Speaker 1: Multitasking doesn't exist. There's only tasks switching. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Leah Weiss, pH D.
Speaker 1: Leah is a researcher, professor, consultant, and author. She teaches
Speaker 1: courses on compassionate leadership at the Stanford Graduate School of
Speaker 1: Business and is a principal teacher and founding faculty for
Speaker 1: Stanford's Compassion Cultivation program, conceived by the Dalai Lama. She
Speaker 1: also directs compassion Education and scholarship at Hope Lab. Her
Speaker 1: new book is How We Work Live Your Purpose, Reclaim
Speaker 1: Your Sanity and Embrace the Daily Grind. This episode is
Speaker 1: sponsored by Warby Parker. Go to Warby Parker dot com,
Speaker 1: slash one you Feed that's all spelled out one you
Speaker 1: Feed to order your free home, try on kit hi
Speaker 1: friends some other ways that you can engage with us.
Speaker 1: You can go to when you Feed dot net and
Speaker 1: get on our email list. We send out a wonderful
Speaker 1: monthly newsletter as well as if you sign up now
Speaker 1: you get a paper called the Four Transformational Hacks that
Speaker 1: make Habits stick even if you've tried before and failed.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for a little bit more support
Speaker 1: in your life, go to one you Feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Coaching and you can get more information about our
Speaker 1: coaching program there. And here's the interview with Leah Wise. Hi, Leoh,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Eric, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called
Speaker 1: How We Work Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity and
Speaker 1: Embrace the Daily Grind. It's not out till March, but
Speaker 1: I think listeners are gonna love it when it comes out.
Speaker 1: And a lot of what I like about it is
Speaker 1: it's not about having to change necessarily your job, although
Speaker 1: that could be part of it, but a lot of
Speaker 1: it is how do we find p send happiness right
Speaker 1: where we are? And I love that theme. So we'll
Speaker 1: get into all that in just a minute. But let's
Speaker 1: start like we always do, with the parable. There's a
Speaker 1: grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred, fear.
Speaker 1: And the granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a
Speaker 1: second and looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah, I think this parable
Speaker 1: cuts right to the heart of the work that I do,
Speaker 1: actually and to my personal mission. Um, so I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. The reason I say it comes right to
Speaker 1: the heart of it is because you know, many of
Speaker 1: us have heard about Darwin, and for most people, you say,
Speaker 1: what what did Darwin's philosophy boil down to? Say? Survival
Speaker 1: of the fittest and have ideas about competition that nature
Speaker 1: selects for the most aggressive player in any situation. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that there's another side to that story,
Speaker 1: similarly to this parable that you were sharing, which is
Speaker 1: that Darwin was also very focused on this idea of
Speaker 1: sympathy or what we would call compassion today, and the
Speaker 1: virtues of that for species that are trying to survive,
Speaker 1: the ability to cooperate, the ability to care for and
Speaker 1: successfully raise young um. And what we call this is
Speaker 1: the notion of dual drives, so that we all have both.
Speaker 1: Just like in the parable, we have um the forces
Speaker 1: of aggression and competition, and we have the forces of
Speaker 1: pro social and compassion in cooperation and basically um. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest findings from research in the last
Speaker 1: thirty years is that the extent to which our social
Speaker 1: context influences the directions that we go, which of the
Speaker 1: two we feed to borrow in the language of the people. UM. So,
Speaker 1: I think it's a really exciting topic to explore, and
Speaker 1: the research and the work that's being done on what
Speaker 1: is it that allows us to feed ourselves in our
Speaker 1: communities and our organizations, so we move in the directions
Speaker 1: we want rather than towards destruction. I love the way
Speaker 1: you said that. And you know Darwin was not really
Speaker 1: the at least what we think of a social Darwinism, right,
Speaker 1: didn't even come from Darwin himself, you know, it came
Speaker 1: from Herbert Spencer someone someone after him. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to read a quote from early in the book because
Speaker 1: I think it really sums up what the book is
Speaker 1: about and really puts all this in context. So it says,
Speaker 1: partly because work is where we spend so much of
Speaker 1: our time, and partly because of its nature, nothing provides
Speaker 1: more opportunities than the workplace for us to feel discouraged, disappointed,
Speaker 1: board overwhelmed, envious, embarrassed, anxious, irritated, outraged, and afraid to
Speaker 1: say what we really feel, like it or not aware
Speaker 1: of it or not. We feel things at our jobs,
Speaker 1: and how we feel at and about work matters to us,
Speaker 1: to our families and friends who are impacted, to the
Speaker 1: quality of our work, and ultimately to the success of
Speaker 1: the organizations we work for. So that's a that's a
Speaker 1: great way to kind of sum up the beginning of
Speaker 1: the book, and really what you're after in the book
Speaker 1: is anything you want to add to that? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that passage really is the best summary um
Speaker 1: within the book of of what I think the opportunity
Speaker 1: is that for when we take the effort to use
Speaker 1: work and all of the challenges, there as the opportunity
Speaker 1: to to grow as in visuals and collectives. That's exactly
Speaker 1: what this book is about. And then getting into the
Speaker 1: how do you then take all of that onto the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the word is not in the title of the book,
Speaker 1: but a big part of the book is about mindfulness, right,
Speaker 1: So that's one of the key techniques that you're advocating,
Speaker 1: and you go on to say that it's kind of
Speaker 1: in paying attention to our experience of work, even when
Speaker 1: it's dissatisfying or disengaging or ambivalence, is really the first
Speaker 1: step to turning it around. And and so by bringing
Speaker 1: mindfulness to work, we can transform it. Let's start off
Speaker 1: a little bit with you telling me how that mindfulness
Speaker 1: is going to help me change my experience of work. Absolutely, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, really it's the route in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways of getting right to the heart of the issue.
Speaker 1: We are at work because there's something we're trying to
Speaker 1: get done right that somebody somewhere wants to pay for
Speaker 1: or fund in some way. And if we can keep
Speaker 1: our attention, which many of us, let's get real, really
Speaker 1: struggle to do. If we can't keep our attention on
Speaker 1: the biggest priority, if we can't keep ourselves focused and
Speaker 1: moving on what needs to get done, that has a
Speaker 1: real cost for our organization. We struggle with that. No
Speaker 1: one likes how it feels too at the end of
Speaker 1: a long work day to know that you haven't really
Speaker 1: accomplished what was most important. It's a terrible feeling, it
Speaker 1: really is. It's amazing to me how true that is.
Speaker 1: How it seems like a lot of times in the moment,
Speaker 1: like oh if I just you know, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do something different, right, And but boy it feels terrible afterwards,
Speaker 1: Yes it does. And we get so habituated, many of us,
Speaker 1: to the types of distance that grab our attention. You know,
Speaker 1: it may have started out that we sought the action
Speaker 1: to procrastinate something that we were maybe we didn't understand
Speaker 1: how we were going to do it, or we didn't
Speaker 1: really know what the goal was, or we didn't have
Speaker 1: the tools we needed, and rather than facing that head on,
Speaker 1: we just directed our attention elsewhere. And then it becomes
Speaker 1: such a habit. We find ourselves incessantly checking our cell
Speaker 1: phones or social media or you know, the coffee break
Speaker 1: that runs on for on and on and on, or
Speaker 1: whatever our version, or just working but working on the
Speaker 1: wrong thing that's not the priority. You say that in
Speaker 1: mindfulness training, there is no separation between what is meaningful
Speaker 1: and what is mundane. Can you explain that? So, the
Speaker 1: way I define mindfulness in its simplest form is the
Speaker 1: intentional use of attention, intentionally directing our attention. And if
Speaker 1: that's the training that we're working on, there is no
Speaker 1: distinction between whether we're training ourselves to pay better attention
Speaker 1: while we are, you know, working on a spreadsheet or
Speaker 1: creating widgets or having a conversation. Any of these are
Speaker 1: opportunities that we can use to leverage the neuroplasticity of
Speaker 1: our brains to be able to get better at unitasking.
Speaker 1: Rather than supporting this illusion of multitasking which doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: There's only tasks switching and the costs thereof. So my
Speaker 1: point there is that we don't have to view the
Speaker 1: opportunity for our mindfulness practice to be the lovely meditation
Speaker 1: session we might have in the morning. It's actually equally
Speaker 1: an opportunity to deal with the thing at least want
Speaker 1: to do at work that day. Is also an opportunity
Speaker 1: to train. That was one of the things I really
Speaker 1: liked about the book. You make a real point of
Speaker 1: this that meditation is great, right, But you've got a
Speaker 1: line in there you say, you know, an optimal intervention
Speaker 1: that no one in the real world can use is
Speaker 1: not very helpful. And not that people don't meditate, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't. And so you talk about
Speaker 1: a practice where we don't have to do something different, right,
Speaker 1: we don't have to add this extra thing into our lives.
Speaker 1: You say, we don't have to do something different so
Speaker 1: much as look differently at what we're already doing. And
Speaker 1: then you say, I had plenty of time to practice,
Speaker 1: I realized because practice wasn't something I had to take
Speaker 1: time out of working, or mother and or living to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that the tyranny of the should's for
Speaker 1: so many of us. We have long lists of things
Speaker 1: that we, you know, should be doing that you know,
Speaker 1: for ourselves, let alone for the people in our lives,
Speaker 1: and then start looking at service and work. And if
Speaker 1: we make mindfulness another thing on a long list of shoulds,
Speaker 1: and then we're making choices like am I exercising and
Speaker 1: taking care of my body and I meditating and you
Speaker 1: know it's actually taking care your body as well taking
Speaker 1: care of my It just becomes crazy making. So what
Speaker 1: I really want to do is get out of this
Speaker 1: um setting impossible standards and try to understand the point
Speaker 1: of mindfulness, which was never meditation. Meditation aims towards mindfulness,
Speaker 1: it's not its own goal, and I think this is
Speaker 1: something we've really gotten wrong in the translation process of
Speaker 1: bringing these practices into secular context. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: great stuff happening, but I think over prioritizing meditation and
Speaker 1: under prioritizing the action element has been a real issue
Speaker 1: that I'm hoping to set straight right. Meditation is ultimately
Speaker 1: a tool to make the rest of our lives, at
Speaker 1: least in my opinion, better, and it's been one that's
Speaker 1: very important to me, and I always encourage people to try.
Speaker 1: But I agree with you that that doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be the only way of doing this, and you you
Speaker 1: bring up the Tibetan phrase take all of your life
Speaker 1: onto the path. You know this idea that we are
Speaker 1: able to be mindful anywhere we are. So what's the
Speaker 1: benefit of this? So, okay, we're gonna be mindful. Boil
Speaker 1: that down to how that helps me. I've got a
Speaker 1: job and I go in and it thinks every day
Speaker 1: and I'm frustrated. How does being mindful help me to
Speaker 1: transform that experience? Well, this is the kind of question
Speaker 1: I would much rather people focus on UM than the
Speaker 1: tyranny of the should medicine, because there's a million evangelists
Speaker 1: or the data. I think that this is the right approach.
Speaker 1: So asking ourselves what's going wrong in this job that
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to UM and using mindfulness
Speaker 1: to just bring our curiosity to that question. It might
Speaker 1: not seem like such an attractive question, but you know,
Speaker 1: you're an experienced coach, and I'm sure in your work
Speaker 1: with your clients there's got to be this discovery phase
Speaker 1: that each person goes through where they direct their attention
Speaker 1: towards they've been avoiding seeing because it was painful, But
Speaker 1: that's the only way that we can then see what
Speaker 1: the problem is and see what the solutions might be.
Speaker 1: So our strategies of avoiding are just leading us to
Speaker 1: being becoming more unhappy. Um and actually like biting the
Speaker 1: bullet and looking in our day like, okay, if I
Speaker 1: don't I'm dreading on the Sunday night blues every night
Speaker 1: of the week, um, really feeling that, you know, And
Speaker 1: then when we get to work, like, where are the
Speaker 1: points in our day where the dread or the anxiety
Speaker 1: really rises. Maybe it's not as pervasive as we thought,
Speaker 1: or maybe there's specific activities and just getting clear on
Speaker 1: that then we can be equipped to take action. Yea.
Speaker 1: And I think that avoidance that you're speaking of. The
Speaker 1: other word that is often useful for me is resistance, right,
Speaker 1: And and I recognize that it's the resistance of something
Speaker 1: that often is a cause of a lot of the
Speaker 1: pain and same thing at work. It's it's not that
Speaker 1: the work itself is that unpleasant or difficult or all that.
Speaker 1: For me. I mean, I've got a job in addition
Speaker 1: to doing this, and I'd rather be doing this, you know,
Speaker 1: the podcast in the coaching, but that job is pretty
Speaker 1: wonderful when I have the intention to not resist it.
Speaker 1: But when I get into a place where I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I really wish I was doing something different, and like
Speaker 1: you know, then all of a sudden, it's that same
Speaker 1: job for me becomes very unpleasan and it's all about
Speaker 1: my level of resistance. Now, I'm not saying all jobs
Speaker 1: that way. Some are probably lousy and certain regards, But
Speaker 1: for me, I've been able to recognize it's in the
Speaker 1: dislike of it that I have it from time and
Speaker 1: time is almost entirely self created. I think that's such
Speaker 1: a powerful point you're making, um, and that this mindset
Speaker 1: piece of it is so important. And you know, one
Speaker 1: of the studies that I think is really interesting, there's
Speaker 1: a researcher, I mean Rasnovsky who teaches at the Yale
Speaker 1: School Management, and I write about some of her work
Speaker 1: in my book UM, and she does a lot around
Speaker 1: purpose at work and what you can do to cultivate
Speaker 1: a stronger sense of purpose no matter what your job is,
Speaker 1: even if you're you're not you know your work, you're
Speaker 1: not the CEO of your dream job, um, but you're
Speaker 1: doing something that wouldn't have been your dream in your life, honestly,
Speaker 1: so she she looks at all kinds of professions UM
Speaker 1: and one of the studies I love where she interviews
Speaker 1: a number of UM the janitorial staff in hospitals, and
Speaker 1: she asked them questions around how do they perceive their
Speaker 1: work and within that job which was probably nobody's dream
Speaker 1: from the time they were a little kid. But it's
Speaker 1: dignified work, they have benefits, they're supporting their family, hopefully
Speaker 1: they're in organizations that in these hospital settings. And there
Speaker 1: was a whole range of answers. So my point is
Speaker 1: some of the people said, yeah, I do this to
Speaker 1: pay the bills and the dignity reporting my family and
Speaker 1: my extended family. In many cases, other people said, you
Speaker 1: know what I actually view my work is instrumental to
Speaker 1: the care and healing because if I don't do my job, well,
Speaker 1: guess what infection is going to spread and there can
Speaker 1: be disastrous consequences. So they really view themselves as part
Speaker 1: of the care team. People like that are more likely
Speaker 1: to then UM do what we call extra role behavior.
Speaker 1: It's their job to clean up the hospital room. But
Speaker 1: if they're there in the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: a patient um is awake and lonely like there's many
Speaker 1: stories of developing relationships a last after the hospital, say
Speaker 1: where people were so, you know, in these kinds of roles,
Speaker 1: and I just find that really inspiring. So if that
Speaker 1: is possible, then how can I do that? How can
Speaker 1: I get more of that? How can we all do
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Speaker 1: And here's the rest of the interview with Leo Weiss.
Speaker 1: You've got a line that says it. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we all have to work for a good cause.
Speaker 1: It means we find the good causes all around us,
Speaker 1: the small opportunities for purposefulness, mindfulness, and compassion in everything
Speaker 1: we do. And I love that idea. There's another spiritual
Speaker 1: teacher that I like, and he talks about this idea
Speaker 1: of you know, we think of purpose too narrowly. We
Speaker 1: think like, my purpose has to be like doing this
Speaker 1: one thing, and if I do that one thing, then
Speaker 1: it will be this expression of my values. And he
Speaker 1: sort of flips out on his head sort of like
Speaker 1: you're doing which is no. If you do everything with
Speaker 1: your values, if everything you do you bring your your
Speaker 1: values or what's important to you into everything you do,
Speaker 1: then you're creating that purpose right there out of everything.
Speaker 1: And that's essentially what you're driving at here. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that the trench, as you know, work as well
Speaker 1: as you know, how did that come alive for different people?
Speaker 1: How do we make that something that is an exploration
Speaker 1: and an experiment that people feel like they can really
Speaker 1: engage in rather than another thing at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the long to do less right right? I often talk
Speaker 1: with people about you know, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who want to make career changes, and I think it
Speaker 1: can often be a really good idea. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've noticed though that I wrestle with
Speaker 1: and a lot of other people do, is I think
Speaker 1: there's some sense like if I hate what I do
Speaker 1: enough right now, that will drive me to the next thing.
Speaker 1: And my experience has been almost exactly the opposite that
Speaker 1: when I hate what I do or when I have
Speaker 1: that attitude, I'm so drained that I don't have the
Speaker 1: energy to do all that other stuff, whereas when I
Speaker 1: put everything I can't into what I'm doing. Sort Of
Speaker 1: it's sort of um nonintuitive, right. You'd think like if
Speaker 1: I don't spend so much energy on the job, then
Speaker 1: I'll have more energy outside the job. But my experience
Speaker 1: is it doesn't work that way at all. It's by
Speaker 1: by giving my all there that I'm able to come
Speaker 1: out and and not feel as drained and not feel
Speaker 1: as um beat down, and and then I'm better able
Speaker 1: to do all the other things in my life. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: what do you tell people when they're in that situation
Speaker 1: and they're hating their job and how to what are
Speaker 1: some of the recommendations you get. I'm really curious to hear. Well.
Speaker 1: I think it's very similar to to what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, one is, if there's something else you want
Speaker 1: to be doing and you know what that is, then
Speaker 1: then let's explore that and let's let's chart a path
Speaker 1: towards it. But in the interim, right, how can you
Speaker 1: learn to care about what you're doing? How can you
Speaker 1: bring your values? You know, if we say that, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people we get dissatisfied. Like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, we think we have to work for a
Speaker 1: good cause. We have to do this, you know, this
Speaker 1: very important thing, right, and so we think until we
Speaker 1: do that very important thing, that everything up to that
Speaker 1: point is unimportant. And my experiences and I think that's
Speaker 1: absolutely not true. I think if our value, if the
Speaker 1: thing that drives us to want to do something purposeful
Speaker 1: to towards the good cause, let's just say our value
Speaker 1: is we want to help other people. Well, in any
Speaker 1: job we have, wherever we are, as long as there's
Speaker 1: other people involved in any way, there's an opportunity right
Speaker 1: there to help other people. There's an opportunity right there
Speaker 1: to be kinder or better. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's a multi step approach, depending on where somebody
Speaker 1: wants to go. But a lot of times it's let's
Speaker 1: re engage where you are. Let's try and bring your
Speaker 1: values into work that you do every day. Then see
Speaker 1: what this job looks like. How does it feel to
Speaker 1: you at that point? But I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: it is very similar. It's why I loved your book.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I really you know, I relate
Speaker 1: with a lot of this. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: very very well said. Thank you. So you say there
Speaker 1: are three types of mindfulness training that we bring into work.
Speaker 1: One is embodiment, the second is meta cognition, and the
Speaker 1: last one is focus. Can we go through each of
Speaker 1: those real quick? Absolutely? So. The embodiment piece is so
Speaker 1: for so many of us. If we're knowledge workers, you know,
Speaker 1: we're spending our time in uh in, on computers and
Speaker 1: in meetings. That can be very easy to just feel
Speaker 1: like we exist in the top few inches of our
Speaker 1: head and we literally forget we have a body unless
Speaker 1: the body becomes like the traction from what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do. So, you know, we have pain or we
Speaker 1: have hunger, we have to use the restroom, then then
Speaker 1: we remember we have a body. But you know, one
Speaker 1: of the really interesting changes we can make is to
Speaker 1: just try to not be disembodied brains and a vat
Speaker 1: as we go through our work day and bring our
Speaker 1: attention back into our physical sensations and experience of work,
Speaker 1: which can give us really important information. Um, you know
Speaker 1: about our jobs, about when we've been doing a trade
Speaker 1: for a long time. UM. We have all kinds of
Speaker 1: intuition that contains knowledge and in our bodies. And there's
Speaker 1: great examples of even the economist Nobel Prize winner Um
Speaker 1: Conoman who wrote about intuition is recognition and the that
Speaker 1: he describes that it's very much somatic physical recognition. He
Speaker 1: gives an example of a fire chief who um goes
Speaker 1: into a burning house and there's a bunch of his
Speaker 1: team in there, and he tells everyone to get out immediately,
Speaker 1: and they get out in the house blows up um
Speaker 1: in flames, and it was because he felt sensations on
Speaker 1: the top of his ear that he recognized and knew
Speaker 1: meant that was way more wrong in this house than
Speaker 1: anyone who is in the house and recognize. So it's
Speaker 1: just an example. You hear people in all kinds of
Speaker 1: fields like finance, investing, engineers talking about how there's all
Speaker 1: this information in their bodies. But if we're disembodied in
Speaker 1: our work day, then we can't draw in any of that.
Speaker 1: So that's that's one way of thinking about embodiment and
Speaker 1: the practice there is just practice bringing your attention. Can
Speaker 1: you do the same work while remembering that you are
Speaker 1: in a body while feeling sensations as well, paying attention
Speaker 1: to your posture, maybe switching up your work environment to
Speaker 1: a standing desk or different locations just to kind of
Speaker 1: keep yourself moving intermittently. All those kinds of good um
Speaker 1: work experience hacks that that people use we can use
Speaker 1: in our mindfulness as well. Meta cognition is our ability
Speaker 1: to keep track of where our attention is while we're
Speaker 1: in a task. So this meta layer of you when
Speaker 1: I talked about mindfulness is the intentional use of attention. Well,
Speaker 1: the only way we can really do that is if
Speaker 1: we are both paying attention to something, like I'm paying
Speaker 1: attention to this discussion with you you, but I also
Speaker 1: need to tracking on where my attention is. So if
Speaker 1: we're speaking through the mechanism of a computer, if my
Speaker 1: attention starts drifting and my screen saver, meta cognition is
Speaker 1: what allows me to check in like, is my attention
Speaker 1: where it's supposed to be um recalibrate when it moves off,
Speaker 1: which it will. So that's the second piece, the meta cognition,
Speaker 1: aware of where what we're thinking about, aware of what
Speaker 1: we're aware of. Meta awareness is another term that sometimes
Speaker 1: is used interchangeably, just like the bigger trum and meta cognition,
Speaker 1: because awareness includes sensation as well as thoughts, you know,
Speaker 1: the cognition piece. And then the last one is focused,
Speaker 1: which is really I think super practical and so helpful.
Speaker 1: Just you know. One of the ways I like to
Speaker 1: work with this one is just do little sprints in
Speaker 1: my day, like literally setting the timer for twenty five
Speaker 1: minutes and saying I'm going to mono task and work
Speaker 1: on X and it might take me a few different chunks,
Speaker 1: but using something like this, I'm referencing the Pomadoro technique
Speaker 1: of setting these short first, I'm a big fan of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great, I mean, and it's how powerful stuff. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is it's not just helping us be productive,
Speaker 1: it's also helping us understand where the fifty other places
Speaker 1: my attention get its pulled during those twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: That is super interesting. Yes, it is. I have found
Speaker 1: it to be so helpful. The other thing I found
Speaker 1: is like, how much I can do in twenty minutes
Speaker 1: if I'm completely focused only on one thing. But you're right,
Speaker 1: it is easy to get a lot of things come up.
Speaker 1: I make sure I have a pad of paper with
Speaker 1: me so that when I get fifteen different ideas I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can just very quickly scrawl them down instead of
Speaker 1: what I normally do, which is like, oh, let me
Speaker 1: look that up on Google, you know, and then I'm off.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it is a great way to work
Speaker 1: for sure. Yes, one of my favorite student papers I
Speaker 1: ever read. Um, we were doing the mindfulness unit in
Speaker 1: the house I teach at Stamford and at the Business School,
Speaker 1: and a student was reflecting on his meditation practice that week,
Speaker 1: and he said, I had the craziest experience. Like I
Speaker 1: looked up and it was an hour and a half
Speaker 1: later than he had sat down to meditate. But he
Speaker 1: never consciously ended the meditation session even to say like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this. Like. His point was that at
Speaker 1: some point while he was meditating, he had gotten the
Speaker 1: idea and he just got up and pursued it without
Speaker 1: having the metacognition that he was, you know, acting out
Speaker 1: an idea. Not that following your ideas is necessarily bad,
Speaker 1: but it was just this huge ah for him. And
Speaker 1: I loved just the earnestness with which he described that
Speaker 1: because it was so relatable, like exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I have an idea and instead of capturing it for
Speaker 1: a holding tank, I'm like, I'm googling it, or I'm
Speaker 1: switching to do that task or I'm doing ten and
Speaker 1: I don't even make that choice. It's just exactly happen exactly.
Speaker 1: And it's fun, sometimes in a slightly somber way for
Speaker 1: me to look back and be like, how did I
Speaker 1: even get to where I'm at? Like I'm I'm researching
Speaker 1: like drop shipping of like elephant food or something, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what chain of events led to me being
Speaker 1: on this web page? And I can kind of think
Speaker 1: about and be like, Wow, that was a whole lot
Speaker 1: of completely not really paying it to and into what
Speaker 1: I was doing and just chasing the next shiny thing.
Speaker 1: It's it really is kind of amazing, and that ability
Speaker 1: to turn things off and to focus, and there's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's tools out there which I've used before, Like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to block the following six websites. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: that's just what I'm gonna have to do it. It's
Speaker 1: embarrassing sometimes to be like I have that little control
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna have to do it, But boy is it,
Speaker 1: Boy is it helpful when I do absolutely absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: it occurs to me as we're talking that it's like this,
Speaker 1: you know, when we're web surfing and how did we
Speaker 1: end up on this site? But we can also like
Speaker 1: reverse engineer how did we get you know, during any
Speaker 1: little period of time, the number of just disparate thoughts
Speaker 1: that we're having, And it would be great if we
Speaker 1: could do a history on that, like we can on
Speaker 1: our web surfing. It would be a it would be
Speaker 1: such an interesting exercise. Plus, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: the other corollarya to this is like when we start
Speaker 1: realizing that that's what's going on for us all the time,
Speaker 1: and then we stop and realize what's going on for
Speaker 1: everyone all the time. That's you know, the people we
Speaker 1: work with, everybody at home, Like we're all we have
Speaker 1: all this much noise um in the background, and it's invisible.
Speaker 1: What's going on in someone else, but we know they've
Speaker 1: got a similar dynamic. I feel like that's a real
Speaker 1: moment of common humanity or compassion that can happen patients,
Speaker 1: maybe with other people since I know, wait, I do
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's just part of our human condition, right. Well.
Speaker 1: I think they early on in the in the Web
Speaker 1: it was named very aptly when we talked about surfing
Speaker 1: the web. You know, it is that it is that
Speaker 1: sense of once you get up on the wave, right,
Speaker 1: you're not paying attention to much else. It just keeps
Speaker 1: carrying you along. And and so I think that was
Speaker 1: a pretty um apt way to describe it from from
Speaker 1: way back when. And it's so much worse now, so
Speaker 1: much worse now with social media and Facebook and all that.
Speaker 1: But but enough of that. Those tools are also are
Speaker 1: very useful, and you know, the internet, we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: having this conversation of the show. So I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to say it's all terrible, but certainly can be a
Speaker 1: challenge for a lot of us. If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: I hate to be the bearer of bad news. We
Speaker 1: are nearing the end of it. I wish you could
Speaker 1: keep listening. Once the episode ends, well, I've got some
Speaker 1: good news to you can The interview continues over at
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net slash Support. There. If you
Speaker 1: pledge at the ten dollar level, you'll get access to
Speaker 1: this additional exclusive content, as well as many other bonus
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Speaker 1: over to one new feed dot net slash support and
Speaker 1: pledge to access this additional weekly content. And now back
Speaker 1: to the interview. So I want to switch directions a
Speaker 1: little bit here before we wrap up, and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about over time in history, there's been there's
Speaker 1: been a discussion between sort of like a hedonic approach
Speaker 1: to happiness and a you're gonna have to help me
Speaker 1: pronounce it. I've seen the word written a hundred times,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to say it unimonic. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got it with the you demonic purpose, right. So
Speaker 1: one says, you know, the way to be happy is
Speaker 1: just to string a ton of of good experiences together
Speaker 1: and keep stringing them together, and that's happiness. That's sort
Speaker 1: of the hedonic approach and the you demonic approach is
Speaker 1: really me more about what sort of meaning do I
Speaker 1: have in my life? And am I doing things that
Speaker 1: I think are important? And it's a deeper um. Some
Speaker 1: people would say more solid approach. And you mentioned a
Speaker 1: researcher by the name is Steve and he does this.
Speaker 1: He does this study where he asks people about their
Speaker 1: happiness level, people who would be more of a hedonic
Speaker 1: style or more of a You demonic style, and he
Speaker 1: found that as far as purposes of self reporting, those
Speaker 1: people tended to say they had about the same level
Speaker 1: of happiness. If you looked at them, you couldn't really
Speaker 1: tell it apart by their rating of their own happiness.
Speaker 1: But if you looked at things like inflammation levels, anti
Speaker 1: viral and antibody levels, all of that stuff, the people
Speaker 1: who had a You demonic purpose were in far better
Speaker 1: health in those regards than people that were sort of hadonic.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming they know controlled for things like if
Speaker 1: you're hedonic, you drink more alcohol or whatever. But but
Speaker 1: I just was stunned by that on one level, that
Speaker 1: our body knows the difference even though if our conscious
Speaker 1: mind doesn't. It makes me think of the episode we released.
Speaker 1: I don't know when this one will come out. But
Speaker 1: recently with Melissa Apple and I know you you mentioned
Speaker 1: that book to tell them your effect in your book,
Speaker 1: but it was another one of those where it's like
Speaker 1: our bodies know what's good for us a lot of
Speaker 1: times better than our own conscious mind does. Yes. No,
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting point when they move in opposite directions.
Speaker 1: Our body and our own self report my own testimony
Speaker 1: to how I'm feeling, but on the on the micro level,
Speaker 1: the cells of my body are telling you a different story.
Speaker 1: And Elsa's work is fascinating. Yeah, I've asked, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of number of different researchers how they make
Speaker 1: sense of this. People working across the board in different
Speaker 1: bio markers um why this happens and what their their
Speaker 1: thoughts are on it. I've had exhaustive conversations with Steve
Speaker 1: Cole about this, and you know, I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: because his path to to doing the research that he's
Speaker 1: doing now, he started doing work early in HIV and
Speaker 1: aids UM and trying to look at really questions of
Speaker 1: resilience and social isolation and loneliness ended up being really
Speaker 1: big factors, you know, and then which if you look
Speaker 1: at the flip side of that that comes back to
Speaker 1: things like social connectedness and compassion and purpose and all
Speaker 1: these other positive psychology kind of areas that were interested
Speaker 1: in in developing. I think it's a really exciting time
Speaker 1: for research um because we're able to quantify beyond the
Speaker 1: self report, and I think for a lot of people
Speaker 1: it is a motivator to understand the implications of what
Speaker 1: they're doing mentally on their body, whether it's introducing meditation
Speaker 1: or for people who aren't so into that, like the
Speaker 1: things we were talking about earlier, taking a good look
Speaker 1: at what is our mind set through our day and
Speaker 1: what are the opportunities to practice reframing yep, I agree.
Speaker 1: I find that that whole study, or that whole area
Speaker 1: of study fascinating because it's one thing to talk about
Speaker 1: all these things that we we kind of believe our
Speaker 1: good for us and we hear a good for us.
Speaker 1: But it's really interesting when they're seeing it at a
Speaker 1: cellular level. At that level, it just adds another level
Speaker 1: of credence to what a lot of practices are. And
Speaker 1: I've said on the show a couple of times, you know,
Speaker 1: I love it when something that's sort of an ancient
Speaker 1: practice that's been around for a long long time. So
Speaker 1: it's been around a long time. That means that there's
Speaker 1: something to it, right, and then that is also tied
Speaker 1: together with my own experience of it being positive and
Speaker 1: then scientific results that it's positive. It really gives me
Speaker 1: this feeling of solidity like, Okay, you know, this is
Speaker 1: something I feel like I can I can get behind
Speaker 1: because there's just so many different things pointing at its usefulness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely know. I think it helps, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: definitely influenced my pedagogy. When the goal is to you know,
Speaker 1: introduce practices in a way people can engage with them.
Speaker 1: We want to understand how they're going to work and
Speaker 1: what the impact will be. I think the trick then
Speaker 1: is how do we get beyond thinking about it two
Speaker 1: then doing it Because the thinking about it isn't going
Speaker 1: to have the impact we're looking for, but it's an
Speaker 1: important step. It's an important step, for sure, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think that that goes back to the earlier statement
Speaker 1: that you had about you know, an optimal intervention isn't
Speaker 1: any good if nobody does it. And you know that's
Speaker 1: another of the themes of this show. That comes up
Speaker 1: and shows up in the coaching work all the time,
Speaker 1: which is start small and build. Right. If you say
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna go from doing nothing
Speaker 1: to running five miles a day, it's not going to
Speaker 1: turn out well in most cases. Um, And so we
Speaker 1: don't start with the optimal, but we can build there
Speaker 1: by by starting really small and and I think that's
Speaker 1: a key piece. So we're going to wrap up here
Speaker 1: in a second. But I wanted to end with a
Speaker 1: section where you talk about we all have somebody at
Speaker 1: work who drives us crazy, and then you talk about
Speaker 1: well practicing compassion towards those people. All right, well, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting concept, but you've got a process in the
Speaker 1: book of sort of a way to think through this.
Speaker 1: So I've got somebody driving me crazy at work. How
Speaker 1: do I work on changing my attitude towards that person?
Speaker 1: One really simple assignment that a lot of people find useful. Um,
Speaker 1: I've been giving this for a number of years at
Speaker 1: the business school. And they all have to do team
Speaker 1: projects where they all share a grade, and many of
Speaker 1: them really care about their grades a lot. And inevitably
Speaker 1: in any team there's a person who's you know, being
Speaker 1: bossy and taking over, or there's a person who's not
Speaker 1: pulling their weight and everybody has to compensate. The assignment
Speaker 1: is like pick someone you're working with, so you have
Speaker 1: to be interacting with them currently. And what I'm asking
Speaker 1: you to do, the only ask I have of you,
Speaker 1: is each day, I want you to think about this
Speaker 1: person in their full humanity in reflect and you can
Speaker 1: do this. I give them a menu of options. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's picture them as a little kid um learning to
Speaker 1: tie their shoes, or picture their extended family and everything
Speaker 1: they've invested in them and how devastated they would be
Speaker 1: if anything harmed them, or picture them having had some
Speaker 1: major disappointment. So taking any of this menu of humanizing
Speaker 1: reflections and just every day I want you to spend
Speaker 1: a few minutes to think about this person who's driving
Speaker 1: you nuts, experiment with this menu of reframes, and then
Speaker 1: I want you to come back in a week and
Speaker 1: just talk happen. So I'm not pushing you to like them.
Speaker 1: I'm not pushing you to change anything behaviorally. It's just
Speaker 1: working on your own mindset intentionally every day with respect
Speaker 1: to someone you're dealing with, and the outcomes are unbelievable,
Speaker 1: you know, both in terms of sometimes it's the relationship.
Speaker 1: Often it's just someone's insight about themselves, that they were
Speaker 1: triggered by something that really, um was disproportionate, or there
Speaker 1: was something they could do to impact the situation that
Speaker 1: they weren't seeing because they were so invested in their
Speaker 1: frustration and anger and righteous indignation. UM. So I love
Speaker 1: that exercise. I try to do it myself, you know,
Speaker 1: with people that I struggle with, and if I have
Speaker 1: to interact with them, just even flash that kind of
Speaker 1: idea before we have our phone call or meeting, it
Speaker 1: can go a long way, or during it during the meeting,
Speaker 1: you know, just remembering UM and even you know, you
Speaker 1: can go a step further just asking a little bit
Speaker 1: about their life. It doesn't have to be a lot,
Speaker 1: but just enough to humanize and get out of our
Speaker 1: mental rut of of being stuck in seeing someone in
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't serve us or them. Yep, I
Speaker 1: love that. So thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to come on the show. The book was it's excellent.
Speaker 1: It comes out in March, so we'll have links to
Speaker 1: where people can preorder it. Depending on. This will come
Speaker 1: out before March, I would imagin jin, so I'll have
Speaker 1: links where people can pre order it. But thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to come on. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure
Speaker 1: me too. Bye bye. If what you just heard was
Speaker 1: helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the
Speaker 1: One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed
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Speaker 1: like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.