Speaker 1: There is a lot of hidden stress that we choose
Speaker 1: to pay attention to simply because of the fact that
Speaker 1: stress becomes familiar. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Chris Bailey, author and host of the Time and Attention podcast,
Speaker 1: which explores the science of living a deeper, more intentional life.
Speaker 1: Along with having the best first name ever, Chris is
Speaker 1: also one of the self proclaimed laziest people you will
Speaker 1: ever meet, famously knocking Eric and I into second third place.
Speaker 1: This drive to free up time for relaxation has led
Speaker 1: Chris to intensively research and experiment with the subject of
Speaker 1: productivity for over the last decade. He's written hundreds of
Speaker 1: articles on the subject and has garnered coverage and media
Speaker 1: as diverse as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: g Q, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, and others. Chris's
Speaker 1: books have also been published in twenty six languages, and
Speaker 1: his newest book is How to Calm Your Mind, Finding
Speaker 1: Presence Productivity in Anxious Times. Hi, Chris, welcome back. Hey
Speaker 1: have you been. I have been good. It's exciting to
Speaker 1: talk with you again. I knew you were on for
Speaker 1: a full interview, and I think you may have come
Speaker 1: on for like a short interview at one point, so
Speaker 1: this might be time three. But I've always enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed your latest book, which is called
Speaker 1: How to Calm Your Mind, Finding Presence in Productivity in
Speaker 1: Anxious Times. And I was saying to you before we started,
Speaker 1: I got it, and I was like, I don't. I
Speaker 1: just it wasn't feeling enthused about it. I was like,
Speaker 1: calm and presents. I mean, like that's kind of my
Speaker 1: bread and Butter. You know, I'm as Practicings and Buddhists.
Speaker 1: I just thought, all right, I'm going to read the
Speaker 1: same sort of stuff again. And I knew you meditated,
Speaker 1: but I was very pleasantly surprised by the book and
Speaker 1: it went in directions that I absolutely didn't see and
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from it. So really, nice job.
Speaker 1: Well thank you. That is nice to hear, because I
Speaker 1: found the same with a lot of the books on
Speaker 1: the topic. I've been a meditator for well over a
Speaker 1: decade at this point. I want to say two decades,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's bad. Probably a decade and
Speaker 1: a half or so. And so when I had this burnout,
Speaker 1: this anxiety, these periods of burnout and anxiety I was
Speaker 1: going through, I was turning to a lot of the
Speaker 1: traditional advice out there. I was turning to the books,
Speaker 1: to the articles, to psychology today, to all these different places.
Speaker 1: How do I get over this? How do I get
Speaker 1: through this? And I found that what was out there
Speaker 1: wasn't really helping me, and I thought there was something
Speaker 1: kind of wrong with me. But that kind of led
Speaker 1: me to get curious about this research and look at
Speaker 1: the actual science instead of the wishful thinking on topics
Speaker 1: like these, and I found a lot of lessons I
Speaker 1: didn't expect. So, yeah, thank you. That means a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into what all that is in a moment,
Speaker 1: but we do need to start, like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandparent talking with their grandchild
Speaker 1: and they say, in life, there are two wolves at
Speaker 1: battle inside of us. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and other
Speaker 1: is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 1: hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think
Speaker 1: about it for a second and they look up at
Speaker 1: their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: what comes to the mind for the journey that I'm
Speaker 1: on right now is there are wolves that we feed
Speaker 1: without even realizing that we're feeding them. And for the
Speaker 1: journey that by embarked on that became this book, Uh,
Speaker 1: that is what comes to mind. I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: ways I was feeding my own anxiety, my own burnout,
Speaker 1: and many of which were hidden from my view. And
Speaker 1: of course we all have blind spots, right, and recognizing
Speaker 1: our blind spots is one of the reasons what makes
Speaker 1: podcasts like yours and and others so fantastic. We can
Speaker 1: realize the areas we need to invest in that didn't
Speaker 1: even occur to us to invest in in the first place,
Speaker 1: and that I think was the case for me. That's
Speaker 1: that's what comes to mind right now. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that came to mind for me when
Speaker 1: you were talking about this, and I was thinking about
Speaker 1: your book and the parable you know the other as
Speaker 1: you talk very much about how calm is the polar
Speaker 1: opposite of anxiety, and so we are very often, by
Speaker 1: the actions we're taking, feeding one or the other of
Speaker 1: those things, and by nature of our modern world, most
Speaker 1: of us are feeding the anxiety. And to your point,
Speaker 1: we may not know it. And we're going to get
Speaker 1: into what a lot of those hidden things are, or
Speaker 1: things that we may vaguely know aren't good for us,
Speaker 1: but not really be able to put a finger on
Speaker 1: why that kind of came to mind, that calm versus anxiety.
Speaker 1: But let's start just a little bit, because I'd love
Speaker 1: to talk about why this book for you. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: funny that story. I love that parable and the calm
Speaker 1: versus anxiety. This is one of the misconceptions I had
Speaker 1: going into this journey because I was anxious turned out
Speaker 1: and I didn't really understand what those things were. But
Speaker 1: what I found looking at the research on this subject
Speaker 1: of calm, First of all, there isn't a lot of it.
Speaker 1: There is a scant amount of research that does exist
Speaker 1: on calm that we can draw from. And I define
Speaker 1: column as a subjectively positive state with a low level
Speaker 1: of mental arousal, with an accompanying absence of anxiety. And
Speaker 1: if you look at the research that does exist, though,
Speaker 1: I love how you started with that spectrum idea. We
Speaker 1: think anxiety is a spectrum that goes from not anxious
Speaker 1: to super anxious, can't really function. But the latest research
Speaker 1: shows that anxiety is more of a spectrum that ranges
Speaker 1: from high anxiety on one end to high calmness on
Speaker 1: the other end. And so the more we invest in
Speaker 1: overcoming this level of anxiety in our lives, uh, the
Speaker 1: more calm we can find we can go past the
Speaker 1: point of no anxiety towards the point of calm and
Speaker 1: feel even better and have more of a capacity to
Speaker 1: absorb stress that comes our way. And you know you
Speaker 1: asked about the why for the book. This all came
Speaker 1: to the head for me when I was on stage
Speaker 1: in front of a group of a hundred people. I
Speaker 1: was giving a presentation on productivity on some of the
Speaker 1: work I put out in the past, and I noticed
Speaker 1: in the moment this sinking feeling coming over me. And
Speaker 1: in the moment, I just remember thinking, Oh, what is
Speaker 1: happening right now? I can't remember what I was supposed
Speaker 1: to say. I feel like I have a couple of
Speaker 1: dozen marbles in my mouth that are dancing around my tongue.
Speaker 1: And I realized in the moment like I was having
Speaker 1: an anxiety attack, you know. Shortly after that decreased cognitive function,
Speaker 1: I felt as if somebody had shot my brain full
Speaker 1: with a vial of liquid adrenaline. You know, I felt
Speaker 1: as if I was instantly in that fight or flight mode.
Speaker 1: I almost left the stage, but luckily I stayed and
Speaker 1: had rehearsed that talk many many times over and powered
Speaker 1: through it to a lukewarm reception. But I remember after
Speaker 1: that point, just lying down in the hotel room that
Speaker 1: I was staying at that was attached to the conference center,
Speaker 1: just kind of reliving it while thinking that something needed
Speaker 1: to really really change. I wasn't sure why I had
Speaker 1: felt exhausted. I had felt, you know, a bit cynical,
Speaker 1: a bit unproductive, even I felt a bit burnt out, anxious.
Speaker 1: I had tried a lot up to that point, but
Speaker 1: it was at that point in time when I thought,
Speaker 1: I am getting to the bottom of this. I don't
Speaker 1: care what it takes. I don't care if I have
Speaker 1: to clear out the next several months, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I am getting to the bottom of this from my
Speaker 1: own mental health. And that was the impetus for what
Speaker 1: became this book, you know, realizing that the stuff I
Speaker 1: had explored up to that point was not working. I
Speaker 1: needed to find something that fixed it. I didn't intend
Speaker 1: to write this book. I really really didn't. But at
Speaker 1: the end, I thought, Okay, this is stuff that isn't
Speaker 1: really out there. It's my own weird approach as somebody
Speaker 1: who thinks a lot about productivity and presence and just
Speaker 1: bringing my full self to whatever it is that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Let's get this out there, But there's an interesting journey
Speaker 1: that started off on a note of discomfort that led
Speaker 1: me from that anxious part of the column spectrum towards
Speaker 1: the column side. Fortunately, hello from the calumn side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that you said, and you
Speaker 1: said that it mystified you, and it sort of mystified
Speaker 1: me too early on in the book, is that you
Speaker 1: were doing so many of the things that we recommend
Speaker 1: that we do in life in order to be calm
Speaker 1: or at peace. You were meditating thirty minutes today, you
Speaker 1: were getting massages, you were exercising. You were taking generally
Speaker 1: pretty good care of yourself. If I were to look
Speaker 1: at a list of like things that are commonly recommended
Speaker 1: to help us be less anxious or more calm, you
Speaker 1: kind of had checked off the top five on that list,
Speaker 1: and we're doing them pretty well, and yet you were
Speaker 1: still dealing with high anxiety and burnout. And kind of
Speaker 1: what I took from that and then reading the rest
Speaker 1: of the book was that that self care stuff is
Speaker 1: important and it's valuable. However, there's really something about the
Speaker 1: way we are orienting our minds and our time. It's
Speaker 1: almost as if we're doing all these good things for
Speaker 1: us self care wise, but then we're doing all these
Speaker 1: other things habit of mind wise that are fighting against
Speaker 1: each other, and the self care stuff is just sort
Speaker 1: of getting overwhelmed. Yeah, it's kind of a band aid
Speaker 1: on top of something that is structurally broken. Where for example,
Speaker 1: this wasn't my case, but if you have the most
Speaker 1: stressful job in the world, and you wake up and
Speaker 1: you go to work, and you come home and you
Speaker 1: have like two hours to spare and you just spend
Speaker 1: like all that time doing yoga and meditating in the morning,
Speaker 1: you still have to go to this job that you hate.
Speaker 1: That is the biggest source of stress in the world.
Speaker 1: And that's not you know, work is definitely one aspect
Speaker 1: of it. But there are deep seated causes of modern
Speaker 1: day anxiety that we didn't always have. You know. One
Speaker 1: example of this is stress that comes to mind where
Speaker 1: we have a lot of stress in our lives. That's
Speaker 1: so obvious, I don't even need to say it. But
Speaker 1: the more I uncovered the stress in my life, the
Speaker 1: more I realized that there is actually a lot of
Speaker 1: stress that is hidden from our view in our own lives.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of stress we don't have control over.
Speaker 1: There's financial concerns, economic concerns, there's the stress of raising
Speaker 1: a family. There's the stress of just going to work
Speaker 1: and having a very big workload every day, and you know,
Speaker 1: dreading that feeling on Sunday, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stress we don't have control over, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of hidden stress that we choose to pay attention to
Speaker 1: simply because of the fact that's dress becomes familiar. The
Speaker 1: news is a really good example of this for me,
Speaker 1: where I was investing a lot of these self care
Speaker 1: strategies while I was checking the news every five or
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and this led to a lot of interesting research.
Speaker 1: You know, there's one study that was conducted around the
Speaker 1: Boston marathon bombings, and what the team of researchers did
Speaker 1: is they looked at two groups of people. The first
Speaker 1: group of people watched six or more hours of news
Speaker 1: coverage about the Boston marathon bombings. The second group of
Speaker 1: people were runners in the actual marathon. And what they
Speaker 1: found was that the people who watched the news coverage
Speaker 1: who didn't have a personal connection to the marathon were
Speaker 1: more likely to develop post traumatic stress disorder and were
Speaker 1: significantly more stressed than somebody was in the marathon and
Speaker 1: personally affected by it. Right. The stress we choose to
Speaker 1: pay attention to sometimes outnumbers the stress that we don't
Speaker 1: have control over. Right, and constantly exposing our mind to
Speaker 1: threatening scenarios and situations that causes anxiety because of course
Speaker 1: we're giving our mind raw material to be anxious about.
Speaker 1: Chronic stress is. Research shows the singular cause of burnout.
Speaker 1: Burnout is caused by that one thing and one thing only, right, burnout,
Speaker 1: which is not exhaustion by the way, burnout is exhaustion
Speaker 1: combined with cynicism and feeling unproductive. Right, we need all
Speaker 1: three to be fully burnt out. But it doesn't really
Speaker 1: stop there. Right, there's this modern day picture to untangle.
Speaker 1: Another ingredient of which is dopamine. It's a neurotransmitter we
Speaker 1: have all heard of. You know, you could probably take
Speaker 1: a shot every time somebody mentions dopamine on the podcast,
Speaker 1: But I've never created the one. You feed drinking games, Oh,
Speaker 1: do you have a Bengal card? At least we should
Speaker 1: because I don't. I don't drink, I'm sober, but we
Speaker 1: should have a when you feed bank card? You want
Speaker 1: to know what the Number one would be act listeners
Speaker 1: wouldn't get it because I almost try to never talk
Speaker 1: about it again. But the number one thing in every
Speaker 1: book about psychology, spirituality, any of that anymore, is neuroplasticity.
Speaker 1: Oh as if that is some new concept that we
Speaker 1: need to keep rehashing. I mean, I just every single book,
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, I'm flipping the next three pages.
Speaker 1: I don't need to read these same studies about how
Speaker 1: you know, scientists used to believe that we couldn't change
Speaker 1: our brains, but now, fascinating news flash. Anyway, it's like
Speaker 1: a text expander snippet and every author's dictionary. You know,
Speaker 1: you may have been the person who got me to
Speaker 1: start using text expands. It's possible and oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my game changing so good. The one I might
Speaker 1: use the most often is I type in me Holly
Speaker 1: Ce and it expands to the full name of me.
Speaker 1: Hi chick sent me high And oh I I actually
Speaker 1: used that one to used today, the flow researcher guy.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the fact that you can say his name
Speaker 1: is impressive. I think my most common one is the
Speaker 1: one you feed. I mean, how many times, of course,
Speaker 1: in the last eight years have I had to type that,
Speaker 1: and now I just like, you know, semi calling t
Speaker 1: O y F done, but like, oh yeah, I love
Speaker 1: tex expander. Where does dopamine rank on this list of
Speaker 1: most commonly mentioned topics? Would you say it's surging, It's
Speaker 1: definitely having its moment, it's coming way up, and it's
Speaker 1: such a misunderstood neurotransmitter too. In looking at the research
Speaker 1: on dopamine, it was amazing to discover just how little
Speaker 1: we understand about dopamine. Of course, there's a lot of experts,
Speaker 1: quote unquote experts who will pretend to understand dopamine through
Speaker 1: and through, but the forefront of the research doesn't even
Speaker 1: understand it. And we paint dopamine out to be a
Speaker 1: bad thing. But first of all, it's an incredibly complex thing.
Speaker 1: But second of all, it's not entirely a bad thing.
Speaker 1: We use dopamine to think logically and critically. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're hunkering down on writing a book and using
Speaker 1: every corner of your mind, you're gonna be using dopamine.
Speaker 1: That is going to be a dopamine fueled activity, along
Speaker 1: with other new transmitters, of course, But what we find
Speaker 1: with the modern situation that we're in is that there's
Speaker 1: certain activities that we can engage in that predominantly released dopamine.
Speaker 1: One good example of these are super stimuli, which is
Speaker 1: the name scientists use for a stimulus, an object of attention,
Speaker 1: something we can pay attention to that just surges. There
Speaker 1: you a surgeon in dopamine in our brain. That is
Speaker 1: kind of a highly processed version of something we're wired
Speaker 1: to enjoy and so we love making love and internet porn.
Speaker 1: It just released surges dopamine in our brain in a
Speaker 1: way that physical presence with another human being doesn't take
Speaker 1: out food, which is a favorite escape of my own.
Speaker 1: Some nice butter chicken or a lovely burrito bowl, brown
Speaker 1: rice suici. I'm a big fan of great options here
Speaker 1: in Ottawa, which might just arrive at at our doorstep
Speaker 1: at six pm this evening because I'm getting inspiration in
Speaker 1: this current present moment um. That is that for in
Speaker 1: a super stimuli because it's a highly processed version, but
Speaker 1: it's dopamine. It's the chronic stress, but it's also a
Speaker 1: constant craving for more, which was another fascinating topic to
Speaker 1: untangle where we have this natural tendency to strive for
Speaker 1: more of whatever we have at all costs more accomplishment,
Speaker 1: more fame, or everything which makes us less present and
Speaker 1: less engaged. So I feel I've gone forever with this answer.
Speaker 1: But it's it's this fascinating constellation of topics where there
Speaker 1: is no singular cause of modern day anxiety, you know,
Speaker 1: this non clinical anxiety and burnout honestly that so many
Speaker 1: of us are going through right now. But it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible to make sense of the picture that is causing
Speaker 1: this situation and untangle it a little bit. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things in there that I want to
Speaker 1: hit on and draw out. The first was I loved
Speaker 1: the part that you referenced about what constitutes burnout. Right,
Speaker 1: those three factors, right, exhaustion, cynicism, lack of productivity, Right,
Speaker 1: All three of those things kind of need to be there,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a very helpful lens. And then
Speaker 1: the second is, I do think you did a really
Speaker 1: nice job of sort of boiling the main causes of
Speaker 1: modern anxiety, at least the ones that we can control
Speaker 1: down to really these two key ideas. One is the
Speaker 1: mindset of more, and then the other is this sort
Speaker 1: of super stimuli that we're always exposing ourselves too. So
Speaker 1: let's maybe start with the mindset of more a little
Speaker 1: bit and then we'll move into super stimuli. So tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about what the mindset of more
Speaker 1: or means to you. Yeah, this was a fascinating thing
Speaker 1: to disentangle because we have this tendency to strive for
Speaker 1: more of whatever we have, often at any cost, right,
Speaker 1: and we often want things that conflict with one another
Speaker 1: in the moment. We want more food, but we also
Speaker 1: want more fitness. We want more likes on Instagram, but
Speaker 1: we also want more time for living the actual life
Speaker 1: that we're posting about it. So we are always striving
Speaker 1: for more, and we strive for more because so much
Speaker 1: of what we do, it's very much a dopaminergic it's
Speaker 1: based on dopamine mindset that we have. Some scientists called
Speaker 1: dopamine the molecule of more because it is what propels
Speaker 1: us to drive for more. And this moves to our
Speaker 1: pursuit of accomplishment as well, where when we strive to
Speaker 1: accomplish more, you know, we're kind of fueling that mindset.
Speaker 1: But here's the fascinating thing. The networks in our brain
Speaker 1: that support us in acquiring more. Our acquisition networks are
Speaker 1: anti correlated with our brain networks that support us when
Speaker 1: we're present and engaged and with whatever it is and
Speaker 1: whom ever it is that we're with, And so the
Speaker 1: more we strive for more, the less present we become
Speaker 1: with our lives because of this dichotomy, this striving versus savoring,
Speaker 1: and this was a fascinating, fascinating topic to explore, is
Speaker 1: there is an actual science to savoring our lives. Savoring
Speaker 1: is the name for the process where we convert positive experiences,
Speaker 1: enjoyable experiences, into enjoyable emotions. And so we all have
Speaker 1: positive things that we encounter every single day. I am
Speaker 1: casually sipping on this cup of for folks watching the
Speaker 1: video that I'm drinking out of my CBC mug, very
Speaker 1: colorful mug, great merch for the CBC, and in fact,
Speaker 1: and I'm savoring the SIPs of this tea. But I
Speaker 1: could just as easily been enjoying this tea and not
Speaker 1: really savoring it, you know, just kind of mindlessly taking
Speaker 1: a sip of a cup of tea or a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee, or eating a delicious meal and just scarfing
Speaker 1: it down and not really noticing it or enjoying it.
Speaker 1: And so savoring really is this process of converting those
Speaker 1: positive experiences into positive emotions, and it's fat. There's different
Speaker 1: types of savoring too. There's luxuriating, there's thanksgiving, there's marveling
Speaker 1: that we can practice. But here's the fascinating thing. The
Speaker 1: more we strive for more, the less likely we are
Speaker 1: to savor our lives. The wealthier we are, the less
Speaker 1: likely we are to savor our lives. Men have a
Speaker 1: more challenging time of savoring their lives than women do.
Speaker 1: If you put somebody in this acquisition mentality in a study,
Speaker 1: they are far more likely to enjoy pieces of chocolate,
Speaker 1: for example. And so this dichotomy where we're always seeking
Speaker 1: more is something that kind of unbalances our mind from
Speaker 1: calm because the networks that support us and being present
Speaker 1: are the networks that support us and being calm, and
Speaker 1: the striving for more is anti correlated with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the savoring is very interesting and it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that I've been thinking more about lately. And there
Speaker 1: was something that you said in the book that I
Speaker 1: thought was really useful, which was that savoring is a
Speaker 1: skill that grows with practice, right. And furthermore, you say,
Speaker 1: the lower our stimulation height, the easier savoring everyday life becomes.
Speaker 1: We've not gotten to stimulation height. But basically what that
Speaker 1: means is the calmer our life is, the easier it
Speaker 1: is to savor. I know this experientially, right. I know
Speaker 1: that the more I practice being present and and really
Speaker 1: taking in what's around me, the better I get at it,
Speaker 1: and the more keyed up I am, the harder it
Speaker 1: is for me to do that. It's almost like on
Speaker 1: Thursday night when I'm trying to wrap up my work
Speaker 1: week and I am just moving a hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 1: almost impossible. By the time it's Saturday night and I'm
Speaker 1: about to go back to work, but I've taken two
Speaker 1: days off, I'm actually better even in that little bit
Speaker 1: of time, a little bit better able to savor the
Speaker 1: things in my life. And we'll get to why that
Speaker 1: is about these levels of dopamine. But savoring is a
Speaker 1: really powerful thing, and that mindset of more is so pernicious.
Speaker 1: Where do you see it come up? Oh jeez, everywhere?
Speaker 1: Besides everywhere. Yeah, specifically, I was a homeless heroin addict
Speaker 1: at four, so clearly, I'm familiar with the phenomenon, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, dopamine ruled my life, right, the craving ruled
Speaker 1: my life. But I have always seen it in primary
Speaker 1: the professional and financial terms. I know that I have
Speaker 1: to really pause and appreciate where we are. So, for example,
Speaker 1: will likely in hit a number of downloads per month
Speaker 1: that we used to do in say a year. That's awesome, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great. And so I was sharing this
Speaker 1: with my partner, and so I gave that really interesting
Speaker 1: and great information, and then immediately I said, but they're
Speaker 1: not exactly Tim Ferris numbers, right, And so I really
Speaker 1: have to watch for that. It's always like, well that's good,
Speaker 1: but to your point it there could be more. And
Speaker 1: it's like we all know this phenomenon. I'll be happy
Speaker 1: when and we get when, and then we just roll
Speaker 1: right on, you know. And so for me, it's really
Speaker 1: been a matter of trying to stop and appreciate where
Speaker 1: I'm actually at and recognized that the me of a
Speaker 1: year ago would be thrilled to be where I'm sitting today,
Speaker 1: but the me of today is not. The me of
Speaker 1: today is like, well I need more, And so this
Speaker 1: has always been a big thing in my life. It's
Speaker 1: part of the reason that I hate TV commercials. But
Speaker 1: I don't just hate them because they're annoying. I hate
Speaker 1: them because if I'm not careful, they work on me. Right,
Speaker 1: they may not make me want the thing that they're advertising.
Speaker 1: So if I see a beer commercial, I may not
Speaker 1: want beer, but I certainly want the body of the
Speaker 1: guy on the beach hanging out with the girl with
Speaker 1: the son. I mean, so that the life they portray,
Speaker 1: I find myself suddenly going that's what I want, That's
Speaker 1: what I want. That's why I stayed far away from Instagram.
Speaker 1: Broadly speaking. I just don't think it's good for me
Speaker 1: because I feel like, for whatever reason, I am susceptible
Speaker 1: to the mindset of more and I've had to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of energy on really trying to actively counter it,
Speaker 1: and that's definitely a work in progress. And Instagram is
Speaker 1: something I write in the book because it's designed to
Speaker 1: take advantage of this craving for more. When Francis Hogan,
Speaker 1: the Facebook whistleblower, testified in front of Congress, she basically
Speaker 1: boiled the Instagram algorithm down into two things, bodies and
Speaker 1: comparing lifestyles. That's Instagram, right, that's the Instagram explore tab.
Speaker 1: Those are the reels that rise to the surface because
Speaker 1: those produce the most dopamine in our mind and keep
Speaker 1: us coming back for more. Dopamine doesn't provide us with pleasure,
Speaker 1: but it leads us to feel as if we're about
Speaker 1: to experience pleasure. And this feeling that we have never
Speaker 1: quite arrived, so we have to keep going is what
Speaker 1: propels social media like that forward, and we at the
Speaker 1: same time the mindset of more manifests as currencies that
Speaker 1: we wish to accumulate in these different applications, likes, followers, retweets,
Speaker 1: responses from famous, verified people, in all these different trade
Speaker 1: girls in queues. It's really quite fascinating how these apps
Speaker 1: take advantage of our psychology but bodies and comparing lifestyles.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, this is Jenny. One of my absolute favorite
Speaker 1: things is when we hear from listeners of the show,
Speaker 1: and something we hear quite often is that one of
Speaker 1: the biggest obstacles to feeding the Good Wolf is remembering.
Speaker 1: Because life is busy and we get caught up in
Speaker 1: routines and we're all on autopilots so much of the time.
Speaker 1: So to help with that, we've started sending a couple
Speaker 1: of text messages after each episode is released to listeners
Speaker 1: who sign up for them, and it's something we're offering
Speaker 1: for free. A listener wrote us and said the message
Speaker 1: has caused me to pause, even if just for a moment,
Speaker 1: and helped me to remember important bits of wisdom, bringing
Speaker 1: them to the forefront of my mind. Remembering is the
Speaker 1: hardest part, and the text messages are super helpful. So
Speaker 1: if you'd like to hear from us a few times
Speaker 1: a week via text, go to one you feed, dot
Speaker 1: net slash text and sign up for free. I was
Speaker 1: really struck by that idea you just mentioned of currencies,
Speaker 1: how all these social platforms have these different currencies, and
Speaker 1: how we are sort of wired up to respond to currency.
Speaker 1: So money is one, but now we've got all these
Speaker 1: other currencies that we are shooting for. I found that
Speaker 1: part to be really interesting because I hadn't thought of
Speaker 1: it in quite that way. Yeah, And if you ever
Speaker 1: want to see a great example of digital currencies of
Speaker 1: applications taking advantage of digital currencies, download a video game
Speaker 1: that is designed for a kid, like subway Surfers. If
Speaker 1: you download Subway Surfers. There are three or four different
Speaker 1: currencies that you can spend in the game. There's event tokens,
Speaker 1: there's coins, there's different keys. There's so many different kinds
Speaker 1: of currencies that you have to manage and accumulate. It's
Speaker 1: like some like foreign exchange app almost except you can't
Speaker 1: convert them with one another. It's really quite fascinating. And
Speaker 1: then pay attention to how hooked you become to a
Speaker 1: game so simple, Yeah, yeah, anything else on the mindset
Speaker 1: of more that you feel like would be useful to
Speaker 1: talk about. I think the key there and again I'm
Speaker 1: gonna harp on this topic. That is one of the
Speaker 1: squares on the Bengal card, but it really is dopamine.
Speaker 1: Dopamine is why we keep coming back for more, and
Speaker 1: the brain networks is what I would kind of reiterate there.
Speaker 1: The thing to kind of internalize is that the networks
Speaker 1: that support our craving more are anti correlated with the
Speaker 1: ones that make us present calm. You say in the
Speaker 1: book ceaseless Ambition compromises calm, right, Like, if we are
Speaker 1: just always after the next thing, it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: be calm. So let's now sort of change directions just
Speaker 1: a little bit. Because you are a productivity writer. You
Speaker 1: have been a writer about let's get more done, and
Speaker 1: so talk about how your previous work with productivity ties
Speaker 1: into this work on calm. Specifically, when we think about
Speaker 1: this mindset of more, yeah, I think are striving for more.
Speaker 1: Productivity needs boundaries because if it doesn't have a container
Speaker 1: that it can live inside of, it's going to bleed
Speaker 1: out into pretty much every element of our life. Right,
Speaker 1: and wanting to accomplish more is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I am not anti accomplishment. You know, we should have
Speaker 1: goals and we should strive to achieve those goals because
Speaker 1: goals that are connected to some tangible outcome and difference
Speaker 1: that aren't based on a metric, that aren't based on
Speaker 1: you know, something that is a nice round number that
Speaker 1: makes a tangible difference in our lives and the lives
Speaker 1: of other people. That's what work is all about, right,
Speaker 1: Our work should make a difference. Our lives should make
Speaker 1: a difference. Right, That is what makes it meaningful. But
Speaker 1: when we don't reign in that pursuit of accomplishment, or
Speaker 1: at least give it boundaries, we focus all of our
Speaker 1: time on acquisition and we become miserable people. Right in fact,
Speaker 1: you know that going back to that that savoring idea,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to ask somebody who is
Speaker 1: very successful, and I usually only mentioned this to two
Speaker 1: very successful people, or at least people who would be
Speaker 1: considered successful by traditional measures, is what in life do
Speaker 1: you enjoy the most? And it stumps more most of them.
Speaker 1: They can't think of something that they enjoy because they're
Speaker 1: too busy trying to acquire more. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorite strategies for combating this are just defining productivity hours.
Speaker 1: So what these are our boundaries around our pursuit of accomplishment.
Speaker 1: And this kind of has a bunch of effects at
Speaker 1: the same time. So at the start of the day,
Speaker 1: I might say I want seven productivity hours today for work,
Speaker 1: or I might define the hours such that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be productive from ten am to six pm today with
Speaker 1: my work. And what this does is this compartmentalizes that
Speaker 1: pursuit for more accomplishment. It kind of has the same
Speaker 1: effect as a deadline in a way where you know,
Speaker 1: if I said to you, you know, Eric, you want
Speaker 1: this all expenses paid trip to Australia, But it leaves
Speaker 1: on Sunday, you would probably find a way to get
Speaker 1: next week's work done this week so that you could
Speaker 1: enjoy and savor that trip. Productivity hours kind of have
Speaker 1: the same benefit where we get to compartmentalize this striving
Speaker 1: for more into those hours has the deadline effect. There's
Speaker 1: always an end in sight. So even if we have
Speaker 1: one or two spare hours in the evening, we can
Speaker 1: enjoy them, we can unwind, we can step back from
Speaker 1: what we're doing, and we can find that daily balance
Speaker 1: with striving and savoring. But yeah, it's reigning in that
Speaker 1: pursuit of accomplishment. But there are great productivity benefits to
Speaker 1: calm as well. This is something I was surprised to find.
Speaker 1: So I study productivity and I realized, after going through
Speaker 1: this period of burnout, just how shot my productivity was.
Speaker 1: And it's not a surprise. Right when we're burnt out,
Speaker 1: we're unproductive. That is one of the core attributes of
Speaker 1: being burnt out. We're exhausted. Good luck trying to get
Speaker 1: work done if you're exhausted, and we're cynical, and so
Speaker 1: when we're nickel, we actually look out for fewer opportunities
Speaker 1: in our environment. Happier people. People who are in a
Speaker 1: positive mental state are more productive than people who are
Speaker 1: in a negative or neutral state, as studied by Shaun
Speaker 1: Acor out of Harvard, and so burnout is not good
Speaker 1: for our productivity. But calm, as we move from that
Speaker 1: anxious side of the calm spectrum to the calmness side
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, is wonderful for our productivity. A good
Speaker 1: example is, you know, say you have to give a
Speaker 1: big speech in front of a group of a thousand people,
Speaker 1: and I gave you some report to read and then
Speaker 1: make a few notes on. You would probably find it
Speaker 1: difficult to make notes on that report in that moment.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're reading a research paper and you're on
Speaker 1: an airplane and you hit a pocket of heavy turbulence.
Speaker 1: Good luck processing and internalizing that research paper. You're probably
Speaker 1: going to have to go back. Or maybe you're watching
Speaker 1: a movie even and you might have to go back
Speaker 1: for that too. Anxiety has the same effect as this,
Speaker 1: but only in a more minor fashion, and all day long. Right,
Speaker 1: if we're working with an anxious mind, it actually shrinks
Speaker 1: our working memory capacity by an average of around and
Speaker 1: so what this does is our working memory allows us
Speaker 1: to process whatever it is that we're doing in the moment,
Speaker 1: and this allows us less mental capacity to think, to
Speaker 1: connect information, to recall information. Anxiety limits our cognitive performance
Speaker 1: in general. It makes us more distractable. It leads our
Speaker 1: self talk to go through the roof, which makes us
Speaker 1: more likely to procrastinate. It leads us to less engagement
Speaker 1: and less presence with whatever it is that we're doing.
Speaker 1: And in the book, I calculate out how about eight
Speaker 1: hours of work takes us around ten hours to do
Speaker 1: when we're working with a mildly anxious mind. And so
Speaker 1: if over these last few years you've noticed that you
Speaker 1: to work longer hours, or that you know you seem
Speaker 1: to have more way more meetings than usual, you just
Speaker 1: don't have enough time anymore, even though not much has changed.
Speaker 1: Anxiety could be why. And so there is this fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating connection with productivity and calm that because calm leads
Speaker 1: us to presence, it makes us more productive because presence
Speaker 1: is ultimately what productivity is all about. It's about being
Speaker 1: engaged with whatever it is that we're doing in the moment.
Speaker 1: If we can always be engaged with whatever it is
Speaker 1: we intend to do, we never need productivity advice because
Speaker 1: we can always just do the things that we set
Speaker 1: out to do in the first place. But there is
Speaker 1: this flip side as well, where the pursuit of productivity,
Speaker 1: when it is driven by a generalized mindset to acquire more,
Speaker 1: can harm our pursuit of calm. And so it is
Speaker 1: this double edged sword where when we don't reign in
Speaker 1: that pursuit, we can become less calm. But when we
Speaker 1: compartmentalize our pursuit of productivity and something like productivity hours,
Speaker 1: that's the example I've given the book. By managing the
Speaker 1: chronic stress that leads to burnout, we can have our
Speaker 1: cake and eat it too, provided we maintain that delicate dance. Yep.
Speaker 1: I love that idea of boundaries, and I found them
Speaker 1: to be very helpful in my own life. I had
Speaker 1: been on a sort of relentless striving path for a
Speaker 1: long time, and my career had been in software startup companies,
Speaker 1: which are a place that by their very nature are
Speaker 1: frenetically trying to do more and do more with less.
Speaker 1: Right It's a supercharged ambition environment. And then from there
Speaker 1: I had spent five years building my own solar energy
Speaker 1: company and then I had spent four years doing this
Speaker 1: podcast while I worked in pretty high level jobs in
Speaker 1: the software field, and then I was really focused on
Speaker 1: how do I get out of to do this full time?
Speaker 1: So there was a period of time I don't know
Speaker 1: how long ago, It's probably been three years now, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, two years where this sounds silly, but
Speaker 1: I finally went like, weekends are off. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take two days a week and I'm not going to work.
Speaker 1: Because up till then I'd be like, well, i'll get
Speaker 1: a little bit done, or i'll take a coaching call
Speaker 1: or all. But I never got all the way off,
Speaker 1: and it was hard at first. But once I really
Speaker 1: got it, then all of a sudden there was a
Speaker 1: point where it flipped and I became fiercely protective of
Speaker 1: that time. My partner Jenny and I worked together, and
Speaker 1: so it's like I'm one of my days off and
Speaker 1: she starts bringing up something about work. I'll very often
Speaker 1: be like, no, not today, I can't do it because
Speaker 1: I won't. I know my brain well enough to know
Speaker 1: if I engage you with that question, it could just,
Speaker 1: you know, lead me down the rabbit hole. Although I
Speaker 1: do find I think we all struggle with this. The
Speaker 1: hardest thing for me to turn off, and I do
Speaker 1: it better at certain points than others, is sort of
Speaker 1: beat it out of my life. And then it comes
Speaker 1: back is email. Yeah, you know, so my brain will say, well,
Speaker 1: just just check the email. It's it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's your day off. But you know, just hop in
Speaker 1: there real quick, partially because it's just habitual at this point.
Speaker 1: But that's one. And then the other thing that I
Speaker 1: noticed was I was fortunate enough in June to take
Speaker 1: a month off, which I couldn't believe I could do,
Speaker 1: and it was incredible, and I totally switched off and
Speaker 1: I did all the things that you recommend sort of
Speaker 1: in the book, you know, like work was gone, I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing I wasn't checking email, I wasn't on screens
Speaker 1: at all. You know, I was incredibly happy. I love it.
Speaker 1: So mindset of more we know to be problematic, and
Speaker 1: it ties into dopamine also, dopamine being the molecule of more.
Speaker 1: We've touched on them a little bit, but let's get
Speaker 1: specific about what we mean by super stimuli and what
Speaker 1: they're doing in our lives. What are some of the
Speaker 1: things that they are and why are they so problematic
Speaker 1: for us? So we find it very difficult to resist
Speaker 1: super stimuli in the moment because they're more amusing to
Speaker 1: our mind. Porn is a far more amusing than the
Speaker 1: thing than answering email or doing whatever it is, I
Speaker 1: don't know, whatever it else, whatever else he could be
Speaker 1: doing in the moment. I'm giving the editor, Chris, that
Speaker 1: cannot be the opening quote, by why you cannot use
Speaker 1: that one? But that was the understatement of the of
Speaker 1: the decade. Let's let's see what else was on my
Speaker 1: morning schedule this morning. No, I'm just kidding. I've actually
Speaker 1: stopped watching porn. I used to be a user of porn,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I'll go back. It's addictive
Speaker 1: because of how much dopamine it releases in our brain.
Speaker 1: Social media is a far more dopamine inducing activity than
Speaker 1: talking to a friend on the phone. It's far more novel. Right,
Speaker 1: Anything that is novel releases dopamine in our brain. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a novelty. It's genetics, it's direct effect. Those are
Speaker 1: the three dopamine factors. Genetics vary depending on the person.
Speaker 1: Direct effect is just how much something directly influences your life.
Speaker 1: If you find a thousand dollars on the street walk
Speaker 1: and buy it, it's going to release more dopamine than
Speaker 1: if you found a five dollar bill. But novelty seems
Speaker 1: to be the thing that varies the most, especially digitally,
Speaker 1: especially with the super stimuli that we tend to social media, email.
Speaker 1: Even even though it's less dopaminergic, it's often quite a
Speaker 1: bit more stimulating than the things that we actually wish
Speaker 1: to accomplish. Examples like these abound video games are highly dopaminergic.
Speaker 1: They release far more dopamine than playing a physical board game,
Speaker 1: for an example, with a few loved ones, Even though
Speaker 1: that leads to presence and I love what you said
Speaker 1: off the top where we aren't really drawn to calm.
Speaker 1: We don't really find calm to be a sexy thing,
Speaker 1: and it's because it isn't right. Calm is the capacity
Speaker 1: for excitement. Calm is the foundation for excitement. Right. It
Speaker 1: is not excitement in and of itself, but it leads
Speaker 1: us to have a capacity for focus, for presence, for productivity,
Speaker 1: and super stimuli do get in the way of that.
Speaker 1: Because the brain networks are anti correline. For dopamine and
Speaker 1: for calm, and so the more we invest in the
Speaker 1: infrastructure in our brain. This goes back to the whole idea.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard of this called neural plasticity.
Speaker 1: Have you heard? I'm just kidding, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: even think that words shows up in the book because
Speaker 1: it's I don't know that it does. I don't think
Speaker 1: so finished it. So it must not have congratulations. But
Speaker 1: the networks for acquisition and for stimulation right there, dopamine
Speaker 1: driven networks that when they're activated the calm network and
Speaker 1: the present network, the here and now network isn't and
Speaker 1: vice versa. When the here and now network is active,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be striving for more and we're
Speaker 1: not going to strive for dopamine fueled stimulation in that moment.
Speaker 1: But because of this, you know, usually what releases this
Speaker 1: dopamine doesn't lead to lasting satisfaction. This satisfaction is fleeting,
Speaker 1: and it's always in the form of a shallow type
Speaker 1: of anticipation where when we're using our phone, we're always
Speaker 1: feeling as if something good will soon happen, and it
Speaker 1: never quite does. Whether we're trying to acquire something. We're
Speaker 1: feeling like we're getting something done, but we're not necessarily
Speaker 1: sure what, And that's what super stimuli creates. There, this
Speaker 1: fascinating phenomenon that are incredibly challenging to resist in the
Speaker 1: moment because of how our ancient brain loves them and
Speaker 1: rewards us for engaging with them. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: they lead to an emptiness that we can't quite articulate.
Speaker 1: And what that emptiness often is and how it manifests
Speaker 1: chemically is in the form of an absence of other
Speaker 1: neurochemicals that make us feel present and proud and satisfied
Speaker 1: and happy and like we have a good rush to
Speaker 1: accomplish something and connected with other people. Right These are oxytocin, endorphins, serotonin,
Speaker 1: h even endocannabinoids that are released by going for something
Speaker 1: like a run. We don't experience these in the volumes
Speaker 1: that make us feel good because we're overinvested in that
Speaker 1: dopamine that leads to less present so over time and
Speaker 1: ultimately less productivity. We do use dopamine for logical work
Speaker 1: that allows us to make good progress, but when becoming
Speaker 1: present is the thing that allows us to make the
Speaker 1: most progress, more so than almost any other factor in
Speaker 1: our lives. That's something we can't ignore if we care
Speaker 1: about accomplishment. That again as boundaries, you know, isn't just
Speaker 1: unabashed you know, ambition. But we need presents now more
Speaker 1: than anything. The issue is not dopamine. Like in anything
Speaker 1: in life, when the balance gets way out of whack,
Speaker 1: it's problematic, right, And so our lifestyle, this combination of
Speaker 1: the constant pursuit of more, the culture that tells us
Speaker 1: we should be pursuing more, and then these super stimuli
Speaker 1: that keep our dopamine levels really high. All that gets
Speaker 1: us to be where that's where most of our attention is.
Speaker 1: And you make a really good point that I think
Speaker 1: is an important one, which is that when we are
Speaker 1: sort of riding this dopamine fueled life which is social
Speaker 1: media and you know, wanting more and the super stimuli,
Speaker 1: when we're when we're riding that sort of life, if
Speaker 1: we step off that train for a minute, it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good. No, right, it doesn't feel good. If we
Speaker 1: step into something that's lower dopamine, that's more oxytocin. Ay,
Speaker 1: we may not even get those chemicals because they're not
Speaker 1: going to show up right away, but it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: And this is the addics dilemma, right, This is the
Speaker 1: addics dilemma, and I know it well and I've talked
Speaker 1: to so many people, which is, let's say you're an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: you're it doesn't matter, and you stop. Some people feel
Speaker 1: better right away, but most people do not. Write what
Speaker 1: they feel is much worse. They actually feel lousy because
Speaker 1: their brain has come to depend upon and operate in
Speaker 1: a certain way, and things that would bring pleasure don't
Speaker 1: because the neurochemicals are all out of whack. And so
Speaker 1: there's this process of having to say, okay, let me,
Speaker 1: let me stay with this long enough that I can
Speaker 1: sort of come down to a level where these things
Speaker 1: that we talk about being more nourishing, you know, spending
Speaker 1: time with our families, taking walks in nature, playing a
Speaker 1: board game, where those things feel satisfying, because they don't
Speaker 1: if we've been flying sort of super high. It's so true.
Speaker 1: And you know, I call these heights of stimulation in
Speaker 1: the book because different activities that we engage in over
Speaker 1: the course of the day. You can kind of plot
Speaker 1: every activity you do over the course of the day
Speaker 1: in a chart where the higher it is on this chart,
Speaker 1: the more dopamine it produces in your mind when you
Speaker 1: do it. And so, like you're saying, drug use would
Speaker 1: be at the very top of this. You know, alcohol, caffeine,
Speaker 1: you know, common, very common drugs that so many of
Speaker 1: us engage with, would be near the top. That pulls
Speaker 1: us into a higher height of stimulation. Then you start
Speaker 1: to work downwards, right, maybe you get to porn. Then
Speaker 1: below that, of course as email, as we've already established,
Speaker 1: and then maybe some we're floating in the middle are
Speaker 1: the projects, maybe a d I Y project. Actually that
Speaker 1: would probably be a bit lower. But you start working
Speaker 1: lower and lower and lower. At the bottom you have
Speaker 1: things like bookkeeping and you know, meditation, where these things
Speaker 1: pull you down into a lower level of stimulation. But
Speaker 1: if you look at what allows for that presence, for
Speaker 1: that calm, satisfaction, that enjoyment in what you're doing, those
Speaker 1: activities aren't in the upper bound of this chart. You know,
Speaker 1: the words that I would use to describe a lot
Speaker 1: of the activities in the very top of this imaginary
Speaker 1: chart would be words like shallow and empty and hit.
Speaker 1: You know, a hit of these activities. Instagram might be
Speaker 1: up there. TikTok would definitely be up there too. But
Speaker 1: the activities that are near the bottom, Right, it's the
Speaker 1: quiet campfire watching, you know, if you're going camping and
Speaker 1: you're watching the flames dance and you're just mesmerized by
Speaker 1: the campfire flames that exists near the bottom. It's the
Speaker 1: comfortable silence in a conversation with somebody you're good friends with.
Speaker 1: It's a deep meditation session, it's a board game with friends. Right.
Speaker 1: These activities are what make life meaningful. Right. We don't
Speaker 1: get meaning from the activities near the top, And a
Speaker 1: big part of that is they don't release a balanced
Speaker 1: concoction of these neurotransmitters that we were chatting about that
Speaker 1: makes us feel confident and proud and in the tracks
Speaker 1: and present and engaged and happy. And it's entirely possible
Speaker 1: to come down, but it is kind of we have
Speaker 1: to step downwards. If you spent the entire day on
Speaker 1: social media and then you just lied on the couch
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, your brain would be restless as hell,
Speaker 1: you know, because you would still be flying at this
Speaker 1: high altitude and there is a natural kind of updraft
Speaker 1: and how high we go. And we'll put a image
Speaker 1: of your what do you call it your dopamine stimulation
Speaker 1: chart or with the actual term for this thing, I
Speaker 1: think I call it in the book Altitudes of Stimulation
Speaker 1: a stimulation height chart. So we will put that in
Speaker 1: a book, and if I am ambitious enough, I will
Speaker 1: put mine out there also in the show notes. Oh good, good.
Speaker 1: Of all the things in the book, this was one
Speaker 1: of the things that most sort of flipped on the
Speaker 1: light switch for me, because when I looked at your
Speaker 1: chart and I imagined my own chart, it was easy
Speaker 1: to see that so many of the things that we
Speaker 1: say we want to do more of are down near
Speaker 1: the bottom of this chart, and the things that we
Speaker 1: say we want to do less of ore up near
Speaker 1: the top of this chart, just almost across the board.
Speaker 1: And I've coached hundreds and hundreds of people, and all
Speaker 1: their charts would look exactly the same, some variation on.
Speaker 1: Down near the bottom of the chart are things like
Speaker 1: playing piano, playing guitar, cooking, spending time with family, doing
Speaker 1: any sort of creative projects. And up at the top
Speaker 1: are things like alcohol and Instagram and processed food and
Speaker 1: all these things. And it's just so interesting to think
Speaker 1: of the correlation ship between all these things is this
Speaker 1: sort of dopamine thing, and that the basic idea is
Speaker 1: that the more you stimulate dopamine, the more you want
Speaker 1: more of that thing, even if those things aren't exactly
Speaker 1: the same, right. I think it shows really well how
Speaker 1: a lifestyle of you know, instagram, YouTube, drinking, alcohol, um,
Speaker 1: online shopping, how that feeds more of those same things,
Speaker 1: whereas a life that has more writing, you know, playing guitar, meditating,
Speaker 1: you know, cooking, talking with family, that those things also
Speaker 1: cause more. But it's this constant pull upwards. And you
Speaker 1: say that in the book that given our modern world,
Speaker 1: we are always going to be pulled up that chart.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I know for me that that so
Speaker 1: much of what I am working on in life is
Speaker 1: trying to stay in the bottom part of that chart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so true, And I think so much of this
Speaker 1: is modifying the environment around us so that we can
Speaker 1: create the external conditions to actually stay there. My favorite
Speaker 1: way of doing this is what I've come to call
Speaker 1: a stimulation fast. And you know, dopamine fast thing is
Speaker 1: is quite a popular phenomenon, But you can't fast from
Speaker 1: dopamine any more than you can just fast for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life or something from carbohydrates. Right, you
Speaker 1: need carbohydrates in the chemical sense of the term in
Speaker 1: order to to continue living your life. What you don't need,
Speaker 1: as far as dopamine goes, are those empty hits of dopamine.
Speaker 1: I like how you put it, the things you really
Speaker 1: actually want to be doing less of. And so a
Speaker 1: stimulation fast. I thought it was actually the most gimmicky
Speaker 1: thing when I did the first one, because I thought, well,
Speaker 1: anything with the word fast in it immediately sets off
Speaker 1: alarm bells if doesn't have the word intermittent before it.
Speaker 1: But for this kind of fast, like I thought, what's
Speaker 1: this going to do? Like this is kind of gimmicky.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess I'll do it like it'll
Speaker 1: be something interesting to try. I was shocked at how
Speaker 1: well this worked. So a stimulation fast, let's call it
Speaker 1: that going forward, because it's not a dopening fast. A
Speaker 1: stimulation fast, you essentially go through your life, go through
Speaker 1: your day and find those things you want to be
Speaker 1: doing less of that are super stimuli that are these
Speaker 1: highly processed versions of what you're wired to enjoy. The
Speaker 1: social media's of your day, the email app on your phone,
Speaker 1: the different things that just stimulate your mind, most of
Speaker 1: which come from the digital world. Because that's another thing
Speaker 1: I found is anxiety is often found in the digital world.
Speaker 1: Calm is found in the analog, it's found in nature,
Speaker 1: it's found with people, it's found on the meditation cushion,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's funny. Meditation I think is only
Speaker 1: like two or three pages of this book. I'm pretty sure,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, so find activities that you can sub
Speaker 1: in for these dopamine fueled activities, because there will be
Speaker 1: a hole in your life where these activities used to be.
Speaker 1: If you pick up your phone first thing from your nightstand,
Speaker 1: put a book there so you can pick that up instead.
Speaker 1: If you have, you know, this time between meetings or something,
Speaker 1: let your mind wander, deliberate and just have a notepad
Speaker 1: to capture whatever comes up. Find substitutes for the activities
Speaker 1: and go without them for a month. Definitely consult with
Speaker 1: somebody you know who can guide you through harsher come downs,
Speaker 1: especially with drug use and around those sorts of situations.
Speaker 1: But with technology use, you know, that's a safer come down. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the first week will be hell. It was for me.
Speaker 1: But I found that after about a week. The word
Speaker 1: that comes to mind is expense. You know, where I
Speaker 1: felt I had entered a situation where there was an
Speaker 1: expanse of opportune at ease for me to engage with
Speaker 1: different things that I hadn't engaged with in a long time.
Speaker 1: You know, I was looking around and I just kind
Speaker 1: of saw my life differently because the things that I
Speaker 1: used to do just for fun that we're far less
Speaker 1: engaging and produce less dopamine than saying going on Instagram
Speaker 1: for an example. Uh, you know, playing the piano was
Speaker 1: suddenly an option because I couldn't do anything super stimulating
Speaker 1: with that time. So I would play the piano, I
Speaker 1: would do a bit of painting. I would go for
Speaker 1: a walk through the trees near where we live here.
Speaker 1: I would bug my wife to to play a board game,
Speaker 1: you know, a game of cribbage, and looking around. You know,
Speaker 1: I realized in the dopamine fast that what changed was
Speaker 1: the fact that I was at an lower stimulation level
Speaker 1: when I looked around before, you know, I would see
Speaker 1: the objects of attention that were at the higher level,
Speaker 1: you know, the Instagrams of the world, the Internet, porn
Speaker 1: of of the world, those of things but at the
Speaker 1: lower level I found enjoyment. I found this genuine connection
Speaker 1: with whatever I was doing. And the first week was hell,
Speaker 1: But after that I felt like this expanse opened up,
Speaker 1: and so did the options for what I could do
Speaker 1: and even working. You know, instead of checking email and
Speaker 1: getting to inbox zero one more time, I would limit
Speaker 1: myself to uh five or six checks throughout the course
Speaker 1: of the day, and between those checks that would just
Speaker 1: look around and oh, there's a bunch of receipts that
Speaker 1: I haven't filed on my desk. I'm gonna file those.
Speaker 1: And I looked around my desk. My office was clean.
Speaker 1: Life had an order, and it's not about pushing ourselves
Speaker 1: to come down. We deserve to be at a lower
Speaker 1: stimulation height. We're too good for the internet most of
Speaker 1: the time, and our free time is more valuable than that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the way you just said that we are
Speaker 1: better than this, And yeah, none of this in your book,
Speaker 1: even though it may sound like get here is a
Speaker 1: rail against the uses of digital technology or that all
Speaker 1: these things are all bad, it's a relationship too, and
Speaker 1: a moderation of where possible. We tend to be pretty
Speaker 1: out of whack with these things, like I've managed to
Speaker 1: wrestle Twitter into a little box and I broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: it gets ten fifteen minutes a day of my time,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's fine, that's like it actually seems
Speaker 1: fine for that. And I think with almost all these
Speaker 1: things I've noticed, I can find a point if you're
Speaker 1: really monitoring your interior state, there's a point where it
Speaker 1: crosses over. I can feel it now where it crosses
Speaker 1: over for it being like this was useful, this was interesting,
Speaker 1: into now I'm scrolling for more. Now I'm hooked into
Speaker 1: the thing in a different way, and it feels different.
Speaker 1: You know, you made me think of a quote that
Speaker 1: I've heard a couple of times lately, and I really
Speaker 1: love it. It is that it's hard to get enough
Speaker 1: of something that almost works. And that's the problem with
Speaker 1: all these things is they almost make us happy, or
Speaker 1: they very temporarily do, but since we're fooled, we keep
Speaker 1: going back for more. But you can't get enough of
Speaker 1: something that doesn't really satisfy. And so yeah, I just
Speaker 1: really have found your framing of all this really opened
Speaker 1: up something for me, or clarified for me ideas that
Speaker 1: I didn't quite see the overarching themes in in the
Speaker 1: same way. That's a great quote. I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I love the digital world, and I'm a big
Speaker 1: tech nerd. I love following the industry, I love collecting gadgets,
Speaker 1: I love all that stuff. But I think, ultimately, you
Speaker 1: know where my thinking settled in this journey is technology
Speaker 1: exists to make our lives more efficient, where the analog
Speaker 1: exists so that things can become more meaningful. Right, So
Speaker 1: if we want an experience to be meaningful, we do
Speaker 1: it the analog way. That's a conversation, that's a board
Speaker 1: game night, that's a letter we're writing to somebody. But
Speaker 1: if something needs to be efficient, it's best to do
Speaker 1: it digitally, you know, whether that's texting somebody, writing an email,
Speaker 1: calling an uber, ordering some whole grain sushi, whatever it
Speaker 1: might be, butter chicken. Yeah, before we know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be having a nice Filet mignon tonight. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be sushi. We can extract utility out
Speaker 1: of the digital world without succumbing to it, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: And that idea of digital being good for efficiency and
Speaker 1: analog being better for meaningfulness has just had me rethink
Speaker 1: how I use texting in that there are certain cases
Speaker 1: where texting is absolutely the thing that I want, that
Speaker 1: I need, it's the right thing to do. But since
Speaker 1: reading your book over the last week, I've been like,
Speaker 1: all right, can I just make a phone call? And
Speaker 1: even if I just say at the beginning, look, I
Speaker 1: only have five minutes, but I wanted to at least
Speaker 1: just say hi instead of text. Yeah. Now I usually
Speaker 1: don't because I only have five minutes, and so I
Speaker 1: send a text and it's efficient. But I realized, like,
Speaker 1: what if I just you know, very clearly, was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't have much time, but we can still talk
Speaker 1: for two minutes. I can hear your voice for two minutes.
Speaker 1: I can I can connect a little more meaningfully. And
Speaker 1: so already this week have had more conversations with family
Speaker 1: members than I've had in a while. I love your
Speaker 1: work is doing great things, Chris. Oh this makes me
Speaker 1: very happy. And um. One thing that I think we
Speaker 1: can all do for the analog and the digital things
Speaker 1: we have in our lives is to make a little
Speaker 1: then diagram of sorts in our thinking on these worlds,
Speaker 1: so we have the activities we can only do digitally,
Speaker 1: so typing an email it's something we can only do digitally.
Speaker 1: There's the circle of activities we can only do the
Speaker 1: analog way, you know, going for a run through nature.
Speaker 1: And then we have the activities that we can do
Speaker 1: in both worlds where these two circles meet in the middle,
Speaker 1: and those are the activities where I think the preponderance
Speaker 1: of our activities fit in that small circle where we
Speaker 1: can divide those up into ones we want to do efficiently.
Speaker 1: We're probably already doing the ones we want to do
Speaker 1: efficiently in the digital world. This is something I found
Speaker 1: in myself. But we also have a lot of opportunities
Speaker 1: for more meaning, you know, and writing a letter, in
Speaker 1: calling somebody and knocking on the door of their house
Speaker 1: like like the olden days. In consuming even the daily
Speaker 1: newspaper or magazine, right, we can do that the analog way.
Speaker 1: That was one of the best trades I made in
Speaker 1: my own journey for for Calum is trading in digital news.
Speaker 1: I don't consume any digital news anymore, and instead an
Speaker 1: old timey collection of pieces of paper shows up on
Speaker 1: my morning door step and it refreshes once a day.
Speaker 1: It has my daily briefing. It has everything I need
Speaker 1: to know for the day. It's called a newspaper, and
Speaker 1: I love it. I think I'm one of the only
Speaker 1: people left in my town that subscribes to it. But
Speaker 1: I'm very happy, especially in my age demographic, but I'm
Speaker 1: very happy doing that. I think realizing that calm is
Speaker 1: found in the analog whereas efficiency is found in the digital,
Speaker 1: is so critical? Meanings there too? Meaning? Is there too? Yes?
Speaker 1: You know, maybe we'll just close here with something that
Speaker 1: you say, which is that we need to balance between
Speaker 1: striving and savoring. So maybe we'll just end with that
Speaker 1: idea of balance, because a lot of what we've talked
Speaker 1: about has been about how do we balance these different things.
Speaker 1: Say a little bit more about that as we close.
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to intentionality. If I've learned
Speaker 1: one thing about productivity to it's that it comes down
Speaker 1: to intention You know, the most productive people are not
Speaker 1: the ones who do more and more and more faster, faster, faster.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who live deliberately and intentionally. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what it comes down to. And with striking
Speaker 1: the balance between striving and savoring, it's all about the
Speaker 1: balance that we want, you know, we so often have
Speaker 1: this default tendency to adopt the same values that the
Speaker 1: people around us have. And I think this is a
Speaker 1: reason why we take on so much hidden chronic stress.
Speaker 1: It's the reason we crave more of everything that we have.
Speaker 1: Is that we look around and everybody else is doing
Speaker 1: the same, and we think that in order to be happy,
Speaker 1: that's what we need to do too. But the last
Speaker 1: place we should be looking for happiness advice is the
Speaker 1: modern world. People are miserable, people are anxious, burnt out,
Speaker 1: at least a lot of the people that I know.
Speaker 1: You know, luckily, there is that path, and fortunately it's
Speaker 1: almost a gift that the path to presence and productivity
Speaker 1: right now, it runs directly through calm, because calm is
Speaker 1: what gives us presence, It's what gives us engagement. It's
Speaker 1: what affords us a capacity to deal with whatever it
Speaker 1: is that comes our way. And more than any of that,
Speaker 1: it affords us a capacity and ability and awareness too
Speaker 1: manifest our values through our actions. And when we live
Speaker 1: our values, you know, that is what creates meaning. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what this is ultimately all about. You know,
Speaker 1: a book like this, it can provide you with that
Speaker 1: capacity and that's up to you what you do with it,
Speaker 1: but hopefully reflecting on values along the way. Yeah, living
Speaker 1: by our values is always such an important thing. Chris,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for a coming on. It's been
Speaker 1: a pleasure to talk to you. As always. Will have
Speaker 1: links in the show notes to where people can get
Speaker 1: the book and do your website, and we're gonna put
Speaker 1: your stimulation height chart out there too, and again I'll
Speaker 1: put mine out there too. All right, it's a commitment, there,
Speaker 1: it is. I'll do it. Oh, I love it. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me such a pleasure. If what
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