're in charge

1:02:53

of that you want to do all of those things

1:02:55

can be in these checklists Every single

1:02:58

random little thing that maybe you just

1:03:00

kind of like haphazardly get to whatever you

1:03:02

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1:03:04

all that forget forgetting

1:03:07

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1:03:09

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Now to pivot this conversation just a little

1:06:53

bit, there's one more area I

1:06:55

wanted to discuss I think relates to what I just

1:06:58

said in a very specific way, which

1:07:00

is this concept of confidently choosing

1:07:03

your next action. So at

1:07:05

the top of the show I mentioned David Allen,

1:07:07

his book Getting Things Done, and I learned

1:07:09

not only from David Allen about weekly review

1:07:11

processes, well I also learned about

1:07:14

the value of a next action.

1:07:16

That everything we do is really asking

1:07:19

the question, what's my next move? What's

1:07:21

the next thing to do? And the thing about

1:07:23

that is you can logically know what the

1:07:25

next thing to do is based upon a previous

1:07:28

list you've created. But are

1:07:30

you confident that's the right choice?

1:07:32

Do you feel good about that?

1:07:34

I asked that question because frequently

1:07:37

in my life I'll make a to-do list, I'll

1:07:39

make a checklist, I'll have a project with all

1:07:41

kinds of tasks and lists, and

1:07:43

then it'll come time to do it. On the calendar

1:07:45

today it's a Tuesday afternoon, I'm

1:07:47

now going to work on this project. Now

1:07:50

get to the list and go, uh-uh,

1:07:52

no, this is not the right set of

1:07:54

lists, this is the wrong set of tasks, this is, it

1:07:57

doesn't feel right, something's

1:07:59

wrong here.

1:08:00

And so then I'll go and I'll rehash the

1:08:02

list. I'll recreate it. I'll reorganize it. I'll

1:08:05

make it better.

1:08:06

And then I go from there.

1:08:08

So that process of

1:08:10

reevaluating my projects,

1:08:12

my tasks, the things I focus on, what

1:08:15

are my next actions? I am constantly

1:08:18

in that process of asking myself,

1:08:20

am I sure that this is the right next

1:08:23

move? Which sounds like a distracting

1:08:25

hurdle to delay the progress. But

1:08:28

what it is, is me recognizing in the

1:08:30

moment,

1:08:31

I just chose a distraction.

1:08:34

I just chose something that is not actually

1:08:36

due today. I just chose to work

1:08:38

on something that is optional, unnecessary,

1:08:41

or even silly or nonsensical.

1:08:44

Why not be more intentional? Why not go

1:08:46

do something that is the right next

1:08:49

thing to do? Now, of course, that's extremely

1:08:51

subjective. There really is no right

1:08:54

next move. There's really just your

1:08:56

best call. That's all that life

1:08:58

is, is we're making our best judgment

1:09:00

calls for the next action to take

1:09:03

to accomplish our goals, to live our lives to

1:09:05

the fullest. And there is no

1:09:07

right answer here. I wish there

1:09:09

was. In many ways, that's what I'm searching

1:09:12

for, this epic journey of mine to be

1:09:14

more productive to find that perfect day,

1:09:16

that perfect project. But of course,

1:09:19

that's just not going to happen. And

1:09:21

so my question then becomes how do I organize

1:09:23

my life in such a way that I have more confidence

1:09:26

on these decisions, that I am doing things

1:09:28

that matter? Well, one of the ways

1:09:30

I do that is I change the labeling

1:09:33

of my tasks in my task manager.

1:09:36

So inside of Nozbe, I label

1:09:38

my tasks as either red or

1:09:40

blue.

1:09:41

Red are things that are due today

1:09:44

and blue are things that are not.

1:09:46

And ideally,

1:09:48

the only things I work on are

1:09:50

due today because I have intentionally

1:09:52

chosen these things to be due for a certain

1:09:54

reason, and I'm going to do them. Now,

1:09:57

the opposite is also true.

1:09:59

ideal sense, I'm going to work on things

1:10:02

that are important, whether they're urgent

1:10:04

or not. So you could argue my blue

1:10:06

tasks are the ones that actually need my

1:10:08

attention just as much.

1:10:10

And this is the tension that I face, is

1:10:13

trying to figure out how to do it all. How

1:10:15

to do everything. I want to check all the

1:10:17

boxes. I want to complete all the tasks. But

1:10:19

of course, that's also ridiculous. I'm

1:10:22

not trying to burn myself out. I'm not trying

1:10:24

to burn you out. So what do

1:10:26

you do? How do you organize your life in a way

1:10:28

that's effective? Well, my red

1:10:30

and blue labeling, which I can do in Nozbe,

1:10:32

they're called labels, and I can actually see

1:10:34

that color on the task. And most

1:10:37

systems have something that's similar to that,

1:10:39

a way for you to indicate priority or

1:10:42

indicate if this is important or not.

1:10:44

So use your system, use the tools that are available

1:10:47

to you, but

1:10:47

be intentional with that so that on each

1:10:50

day when it starts, you can see the list

1:10:52

of tasks and hopefully

1:10:54

prioritize those.

1:10:56

Understand the value of them in

1:10:59

such a way that you will give all of your attention

1:11:01

to the things that are due today. And when that

1:11:03

list is completed, you then go on to the

1:11:05

next things. I

1:11:08

mentioned this as a strategy because for a long

1:11:10

time my tasks didn't have that sense

1:11:12

of labeling. And so if I have,

1:11:14

let's say, 10 things on the to-do list and

1:11:16

things that are not important or not

1:11:19

urgent or not that pressing

1:11:21

are on the list and listed in the exact same

1:11:23

way as things that are urgent, that are

1:11:26

important, and they look identical on

1:11:28

the list because just black and white text,

1:11:30

it looks the same,

1:11:32

but they're not the same.

1:11:33

Some things are more important than others

1:11:35

and there has to be a way to easily identify

1:11:38

what those things are. And then you give all

1:11:40

your attention to what's valuable, even

1:11:42

if it's hard,

1:11:43

even if you don't want to do it, especially

1:11:46

if it's hard, and especially if you don't

1:11:48

want to do it.

1:11:49

Those are the tasks we have to lean

1:11:51

in on. That's where the progress happens.

1:11:54

That's where the confidence and the emotional release

1:11:57

takes place. Where you feel that sense

1:11:59

of joy.

1:11:59

because you did the right thing. That's

1:12:02

what I'm trying to get to every single day. How

1:12:04

do I know what matters and how do I do

1:12:07

what matters?

1:12:08

Now this same strategy can be applied to your calendar

1:12:10

as well. All of my meetings

1:12:12

on my calendar, the things that I have basically

1:12:15

agreed to do and that happen in a

1:12:17

certain day at a certain time, these things must

1:12:19

happen, they're all labeled as

1:12:21

the color red, the same color

1:12:24

that I have in my task manager as things

1:12:26

that are due today. And because

1:12:28

they're scheduled for that day at that time, they

1:12:30

are due today. Those meetings and events

1:12:33

are happening.

1:12:34

So they're red. And then everything

1:12:37

else, at least

1:12:38

to a certain degree, you have a lot of color coding going on,

1:12:41

but the other work items are in blue because

1:12:43

they're important but not urgent. They

1:12:46

are things that are a great use of my time,

1:12:48

but they're not required or necessarily need

1:12:50

to happen in that certain block.

1:12:53

So this is pretty flexible. There's a lot of ways to

1:12:55

navigate this, but the intention behind

1:12:57

it is to be intentional,

1:12:59

is to know what matters, to do what

1:13:01

matters and have a system that reflects

1:13:04

that level of prioritization in

1:13:06

an intentional way.

1:13:07

And if that happens,

1:13:09

you're gonna get a lot more done, especially

1:13:11

of the things that mean something. Now,

1:13:14

the second strategy to improve

1:13:16

your confidence to choose your next action

1:13:19

is to increase your focus by,

1:13:21

this is not a shocking statement,

1:13:24

getting things out of sight, out

1:13:26

of mind.

1:13:28

This is a concept that I have doubled

1:13:30

down on, tripled down on in the last

1:13:32

few weeks. Let's go back to that

1:13:34

whole Google Drive project management

1:13:36

overhaul that I've had recently. The

1:13:39

entire point of that system,

1:13:41

besides consolidation, which was very

1:13:43

helpful and digital access, of

1:13:46

course important, but the real underlying

1:13:48

point of the system

1:13:50

was to archive things. It was to get

1:13:52

things away from my field of vision.

1:13:54

It was to make sure that if things didn't matter, they

1:13:57

were either deleted

1:13:58

or they were hidden from. you.

1:14:01

In order to focus, we have to see

1:14:03

what matters and ignore the rest. So

1:14:06

our goal is to spend as much of our time

1:14:08

as possible working on things that matter,

1:14:11

but that means we cannot see the distractions.

1:14:13

We cannot allow them in. This is why

1:14:16

I love focus blocks of time because they're intentionally

1:14:18

guarded around your time, your energy,

1:14:21

your physical space. The intention

1:14:23

behind focus is not focus.

1:14:26

It's to prevent distraction.

1:14:28

That's all it is. And so if you

1:14:30

can get things out of sight, out of mind,

1:14:33

well, then they're not there. They don't

1:14:35

exist to distract you.

1:14:37

So in my digital system, my file

1:14:39

management, project management, task management

1:14:42

systems, if it doesn't matter,

1:14:44

I have

1:14:45

hidden it. I've put it away. I've

1:14:47

archived it. It is gone.

1:14:49

And the more of that that I do,

1:14:51

the more that the only thing I see

1:14:54

is the next thing to do. It's the next

1:14:56

project that needs my attention. And that's

1:14:59

it. And the rest is just intelligently

1:15:01

organized, archived and put away. And

1:15:03

I can access it if I need to,

1:15:05

but I'm not going to see it on an ongoing

1:15:07

basis.

1:15:09

There's a lot to be said about how to do this with your

1:15:11

own system. I may in the future

1:15:14

actually break this down with more specifics as to

1:15:16

the actual folder structure that I have. But

1:15:18

just note that there's a lot of ways to do this

1:15:21

and you probably have a pretty good idea where to start,

1:15:24

which is basically take anything you're not working

1:15:26

on, put it in a folder called archive

1:15:28

and put it away.

1:15:30

It can be that easy,

1:15:31

but this process to get anything

1:15:34

in your life, physical, digital, doesn't

1:15:36

matter. If it's not important right now,

1:15:38

move it, hide it, get rid of

1:15:41

it. Super helpful.

1:15:43

And the final strategy to improve

1:15:45

your confidence on the things that matter

1:15:48

the most to you, to know what your next action

1:15:50

is going to be,

1:15:51

is to write everything down. And

1:15:54

that seems so obvious, except

1:15:56

the fact that you may wonder, well, how does writing

1:15:58

things down make me. more confidence

1:16:01

in my decision.

1:16:02

What I have seen to be true is that most

1:16:04

of the things that I am uncertain of, fearful

1:16:07

of, have concerns about, or am

1:16:10

wondering about.

1:16:11

Almost all of that is mental.

1:16:14

I'm thinking about those things. I'm worrying

1:16:16

in my head about those things. But

1:16:19

when the simple act of writing that down

1:16:21

happens, I record that thought, record

1:16:24

the idea, I put it in Nozbe, I put

1:16:26

it on paper and pen, write it down. Well

1:16:29

all of a sudden it's not as confusing

1:16:31

anymore. It's not as fearful or fear

1:16:33

inducing.

1:16:34

It's just a thought that's now black and white

1:16:37

on paper or digitally recorded

1:16:39

in a way. I can see it, I can work

1:16:41

with it, I can schedule it, I can take action

1:16:44

on it. It becomes tangible, it becomes

1:16:46

real. And so if you're looking for

1:16:48

confidence in your next action,

1:16:50

write it down

1:16:51

and then work with it and see where it goes.

1:16:54

It's an incredibly simple concept that I have

1:16:56

seen to be more important than ever.

1:16:59

Especially when things get busy, especially

1:17:01

when things get stressful, and especially

1:17:03

if I have fear, worry, concern,

1:17:06

some kind of a negative thought on something, I get

1:17:09

that negativity out of my head.

1:17:11

I get it out, I put it on paper and then I

1:17:13

work with it, I solve the problem,

1:17:16

and then I move on.

1:17:17

If you get all of your thoughts out of your head

1:17:20

and recorded somewhere, it's

1:17:21

going to change the way that you view the

1:17:24

things you do.

1:17:25

And you're going to feel a lot better about it emotionally,

1:17:27

which will then cause you to take real world

1:17:30

action and get real world results. So

1:17:34

as a final review of the episode this week,

1:17:36

the focus is on the review process.

1:17:38

So if you do not currently have one that

1:17:40

is mapped out and on your calendar every

1:17:43

week, once again you can go to JeffSanders.com

1:17:45

slash 5amclub and you can get

1:17:48

a free template there to work with. And

1:17:50

of course follow the advice I listed in the episode

1:17:52

this week and make sure that's happening once

1:17:54

a week and it's on your calendar guaranteed

1:17:57

time.

1:17:58

The second idea was to split.

1:17:59

You can split your reviews and systems into two

1:18:02

groups. The first, things that are due

1:18:04

now, and the second, things that are not

1:18:06

due now but need to happen on some

1:18:08

regular basis. So once again, your

1:18:11

mid-week review and mid-month review

1:18:13

can be extremely important in that process.

1:18:17

Third big idea, create a system

1:18:19

to write everything down. This could be

1:18:21

pen and paper at your bedside, a waterproof

1:18:24

notepad in your shower, which I've used

1:18:26

both of those in the past and still do today.

1:18:29

Create a phone app that you trust that's with you

1:18:31

wherever you go, write a system to record

1:18:34

whatever you're thinking. And then

1:18:36

finally, you want to enhance your overall

1:18:38

focus and confidence by spending

1:18:40

as much time as possible on the tasks

1:18:42

and projects that are both urgent and

1:18:45

important. The more of your life

1:18:47

that is spent on things that matter, the

1:18:49

less of your life that is spent on things that don't.

1:18:52

It really is that simple on paper, at least

1:18:54

in theory. If you can live that out and

1:18:57

execute that more often, your results

1:18:59

will be astronomically better

1:19:01

than what they are today. I promise you

1:19:03

that. This is a really, really important

1:19:06

episode because the concepts discussed

1:19:08

here can foundationally change

1:19:10

how you approach your to-do list, your calendar,

1:19:13

your projects. These concepts

1:19:16

matter. And so implement them and yes,

1:19:18

tell me about this. Once again you can email

1:19:21

me, Jeff at JeffSanders.com. I

1:19:23

would love to hear how these systems have

1:19:25

changed the way you live and work.

1:19:35

And for the action step this week. Of

1:19:38

course, go evolve and upgrade your

1:19:40

weekly review template and move up

1:19:42

to version 4.0. If you

1:19:44

want to, you can break your tasks and

1:19:47

systems into those two groups. Things

1:19:49

that are due now and things that are not. If

1:19:52

you want to lower your stress, reduce your

1:19:54

overwhelm and focus on what matters

1:19:56

more effectively than ever, this

1:19:58

is a great time to. improve your system,

1:20:01

so make your own weekly review 4.0 process

1:20:04

and see how well it works for you. JeffSanders.com

1:20:08

slash 489 is the place to go

1:20:10

with episode notes and of course subscribe

1:20:13

to or follow this podcast, an Apple podcast

1:20:15

or Spotify to never miss an episode.

1:20:18

That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle

1:20:21

Podcast this week. Until next time,

1:20:23

you have the power to change your life and

1:20:25

the fun begins bright and early.

1:20:30

Go to Beadaholique.com for all of your beading supplies needs!