Speaker 1: Should I get out of bed? Should I make this decision?
Speaker 1: Should I eat this thing? Should I exercise? All those
Speaker 1: questions become much easier because now our goal is well
Speaker 1: being getting out of bed. It's not about where they're
Speaker 1: getting out of bed makes you happy. If you don't
Speaker 1: get out of bed, you're not gonna have a relationship
Speaker 1: with your wife, you're not going to earn money, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna feel safe. Your life doesn't have any meaning. Now.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the decision to get out of bed is much
Speaker 1: much easier because you're not chasing pleasure, You're chasing well being. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every single one
Speaker 1: of you that come back every week to listen, learn
Speaker 1: and grow. And I am so excited to be talking
Speaker 1: to you today. I don't believe it. My new book
Speaker 1: Eight Rules of Love is out and I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to share it with you. I am so so excited
Speaker 1: for you to read this book, for you to listen
Speaker 1: to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't
Speaker 1: got it already, make sure you go to eight Rules
Speaker 1: of Love dot com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying
Speaker 1: to find, keep or let go of love. So if
Speaker 1: you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling
Speaker 1: with love, make sure you grab this book. And I'd
Speaker 1: love to invite you to come and see me for
Speaker 1: my global tour Love Rules. Go to jsdytour dot com
Speaker 1: to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you this year. Now you
Speaker 1: know that I'm always on the lookout to go and
Speaker 1: find the incredible thinkers, thought leaders, authors, writers, storytellers that
Speaker 1: I believe have inspired my life and can inspire yours
Speaker 1: as well. Now, the person I'm going to interview today,
Speaker 1: I actually read his book back in twenty thirteen, so
Speaker 1: it's been quite a while, but this book had such
Speaker 1: a lasting impact on me, and I was just sharing
Speaker 1: with him that the reason I love on purpose in
Speaker 1: our community is I get the excuse to reach out
Speaker 1: to some of the people that I admire and feel
Speaker 1: inspired by so that I can help them share their
Speaker 1: work and their story and their insights that I know
Speaker 1: will transform your life. Today's guest is none other than
Speaker 1: Charles do Hig, journalist and New York Times best selling author.
Speaker 1: He wrote the Power of Habit and Smarter, Faster, Better,
Speaker 1: which talk about productivity, habits and the science behind it.
Speaker 1: He joined The New York Times as a staff writer
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six and was part of the
Speaker 1: team that won the twenty thirteen Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory
Speaker 1: Journalism for The Eye Economy, a series that examine the
Speaker 1: global economy through the lens of Apple. Now, today's session
Speaker 1: is going to be all about habits, understanding ourselves, improving
Speaker 1: our productivity and our effectiveness. Welcome to On Purpose, Charles Dohig. Charles,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. I'm such a fan.
Speaker 1: Your books are incredibly powerful, and I'm just really grateful
Speaker 1: that we get to have this conversation. Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: Hamy Jay. I feel very similarly. I've loved your book
Speaker 1: and loved the show, so really thank you for having
Speaker 1: me on. No. Absolutely, let's let's dive straight in. You know,
Speaker 1: what I'm really fascinated to know is not just about
Speaker 1: the incredible work and research you've done, but how you
Speaker 1: became fascinated by it. You've written a lot about productivity, smarter, better,
Speaker 1: faster habits. How did you get fascinated with those things
Speaker 1: in the first place, and where was your journey to
Speaker 1: become attracted to human behavior? Well, there is one of
Speaker 1: these two experiences. The first one was that, you know,
Speaker 1: when I first came up with the idea for the
Speaker 1: power of habit and got interested in it, my wife
Speaker 1: was about and I were about to have our first kid,
Speaker 1: and I had this this thing that was going on
Speaker 1: where I would think to myself, like, you know, at
Speaker 1: that point, I was a reporter with than Your Times
Speaker 1: and felt like I was somewhat successful. I had gone
Speaker 1: to business school and you know, and I started a company,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, if I'm so smart, like,
Speaker 1: why is it so hard for me to go running
Speaker 1: in the morning. Because I would always say, like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go jogging tomorrow and then not do it right.
Speaker 1: And then my son was born, and like you know,
Speaker 1: after six or seven months, they start eating this like um,
Speaker 1: a little bit older, they start eating these like little
Speaker 1: chicken nuggets. And I'd be sitting at the dinner table
Speaker 1: with him and and like, without thinking about it, I
Speaker 1: just reach over and grab when of his chicken nuggets
Speaker 1: and eat it, even though I wasn't hungry, right, it
Speaker 1: was just like automatic, And so I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, like, if I'm so smart, why is it
Speaker 1: so hard for me to do the things that I
Speaker 1: want to do? Like why is it so hard to
Speaker 1: form the habits that I think aren't healthy for me?
Speaker 1: And then I also had this experience, which is I'd
Speaker 1: been a reporter in Iraq during the war, and I
Speaker 1: met this army major who who explained to me that
Speaker 1: the way that the military works, and this is true
Speaker 1: of all militaries, is that it's basically a giant habit
Speaker 1: change machine, right Like like your instinct when you're getting
Speaker 1: shot at is to run the other direction, because that's smart.
Speaker 1: But the military teaches you these habits to shoot back
Speaker 1: or now, when you're overseas, you can email or call
Speaker 1: your spouse every night, And so if they don't teach
Speaker 1: you good habit communication habits, you get distracted, and so
Speaker 1: when you're in patrol, you can't do your job as
Speaker 1: well and you're in danger. And he explained to me
Speaker 1: that the way that they teach habits is very formulaic.
Speaker 1: That they break a habit into these three components and
Speaker 1: they teach it how to think about them. And as
Speaker 1: I learned that, I thought to myself, like, there's a
Speaker 1: real science here, and I want to understand that science,
Speaker 1: and so I decided to write a book about it
Speaker 1: in bart just because it would help me figure it out.
Speaker 1: One of the things I find that you said that's
Speaker 1: really fascinating, and I'm so glad to ask you that question,
Speaker 1: is because when I'm listening to you, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people can empathize with that. You feel like
Speaker 1: you are a small, organized, thoughtful individual. But then you're like,
Speaker 1: but why can't I get my life together? Why can't
Speaker 1: I do basic things? And yeah, and we often get
Speaker 1: really critical of ourselves and judgmental of ourselves and make
Speaker 1: ourselves feel guilty for not having it to get the
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a bit about that, because I
Speaker 1: think one of the easiest things to feel right now,
Speaker 1: when you were saying those things, I'm sure everyone's listening, going, Charles,
Speaker 1: I do the same thing. I say I'm going to
Speaker 1: work out tomorrow, and I don't I reach over for
Speaker 1: the cobby, you know, fatty calorie based food instead of
Speaker 1: something that I know that's healthy and natural for me.
Speaker 1: But then we judge ourselves. Talk to us a bit
Speaker 1: about judgment and guilt and criticism. It's a great question, right,
Speaker 1: because you're exactly right. Our instinct particularly like America, the UK,
Speaker 1: all these all these kind of like you know what,
Speaker 1: we consider ourselves to be developed nations. We are massacists.
Speaker 1: We love punishing ourselves, right, we have we have lifestyles.
Speaker 1: They're designed to push us to work harder and faster.
Speaker 1: And to understand why that's damaging you. First of all,
Speaker 1: have to understand how habits work. So we think of
Speaker 1: habits is one thing, but every habit is actually three things. Right.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a queue, which is like a trigger
Speaker 1: for an automatic behavior to start, and then the routine,
Speaker 1: which is the behavior itself. That's what we think of
Speaker 1: as the habit. And then finally a reward. And there's
Speaker 1: a part of your brain known as the basal ganglia
Speaker 1: that looks for those rewards and tries to make any
Speaker 1: pattern into a habit. So it'll take ques, routines, and
Speaker 1: rewards and put them together in a little chunk. Because
Speaker 1: of that reward, it'll say, I want to make that
Speaker 1: behavior easier and easier and easier. So exercise a great example, right.
Speaker 1: We know from studies that when people have an obvious
Speaker 1: que like they put their running shoes next to their
Speaker 1: bed so they see them first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: or they plan on meeting their friend at the gym
Speaker 1: every Wednesday night that they're more likely to exercise. But
Speaker 1: what really makes that exercise into a habit is if
Speaker 1: they give themselves a reward afterwards. So do they give
Speaker 1: themselves like a nice long shower, or do they give
Speaker 1: themselves like a smoothie? Do they just have a calendar
Speaker 1: that they mark off all the times that they've exercised.
Speaker 1: Are they rewarding themselves somehow? If you're rewarding yourself somehow
Speaker 1: and you have that que then it becomes easier and
Speaker 1: easier to do the behavior to exercise to make the
Speaker 1: habit become real. But you bring up the fact that
Speaker 1: we always like are blaming ourselves, right, We're always feeling guilty.
Speaker 1: So think about how most people start exercising. They wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning. They don't have a queue, right,
Speaker 1: they have to go search through their closet to find
Speaker 1: their running shoes. And then they go out and maybe
Speaker 1: they run and they feel like they look really dumb.
Speaker 1: They don't know what they're doing. They're not sure what
Speaker 1: rout they're going to take. They think, all run seven blocks,
Speaker 1: and after three blocks they can hardly even breathe, so
Speaker 1: they give up. Then they come home and now now
Speaker 1: they're running late, right, So they like jump in the
Speaker 1: shower as fast as they can. They like rush the
Speaker 1: kids through breakfast, They throw the kids in the car,
Speaker 1: They take the kids to school. The kids are two
Speaker 1: minutes later for school. Then they rush to their desk
Speaker 1: and they're already ten or fifteen minutes late for their day.
Speaker 1: And they sit down and they've got sweat streaming. In
Speaker 1: other words, all these people who start exercising, they've punished
Speaker 1: themselves for exercising, right, And your brain it notices rewards
Speaker 1: and punishments. If your brain notices that when you go
Speaker 1: running in the morning, us of the day is a nightmare,
Speaker 1: your brain says, this is a terrible idea. I don't
Speaker 1: want to make exercise any easier. And so that's what's important,
Speaker 1: is that first of all, knowing how our habits work.
Speaker 1: But second of all, to the point that you raised,
Speaker 1: when we blame ourselves, when we punish ourselves when we
Speaker 1: feel guilty, what we're actually doing is we're making it
Speaker 1: harder to form habits because our brain pays attention to
Speaker 1: that negativity. What we need to do is we need
Speaker 1: to find the rewards. We need to allow ourselves to
Speaker 1: indulge in the rewards, to enjoy those rewards, because that's
Speaker 1: how your brain will latch onto something and say, I
Speaker 1: want to make this easier and easier and easier to
Speaker 1: do Chas. This is why I love you, and this
Speaker 1: is why everyone should video book, because everything you say
Speaker 1: is just so methodical, relatable, practical. Genuinely, I'm loving this
Speaker 1: conversation already because I can totally understand that anyone who's
Speaker 1: listening or watching right now, they're thinking, Yes, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, that's exactly what I'm going through, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm experiencing. I want to take a bit
Speaker 1: of a quick tangent on this because I like that
Speaker 1: you said that you thought about this before you had kids.
Speaker 1: And what's really fascinating to me at least is a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't really start thinking about their habits
Speaker 1: until after they have kids, because up until before that,
Speaker 1: which is kind of living. And maybe you don't need
Speaker 1: to be as disciplined, maybe you don't need to be
Speaker 1: as organized. I don't have children yet, and so I
Speaker 1: live a highly disciplined, high performance, productive, effective lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: what my friends will always say to me is, Jay,
Speaker 1: wait till you have kids, right Like, I hear that
Speaker 1: all the time. And my take is, I don't have kids,
Speaker 1: and so I completely understand that I have no wisdom
Speaker 1: whatsoever on what it means to be a parent and
Speaker 1: try to live a mindful lifestyle. And I don't claim
Speaker 1: to know anything about that. All I know is that
Speaker 1: I'm trying my best right now to use my time
Speaker 1: really wisely. I wanted to hear from you when you
Speaker 1: started to work on your habits before and after, how
Speaker 1: does having children affect that? And which were habits that
Speaker 1: you held onto and that have been useful in which
Speaker 1: were habits that you had to be okay with giving up?
Speaker 1: Because I think sometimes again, as parents, I hear a
Speaker 1: lot of parents judging themselves and saying, oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this, I'm not doing that. But then we forget that,
Speaker 1: of course not. You have a whole nother human or
Speaker 1: two humans or more to take care of. Walk us
Speaker 1: through that a little bit just as a tangent. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that there's this axiom which I think is true,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, if you're a good employee
Speaker 1: and then you become a parent, you will never ever
Speaker 1: be a good employee or a good parent at the
Speaker 1: same time for the rest of your life, right, Like,
Speaker 1: part of being a parent is getting at peace with
Speaker 1: the fact that that you're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to excel quite as much as you did previously in
Speaker 1: every aspect of your life. And much like you, before
Speaker 1: I had kids, I just worked NonStop, right. I loved working.
Speaker 1: I loved being a reporter. I loved reporting and writing.
Speaker 1: And then we had kids. And it actually illustrated something
Speaker 1: to me that came up a lot in the research,
Speaker 1: which is important, which is if I was to ask
Speaker 1: you to give up part of your life right now
Speaker 1: for children, it would see it would seem at best
Speaker 1: neutral and probably negative, right because you don't know the
Speaker 1: love that you're going to feel to have about having
Speaker 1: a kid, right You know it intellectually, but you haven't
Speaker 1: felt it yet. You haven't you haven't had that enter
Speaker 1: your life. And one of the things we know is
Speaker 1: that it is very hard to give up anything, including habits,
Speaker 1: when the alternative is a vacuum. In fact, this is
Speaker 1: actually known in the psychology literature as the Golden rule
Speaker 1: of habit change, which says you should not try and
Speaker 1: extinguish habits in your life because the truth of matter
Speaker 1: is you can do it for a while, but those
Speaker 1: habits exist in your brain. There are neural pathways of
Speaker 1: that queue, that routine, and that reward that are all
Speaker 1: put together, and it's always going to be there. And
Speaker 1: so in a moment of stress or a moment of anxiety,
Speaker 1: you're going to fall back on that habit. What you
Speaker 1: should do instead is change the habit. Find something new
Speaker 1: to fill that hole in your life, right, some new
Speaker 1: behavior that corresponds to the old que to deliver something
Speaker 1: similar to the old reward. And for me with kids,
Speaker 1: what happened was, you know, we had kids, and you're right, Sudding,
Speaker 1: I had to stop working quite so much because if
Speaker 1: nothing else, my wife was like, where are you, Like,
Speaker 1: I need your help, you need to come home. And
Speaker 1: babies are wonderful, but one of the things about them
Speaker 1: is that they're exhausting and kind of boring sometimes, and
Speaker 1: so it's hard when you're a new part it's hard
Speaker 1: to like give up this old lifestyle you had that
Speaker 1: you spent years, years building towards now suddenly you have
Speaker 1: to be up at two o'clock in the morning and
Speaker 1: look terrible and smell terrible and never get a shower.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that I realized, I
Speaker 1: think other people realize too, is instead of seeing it
Speaker 1: as giving something up, you have to see it as
Speaker 1: opting for something else. Right. One of the things that
Speaker 1: one of the habits that I found and I developed
Speaker 1: once I had kids was the habit of just much
Speaker 1: more being present with my children because I knew that,
Speaker 1: you know, in six months or a year or ten years,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to have this again. I'm never going
Speaker 1: to have my kids sleeping on my stomach, and when
Speaker 1: they get older, I'm never going to have them showing
Speaker 1: me their first words that they wrote. And then now
Speaker 1: my kids are thirteen and ten, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: have them, you know, showing me the new clothes that
Speaker 1: they're wearing and asking me, asking me if I think
Speaker 1: they look cool. And so this presence, this being present,
Speaker 1: this habit of mindfulness of presence, which I think I
Speaker 1: think you have spent a long time cultivating. That's something
Speaker 1: that's new. I think for a lot of people. It
Speaker 1: is new for me when I had kids, And the
Speaker 1: reason why I was able to embrace that is because
Speaker 1: I was giving up other things in order to have
Speaker 1: something new. I had this change my thinking about abandoning
Speaker 1: all these habits which I loved, which had made me
Speaker 1: successful for a vacuum and rather saying, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to work until ten o'clock at
Speaker 1: night anymore. Right. I used to be able to sit
Speaker 1: down on my ask at nine in the morning and
Speaker 1: power for thirteen hours. Now I'm going to go home
Speaker 1: at five thirty. But it's not because I'm giving up
Speaker 1: this discipline I had before. It's because I'm opting for
Speaker 1: something else. And that's really important. When people are thinking
Speaker 1: about changing their own habits, they need to think about
Speaker 1: not just breaking a bad habit, they think they need
Speaker 1: to think about opting for something new that's better and healthier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a brilliant piece of advice. In the spiritual literature
Speaker 1: that I studied the English translation, it was referred to
Speaker 1: as the higher taste, and it was the idea that
Speaker 1: you can only give up these lower tastes when you
Speaker 1: have a higher taste, and the idea of lower and
Speaker 1: higher being vibrational and energy based that when you first
Speaker 1: start meditating, it's boring or it doesn't work, or it
Speaker 1: doesn't make you feel happy. But as you developed the
Speaker 1: higher taste, you start to like the vibration and the
Speaker 1: energy that you experience as opposed to this lower distraction.
Speaker 1: And the same applies in a practical way. I remember
Speaker 1: when my wife was worried about the amount of sugar
Speaker 1: I consumed. So I grew up in a home and
Speaker 1: my community knows this well, where I ate four chocolate
Speaker 1: products a day, a chocolate biscuit, a chocolate bar, a
Speaker 1: chocolate yogurt, and a chocolate ice cream. And I ate
Speaker 1: that my whole life. And then when I was at university,
Speaker 1: I got through university by having a bottle of sprite
Speaker 1: and a chocolate bar every single day. So I'm so
Speaker 1: used to consuming high amounts of sugar. Now I married
Speaker 1: a nutritionist and a dietitian and an iravadic health practitioner.
Speaker 1: So my wife was highly worried about my concerned. I
Speaker 1: would say, not worried, concerned about my amount of sugar intake.
Speaker 1: And so she was constantly trying to remove sugar from
Speaker 1: my life. But I would say to it that I
Speaker 1: was like, but I rely on it for maybe energy,
Speaker 1: or I rely on it for boosting my mood or
Speaker 1: performance or whatever it may be. And it took her
Speaker 1: a while, and I said to it, you need to
Speaker 1: help me find a replacement. I need a replacement. Finally
Speaker 1: we found it in dates. So dates have become a phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I don't mean dates with her, I mean I mean
Speaker 1: food dates and cacao nibs. So, like cacao raw cacao
Speaker 1: or monk fruit, monk fruit sweetened cacao has become a
Speaker 1: really natural form of sugar that gives me the same
Speaker 1: feeling and the same taste and the same comfort without
Speaker 1: a lot of the negative effects on my health that
Speaker 1: sugar has. And so having gone through that very practically
Speaker 1: in an area where I had somewhat of an addiction,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to see how what you're saying is
Speaker 1: actually played through in my own life as well. Well.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the important aspects of what
Speaker 1: you just said is accepting that sometimes reaching that higher
Speaker 1: taste is a journey that has steps along the way. Right,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we know about habits is
Speaker 1: that take exercise as a good example, again, when we
Speaker 1: first start developing a habit, we oftentimes need journal rewards, right,
Speaker 1: so we need that smoothie after we go for a run,
Speaker 1: we need the like nice long shower. Very similarly, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is true for you, but when
Speaker 1: I started meditating, like I would meditate for three minutes
Speaker 1: and I had to give myself a reward, right, I
Speaker 1: would use one of the biofeedback bands so that I
Speaker 1: could hear the birds chirping in the background, because without it,
Speaker 1: it just it felt dully pointless. I didn't understand why
Speaker 1: I was doing this. It wasn't fun at all to meditate.
Speaker 1: And then over time, what happens is that as your
Speaker 1: brain learns to appreciate the higher taste, as your brain
Speaker 1: learns to appreciate the higher intrinsic rewards, they begin to
Speaker 1: crowd out the need for the extrinsic rewards. So again
Speaker 1: with exercise, oftentimes, when people start exercising, they need to
Speaker 1: give themselves something. In fact, oftentimes the most effective way
Speaker 1: to start exercising is to give yourself a small piece
Speaker 1: of chocolate after you exercise. And then after a week
Speaker 1: or two or a month or two, you start to realize, like, actually,
Speaker 1: I just feel good when I exercise. Those, of course,
Speaker 1: are the endorphins and the cannaboids, all these neurotransmits that
Speaker 1: are designed to make you feel good. And you start saying, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm not even craving the chocolate anymore. I just crave
Speaker 1: that feeling of healthiness I get after a run or
Speaker 1: with meditation. I'm sure at some point you and I
Speaker 1: definitely I stopped needing these extrinsic rewards. We need to
Speaker 1: start needing someone to tell us you did a good
Speaker 1: job because you sat still for ten minutes today. Instead,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of calmness right, the alpha waves that
Speaker 1: make us feel good. And that's important is because oftentimes
Speaker 1: we think that we should be able to reach enlightenment immediately. Right,
Speaker 1: we go for a run, and instead of giving ourselves
Speaker 1: a small piece of chocolate, we give ourselves a kale shake,
Speaker 1: because we should be happy with a kale shake. Nobody
Speaker 1: likes a kale shake. Man, Let's not a reward that's like,
Speaker 1: that's more do good tourism. But the point is that
Speaker 1: if we are patient with ourselves, if we recognize that
Speaker 1: I need to start with extrinsic rewards, and move to
Speaker 1: intrinsic rewards, we're much more likely to change. So brilliant.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for that addition and expansion on
Speaker 1: the idea. And as you were saying that, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about something that I've discovered more recently, and it's
Speaker 1: this idea around memory and experience. So if I've had
Speaker 1: a really painful start to the day, the one that
Speaker 1: you explained, you're you're rushing to get that run in,
Speaker 1: you don't get to reward yourself, you're late for work,
Speaker 1: you're scared that you're going to miss the kid's class
Speaker 1: or you know, an event or recital, and then everything's
Speaker 1: doing wrong. That memory stays very strongly with us, like
Speaker 1: negative memories kind of grab a hold onto us and
Speaker 1: you'll be able to explain this better. But when you
Speaker 1: have a good experience, it's almost been like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good, that was nice, Like we don't we
Speaker 1: don't hold onto It's the same with social media when
Speaker 1: you are scrolling through the comments, you see all these
Speaker 1: beautifully positive comments and you just go, oh, yeah, great, great, great,
Speaker 1: and then you see one negative one and you amplify.
Speaker 1: So even in our memory, we retain a negative experience
Speaker 1: from working out or eating a healthy meal, far stronger
Speaker 1: than we retain a positive memory. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: a bit about that chase that's you're exactly right and steady.
Speaker 1: After study shows that's true, and from an evolutionary perspective,
Speaker 1: you can understand why, right I'm If I'm walking through
Speaker 1: the forest and I hear a noise in the underbrush,
Speaker 1: it's much more important for me to remember that the
Speaker 1: noise in the underbrush is an animal waiting to attack me,
Speaker 1: rather than that noise in the underbrush is something beautiful
Speaker 1: that I want to look at, right for survive. From
Speaker 1: a survival perspective, the people who remember negative memories better
Speaker 1: are going to survive longer, and so therefore they're going
Speaker 1: to have more offspring, and that's going to get hardwired
Speaker 1: in our brain. So now the question is, okay, So
Speaker 1: that worked great when I was living in the jungle,
Speaker 1: right when animals might attack me at any given moment,
Speaker 1: But how do I do it now? How do I
Speaker 1: take it because social media, I don't have to remember
Speaker 1: the negative comments on social media? Right, it's not healthy.
Speaker 1: It's not going to help me survive. So how do
Speaker 1: I change that calculus in my head, given that there's
Speaker 1: millions of years of evolution pushing me in the other direction. Well,
Speaker 1: the way that you do it is you push back
Speaker 1: against it by reminding yourself why the positive reward is
Speaker 1: so great. And there's kind of two ways to do this.
Speaker 1: The first is simply come up with ways to remind
Speaker 1: yourself to enjoy that positive reward. Right. That's why I say,
Speaker 1: after you go for a shower, don't just after you
Speaker 1: go for a run, after you exercise, don't just take
Speaker 1: a shower. Luxuriate in the shower, right Like, let yourself relax,
Speaker 1: look forward to the shower, use some special smelly soap
Speaker 1: that may makes it feel amazing. But the second thing
Speaker 1: to recognize here is that oftentimes what we're talking about
Speaker 1: when we talk about rewards that seem very short lived
Speaker 1: is their transactional rewards as opposed to emotional rewards. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we know is that emotional rewards
Speaker 1: persist longer. They have a greater sense of salience within
Speaker 1: our brains. So very frequently you'll say, okay, I went
Speaker 1: for a you know, I got a big client. I'm
Speaker 1: going to buy myself a new watch. The joy you
Speaker 1: feel from that watch because as a transactional reward is
Speaker 1: much much short lived than the joy of your boss
Speaker 1: telling you, look, man, you're amazing. I'm really proud of you.
Speaker 1: You did an amazing job on that. And so, in
Speaker 1: order to hijack that process you're talking about, in order
Speaker 1: to make positive rewards as powerful as negative rewards, we
Speaker 1: need to not only train ourselves to remember them, we
Speaker 1: need to find positive rewards that have an emotional characteristic,
Speaker 1: because that emotion is going to persist in our brain
Speaker 1: much longer. That's also why, for instance, when you bring
Speaker 1: up the negative rewards that you are so easy to remember,
Speaker 1: they're always emotional, right. It's someone calling It's not someone
Speaker 1: saying that your point is a bad point or disagreeing
Speaker 1: with you logically. It's someone saying that you're an idiot,
Speaker 1: or that you look stupid, or making you feel bad.
Speaker 1: So we got to fight fire with fire. Find rewards
Speaker 1: that aren't just material, find rewards that aren't just transactional.
Speaker 1: Find rewards that are emotional, and most of those emotions, frankly,
Speaker 1: will come from other people as opposed to things you
Speaker 1: can buy. Yeah, I appreciate you forming that distinction between
Speaker 1: emotional rewards and transactional rewards, because you're so right. It's
Speaker 1: it's so natural to gravitate towards a transactional reward, because
Speaker 1: that's how society has rewarded us too. You get a medal,
Speaker 1: you get a physical depiction of your achievement, you get
Speaker 1: an award, you get a trophy, and so the watch
Speaker 1: becomes a trophy, or the car becomes a trophy, er
Speaker 1: house becomes the trophy. But as you said, it was
Speaker 1: the appreciation that you were seeking, or the affection or
Speaker 1: the acknowledgement of what you've done. And it's really interesting
Speaker 1: you say that. So one thing that's really helped me
Speaker 1: is I discovered that the things that are actually good
Speaker 1: for me, they're hard odd before and they're easier afterwards.
Speaker 1: And the things that are generally unhealthy for me feel
Speaker 1: great before and feel terrible afterwards. So, taking your example
Speaker 1: of going to the gym, when I wake up, it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that I want to run to the gym. I
Speaker 1: you know, I've become better at it, and I go
Speaker 1: to the gym four or five times a week, but
Speaker 1: there's still maybe a morning when I wake up and say,
Speaker 1: I think I need to take it easy today. But
Speaker 1: I push myself to go, and when I leave, I go,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy I went. And I'll come home and
Speaker 1: I'll say to my wife, I'll say, remind me of
Speaker 1: this moment that I told you that I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that I went. And every time I tell you in
Speaker 1: the morning that I don't want to go to the gym,
Speaker 1: remind me of this. That when I come home, I'm
Speaker 1: always beaming. I'm full of energy and full of vitality
Speaker 1: and life. Please remind me of this. And it's almost
Speaker 1: like that human reminder from her is all the emotional reward.
Speaker 1: I need to remember that physical emotional tank your boy
Speaker 1: effect that going to the gym has on me or
Speaker 1: eating health, absolutely and it works the other way around too, right,
Speaker 1: Like I go to the when I go to dinner
Speaker 1: with my wife and there's like some creamy pasta dish
Speaker 1: on the menu, and I'm like, oh man, I'm starving,
Speaker 1: Like that looks that sounds so good, And then I
Speaker 1: eat it and I tell my wife, like, next time,
Speaker 1: just remind me I feel terrible after eating this, Like
Speaker 1: I feel so gross. And you're exactly right that And
Speaker 1: in fact, within psychology there's this there's a really interesting
Speaker 1: science known as implementation intensions, which basically says, look at
Speaker 1: the moment when you have to make a decision. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: that's the worst time to make a decision because there's
Speaker 1: so much going on inside your head that's gonna nudge
Speaker 1: you one way or the other. Right, if everyone knows this,
Speaker 1: if you go grocery shopping when you're hungry, you're gonna
Speaker 1: buy crazy, crazy things. Right, You're gonna way too much money.
Speaker 1: So everyone has lunch before they go grocery shopping so
Speaker 1: they can make wise choices. And we can apply that
Speaker 1: policy throughout life, Like if you're going to go out
Speaker 1: to dinner, don't decide. Don't wait the last minute to
Speaker 1: decide what you're going to order for dinner because you're
Speaker 1: gonna be starving. Decide in the afternoon, look up the
Speaker 1: menu online so that you know, so that you can
Speaker 1: make the decision when you're not hungry. And those implementation
Speaker 1: intentions saying to yourself, I have an intention to implement
Speaker 1: a decision at a particular moment. I have an intention
Speaker 1: to try and determine ahead of time when I should
Speaker 1: make choices and what I should do when I see
Speaker 1: certain stimuli that is how we gain control over our behavior.
Speaker 1: It's kind of unfair to ask yourself to be a
Speaker 1: saint all the time, particularly when you're surrounded by temptations.
Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to be a saint and decide
Speaker 1: to be a saint when the temptations are remove because
Speaker 1: then when the temptations come along, you've already made your choice. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Soo said. Soo said. I think one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things that affects a lot of people who may be
Speaker 1: listening to this, this idea of well, especially because you
Speaker 1: brought up decision making, Charles, the idea of procrastination and overthinking,
Speaker 1: and that seems to be a huge challenge in our
Speaker 1: society today because the level of information analysis and overload
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with is so high. I read a
Speaker 1: study a few years ago that said, we experience through
Speaker 1: the news social media, we experience more tragedy in twenty
Speaker 1: four hours than we used to in our whole lifetime
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. And when you think about that,
Speaker 1: you're comparing twenty four hours to a seventy year lifetime.
Speaker 1: That is, you know, I mean, the brain hasn't had
Speaker 1: enough time to catch up and evolve, and so there's
Speaker 1: glitches and there's mistakes, and so that procrastination and overthinking
Speaker 1: again is very normal and understandable. What have you found
Speaker 1: to be some of the best techniques. If someone's listening
Speaker 1: right now and saying, Charles, I agree with you, but
Speaker 1: I just try and put off decisions completely, Like I
Speaker 1: just try and make no decision because that's easier for
Speaker 1: me to not think about it. But then I get
Speaker 1: more scared because I haven't made one, and then I
Speaker 1: get lost in overthinking in the cycle of procrastination. So
Speaker 1: there's been a bunch of research has been done on
Speaker 1: procrastination and overthinking, and some of my favorite research actually
Speaker 1: comes from Dan Arielli, who's a general psychologist, and so
Speaker 1: one of the things that Dan's experiments have shown is
Speaker 1: that when people talk about procrastination, when they talk about overthinking,
Speaker 1: about avoiding making a decision, what they're really talking about
Speaker 1: is they're talking about the first step. Right, once you
Speaker 1: take the first step, it's usually pretty easy. And this
Speaker 1: is true of many many things. Right once you do,
Speaker 1: once you're in the gym, it's pretty easy to work out.
Speaker 1: It's the getting to the gym part that you put
Speaker 1: off again and again and again. Once you've decided that
Speaker 1: you want to go on that vacation, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to figure out, like which flight you're going to take.
Speaker 1: It's the decision of going on the vacation, and so
Speaker 1: the court isn't how do I do this entire task?
Speaker 1: The question is actually, how do I make it easier
Speaker 1: for myself to take the first step. And there's basically
Speaker 1: two things that help us with this. The first is
Speaker 1: make that first step as small as humanly possible. Right,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about going to the gym, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about exercising, don't sit down ahead of time and
Speaker 1: figure out what the next three months of workouts are
Speaker 1: going to be like. Instead, make that first step simply
Speaker 1: to say, look, I'm just like, I'm gonna have my
Speaker 1: gym clothes in the car. The first step is literally
Speaker 1: all I have to do is get in the car,
Speaker 1: turn on the ignition, and get out of the driveway.
Speaker 1: Because once I'm out of the driveway, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have any place to go except for the gym. So
Speaker 1: let's make it as easy as possible and as small
Speaker 1: as possible to get in the car and literally just
Speaker 1: back out of the driveway. Number two is how do
Speaker 1: I reward myself for that small step. Now, most of
Speaker 1: the time when we think about going to the gym,
Speaker 1: we say like, oh, I'm gonna put off the reward
Speaker 1: until I've done the whole workout, Or if you're really
Speaker 1: a masochist, you're like, look, i'm gonna train for a
Speaker 1: half marathon, which is what I trained for half marathons.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna train for half marathons. I'm gonna put off
Speaker 1: the reward until I run the race twelve weeks from now.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna work. Like, what you need to do
Speaker 1: is you need to get that reward as fast and
Speaker 1: as early in the process as possible, even if it's
Speaker 1: just a small reward. So if it's a matter of
Speaker 1: backing out of the driveway, it can be as small
Speaker 1: as just feeling good about yourself for backing the car
Speaker 1: out of the driveway. You've accomplished what you needed to
Speaker 1: do today. If you get to the gym and you
Speaker 1: work out for four minutes, that's okay, because the entire
Speaker 1: point was just to get to the gym. The question
Speaker 1: people should ask themselves is not how do I make
Speaker 1: procrastination less of a presence in my life. It's how
Speaker 1: do I take a decision that I'm avoiding, make it
Speaker 1: as small as possible, and then reward myself for that
Speaker 1: first step. Because if you can teach yourself to do that,
Speaker 1: everything else is going to take care of itself. That's brilliant.
Speaker 1: And you also talk about positive procrastination, like you talk
Speaker 1: about the idea that sometimes some of our best decisions
Speaker 1: are made when we create a bit of a distance
Speaker 1: and allow ourselves to procrastinate and overthink, which I think
Speaker 1: is such a unique and powerful way to think about
Speaker 1: it because we've been we've been taught to believe that
Speaker 1: people who make their decisions quickly and effectively and now
Speaker 1: are the most smart people. And what you're actually saying is, well,
Speaker 1: no procrastination can be a really healthy, positive thing. And
Speaker 1: I see that in my life sometimes that there are
Speaker 1: some decisions that I allowed to simmer for a month,
Speaker 1: and there are some decisions that I allowed to simmer.
Speaker 1: I just made a decision, a big decision this year.
Speaker 1: I would say I was trying to make that decision
Speaker 1: for four years, and the decision I made this year
Speaker 1: was the best decision I made. But I honestly have
Speaker 1: been thinking about that decision for four years. Now. I
Speaker 1: don't take four years to make every decision like what
Speaker 1: am I going to eat tonight? Or what am I
Speaker 1: going to eat tomorrow? Or but I think some decisions
Speaker 1: demand that level of thought because the reason why I
Speaker 1: took four years is because that is going to impact
Speaker 1: more than the next four years of my life. That's
Speaker 1: why that decision was the decision that you took you
Speaker 1: four years. So the decision that took me four years
Speaker 1: was there was something I was working on, and it
Speaker 1: was either do I do this myself or do I
Speaker 1: partner with someone where I can create something really powerful?
Speaker 1: So it's like do I build it from scratch or
Speaker 1: do I work with someone who's already advanced in that
Speaker 1: area and build onto and expand what they've already done.
Speaker 1: Adam Grant writes about this very eloquently right about positive procrastination,
Speaker 1: and one of the ways I think about it is
Speaker 1: actually to ask yourself, is this rational procrastination? Because you're right,
Speaker 1: we have all kinds of pressures that make us want
Speaker 1: to act quickly. Right, there's actually something known as the
Speaker 1: cognitive need for closure, which is it just feels good
Speaker 1: to make a choice right. It feels good to cross
Speaker 1: something off your to do list. It feels good to
Speaker 1: put it behind you and say, like, I don't got
Speaker 1: to worry about that anymore. But oftentimes there's a very
Speaker 1: rational reason not to make that choice. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: you need to sit with it for longer to see
Speaker 1: how you really feel. Sometimes it's that you need more information.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's that actually making the choice right now would
Speaker 1: screw everything up, because because I know that there's going
Speaker 1: to be other opportunities, I know that there's going to
Speaker 1: be ways to of seeing this in this situation in
Speaker 1: different ways, and if I'm locked into one viewpoint, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be hard for me to see other opportunities. And
Speaker 1: so one of the things that's really important is to
Speaker 1: sit with yourself and say, look, am I hesitating on
Speaker 1: this because I'm scared of making the choice because I'm
Speaker 1: scared of doing the work, Or am I sitting with
Speaker 1: this because it just doesn't feel right yet? And that
Speaker 1: rational procrastination is one of our most powerful instinctual tools
Speaker 1: for knowing without knowing it deliberately or consciously. When it's read,
Speaker 1: when we're ready to make a choice. That's that's really
Speaker 1: really a great extension of what I was thinking about
Speaker 1: in my decision making, and that's clarified a lot for me.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've definitely felt is
Speaker 1: really thinking about how much of your life is going
Speaker 1: to be impacted by a decision allows me to know
Speaker 1: how much rational time to give to it. And I think,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of how I've always processed it, Like
Speaker 1: it's like getting married is going to impact your whole life.
Speaker 1: I think this is what we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: Having children is a massive life change. But what I
Speaker 1: find fascinating, and this is something that I spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about in all of these decisions,
Speaker 1: is when you're thinking about choosing to buy a home
Speaker 1: or move city or town, you think about a lot
Speaker 1: of things like what schools are we near and is
Speaker 1: this a good area, and would this be a good investment,
Speaker 1: and is this a smart choice? But sometimes we just
Speaker 1: get married or have kids just by default, like it's
Speaker 1: an autopilot move. And I think that it's really fascinating
Speaker 1: when you take life transitions on autopilot, or what I
Speaker 1: read in psychology was known as sliding versus deciding. We
Speaker 1: slide into decisions rather than actually decide to make them.
Speaker 1: We don't consciously intentionally process those. And when we slide
Speaker 1: into something you're now sliding into like a ballpit of
Speaker 1: like whatever it is, right, there's no practice. Can you
Speaker 1: speak to that a little bit? Chace, absolutely well. And
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that you're you're picking up on,
Speaker 1: which I think is really smart, is our environment influences
Speaker 1: how we make decisions so much in ways that we
Speaker 1: don't often see. Right. In fact, what happens is, and
Speaker 1: this is known in psychology is the fundamental attribution error.
Speaker 1: Is that there is something in our environment which is
Speaker 1: influencing us, but we blame ourselves or other people for something. Right,
Speaker 1: If I happen to sit on the same side of
Speaker 1: the table as someone as opposed to on the other
Speaker 1: side of the table from them, I'm more likely to
Speaker 1: agree with them rather than disagree with them. And I
Speaker 1: think that's because either I agree with them or they're agreeable,
Speaker 1: or I'm agreeable. But actually it just has to do
Speaker 1: with where we sat at the table. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that we fail to recognize. And oftentimes when we're making choices,
Speaker 1: we're not aware of all the environmental influences around us. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence that most people get married after
Speaker 1: three of their other friends have gotten married, right, because
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like marriage is contagious. You see
Speaker 1: Jim and you see Pam get married, and then you're like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that's okay for me to write same thing happens
Speaker 1: with kids. And so one big question, and this is
Speaker 1: kind of the focus of my second book, Smarter, Faster, Better,
Speaker 1: One big question is how do we build the habits
Speaker 1: that force us to slow down and think more deeply
Speaker 1: about the choices we're making When thinking deeply is hardest, right,
Speaker 1: either because we feel like we're in a panic, or
Speaker 1: we feel like there's a lot of pressure, or there's
Speaker 1: things that are happening around us that are happening very quickly.
Speaker 1: How do we force ourselves to slow down and make
Speaker 1: more deliberate choices in those moments? And the answer is
Speaker 1: you just build habits to do it. More importantly, you
Speaker 1: build what are known as cognitive routines. You build these
Speaker 1: almost like trip wires in your life that force you
Speaker 1: to slow down. So for some people, for instance, this
Speaker 1: can be as simple as saying before I make any
Speaker 1: big choice, I always have to call my spouse and
Speaker 1: talk it through with my spouse. Now, if you're making
Speaker 1: a big choice at work, your spouse doesn't know anything
Speaker 1: about the pros and the cons. Right, your spouse isn't
Speaker 1: going to actually give you any great advice. All your
Speaker 1: spouse is going to We're looking to you, but that
Speaker 1: trip wires saying I don't make any big decisions without
Speaker 1: talking to myselves first. That's to help you slow down,
Speaker 1: for you to explain the pros and cons to your spouse,
Speaker 1: force you to make sure that you're seeing everything from
Speaker 1: every perspective. These trip wires that we build into our lives,
Speaker 1: they are the things that let us think more deeply,
Speaker 1: particularly when thinking is hard, and they are ultimately habits. Yes,
Speaker 1: a reminder I like to share with people is that
Speaker 1: you're not ahead or behind. You're not early or late,
Speaker 1: you're forward or backward. That you're in the right place
Speaker 1: right now where you need to be to slow down
Speaker 1: and make this decision. And when we start making decisions
Speaker 1: based on I'm missing out, they're doing it. We're so
Speaker 1: late and behind. Now all of a sudden, you're completely
Speaker 1: working against what you just said which is finding that
Speaker 1: space and time and silence and stillness to say where
Speaker 1: do I want to move and how do we want
Speaker 1: to move and what decisions do we want to make?
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm so happy with the way you are
Speaker 1: explaining them through science, because I think we hear these affirmations,
Speaker 1: we hear these ideas often, but we don't realize that
Speaker 1: they're actually based in how our brains. Yes, exactly, and
Speaker 1: this is why you know this, this concept of fomo right,
Speaker 1: fear of missing out. Yes, you have to think about
Speaker 1: how do I how do I protect my environment so
Speaker 1: that I know that these forces aren't influencing. And I
Speaker 1: mentioned before that that we the fundamental attribution error is
Speaker 1: that we mistake something in our environment for something that's
Speaker 1: internal to our character. That if we if we take
Speaker 1: that seriously, we have to think about our environment. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, take social media. I don't check social media
Speaker 1: during the day. I allow myself to check it once
Speaker 1: in the morning and then when I get home from
Speaker 1: work and after dinner, then I check it then, But
Speaker 1: the rest of the day I don't. And the reason
Speaker 1: why is because I don't want that influence impacting my brain.
Speaker 1: Like I find that it distracts me. I find that
Speaker 1: it emotionally manipulates me. Right, I see something about Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly, for the next fifteen minutes, I can't
Speaker 1: get any work done because I'm obsessing about what happened
Speaker 1: on a battlefield. We're obsessing about it at that moment
Speaker 1: does not make it better, It doesn't change the facts. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, if I put it off to thinking about
Speaker 1: it that night, maybe I can make a donation that
Speaker 1: actually helps. But thinking about our environment, thinking about how
Speaker 1: we structure our environment so that those influences that we
Speaker 1: know that we're prone to are not present. That's really important.
Speaker 1: But it's something that we don't learn how to do
Speaker 1: as well as we should. Yeah, yeah, so true, so
Speaker 1: beautifully and brilliantly explained. Again, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: your second book a bit because I think the idea
Speaker 1: of productivity is so interesting right now, and productivity gets
Speaker 1: has a good and a bad reputation in different ways.
Speaker 1: So productivity, of course, and we'll dive into it and
Speaker 1: how we can become more productive and how we can
Speaker 1: become more efficient effective. But before we do that, I
Speaker 1: also want to address the idea of a lot of
Speaker 1: people struggle with productivity today because it became so equated
Speaker 1: to our value and worth in life. So the reason
Speaker 1: why some people are questioning whether productivity is a good
Speaker 1: metric of anything is because they say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want my value or I don't want my
Speaker 1: worth to be based on how productive I feel I am.
Speaker 1: So I just want to address that before we dive
Speaker 1: into it. Now. The caveat to that is I consider
Speaker 1: myself a highly productive person. I consider myself a high performer.
Speaker 1: I had to make a really interesting decision a few
Speaker 1: years back, and I realized something very clearly when I
Speaker 1: don't think I had all the best habits that I
Speaker 1: could potentially have. And the question I asked to myself was,
Speaker 1: I either have to slow down if I want to
Speaker 1: keep doing what I'm doing at a high level, or
Speaker 1: I have to improve my health habits like those are
Speaker 1: my two choices. I was like, if I want to
Speaker 1: keep doing this for a long time and I want
Speaker 1: longevity and I want to serve and I want to
Speaker 1: make an impact, and I want my work for many,
Speaker 1: many decades to support people and serve people and help people,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to need to either slow down because
Speaker 1: otherwise I'll burn out or I need to up my
Speaker 1: health game. And I chose the latter because I was
Speaker 1: fascinated by, well, what can I do to perform at
Speaker 1: a higher level and maintain but still take breaks and manage.
Speaker 1: And I've definitely found that with the methods I've taken,
Speaker 1: where every year will stretch just a little bit and
Speaker 1: a little bit more than next year, and the next
Speaker 1: year you find that your capacity is just I do
Speaker 1: more today than I've ever done in my whole life,
Speaker 1: but I'm more fulfilled and it's beautiful. And then I
Speaker 1: still know when to take breaks. And again, I'm not perfect,
Speaker 1: and I haven't figured it all out, and I still
Speaker 1: get tired, and I still get exhausted, and I still
Speaker 1: have days where I don't want to do stuff. So
Speaker 1: I'm not perfect by any means. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I am. I'm just saying that it's been interesting to
Speaker 1: see how having certain positive habits like sleep, diet, exercise, meditation,
Speaker 1: like those four simple habits have expanded and extended my productivity.
Speaker 1: Then my productivity actually feels less and productivity feels harder
Speaker 1: when those four things were not aligned. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: have kids, So I'm not putting I'm not saying any
Speaker 1: of this is like advice. I'm just saying stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about and working on. So talk to me
Speaker 1: a bit about Charles about this idea of people getting
Speaker 1: scared about their productivity being how much they feel their
Speaker 1: worth and how they value themselves. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a really really good point, and I think you just
Speaker 1: illuminated the distinction here that's really essential, right, which is
Speaker 1: productivity is bad when it's defined by other people for us.
Speaker 1: Right if I said to you, Jay, like, you are
Speaker 1: not productive unless you, you know, make a million dollars
Speaker 1: this year and you run three marathons and you write
Speaker 1: two books, that's not productivity, right, Like, that doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like productivity to you. What productivity really is is knowing
Speaker 1: your goals and being able to achieve them with less
Speaker 1: stress and strife, not making yourself miserable along the way.
Speaker 1: So what's important here is to say I'm going to
Speaker 1: be productive based on the goals that are important to me,
Speaker 1: not the goals that are important to other people, not
Speaker 1: the goals that are important to society. So from an
Speaker 1: outside perspective, I might say, look, Jay, if you're sleeping
Speaker 1: eight hours a night and you're meditating and you're exercising,
Speaker 1: Like that is not productive. Man, Like you could sleep
Speaker 1: six hours a night and that meditation, Like cut that
Speaker 1: down to like just five minutes a day, and you've
Speaker 1: got some extra time to get some work done. Right.
Speaker 1: But what matters is not what I think is productive
Speaker 1: for you. What matters is you being able to think
Speaker 1: about what's productive for you and being able to achieve that.
Speaker 1: So you know that a productive day includes a meditation,
Speaker 1: it includes sleep, includes feeling good about yourself. So the
Speaker 1: first question that we have to do is we have
Speaker 1: to sit down and say, what does productivity mean to
Speaker 1: me based on what I want and acknowledge that might
Speaker 1: be different from day to day and place to place.
Speaker 1: A productive Wednesday might be one where I get the
Speaker 1: kids out the door and I'm at my desk and
Speaker 1: I'm replying to emails, And a productive Friday might be
Speaker 1: one where I walk the kids to school and we
Speaker 1: get to talk to each other and I learn what's
Speaker 1: going on inside their life, and I don't do any
Speaker 1: emails because I spend my time with my kids. The
Speaker 1: point here is that when we look at productivity as
Speaker 1: something that has a static definition, that's when it becomes negative.
Speaker 1: That's when it becomes bad. When we embrace productivity as
Speaker 1: something that is a way for me to decide what
Speaker 1: my goals are and try and figure out how to
Speaker 1: accomplish them, and it's based entirely on what I want
Speaker 1: as oppose what other people want, then it becomes a
Speaker 1: tool for helping me decide how I live the life
Speaker 1: that I want to live. That is is such a
Speaker 1: fantastic way of defining it. And I've actually never heard
Speaker 1: productivity defined as well as that. I actually just I
Speaker 1: think that's brilliant, because you're so right that the decision
Speaker 1: I'm making they made me feel productive and hence I
Speaker 1: choose them as a priority in my life. But you're right,
Speaker 1: I never thought of that. But someone could literally look
Speaker 1: in my life and be like, Jay, you waste a
Speaker 1: lot of time sleep. I do sleep eight hours a night,
Speaker 1: And people could look in my life and be like, wow, Jay,
Speaker 1: you waste a lot of time doing no work, when actually,
Speaker 1: to me, I'm able to do more work and better
Speaker 1: work and deeper work because of the time I spend
Speaker 1: away from work. And as I was saying, I think
Speaker 1: you know one thing that's really interesting to be. Someone
Speaker 1: asked me recently what I thought was the most important
Speaker 1: skill to develop, and I thought about that, and I
Speaker 1: thought about it again, and I really reflected on it,
Speaker 1: and the closest answer I've developed so far at this
Speaker 1: stage in my life is the biggest skill that I've learned,
Speaker 1: or I believe that I've had to try and develop
Speaker 1: and continue to develop, is to do things that are
Speaker 1: good for me even when I don't feel like them.
Speaker 1: And because I think that a lot of what is
Speaker 1: good for you, you won't always feel like doing it.
Speaker 1: In my experience, at least, I don't feel like eating
Speaker 1: healthy all the time. I don't feel like exercising all
Speaker 1: the time. I don't feel like meditating all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like doing something, but I know that
Speaker 1: when I do it, it creates great joy nourishment. And
Speaker 1: me and my friend recently, we're talking about this idea
Speaker 1: of what makes you feel good versus what makes you
Speaker 1: feel nourished, And we were going back and forth about
Speaker 1: the idea of like, feeling good is great, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with it, but when you feel nourished, it's wholesome,
Speaker 1: it's fulfilling, it's so powerful, And we were saying that
Speaker 1: we're trying to make more decisions in our life where
Speaker 1: we feel we're being nourished more than just feeling good
Speaker 1: in the moment, because feeling nourished does make you feel good.
Speaker 1: So I would love to hear your thought process around that,
Speaker 1: because I think what we often look at is people say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't feel motivated to do that, or I don't
Speaker 1: feel inspired to do that. And often I would say
Speaker 1: I don't feel motivated and inspired to do a lot
Speaker 1: of the good stuff that I do. I can't. I
Speaker 1: would be lying if I said I wake up every
Speaker 1: day motivated and inspired to take you know, do what
Speaker 1: I do. I don't. There's plenty of mornings where I
Speaker 1: wake up and I think I don't feel like doing
Speaker 1: anything today. But I know that if I just don't
Speaker 1: do anything today, I'm probably going to feel the same
Speaker 1: way tomorrow and the same way tomorrow, and that actually
Speaker 1: getting myself up out of bed and trying to do
Speaker 1: one thing may actually be better than doing completely nothing.
Speaker 1: So can you walk us through that a little bit.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear your thoughts and your opinions
Speaker 1: about it. I'm just I'm really just what I love
Speaker 1: about this conversation, charge is the way you think. I
Speaker 1: love the way you think, Like it's just I love
Speaker 1: the way you contextually and you break things down and
Speaker 1: the reaseitch you've done. And so I'm just throwing at
Speaker 1: you my thought process and ideas. No, I really appree it.
Speaker 1: And I love hearing how you think and how you
Speaker 1: approach these questions because I think it's really fascinating. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one of one of the d
Speaker 1: this duality that you're discussing. It reflects what has been
Speaker 1: an oversight in a lot of contemporary society. And and
Speaker 1: this is just because, you know, because psychology is a
Speaker 1: relatively new field and it's it's developed, we became very
Speaker 1: focused on happiness, right as a society, Right, what is
Speaker 1: the highest goal? To feel happy, to feel to feel joyful.
Speaker 1: But the thing that we've learned is that there is
Speaker 1: another emotion, another experience beyond happiness that is actually more meaningful.
Speaker 1: And within psychology they refer to this as a sense
Speaker 1: of well being. Right, So so if I give you
Speaker 1: sugar right now, I can make you happy. If I
Speaker 1: if you're having sex, you will feel happy. But we
Speaker 1: know that just eating sugar like actually, over time it
Speaker 1: feels terrible. That having empty sex is not as great
Speaker 1: as having sex with someone you love. Right, we know this,
Speaker 1: and so the question is, so, if I'm not chasing happiness,
Speaker 1: what am I actually chasing? And for a long time
Speaker 1: we've built all of our psychology models around heat about
Speaker 1: the hadonic individual, right, seeking this pleasure, but a sense
Speaker 1: of well being is actually something that's more profound. It
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that you are happy, that you are
Speaker 1: feeling pleasure at that particular moment, but it does mean
Speaker 1: some other things. It means that you feel satisfied. It
Speaker 1: means that you feel safe, It means that you feel loved,
Speaker 1: and it means that you feel that your life has meaning.
Speaker 1: And if I can give you those four things, what
Speaker 1: we know is that you actually will feel much better
Speaker 1: than if you just feel pleasure or if you just
Speaker 1: feel happy. I cannot actually be happy over the long
Speaker 1: term without a sense of well being. But I can
Speaker 1: certainly have a sense of well being and not feel
Speaker 1: happy all the time. And that's okay. In fact, we
Speaker 1: know that that's meaningful. Right, The most meaningful thing that's
Speaker 1: happened to me in the last five years is that
Speaker 1: my father passed away. That certainly was not happy in
Speaker 1: any way, but it was deeply meaningful. It was deeply
Speaker 1: contributed to my sense of well being to remind myself
Speaker 1: of my family and my love for him and what
Speaker 1: he gave me. And so if we reorient ourselves away
Speaker 1: from happiness and towards creating a sense of well being,
Speaker 1: then suddenly all those questions you just ask, like should
Speaker 1: I wake up this morning, should I get out of bed?
Speaker 1: Should I make this decision? Should I eat this thing?
Speaker 1: Should I exercise? All those questions become much easier because
Speaker 1: now our goal is well being right made up again
Speaker 1: of a sense of safety, a sense of meaning, a
Speaker 1: sense of satisfaction, a sense of having a community with
Speaker 1: other people. Those become much easier decisions to make because
Speaker 1: getting out of bed, it's not about where they're getting
Speaker 1: out of bed makes you happy. If you don't get
Speaker 1: out of bed, you're not gonna have a relationship with
Speaker 1: your wife, you're not going to earn money, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna feel safe, you're not gonna your life doesn't have
Speaker 1: any meaning. Now, suddenly the decision to get out of
Speaker 1: bed is much mouch easier because you're not chasing pleasure.
Speaker 1: You're chasing well being. So well reframed, especially with the
Speaker 1: idea of getting up out of bed. If you're seeking
Speaker 1: pleasure every day, it will feel almost impossible. But that
Speaker 1: idea of well being is so strong and one of
Speaker 1: the things that we've mentioned today, but I want to
Speaker 1: dive into. There's a couple more things. One is this
Speaker 1: idea of we try to have what I call we
Speaker 1: try to have long term feelings about something based on
Speaker 1: short term experiences. So we will say something like I
Speaker 1: will never ever miss going to the gym ever again. Right,
Speaker 1: I will never ever eat something unhealthy ever again. Like
Speaker 1: we make these really big broad statements. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: and this happened to me last week. So I was
Speaker 1: having a really healthy week. I was traveling, and I've
Speaker 1: been really trying to master the art of living healthy
Speaker 1: when I travel, because it's really easy when I'm back
Speaker 1: at home. But last week I give three keynotes in
Speaker 1: three different states. I was on a plane every day
Speaker 1: every other day, and I was really trying last week
Speaker 1: to be conscious because I've been really working on my health,
Speaker 1: and so I was thinking, Okay, I need to eat healthy,
Speaker 1: and so I was researching at where I could eat
Speaker 1: and plan and all this kind of stuff, and it
Speaker 1: went great from Monday to Friday. Now, on Friday, I
Speaker 1: my flight was delayed by two hours, and then when
Speaker 1: we got on the flight, we were about to take off,
Speaker 1: but then they brought us back to the gate because
Speaker 1: they said there was something wrong with the cabin pressure.
Speaker 1: We then waited another two hour is in the plane
Speaker 1: and then they said, all right, we're going to take
Speaker 1: off again. We were about to take off and then
Speaker 1: they said no, no, no, the cabin pressure is still
Speaker 1: an issue. So we went back to the gate and
Speaker 1: waited another two hours. So now we had been six
Speaker 1: hours in total, and I'm sitting there and now we
Speaker 1: get two hours later, they take us off the plane
Speaker 1: because they can't fix it, and then it takes another
Speaker 1: two hours for them to onboard us to another flight.
Speaker 1: So it's been around ten hours at this point. I've
Speaker 1: now missed my next three connecting flights. Now when we
Speaker 1: go back into the terminal for those two hours, I
Speaker 1: go and buy sour patch kids a bag of chips.
Speaker 1: Like every single thing at this point that I've been
Speaker 1: trying to avoid, the whole week and I eat my
Speaker 1: bag of sour Patch Kids very happily. I eat my
Speaker 1: like you know, bag of chips. I'm about to go
Speaker 1: and buy myself a burger and fries as well at
Speaker 1: the airport, and I do and I loved it. It
Speaker 1: was great, Like I wasn't wasn't sad about anything. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is great, Like this is what I
Speaker 1: needed to deal with the last ten twelve hours. And
Speaker 1: I feel lucky, and I feel lucky and privileged enough
Speaker 1: that I could eat right like because there's that was
Speaker 1: a privilege in it of itself. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If I had said to myself, Jay, you can never
Speaker 1: ever eat sour Patch Kids ever again in your life,
Speaker 1: and then that happens, I feel like such a failure.
Speaker 1: And I did that to myself for a long time,
Speaker 1: where I made these big, bold statements and then I
Speaker 1: felt like a failure again and again and again. So
Speaker 1: how do we plan for failure? Because it is actually
Speaker 1: more inevitable than it is avoidable. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anyone who's ever set of resolution, set a new plan,
Speaker 1: set a new schedule, that has ever kept to it
Speaker 1: word for word. Yet we still hope and we pray,
Speaker 1: and we assume that we are going to stick to
Speaker 1: our plan exactly as it is. And I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't even think the most disciplined people in the world
Speaker 1: do that. Right, How do we accept that we will
Speaker 1: inevitably fail? And that's okay, and that's part of the journey.
Speaker 1: So this is another This is another question that comes
Speaker 1: from how our brain evolved and how it's working in
Speaker 1: today's world. Right, we tend to remember things episodically. Right,
Speaker 1: So if I ask you, Jay, who are you? You
Speaker 1: would answer this by telling me three or four big
Speaker 1: values that you live your life by. If I tell you,
Speaker 1: if I ask you tell me about your wife, You're
Speaker 1: gonna tell me what her job is, or you're gonna
Speaker 1: tell me about the time you met, or you're gonna
Speaker 1: tell me about what your wedding was like. We tend
Speaker 1: to remember things and describe things in terms of stories.
Speaker 1: And because stories always have pivot points, right, there's a
Speaker 1: beginning to middle, in an end, there's a blot, twists,
Speaker 1: there's a character, and that's great. That helps us remember things.
Speaker 1: But we don't live stories. We live day to day.
Speaker 1: We live waking up in ninety percent of our time
Speaker 1: is spent taking a shower and going to the office
Speaker 1: and doing these things that we don't really remember at
Speaker 1: all because we don't have to remember them, because again,
Speaker 1: in a state of nature, when the boar is charging
Speaker 1: at you, it's a lot more important to remember what
Speaker 1: the path looks like where the boar lives than to
Speaker 1: remember all the paths where bores don't live. So, as
Speaker 1: a result, because we think this way, because we think
Speaker 1: of stories, we need to recognize that we need to say,
Speaker 1: like my instinct is to say these grand things, to
Speaker 1: say I'm never going to eat again. I run half marathons,
Speaker 1: I work out three times a week because that's a
Speaker 1: story I can tell myself that helps me remember who
Speaker 1: I am. But the way I actually live is day
Speaker 1: to day and minute to minute, and sometimes I get
Speaker 1: off track from that story. And that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: that story isn't true. That doesn't mean that that story
Speaker 1: doesn't work anymore, That doesn't mean that I've changed. It
Speaker 1: just means that the story of my life is much
Speaker 1: bigger than the story I tell myself and others. And
Speaker 1: once we acknowledge that, once we accept that, it's enormously empowering. Right.
Speaker 1: If you go back to Aristotle, Arisotle once said excellent
Speaker 1: that our habits are our lives. What we do every
Speaker 1: day is how we ought to be judged. So excellence, then,
Speaker 1: is not an act. Excellence is a habit. And this
Speaker 1: is important because what he was saying is one moment
Speaker 1: of bravery, one great decision. That's the thing that we're
Speaker 1: going to write in the histories. That's the thing that
Speaker 1: we're going to remember. But that is not excellence. Excellence
Speaker 1: is more often than not, waking up in the morning
Speaker 1: and doing the right thing. And that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you do the right thing every single morning. It just
Speaker 1: means that for four days you resist the Sour Patch kids,
Speaker 1: and in fact, on the fifth day you probably would
Speaker 1: have resisted as Sara Patch kids until you have to
Speaker 1: spend ten hours in an airplane in an airport, at
Speaker 1: which point it's just fine to have some Sour Patch
Speaker 1: kids and not have to say to yourself, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm a bad person. Now whole my whole story in
Speaker 1: my head about who I am has just been exploded. No,
Speaker 1: it's just one moment. What matters is what we do
Speaker 1: on average every day. That's how we should judge ourselves. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you for giving me the permission to eat Sauer
Speaker 1: Pats kids whenever I like. But no, it's it's so
Speaker 1: useful to hear you walk us through that as an
Speaker 1: exercise almost in our head. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of what you've shared with us today is really exercises, reflections, questions.
Speaker 1: I hope everyone's making notes as you're listening and watching,
Speaker 1: and if you're not, this is definitely one of those
Speaker 1: episodes to go back through, because you know, I've asked
Speaker 1: Charles questions not based on you know, it would have
Speaker 1: been easy for me to ask Charles, how do you
Speaker 1: create good habits and how do you end bad habits?
Speaker 1: And I think we've talked about all those things in
Speaker 1: hopefully for all of you who are listening and watching,
Speaker 1: really interesting personal practical ways so that you can actually
Speaker 1: apply it to reality rather than a set of two dus. Now,
Speaker 1: I do want to talk to you about to do list? Charles,
Speaker 1: do you believe that to do lists work? What's the
Speaker 1: best way to structure our day to actually feel like
Speaker 1: we're creating momentum and movement? And I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1: I look at each day and each week, not by
Speaker 1: how much I achieved, but by how much I moved
Speaker 1: the needle right, Like, it's how much momentum have I gathered?
Speaker 1: Is more interesting to me than how much have I done?
Speaker 1: Because I think sometimes some things take four years to
Speaker 1: get done, and sometimes things take four months, and sometimes
Speaker 1: things take four days or four hours. But if every
Speaker 1: day I asked us if what did I do today?
Speaker 1: Sometimes I can feel, so how do we use to
Speaker 1: do lists effectively? Because we all have things to do?
Speaker 1: I love the metaphor you just brought up about momentum,
Speaker 1: because I think it's really important. One of the ways
Speaker 1: I think about it is an analogy someone who's used
Speaker 1: with me. They said, like, look, think of your life
Speaker 1: as a series of pole vaults. Right, the faster and
Speaker 1: longer you run, the higher you're going to be able
Speaker 1: to vault over that pole. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the actual event, that person could be running for three
Speaker 1: minutes before they spend ten seconds flying into the air,
Speaker 1: and so at any point along there you could say,
Speaker 1: why the heck are you running so long? Like this
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's a good use of time. But
Speaker 1: if you think about your life in terms of these
Speaker 1: pole vaults. So to do list is a great question,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious how you organize your day. This is
Speaker 1: what we know about to do lists. We use this
Speaker 1: word to do list sometimes incorrectly. There are things which
Speaker 1: are memory lists, and those are great. Right, your brain
Speaker 1: is a terrible place to try and remember the thirty
Speaker 1: things that you want to get done in the next
Speaker 1: twelve months. You're going to forget some of them. So
Speaker 1: what you should do is you should have a pad
Speaker 1: of paper and as soon as you think of something
Speaker 1: you might want to get done, you should write it
Speaker 1: down on that list. But that's a memory list. That's
Speaker 1: not a to do list. That's a memory list to
Speaker 1: remind you of things that in the past seem important
Speaker 1: to you. A to do list should be much different.
Speaker 1: A to do list should be something that you write
Speaker 1: every morning or every night before that you leave work,
Speaker 1: which is when I do it, I sit down. The
Speaker 1: last thing I do every day is I write on
Speaker 1: an index card what my to do list is for
Speaker 1: the next day. And that to do list, optimally, should
Speaker 1: only contain like one thing, the most important thing that
Speaker 1: you can get done tomorrow, the thing that if you
Speaker 1: do it, it will move that needle. It will change
Speaker 1: your life in a better way. Now, sometimes you can
Speaker 1: get that thing done. So oftentimes what I'll do is
Speaker 1: I write down three things. This is kind of crazy, right.
Speaker 1: I write down the thing I want to get done tomorrow.
Speaker 1: If I get that thing done, the second thing I
Speaker 1: want to get done, and then I sometimes will guess
Speaker 1: what ought to be my top priority for the next day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong, But it most
Speaker 1: my to do list has three things on it. And
Speaker 1: what's really clear is I'm not looking at two and
Speaker 1: three until number one is done. Now. Of course, every
Speaker 1: day is filled with more than one thing, right, So
Speaker 1: I also have a calendar where I have these meetings
Speaker 1: I have to go to, and I have these phone
Speaker 1: calls I have to make. And sometimes the path to
Speaker 1: getting that one thing done involves ten or twelve different steps,
Speaker 1: and I might jot down those steps just to remind
Speaker 1: me what they are. But the point is that whenever
Speaker 1: I look at that index card, I am reminding myself
Speaker 1: there is one thing that if I get it done today,
Speaker 1: it will change the trajectory, It will make my life better.
Speaker 1: It is so easy to continue putting that thing off
Speaker 1: to put off writing that memo that you're scared of,
Speaker 1: But once you write it, you're going to know what
Speaker 1: to do next. To put off having that tough phone call,
Speaker 1: to put off doing your taxes, to put off doing
Speaker 1: something that matters. And if you put it at the
Speaker 1: top of the list, and that's your to do list,
Speaker 1: not the memory list, but the to do list, then
Speaker 1: you're going to do the most important things. Because everyone
Speaker 1: only has twenty four hours, right, and some people get
Speaker 1: amazing things done and some people don't. The difference is
Speaker 1: not how many more hours they have or how many
Speaker 1: employees they have. The difference is how much time they
Speaker 1: spend prioritizing what they're working on. So let me ask you,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you organize your days? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you remain focus on what's
Speaker 1: important and not get distracted? Yeah, that's it's a great question.
Speaker 1: So a few things that I've used is I read
Speaker 1: a study that said you can't be effectively creative and
Speaker 1: logical at the same time or back to back. So
Speaker 1: I avoid scheduling a creative and then a data or
Speaker 1: numbers meeting back to back. So I'll try and have
Speaker 1: creative mornings and data afternoons or creative days and data days,
Speaker 1: and that, to me makes it easier for my brain
Speaker 1: to be in the zone and focus and get absorbed
Speaker 1: and obsessed with what we're dealing with, rather than going
Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth and stressing my mind
Speaker 1: to be brainstorm and be really creative and now go
Speaker 1: off and be really structured. And I don't enjoy that.
Speaker 1: I found it exhausting, actually, And I used to find
Speaker 1: that a lot of my fatigue came because I was
Speaker 1: demanding my brain to be really creative and artistic and
Speaker 1: then to be really structured and focused, and those two
Speaker 1: things are opposite. When I'm being creative, sometimes I'm not
Speaker 1: focused at all, and that's what's good about being creative.
Speaker 1: And when I'm trying to be focused, my creative mind
Speaker 1: is not useful. I just want to be able to
Speaker 1: get something done. So I use what I call efficient
Speaker 1: and effective days as well. I'm like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: an efficiency day, which means doing lots of meetings, getting
Speaker 1: lots of stuff checked off. And then I have an
Speaker 1: effective day where it's like all I need to do
Speaker 1: is come up with one idea for the next chapter
Speaker 1: of my book. All I need to do is come
Speaker 1: up with a new vision or a new strategy that
Speaker 1: I want to create for one of our companies. And
Speaker 1: so those are effective days where I don't have to
Speaker 1: do a lot, I don't have to achieve a lot.
Speaker 1: I just have to do one thing, as you said,
Speaker 1: And the efficient days are oh yeah, I had like
Speaker 1: seven phone calls, I checked that meeting off, I did
Speaker 1: those reviews, like stuff that just I can do easily,
Speaker 1: and they're back to back to back, and so I've
Speaker 1: tried as much as I can. By the way, again
Speaker 1: not perfect. We get this wrong all the time. But
Speaker 1: that's what I'm pushing towards too, is always pivoting my
Speaker 1: schedule to be creative and logical days, efficiency and effective days.
Speaker 1: And the final one is giving myself a sense of
Speaker 1: you know, I always plan everything from rest to lunch
Speaker 1: to dinner to breakfast, so or everything exists in my schedule.
Speaker 1: I believe if it's not in my schedule, it won't happen.
Speaker 1: So even lunch is in my schedule every day, and
Speaker 1: I would try as much as I can to pause
Speaker 1: and break and actually eat at that time, because I
Speaker 1: found that I used to miss meals, and then I
Speaker 1: would feel bloated, and then I would feel gas, and
Speaker 1: then I was feel inflamed, and then I would feel exhausted,
Speaker 1: and then I couldn't do it the next day. And
Speaker 1: so I started realizing that a lot of structure, at
Speaker 1: least five days a week I would say this is
Speaker 1: a Monday to Friday thing was really powerful for me,
Speaker 1: and it's stuff that I'm still tinkering with and playing with.
Speaker 1: What I love about that is that one of the
Speaker 1: things I hear you saying is you're deliberating your goals. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: And we know that this is this is a big
Speaker 1: part of creating that space and those those cognitive routines
Speaker 1: to allow ourselves to think more deeply, which is to
Speaker 1: basically to take a step back and ask ourselves, what
Speaker 1: is the goal that I'm pursuing right now? Right? There's
Speaker 1: very often when we're in a situation and because we
Speaker 1: don't understand the goal, we end up feeling frustrated and
Speaker 1: at a loss. If I'm with my kids and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about work, then I don't know what my goal is.
Speaker 1: Is my goal to have a moment with my children
Speaker 1: and really bond with them? Whereas my goal to think
Speaker 1: through a problem that I'm confronting at work. I end
Speaker 1: up being terrible at both of them, right because because
Speaker 1: I'm distracted with my kids. But my kids are so
Speaker 1: distracting that I can't really think about work, and so
Speaker 1: very I think, and you know better than I do.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is a part of mindfulness is actually
Speaker 1: just being clear about your goals, being clear about what
Speaker 1: is my goal at this moment? How do I be
Speaker 1: present aware of what I want to accomplish or experience
Speaker 1: or feel, or what I want to do with my
Speaker 1: life right now? And the more we force ourselves to
Speaker 1: think about our goals, the more we're on that path
Speaker 1: to doing the deep thinking that makes us more genuinely productive,
Speaker 1: more genuinely happy, more genuinely a sense of well being. Charles,
Speaker 1: what brings me joy is that this type of conversation
Speaker 1: is the reason I started on purpose, Like this conversation
Speaker 1: has just been so deeply joyful for me, because this
Speaker 1: is the reason why I started this podcast was to
Speaker 1: be able to pick someone's brain, pick someone like you,
Speaker 1: and pick your brain. And I'm genuinely convinced that everyone
Speaker 1: who listens to this episode and watches this episode will
Speaker 1: feel like they can restart and reframe how they view
Speaker 1: habit formation, habit application, habit failure, and then habit longevity
Speaker 1: based on what you've said. And of course I highly
Speaker 1: recommend everyone going grab the book The Power of Habit,
Speaker 1: because it's been such a powerful book in my own
Speaker 1: personal life for the last eight years since I read it,
Speaker 1: or nine years now since I read it. And anything
Speaker 1: that Charles does, not just that book, any book he's written,
Speaker 1: any work that he's done. Highly recommend following Charles, because
Speaker 1: as you can see today, you know, you're just a
Speaker 1: wealth of wisdom, phenomenal, breaking ideas down, making sense of things,
Speaker 1: making things really simple and easy to apply and understand
Speaker 1: and retain. And I couldn't thank you more so, Charles.
Speaker 1: We end every episode of On Purpose with a final
Speaker 1: five or a fast five where you have to answer
Speaker 1: each question in one word to one sentence maximum, So
Speaker 1: you have a one word to one sentence like one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty character two at character limit. So Charles,
Speaker 1: these are your final five? Are you ready? I'm ready? Okay, great, Okay.
Speaker 1: What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 1: I think the best advice I've ever received is just
Speaker 1: do the thing that seems passionate to you, beautiful. I
Speaker 1: love that. Worst piece of advice you've ever received, the
Speaker 1: advice I've received. My dad told me to go to
Speaker 1: a University of New Mexico because I grew up in Albuquerque,
Speaker 1: New Mexico. I'm really glad I didn't. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. Third question, what's the first thing you
Speaker 1: do when you wake up in the morning. The first
Speaker 1: thing I do when I wake up in the morning
Speaker 1: is I get a glass of water, and then I
Speaker 1: like just like flip through nonsense on my phone to
Speaker 1: let my brain just settle down. And it works pretty
Speaker 1: well for me. Cool. And question number four, what's the
Speaker 1: last thing you do before you get to bed? I
Speaker 1: read every single night. Nice love to read anything specific.
Speaker 1: So I you know, I'm a writer for the New
Speaker 1: Yorker now, so I read The New Yorker very often.
Speaker 1: Or I always try to have like some novel that
Speaker 1: I'm reading nice and it's just fun. I love that.
Speaker 1: And fifth and final question, if you had to choose
Speaker 1: one habit that everyone in the world had to practice
Speaker 1: every single day, what would that habit be? Okay, so
Speaker 1: let me camp about this, because every single day is hard, right,
Speaker 1: some type of exercise And this is this seems cliche,
Speaker 1: but I will say I've talked to researcher after researcher,
Speaker 1: and like one guy said to me, if you could
Speaker 1: take what exercise did to your body and put it
Speaker 1: in a pill, every single person would take it every
Speaker 1: single day, right, And everyone listening knows this. Like, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be running a half marathon. It doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be running. If you do five push ups, you will
Speaker 1: feel better. So that's the half of that I wish
Speaker 1: I could give people. I love that. Charles, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your time, your energy, for uh you know,
Speaker 1: being so gracious with it and giving so much incredible thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, your energy just flow through the screen. I
Speaker 1: always love sitting with guests, and often I struggle with
Speaker 1: interviews that have to be done digitally, but you you
Speaker 1: brought the best energy. So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being so present. Thank you for the show. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the show, and I really do think
Speaker 1: that like your conversations and your ability to draw out
Speaker 1: of people insights and the warmth that you bring to it.
Speaker 1: It makes it so much fun to listen to but
Speaker 1: also so useful. So thank you for all the stuff
Speaker 1: you're doing. No, thank you, Charles, And I'm excited to
Speaker 1: have you back on. So I know you're working on
Speaker 1: a new book. We won't say anything, but when when
Speaker 1: when that comes out, we'd love to have you back
Speaker 1: on and stay in touch. If you're ever in La,
Speaker 1: come and say hello. I'd love to meet you and
Speaker 1: love to connect and hang out for lunch of or something.
Speaker 1: But genuinely, thank you so much, Charles, And for everyone
Speaker 1: who's been listening and watching, make sure you tag me
Speaker 1: and Charles on Instagram, on Twitter, or on Facebook, on TikTok,
Speaker 1: whatever platform you're using to share with us what resonated
Speaker 1: with you, What's a new habit that you're going to
Speaker 1: work on. Maybe your newest resolutions didn't work out and
Speaker 1: you're going to use this episode as a reset or
Speaker 1: a restart as well, So please please please do tag
Speaker 1: us because I love to see what connected with you,
Speaker 1: what resonated with you, and what you're going to put
Speaker 1: into practice. Thank you so much for listening. Makes you
Speaker 1: pass this along to a friend or family member who
Speaker 1: may need it, and thank you Charles for doing this.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. We'll see you again next time on
Speaker 1: purpose