Editing The Pen Addict 124/transcript (section)

== Pen Chalet ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a great idea. Everybody who listens to the show knows the Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have all of your favorite brands like Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, and Kaweco. They're an authorized dealer of all of them. They have fantastic discounts twice a month, including closeout specials every two weeks. They have a very fast and reliable service. They're always adding new styles of pens every single month. They've always got fantastic stuff going on. They do all these great accessories that you're going to want to use, like carrying cases, pen holders, refills, fountain pen converters, and so much more. The Pen Chalet have free shipping on orders over $50 in the continental United States, but they also sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates too. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We love the Pen Chalet, and I think that you should too if you don't already. So go over to penchalet.com and use the code PENADDICT to save 10% on your order. What you should be doing, and I'm going to talk about the specials that you'll wait for as usual. So you want to go up to the top of the page over at penchalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website, enter the password PENADDICT, and you're going to get some special deals that you will not see anywhere else on penchalet.com as well as your 10%. So let me tell you about today's deal, and this is a big deal for long-time listeners of the show. I mean, we know that the guys over at Pen Chalet do a great job of getting this stuff to you, but we have something really special today. So we have a fantastic deal on the Pilot Vanishing Point. Now, the Pen Chalet have listed this at 25% off the regular price, and you'll get your additional 10% if you still use the code PENADDICT at checkout. So you can get your own at $118.13. There's a huge saving right there, down from $175 at retail after you use the coupon code as well as using the special PENADDICT code. When you hit that radio podcast button at the top, you'll be able to get your own for $118. So this is in both the gunmetal and black matte versions. The black matte is what I have, and I like it very much. The look at it is a beautiful piece, and I know that The Vanishing Point continues to be one of Brad's most favorite pens in the world. As well as this, Pen Chalet also have a few items that are not necessarily pens, but are good stuff for the pen person in your life. If not yourself, these are great gifts. They have some good stuff this time, but really, really good discounts. They have a couple of wallets, passport holders, and some interesting executive accessories that you should go and check out, especially with the holidays fast approaching, these could be good gifts for some of those pen nerds in your life. Now, there's one other thing. So we're always doing these great deals with Pen Chalet that are always giving us fantastic deals to give to you guys. But what Ron is always asking us, Ron at Pen Chalet, we spoke about a couple of weeks ago, our good friend Ron, he wants to know what pens you want to see discounted next because they want to make sure they're giving you what you want. So send a tweet to at Pen Chalet, that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T, and tell them what pen or brand you want to see discounted next for Pen Addict listeners. And then we're going to get to work on that and get you some of the deals that you definitely want to see, even more than the ones that they're already doing. So don't forget, you can get great deals on Pilot Vanishing Point. Go over to PenChalet.com. Don't forget, Pen Addict is the code that you're going to want. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's awesome. Vanishing Point is one of my favorites. I have the gunmetal. It's easily one of my favorite pens I own. Ryder, are you a fountain pen guy at all?

'''Ryder Carroll:''' I don't use them regularly, but I use them for illustration and so forth. Okay. Awesome. Awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That seems like an interesting use for a fountain pen. I wouldn't have necessarily assumed that. What type of stuff do you illustrate that a fountain pen is good for?

'''Ryder Carroll:''' I used to do a lot of calligraphy. Ah, right. Yeah, illustrative calligraphy. So that was always the go-to kind of tool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that makes sense. Before we talk about the Kickstarter, there was something that I wanted to ask you. Oh, Brad, sorry, you've moved it down now. But I'm going to ask you anyway. Because you mentioned a little bit earlier about response, the way that people have responded to the bullet journal system. And I was kind of interested in what are some of the most, up until maybe the point of the Kickstarter, maybe afterwards, what are some of the most interesting uses you've seen for the bullet journal system?

'''Ryder Carroll:''' Well, I guess I can't answer it that directly. What I can say is I've been really interested in seeing how people have personalized the bullet journal for their own lives. And they'll give me examples of how it's, you know, made a challenge a lot easier to cope with. But they don't go into details necessarily about how they deployed the bullet journal methods in order to do so. So a lot of people dealing with medical challenges or a lot of organizational challenges or scholastic challenges, like they applied it in realms where I had not necessarily foreseen it going. And sometimes they share the method and sometimes it's really personal and they don't. So that was unexpected.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that's kind of a huge part of this Kickstarter as well. I mean, I think it's kind of a two-phase thing. So let's talk about the Kickstarter. Number one, there's a physical product. But number two, you're doing it to build and enable this community that's kind of blown up around the bullet journal. To where people can share their different ways of bullet journaling and, you know, get information from other people. And you want to make it easy for all these people to find it. So why don't you talk about the Kickstarter and number one, you know, how it became a physical product. And then number two, how it's going to help enable the entire community that's bullet journal fans.

'''Ryder Carroll:''' Sure. So like for the past year, since I launched the bullet journal, I've been doing a lot of listening and seeing what people have done with the system. And it's really been fascinating to me. But I also feel like I'm one of the only points where all of those different ideas intersect.

'''Ryder Carroll:''' There are many different communities. There are many different people. A lot of articles have been written about different variations of the bullet journal. But what I started to see is people asking questions, not necessarily in the right places, for example. Like I'm like, oh, that community over there has been answering that question or been dealing with that challenge. Because a lot of times it's not just checking off a box, but it's slowly developing towards a solution. And the thing that's nice about the bullet journal is that you can tailor these solutions even just a little bit to suit your needs. So the first idea is like, what is the next step of the bullet journal? Like what can I provide to this community that is really helpful? And from what I saw, my idea was just to create a place where people can really match questions to answers. And ideally have the system evolve and become significantly more effective than I could have ever made it on my own. So that was the original idea behind the Kickstarter, just to A, gauge if there was enough interest to see, you know, for something like that to exist, for a place, for a website like that to exist. And then to kind of sweeten the deal, there was a limited edition bullet journal journal, if you will, a bullet journal notebook, a very limited edition. And yeah, it sold out immediately. And I had designed the bullet journal specifically to be used with pretty much any kind of notebook in mind. But having used them for so many years myself, there were always like these small little qualms that I came across. I'm like, gosh, I wish this journal had this or that journal had that. I'm like, why don't we just make a book that has these things, at least for me? And it seems like I wasn't the only one who felt that way. So once I saw how much interest there was in the actual book itself, you know, which was the secondary component, the Kickstarter evolved into actually funding the first production run of a dedicated bullet journal notebook.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I want to hear you pronounce the name of the product that you use, because I say it all the time. And I actually, you know, we mentioned it as a as a possibility back in Pen Addict number 70. And I know what it is. And our listeners know what it is. But I heard you say it on Myke Vardy's podcast. And it was dreamy how you pronounce it. So I put all the pressure on you. So tell us tell us what tell us what brand you chose to build the bullet journal notebook.

'''Ryder Carroll:''' It's Leichturm 1917. Oh, bravo, sir. Bravo. It's a German company.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I feel like I need to put some real work into this now. Yeah. How good? Right in future.

'''Ryder Carroll:''' How good was that, Myke? In all fairness, though, I do speak fluent German. So it's a little bit more natural to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That that makes a lot of sense, because, you know, I can, you know, I get as far as like a Leichturm and I can't really do much more than that. And then I was listening to you on talk with Myke Vardy and you just you just rip that out of nowhere. And I was like, wait a minute. Yeah. That's not fair. So good. So how did that partnership come about with Leichturm in building out this journal?

'''Ryder Carroll:''' Well, actually, I have to give a lot of credit to you guys. I'm always trying out different notebooks. And I had, you know, five different types on my desk. But once you had mentioned it, I went out and looked for them. And I saw they had page numbers and all these different little details, which are really what matter to me. And I started using them and I liked them a lot. And, yeah, I reached out to them to see, you know, if there was any interest in, you know, at least talking. And next thing you know, they like the idea of the Kickstarter. And that's kind of how where we are today. And then once, you know, we both saw the amazing amount of interest in the actual books, it just made sense. Yeah.